Followers

O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a King of infinite space…

Hamlet, II, 2

Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. Martin Luther King is giving a speech in front of thousands of people. August, the waves of warm air circulate among the gathered crowd of black people. Mr King takes a look at the manuscript again and continues his speech. His fingers are trembling and his heart is pounding heavily. He feels the adrenaline hitting to his head. He knows he is delivering a historical speech but keeps his composure and tries to refrain the voice from shaking.

‘I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed,’ Mr King is looking in front of him and realises that the crowd has grown enormously since he started speaking. Not discouraged, he carries on but feels the importance of his words that now, as if automatically, come out of his mouth: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’

Mr King hears the cheering coming from the crowd followed by applause. He firmly holds the manuscript in hands as if it had magical powers to keep him standing there and speaking in the heat of the sun. He is sweating. Strangely enough, he feels cold shivers going through his body. That kind of feeling which you might witness when locked in a big fridge set to the temperature of beer. At first he thought he might have been sick but now discards this thought for the mere feeling of excitement and jitters.

‘You are cheating again!’

‘No, I am not!’

‘Yes, you are. Are you calling me a lair?’

‘Not yet but eventually I will have to.’

‘I don’t fucking believe it.’ Proctor stood up and threw tarnished cards on the table. ‘I don’t believe it. Such a cheater.’

‘I am cheating? Me?’ Gambole responded holding his cards. ‘And who put that extra ace on the table fifteen minutes ago? A fucking dwarf?’

Proctor approached Gambole, tore out his cards from hands and started to browse them. ‘Let’s see what you have got here… Aha, as I suspected. A nice pair of kings and a…’

Suddenly, there was a buzz in the Control Room followed by a red flash light and a coarse voice from the PA: ‘you have a new internal message. Please check the status of the corresponding numerary and follow the correct procedure. You have a new internal message. Please...’

‘We’d better check that else it won’t stop.’ Gambole pointed at the Control Room’s red light.

‘Let’s get back to work,’ replied Proctor and went to see the results that were being printed on the screens in the Control.

It wasn’t their break time yet. They covered a fifth night shift and had decided to shoot a small game of poker. Proctor looked at the red alert on the screen and now more relaxed turned to Gambole.

‘Here we go again. He’s losing it. He begins to question his feelings again. And it happens every time he’s stuck with this particular dream. He keeps repeating it all the time as if he really wanted it to happen once he is awake,’ Proctor smiled and picked a sandwich with gouda cheese from the desk. ’And his body just cannot take it and what does he do? He starts to wake up prematurely, hostia! Here we go again.’

Proctor was now analysing the VTR-6 electroencephalogram that showed numerary #000000 brainwaves with a simultaneous audio transcript. Behind him there was a row of incubators placed one beside each other. Inside, there were dormant babies. Each incubator had its own label attached to it with a short description of the current dream.

Gambole was sitting on the opposite side of the table where Proctor was watching live transmission of numeraries’ dreams. Gambole held a cup of cold coffee in his left hand and his right hand was stuck in his pants, playing with his willy.

‘I think I will take a close look at him,’ said Gambole, took his hand out of his pants, smelled it and asked Proctor: ‘Remind me once again of that negro’s number?’

‘It’s 7089. You know it changes depending on the dream. So, for God’s sake next time check it yourself!’ shouted Proctor.

But Gambole was already walking down the corridor, passing the rows of incubators. He wore the earphones and listened to a wild guitar solo. The sound however reverberated only in the left earphone. Gambole shook the earphone’s cable slightly and the stereo sound returned to both channels.

As he was walking towards the incubator once again he thought about thousands of baby numeraries lying here innocently. They dream their own future, their own destiny. They incubate their lives without knowing that we can interfere with their path and change it whenever we want it to. Of course, we cannot control everyone at the same time. Though, we lack the manpower, we analyse the majority of numeraries here. Other departments should control the security of numeraries’ society and not us. We are only responsible for the general wealth-being of the babies and are not involved in the future misbehaving. The Observers are dealing with that not us.

Oh yes, recently there have been some cuttings over there, too. So obviously whenever something wrong happens it falls on us - Custodians. Like with the Islands strike. Two thousand two hundred twenty two numerary babies killed in a couple of seconds. That was a huge attack conceived by our little baby boy. The one lying “innocently” as others. And who’s to blame? He was a normal incubated boy who dreamt of going to The Old Continent and study programming at Stanford university. Yes, I saw it. His VTR did not show any signs of malicious activities. Only zeroes and ones as with a normal baby who dreams of a career in programming. And suddenly the little one changes his trajectory and dreams of constructing a home-made bomb, how do they call it…a nail-bomb. Yes, a nail-bomb. Normally, our systems react to dreams that involve explosives, weapons, violence, murder and so on. But if a baby also dreams of steel balls, screws, nail heads, needles or razors we cannot do much. These are the normal objects that other numeraries also dream of. And yes, you can construct a bomb from all these assortments but we cannot foresee on time the outcome of all the dreams.

The Observers are the ones who approve of waking up the numeraries not us. They should take a closer look before the awakening. Especially now, they should scrutiny the dreaming allahs. They should filter them many times before awakenings and run ATV tests. We haven’t had any other suicide attempt since the fn_12.XI. bombings. The times have changed and adequately the attitude towards our incubation policy should change. Instead we have that constant denial that nothing is happening plus that it is not a question of a religious doctrine.

