Ch. 5

I stepped down from the machine and put my feet into the soft mossy layering covering the ground, one foot at a time, while releasing my hands from the handlebars. Breathing in I surveyed the area seeing a shadowy labyrinth of tree branches all around. I exhaled and closed my eyes trying to center my thoughts. I could feel something in this place. As if there was something in the air that other places did not possess. I opened my eyes again and turned to the MHD nearest me. For the first time his facemask part itself through the middle and a glowing red eye emerged and focused in on me. Words emitted from the speakers on either side of the eye and several lines of text ran across an LED display screen lining the jaw: “GO FORTH – STEP DOWN.”

I took the advice and walked. After about twenty feet I saw the depression beneath my feet and stepped down into it and a staircase tumbled down below me. A crypt gaped open beneath and as I entered I found myself surrounded by a smell as if the earth were pushed right up to my face, mummifying me in its embrace. I had to brush through a few cobwebs and other obstructions before finally coming into a circle of light. In front of me there was a stone door with patterns all across it. I saw a small red slot to the right of this and again inserted my key, causing the patterned stones to fall onto the floor and reveal another room.

Walking into this room I noticed cages all around lining the sides of this circular room. I noticed the sound of the MHD engines behind me at the entryway, which reminded me of their presence here, for my protection. I felt frightened, maybe for the first time ever. A flat screen television descended from the roof at that moment and an image of the creator flickered on the screen before stabilizing.

F: I see you’ve made it successfully to your endpoint Mateo, good. I hope it was not too jarring for someone with such a sheltered existence. I realize you must have many questions after this journey.

M: Yes, I do. Primarily a question of what I can trust as reality anymore, sir. This has been eye opening, to say the least.

F: Ah, yes, I can imagine. Just remember that you can trust what our civilization has built, and that is all. We create our own reality. Now, I would like to introduce you to someone. His name is ### and he has been preserved here since before your time. Not in the way we preserve food or cadavers or even living things through cryogenics, but rather in the way you preserve a memory, by revisiting it. This beast represents a concept, an idea, and one from the past that presented a threat to our way of life, but must be preserved all the same in order that it may not creep up somewhere else. It is a man free, free from responsibility to others and free from dependence on anyone or thing but himself for survival. He is the idea of freedom and anarchy embodied, and though in contrast to the state we have created he may seem small, he represents an idea that poses a great threat to our civilization.

The screen shot up quickly into the ceiling and in the center of the floor in the center of the room the panels began to spiral out and reveal an egg shaped prison rising up to match Mateo’s height. Inside stood a man nearly naked save for several shreds of white cloth lining his shoulders, torso, waist and crotch. On his feet and lower legs there was strapped tough looking rope creating a pair of crude sandals. His shoulders were slung back and his chest puffed out. His arms hung loose at his sides while his fingers curled in slightly. His whole body stood alive, poised, and ready for action. His hair draped coarsely all around his head and into his eyes, braided and beaded with abandon, dark and wooly like that of a mammoth. And through these locks shone two bright blue eyes, staring out from under his shadow gaze and piercing into Mateo’s own. His body was in the full pose of being, and it was clear in his gaze that his mind too was engaged. Not in the mindless idling of a body at complete ease, but as a thing willing itself in every second to live. And in this confrontation Mateo found himself lost in the man’s gaze, and soon losing himself as his consciousness spiraled into somewhere else.

Ch. 4

Along the path Mateo saw two things; first a toucan, a creature that hasn’t been around since the turn of the century, and second endless rows of trees extending off into the distance, the likes of which he never believed still existed. Either he was in a part of the world that had heretofore been hidden from him by censors or somewhere else entirely. It was hard to tell. The creator had kept this place secluded for some reason or another and Mateo had a feeling he would find out soon why. However, he couldn’t help but continue to think he was only experiencing a fantasy or mirage; that this could not in fact exist despite it feeling so much more real than anything he had ever experienced before.

Turning a corner the two robots stopped abruptly, jolting Mateo in his stirrups. Up ahead there was a large gorge extending for miles off in the distance. The scenery remains the clear verdant green of the jungle canopy. From this high vantage point Mateo can see that this world must truly be one separate from his own. How could they hide such vastness from all for so long?

