+J.M.J.+
Zenon Eyes: Eyes of Truth
By "Matrix Refugee"
Author's Note:
I never thought I'd see the day when this one would be in the home stretch, but this, like the Minority Report crossover I'm working on, is trying to steam roller its way to the end, and I am utterly reluctant to be so close to finishing it. But, here is the next to the last chapter. Enjoy!
Disclaimer:
See chapter I
Chapter XIV: Construction
When Joe returned to work at Companionates, he found he had a much harder time applying himself to his work than he had expected. He attributed this to his new circuitry still needing to be burnt in, but even after three weeks, he still could not apply his mind to his work. His thoughts kept straying to the Haven.
"It is as if the skill I once had as a designer has fled me, or the data from my training in design has become unavailable," Joe admitted to Calla, during a session he scheduled with her one afternoon.
"Does it bother you? Do you sense a malfunction?"
"No, I have had a scan to determine if that is what it could be. But there is no mechanical cause for this. I believe the problem is my own inhibition."
"If you weren't designing Mechas, what would you do?" she asked him.
He dropped his gaze for a few seconds, then lifted his eyes to her. "That is not so simple a question to answer as I first thought. Of late, I had thought it is a waste of time and resources to build more Mechas when we cannot care well for the ones which exist."
"That's a perfectly legitimate feeling to have. But what would you do with it? How would you act on it?"
"I have considered…giving up design and pursuing studies in robo-psychology."
"Have you talked this over with Rhiannon?"
"I have actually been afraid to broach to subject to her."
"You know she won't bite, even if she disagrees with you."
"I know that she will not…but it will be something of a strain upon her. I shall have to go back to college, which will require her to be the provider for our family."
"Even still, there's no one really better equipped to be a robo-psychologist: you're a Mecha yourself and you've survived so many sufferings."
He chuckled thinly, as if relishing a private joke.
"What?" Calla asked.
"I believe I recall reading an article about a woman who once had worked as a prostitute, but who later went on to become a psychologist," he said. "Thus the prospect of my entering this field is not so far fetched."
"There you go. You have the wherewithal: you're keyed to sensing the sufferings of another, to respond to it and to comforting them."
"Indeed," Joe agreed.
Later, that evening, as Joe helped Rhiannon with the laundry, he broached the news to her that he was seriously considering changing fields.
"Calla needs to remain here in the field, but the Haven shall need its own resident robo-psychologist," he concluded. "And so, with your permission, might I pursue continuing my education?"
"Joe," she said, straightening up from loading wet clothes into the drier. "You know you don't have to clear it with me. Whatever you do to follow your dream, I'll stand by you on it."
"Perhaps we can persuade Alex to help you around the house more. David is a willing helper, but Alex needs to do his share as well."
"I could use that, but let me handle Alex. If you asked him, he'd just get flouncy about it."
The next day, Joe gave his notice that he would be leaving Companionates in two weeks. The Design crew was unanimously dismayed to hear this.
"I'm sure you're doing the right thing, Joe," Astarte said as she helped him clean out his cubicle the day he left. "But I just wantcha to know you've been one of the best workers we ever had here."
Joe smiled at this, but his eyes betrayed a sad, distant look. "I have always done my best to make myself amiable to my co-workers."
"I know you have, and that's why we're all sorry to see you go…but I used to say to Serin that you were destined for great things," she said. He turned his eyes away to hide the tears that showed on his lashes. "Aw, don't listen to me: I'll break your resolve."
Joe patted Astarte's broad shoulder. "No, rest assured that your comments will not weaken my resolve," he said. "Rather they bring me hope."
@--`-- @--`-- @--`-- @--`--
A week later, Joe enrolled in the Sagawan Community College in the next town, specializing in Robo-Psychology and "The Silicon Mind: Its Care and Maintenance." As he had, years before in design, he surprised his instructors and professors by completing in just a year and a half the same amount of work that would take an Orga three years to complete. And, at the same time, he was also learning how to drive; Galloway had adjusted Joe's distance vision, bringing it from a slightly spotty 25/20 to perfect 20/20.
As Joe expected, Alex hemmed and hawed over having to take on more work around the house, but David did his part as well, which oddly enough motivated Alex to do more around the house. It was as if Alex was embarrassed that this little kid with a Teddy trundling after him (Eddie, a new model with silvery gray fur) was doing more to help out.
