Technobabel (9 page)
Skilled
Matrix
programmers
have
known
for
years
the
power
of
the
imagination
.
The
system
memory
required
to
program
a
supra-realistic
icon
to
interact
with
multiple
senses
is
substantial
(taste
and
smell
are
usually
overlooked
as
cues
by
most
programmers,
often
unwisely,
as
we
shall
see)
.
Balancing
system
functionality
against
the
complexity
of
programmed
images
involves
certain
trade-offs,
compromises
a
programmer
has
to
make
.
One
of
the
ways
in
which
programmers
make
up
for
this
deficiency
in
memory
space
is
by
using
certain
sensory
"
cheats
"
to
produce
the
effects
they
are
looking
for
.
Instead
of
programming
every
single
detail
of
the
desired
image
or
sensory
impression,
the
programmer
uses
certain
key
elements
of
the
experience
to
evoke
an
overall
sensation
from
the
receiver
of
the
impressions
.
Simsense
producers
and
editors
use
a
similar
technique
in
producing
simchips
.
The
user’s
own
imagination
fills
in
the
"
gaps
"
in
the
sensory
information
to
produce
a
contiguous
whole,
and
the
entirety
of
the
impression
is
perceived
with
minimal
system
space
occupied
by
the
necessary
imagery
.
This
technique
of
"
simplifying
"
sensory
impression
has
been
known
to
practitioners
of
memorization
and
visualization
techniques
for
centuries,
but
with
the
advent
of
virtual
reality
programming
and
ASIST
technology,
we
have
opened
entirely
new
doorways
of
perception,
the
likes
of
which
Aldous
Huxley
could
never
even
have
dreamed
.
We
are
learning
more
than
just
how
to
program
our
machines
.
We
are
learning
how
to
program
ourselves
.
—
Iconography
and
the
Deep
Mind,
by Dr. Yoshi Tanaka, E-Books Press,
The dreams I have are strange. I recall a glittering neon world of line and form extending in all directions to the endless horizon, and another place which is all that and so much more. I hear songs and words and riddles in that place, but they are not in any language spoken by human mouths. It is a secret language.
The language of the other place.
I remember. I remember going down a long trail to a place with a deep well full of silvery water. A voice tells me to drink from the well, and I cup the water in my hands, cool and shimmering like quicksilver. As I drink it down I realize it’s not water I’m drinking,
it’s
knowledge. Liquid software, every molecule encoded with information, spreading out through my cells in a cool wave, speaking to my DNA in a strange and alien language. I’m changing, changing, changing into what?
I wake from the dream with a start and realize I’m not where I was before. The dark and damp alley is gone and daylight streams into the room. Where am I?
A bed.
A clean bed in a room somewhere.
How did I get here? I remember the alley and the chop-shop and the ghoul and I wonder if this place is as dangerous. It feels different to me for some reason. I feel safe here. This place is familiar somehow. I think I know it, but the information slips away from me when I try and grasp it, as elusive as the images from my dream. I still can’t remember anything from before waking up in the alley where the body-snatchers found me and I wonder if I’ve simply forgotten coming here from the alley. Or has all of it been a dream? No. I’m sure what I recall of the encounter with the body-snatchers and their ghoul boss was real. I glance at the back of my wrist and I can still see the faint white line where the cutting blade emerged. That was certainly real.
I look around the room and take stock of my surroundings. The place is old and shows signs of its age. The walls are of stone, heavy and gray, and the floor is covered with an oriental carpet of faded jewel tones. The light in the room comes from tall, slitted windows. Some of them are covered with sheets of translucent construction plastic in different colors while a few still have panes of stained glass in them. The glass depicts saints and religious icons and sends shafts of colored light slanting into the room. The light suggests that it is very early—or quite late—in the day. I wonder how long I have been asleep. I felt like I could have slept for days in the alleyway, but I feel well-rested now. The furniture and trappings of the room are all mismatched and scavenged, but in good repair.
The door opens and a boy, no more than ten years old, looks in at me. He’s wearing coveralls and a T-shirt that look to have been patched a few times in strategic worn-out spots. His hair is cropped almost military-short and his face and hands are clean. There is a kind of awe in his eyes and he smiles widely at me and seems pleased that I’m awake.