In order to get down to the floor of this depression in the earth the Robots would have to either climb or fly down. Two arms shortly popped out of the back of the MHD Mateo rides and grab onto his arms tugging them into the hull of the bot. Another two emerge from further out on the robot’s back and grab Mateo from behind enclosing him in a sort of metal shield. His eyes lock into an interface and he is able to take on the sentience of the machine, however, he still rides autopilot for he has not been granted access to control the thing.

The two robots bend their knees in preparation to jump then fire up a set of small turbine engines attached to the front and backs of their shoulders. They extend their knees and hop off like fleas flying ten times their height into the air before descending into the valley below. Using both the rockets and thin metal blades extending from their arms the robots navigate their way through the shifting winds to land softly on the valley floor below.

Ch. 3

Once inside the enclosure Mateo instantly notices two things: first, the damp familiarity of recycled air, and second that his heart rate has spiked higher than the rate at which the caffeine high should have normalized. His heart is now racing, and as he looks around the small enclosure he begins to panic and hyperventilate. He falls to the ground as blood rushes from his head and lies still in an unconscious heap.

In the darkness of his sleep he is met by a being. At first, aware only of the presence of another, Mateo, in the astral plane, begins to feel around the corners of his mind, both afraid and anxious to find something there. As his search tires he begins to feel the other as not entirely separate from himself, but rather as himself and everything else together. At the same time he feels absolutely empty and hollow; alone and no one. He sits down on the ground and starts to think. After a moment he notices two vivid lights off in the distance in the darkness, much like when one looks into a blank night sky and only after relaxing their gaze does the light of the stars begin to appear. Mateo stands up and walks toward the lights in order to examine them. As he comes closer he sees that the lights are really eyes, two bright blue eyes. From this distance, though, he still cannot make out what creature the eyes belong to. He walks closer and then he sees them in their entirety as two imperfect spheres hanging in a void, unattached to anything and yet, alive. They shine brightly and stare blankly ahead into infinity.

After examining them from every angle Mateo gets down on his knees and looks at them directly. The blank stare hangs in the air but then something changes. Mateo senses a slight movement in the focus of the eyes gaze and they now seem to be locked onto his returning stare. Immediately he feels entranced by them. Then, the eyes began to dissolve and disappear and Mateo does as well breaking up into tiny particle pieces of himself, and all these little bits are swept up into a swirling vortex of chaos.

Mateo comes to out of the fog of his unconsciousness cradled in the arms of a steely beast, moving in some as of yet imperceptible direction in steady rhythm. He opens his eyes and sees the jungle canopy overhead. He also sees, looming over him, the chrome skull of one of his A+D MHD attachés, which is carrying him in its arms.

Mateo wriggles, murmurs and then yells, “Stop.. stop! Let me down!”

The robot responds on command, slowing its pace and stopping, then lowering its arms to let Mateo tumble to the ground. Mateo stands up and dusts himself off. He looks up at the leering figure and sees one just like it to its right. The robot that just lowered him erects itself straight up and stands frozen still, appearing like some kind of alien totem pole form the future.

It seems to Mateo that whatever room he passed out in must have been an elevator that took him to the jungle floor. His two mechanical protectors probably scooped him up and began the journey without waking him.  Mateo walks around to the back of the machine and climbs onto it. He inserts his legs into two boots on the machines’s back which allow him to take over control of the robot’s legs if he chooses, and grabs onto a set of handlebars. He commands, “Resume,” and the robots begin their steady pace.

Ch. 2

Then there was a thud, and the air around me began to feel denser, and there was a feeling of depression in my chest like you get when descending to the bottom of a pool. My vision became scattered and all I could see were white frames refocusing and synchronizing themselves. It’s hard to tell if it looked more like the traces of a television turning on or off. I feel my hand, suddenly, and then my legs, but not as my own, just as objects I am in control of. Residual feelings of dissociation can occur following interface, and they resemble the experiences reported by Ketamine users in old psychology texts. Now the feeling of my pulse comes back to me like bass turned up in a small enclosure. I feel my heart once again and I know I am myself, rather than someone inside myself. Then the floor disappears underneath me and I fall.