When he wasn't working on his assignments—including his doctorate thesis on the effects and ramifications of imprinting, and whether or not under certain conditions it could be reversed—Joe was at work with Madison, planning the construction in Minnesota. Madison and her lawyers had worked out all the kinks getting all the proper building permits. Anthony Casvar, David's first father, knew an architectural firm which could render Joe's designs into the proper schematics and blueprints: Roychmann and Associates Design. The head of the firm, Alfred Roychmann, was highly impressed with the simulation which Joe had devised.
"You sure you don't want to come and work for us?" Roychmann offered after he had viewed a holoprojection of the simulation. "We could use an extra mind and an extra pair of hands around here."
"I have chosen to train in another field, outside of design," Joe admitted, astutely.
The permit process got stalled briefly, then winter set in, postponing the ground-breaking until the spring thaw. But at length the winter snows gave way and the work commenced. The crew cleared the middle of the lot, leaving most of the plot forested. After the momentous day when Joe, Madison, and Neruda Chang, the head of the CRF, dug out the first shovelfulls of soil from the plot, the work commenced in earnest. Construction crews worked round the clock: Orgas during the day, Mechas at night, so that the lot was never vacant, which helped deter any would-be attacks on the structure. Even still, the CRF had a few threatening letters show up in the mail, but nothing worse happened. They even relocated one of their offices to the small town of Plancard, near the building site, so that they could assist any derelict or abandoned Mechas who might turn up.
The release of the film version of Joe's memoirs had been delayed slightly since the director had decided to add a few new scenes covering recent incidents and laying more stress on the idea of the Haven. Joe took this in stride: it would be good PR for the Haven itself. Word of mouth: "Did you hear about that sanctuary they're building for abused Mechas?" The "Schindler meme" Joe had created to heighten a Mecha's sense of self-preservation was not sufficient alone to get them to seek the Haven.
Miss Chang encouraged and helped Joe start a public awareness ad campaign targeted at Mechas, with the basic message, "Being a Mecha shouldn't have to hurt".
@--`-- @--`-- @--`-- @--`--
Rhiannon never let on to Joe, but she found his workload a bit hard to accept at first. He'd taken on so much, she hoped he hadn't taken on more than he could handle, but he had that Mecha stamina to back him up. Between writing papers and following the progress on the construction and working on the ad campaign, he had very little time to just be alone with her. This sacrifice wasn't easy to make at first, but she made his desires hers as well. She could have distracted Joe from his work if she had wanted to: she had it in her. There were times, late at night, when she woke to find his pillow beside hers empty, and she looked up, over the foot of the bed to see him silhouetted against the window, sitting on the bench cross-legged, his notebook open on his lap as he typed a paper or read an e-text, his graceful face and figure softly lit with the faint light from the display. She so wanted to get up then, creep up behind him, and slip her hands around his waist or run her fingers through his hair and get him to come back to bed. But she restrained herself: he had his work to do, this labor of love inspired by a lifetime of troubles and the touch of a small boy who was not a boy of flesh and blood.
@--`-- @--`-- @--`-- @--`--
In the first year of work, the construction crew completed most of the outer shell of the complex that would comprise the Haven before the snow fell, blanketing the site, making further work difficult. But as soon as the spring returned, they completed the rest of the structure and started the work of finishing the interior, which they completed by the end of August. But by now, the Haven was the topic of everyone's conversation, whether people agreed with the project or not. The detractors viewed it as a ploy to distract people from "more pressing concerns"; the more insidious critics tried to insinuate that this Haven was another plot on the part of the Mecha designers, that this Masters, aka. "the Phoenix" was really constructing it as a training ground for a Mecha army for a further assault on Orgakind. But these fortunately formed a very small minority. Thanks to the film and his ads, most people thought of the Haven as Joe had hoped they would: as a place where Mechas could find refuge from the less charitable of Orgakind, and where Orgas and Mechas could learn to live in harmony.
They already had quite a few applications for positions in the Haven: repair technicians, security, teachers, even a few farmers who would cultivate the food crops for the Orgas. It didn't surprise Joe when Galloway applied to work in the repair crew.
