Transfers to this sphere of reality were always strenuous. It gave the feeling of being smashed to bits from inside, reduced to dust, to then have to put the fragments back together. The vast majority of people would have lived this experience as a trauma. But for Jason, it had almost become a routine. He lost the notion of time, as every time. His ego reassembled itself slowly, bit by bit. Here, the environment was not monitored by the Collective's dreamers-creators, but by a consensus between the deep subconscious of all the beings sharing this notion of reality. His mind had to comply with this consensus.
He felt nauseous, as always. An almost total darkness surrounded him. It was even darker than the previous times he had come here. He drew a torch from a pocket to cast light around. The subject was there, still sitting in the same posture. Instinctively, he looked for the transfer module. It was an absurd reaction, but he couldn't keep himself from having it. He couldn't dare to imagine what would happen if someone managed to get transfered back to the Collective. But the standard transfer protocol assured that the module would stay on the other side.
They were in some kind of roundish cavity with blue walls, something like a cave. There was an opening in a wall that connected outside, in some sort of gigantic tunnel. In the distance there, thousands of moving lights gave evidence of bustling activity. He went near the subject, drew a vial from his vest, opened it and placed the neck below his nose. The suspect twitched and opened his eyes slowly. He didn't seem bothered in the slightest by the light directly in his face. The moment had come to start the interrogation.
- Who is behind the egotist buzzes? he asked bluntly.
- What is the meaning of life? the subject retorted with a smirk. He remained upright and perfectly motionless. Jason decided to give him another chance.
- How did you make your buzz pass through mental firewalls?
- Where are we coming from, and where are we going to?
- Who taught you how to create viruses?
- What is the profound nature of reality?
- Alright, then. If you don't want to cooperate, I will have to start using methods which are forbidden in the other sphere.
- FBI or CIA?
Jason stopped and stared at the subject interrogatively, raising an eyebrow.
- Your suit, the one you've had materialized from memory. Is it to imitate FBI or CIA agents?
Jason remained blindsided.
- The FBI would take care of domestic affairs while the CIA would treat international ones. That was eight cycles of climaxes and anticlimaxes of the Collective. At each end of cycle, as it was the case back then, the Collective looses so much power that its sphere of reality gets absorbed by the rest of humanity's. The rare few members remaining find themselves scattered and considered as deficients.
- Yeah, I know that. But finally the day comes when, in spite of their being scattered, they recover enough power to rematerialize their sphere of reality, and they invite their fellowmen to join them, after having made a demonstration of what they are capable.
- And then each cycle is so long that only those who are interested in memories from the distant past are aware of their existence. But do you know on the other hand what causes the Collective's regression, at each end of climax era?
The subject punctuated his question with a sustained look. Jason remained silent.
- Cohesion between members always remains the supreme value, he continued, because without it, the Collective is doomed to chaos. But due to its constant manipulation of the gross reality in which it evolves, the Collective finally forgets that there are profound laws of the universe that it cannot wield as it pleases. This leads it to overprotect a superficial harmony among its members by silencing dissident voices instead of analyzing what they have to say.
- False! And I am in a good position to know about it. I work on a daily basis to the resolution of divergences in opinions at the Bureau of Contradictions.
- Well, okay. And at the end of each of your inquiries, what happens? The case is presented to a judge, along with a large number of jurors, who vote for the theory to be adopted, which implies that they will always make the collective, consensual choice, and not a choice based on a deep understanding that may occasionally require important calling into question. The Collective must keep its ability to question itself. Once it has lost it, its regression becomes inevitable. It's only a matter of time. By the way, I am not the only one set in its sights. Do you know why you are the one they sent to take care of me?
- Because they needed someone to bring you here, and I am familiar with this place.
- Haha! You are so naive. As if the Collective would not engage in actions it has itself declared illegal. Its state of degradation is certainly much more advanced than you think. In spite of the regulations limiting authorized time in mental autarky, there are minds within the Collective who live permanently hidden behind firewalls, because they want their thoughts to remain secret. They are the ones who felt threatened when they realized they could not read mine any more.
The subject chuckled.
- If they knew! he continued. The truth is that they put you on this case because they thought it would be a suicide mission.
Jason drew his weapon and pointed it towards the subject.
- If you move, I'll shoot you down, understand?