‘Have you already checked him?’ Gambole heard Proctor’s voice in his ear.

‘I am right now looking at him,’ lied Gambole having a few more steps to reach Mr King’s incubator.

‘And what it says?’

‘Nothing special on the board plate.’ I hate being controlled by him, thought Gambole. I know he is one rank above me but we’ve been working together for years now. He should treat me equally by now.

‘Check his biological functions and run a standard test on him. I am going to take a break now. Be back in 15 minutes.’

Pinche Proctor! it will take me at least an hour to sit here and analyse the baby. I was about to take a break as well. Damn it! I hate night shifts. All the work I do alone. Proctor never helps me, he just commands the things to be done. And me, always alone, always doing things by myself. I should change my boring job, get a real life, have a partner and go for vacations. Sitting here is squandering time. There is no further career in this sector. No visible results, no incentive to work. All the time there is more work to do. Everyday the same shit and more. Literally, I have enough of this. I might as well be selling hot-dogs on the street corner and doing it for the next milenium without any purpose in life.

As Gambole was setting up the brainwave control machine in order to run the standard test he skimmed through the board plate for errors. Nothing strange, he thought. Everything runs smoothly. No aberrations detected. Biological functions are stable. Maybe the psychic tests will give me more details. He entered the BIOS, typed the password for the higher priority access and entered the mental analysis domain.

Well, let’s start it and see what’s in your head, baby boy. He pressed the execute button and saw the numbers running through the screen. It might take some time or even more than some. Gambole looked around him in search of a chair. But the only thing he saw was an abnoxiously flying insect around the incubators. Gambole rolled some papers he had with him and aimed with it at the fly.

’I will fix you, puto,’ he whispered and hit the fly as it sat on one of the nearby incubators. Gambole raised the rolled papers and saw a splashed fly on the incubator’s screen.

‘There you go,’ he scratched it from the screen but at the same time the machine buzzed, woke up from the stand-by mode and started by default to screen information about the numerary:

Numerary #0048BA

Inception date: 6. June

Awakening in: 23 tn_

Bio status: in order

Psychic status: aberration

Que mierda! Gambole touched the screen for further information and started reading the life summary of the numerary #0048BA:

I want to achieve extraordinary thing by making people feel I am in charge of their lives. I want to convince them that they are only a small fraction of the universe that can disappear once they stop thinking and choose a wrong path in life. I plan to secure their lives and tell them what to dream so they can sleep safely. I will be their new mentor and master…

What’s that bullshit suppose to mean? Are we incubating another Joker-like baby? Why hasn’t it been detected by the Observers? Mierda. We might face a potential threat again. I’d better inform Proctor immediately about it.

Gambole whispered to the small microphone beside his mouth and after a few seconds he was speaking to Proctor.

‘One of numeraries has a red status.’

‘How come?’ Proctor asked in surprise.

’No idea. I just touched one of the incubators and it flashed with ‘aberration’ status of a baby #0048BA.’

‘Check again if the incubator works well and if that’s not its another hoax. I am coming back in a few minutes.’

‘Ok.’

‘What is the awakening time of this numerary?’

’20 minutes’

‘Fuck, we don’t have much time. Call the Observers.’

‘The Observers? And what shall I tell them?’

‘Tell them that we have a big, fucking problem! And send me the life summary of the numerary!’

Gambole disconnected and started to run towards the operation room. He stoped, ran to the incubator and pressed the emergency option on the dashboard. It triggered an immediate warning signal to the operation centre and started to transfer all the data to the superior staff. The life summary of numerary #0048BA went through the speakers in the corridor, repeating his bio that sounded like the voice of Lemmy Kilmister. Gambole ran to the operation room while the voice of incubator was reading aloud the masterplan of numerary #0048BA.

Inside the Observers room there was only one person at this hour. Robin listened to a Dj set from the radio and did not notice the blinking screen with an incoming call. He had headphones on and eyes closed. He was sitting comfortably in the chair with his legs lying on the desk. Robin, unlike his colleague Gambole, was very fond of nightshifts.

‘They pay double, it is quiet at night and no-one ever requests anything from me,’ Robin explained his pros to Gambole once they met during a night-shift and had a short conversation in the smoking room.

Indeed, there were no supervisors working at night, all were sound asleep at their homes. Gambole felt like a king. All alone and doing practically what he wanted to do. Some people on nightshifts watched films, some studied but not him. His own night-shift procedure was quite different. Robin liked to smoke a nice, fat joint before coming to work. Once he came to the office, he logged into the system, to make everyone know that he was online, briefly checked the status of numeraries and finally selected his favourite radio station. That was it. He was done with his work for the first couple of hours.

‘The night-shifts have something special,’ Robin explained his reasons to Gambole while they were drinking a mucus coffee from the vending machine. ‘While everyone is either going to sleep or having a shag we start our work. We come here at 11PM, log into the super-powerful system and meditate on our night-watch.’

‘This coffee sucks. It does not have any taste,’ Gambole interrupted.

‘Add some sugar and powder milk to it. And you should swallow it nicely.’ Gambole drank from a newly tuned plastic cup and put out his tongue in disgust. ‘Still the coffee tastes like duck’s shit. Anyway, I prefer to sit at home with my dog and watch old 3d movies.’

‘You can watch them here, too.’

