Consolidati, p.25
Consolidati, page 25
I learn by reflecting on my old self.
I was above all a dutiful father and, as often as I could, an unselfish husband, and also an officer of the law. I worked for a unit responsible for policing changing urban systems. I was a peacekeeper for immigrant areas—a cop on the beat in an area without a strong police force. I often worked purely as an intelligence gatherer, undercover or in plain-clothes.
Nothing is clear to me now except that I will never be that person again. I cannot tell you what I will do because I do not know how I feel. All feeling seems to have been drained from me. Perhaps it is their doing as well. I knew myself. I was not quick to anger, nor a violent person.
But I fear the day I truly wake from this sleep.
Entry 3
Today I met my “benefactor” for the first time.
He is a man not much older than me, but he carries himself like one accustomed to making difficult decisions. His hair is just greying, and he is nothing if not serious. I woke from another intermittent sleep to find him waiting in the chair beside my bed. I do not know how long he'd been waiting. He was inarguably a patient man because, however long it had been, he still waited for me to speak first.
You should have let me die with my family. That is what I told him. I said this to him. Or something of the same meaning. My words are not important in this case. Already, only hours after, they are slipping from my memory. But his words, I believe, I will always remember. I will write them, not for you, doctor, but for myself. Because they mark the beginning of my new life, one of a different purpose, and, though I have so far to go, and cannot even walk yet, writing his words will declare my new constitution.
This is what he said to me:
“The world has done you a grand disservice, but I will never feel any guilt for saving you. Not if you choose to follow a new path, with me. I will enable and facilitate this transformation, this new way—you need only give yourself to the idea of it. Safety through strength is scoffed at by so many bleeding hearts, even as they lay dying, feeling as you must have felt, watching helplessly. Some say it isn't possible, that it isn't practical to exercise such control over the chaos of our society.
“You have the power to prove them wrong, and with me create a safe nation, where tragedies like yours cannot happen. You can be the greatest weapon for safety and security and . . . if at the end of your road, you still want it, you will have the power to take revenge. I shall not stop you.
“No matter your desire, my doctors will put you back together again. You may one day be able to forget your family and their murders.
‘’But the path by my side will be one more fraught with moral difficulty and pain. But above all, purpose. We can make you more than simply healthy and stable again. We can make you the envy of the six million dollar man, a true angel among mortals. You have a week to think over my proposal. By then repairs to your body and brain will be completed, and you will be ready for more . . . superfluous augmentation. I will return to hear your answer then.''
I believe he knows what I will chose, but he did not wait for me to say a thing. He simply left as if he did not care about my response. I can see that he is a man with plans, rooted deep like the foundations of an enormous and ancient tree. I'm sure they are designs on power, something I cannot now judge. He seems already to have so much.
I do know one thing, doctor. A feeling that charges to the forefront of my battling thoughts, stronger than the rest of the tumult: I cannot ever feel so powerless again.
Entry 4
A week ago, he came back to me to tell me what my answer means, for me and for him.
I am to be bed ridden for another two months while his doctors and engineers inspect and augment my body. The process began yesterday, with frightening force. Before they began, the doctors could not or would not tell me what it would be like, but now I know. The pain is unbelievable—I am thankful that I am under most the time. Even in spite of the sedatives I have been given, the pain fights through the anesthesia will incredible tenacity, so bad I scream myself back into consciousness.
The pain is monstrous but I am grateful for it. I am living through a trial out of myth and legend. I am becoming a warrior of the fold, fire-tested by the pain. I'm told the doctors will soon begin attaching circuits and measures to my bones and nerves, and as they do the pain will intensify. Then they will complete the circuit with my brain and the pain with intensify. Then, they tell me, it will disappear completely. I will have the power to turn it off, if I wish.
But why should I, doctor? Such pain only distracts me from my pitiful weakness and those I lost. Melissa, my lovely wife. She was a prayer given and taken away. James, my son. A boy who would have grown up to be a better man that his father. I could already see it in him. Flora, my baby child. A flower robbed of her whole life. How much memory of her father did she have? I can talk about them now, doctor, because I am in pain, and when I get the chance, I will turn it up. Perhaps that way, I can forget that which is more painful, until I have revenged it.
Entry 5
As you can see, no doubt, I am blind for the time being. My eyes are the latest victims of the regime of changes that will transform me. The whole world is dark within the bandages, but I should have them off soon. The doctors tell me within two days. From what Dr. Sorensem and Dr. Campbell tell me. My new eyes will allow me to do even more. Seeing in a whole new spectrum, multiple spectrums.