- You have nothing to fear from me. Anyway, you are protected by the state of the art in terms of mental firewalls, aren't you? The subject smiled sardonically.
- In a place such as here, he continued, you only need to keep your distance from me, and nothing can happen to you. What happened, in fact, is that they have grown tired of your behavior towards your peers, which too many find offensive. You have been tolerated for a long time, because of your special set of skills that interest the Collective. But its regression having its radicalization as a corollary, your ways have been ever less accepted. What your bosses actually think, is that you will probably not pass the test of psychic quarantine on your way back; and that if by chance you do, you will probably come back with vital information about me and maybe about the origin of those egotist viral attacks, as well as the specifics of an aggression which may well originate from outside. Maybe even from here.
Fleeting lights appeared in the ducts leading to the room they were in.
- You called them, didn't you? Jason said.
- I have done all this because I am on the verge of facing my death. And you are the only person I have come to know of, that would be able to take up the torch.
Jason pressed his finger on the trigger, but it remained stuck.
- This you again, uh?
- Time is running out. Don't use your powers. Surrender. I assure you everything will be fine.
Jason rushed towards the subject and hit him on the head to knock him out with the gun grip. But when he made contact with his crane, something undefinable happened. As if a gleam entered in him. He felt strange. His vision blurred, his ears whirred with tinnitus. He had the odd feeling that nothing would ever be as before.
- Nothing can go wrong now, the subject said before becoming completely still.
Agents in combat outfit burst into the room. Jason pointed his weapon towards them, but instantly realized it would be useless. He dropped it and fell down on his knees. He would have to adopt another strategy. Enemy agents came close to him, ignorant of the danger. They seized him to pin him down, but they found themselves unable to make him move, as if he had been transformed into a statue.
Jason was sitting on his heels, face down, staring at the ground. He needed concentration. If his perceptions had to comply with the general consensus in this sphere of reality, he nevertheless had learned to use the power of his mind to locally influence the laws that determined the workings of matter.
He could now feel everything that surrounded him as a part of himself. In a split second, he created around him a spherical layer of air overpressure which propelled itself in full blast in all directi
ons. The agents fell on the ground and remained there, knocked out.
- Well, son, it's been a while.
The phrase had been pronounced in his mother tongue. His heartbeat accelerated. This voice...
- I thought I would never get hold of you again, it continued. It'd been at least fifteen years I had given up.
A torrent of impressions rushed in his mind. It had been so long before... Long before he had joined the Collective. He saw himself as a child, at the mercy of this scumbag, forced to use his exceptional skills to help him frame strangers.
- Unfortunately for you, your little friend turned you in.
Raging, Jason looked at the subject, ready to unleash his anger on him. The man was still sitting in the same posture, imperturbable, but was already transforming into a tangle of luminous strands, as if dematerializing.
- Come back to work with me, the voice continued. Together, we will rule this place.
Jason smiled internally. How could this prick even...
He was interrupted in the course of his thoughts by a sting in his lower back. He tried to pass his hand on it, only to realize he was paralyzed. He let himself get distracted like an amateur. Some more agents rushed onto him. He could not resist any more. His body would not respond to his commands. But thanks to its power, his mind remained alert.
They took him away. He saw a succession of duct walls. His eyelids grew heavy. He realized that in spite of his general state of lethargy, he could still move them.
So he closed his eyes. But in spite of the usual myriad of phosphenes, his retina was bombarded by a powerful inner light, which paradoxically seemed to come from afar. He decided to concentrate on its source. The rolling his body was subjected to seemed to slow down. A flow of subtle pleasure passed though him, while a serene joy invaded his mind. The more he immersed himself in the source of the light, the more he had the feeling to zoom in himself, as if the sphere of perceivable phenomena of his mind took gigantic proportions, so that he could distinguish the slightest details. The external movements of his body had stopped completely, as if the course of time had been so much slowed down that it had come to a halt. He had the feeling to access an inner reality that had always been there, but which took place at temporal and mental scales normally inaccessible. He started distinguishing slight movements in the light. They were the mark of living beings. The hands behinds the strings of the puppet every human being was.
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Thank you for reading my book. I hope you enjoyed it. You will find my other short stories, which I offer for free to my readers, and more information about me on my facebook page.
The author, Rémy Zins
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