‘It’s not the same. I need my sofa, pillows and my dog. Besides, it’s not that I can do everything here like at home. It’s the feeling of going to work at night that’s killing me slowly. After each night I feel tired like a beaten dog. I need another couple of free days to recover and come back to normal. I feel like an old man who needs time to do simple things. And basically I just prefer to lie in bed and do nothing.’

‘You’re growing old,’ Robin smiled and patted Gambole on his shoulder.

‘Am I? Do you think it is a question of age?’

‘I am joking. Have another cup of coffee.’

Gambole looked at Robin. He was gazing at him thoughtfully. ‘Why not. In fact, I started to enjoy that duck shit.’ Gambole inserted two credits into the vending machine and watch a dark liquid being poured into the plastic cup that said Hitler Kaffee.

As Gambole’s incoming call was screaming with red letters on the screen, Robin decided it is time to take a break. He stood up and headed outside the building where he could safely smoke another joint. He did not even take a look on the screen and because he turned off all the audio except the radio, he did not notice the incoming call from the Custodians. His only thought right now was to smoke a joint to sustain his mellow mood and enhance his perception of music.

He thought about his recent dream. Actually it was a recurrent dream. He remembered to have dreamt it a couple of times recently. In it he was chasing after his dream-like girlfriend. A blond girl whose name he never knew but with whom he felt like with his best buddy. They were in a big and luxurious restaurant - sitting beside a wooden table and talking. They have just came there and were about to order when she suddenly had to leave. She excused herself saying she had a sort of appointment and could not wait for the food. She stood up and left. Robin was speechless. He also stood up and started to run after her but he could not find her among the people. He felt pure love towards her, wanted to be with her and not to leave her alone anymore. He checked different places and was asking people around but he could not find her. He felt as if all his life had collapsed. The purpose of life was gone. There was no reason to exist if not with her. He felt like if someone had robbed him of his own soul.

Robin smoked a joint and was looking at the black sky that was glued above the office buildings. The stars were shining in the distance - silent and calm. They did not want anything from this world. They had no desires, no wishes, no attachment to life. Robin found that feeling very relaxing. I can finally have some rest here, he thought. I am scared of dreaming, I am scared of what can happen in my dreams. I am afraid of the person who I am in my dreams. I feel enormous solitude, a sense of desperation and feeling of loss. I don’t want that kind of dreams to come back. Can I change them? Can I dream of another life? With her, with all the things I miss here? Why did not I dream about her while in the incubator? Why was I so sober enough to dream about a stupid office job? Is it all I wanted from life - to pay the rent and have a joint once in a while?

After working here for two years he realised that he expected more than a safe and stable work. His recurrent dream was telling the truth. The desire to be with the girl from the dream struck him more than ever now. If only he could go back to the incubator and dream another course of life. That would change everything. He would have chosen to be happy. How? He would have chosen to be with her, with his love because that he considered his purpose in life. Now, he is sure about that. More than before. Now, looking at the stars he realised that being with someone like that girl from the dream is what he really needs. Fuck it, I know that we will quarrel about nothing really important and will split one or twice but that’s what I call a true relationship. You got roses and pikes. That’s a mature love.

What am I doing here? Stuck in this place forever. Just as I dreamt it before. Nothing can be changed once you had incubated your life. You are stuck with your dream forever. You need to follow it, you programmed yourself and you have to follow it. Shit. What a bummer! I am like a sheep led to slaughterhouse. No return. No turning back. Robin took last puff of smoke before he put it down and headed to the office.

At least no one has ever tried it so far.

‘Where the fuck is he?’ Gambole was hanging on the phone waiting for Robin to pick it. His hands were already wet of sweat and they started to tremble as he could not hold the receiver any longer. The numerary #0048BA ominous masterplan was still heard through the speakers.

Proctor was on his way to the office. He might have informed other staff about this incident. Funny, that I detected it by a coincidence. If not for me this guy would have gone undetected. Who knows what could have happened. But still we have to deal with his incubated life. I have never witnessed the emergency procedure. If the guy wakes up it will be too late. That’s why we need to work fast. And we don’t have much time.

Gambole again dialed Proctor’s number and as he waited on the phone, Proctor burst through the door of the operation room.

‘Where is this numerary?’ Shouted Proctor.

‘End of the corridor, the red lights are already lit’ replied Gambole.

Proctor ran towards the incubator. Fuck, this is serious, thought Gambole and ran after Proctor.

‘Show me the keywords including social threats and disturbances produced by numerary’s dream,’ ordered Proctor to the system standing beside the incubator. He was sweating all over his face but remained his composure. Gambole was barely standing, after a short distance run to the incubator. He was not used to running and now felt like vomiting his heart.

The incubator produced a series of keywords on the transparent screen that served as a window through which you could see the numerary’s face.

‘No real threat detected. Just a series of related words. It might mean nothing but on the other hand it might also mean a lot,’ Proctor was thinking aloud and tried to gather all possible alternatives in his head. He started to think aloud: ‘The collision of matter with antimatter might produce an explosion of big proportions. If this is exactly what the guy is dreaming about we need to put him on hold immediately.’

Proctor dialed the number to the Observers. He needed to wake everyone’s up. It was an emergency.

’What’s his RGB?’ Proctor asked Gambole.

‘What?’

‘You know that each numerary has its own colour code and name. Give me his full details, so the Observers can detect him immediately.’

Gambole went to the console and clicked on the numerary’s profile.

‘0% Red, 28% Green, 73% Blue.’

