The Ghost in the Machine
Chapter Four
"Can't quite put my finger on it…"
One part of us keeps giving away
Keeps giving away, keeps giving away, giving away
Smith stood naked under the shower with his head bowed, letting the cold water run down the back of his neck. Against the blue tile on either side of the showerhead, he pressed his slender hands flat and his fingertips unconsciously clung to the grout. Slowly, he shifted his weight, the muscles in his back and shoulders briefly tightened as he leaned closer to the wall resting his distinctive forehand against the tile. His movement remained elegant, even as he stood soaked, shivering and distracted. Vulnerable. Looking down into the chrome tub fixtures, he focused on his reflection—the reflection of an Adonis-like statue encased in pale flawless flesh.
For the two hours he had stood immovable in the cold current thinking and staring into his own eyes. His deep blue pools contained neither weakness nor fear, but instead the stoicism of a man backed into a corner and willing to die rather than submit. Undoubtedly, confusion dominated Smith's emotions, but he had no intention of giving into madness. He knew he had to remain as rational as possible in order to deal with the situation. Rationality proved substantially difficult. The moment Smith relaxed his mind, the instant he dropped his guard, he began to hear it and he knew that the second he closed his eyes he would see it.
What Smith originally believed to be a simple tinnitus had evolved into a raging cacophony of voices rising and sinking in an endless sea of pulsating green radiance. He knew the color without seeing it. How he knew was inexplicable, but it was the only constant he found to cling to in his clouded mind—the green glow of a far away sea. The voices, some only inches away and others infinitely remote, were floating bits of debris in the green water. Although initially quite disturbing, the voices no longer caused Smith alarm, despite that he knew they should. They were neutral. The voices did not recognize him, did not acknowledge him. The voices paid him no heed. He could hear them, yet they could not or would not hear him. Their connection had been severed.
If the voices could be described as debris on a great green sea, what truly concerned Smith was what lurked under the radiant waters. The Leviathan. Smith originally thought it was the echo of the voices, and then he realized that the voices were the echo of it. Infinite, incomprehensible and monolithic, it was omnipresent—the blood coursing through the veins and the body, which held it.
It spoke with voice of a god and a demon.
Less than three hours ago, although it felt like three centuries and three days, he had strayed into its lair and heard it address its servant. He heard something, which he should have not. Now, it knew of his presence. It was aware. He knew no 'Smith,' yet regardless if the syllable had been hurled at him—it recognized him. Now, it waited to drown him in its dark waters. Icarus had flown too close to the sun and would fall to the sea.
Was it malevolent? He did not know. It called to him and Smith was drawn to it, yet he did not know whether it was the compulsion of the prodigal son to seek out the forgiving father or a moth to a flame. He had to find out more. He desperately needed to know who he was, but not in the superficial sense of name, birthday and favorite color. Smith needed to know what he was before attempting to find out what it was. Of course, Smith knew it was only a matter of time before exhaustion claimed him and cast him into the sea, ready or not.
***
Daylight bled through the curtains and infected the room with a jaundice colored haze. The rosy-fingered dawn of classical literature was a crass deception cultivated by hypocritical fools with boarded up windows. The clock radio, purposefully positioned out of reach, broadcasted the intellectual vomit of an insipid morning call-in program. The pop music and cheery voices provided the impetus for Kai to throw herself out of bed and restore order to her universe by silencing the radio. She pulled on a striped bathrobe over her striped pajamas and searched for her Ray Bans. It was a gross understatement to say that she hated mornings.
Lethargically, she drug herself into kitchen to the coffeemaker, the only programmable piece of technology in her house that she knew how to operate, as well as her only electronic device with both a surge protector and a back-up power source. The overpriced feat of German engineering had never let her down—she liked that about machines. Conversely, she was also the same woman who beat her Palm Pilot to death with her shoe on the steps of the government building in which she worked. Kai was anything, if inconsistent.
Through half closed eyes she poured her first cup and sat down across from Smith. Her head hit the table with a resounding thud. "Are you ill?" Smith's voice was devoid of emotion.
Kai looked up and sneered. "Go to hell." She articulated each word icily.
Smith returned her salutation with a sneer of his own and turned his attention back to the book he was reading. Secretly, he enjoyed in her caustic personality. He would have despised her any other way.
"How's your head?" She paused to look at his bruise as she went for her second cup. "It looks fantastic."
Smith touched his temple noting that there was no pain, he had forgotten completely about the injury. "Better than before," he suppressed the surprise in his voice deftly. Yesterday, he had been in abject agony and today he had to be reminded of his injury.
"Is your memory any clearer?" She scooped a stack of folders off the counter and dumped them on to the table. Absently, she began to leaf through the pages of a fatigue green portfolio.
"It is not," Smith stole a glance at the portfolio. "What are you doing?"
"I get to work from home for a week," she smiled broadly and pushed her sunglasses up on her head. "A pair of subversive wackos dropped by on Monday, waltzed through security with a thousand guns, dropped a nuclear weapon down the elevator shaft, stole a helicopter and destroyed an entire floor of the building I work in." Smith looked up as the weight of what she said registered.
"What?" He had been only half-listening to her, his attention instead fixed on the portfolio.
"It's been the leading news story for the past week. I was interviewed by CNN." There was a strange pride in her voice. "Now they're redoing background checks and limiting security clearances, so we've all been sent home or to therapy. I fear the days of dodging out early for lunch are over."
