‘Wake up!’
Awake and back with my body, but this time without the dulcet tones of Burns et al to ease the transition. Alas, that was the only change: I still remained ‘locked in’.
Judging by the general hubbub and clattering around me it must have been daytime, with many hours having passed since I’d departed Lingmell. All I could recall from the intervening period were dreams, the typically chaotic and nonsensical variety. Not surprisingly SWISH had featured prominently in these and from what I now knew about the dream spheres I could surmise that something within them might actually be real. But teasing out reality from the chaos and ludicrous invention of my own REM sleep was virtually impossible. A marshalling yard and a train had featured prominently; the antenna was being loaded onto or off the train. It seemed to be an interminable procedure. I was trying to speak to a senior operative but was being ignored. Edward Trunk and Jordan kept hassling me.
And that was about it...
The loading process remained the dominant theme of my dreams right up to the moment at which I finally awoke.
The party was over. Maybe the whole merry-go-round had never been real in the first place, perhaps it was all simply an aspect of my growing detachment, a symptom of a developing psychosis.
I recoiled at the thought of madness. Not yet! I told myself, with genuine determination. Instead I turned my thoughts to more prosaic matters and decided to direct my hearing around the ward. This facility had continued to develop and I now felt able to ‘sense’ the room around me, as though utilizing sonar: An electronic buzzing emerged from a point approximately two metres to my right – the vicinity of Hargreaves’ bed – it sounded like a heart monitor alarm, something to alert the doctor. No evidence of panic: a nurse at the opposite end of the ward chatted to someone on the phone. She laughed. Maybe she was laughing at Hargreaves as he desperately grappled with death. No, Hargreaves simply grappled with a difficult crossword puzzle, muttering the clues under his breath.
The alarm continued and, amazingly, both Hargreaves and the nurse appeared to be utterly indifferent towards it, but it certainly began to play on my nerves and in due course I contacted the staff with the intention of making them switch it off. I concentrated on an image of the planet Jupiter, and after a few seconds:
‘DOCTOR!’ The sharp metallic voice burst forth from the end of my bed and after a minute the distinctive sound of Clinician Adenoids came into earshot.
‘Good morning, Geoff, and how are we today?’
Well I can’t speak for you, but I’m in some discomfort: Cactus.
‘PAIN.’ Perhaps a bit strong for what I felt, but I had no other way of describing the annoying buzzing. Hopefully through trial and error I would get my true message across.
‘Is this pain serious?’ He sounded concerned.
‘NO – END.’
‘The pain has now ended?’
‘NO – END.’ End the bloody noise!
This wasn’t working. Adenoids called over one of the nurses who in turn called up another doctor on the telephone. Then, suddenly, I felt drowsy; obviously a sedative had been administered. I was enraged. The last thing I wanted was a return to those tiresome dreams, ...but that is exactly what happened.
In a state of full REM credulity I happily hopped aboard the train along with several bugs and humans. It began to move, at least this was progress. I sat by a window, vacantly regarding the passing landscape of hills, mountains and lakes, then, as we began to pass over a large expanse of water, my dream developed into something partially lucid. I grew aware of the dreamlike nature of this experience, and yet still I accepted it. The train’s passage over water seemed to continue indefinitely and, gradually, I started to question this: Why were we travelling over so much water? Were we traversing a vast bridge? I stood up, now fully alert, awake in this dream and alone in the noisy, rattling carriage – the personnel of SWISH, for some reason, no longer present. The view outside remained one of endless unbroken water.
I walked to the rear of the passenger compartments expecting to catch sight of the antenna trussed down to an open wagon behind. But there was nothing, not even any rails. All I could see was open water, and behind that, a mountainous landscape rapidly receding away from me. The arrangement of hills, though unrecognizable, had the look of the Lake District. So where was I now? Where was this train headed?
I turned back, and as I made my way forwards through the train I noticed a recurring train motif affixed to all of the doors, and above the windows. This was accompanied by the words: The Chronon Wave Train: Getting You There Within Time.