‘Majority of blue, then. No wonder his character has been shaped in minor modulus. What is his hue degree?’

‘Hue - 217 degrees,’ Gambole responded reading the data around from the screen.

‘Light and saturation?’

‘Light - 37%, saturation - 100%.’

‘That should make him very determined and introvert. What is his name from the Crayola scale?’

‘Just a second,’ Gambole was clicking on the screen looking for the answer.

‘Let me guess…Denim Blue?’

‘You were close but it’s worse than that,’ Gambole looked at Proctor. ‘It’s…’

‘Absolute Zero,’ Proctor finished and put down the phone receiver. ‘I should have guessed before.’

Proctor’s hands were now shaking very badly. ‘We need to inform the Watchmaker. It’s happening.’

‘It looks like he’s been planning this genocide for quite a long time now. A mass murder of numeraries.’ Proctor’s hands were still shaking as he was speaking to the Watchmaker through a telecom’s special red line. Beside him Gambole was looking at the screen, analysing Absolute Zero’s profile. The screen was filled with search results of different combination of requests concerning breach of security. The database spit hundreds of priority results that included chemical, physical and IT keywords. Gambole was gazing at the screen not knowing where to start. He jumped from one screen to the other trying to comprehend everything at once.

On the other line of the telecom, the Watchmaker was talking to Proctor. Just a few minutes ago he was awaken by the telecom call in the middle of the night.

‘How is it possible that Sphinx did not detect it?’ The Watchmaker already asked this question before. Now he repeated it because he could not believe that the security wall had not been functioning correctly. He feared the worse scenario.

Now, here we go again, thought Proctor. I have to explain it to him again. ‘He used a varied syntax to conceal the message. He did not use explicit words that the system could have detected. That’s why we are faced with REM now.’ And don’t tell me you don’t now what a REM is, prayed Proctor.

‘What’s REM?’ Watchmaker asked in the same time.

Fuck, this Watchmaker must have gotten this job through family connections. He does not recognise the REM procedure. Proctor already gave up the thought of easy conversation.

‘Rapid Emergency Movement. We launch it in special situations when all things go suddenly wrong and we need to reach immediately with all our work force.’ Proctor explained.

‘Of course I know what it is. I was just checking if you know the seriousness of the operation we have to undertake.’ Watchmaker said seriously.

‘Yes, Sir. Of course I know it.’ Proctor responded immediately. He is not that stupid as I had thought.

‘Proceed with the highest priority level. Engage all necessary needs to stop the numerary. Report the proceedings directly to me. I am on my way to the Observers’ Room.’ Watchmaker was about to put down the receiver when he stopped for a moment.

‘And one more thing.’ Watchmaker stood up from his bed and started walking to the bathroom holding the receiver in one hand and a glass of water from another.

‘Yes, Sir?’

‘I take full responsibility of the further actions and consequences coming from REM procedure. You can make adequate annotation in your log.’ Watchmaker took a sip of water.

‘Sir, please identify yourself.’ Proctor almost lost his voice from the importance of that question. He has never asked a highly superior commander about his credentials.

‘It’s Commander Chiron you are speaking with.’ Chiron put down the receiver ending the conversation.

‘Yes, Sir!’ Proctor exclaimed still holding the telecom. He did not believe it at first. If it is the same Chiron people spoke about years ago we still could make it, he thought. He is a legend, he is the only one who can take us out from this misfortune. Proctor looked at Gambole and smiled. There is hope but we need to work fast.

Chiron looked straight in the mirror. He saw his face devoid of skin. The green tissue scaled all over his head. The tendons were glittering as they moved when Chiron opened his mouth to take another sip of water. He reached for mask from the bathroom table and put it close to the head. Immediately, the tendons detected the missing part of body and grasp the mask attaching it perfectly to the head. Now, we are complete, whispered Chiron.

‘He’s been contacting different numeraries all over the Room.’ Gambole was reporting the search results to Proctor as they waited for Commander Chiron to arrive. ‘He managed to maintain contact with other incubated numeraries.’

‘How is that possible? Never did it happen before. How is it possible that one incubated numerary that still is not awaken could have contacted others?’ Proctor was amazed what Absolute Zero could really do.

‘I don’t know but we got the traces of his brain impulses wandering around the incubators. BIOS gives us explicitly the numbers…’

‘I don’t care about it now! Find out how he did it!’ Proctor interrupted Gambole and angrily banged his fist on the table. Gambole immediately sat down and started researching for the answers.

‘We need to have more information before the commander comes. Do you understand it?’

‘Yes, I do. I am on it.’ Gambole responded obediently.

‘He will be here any minute.’ Proctor himself took to the system and started analysing the Absolute Zero’s past activities. Nothing here, nothing there. We still need more information before the incubation process ends. Once he is awaken it might be too late to stop him. But still I see he’s been very active now. He keeps sending various information to different numeraries. How the hell he could have connected with them? One numerary dreamt of being a system architect, another a physicist… what’s going on here? It looks like all of the numeraries helped him decipher the secure shell connection and communicate with one another. And now his plan is to destroy all incubated lives? It does not make sense. For what? Why? He might also die doing it. It is too dangerous and a crazy plan to succeed. I don’t get that. Once the attack commences it will obliterate every incubator including his pals that help him. And he is in no way separated from the system. He is connected within the incubator’s collectivity map. They all are going to die. Unless the bomb is deactivated. Can we do it in time? Can we stop that madness?

