“We should move on,” said Dex. “I
want to find my family.”
“I think you will be unhappy.”
“We shall see,” said Dex.
~ * ~
Slowly they climbed
upwards across the flanks of the mountain, through
trees which became more and more mechanised with every passing hour. Finally,
the forest had become a forest of engines, the branches pistons, the bark
knurled steel and chamfered gears, their trunks pillars of complex machinery
that glistened with oil like sap. Amba seemed twitchy, looking around
nervously, staring hard at the machine trees as if they might come alive and
chase her.
So, even androids have bad
dreams,
thought
Dex. And the thought didn’t make him feel any better.
They climbed above the tree-line,
although why there should have been a tree line in this place was not
immediately apparent to Dex. On Theme Planet, he had become accustomed to the
strange being normal, the weird being an everyday occurrence; and he had simply
ceased to question.
Out of the trees, the wind
whipped them and snapped at them with steel jaws. They climbed higher,
following no particular path, and picking their way through rocks and broken
metal tree stumps.
They stopped for a break, and Dex
said, “I don’t see how you can know the way.”
“I got it. From Napper. When he
held me... from
inside
of him.”
“What do you mean
inside?”
“He trapped my soul, using his.”
“You don’t have a soul, you are
an android,” said Dex.
“Yes,” said Amba, and stared at
him. And he realised -she did not have the answers. Confusion was also hers.
And that made Dexter’s heart sing with joy, for if that was the case, and she
was only one step above him in supposedly understanding, then maybe she was
completely wrong, claiming he was an android. He grimaced. But then, he knew
that. Knew she was wrong. Because he was human. He could feel it in his soul.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a
rollercoaster CAR slammed out of the gloomy sky. People were sat aboard, hands
above their heads, screaming, but these
really were
screaming in fear,
not in simulated pleasure, and they slammed overhead on a black oiled rail that
Dexter had failed to spot. The CAR cannoned off into the distance over the
forest, and Dex, who had ducked, clamping himself like a limpet to the ground,
glanced up at Amba.
Amba shrugged. “Looks like they
even have rides in here. “
“What, rides through Hell?”
“Seems likely,” said Amba, voice
soft, and Dex realised she was serious.
“How much further?” said Dex. “I’m
sick of this shit.”
“We’ll enter the mountain. Enter
the mainframe.”
“Inside
the computer?”
“Yes. She has your family.”
“SARAH?”
“Yes.”
Dex said nothing. They carried
on, following the dark track above their heads which gleamed, and was easy to
follow now Dex had clocked it. He wondered how he’d missed it in the first
place. He also wondered why he felt so damned surprised.
They came to a dark hole in the
mountainside. The track spewed from the hole, like a metal tongue. Dex stepped
forward, but Amba stopped him with a touch to his upper arm.
“What is it?”
“Whatever happens in here...
trust nothing. Nobody. Not even me.”
Dex shrugged. “That’s my
philosophy already.”
“SARAH will test us. We will be
put through mind games... like Napper did to me. Only last time I failed.
Failed horribly.”
“Which is why you need me?”
“Confusing, yes?”
“Not at all. It’s one of the
sanest things I’ve heard. After everything I’ve seen on the Theme Planet, I’d
expect nothing but complete chaos at the heart of the computer running it all.
Is this the point where we go our separate ways?”
“I do not know,” confessed Amba. “Romero’s
engineers briefed me up to this point. Afterwards...”
Dex felt a sudden pang of
suspicion. “Are you sure my family are here?”
“All paths lead to SARAH,” said
Amba, as if reciting a line from a poem.
“Let’s do it, then.”
They stepped through the cave
entrance, guns held ahead of them.
~ * ~
It
was white.
Blinding white! It
filled every molecule of Dex’s vision, and his arm came up to protect his eyes;
but still the white was there, forcing through his arm, through his eyelids,
hardwired straight into his brain.
Then it faded, and Dex lowered
his arm, and found himself staring across a bright room - a bright cavern -a
bright
continent
of computing technology. There were millions upon
millions of glittering cabinets, stretching off before Dex for endless
kilometres. His head snapped right, and Amba was standing there, a slight smile
on her face, staring at something up ahead.
“We’re here?” said Dex.
“Yes,” said Amba, and pointed.
Dex looked ahead, to where a
tall, gaunt, beautiful woman was standing. Her skin was a shimmering silver,
and she wore a long, ankle-length silver dress which hugged her figure. Her
hair was long and black, her eyes black portals into another dimension, and she
was the most stunning creature Dex had ever seen in his life.
“You are SARAH?” said Amba.
“I am the avatar of the Monolith
Mainframe, yes. On Earth, your Oblivion Government refer to me as SARAH, and that
is a tag I am happy to live with.” She turned, fixed those dark portals on
Dexter, and he shivered as he realised he was dealing with another
entity.
It looked human, but the eyes were all wrong.
What does that say about me? The
most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, and she’s a fucking avatar? How weird and
sexually deviant am I?
