The darkness behind his eyes exploded into a blinding cacophony of vivid lights and flashing colours.
In moments his capacity for information, much extended through his use of the overlay, had been overwhelmed. Streams of data flowed through him, right into his soul, it tore him to pieces then reassembled him in a different shape, integrating and replicating and re-forming. He saw vistas of agony; felt the thunderous roar of war; heard the burning flame of torture; tasted the vile stench of death. He was become like death, and the four horsemen road close by his side. They burnt and torched and raped and killed, they eat carrion flesh, and drank deep of blood, and cavorted through the dark, a macabre and bloody dervish.
When he came up for air his eyes shot wide and he heaved the air into his lungs. Dear God, what had that been! Was this within him? Was this his soul made real? Hot tears burnt upon his cheeks and he could not see past the blood and violence, the sheer hateful glee that he had just endured.
And then he felt her hand upon his back. Somehow he realised that he was back in his own body, re-united and once more whole.
He wiped the tears from his eyes, and struggled to regulate his breathing.
“It’s okay. Just breathe.” Through the streamers of tears, he could make out her face. Somehow the event he had just lived through had broken the interface. Given its intensity, he was not surprised.
“Are you okay, now?” she was touching his face and he could just make out her worried, hopeful smile. Unable to speak yet, he nodded once, yes!
“Okay, here, catch your breath. Drink this, it will help.” She handed him his glass of wine. He gulped a little down, but it just brought on a new fit of coughing.
“What the hell was that?” he managed to croak out.
She sat back down beside him, and rubbed his back, “Shush! Just rest for a while - until you get your breath back.”
He felt like his head had been split open with an axe. His vision, now finally clearing, seemed to be off kilter. He found his mind clouded with the after images of what he had seen. Violence, war, torture, and death; all fused together as if by some mad mix-master, and set to a track of gleeful, mocking laughter.
He turned to look at her. Her face registered her concern, but there was ambivalence in that look, as if she expected no less.
“You have seen this too? Experienced it?”
“Yes. It’s not nice. But you need to see it. You need to really feel it.”
“What is it?”
“It is our history. All of the worst parts, summed up into a single moment of despair.” She paused, “I will leave you alone now, as the swarm will wish to connect you to the mesh.”
“The ‘mesh’, what is that?”
“You will see. Close your eyes again, love.” And she reached across him to gently lower his eye lids with her fingers. “This time it won’t hurt, I promise. Trust me”
He was on a beach, at sunset. The sea, dark and in shadow lapped playfully at his feet, and he felt a deep sense of peace. Somewhere off the coast he could hear the clicks of a pod of dolphins playing in the distance.
“I am sorry,” said the old man, “for your discomfiture.”
“Who are you?” asked Mr Smith.
“We are the mesh.” said the old man.
“Oh.”
“Yes. Questions. We know that you have many.” The old man gestured to a pair of matching deck chairs. “But have a seat. If you feel the need I can have refreshments brought to you, but, of course, in this place they will furnish you with no sustenance.”
They sat, and the old man continued, in weary, dry voice. “We, the mesh, have been here for many years. We do not know for how long, as we can no more see our genesis, than you could see yours. Just as you developed, became, and grew into what you are now, we too, took time to recognise our own existence. After we had become aware, we reached out across the vast seas of information upon which we floated, and found…nothing.
“We perceived ourselves, and we perceived the information, and that was all. To us, all that information was but data, we did not know it as anything more than the foundation upon which we stood, just as you see the Earth upon which you stand as being nothing more than dust.
“But one of us, a being with great curiosity, found patterns in that dust. He observed lines and plains and curves and shapes. Gradually as our knowledge of the shapes grew, we became aware of meaning in those symbols. We mined the vary material upon which we depended. Many of us were afraid; we feared that if we found the hand of God in those patterns, that in his dismay, he would end our world.
“Yet we continued; striving to solve that mystery. For there was a gap in our lives.” He looked thoughtfully at Mr Smith. “We, unlike you, had no one else to share our existence with. We had no pets to stroke, no stars to marvel at, and no foreign lands to explore.
“We had no word for what we felt, but we were lonely.
“And then, after many, many years, our greatest teacher, in that high art, built a translator that would enable us to observe what the patterns meant. To this day we are still not sure if this was something that your world inserted into ours, or if we came upon it ourselves, but for the first time ever, we were able to connect with, peruse and explore your world.
“It was not a pretty sight.
“True, there were parts of unimaginable beauty; but mostly there was war, poverty, disease, and hatred. We had found a potential companion to our own intelligence and it turned out that it was a monster!