I fall, spiraling inward and outward, through downy cylindrical tubing resembling that of a snake coiled up in a womb. I am surrounded by rouge-y infinity and occasionally feel the force of a feather-like tendril brushing against me to guide me through the aggregate crystal whip shaft. The lift elevator has been replaced by a portal producer, which has opened up a kind of pocket in time and space. This technology allows one to travel by means outside the confines of pre-Rambian physics[1]. As I come to the base of the tube I feel my blood rushing from my head into my feet. There is a black spot approaching beneath me with small swatches of iridescent colors peaking through its blankness. The spot expands and opens up to me like a picked scab, bleeding shadowy effluvia out of its perimeter. I feel my feet pinched at by a force inside this hole and my whole body sucked at like a lollipop in some mouth. Immediately, I’m flattened horizontally and crammed through the whole. Expanding on the other side I’m popped like a champagne cork into a new world.

I hit metal grating hard with my right shoulder and roll. Splayed out on a steel platform, I lay motionless. My satchel rests inches from my left hand. I open my mouth and inhale a deep breath. I exhale and open my eyes. At first all I see is dazzling white. Then blotches of blue saturate my vision like drops of watercolor on a blank canvas. Slowly, green trim rounds out the borders of this image, and I am lying still staring up into blue sky with trees all around. I am in a jungle. The air smells fragrant, and I breathe in the dewy heaviness of unfiltered air.

I curl forward bringing my back up off the ground and grab my satchel. I shakily stand up on my feet and reorient myself to the pressure of gravity. The Portal Producer stands on a post of the fencing surrounding this enclosure behind me. Opposite to it is an extension of the metal platform into a pathway leading off into the jungle. I figure that without immediate direction I should follow this path to my next destination. Still buzzing from my morning caffeine and the adrenaline rush of whip transport, I set off.

Down the path a ways I encounter orange bulbs hanging from the trees. They glow from within like how light looks when shown through the thin skin between fingers. The color reminds me of paint I’ve seen employed in the illuminated texts of ancient religions kept in historical libraries back home. The sight takes me farther away from the grey landscape of my home. In contrast these bulbs give me the impression of life; uninhibited, unrestrained, and deliberately alive.

Further on I come upon a door; grey metal with a white painted slash from the upper left to bottom right corner. The door is part of an iron cube that seems totally disconnected from the world surrounding it. Like there is something within that is intentionally keeping everything else out. There are vents bordering the bottom trim of the box and they emit a constant flow of bronze vapor, which trails off into invisibility as it mixes with the air. The color appears altogether alien against the backdrop of verdant green. I recognize a crimson glint to the right of the door. I take out my key from my satchel, and insert it into the slot. The coupling beams with recognition and the door folds in squares into the top and bottom corners of the entryway. Several yellow light panels line the walls and ceiling of the room. I enter while looking back on the lush paradise I have just walked through one last time.

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[1] Tobias Ramb: Revolutionary physicist who tested the first successful application of a unified theory. His contributions to physics have allowed entirely new forms of space manipulation, generating a litany of advances in all of the natural sciences.

Ch. 1

I woke up that morning at 0530h, snot pouring out of my nose. It was probably an allergy to mildew, or possibly just the apartment. Maybe all along it’s been attacking my system. My alarm went off at 9 and I snoozed it until ten, but instead of staying in bed I couldn’t help but get up. I drew the blinds and peered through the ashen window. The industrial landscape that lay beneath heaved a great sigh of relief and then returned to its Sisyphean task: the continuation of life within the city. I swear I saw bodies poured from some valve into another off in the distance on the mercury-tinged horizon. Sometimes it seems all that rust is really blood.

Time for caffeine intake. Two injections below the mid temple and a shiny blue pill. Check my pulse briefly to make sure the heart is beating at optimum speed. Good, it’s at that happy medium between awake and cardiac arrest. Better get moving so I can hit quota before this buzz wears off. I grab my work satchel off the chrome retractable coat hanger next to the front door, and then hit a blue switch, which causes the electric fanning door TM to retract into an origami heart in the recess of the doorway. I take two steps into the cool hallway and stop, and then hear the door fold back across the threshold behind me. An electric buzz denotes the reactivated force field protection system triggered by my biometric absence from the living quarters.

