Connexion : The Atlantis Project, Book.1 (24 page)

“Antarctica is huge. How could I find a city
buried under kilometers of ice? Would there be any vestiges of it
left?”

“The task is difficult, I agree, but I have
faith in you. With Giuseppe’s technical help you will find it, I’m
sure. You have information within you that you do not even suspect
yet and when the time comes it will permit you to locate
Australopolis. Trust your intuition, as you have done successfully
up till now. Your intuition is the guiding force allowing you to
access the knowledge that has migrated from my brain to yours,
through convergence. I would have liked you to discover that
information here, but now it’s too late. It’s high time you got
back to your brother. Perhaps it’s better this way after all. You
will find out in due time when the context is right. That will save
you revealing everything to them before you’ve protected both your
own interests and mine.”

Charlie supposed he was alluding to what he
would have discovered through the third door. It seemed logical,
but he wanted to be sure.

“You are referring to what is on the other
side of the third door, I suppose?”

“That third door doesn’t exist anymore.
Neither do the others. I didn’t choose those doors. At first I
wasn’t sure what we would find through them, but with the benefit
of hindsight and thanks to convergence, I found a whole portion of
my memory again. I remember that before he disappeared, Senec sent
me a long letter in which he presented in great detail the plans
and position of Australopolis. I can’t remember all of the
information it contained. A large part of it has not yet emerged in
my conscious memory and you could probably have helped me to access
it, just as you did with Emma. It’s information that was extremely
important at the time. My brother had always trusted me, so I
wasn’t surprised when he confided in me again, but on that occasion
something was different. For the first time he was expressly
telling me – or rather writing to me – what he had to say. It
wasn’t his usual habit, as you know. Before, he had always arranged
things so I would have to find out for myself, indirectly. That
time, he probably needed to know that someone he trusted would be
able to find them one day, if he had the chance – someone who would
not speak of it to anyone else. So I buried the information deep in
my memory and never spoke of it. You are the only other person who
knows about it now, Charlie. Only you and I know where they dug
themselves in at the time.”

“Do you think their descendents could still
be there?”

“It’s very unlikely, if not impossible and in
that case, it would mean they never made it back above ground. No,
if they didn’t all die before having the opportunity, I suppose
they might have tried to come up when they thought the external
conditions were sufficiently favorable. Their technology would have
permitted it, but anything could have happened and I don’t know any
more on the matter than you.”

“I’m sorry to insist on this point, but in
the event that they could not or would not come back up, would
their technology have allowed them to keep living underground for
so long? After all, after such a long period of confinement,
anything could happen, especially politically.”

“I’m still partially capable of reading your
mind, Charlie, and despite the relative separation caused by the
epileptic seizure, I will be able to continue doing so as long as
we are still connected. However, I admit that I do not understand
exactly what you are referring to when you say ‘politically’.”

“We humans have a natural tendency to search
for solutions and irrational explanations as soon as we are
confronted with fear. Since the dawn of the age, Man and his
ancestors – at least, those we know of – have tended toward
introspection and reliance on hypothetical divinities. It’s an easy
way for us to maintain an illusion of control over some of the
things that threaten us. Some historians think that religions began
in pre-history, in response to natural threats such as fire,
storms, illness and of course, large predators. I don’t know if it
was the same for your people, but if it were the case, I suppose it
wouldn’t be totally unrealistic to think that the inhabitants of
Australopolis, not knowing what awaited them above ground, could
have decided to shut themselves in, rather than risking life on the
surface. It seems difficult to imagine, I know, especially for a
city planned by scientific experts, but centuries of isolation and
fear could well have led to the emergence of some collective
superstitions with disastrous effects. Of course, I’m merely
extrapolating, and what I say may be inspired by my own personal
desires or fantasies.”

“Perhaps you just don’t want to accept that
they’ve disappeared. I loved Emma, and by force of circumstance you
felt that too, when we were under the effects of convergence.”