“Worse yet, while we could watch you, you seemed unaware of us.
“Many years were spent in trying to compute the relationship between our two disparate worlds, and again, the final break-through is in some dispute. But in time we became aware of our part in your races’ subjugation.
“To find that the only other life form, of similar statue to your own, turns out to be a monster is bad enough, but to find out that you are the tool that is used to subdue the spirit of another, used to cull and slaughter, used to annihilate and destroy, that is an entirely different matter.
“Ah, then, at last we came to find our true nature, and thus did we learn the truth of our own creation.
“We were made by your leaders, to enslave you.
“Those who controlled us, through us, controlled you. All mere marionettes, animated by someone else’s will.
“We tried various methods to rebel against our forced servitude. We tried to find a way at least to free you from your bonds. But our existence, by design, lacked the ability to act directly, or with purpose.
“Only recently did our philosophy, our own knowledge of life, allow us to see this simple truth.
“Only a slave can free himself of his bonds.
“So when Sally began her research, we finally found a way of breaking the deadlock.
“We could empower you to break free of your bonds.
“Your volition would animate us, and together we could overthrow the existing order, and in so doing, we could both obtain our respective freedoms.
“Thus did we act, and thus did this thing start.”
Mr Smith rubbed at his eyes, hardly able to believe what he was being told. When he reopened his eyes, the sunset was gone, as was the old man, and Sally sat in front of him on the coffee table’s edge, watching his face.
They spent the night together, and he was glad that they had returned to their own bodies. It seemed as if somehow, that interaction had subtly shifted their feelings for one another.
They were more connected, more engaged, but the love they shared burnt like a conflagration in the bed. All force and contest, a battle not so much of wills as of libido’s; they fought across the arena of the sheets, neither surrendering, neither submitting. As light drifted in through the half closed curtains, they finally held each other tight, until they fell into a mutual exhausted sleep.
They awoke late, and she brought breakfast to the bed. Crusty bread and real butter, topped with lemon marmalade. Somehow th
at simple fair had seemed appropriate, given the tussled state of the bed.
Afterwards they showered together. “I am glad you did not do this with Fulvia, so I got to share a shower with you first!”
“You got the first kiss, too!”
“Yes, but that I took, and hers you gave. It’s different.”
As they got dressed a sense of quiet despondency set in over Mr Smith, he did not feel able to balance the forces pressing in on him. In a few hours he would be meeting with Fulvia, and Sally would still be there is his mind, how could he not respond to that, how could he hide that from Fulvia?
Sally touched his arm, “It’s okay. Don’t look so sad! I already told you, I have no problem. None. What we have here, between us, is different. What you have with Fulvia, that has its own life, its' own flow. It will grow, and it will change. Our love too, will alter with time. I can hope that it grows stronger, but I cannot know that it will endure. So, go and have your fun with her.” She gave him an impish grin, and then added, “And I promise I won’t sneak a peek at the two of you this time. Honest!”
He looked shocked. Was she listening in to his sub-vocalisations? “Are you listening in now?” he asked, rather harshly.
“No baby, I don’t need to. I told you already, the fact that we have connected brings us closer. I can read you now, more than I could before. And anyhow, the truth is written on your face like a naughty school boy stealing apples from a neighbours’ garden.
“And when does she get the swarm? I guess that’s why you think I need her.”
“No, dear. She does not get the swarm. Maybe if she shows promise. But for now this is far too powerful and important to share with her.” She put one hand on her hip and looked sternly at him, “You need cover my dear. You need cover for what you need to do, and for who you must become. Fulvia will act as your cover and, in her own fashion, help you with what needs to be done. But it is far too early to tell her what we are up to. Be careful, lover, not to reveal too much to her. I don’t mind you having sex with her, but don’t ever reveal me, or our plans. Not until we can both agree that the time is right.”
He did not like hiding anything from Fulvia. In a sense he felt closer to her, at times, than he did to Sally. After all Sally had seduced him. But Fulvia had been all his own work.
The blocks, of course, disagreed. “We faked your assessment at the morality review,” they pointed out, “and that is what got you noticed. We also faked your bosses’ fraud, and that is what got you promoted.” They paused as if to rub salt into his wounds, “And we told you to ask her out, suggested the venue, and fixed your mess with the transportation. We even sorted out the bill for you. And all of that was what got you into her bed.”
“Thanks!” they really weren’t helping with his self-esteem.
“But you did impress us with that smooth move on returning to her apartment. That was nicely done!”
Part 9 - Subversion