The Haven was designed as a self-sustained community which would supply as much of its own necessities as was possible, to avoid much contact with the outside world, not out of a sense of shame or disdain, but out of a sense of self-sufficiency. Of course there were some things they would have to obtain from the outside world: Mecha parts, medicines for the Orgas and whatever food which couldn't be raised in the rooftop gardens. Joe thought of the 13th century Benedictine abbeys of Europe helping the less fortunate of society, or the 18th century Jesuit missons in the then New World, offering refuge for the indigenous people so they might escape the slave traders who sought to exploit them, when he laid out the basic plan for the Haven.
Of course there were some saw Joe as a cult leader, but in several short articles he wrote and published, he denied all claims to this, saying that he had no specific religious affiliation, save that he believed in a Higher Power who only asked humanity to love each other as they were loved. His purpose was not to gain fame for himself, but only to help the helpless. If he was heard about and talked about, it was not because he sought attention for himself; rather, his media presence served as a vehicle for the task he had chosen.
During the last months of construction, as the crews finished the interior of the Haven, dozens of Mechas started to show up at the offices of the CRF across the country, seeking shelter.
When the structure was complete, Madison, Joe, Rhiannon and a few of the CRF chiefs toured the Haven. Rhiannon found her senses utterly dazzled by the sight. It looked so much like a full size version of the simulation Joe had devised that she almost feared it was only a hologram. But she knew it had to be real. It had been such an elusive dream for so long that part of her couldn't believe it was truly a real structure. Looking at Joe, she knew he felt something similar. Would these gleaming white walls and towers simply dissolve into so much light? Was that real sunlight shining through the skylights overhead and the glass block panels in the walls? Was that soothing, trickling sound in the Garden of the Blue Flower really water falling into the basin of a fountain?
She started crying for joy when he led her into the Temple of Fire. The light streaming through the stained glass made it seem as if they had walked through a wall of frozen flames. Electric and wax candles, as yet unlit, stood in tiered banks along the base of the walls.
Joe slipped his arm about Rhiannon's shoulders, holding her. She covered his hand with hers.
"This is beautiful," she managed, her voice choked with tears. "This is so beautiful…"
"It was meant to celebrate the beauty of faith," he said
@--`-- @--`-- @--`-- @--`--
They went home to make their own final preparations for their next move. Rhiannon put the house up for sale, pricing it for a quick sale via the 'Net. Galloway had already moved out of his place and was living in their basement, pending the move.
They had the furniture they would need moved to Minnesota. The house sold quickly, so they moved into a hotel room for their last couple days in Shohola.
The last morning, the day of their departure, as the Masterses checked out of the hotel and set out for the airport in Philadelphia, they discovered the Zipeses waiting for them outside the hotel.
"And what better people could we have to see us off as we embark on our journey," Joe said.
"We're not here to say goodbye," Lutwyn said, reaching into his jacket pocket and taking out a folder of airline tickets. "We're here to say hello."
Joe processed this for a second. "Then you are…you are accompanying us?"
"Yes, we are," Narsie said.
"It's been almost twelve years since I took up the directorship at Companionates after my dad passed. Time for a change. We'll do what we can to help, if you'll just let us come along."
"I shall be in need of assistance as I assume the role of directing the Haven," Joe said.
"Uh, oh, maybe this wasn't such a good idea," Rhiannon twitted.
"Yeah, one directorship to another," Lutwyn groaned, betraying a smile.
"No, you shall serve in a purely advisory capacity," Joe promised. "You will not have to shoulder that burden any longer."
@--`-- @--`-- @--`-- @--`--
Plancard, Minnesota… The town's one hotel was jammed with Orgas come to work in the Haven and they'd spilled out over into the neighboring homes: some of the townsfolk offered to house them. Madison had seen to it that the Mechas were housed in the gym of the high school, under discrete surveillance; she'd sold her house and donated the proceeds to defray the cost of the construction. She'd even opted to stay amongst the Mechas in their temporary quarters.
"They're all asking for you," she told Joe as she led him into the gym.
The room was almost solid with Mechas of all kinds: spidery service droids, the more-Orga-like companion models: secretaries, servants and lover models—male and female, Joe sensed a slight slowing in his system when he spotted a female who looked just like Jane. Some lacked arms and parts of their faces, others lacked their limbs; some were almost reduced to metal skeletons. They quickly became aware of them: their eyes turned toward the, recognition flickering in them.