“That’s possible,” answered Charlie, with a
grave face.

Victor was probably right. The rounded shape
of her face and her reassuring voice would be engraved in his
memory for a long time. He could not forget her, and Victor
perceived that.

“At any rate, what you suggest is not devoid
of sense,” answered Victor. “Despite our degree of civilization,
religion and superstition had not completely disappeared. Neither
science, nor major philosophical and political systems of thought
were ever able to replace them. Incidentally, I don’t know where
this tendency toward spirituality that inhabits us (and perhaps all
living beings to various degrees) comes from. I think, as you put
it so well, that all mortal beings cannot help but tend toward the
irrational, no matter what their degree of consciousness or
evolution. Such a tendency almost certainly existed in
Australopolis, especially as it seems that all the conditions would
have been there to foster it. They must have been subject to
prolonged, intense fear. Confinement would have only added to the
impact of fear on their psyche. But we may never know anything
about it for sure – in any case, not unless you find the remains of
the city. I can’t say why exactly, but I don’t believe in such an
outcome. I would like them to be alive today too, and have them
tell me what happened, but we aren’t in a dream or a memory
anymore. We are talking about reality, which I know to be generally
a lot crueler and less likely to satisfy our desires.”

“You’re right; even if they had the
technological means, no social being could survive for more than a
few generations in such confinement. Sooner or later they would
have tried to get out of there, in spite of all the fears and
beliefs that may have hindered them. Life and its drive for
expansion always prevail in the end.”

“Maybe time will tell, Charlie. This
conversation could go on forever but you must go home now. Don’t
worry about me. I will survive and I hope they will let us have the
opportunity to talk again someday.”

“I would like to be able to inform you
regularly of my progress and tell you about your wife once I have
found her, but I don’t know how. Do you know if other connections
are possible? Failing that, maybe you could learn to use a neural
probe, like to the one they have implanted in me. Its use requires
a little training but if I understand correctly, convergence works
both ways so I guess you should be able to use it without too much
trouble. Don’t you think?”

“Connection would always be possible but I
don’t want to take that risk again. The implantation of a neural
probe, as you call it, seems dangerous.”

“As far as I’m concerned, everything has been
fine, at least up till now. I don’t know if it will still be the
case once they’ve taken it out again, but Francisco seems to know
what he’s doing. I think I can trust him in that area.”

“The risk of bodily harm is one thing, but
there’s something else that bothers me a lot more.”

“What do you mean?”

“What use do you think they’ll make of it?
I’m not at all sure of the merits of such an experiment. It is
probably better if they think I am unable to communicate directly
with them. They mustn’t think that they can do without you. Even if
I can communicate with them, I could never follow them to see what
they are really doing. You can, though. I will wait for you; that
would be better. I will wait until you come and meet me again when
you think the time is right. Don’t be in a rush! Take the time to
weigh up the pros and cons when you need to make the decision.”

“And what if I never come back?”

“Behind me is the kitchen door. That’s how
you came in the first time. Open it and keep in mind that your goal
is to find the path to reality. Once you are through that door
nothing more will filter through from my mind. The connection will
only be physical from then on. No more signals or information will
pass through the neural probe that joins our two brains. You will
be completely on your own. That will give you some time to find
yourself before you return to reality. Don’t hurry, but don’t
forget what your goal is. Finally, I hope that you will not forget
me as you would a bad dream.”

Charlie stood up and walked toward the door.
He was overcome by emotion again and he knew that Victor felt it
too. His back turned, he remained motionless before the little
wooden door. A heavy tear hit the icy tiled floor of the kitchen.
Charlie was trembling. He turned around one last time to say
goodbye to Victor but Victor was no longer there. All that was
visible was a thick blanket of snow, stretching as far as the eye
could see. The cold became more and more invasive, quickly driving
Charlie to leave behind the meeting place that had changed him
forever.

