Collective Mind (17 page)

“He
also wrote the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I’ve read it,” Michelle
added with a smile. You’re not the only one here who knows Hunter Thompson.”

“If
you get bored with that blockhead Isaac, I’m always at your disposal,” Bikie
added respectfully after a brief pause. “You’re a totally fucking cool chick!”

“You
could have left out the swearing, but coming from you, Bikie, it doesn’t sound
crude,” Michelle laughed, winking at him flirtatiously.

“You
can’t have her!” said Isaac, coming awake and drawing Michelle closer against
him.

Isaac
didn’t remember at what time they all left. Michelle’s driver took her home
first, then came back to collect him, Peter and Bikie and take them to the
villa.

Instead
of six o’clock as planned, their morning began at noon. During the night Isaac
ran to the kitchen three times for a drink of water. The thirst was vicious.
But even though he drank at least a liter of water that night, he still woke up
not completely sober and a bit puffy-faced. He woke Bikie and Wolanski, brewed
everyone a large cup of coffee and fried up a huge pan of eggs.

After
breakfast his head was still buzzing. He felt like staying at home and resting
but it was time to set out for Italy.

Peter
suggested putting off their departure for a day. Isaac was for it. In the
morning he read a text message on his phone sent at night by Michelle, with no
words but three kisses and a little heart. He wanted to see her again, to
correct yesterday’s mistake. Just the two of them without his friends. But
iron-willed Bikie – showed no sign at all that he’d been boozing heavily
yesterday and insisted on going. He said they should not allow themselves to
relax, that he was fine and ready to take the wheel. It wasn’t his first binge,
wouldn’t be his last. Isaac really wanted to stay, but he had no arguments to
object to Bikie, especially since he knew that the only reason he didn’t want
to go was Michelle. He made a feeble attempt to argue, explaining that he’d
received a very encouraging message.

“All
the more reason for us to go! Michelle won’t run away from you. As an expert on
women’s hearts, I can tell you Michelle is spoiled with men’s attention so
she’ll find an original little character like you especially interesting. You
caught her eye the way you are stay that way. The ones who jump through hoops
for her probably don’t catch her.”

“But
all the same…”

“But
all the same, we’re going,” Bikie interrupted. “Trust me, you can’t think
straight about her in any case. Get in the van and let’s go!”

They
set out five minutes later. Isaac only remembered about Vicky as they were
driving past the hospital. He felt ashamed for forgetting to visit her and for
letting Michelle drive her completely out of his mind. The second reason
bothered him less. Maybe Michelle really could help him forget his sudden crush
for Vicky?

It
was sunny and roasting already. While Bikie drove Isaac tried to doze away and
asked him not to put on the music. Even in silence, trying to fall asleep on
the winding streets of Monaco was pointless. Eventually the van climbed to the
very top where the local road merged into the highway. Bikie was feeling great,
and after Isaac took a pill for his headache he started recovering too.There
was no point in driving in silence any longer, and it was strange not to talk
at the outset of a new journey with the road stretching out ahead. Both friends
were filled with contradictory emotions from the anticipation of adventure and
a good hunt to a vague, indefinite fear of failure.

The
highway quickly brought them to Menton.

“The
last French town,” said Bikie. “After this it’s Italy.”

The
border between France and Italy lay immediately after Menton. The friends for
the last time paid its due — in the form of the road toll — to the French
highway, and drove through the tunnel between the two countries. Up ahead of
them there was an electronic display saying that they had entered an Italian
toll road.

Ventimiglia
was the first Italian town on their route. Like all the less prosperous
inhabitants of the border regions of France, Isaac often visited its large
local market. The low, modern buildings of the resort town were modestly mute
about the ancient Roman consuls and emperors who used to frequent the area. The
local Roman amphitheater, of which only ruins were left, once had been a place where
humble slaves amused the rich.