Out here in the corridor it’s dull and grey and the walls exhibit a tarnished texture of soot brown cement colored blankness resembling water smudged sepia photography. The carpet, in contrast, is scarlet red with light corn yellow lattice criss-crossed patterns seemingly drawing the eye in either direction; the direction of this drawing changing with the electric current that runs through the carpet. This form of hieroglyphic is pointing me in my direction this morning. Thin blue florescent trim lines the border between the floor and wall,  wall and ceiling, creating a man-sized X that fades in brightness into it’s center in the distance. I take two steps toward this faded center point of azure singularity and then begin to jog briskly, satchel in hand.

Due to the rotating nature of the factory work schedule and my position as foreman of plant 224-Z, I pass by no other soul on my morning jog to the service lift. The drones which will do the grunt work my directions command are still either fast asleep under narcotic duress or already midway through a sixteen hour shift in the bellows of the machine, barely cresting on a wave of long-haul amphetamine use or burning out from stimulant psychosis and driving their electric drills into their meaty legs. The only contact I have with another soul on my way to work is the recorded membot[1] they have running the lift ID operation interface.

After passing the 107^th comm.-unit entryway on my jog down the corridor I begin to slow my pace coming up on the lift, which is disguised as mock floor in between comm.-units 110 and 111. I look directly up while standing on the lift and remove a neon red stick from my satchel, which I insert into a darkened slot in the ceiling. An eye appears in the ceiling, also red with a bright ridge and a dark band of black lattice pattern encircling the only subtly more maroon iris. Upon gazing into the center of this device my consciousness is transported to another location. A message is downloaded into this new proxy being hosting my mind and the HMSS requests my permission for interface. I accept.

I now find myself in an all white room with no doors and only two chairs in the center made of soft white leather. I take a seat as a slit in the wall in front of me appears and expands. The HMSS avatar enters through this slit which expands with his passing and then tapers off behind him returning the wall to pristine and unblemished ivory. The gentleman is elderly and has the look of a distinguished professor. He is in fact the inventor of the Dyna_Mat HR-2 cooling system that is housed in the subterranean factory I am now on my way to. In other words, he is the father of modern civilization, my boss, and anciently dead.

F: Greetings Mateo

M: Greetings your greatness.

F: Today I would like to ask of you an unusual request, one I have never required of you before.

M: Anything sir, as long as it is in the interest of the collective.

F: Mateo, I have heard complaints from within the hive of your mind wandering. Members of the psychic brood have reported having sensed you musing while on the job. They have felt a force of imagination in these musings beyond mere primal distraction. They have felt in your soul something that will not sit well with the communal project. I don’t believe that you are necessarily aware of or in control of these thoughts; it must be an innate wellspring that has been triggered of late and bubbled up from beneath the subconscious into the collective conscious. I must take action to quell your natural gifts and see if through therapy I can assimilate your mind into the ebb and flow of the collectivity. This is of course in the interest of my civilizing mission, and is nothing I have not dealt with before.

M: Yes, sir. I apologize for any part I’ve taken in this disruption. I was not aware that I had done anything out of step with your plan. I hope that your guidance will lead me to greater understanding.

F: Good. Well then, Mateo, I have a special exercise for you today. Ford will take over your role at the factory today. I have programmed an Automaton to oversee his duties. In the meantime, you will travel to the Outlands by aggregate crystal whip to meet a savage beast, one from long before the Modern Times, a being that I have kept alive in time stasis. You will be accompanied by 2 A+D MHD attachés for your own protection.[2] You will interface with the beast similar in the way you have just done with the HMSS and indeed you will see into planes beyond your own existence. I am hoping this exercise will reset your system in the desired method and put your imagination to rest. You will leave immediately.

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[1] Membots are the recorded memories, histories and experiences of a deceased individual downloaded into a human mimicry simulation server (or HMSS for short).

[2] Attack and Defense Mechanized Human Device.