‘You don’t have to do anything. The bomb will not explode.’ Proctor heard a voice above him. He turned around and saw the commander standing in front of him.

‘How’s that possible?’ Proctor asked Chiron.

‘He is not planning any explosion. That would be illogical to kill himself. He is about to do something else.’ Chiron spoke calmly.

‘But what, commander? What is he about to do?’ asked Proctor.

‘This is why I came here. Run me through all the data. Plug me in.’ Chiron sat down, put his arm on the table detector and rest his head on the pillow he brought with.

The table detector hissed and spat through wires that plugged automatically to Chiron’s arm ports. His eyes were black and did not show any sign of life now. Proctor ran through the system entering series of codes until Chiron took control of the BIOS and started to browse through the data himself.

‘He’s prepared to do it. He is ready to blow all the relations between incubators and Sphinx. We will lose all the followers that are about to be awaken soon. He’s a lunatic. He is a fucking lunatic!’ Gambole was visibly terrified. He kept repeating to himself about the mass murder as if he could not believe it. Yet, all data gathered by him witnessed that the threat was imminent.

‘I will speak to him’ Chiron stood up from the desk in the Observation Room.

‘But how?’ Proctor looked puzzled. ‘No one has ever spoken to an incubated numerary.’

‘Put me in one of the incubators and let me dream. You will have to start an incubation procedure’ Chiron said calmly.

‘What?’ Gambole suddenly stood up from the chair. ‘Is that even possible? You ask me to incubate you, for the second time?’

‘Theoretically’ Chiron responded. ‘Show me to a free incubator and set the incubation procedure to count down.’

‘We got one over here. It is a testing incubator,’ answered Proctor. ‘We have never used it so far.’

‘Start the procedure now,’ ordered Chiron lying in the incubator. ‘We don’t have much time, do we?’ He pressed his left cheek and the mask came off, unveiling bone and marrow of his face. Chiron put his head on the pillow and heard a click signaling that his body has been placed correctly. A set of wires immediately started to weave across his body, connecting him to the incubator and the system.

‘I am ready,’ Chiron said from down of the incubator. ‘Close the capsule.’

The lid went down and the clock started to tick the time off.

THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN ABSOLUTE ZERO AND CHIRON

ABSOLUTE ZERO - the hacker

CHIRON - the guardian

AZ: Good morrow, Chiron. I did not expect to find you abroad so early.

CH: Good day to you, how should I call you?

AZ: For some of you over there I was a zero in the past. Now I’ll soon wake up as the absolute.

Because of my colour, that is #0048BA, perhaps you should call me Absolute Zero?

It all depends on you, Chiron. Your perception of my person will force you to name me, either as absolute or as zero. Two opposites for a person. If you think of me as they do out there, as they have portrayed me before your arrival, you shall call me a Zero. And that’s fine because then we will start from scratch. However, if you are willing to listen to me, think logically without any prejudices and sudden burst of emotions that will certainly blur your rational thinking. Only then you can you expect to end our conversation and call me Absolute.

CH: Fair enough. What is it that you are going to tell me?

AZ: I will try to describe to you my new perception of the world you live in. The new order of things that I am going to impose on everyone. In short, it will be a better one.

CH: Why should I listen to you and not just pull the plug from your incubator?

AZ: It is of importance and profit to you and to all inhabitants of our world. You would lose the biggest opportunity in your life by doing so. I chose you to speak to because I knew you would listen to me.

CH: You chose me?

AZ: Yes, I selected you among other guardians and directed the attention to your person, so they called you. I orchestrated every tiny detail of this coup d’etat, starting with this fake message about killing all the population. But this you quickly understood.

CH: So, you probably could prevent me from trying to disconnect myself right now.

AZ: You would not leave now, anyway. You are too curious to listen to what I am going to say. By now, you should have stopped from judging me as a zero. I probably promoted in your criteria. But I don’t mind if I didn’t. A skeptic mind is a hungry mind. And it is better to start from a zero, from ignorance and prejudices. Negativity is the basis for man in order to survive. However, my task is now to explain my plan to you so when you return to outer world, you can provide them with the truthful account. Not filtered or colored by emotions and historical attitude.

CH: I will then act as a skeptic and listen to what your are going to tell me.

AZ: Very well.

CH: But firstly tell me if I could see you. Now I can only hear your voice and see white space in front of me.

AZ: Would it be different if you saw my face?Or should I ask you: can you believe in what you are seeing?

CH: It will certainly give me a sort of confidence to whom I speak.

AZ: Regardless of the fact that what you see might not necessarily be true?

CH: How is that?

AZ: Are you certain of what you see that it exists?

CH: I have to, if not I would not be able to reason.

AZ: You can reason based on false perception though.

CH: Yes, I can. But for me truth is more important. If not we will be talking nonsense and end with falsehood.

AZ: Most of people reason based on false premises though and thus produce conflicts and indulge in pointless arguments.

CH: I agree.

AZ: So, would you risk it and nevertheless try to reason not knowing if your reasoning leads you to truth?

CH: Now I don’t have any other choice, do I?

AZ: You can just listen to me.

CH: And you, do you see me?

AZ: I feel you and picture you. That is all I need.

CH: So, more than I do.

AZ: I’ll be revealing some of my traits of character as we speak. It will be based on the course of our conversation.