Smith pulled his eyes away from the portfolio. "What is that you do?"
"I do research and write dull reports about effective mass communication strategies. In the private sector it would be a high paying and prestigious job, but I work for the government so I'm essentially a poorly paid propagandist. With the exception of the whole terrorist thing, it's an incredibly boring job where nothing exciting happens save the occasional shit fit my boss throws." She bit the end of her thumbnail and reflected on the papers in front of her.
"If you're not content, why do you not seek employment else where?"
"Not content? What makes you think that? I love my job I find it quite funny. Do you have any idea how little work goes on there? I take multiple coffee breaks, extensive lunches, I've smoked in my office for years, I don't know what the dress code is and I have the most incredible Internet connection on Earth—I haven't bought a cd since I started working there ten years ago. All I do is sit back and compile information." She got up for her third cup. "In the greater scheme of things I am but a cog in the all powerful machine and I would have it no other way, unless I found a higher paying job at night, that required less work and came with a corner office."
"It doesn't suit your personality," Smith took the opportunity while her back was turned to check the subject heading on the portfolio, Persuasion and Active Questioning Strategies. "Had you said you were a street performer, I would not have been surprised. In fact, I don't think I would have been surprised had you said that you were a subversive terrorist. You have an apparent problem with authority."
"Really?" Kai sat down. "I don't buy any of the shit the government shovels, even though I do a lot of the shoveling myself. It gets to be a very dangerous if you do. My office handles psychological warfare at its most bureaucratic, so it's entirely harmless. But, there are people who work there in offices without numbers who don't have bloody names—they tend to buy into the crap." She looked up at Smith and for a brief moment a strange look of recognition flashed in her emerald colored eyes and then vanished. "I'll buy into it all and be the most gung-ho person around there the day they give me prime office space up in the helicopter shooting galleries and start calling me Agent Thoreau as opposed to 'hey you!'"
"You're quite liberal with your loyalties. I assume this all feeds back into your personal epistemology of 'Fuck it?'" Smith paused for her reaction and contented himself with thinking back to the virus insult he had constructed for her. Garishly dressed, red headed, obscene, little, shifty virus—so the etiology grew and Smith continued to be quite pleased with his cleverness
"Michael, I believe you've gotten smarter." Her sweet smile dripped sarcasm. "But, sweetie, I would like to remind you ever-so-delicately that you were the one who taught me all that I know about 'liberal loyalties.'" A darkness settled her eyes with which Smith was becoming all too familiar. "Rob Peter to pay Paul, eh? Michael, you are the crown prince of the double-cross. If you don't get your memory back, you'll go nuts trying to sort out just who you work for this week. One false step and you'll—" It was her turn for the dramatic pause. "Get your head bashed in."
Smith folded his hands together and rested his elbows on the table. He leveled a cold look at her and raised an eyebrow. He said nothing; instead leaving her to her own intimidation of him. In the few, but volatile, conversations they had shared he learned that she became defensive anytime the talk strayed too close to the nature of the past. If pushed, she would shove. If left to her own devices she would inadvertently speak volumes. Smith was no fool. She may have been writing on persuasive communication, but he was practicing it.
If she wanted to play games Smith would gladly comply, but they were going to play with his rules. Wordlessly, he stood up and slid his book off the table leaving Kai with her paperwork. She was spoiling for a fight and he would not give it to her. He wanted the green portfolio. He knew he had seen it before. He would wait until she got up and went to take her shower and then he would take the folder. Time was not a luxury he could afford to waste, but he had to under the circumstances. Kai was not going to tell him anything concrete without a fight. He did not have time to argue with her and his patience was running thin. Each passing second brought him closer to the haunting green presence and every second wasted left him more unprepared to face it.
Smith had seen the portfolio before. In fact, with some certainty, he believed he could visualize its contents. Of course, he had no idea where he had seen the portfolio or the circumstances connected surrounding it. However, from Kai's limited comments and behavior, he assumed Michael might have seen a few dozen such files—across shiny Formica tables with individuals concerned about 'active questioning.'
Within the hour, Smith had the file in his hands. He opened it carefully, recognizing the crease in the cover and the color of the ink on the label. The file was composed of memos requesting research in specific areas. Out of the eighty-three memos, Smith regrettably recognized only one. Had he seen two portfolios? Why would he have seen two? He laid the memo aside and closed the folder as he heard the bathroom open.
Once he was certain of Kai's whereabouts, Smith went into the living room and removed the memo from his pocket. Glancing once over his shoulder, he unfolded it and began to read it closely. The memo was from an individual identified as S/J/B and it concerned situation in which a man brought in for questioning "made a gesture popularly interpreted as obscene" to the lead inquisitor. The memo's sterile prose proceeded to inquire about appropriate response options and the prevalence of such rebellious behavior along generational lines.
Smith closed his eyes trying to remember and a small smile slowly graced his lips. The memory surfaced gradually and in the form of sensations as opposed to specific images. He recalled the warmth of the room, the sickening yellow light and the hard chair. He knew there had been three officials there, but could not remember anything about them aside from their presence. The nature of the meeting proved elusive as well, but he remembered with an astounding clarity giving the agent the finger.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine.
From It's the End of the World as We Know It (REM, Document)