He moved in among them, touching hands outstretched, faces turned up to his, speaking a few words to each.
Are you he? Are you the Phoenix?
They call me that.
Madison watched from the doorway. A girl child Mecha had taken the skirt of Joe's coat; he stooped down to take her onto his arm. A dog simulacrum, a German shepherd, peered up at him from under a bench, then crept out to lick his hand.
Some time later, Joe came away, though he could have stayed longer. "They are so like a flock of sheep without a keeper," he said to Madison as they walked out into the late afternoon.
"Not quite: you're their keeper now, or at least you will be in a few hours," she said.
He bowed his head. Why all of a sudden does this task loom so large?" he asked. "Even when the structure was being planed and constructed, it did not seem so enormous, so insurmountable?"
"Reality's setting in. I felt something like that when I took up my husband's business after passed away. It's like it suddenly hits you: 'Just WHAT am I getting myself into?'" she said. Seeing the tense concern on his face, she patted his head. "It'll be all right: we're all here for you."
Joe returned to Rhiannon and the boys in the hotel room. David ran to meet him as he let himself in. Joe reached down and touched his son's head tenderly, caressing it, marveling at his bright little one and how well he had come along since they had first found him.
Rhiannon, sitting on the bed, set her book aside and got up to hug them both.
"How are they?" she asked.
"They are awaiting their new refuge. Some are in varying states of repair—or perhaps disrepair is the more appropriate word. But they know what they need and they know where they must go to find it," Joe said.
Later that evening, he could barely settle down for the night. Just as his distance vision had been improved, he also could voluntarily put his lower functions on standby, allowing him to "sleep" in a sense. His sensory faculties remained fully functional as a survival mechanism and his mind remained active, but for the moment, he could not settle down.
While Rhiannon slept, he sat up on the foot of the bed, his gaze turned to the window, toward the starry sky. No moon showed there, but he recalled a night when he had journeyed toward the moon with a child who took his hand and so saved his brain.
Rouge City and the Haven…two vastly different enclaves, but both centered on Mechas: the one which exploited them. The other which protected them. The new legislation had done much to better the lot of Mechas, including the class he had once belonged to, which were allowed a higher portion of the fees they received—he wished that this usage for his kind could be eliminated, but he did not foresee this happening for a long while yet. It hadn't surprised him that a little more than a third of the Mechas awaiting to enter the Haven were lover-models. They were the most demoralized. He knew that for himself, from that harsh schoolmistress known as Experience.
"What are you doing?" Alex's voice asked from the other bed.
"I could hardly rest from anticipation," Joe said, keeping his voice low.
"You know you don't sleep."
"In a sense I can."
"I forgot, they rebuilt you that way…. What's it like?"
"What is what like?"
"What is it like: dying?"
"It is the most painful thing one can know, and I have never died in the fullest sense. The only way you can know what it's like is if you have been through it."
Alex was silent for a long time, perhaps pondering this.
"How many are there ready to join, Mechas I mean?" he asked at length.
"There are perhaps a little over a hundred."
"That few? I figured there'd be a thousand with all the hype you've made about this."
"There will be more, many more, and we have provide enough space for thousands."
"I hope it all works. I don't want it blowing up in your face."
"It shall not, please heaven. From small acorns come great oak trees."
The bed creaked as Alex settled down.
"Dad?" he asked.
"Yes, Alex?"
"I know I don't talk like this much, but…I can't help but thinking something."
"Tell it to me, but only if you're ready to."
"Dad…you're a great man."
"Thank you," Joe said, his verbal communicator suddenly scrabbling over words.
The bed creaked louder as Alex rummaged under the covers, probably embarrassed to admit he was embarrassed.
Joe took this as a cue that he should settle down as well. Rhiannon might wonder what was bothering his processors. But even after he crawled under the covers again, he still could not settle his lower functions.
The late summer night slowly deepened, the stars brightening in the sky. Then the sky lightened, the stars dimming as the sun rose. Birds chirped in the trees nearby.
Rhiannon stirred next to him and turned to him. "You didn't rest, did you?" she teased.
"I could not," he admitted.
"Excited?"
"Very much so. Not since my second inception have I felt such animation."
"What's your excuse the rest of the time?" she teased. She sat up and hugged him. "C'mon, time to go change the world."
Basteth the cat jumped up onto the bed, trilling and chirping and butting them both with her head.