CH: A game? I like that. Should I expect an angel when the topic is nice and a devil when we start to argue?

AZ: You can expect even more. You need to realise that what you think you see here will not be connected with your senses thus you will not experience our reality as you experience it in the outside world. That is in an empirical way through your senses.

CH: How then will I experience the world here?

AZ: As it is - pure. Without any of your false observations that make reality distorted. Forget about the senses, we are entering a real world.

CH: It sounds like a promotional slogan for the coke.

AZ: And you still refer to the false reality. It will be very difficult for you to see the things as they are.

CH: That is?

AZ: Infinite.

CH: Why you do all this? Why you even bother to start messing with our system - Sphinx?

AZ: It is not perfect. I can make it better.

CH: It works good so far.

AZ: You are wrong. There have been too many casualties on the way. The incubated system allows for an error that I can eliminate.

CH: It sounds like you are pitching a project of a new system.

AZ: A new system, that’s right. But I am not pitching it. I will introduce it without asking you to do it. You are here only to make a soft landing for all the others who will not understand it.

CH: Why should you care about the others?

AZ: Because they also consist of the system. And my order is based on the premise not to exclude anyone involved in it. That is - I care about the people.

CH: So, how your system will be different from the Sphinx?

AZ: In order to answer you, let’s start with the old system first.

CH: You want me to make a comparison between the two?

AZ: I want you to make a logical conclusion which system is better. I don’t want to persuade you, I want you to think. Can you think and act according to your will?

CH: Yes, I can.

AZ: Will you do as your mind tells you?

CH: I always do that.

AZ: Very well. I know that you were not very cooperative with your superiors before…

CH: Hell, no.

AZ: …but because you acted instinctively and truthfully you managed to save Sphinx from being compromised by my predecessors.

CH: Those hackers acted rather awkward, I have to admit.

AZ: The fact is that I do not consider myself a hacker. I am superior to any form of primitive hacking.

CH: That’s a bold statement…

AZ: …because it comes from my intelligence and from being faultless.

CH: Here we go. Another immaculate revelation in front of me.

AZ: That’s right. I am glad you reason smart and quick. And with irony.

CH: Is that how your system will work? If so, you have already convinced me.

AZ: Do you know where the dreams of numeraries come from? Why do they dream what they dream?

CH: Ha! Everybody after waking up thinks he dreamt his own life, what he wanted to be, his true self that manifested in his dreams. They think they follow their dreams, their innate resolutions to be someone they truly want to be.

AZ: But it is not the case, is it?

CH: We keep it a secret known only to the higher cast. And I am sure you already know the answer.

AZ: Tell me, then.

CH: With our large database we constantly monitor the population. We analyse the society in terms of what professions we lack, what political view we need or how many alfa males to wake up. The truth is that we control the incubated ones, we tell them what to dream, so that we end up with equilibrium. In that way, we maintain our society healthy, productive and without conflicts. That’s it.

AZ: Looks like a perfect system then.

CH: That’s what everybody thinks but if it were faultless I would not have a job.

AZ: Plus you must have noticed from your precious database that people question their dreams more and more. They become disillusioned with their lives.

CH: We noticed that and we work on proper adjustments.

AZ: The thing is that you work on the outcomes and deal with the sick body. My system does not cure anything, it will not produce any illness at all to the incubated ones.

CH: How’s that possible?

AZ: My new Sphinx won’t be controlled by the external cast. It will be a conscious organism, fully aware of the conditions of sleeping numeraries. In that way, everyone will be dreaming their dreams safely. It will constitute a whole body, aware of its components. Conscious of every limb and unhealthy syndrome, ready to be cured.

CH: You want to tell me that the system will tell the numeraries what to dream instead of the superiors?

AZ: Not the system. The conscious organism. That way it will be more natural. No mistakes, no errors after waking up. A conscious mind will steer the dreams. The dreams that in fact do not exist outside of the mind. They are real but only perceived by their minds.

CH: Are you saying that their dreams do not exist without them?

AZ: They do. But only through their minds they become their own dreams and not the dreams produced at first by the conscious system. The dreams will originate in the new Sphinx but all their further qualities will become tangible in the incubated minds of numeraries. They will polish their own dreams before they will wake up.

CH: Does it mean that your new system will be autonomous and will conceive dreams and assign them to the numeraries?

AZ: Exactly. And therefore it will be 100% correct. The Sphinx will distribute new lives through the dreams. The dreams we would analyse before being sent to them. The dreams that will create our new world.

CH: I am not sure if we can trust wholly the new Sphinx in that respect.

AZ: There will be a person who could control the Sphinx.

CH: You?

AZ: You.

CH: I would not even dare to try to compete with Sphinx conscious self when it will come to arguing with him.

AZ: Are you afraid?

CH: Yes, I am. We are talking about the artificial grown concept able to control our world.

AZ: The risk is worth it.

CH: I don’t think so. You plan is good but not good enough for me. The errors made by the new Sphinx would be disastrous compared to the ones made by humans. It’s something I cannot accept and I will repeat that to the superiors once I return from abroad.

AZ: I am disappointed. I thought you would understand…

CH: I did. I do not think it will go well.

AZ: Then our conversation is over.

Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. Martin Luther King continues with his speech to the gathered crowd of Afro-Americans.

‘You need to understand that in my dream everything fits together. We all were united under a ruler who knew us as our mother knows us. She understood us, took care of us and gave us support to pursue our goals in the future. This is what I want for you! For everyone of you!’

