by Heide Goody
I looked at our two brains. How underutilised Rufus’s was! How much of it was given over to natural processes that I didn’t possess but which I managed to function perfectly well without. Compared to my super-efficient brain that was both running my body and keeping the world around us functioning, his was a dull wasteland, undeveloped.
“Your personal storage,” I said, “can be seen in these clusters. Here and here and so on. We can compress that data when we copy it across.”
I set up the entire sequence to run automatically, just in case there was a problem with overflow, but the scans I ran indicated there was plenty of capacity for Rufus’s backup.
“Right. I think we’re about set. Are we certain that we won’t be interrupted while we’re doing this?” I asked.
“Absolutely sure. Now can I show you how to recline your own chair, Alice? Perhaps I can massage a little lavender oil into your temples to assist you into total relaxation?”
“I’m fine thanks. Are you ready, sir?”
“Rufus.”
“Rufus.”
“Ready when you are.”
I started the sequence. I didn’t expect to have any awareness of what was taking place. Most of the time my unused brain capacity was able to undertake tasks entirely without my knowledge, but this time I was aware of a faint pressure from inside my head. Perhaps it was a result of doing the transfer locally, which used a much faster communication protocol.
“I feel funny,” said Rufus.
“It’s fine,” I said and then a strange feeling came over me. I was flying, yet sat completely still.
***
Chapter 6
I was in a plush, well-appointed flying drone, accompanied by a pair of stunningly pretty girls. They both looked very alike, with long blonde hair and oddly bland features.
I had the strangest sensation of seeing the world through someone else's eyes. Where was I? I looked down at my clothes and a suspicion grew in my mind. I was Rufus.
‘Am I Rufus?’ I wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come. This wasn’t my body to control, it was Rufus’s. Was this one of Rufus Jaffle’s memories? That would mean that I wasn't an active participant. All I could do was sit back and observe. The world beyond the window of the drone was mostly composed of wide sea and beautiful sunset. I would have wanted to observe the view more but Rufus’s attention was definitely on the young women.
Did I know the names of these girls? Rufus surely did. If I was in his memory I would have the same knowledge. I had a sense that one was called TayTay and one was called MiMi but I didn't know which one was which. For that reason, Rufus addressed them in his uniquely vague style.
“Babe,” he drawled. “You know your aura fascinates me so much. It's got that blossoming, burgeoning thing going on. I want to reach out and touch it.”
Rufus did reach out and touch. It didn't stop at the aura. I observed Rufus’s muddled eyesight imparted a hazy blurring around the edges of everything, not just the girls. Did Rufus keep talking about auras because of an uncorrected vision problem? His hands groped across the two girls. Those hands weren't seeking an aura, they were seeking out breasts. I gasped at the overwhelming feeling of desire that consumed Rufus. There was titillation at the sight of their low-cut dresses, but this driving lust was fuelled by something else. It was the same thing which had bent his eyesight all out of shape. I looked at the white powder dusting his knees as he sat in the drone. Cocaine. The word came to me from nowhere. It was cocaine that Rufus had been taking. And as the knowledge came to me so did a cascade of other concepts – the house servant who procured it for him, his opinions on the various suppliers they’d use, fleeting images of his fantasies about getting ‘down and dirty’ with that house servant.
Rufus had taken a lot of cocaine too. Both of the girls seemed happy for Rufus to run his hands across their bodies. In fact it seemed to me that they were positively encouraging it.
“Hey babes!” said Rufus. “Your auras are going wild. What say we throw caution to the wind and see whether our chakras align if we all get naked?”
“We’re nearly there Rufus!” commented one of the girls, looking out of the window.
I followed Rufus’s downward gaze and saw a huge house with many cars and drones parked outside. If it was any indication of how many people were inside this was a huge party. They flew over the roof from the ocean, and saw partygoers thronging the beach.
“Buzzing!” said one of the girls in excitement.
As I sifted through Rufus’s memory I was stunned to realise that this wasn't all that special for him. The houses here were smaller than his own, but nevertheless he enjoyed a party as much as the next person and he was looking forward to a bonfire on the beach.