After passing through six or seven identical and deserted carriages I finally arrived at the driver’s compartment, strongly suspecting that it, too, would be abandoned, but as I opened the door a pungent cigar smoke assailed me.
‘Ah, Geoff! Glad you could make it! Take a seat.’
‘South! You’re still with us! But what the hell is this? Another dream, or are we in the internet or something?’
‘Neither. This is Morecombe Bay. The real Morecombe bay.’
‘You mean...’
‘I acquired Dai’s Thalamus? Yes!’
I recalled the antenna’s death-rattle, at least that’s what I assumed it to be at the time: the expanding ring of sparks just before it finally went dark. That must have been Dai... ‘But didn’t you head off for cyberspace?’
‘Yes, I did that too! I uploaded a copy of myself to the internet where I now roam free as an AI bot, but I also remained in the antenna, dormant. It was my intention to persist in this state, hidden from SWISH, and wait, in the hope that another omega might happen to come my way. It was a long shot, I admit, as I wouldn’t have been able to influence events for fear of revealing my presence, but I thought perhaps my cyber-self might find a way to lure one in. Turned out it didn’t need to – Dai took the diaketamine after all!’
I took a seat and viewed the aspect ahead as we continued to skim across the sea. We travelled at great speed, heading south, maintaining a parallel course with the coast which was just about discernible to the left. ‘So... you were able to “transmigrate”?’
South nodded: ‘I can and I will, but for now we travel together within a single quantum of time: The Chronon Wave Train. From here we can do anything! Create our own subjective/objective reality. Forge a new universe!’
‘Cool.’
‘Cool!?’
‘I’m sorry, it’s rather a lot to take in. Err, I seem to recall you mentioned something about curing me?’
South gazed ahead, out of the window. ‘The wave train is collapsing. At present my possible positions in space can be represented by a shrinking sphere. We are at the edge of that sphere, the point of actualization is the centre. I now occupy a volume approximately 110 miles in diameter – and shrinking fast.’
‘Was that a ‘yes’ to the cure thing?’
South gave me a sidelong glance, but remained silent.
I viewed the southern horizon of storm clouds and choppy but stationary seas. All was fixed, static, like a photograph of a squall. It lacked the dynamism that only time can grant. ‘In layman’s terms then: what is a wave train?’
‘It is a way of describing a system as a superposition of large numbers of waves that interfere constructively giving the resultant probabilistic outcomes that can–’
‘Forget I asked!’
I turned my attention to the cabin.
‘What are you looking for?’ asked South.
‘Brock, where is he? Is he not coming with you?’
South looked sad. ‘I’m afraid not. Brock is awake, and back to his old vices of stealing food and worrying sheep, no doubt.’
‘So he was just an ordinary dog having a dream? Ha! One hell of a dream for the little fella! ...To be honest, I had always assumed he was you, or an aspect of you.’
‘He is a dog, but far from “ordinary”. We had a special bond.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you’ll miss him.., w
here exactly is he “awake”, then?’
‘Right now? London.’
‘Really!? Not many sheep for him to worry there I would imagine!’
‘That won’t stop him.’
We continued our passage over the sea and the train entered a heavy rain shower that obscured the view ahead. The raindrops pinged against the windscreen but failed to spread out and form rivulets, as one might expect. It was as though the train were being bombarded by many small beads of glass.
The shower passed behind us and the view cleared. We were moving closer in towards the coast and up ahead the distinctive skyline of Preston rose up unlike Manhattan.
‘Err, where exactly is this train going? What is our point of “actualization”?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I think you know!’
The train pulled up from the sea and glided in over the northern outskirts of the town; the distinctive sprawl of the Royal Preston began to loom large, directly ahead. South aimed the train into a steep descent and we plunged towards the hospital roof. As we came closer we began to slow and also, it seemed, shrink.
We broke through, between roofing tiles, and eventually entered my ward. By now the size of a minuscule fly, the Cronon Wave Train buzzed in towards my static form. I noticed the frozen medicos clustered around me: two women and two men; and from the adjacent bed, Hargreaves looked over, an expression of mild interest perched on his motionless Lancashire face.