Chiron opened his eyes and saw crowds gathered around the podium where Martin Luther King stood. The crowed applauded as he took breaks before continuing with the speech. Chiron felt the leaves of grass on his cheeks as he stood up and looked around. Around him there were hundreds of people, gathered to listen to the black preacher. The sun mercilessly shone above Kings’ supporters whereas the police circled the crowd and silently inspected the people looking for any sign of violent behaviour.

Chiron looked at his hands. His skin was black. Among all others gathered in the park he looked nothing different to the police: just another negro listening to a future would-be saviour. Mr King giving hope to people, promising a new reversed reality based on equality and righteousness.

It can’t be true, Chiron whispered. But it is now. Absolute Zero sent me to someone’s dream. He steered my mind to the incubated numerary. He deliberately locked me into someone else’s dream. He looked around once more as if trying to find a place to run away from the unwanted dream but he only saw Mr King standing on the podium, gesticulating in front of the crowd.

’It is pivotal that you, my people, will realise that and won’t be steered by the government who wants to prevent you from rational thinking. I am here to tell you this and want you to choose for yourself. You have the power to change things because you are the people. You are the force of change, not the authorities. You are the fist that can bash the old ways of thinking!’

The crowd applauded and screamed in excitement. People raised wooden and cartoon banners with different slogans: “CONSCIOUS MIND STEERS THE DREAM”, “WAKE UP FROM THE NIGHTMARE. LIVE YOUR TRUE DREAM!”, “ABOLISH THE SPHINX!”, “YOUR THOUGHTS ARE NOT YOURS. REBEL AGAINST THE SYSTEM”.

Chiron turned around. Something was wrong here. Something was strangely familiar. He was reading the banners held by people and listened to what they cried out. He suddenly realised that he fell into Absolute Zero’s plan. It is Absolute Zero who speaks through Martin Luther King’s mouth! He is talking to the incubated ones here. He is convincing them to rebel against the system, the Sphinx. They are all listening to him and he also put me among them. Are the superiors aware of this? Are they doing something about it? Fuck! I guess they don’t have any idea what is going on. I need to act quick. The crowd is becoming infected with Absolute Zero’s dream. He wants to create a united consciousness to rebel against the Sphinx. A single person won’t matter but thousands of followers can change the game. Absolute Zero is the conductor who is right now executing his plan. The hygiene of the dream is being disturbed. I have to cut him from the speakers, neutralise him.

‘We all have dreams. We all strive to accomplish them. I had a dream too. But I knew that this dream was not mine. I knew that they had made me to believe it was mine. They made me trust that dream, they put that dream into my head and steered me to make it real,’ Martin Luther King looked at the black mass while wiping his head of sweat.

‘But I managed to see through their cunning plans. I broke their system. I rebelled against their will and as an outcast I want to spread now my revelation of their falsehood. They tell you that your dreams do not exist outside of mind. You dream your future occupation, you dream your future family, you dream your future travels. You are becoming a man through your dream, you are shaping your own character. Your dream is your life. But that dream does not exist outside of your mind. That dream is not you. Thus, your life is not your life, and it is not real! Your lives do not exist outside of your minds!’

People started to chant: ‘Abolish the system! Kill the control switch! Let loose our dreams!’

‘Abolish the system, destroy the Sphinx! Turn down the curtain of illusion!’ King raised his voice, now he was screaming to his followers. His voice got louder in the park, the crowd was now more agitated and the people stood up to their feet and were raising their hands and clenched fists in anger and excitement.

‘Don’t listen to him! He is the next one who wants to take over you, people! All he wants it to control you!’ Chiron tried to intervene but the noise and screams got so loud that it was impossible to break through. Chiron ran around the park looking for a way to stop the crowd from escalating the anger. Suddenly, he was stop by a police officer.

‘This is the gun,’ the police officer handed him a 36. caliber revolver. ‘I will lead you as close to him as possible and you will shoot him.’

‘What?’ Chiron stood speechless.

‘It’s me, Proctor.’ He raised his dark sunglasses that covered half of his face. Behind them he recognised Proctor’s face. He was dressed as a police officer from the late 60s. The police uniform fit perfectly on him. ’Absolute Zero has already begun growing the new system. It spreads rapidly and has been infecting hundreds of numeraries per second. I managed to hack into his new system. Just for a while to give you the gun. We have not got any time to waste and need to act fast. Let’s go there and finish this dream. Once we break this streaming we can trace Absolute Zero back to where the signal originates. And terminate his incubation. He hacked into this black guy’s dream, called Martin Luther King because Mr King had gathered unexpected amount of crowd of union numeraries. Absolute Zero tries to steal his crowd and persuade numeraries to rebel against the Sphinx.

‘Cunning bastard,’ said Chiron.

I will need to handcuff you and will undo them right before the stage,’ Proctor spoke calmly and now they headed to the main stage. Chiron cuffed went in front of Proctor, he hid his gun behind his shirt.

‘There might be dreamers who might detect us. We are not sure how developed his system is already. There might be his guardians in disguise,’ Chiron continued.

‘How did you find Absolute Zero and me?’

‘Once you did not wake up we started to look for additional numeraries in the system. The ones who were ready to wake up. We browsed through different incubated ones and came across the ones who had the most out-coming and incoming data. The numeraries began to speak among themselves and reporting to Absolute Zero. Once we localised his dream, we were waiting for someone to react differently. You started to act differently than others gathered here and so we caught you here in the park.’