It was the sort of thing that the corporate world just couldn't offer. Cocktail receptions and charity galas were all very well but a bonfire on the beach was so much more— I watched his drug-funnelled mind grasp for the right word … authentic.
“Touching down,” said the drone.
On the ground, the three of us walked into a cool hallway, lined with marble. Trays of drinks and nibbles were offered by slack-eyed servants. These people were operating on Jaffle Lite, I thought, then, tapping into Rufus’ knowledge, realised no. Not just Jaffle Lite but a special variant which was part of their terms of employment. Rufus ignored the food, seeking out a tray lined with cocaine. As he snorted the drug, I felt the jolt as it hit his system. There was a rush of clarity and euphoria. His vision was much clearer, and yet the people in the room still had pink, blurry edges. Were those actually auras, or was I seeing a second-hand hallucination? Being inside Rufus Jaffle’s mind was bizarre.
“Coming to the beach Rufus?” TayTay (or MiMi) asked. They were completely identical now. Bland faces, huge breasts and pneumatic bottoms. I realised I was looking through Rufus’s cocaine goggles. The girls probably weren’t even alike in real life, but it was clear to me Rufus really wasn’t interested in their faces.
A huge grey-blue shape swam across my vision, gliding through a sky that simply wasn’t big enough to contain it. It turned and looked at me with a benevolent, ancient eye.
I’m aaaaaaa whaaaaaaaaaaaale, it sang.
I tried to ignore it and forced myself back into Rufus’s memory. He and the girls were somewhere else now, on a balcony overlooking the beach. Near-naked men and women played volleyball on the sand.
“You girls like to play?” Rufus asked TayTay and MiMi.
“Not me,” said TayTay with a smile. “Mud-wrestling’s more my thing, but I’m on a rest day.”
“Mmmm,” said Rufus, his inner vision clogged with panting, mud-covered babes. “We could maybe find somewhere to, you know, run you through your paces?”
Someone shouted from the doorway of the house.
“Did he just call my name?” Rufus asked.
“It sure sounded like it,” said TayTay.
Aliiiiice, woooould yoooou like to beeeeee aaaaa whaaaaaaaaale? sang the blue whale, crashing into my memory.
No, thank you, I thought as hard as I could.
There was an expression of infinite sadness in the whale’s eye that pulled at my emotions. It flicked and turned.
It’s fuuuun beeeing aaaaa whaaaaaaaaaaaaaale.
I pushed myself away and I was somewhere new again. Time moved differently in memories. I (or rather Rufus) was in an underground space with TayTay and MiMi. Rufus was staring at a kangaroo. I was surprised. So was Rufus.
I had no personal experience of kangaroos, had never seen one outside of school educational download. I had no idea kangaroos were so large, and I could see that Rufus was also impressed by their size. In fact, he knew barely more about them than I did. For a man who had so many more opportunities for experience and exploration than me, he knew surprisingly little.
One of the girls was running her hands through its fur.
“Ooh, it’s rough!” she squealed, and then shrank back as the kangaroo turned to look.
It looked muscular and fierce, although I wondered how much that perception was warped by Rufus’s memory. It gave off a powerful animal stink that did not disgust me but fascinated me. It was more … more real than anything I had experienced in my life. That couldn’t possibly be true but, in Rufus’s memories, through his drugged perception filter, I was fixated by the powerful realness of this creature.
“Have you ever heard of the ancient martial art of Maglev?” said Rufus.
They shook their heads.
“Few have,” he said, lifting his hands and making a slow chopping movement. “Advanced practitioners must exercise restraint and secrecy.”
They nodded, hanging on his every word.
“Maybe I could show you girls some moves? It could really help with your mud-wrestling. Personal development is something I’m always keen to help with.” He lifted his arms and draped them casually over each girl’s shoulder and slipped his fingers inside their clothes. A nipple stiffened against both sets of fingers and he smiled, feeling unstoppable.