Things
were shaping up much the same way now, Isaac thought. Now the Veggies were the
slaves, only by virtue of their intellectual abilities, not their physical
ones. Their OE had been sold to those who had plenty of money and didn’t need
to donate their creativity. Isaac knew from history that the Roman Empire
didn’t fall in a single day, first it split into two parts – Western and
Eastern. The Eastern part, which was also called Byzantium, was destined to
flourish. Maybe that was because they stopped regarding slaves as things and
started seeing them as people? Isaac was still absorbed in his Ancient-Roman
thoughts, pondering the idea of liberating the world from modern-day slavery,
as they approached San Remo.

“Have
you ever been to San Remo?” Bikie asked.

“Strangely
enough, I haven’t, but I’ve heard it’s not as good as our resorts.”

“No
resorts are as good as ours, but that’s no excuse for not going.’

“Then
I’ll go see it one day.”

“I’ve
been here, on my bike. You can get here on the highway or along the low road. I
didn’t care where to go especially when I’d just got my first motorbike. I had
an itch to go somewhere and I chose San Remo as my first destination. I was
over the moon and I thought the town was fabulous, although maybe it was just
because I was so fired up.”

“And
where else have you been?” Isaac asked.

“No
many places in a car. But on my bike I’ve been as far as Venice and Geneva, and
Paris, naturally. The farthest points I went were Amsterdam and Copenhagen. In
Copenhagen I lived for a whole week at the famous Freetown Christiania. And in
Amsterdam I had such a wild spree in a coffee shop, I was afraid to go near my
bike the day after. My head was spinning. And you probably know yourself; it’s
the kind of city where you’re always looking for a reason to stay an extra
day.”

“True.
After our last trip, we definitely have to go back there. We could go on bike
like you wanted and take a look at the windmills and tulips and all the other
stuff.”

“I’ve
never seen any old windmills, only the modern wind turbines. There are loads of
them everywhere now, not just in Holland.”

In
confirmation of these words a row of immensely high wind turbines appeared on
their left, smoothly taking the air. Isaac counted eight of them, brand new
ones with multiple propellers, fifty meters high, if not more. Once they all
used to be white or grey, but these were painted all different colors. A pink
one with black blades looked the zaniest. Where the row of turbines ended, an
elevated road began with a tunnel following it. After the tunnel there was a
filling station. Bikie reduced speed and got into the line on the far right.

“I
need an Italian cappuccino,” he explained “and bathroom.”

At
the filling station the guys topped up the tank with petrol and each ordered an
absolutely delicious doppio cappuccino, and then sat down on plastic chairs
under a sunshade outside.

It
was amazing, you only had to cross the Italian border and the cappuccino, even
at a filling station, was totally different. Either the Italian milk tasted
better, or the water was purer, but the brew was divinely delicious.

“Italian
cappuccino and a panini. Not just a snack, it’s a party!” said Isaac, smiling
with pleasure.

“I
don’t like paninis,” said Bikie. “I’m more a pizza man. I once read that
Italians prefer Margarita to any other kind because it’s impossible to spoil
it.

“Before
that I used to take ‘four cheeses’ or seafood, I liked it with salami too, and
I never took a simple Margarita. What for, when there are such delicious kinds
with all sorts of toppings and fancy doodads? But after I read that article, I
ordered a Margarita. And I didn’t regret it. It really was delicious, and the
cheapest kind as well. Since then I only eat Margarita, although I used to laugh
at people who took it, I thought they were dummies.”

After
they had their snack and cleared the table, the guys moved on. Anyone driving
along this autostrada for the first time must surely think it the most
beautiful high speed-road in the world. On the right side the sea and endless
little Italian towns; on the left mountains buried in greenery. The road ran at
a height of one to two hundred meters. The view was magnificent.

Some
of the viaducts were well over a kilometer long, some curved round like sickles
and then pierced tunnels into the next mountain. On one of them a little old
church hung just right above the cars driving below.

Tunnels
alternated with viaducts, road bends and tunnels again, and so on and endlessly
on. The travelers’ eyes were getting tired. They intermittently took their
shades off and on: it was too dark in the tunnels, and blindingly bright
outside.

Isaac
was feeling much better. Every kilometer the van dived into a new tunnel and
shot back out into the sun again. A dark stretch and a bright stretch. After
the party at Wolanski’s he had begun a bright stretch, and he wanted it to be a
long one.