South rotated a large metal wheel as we moved in closer to my face. She stared at me, wide-eyed, pupils ominously dilated: ‘Imagine it, Geoff: Imagine knowing all that is known, all that is knowable and all that is not. Imagine being all that is, all that is not and all that is neither. Imagine, The Absolute!’
I took a sharp intake of breath. ‘That’s too rich a stew for me.’
South maintained her nebulous gaze as we entered my left eye; we had become so tiny that gaps between individual cells could now be navigated.
‘Where is this Absolute anyway? Inside my brain?’ I asked, growing more anxious. But South had become tight-lipped.
More cells continued to emerge from the darkening murk that was my innards; we might have been passing by a succession of planets for all I knew, they looked so huge. South flicked on the train’s powerful lamps and my brain lit up.
‘Geoff! Look! Up ahead.’
I gazed out and marvelled at the complex honeycomb structure of connecting neurons; they looked strangely familiar.
‘This is your antenna, we are now passing through the larger of your thalamus’ nuclei.’
Unlike the antenna from South House, mine was a bland greyish-white, and apparently inactive. It drifted away to our rear as we continued journeying through my brain.
‘We are now entering the midbrain and unless I’m very much...’ The wave train changed direction and altered scale, becoming larger, moving and deforming the surrounding cells as it pushed them aside. ‘There! To the left – behold!’
I watched as we squeezed our way through to an ugly reddish-black tangle.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
We came to a halt and South unclipped an axe from an overhead wall fixing. ‘Here, take this.’ She handed it to me and then jumped out of the train. I promptly followed and landed on a bed of springy neurons.
‘This is damage,’ she remarked, indicating the tangle, ‘blood clot and dead neurons left over from your stroke. See how they interrupt communication between the higher and lower-right domains. This cluster is preventing your motor regions from linking with the brainstem.’
I gazed up at the ruddy and tangled scar tissue. This detestable thing was what lay behind my condition.
‘Is this the only point of damage?’ I asked.
‘Yes, you had a relatively minor stroke, you were simply unlucky that it occurred here, at this critical relay station.’ She turned to face me. ‘Use the axe. Destroy it!’
I edged forward and examined the damaged area more closely, it appeared dry and brittle, like dead twigs.
The axe crashed in and part of the structure shattered like glass. More swings and more destruction. Over ‘time’, a red-stained cavernous space began to emerge and I stopped to survey it...
South examined my work: ‘That should do it. Now push the surrounding cells into the new gap.’
Another ‘ten minutes’ saw this job done.
‘Time for a Havana, I think.’ South ignited a truncheon-sized cigar and then aimed smoke at the newly positioned cells which subsequently stretched and deformed and attempted to make contact with their neighbours. She moved through the repaired area making further connections. When the task was completed to her satisfaction, she returned to me.
‘Congratulations, Geoff, you now have a fully-functioning brain – you must be very proud!’
‘Well, yes...’
‘Good, and as for me, I am finally out of time. Rejoice.’
Without warning or farewell, South suddenly popped out of existence, along with the train and my axe, all presumably bound for The Absolute, wherever that was.
So, at last, I was cured, I could hardly believe it! ...but my mind still existed here: inside my brain, not working through my brain. This was an unsatisfactory state of affairs.
I noticed something off to my right and partially obscured by neurons. I barged my way through the tiresome things and finally entered a small clearing that contained a computer terminal. I took a seat, pulled on the nearby flying helmet and booted up the machine. A quick glance around – to see if any gorillas roamed the vicinity...
The computer flashed up a copyright warning:
‘THIS BRAIN IS THE PROPERTY OF GEOFFREY CHRISTIE.
ANY UNAUTHORIZED USE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.’
After a few more seconds this flashed off to be replaced by a blank screen. Then, after a further few seconds, the screen read:
‘DON HEAD-CAP AND PRESS ENTER.’
Nice and simple this time, no NI numbers or passwords to worry about – just press enter...
‘Geoff! can you hear me!?’
‘Yeah,’ I drawled, through the recently administered sedative. Then I fell asleep again.
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