Alive
Book 2
Pt27
1
Light.
The visible signature of consciousness.
Not the only one, of course. Many live long happy lives never knowing it.
And neither was it the first. Sensation. Touch. Those initial fetal senses precede it.
It is light, though, which welcomes the newly incarnated soul to the mysterious realm beyond the womb, and guides us towards what dreams may come.
Light now enveloped the stately heads of the weeping lions; a foggy halo of luminescence floating in the mist of their tears. It trailed up their granite bodies like a network of veins glowing through the darkness, and trailed to and fro over the sunken ruins of Manhattan, like a network of glowing streams. Beyond the Weeping Lions, the fortress of Cybertronics was lit up like a Christmas display.
It was data, the lifeblood of AI, coursing over the city and through the building's body; visible now for those who had the eyes to see. And David was certain he might be the only one.
The Boy From Between.
Tamara was sitting quietly beside him, on the ledge of the building. The two dangled their feet over the edge, like children sitting on a dock on a lazy summer afternoon. But neither had ever known such a carefree existence. Below them was no idyllic pond, but the restless Atlantic, lapping at the submerged section of the structure. And the chill of autumn was already on the air. These were children of a dark and troubled time.
Neither had spoken a word in the ten or so minutes since David had led them out here.
She reached out to touch his hand, but he pulled away.
"Just… just give me some time," he whispered, apologetically. He wanted her to know this was not rejection; that nothing between them had changed. She seemed to understand, and moved back. He could hear her breath coming quick and nervous from where she sat.
But that was not all he could hear.
There was something else in the air, a tone whose origins or location David could not determine. It was low but pervasive. It rode softly beneath the sound of the rollicking waves, and the chatter from the group of onlookers behind them.
A group of curious revelers had abandoned the party and followed David to the roof when he had hurriedly rushed by, after fleeing Easy. Skipper and Eddie were among them, sharing urgent whispers as they tried to extract information about what was going on. They peppered Easy with questions.
'What the hells did you do?'… 'What went wrong?'
But the man had no explanation.
"Es malo! Malo!" he kept repeating, wringing his hands as he paced about the rooftop, watching David nervously.
He had wanted to remove the plugs right away, the moment David had started describing what he was seeing. But the boy had refused.
"Seal me up," he'd demanded.
Easy had refused, at first. But when finally he understood that he would have to restrain David to remove the plugs, he relented.
"This your decision," Easy had told David, as he as he applied the antibiotic, flesh-simulating silicone gel that would secure the plugs. "Remember I tell you it was bad idea."
"I won't forget," David said, and rushed off in the hasty retreat that would incite the onlookers to follow.
He knew Easy was right; what was happening wasn't normal. Any other person would have taken hours to master the avatar. It would have been days before the subject could easily navigate their internal digital interface.
But it had been like second nature to David. No effort at all.
And no one would have experienced the strange light show that followed.
There'd been virtual login ports floating in the air as he ran through the building; text bubbles hovering over the pods of the people he'd passed. It was too much to take in. David had had to shield his eyes as he made his way for the exit.
"Hey kid, how'd it go?" Skipper had said with a laugh as David came down the stairs into the main room.
But David had ignored the man, and dashed for the doorway. It was all too much, too fast. This was more than he should have seen… more than any other person had ever seen.
But then, he wasn't, and had never been, 'any other person'.
Now he stared out at the sparkling night, enraptured by the data streams coursing through the ruins of Manhattan. Wondering what this new thing was; this sound that now lay beneath everything. It seemed like it as getting louder.
Was Easy right? Should he have removed the plugs?
He'd been here before, he thought; he'd seen the world from this dissociated digital perspective. But then, on second thought, he decided no. This wasn't the same.
He'd tried to recall his old life before. On sleepy mornings, after waking from one of his increasingly rare Blue Dreams, he'd lain abed, basking in the feeling of sunlight pouring through his bedroom window to alight on his skin, searching his memory for a remaining trace of what the world had seemed when he was not a 'he'.
But it had never come.
Was it a mercy? Had his blue savior erased his memories of Mecha life as some act of grace? Or were the parameters of that digital realm simply unavailable to the Orga brain?
"I didn't tell you about Monica," he said. The words came from his mouth with no thought; no understanding why he'd even said them, or why he felt the sudden need to talk about Her.
"Umm... Ok?" Tamara responded, a question in her voice.
He turned to face her.
"I told you about…" he paused, not sure how to say it. "About the 'event'. But not about her… not about 'Mommy'."
"Mommy?" Tamara pondered the word, as if David had spoken in an alien tongue.
"My Mother," he said.