"Our little fur-clad goddess agrees," Joe said, pushing back the covers.
@--`-- @--`-- @--`-- @--`--
The Orga workers gathered in the town square about nine that morning. From there it was just a short walk of about three-quarters of a mile to the Haven. Most of them had been given an orientation the night before, but today they got their marching orders from the Directors and they would settle in the compound itself.
After several minutes, they started to get a little concerned. "Well, where are they?" someone asked.
And then someone on the fringe of the crowd let out a shout. "Here they come!"
Almost as one, the crowd of flesh and blood humans turned in the direction of the shout.
There approached from the east, almost as if they had walked out of the sun, a column of figures, most of them gleaming a little too brilliantly in the morning light. The sturdier figures carried in their arms or on their backs the less preserved of their numbers. At the head of the crowd walked a small entourage: a well-built woman with soft gray hair, a tall, striking woman, younger and dark-skinned and a light-brown haired man about the same age as the dark woman. Ahead of them all strode a slender young man in gleaming black, the morning sun glinting oddly gold and auburn off his black hair, on his arm he carried what looked like an eleven year old boy.
The column halted opposite the crowd of Orgas. The young man in the lead, Masters, the chief director, better known as "the Phoenix" came forward and looked them over. A smile crossed his calm face.
"Come, brothers: let's start the work that's brought us together," he said.
The two groups mingled, then turned onto the road that led to the Haven, "The Phoenix" walking at the head of the column.
The road took them past the town limits, over a bridge that spanned a small river, across a vast field that gave way to a lush forest of pines and oaks, clean smelling in the morning dew. The road sloped up slightly to a tableland in the midst of the woods, which gave way to an open place. Even before the trees opened, they could see through the branches the white and silver towers of the structure.
And then it lay spread out before them, brilliant in the morning light as if it had been carved out of a single block of white marble.
A rustle arose from the crowd, from the Orgas, even from the Mechas, questions, exclamations, even words of appreciation.
The road led up to an open arched gateway. They approached it over a white stone causeway that sloped slightly, and passed through the gates, over the threshold, and into the entryway.
A soft-colored light, blue flecked with red, orange and purple fell over them form above. In the center of the atrium stood a fountain which bubbled softly, just rustling the cathedral-like stillness which hovered over them.
The crowd flowed around the entryway, taking in the sights and sounds of the great hall.
Joe set David on his feet, Rhiannon taking the little one's hand as Joe stepped to the middle of the hall. He scanned the crowd, which turned to him, expecting something.
"My brothers and sister—and I call you such because we are more than the members of a mere organization. We are members of a family, a community with one goal, that of love, of seeking the greater good for our fellow man, whether of flesh or of fiber. The structure in which you now stand was built in a spirit of love, as a sanctuary where love can blossom and spread its scent through a world grown noxious with hatred.
"Many of you have suffered terribly at the hands of your former masters. But here there are no masters, no servants. We shall all work together as equals working toward one goal: that of bettering ourselves by helping each other and so be able to help the world heal. It is a place where wounds can be bound up, damage made whole, fear turned to trust so that we might go out and help others help themselves. It is a refuge, and yet it is also a starting point.
"Orga have come to fear Mecha for many reasons. One reason is that they fear we Mechas shall overtake them through power. One of the reasons behind creating the Haven was to counteract this fear through its positive counterpart: yes, Mechas shall overtake Orgas, not by power, but by compassion. This is a place founded on compassion. Let us nurture it like a flower so that someday brotherhood may arise once again from the ashes."
No applause rose from the crowd. To do so would have been like applauding a prayer. But a sigh of assent rose from the crowd.
Joe stepped away from the center of the hall to rejoin his family. Madison clasped his shoulder with one hand. "You were great, boy," she said, grinning, her eyes trying not to overflow. He smiled back.
"I did what I could, I said what needed to be said," he replied.
"And you did great," Rhiannon said, hugging him.
The crowd slowly dispersed, the Orgas leading the slightly 'bewildered" Mechas into the hallways and corridors.
"Hey, can we get over the ceremonial gack and just move in?" Alex said. "Preferably before my piano gets put in storage under a bunch of empty suitcases?"
"And I thought that Lutwyn was the one who kept me grounded in reality," Joe said, as he lead his family up to their new home.
Concluded in the next chapter…