Yes, doctor. I am beginning to get excited. Two months have turned into three beneath the knife and still I cannot walk, but with these new eyes I will have proof of my new self—not just vague and so far unverifiable specifications and abilities. Proof that I am more than a tortured laboratory experiment. Dr. Sorensem says my eyes will be my new interface, the beginning of my training on how to use this new body he is building for me.
It is strange to have you here dictating. Yes, manning the machine. Do you think I am strange for wanting to write shorthand like I normally do? Anyway . . .
Yes, I am still thinking of my revenge, doctor. Dreaming of it in a cloudy way. The waiting has not slowed my sense of purpose. It has taught me patience.
Yes, as tired as a blind bed-ridden man can be, doctor. My waking life resembles sleep. And my sleep is full of strange dreams. Am I a sane man? I appreciate that. I have often wondered what standard you use to judge me. After all, how many others like me are there? Bellick says none, yet. That I will be alone at first. I hope you continue to see me as just what I am, doctor.
Entry 6
The days are longer now, even during winter. That has been the most noticeable difference for me. Months of this connection and I still haven't learned how to sleep again, not like I did. I must admit that now I truly don't miss it anymore. Now I sleep an hour or two a night, usually in the day time, and I am free to use the rest of my time training, integrating myself to this new vessel.
If I may, doctor, I would like to explain myself, since this is our final evaluation. I know now that the purpose of these sessions was never really to evaluate, only to lend an ear. This I learned only recently from the Big Man. Now, though it is time for me to be honest. My life has been destroyed on what seems like a whim, little reason, only mindless, senseless violence and, that, I can never forget. Nor can I forget the people, nor the circumstances behind it all. The shambles of my life give me strength, and I will not forget them. The Big Man has his plans, and in the great machine of these plans I am but a tool, a powerful tool. A tool made for this purpose: to make the world safe, that I may alone know the want of revenge.
I am to be head of a team, once volunteers can be found. Until then, revenge will be my lone duty. Enforcing laws for a safer world. What, doctor, would you do differently?
Jay released his white knuckled hand from the chair and sought desperately for another entry. There were plenty of files beyond his understanding, spec files, medical files, charts, and timelines overflowing with medical jargon, but no more journal entries. There were only six. After reading them, he felt so close to this man—closer, more saddened and terrified.
He copied the full contents of the folder over to a storage drive and then repeated the process with another. Reading this had made him uneasy, and he felt the need to talk with one of the boys. He put the drives in his pockets and made to leave. Walking slowly, he checked the time. It was 2:34 in the afternoon.
Trying to ignore the furtive analytics of Ms. Omid's stare, as well as Piper's barely veiled distaste, he made his way back to the front, up the wood and brick stairs to the Cyberdistrict on his way back to the flat.
29
So they built birds into this thing. A real sight to behold. A flock of white tailed doves flew a hundred twenty five floors above ground in a tiny room and soared just now into the edge of the stratosphere. The very edge of Blizzard's Gate, and its babel of aery feats. Faraji was so tired. Too many hours without blinking. On and on as he flew his mind battled with itself, do not check the clock, do not fall asleep, absorb the view and do not forget it. He spat a little and watched it fall carelessly into the mountain range below him. Unlikely weather in the real world was only dark clear skies here; the ferocious snows from the afternoon and evening were gone with his flight graduation.
Parabolic curving of the earth and multiple moons. He had a vague idea of where he was going. An elder's advice, the thought made him nervous. Elders in this world might only mean middle-aged social pariah in the real. The words: "East until you see, you will see it. The darkest thing in the dawn."
They all told you, trust them, whoever they really are. After all, you're flying right now. One hundred miles east of here by sunrise, just enjoy the stars. Don't fall asleep.
Mirroring the world outside, the unreal sun slide over the edge of the horizon earlier than he expected. The whole of space lit up in its glow, making him shield himself from its brightness, first with his hand, then adjusting the settings of his visuals. He peered down, clear on what he should see. The darkest thing in the dawn. It has a cliché ring to it, but then, this universe is built on clichés and collected imagination. Whose words were those? Elder Heyman, or Mrs. Moon? Had it been a Raider? Or even Gerimiah? He was so tired he was losing his grasp on his memory.
There it was, a lake maybe. Drifting downward through miles of open air, somehow feeling the rush of its million fingers tickling him, toward the small black speck, to one side of two jutting karst peaks. A little closer, not a lake. A sinkhole. Faraji wondered how deep it ran. Was it a cave system or something other worldly? As he reached ground level, he dove into the blackness, summoning fire so that he could see. He reminded himself, things in this world need only a semblance of reality.
He kept himself calm and free of panic even as his avatar descended into the pitch dark. His senses quickly became absorbed in the darkness. The feeling of moving ever downward was communicated to him in a way that was difficult for him to understand. The feeling was a not quite accurate, yet recognizable, likeness to falling.