The blue whale swooped in and did the whale equivalent of a handbrake turn.
I haaave aaaaaaaaaa taaaaaaaaaaaaaaail! it sang.
Go away! I thought.
I’m aaaaa whaaaaaaaaaaale with aaa taaaaaaaaaaaaaail!
It was a very persistent whale.
I need to see what’s happening, I told it.
Yooooou can haaave aaa taaaaaaaaaaaaaail tooooooo, it sang.
No, I told it.
There was a near seamless splice in the memory. I knew that at least a day had elapsed.
I still saw the world through Rufus’s, but now he was trussed up in a hospital bed, with straps, tubes and pipes disappearing under the blanket. Several people sat on chairs at the side of the bed. His head hurt.
“Hey, honey,” said Rufus to the woman who sat closest. I knew from Rufus’s memory this was his fiancée, Paris. “Guess who’s got himself a tiny problemo?”
Her face collapsed into tears. “I was so worried about you, Rufie! You looked so small and helpless when you were unconscious.”
Jethro Henderson, CTO of Jaffle Tech, sat next to her. “Yes, we’ve made sure that Paris is up to date with the details of your fall.” I saw him through Rufus’s mind and felt Rufus’s views of the man. They weren’t complimentary.
Beeee aaaa whaaaaaale. Beeeee aaat peeeeeeeeeeeeace.
“Henderson, my main man,” said Rufus, smiling. “You didn’t need to be here.”
Henderson gave him a sharp, almost military nod. “I’m glad to see you awake, sir. Paris, I’m afraid I have some dull corporate matters I need to discuss with Jaffle.”
As Paris stood to go, Rufus intended to lean over and pat her on the buttocks but he didn’t have the energy and simply gave her a goodbye grunt. He waited for the door to click shut.
The whale swooped in and tried to entice me with loop-the-loops and exquisite pirouettes.
“I don’t think it’s going to matter to the media,” said Henderson. “You’ve got the corporate gala on the fifteenth. The charity gala. You need to wipe your memory of what happened last night. You have high enough access to do that personally.”
“Actually, I’ve got this whale in my head which is making some of my functionality a bit glitchy,” said Rufus.
Heeeelloooooooooooooo, said the whale.
“Fine,” muttered Henderson. “Then we’ll get it done back at Jaffle Tech.”
“Whoa, people!” said Rufus. “Maybe I don’t want to give up that memory? It was kind of cool, you know? I can be discreet. It will only be a problem if I talk about it, right?”
“With all due respect, sir, you are a security risk. In my estimation, you will definitely talk about this in future. We must erase the memory.”
Whhyyyyyyy don’t yoooouuu waaaaaaaant toooo beeee aaaaa whaaaaaale? the whale sang sadly.
Because you’re actually really annoying, I thought.
“Could you please authorise the project brief for the completion phase?” Henderson was saying, holding out a sheaf of papers.
I/Rufus looked at the papers but took in none of the words.
“Jaffle Tech has benevolently agreed to assist governments in the social management of the general population,” explained Henderson in a patient voice. “Jaffle Tech has the largest live database of consumers and voters in the world. We are literally inside everyone’s head. That’s a place where the governments would love to be. This—” he stabbed at the papers “—is us taking the next step towards giving consumers what they need.”
“Need or want?” said Rufus. It was reflex question; he hadn’t actually understood half of what Henderson was saying.
Henderson smiled. “Wasn’t Henry Ford supposed to have said that if he gave customers what they wanted, he’d be working on making a faster horse rather than cars? It’s up to us to have the vision to take things forward.” He sat back. “You know, I was planning on purchasing Jaffle Freedom myself.”
“You?” said Rufus.
“What else am I going to spend my money on? I’ve got the largest apartment on the Panhandle. I’ve got a mansion south of the border. I should buy Jaffle Freedom. And be like you, sir.”
Rufus settled back into his pillow.
Yooooou’re nooo fuuuuun, sniffed the blue whale, deeply upset, and swished its tail as it turned to the depths.