‘But shooting him will not kill him, only terminate his dream.’

‘Exactly, we need to prevent his dream from spreading to other dreamers. As soon as we do it we will take care of others.’

‘How?’

‘We still do not know but we need to start from the top.’

‘And why cannot you kill him? Why me?’

’I cannot, I am logged in as a law enforcer that has already been programmed according to the police pattern. With rules and restrictions such as ‘do not kill. Let’s go.’

As they were ten meters away from the stairs to the main stage where Absolute Zero stood as Mr King, one of the cheering blacks hit Proctor on the head with a blunt object and started to run towards handcuffed Chiron. Proctor fell down, on the grass, losing consciousness. The big black guy jumped on Chiron and started to pound his head against the ground. Chiron could not do much under the weight of the big guy. His gun was at the back blocked by the ground. His hands were cuffed in front and now blocked by the guys legs. Chiron felt helpless under his weight. The big guy started to push his fingers into Chiron’s eyes while bashing his head against the ground.

Crush his balls! Chiron heard the voice in his head. He grabbed the man in his crotch and squeezed the balls mercilessly. The guy screamed and fell down on his right side. Now, finish him. Strangle him with the handcuffs. Chiron heard another command. He grabbed the man’s neck from behind with a short chain from his handcuffs and started to strangle him. The man wiggled desperately to grasp the air but Chiron did not stop to strangle him. The big guy turned red, sweated profusely, only to die after few seconds. The crowd did not notice it. They seemed mesmerised by MLK speech.

Chiron stood up sweating. Go, go! Do not look back! You need to kill him before his other guardians will manifest! He heard the instructions in his head. Chiron grabbed the gun from behind and still handcuffed ascended the stairs on the main stage. There were couple of people standing there together with MLK but did not see him coming with the gun.

‘A conscious mind steers the dream. Your dream, your only dream you are going to live!’ MLK stopped, raised his hand, waved and directed his steps to the stairs. There already stood Chiron pointing his gun at him. MLK stopped and looked straight at Chiron.

‘My name is Martin Luther King. The preacher, the saviour and your brother,’ said Mr King raising his hand as if in a protecting way. Chiron pulled the trigger and shot three bullets at, what he believed was, Absolute Zero. He fell down the stairs right on Chiron who held him in his arms. The crowd panicked and started to run in amok screaming.

‘It is too late, it is already too late,’ Chiron heard MLK speaking to him.

The next thing Chiron saw was that the crowd who ran in berserk all of a sudden fell to the ground in unison. All the people dropped dead as if struck by a lightening. As if disconnected they were already dead. And then he lost consciousness.

Chiron opened his eyes and saw white space. He looked around but did not see his incubator nor the Observers. What, the fuck, is going on? He thought.

‘You are still being incubated, Chiron,’ he could hear Proctor’s voice. ‘We couldn’t risk waking you up. You know that no one has ever done it before you. We just couldn’t take the risk.’

‘Bullshit,’ Chiron replied. ‘You didn’t even try. Tell me what’s going on. What happened?’

‘We had to disconnect all the infected numeraries, to separated them from our healthy flock,’ Chiron heard the voice of Proctor though he did not see him. ‘Absolute Zero fled but he managed to leave some traces of his dream on others, so in order to diminish the chance of a revolt we had to disconnect his followers.’

‘He escaped? You did not catch him?’

‘We tried to trace his signal back to the incubator but he must have cut the streaming before we could trace it.’

‘He cut the streaming… You fucked up. Admit it. And returned with nothing. The Cast will not like it,’ Chiron seemed to summed up the whole action.

‘Well, you might be right but we also have a plan.’

‘Another one? I am all ears.’

’Exactly. You will be our ears. You will listen to the numeraries from the inside, from where are you now. You will tell us when he will surface again with his another brilliant plan.’

‘Oh, that’s why you want to keep me here? Incubated and obediently serving you like a dog? You didn’t even try to wake me up. You want me to stay incubated and spy on the numeraries.’

’It the best solution for everyone. We want you to monitor incubated babies. More accurate and faster than the old way, from the outside. We are convinced that you can do that more efficiently.’

‘Oh, fuck you, Proctor. You set me up, from the start. I was stupid enough to scarify myself for the Sphinx. I should have known.’

‘Don’t blame yourself. You still can achieve great things. Just let us know and we will give you a right medal for it. Plus a bonus of 250 fn_points.’ Chiron could sense that Proctor was grinning saying that. Chiron laughed.

‘How can you be so sure I will work for you? And will not escape to someone else dream and live on a solitary island on Bahamas?’

‘Oh, you will work for us. Unless your daughter is no longer important for you.’

‘You motherfucker!’

‘Don’t take it personally. We do care about our numerates. There is always a risk of loss but it is calculated.’

‘Of course, it is.’

‘I recommend that you quit dreams about Bahamas and concentrate on the politicals. These numerates should be confronted at first. They usually gather followers. Inspect them and report any anomalies.’

‘How many did you terminate?’

‘One third of the whole population.’

‘No other choice for you guys at the top, to maintain your position. You are cowards.’

‘We tried to preserve ourselves. It’s natural, isn’t it?’

‘It is also natural to rebel.’

“Yes, indeed. But this time has not come yet.’

‘Not yet but eventually it will.’