"I know what 'mommy' means," she said. "But, unless you made that bizarre story up for some stupid reason, I didn't think you had… you know; a mother."
"I didn't," he replied. "I mean, she didn't carry me, like an Orga child. She awoke me. She's the reason I'm here… here in this body, I mean. I did all this for Her. So she would love me."
Tamara didn't reply, just looked at him with a quizzical expression.
"Is this really the time for this story," she said after a quiet moment. Her face was growing grim and impatient.
"I just thought you should know," he continued, uncertain about the reason for his admission and her anger.
Something caught his attention, a soft sound like a whisper, coming from the array of satellite dishes that were clustered about twenty feet to their right. He turned in that direction. But there was no one. The crowd of people was milling about near the doorway behind them.
"Are you ok?" Tamara said, concern in her voice.
David ignored the question because, the truth is, he didn't know if he was alright. If the implants were messing with his hearing, he'd know soon enough.
"This is about Her," he said to Tamara, trying focus his attention away from his growing doubts. "All of this. Everything I am doing is to protect Her from… it."
"What the hell is going on with you?" Tamara hissed. "You run out here, run right by us… right by me, without saying a damn thing. Won't tell me what the hell happened. Easy is pacing around like some current-sick wirehead searching for a socket! What? Did he leave a screwdriver inside your head or something? What the hell is going on?!"
"Shhh," David hissed, cocking his head towards the crowd behind them. Tamara glanced back to see them pressed together, trying to hear what was being said. She turned back to David and continued in a whisper.
"Don't you shush me," she said. "What happened? Spill it before I smack those plugs right out of your head."
She was getting angry. Best he give her something. And something real. She'd know if he lied.
"Data flows," David confessed quietly. "I can see data flows. At least I think that's what they are. They're everywhere."
Tamara scrutinized his face like she thought he might be making it up. But after a moment she made a sound like a worried mother and scooted close to him. She wrapped her arm around his and cupped his chin in her hand. David felt some of his disorientation fade at feel of her touch; her body against his.
"Go on," she said, softly.
"It's like… like trails of light moving over everything… through everything." he said. He gestured to the pocket of her coat. "I can see the glow of the pod in your pocket."
Tamara glanced down and then back up at him, her face creased in concern. David turned to look at the crowd behind them for a moment, and back to her. He pressed close and whispered.
"I saw can see their pods too. I can see them texting. It looks like thin streams of light moving between them; out into the air."
He glanced at the crowd again, and then turned back to her.
"Some of them have implants too," he said excitedly. "I can see it under their hair; flowing over their scalp… like twinkling webs."
Tamara made a guttural sound, like she'd just bitten into something rotten.
"That is sooo not normal," she said.
"Tell me about it," he sighed.
"He screwed up," she said. "Easy. He's not licensed! He's a poser! The software is just some hack crack. He messed up your implants!"
"No," David said. "It's not the implants… well, I mean it is, but Easy did everything right."
"A virus!" she said, alarmed. But David shook his head.
"It's me, Wizzy," he said. "This whole thing. It's me. I'm different. You should understand that by now."
She fell quiet, digesting his words. Then she sighed. It was a frustrated sound.
"Take them out," she said. "The plugs. Have Easy pull 'em. This Familiar crap could be damaging your brain!"
"No!" David said again. "I told you. This is about Monica. I have to do it. It's the only way."
"Only way to what?" she shot back. "To screw up your head?"
"To fight 101," he said.
She pulled away suddenly, and set angry eyes on him.
"I'm not doing this!" she screamed.
The chatter suddenly died behind them. Tamara shot an angry look over her shoulder to see the crowd looking at them expectantly.
"Damn these people," she hissed. Then she rose and stormed in their direction.
"Don't you move," she called over her shoulder as she went.
In the quiet of her departure, David finally realized what he was hearing. And he was glad she had not been there to see his face. It was somewhere between excitement and horror.
It was the digital voice of electronic communication. He was surrounded by digital signals. And now he could hear them.
"What did I get myself into now?" he wondered aloud.
He turned to see Tamara gesturing wildly at Skipper. He couldn't hear what she was saying but judging by the defensive look on Skipper's face, and the way Eddie was slowly backing away, she was getting her point across.
The three of them were surrounded by streaks of flashing light from the electronics all around them.
"Bring it down, bring it down," David repeated to himself, like a desperate mantra, trying to diminish the flow of visual information that was confounding his senses. But nothing changed.
He closed his eyes and thought his avatar into existence. It appeared, floating like a spectral servant in his field of vision. He opened his eyes and set them on the mad display that rode on the night.
'Turn it down,' he thought. The avatar hesitated a moment, then it turned and made a hand gesture like turning a knob. To David's his relief, the lights receded.