I opened my eyes. Henderson and the hospital and the blue whale had gone.
However, something felt very different. I was looking up at the ceiling. It was white, but was sculpted into swirls I had never noticed before. Miniscule waves of white plaster. They were so beautiful. How had I never been aware that such exquisite form and movement were possible in a ceiling? It was like a little world of detailed beauty, a cosmos of peaks and troughs, almost unbearably wonderful.
I sat up properly.
“Whoooaaa!”
I felt the impact like a blow to my stomach. In my eyes, down my spine and – wallop! – into my stomach. The whole room was a blaze of colour! I had vaguely registered that the walls had coloured hangings upon them as I entered, but now I saw them properly. I screamed. There was a picture of a woman with a lace collar and a smiling face who bent down to touch the top of a dog’s head. There was an expression on the woman’s face that made me roil with strange, unknown feelings. The feelings frightened me. They felt instinctively wrong. Like feeling a cool fresh breeze blowing across your kidneys, it was simply not right.
I tried to stand up. I had to get out of this room with its terrifying walls. I lurched across the thick carpet and fell to my hands and knees. The feeling of the carpet beneath my hands made me gasp. I fell forward to bury my face in it. I didn’t know why, I just had to.
“Hey Alice, are you all right?” said Rufus.
“Mmmff!” I howled into the carpet.
In my head the sound of voices, even my own voice, was different. The same, but different. It was like I had been to avuncular narrator training college and then had my ears upgraded to some super-duper 3D stereo quality. There were inflections and tonal differences that made my head spin as much as the colour on the walls.
“Everything … I say is … amazing,” I gasped.
“Alice?” said Rufus.
“I’m … sorry. Alice isn’t … in right now.”
Rufus grabbed me by my shoulders and hauled me up. “Did it work? Is it gone? Have you wiped the memory?”
“The brain virus?”
“Yes. That too.” His hands held me roughly, squeezing the flesh of my upper arms.
“You’re … hurting me,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he said and automatically loosened his hold. I immediately dropped to the floor again.
“No, no…” I said. I was about to say that it was quite pleasurable but that was silly. It was pain. Pain was never nice. Pain was just pain, wasn’t it? I was very confused. And frightened. Something was simply not right. My wildly darting eyes caught sight of the cups on the
edge of the desk.
“The tea!” I said a little too loudly. “You put something in the tea!”
“What? No! Unless you’re allergic to the soul balms and spiritual powers of Himalayan detox.”
He stabbed a button on his desk. There was a bing bong sound.
“Florence, would you call a medic up here please, I think Alice might be having a bad trip or something.”
I was still reeling from the sound of the bing bong. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before and I found that my vision blurred with tears in response.
“Bing bong,” I repeated, but it sounded different. “Bing BONG! Oh wow, did you hear that? I can do it too. BING … BONG!”
I rolled on the carpet and marvelled at the way the tears in my eyes made the colours in the room blur in an astonishing new way. I rolled faster, feeling the carpet under my whole body. I stretched out my arms and rolled some more, but then I crashed into the desk.
“BING BONG!”
I heard the odd barking noise that I’d heard from Claire that morning, but it was Rufus making the noise. I found my own voice joining in with the barking and it felt good to do it, so very good. I barked loud and long, rolling back the other way as I did it. I rolled faster and faster until I thumped into something that turned out to be Rufus’s legs.
“Come on up now,” he said. “Enough fooling around. Laughter’s a great healer, but man, you’re over-indulging a little now, Alice.”
I kept barking, knowing that I couldn’t possibly stop, even though it was beginning to hurt. I opened my eyes, realising that I’d had them squeezed shut and saw Rufus, his face contorted in a way that made me bark even louder. Was this what he meant by laughter? I was having trouble breathing now, but my attention was arrested by another picture on the wall. This one was much brighter than the other one and showed dogs again, but in a very different setting.
Breathing was no longer an option. It was out of the question when I wanted to gasp and laugh at the same time as shouting bing bong.