“Are you here to save me, or kill
me?” said SARAH.
Amba smiled; without humour. She
lifted her FRIEND...
“No!” screamed Dexter.
~ * ~
There was a
snap,
and a crackle, and a smell of burning flesh. And for a long, long time that was
all he could feel, all he could sense. It was like floating in one of the old
VR
Tubs
before Brain-Fung
Infections caused the shutdown of the global VR companies - only this time,
before logging on, before jacking in, before the brain spikes and the spine
heaves, when you used to float in that perfect senseless euphoria, simply
existing
in a perfect pink place,
this time
he was there, in that sterile world.
Except for the smell. The burnt flesh smell.
Gradually, colours flickered and
scrolled through varying degrees and Dexter Colls hung, immobile, wondering who
he was, and where he was, and why he was here. Time had no meaning, and Dexter
wondered if he was dead. Was that it? Game over? End of the world? End of
his
world, at least. And if so, what the hell hit him over the back of the head?
How had it happened? Dex had zero recall. Dex had, in place of his mind, and
his memories, zip. Nothing. Nada. He was an erased chip. He was a blank slate.
Slowly, memories trickled through
his brain like acid through a digital sponge.
They said I was an android but
that’s impossible, total bullshit, how could that be how could that happen the
world doesn’t work like that and my mind doesn’t work like that and I have a
wife the lovely Katrina and I love her love her very much she is the perfect
wife the perfect woman we are a match, an integration, symbiotic and we make
each other whole
(gag)
that was a joke and how can I joke if I’m a fucking android? Androids
are created things and can’t have children and I’ve had children and I’ve
proved myself before the whole of the world and humanity and every species
scattered through the stars. But then,
so
what if I was an android? Life
is life no matter how it was created and some still believe in God as if some
superior being pointed his majestic finger and
bam
like a rabbit from a hat man was
born.
If that was the case then humanity itself was a created
thing; hence, an android. We’re all androids. Only the human-made androids have
been tampered with but hell, show me a human who hasn’t tampered with
themselves in some way and I’ll call you a fucking liar. Who doesn’t change
their hair? That’s changing the essence of the human construct. Who doesn’t
genetically alter their weight and size and density nowadays when it’s so
bloody easy? Everybody has it, everybody has surgery because hell, that’s just
the way it is. Humans are so weak and frail and fragile. Easily broken. Easily
killed.
Click.
White flooded Dexter’s senses and
for a moment he was blinded, and overawed in every other sense. Then the mental
onslaught backed away, drifted away, leaving him lying on what looked like an
oval glass platform, ascending through white-lit space in some kind of vast
cavern. He floated upwards, and Dex coughed, and spat on the smooth glass, and
looked up. The walls were white, scrolling past as he rose through the air.
Where
the fuck am I now?
he thought, frowning, and turned to see Amba on her
hands and knees, coughing in a similar fashion. Her head turned and she stared
at Dex.
“What’s going on?” he said.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Where are we?”
“Not sure. The lights went out. I
felt suspended; like I do during a reboot. Then I woke up here. Same as you.”
She continued to stare, then stood easily, powerfully, showing her android
origins.
Dex crawled to his knees, and
grumbled his way to his feet. He ached. No, he
fucking
ached. Every
joint, every muscle, every bone. As if he’d been kicked to death by an angry
mob of android-haters. Ha-ha.
“What happens now?”
Amba glanced down, through the
thick glass oval. Her hair caught the breeze a little and floated around her in
a very feminine way. “Too far to jump,” she said. “I guess they have us - and
by
they,
I obviously mean Monolith. And SARAH.”
The air shimmered, and parted
like a silver curtain. SARAH stood on the platform with them, and for a crazy
moment Dex considered rushing her, kicking her ass, tossing her from the
platform to fall like a stone down a well to be crushed into oblivion. But no.
That wouldn’t work. It’d be a pointless exercise. SARAH was an avatar, a
created thing, an extension of a computer system. More android than android, so
to speak. If Dex killed
it,
the mainframe would simply create another.
And another. Like a waterfall of avatars...
“Where are we?” said Dex.
“Inside me,” said SARAH, softly.
“The Monolith Mainframe?”
“If you wish to call it that. You
humans put such store by labels, tags, names, monikers. You have to define everything,
and I am doing my best to define this situation for you.”
“Why are we going up?” asked
Amba, flexing her hands. She was obviously considering things in the same way
as Dex, but her android killing logic stayed her hand. “What’s up there?”
“We are not going up,” said
SARAH. “We are in descent.”
“You could have fooled me,”
snapped Dex.
SARAH shrugged, her deep eyes
resting on Dexter Colls. “I do not expect you to accept the fact; but it is so.
I have no reason to lie. It is your simple human senses seeking to make sense
of something in
your
reality, your state of normality. To ascend down
would not make sense to your primitive mammal-derived brain, and thus it spins
the truth into something more palatable. Do not worry, it is usual for the
human mind to work like that. If you think of the planet spinning, there is no
actual
up
or
down
anyway.”