Here he was not sure that to expect. The first trial of flight was something the Elders had told him about after his initiation into the guild. In the second trial, this one, he knew he would learn how to cut through cyberspace—burrowing wormholes in the digital fabric, so it was described to him. But he didn't know who or what would teach him this skill.
Every second the black seemed more and more like a prison, more inescapable. He craned his neck up to look at the tiny speck of daylight, the stolen halo of some fallen angel. He was starting to reconsider descending at such a rate. Then suddenly, while he was watching, it disappeared. He brought his avatar to a painful halt, redirecting it furiously back to the exit, but the halo never reappeared. He could see and feel nothing beyond his fingertips. He forced himself to breath evenly.
The second trial had begun.
Or had it? He waited in annoyance for something to happen, anything to emerge from the pitch black prison cell. After five minutes he feigned taking off his facemask. It wriggled freely—he could leave any time he wanted. But he knew he couldn't let himself. After ten minutes, he underwent a similar reaffirmation of purpose, and after twenty, and thirty, and an hours, and two.
Conceptual years of silence passed without a word or whisper. He feared his own mind, half wondering if it would exit of its own accord and ruin the whole night's work. He folded his legs, one under the other and clasped his hands at his laps, finding in himself a yogic resolve to meditate, eye's open in determined resistance against sleep.
30
For a long time, the dark was it, all there was. The dark was enveloping, all-encompassing, carnivorous and insatiable. His body disappeared entirely into it's hungering space, first his toes and feet, then his hands and even his arms were gone, leaving him only the dark, and his own impetus against sleep.
Faraji told himself that it could only have been a few hours since he'd entered this pit, but truthfully he feared his grasp on time was deteriorating—it certainly felt like days. He told himself he could end it any time he wanted—this is not real life—but wondered again if this was really true. Was this his last chance? How much more time did they have before They found them? How dire were the consequences if he stayed static?
In this way the dark laid ruthless traps for him, miring him in self-doubt and distraction. And time slipped by of its own accord; the dark had eaten his clock or made him forget it. Now he only felt afraid.
Faraji imagined himself an acrobat, balanced precariously on the point of a massive stationary blade, keeping his balance, just barely. It was this metaphor that saved him.
He saw a glint as he looked into the dark, the smallest line of grey. It was dull, miles away in the dark but in this land of shadow the thread of grey gleamed like mythril. He fought his way toward it, but for all his efforts came no closer to the thing. So he resolved to look harder—he had the impression that it had always been there, that it was only a thread of fabric of the dark. He looked harder, straining his eyes to see more. He followed the edge again and again until he thought he would lose sight of it and have to start over, retracing over and over as if he were the mechanism of a clock.
The grey thread grew longer at his efforts. It was always retreating, always growing, giving him witness to a strange paradox.
He pushed off the blanket of sleep that threatened to cover him. Time passed as insignificantly as before, but now he was awake and struggling for every moment and every millimeter of the thread.
Eventually he noticed the thread was to his right. It was so long he had to turn his head to see it grow. Then it was behind him, and on every side, above and below him. He turned his head again. Somehow he knew that the thread was right there, within his reach.
It was. Inches away from his head. Almost blinding in the contrast it made with the dark around him. He peered at it intently. It was not thread, rather an absence of dark. He could almost see through it.
Suddenly, he knew what to do. He had a clear picture of what would happen in his mind as he put both hands on the something. Digging with his fingernails he pulled the thing wider from its middle. It gave way easily to his touch and grew wider, as the gap grew, glorious sunlight flooding the pit, raiding the dark, and he flew through the gap into the beautiful green and blue of a mountain lake surrounded by fir trees. The thread, the seam, closed itself behind him, narrowed to its previous subtly. It didn't disappear, he saw; it only grew harder to see the less he thought about it.
Faraji was now completely awake. His discovery had exhilarated him and despite all his efforts, he still felt ready for the final task. He caught hold of the seam, telling it where he wanted to go, who he wanted to see, and split reality and stepped into a new world.
31
Rosie was finally out of the stifling claustrophobia of the room. She sat to Blake's left, listening intently to Tinker's spit-flinging monologue. Not sure what to think, and not for the first time.
“I don't wanna make too strong a statement,” he was saying, eyes about to glaze, "but this might make you the messiah. Not like Jesus, or Neo, or Luke . . . not so predetermined, let's hope. But you, missy, are the closest thing to a real life mystic that I'll ever meet.”
Too much to process. She'd only just gotten out of that little room and uncomfortable MRI bed. Tinker turned to his computer console again, a giant monolith of a thing, one screen blinking, with too many swirling, gesticulating skeins, scrolling and flashing programs to follow. He cut through them instantly with a couple button presses.