“Driving
into a tunnel is like dying, and the heavenly light at the end is like being
reborn into a new life,” he said pensively.

Isaac
believed in God, but not in a specific God; he regarded himself as agnostic and
didn’t believe in Christ, Allah or Buddha, but he served the commandments: thou
shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and thou shalt not commit evil. He liked
the idea of karma too it was like a shield over your head. Good deeds
strengthened it, and villains’ karma was rotten, it leaked. Too bad, though,
this leakage was not immediate, but sometime in the future.

It
was probably karma that had rescued him when he went to download his OE. It had
saved him, or the angels had, the words made no difference. He would have
become a Veggie a long time ago, if not for Elvis’s fortunate appearance. And
then there would never have been Michelle, or Bikie, or Peter, or the
long-awaited patent in his life. He felt the urge to share these thoughts with
Bikie.

“You
know, I’ve thought about God lots of times. My parents were killed, Vicky is
sick. But they were very good people, and there was nothing to punish them for.
I can’t say I feel glad about ordeals like that. I’m grateful for what he’s
given me, but he’s taken away plenty of things too.”

“It
depends what God is for you,” Bikie responded.

“As
someone who knows about technology, I think of God not just from the viewpoint
of faith, but through the prism of science too. For me, God first and foremost
is justice and conscience. The ultimate justice based on the actions of each
man. And from the standpoint of science, God is infinity.”

“I
don’t get it. What’s infinity got to do with it?”

 “Well
look, what’s more potent and universal, infinity of space or time?”

“Can
you really compare them?”

“Yes.
As being impossible for our awareness to grasp, you can. Both of them are
inconceivable to man, and above all, they’re forever. No matter how far you go,
no matter how long you live, there’s always something beyond, something still
to come.

“So
it turns out that time and infinite space are almost identical. Is there
anything bigger than infinity? Longer than time? No. But you can say the same
thing about God. What could be bigger and mightier than God? Nothing. So God is
both infinity and time. Those are his different manifestations. You can’t say
that there are lots of gods in infinity.”

“And
it turns out that God didn’t create, but he gave us time and space to exist in.
They’re a part of himself that he has shared with us.”

“So
God is time?”

“Yes,
and he is space too. When I was a kid I went to a planetarium for the first
time, and I watched an incredible show, a 3D film on the dome of the building
about the earth, the solar system, outer space, the galaxy and the universe.
There was loads of interesting stuff in it. And in the end they showed an
ordinary man on the screen. The camera started pulling back and the man became
a spot compared with a skyscraper, the skyscraper turned into a spot compared
to a city, the city - compared to the planet, the planet to the sun.

“Soon
even the sun seemed like a microscopic speck compared with other stars, and in
turn they were transformed into specks compared with the other big stars we
know nowadays. And so on to infinity. A galaxy is a mere speck compared to the
universe. There could be hosts of universes. Because, if it is not that way,
then what comes after the universe if you fly an infinite distance away from it?
There’ll be other universes and something much bigger. Possibly. The universe
is a little piece of one of the atoms that make up the wing of some fantastic
insect, sitting on some fantastic flower. And the flower grows…”

“In
your imagination,” Bikie joked.

“Let
me finish. At the end the screen shrank to a tiny dot and disappeared. They
turned the lights on and I was dumbfounded, I didn’t think anything could
astound me any more at that moment. My stepfather added something else,
‘Isaac,’ he said, ‘I can see you’ve realized how small we are, that there’s
something much bigger, and bigger. But that’s not all, you can go in the
opposite direction too with things getting smaller. We’re huge compared with
some things, as huge as the universe is compared to us. Just imagine, we
consist of molecules, and they consist of atoms, but if we had an immense,
mega-powerful magnifying glass, we could enlarge an atom and see what it’s made
out of, a host of complicated pieces each consisting of particles that are made
up of a huge number of universes, which consist of hosts of galaxies, stars and
planets, inhabited by someone or something. And so on to infinity’.”