"That's good," he thought, when the light was tolerable. His avatar stopped and he thought it away.
He made a sigh of relief. This wasn't normal, no, but he could control it. He was sure he could do the same with the sounds.
When he turned to look again he saw that Skipper seemed to have gotten Tamara's message, and was ushering the others back inside. They moaned in protest, and voiced questions. But, in the end, Skipper had his way.
Easy lingered as the others filed slowly back inside. His eyes were cautious on David, and David returned his look. He knew the man was thinking that this might be his fault. This wasn't true but David did not want to deal with explaining that right now. He'd have to suffer the guilt for a while. David would explain later.
After a time Easy gave up and followed the rest inside.
Tamara finally returned to stand over him, hands on hips and eyes aflame.
"You wanna screw up your head because you want mommy to love you?" she said, "Well, just let me know now, so I can be on my way! Because this is insane... what you're doing is crazy. The risk you're taking! I went along with it because you acted like you knew what you were doing. But you obviously don't! And I didn't let myself fall in ..." she paused then, and gathered herself. Then she continued softer.
"I didn't get involved with you, just to watch you get yourself... " She stopped there, knowing the rest was obvious.
David reached out to grab her hand, and pulled her down beside him. She didn't resist.
He closed his eyes, and breathed deep, letting the air fill his chest, and releasing it slowly. He repeated this until he felt his center return. Tamara did not interrupt him.
"I need you," he said, when he opened his eyes. "This might be the first time I've said that to anybody but Monica. But, to get through this, I'm gonna need you…. And not just for this. But for everything. I want you with me."
Tamara's jaw worked, as if she was chewing on a thought. Then she too took a deep breath, and steadied her her eyes on David. They sat that way for a time, gazing at one another, communicating in a language older than words.
There was something between them, David could feel it; some force which he was not yet experienced enough to understand. It was not the same unflinching devotion that bonded him to Monica. There were conditions to his relationship with Tamara; parameters that they both had to respect. It was more like an agreement, than a debt. But he was sure that this too, was love.
He finally broke the silence.
"Grace calls what happened to me a 'miracle'. That might be it, I don't know. I don't actually think about it that much. I only know that I chased a dream and it came true. But if it is a miracle, then it's not really much different from the miracle of any other Orga life.
"All of us are inexplicable. I mean, our existence. 'Being" itself is a fundamental mystery. We take so much for granted; fight so hard to survive, to achieve, to fit in, to wrap ourselves in the shining facades of pride and wealth; that the simple mystery of life gets lost. We forget it. We forget to just stop and be; to let go of the chase and just… I don't know…. watch the birds fly. Just to breathe.
"Children know it. To them the world is a mystery of infinite horizons. Their innocence is a state of true being. No definitions. No prejudice."
"No defenses," Tamara said. "Innocence is just a nice word for ignorance. They are completely vulnerable. Can't even wipe their own asses."
David shrugged to concede her point. He fell quiet for a moment, thinking, watching the lights zipping through the darkness over the sunken city. Listening to the growing sound he was not yet ready to tell Tamara about, lest she go on another rant.
"The drives of survival steal our innocence," he replied. "We forget that we chose this; that we jumped into the trials of mortal life with no hesitation."
"Wait… you're saying we choose this?" Tamara said, incredulity on her face. "Now, that's where you lose me, Pork Chop. Have you looked around you? Why the hell would anyone choose to be born into this crazy-ass world?"
"I decided," David said. She started to reply, but seemed lost for words.
"You're different," was all she could muster. "Isn't that what you keep telling me?"
"Ok, that's true," David conceded. "But in all the teachings I've read of Orga mystics and spiritual leaders, they talk about choice. It was the one gift that all their deities gave humankind. If our conciseness is a real thing, then we must make the decision. Otherwise, it's all just fate, mandated by the whims of some unknowable god's imagination. And we're all just… just characters in a dream."
Tamara thought about this for a time. She finally flapped her hands like shooing off a bothersome pet.
"Boy, you talk about the craziest shit at the craziest times," she said. "How the hell did I let you suck me into this conversation?"
But then she cast an affectionate look at him.
"It's kinda cute, though. Annoying, but cute."
David laughed and felt another urge to hold her, to press his lips against hers. Instead he said.
"101 and I are driven by the same desires. In its own messed up way, it only wants what I already have. It wants to know life... to know this." He took her hand and pressed it to his chest, so she could feel the beat of his heart.
"And the denial of this realness, has driven it crazy. Like a prisoner watching other people roam free. It longs to be among them, and hates whatever stands in the way of that dream."