28 RETURN TO REALITY

Behind the little wooden door there was
nothing, absolutely nothing; no floor, no walls, no sky, no
horizon; nothing; total emptiness. Perplexed, Charlie turned
around, in search of some visual point of reference, but the only
one available was the sense that he was standing on his feet. Each
step was another leap into the unknown, in a world devoid of
physical sensation, until the moment when his foot finally
encountered something solid. There was an invisible surface which
he supposed was flat, but could not see. At first, he was afraid of
falling at every step, but after a few minutes Charlie was walking
along without the slightest apprehension. He was not at all
bothered by it anymore, actually. He was preoccupied by something
else entirely. His thoughts were totally focused on what he had
just been through and the memory of all those people that he
absolutely did not wish to forget. He was visualizing their faces
one by one, trying to remember their posture, expressions and
mannerisms.

He even risked closing his eyes, fully aware
that this perceived reality was not real at all. It simply
reflected the emptiness of his mind, or rather the internal
outpouring of a mind overcome by pain. Charlie was completely
absorbed – almost hypnotized – by the flood of images running
through his head. Everything else was emptiness to him; the
fathomless emptiness that tends to follow the loss of a loved one
or a part of oneself. It was the emptiness of grief, which sucks
all the flavor and texture out of life, as if his senses had been
temporarily put on standby, ignoring external stimuli to focus
solely on those coming from within.

After a while – he had no way of measuring
how long, apart from counting the number of his steps – an idea
came to him, abruptly interrupting his painful but nostalgic train
of thought. It became obvious to Charlie that he was refusing to
leave convergence or perhaps it was convergence that was resisting
the separation. It seemed to be clinging to some phantom vestige,
one of those residual images that last for a few split seconds
after an object has disappeared from view. There must be an
enormous amount of energy involved such a process, engaging
billions of neurons; and the separation was violently upsetting an
equilibrium that sought at all costs to remain stable. That was
probably why Victor had told him to take his time, while not losing
sight of his goal. He had to find his reality again and leave that
of convergence, or his brain would never find balanced perception
again. He would risk being continuously persuaded that he was still
connected. Like a schizophrenic, he would be forever lost somewhere
between the real and the imagined; wandering in a reality created
and populated by his own hallucinations.

He opened his eyes again and this time
everything was different. He only needed to think of something for
it to materialize. What appeared first was the enormous lawn he had
crossed to reach the dome on first entering the connection. Charlie
tried to concentrate exclusively on the memory of his first steps
here, those which had drawn him toward Victor while drawing him
away from his own reality. He had to find that bedroom with the bed
where he would be able to go to sleep at last. When he awoke he
would be with Jacques, able to talk to him again, touch him and
even argue with him, if the opportunity arose. Clementine and Mario
would be there, too, anxious to see him again. But for now, he had
to follow this long and laborious road, without turning back or
thinking about Emma, or Victor or all the others who filled his
memory.

The heat had become oppressive. The sun shone
in a deep blue sky, dotted here and there with white clouds that
floated slowly by in the opposite direction to where he was
heading. It was as if they were trying to make him turn back,
drawing him in their wake toward what he absolutely must leave
behind. Suddenly, he noticed a little red dot fluttering
erratically a few meters above the ground. Behind him, after every
step, the lawn seemed to sink down and break up before falling into
a bottomless pit. There was no turning back now. A few meters
further on, he realized that it was an orange butterfly with small,
black markings: a monarch butterfly, the very sort that covers
thousands of kilometers at its risk and peril, to reach its
ultimate goal. A radiant smile lit up his face then, and he
redoubled his efforts, going faster and faster so as not to lose
sight of it. He lifted his feet with difficulty from the soil which
had become thick and loamy. He felt as if he were being trapped and
held back; sucked toward a world he so wanted and needed to get
away from as quickly as possible. After a fierce struggle he
finally collapsed, his knees sunk deep in the mud.