He pulled his hand away and crossed his arms in his lap.
"In ways I don't yet understand, we're like… family," he said.
A grim chuckle fell from Tamara's lips.
"That's one messed up family," she said.
"I must concede," David replied. "But, as crazy as it sounds, we're flip sides of a coin. I was created to fulfill a need for love. He… It… was designed to serve the purposes of power and control. In my Mecha infancy, I embraced fairy-tales and wonder; aspired to be part of a family; to know love. 101 was cast into a world of suspicion and paranoia. It embraced a callous philosophy of individualism and separation, and aspires only to distinguish itself as superior."
Tamara had calmed now and she thought this over.
"It's sort of a real life metaphor, eh?" she said. "I mean, the thing between you two."
"Good way of putting it," David agreed.
The noise in his head was getting louder. He steered his thoughts away from it. There was nothing he could do about it. Not here. Not without her noticing, and asking questions. He didn't want her to start raging about the implants again.
"There's an old Native American folk tale," he said. "The short version is that everybody has two wolves inside them, fighting for dominance. One wolf carries the spirit of greed and anger, jealousy and all that dark stuff. The other one is all about love, charity and the things that make life worth living. The questions is: which wolf wins the fight?"
"So we're doing parables now?" Tamara said, shaking her head. "First we have a nice chat about 'mommy', then some stuff on religion, and now it's Indian folklore. When are we gonna talk about those things in your head, and what they might be doing to you?"
"Which wolf wins?" David repeated.
Tamara rolled her eyes.
"The one you feed," she said.
"You've heard it before," David said.
"No," she replied, dismissively. "It just an obvious answer."
"Well, I didn't think it was that obvious but, yeah, that's the answer," David said. "So why don't we feed the good wolf right now? I did what I had to do. The implants stay. Let's just make the best of it, ok?"
Tamara eyed him coolly. David was waiting for her to lash out at his stubbornness. But she surprised him by leaning back on her elbows.
"Ok, I heard it before," she admitted. "The thing about the wolves. Sy used to tell that one. Thought it made him sound smart. But it didn't. You don't either."
David punched her playfully on the arm, and they fell into each other arms. They kissed long and slow and then she cradled his head to her chest like he was a child. David could feel her fingers probing the spots where his implants had been placed. He allowed this inspection. It wouldn't damage them and it didn't hurt. The sealant had numbed the plugs.
"I guess it would really depend on what you feed it," Tamara said, when she was satisfied with her inspection. She pulled him up and kissed him softly on the cheek. David reciprocated, nestling his face into the nape of her neck.
"True," he whispered. "But that's not the point of the…"
He stopped mid-sentence, and pulled away from her.
"What you feed it!" he repeated.
"It was a joke," Tamara said, trying to pull him close again. But David held her arms back.
"No, no, you were right," he said. "It depends on what you feed it!"
He rose and started pacing around the roof, holding up his hand for silence. Tamara watched, confused.
"Oh, jeez," she moaned. "What now?"
"The wolf that survives isn't the one you feed," he said, "it's the one you nourish!"
"Um, that's pretty much the same thing," she pointed out.
"It's more specific!" he replied.
Tamara cupped her face in her hands and screamed into her palms. She parted her fingers to look at David.
"You might be taking this whole metaphor thing a bit too seriously," she said.
David ignored her as he paced aimlessly. The noise in his head grew louder as he walked between the satellite dishes, and he was certain could make out thin voices being carried on the digital signals. He stopped and listened for a minute.
He understood now; he understood what he was hearing!
He had a sudden urge to jump for joy. Instead he walked to Tamara and knelt by her side.
"Wizzy, you were right about the wolves," he said, and kissed her on the head. "You're a genius!"
She looked at him in dismay.
"It's the implants, isn't it?" she said. "They already drove you crazy."
David laughed, much louder than he'd intended. But he couldn't help it. He felt good. For the first time in this whole crazy situation, he really felt confident about the battles that lay ahead.
"C'mon," he said. "We've got to get back home. Skipper just called my father and told him what I did."
Tamara jumped to her feet, her eyes suspicious on David.
"How'd you know that?" she said, looking around as if the answer might be somewhere on the roof.
David shot cryptic smile over his shoulder as he started heading for the Stratocruiser.
"That would be telling," he chuckled.
"David!" she called out, perturbed. She started following him. "How do you know Skipper called your-"
But she was interrupted by the sound of the Strocruiser's thrusters throttling to life.
David hadn't even climbed aboard yet.
"Did you do that?" she said, amazed. "How? How'd you do that?"
"C'mon, girl!" David said, laughing as he slipped into the craft. "No time for dallying!"
(cont…)