Just as I’m about to speak to him and ask where I am, he turns and runs off. I toss aside the sheet and thin blanket and get myself out of bed and stretch. My clothes are clean, neatly folded at the foot of the bed, and I start pulling them on. I find my boots sticking out from under the bed and put those on as well and lace them up. There’s still no knowing if I might have to leave this place quickly. I look around for the gun I took from Weizack, and I’m not surprised to find it is not in the room. I can hardly blame my hosts for relieving me of it. It might have been left behind in the alleyway, but it wasn’t likely that anyone who would bother to pick me up and bring me here would have left something like a loaded gun lying around. My stomach rumbles and I wonder again how long it’s been since I last ate. I can’t remember the last time, though it feels like I haven’t eaten in weeks. Maybe I haven’t.
As if in answer to my thoughts, the boy comes back into the room carrying a tray and in the company of an old man. I don’t know how old, maybe fifty or sixty. He looks like someone who has always been old, someone who is hard to picture ever being young. He’s Asian, fine-boned like a bird, with long white hair, a neat little beard, and a gentle smile that he gives when he sees me.
"You’re awake. Good. I was worried about you." When he says it I know he means it. I don’t know quite how to respond, so I just nod and watch. He has a cloth bag over his shoulder that looks quite full. He nods to the boy, who carries the tray over to the small table beside the bed and sets it down. The older man sends him out of the room with a pat on the back,
then
closes the door behind him.
"When you turned up missing, I sent the others out to look for you, but it was some time before we found you near the Combat Zone in that alley. It’s a good thing we did, before some of the other inhabitants of the Rox decided to take what they would have seen as easy prey."
"They did," I say, speaking to him for the first time. "Some men took me from the alley. I think they were body-snatchers, organleggers. There was a ghoul at the place where they took me. I managed to escape and ran. I ended up in the alley and must have passed out." The old man looks very grave and gives a low "hmmm" sound deep in his throat as I speak.
"The Tamanous," he says with some distaste. "Ghouls and grave-robbers
who
traffic in stolen body parts. They have never troubled us before this. I will have to see to it that they do not think they can interfere with our sacred sites. You are fortunate to have escaped from them intact." He gives a faint smile tinged with irony. "Perhaps you should have been a warrior instead of a mystic." A tantalizing smell reaches my nostrils, and the old man gestures toward the tray at the bedside.
"You must be hungry. It is time to break your fast and regain your strength. Come and eat."
I make my way over to the table. The tray has a bowl of steaming soup on it and a couple of sandwiches. I pick up one of the sandwiches and bite into it, making it vanish,
then
start on another. It is the best food I have ever tasted, although I have trouble recalling ever tasting anything before. The old man seems amused by my hunger and watches quietly for a moment.
He moves over to an open spot on the floor and sinks into a cross-legged position with much more grace than I’d expect from an old man. He takes some devices from his bag and sets them up on the floor in a pattern that seems strangely familiar, like so many things. It brushes against my mind teasingly, but retreats when I try to grasp hold of it. While he arranges the items on the floor to his satisfaction, I finish the other sandwich and begin drinking the soup. It’s very good, too. The warmth of it spreads out from my stomach and makes me feel safe and comfortable for the first time since I awoke. The old man waits quietly for me to finish eating before speaking to me again.
"Come," he says in a tone that’s more inviting than commanding. "Sit with me and tell me what you saw in the Resonance and we will interpret the images and omens."
I look for a long moment at the serene old man sitting on the floor and I decide there is no point in lying to him.
"Sir, I have no idea what you are talking about. What is this ‘resonance’ and who are you?"
He cocks his head like a quizzical bird and looks at me with his dark eyes for a moment, like he is looking into the depths of my soul. Then he waves his hand toward the clear spot on the floor in front of him.
"
Sit,
and I will explain," he says.
I make my way over, inside the small ring of technological gear, and sit down with my legs folded up beneath me, resting on my knees and settling my weight on my heels, different from the old man’s lotus position, but it feels comfortable. I study his face and appearance, sitting there like a smiling Buddha, and try to place him in my memory. "Do you know me?" I ask.
A spark of hope ignites inside me. "What’s my name?" He
shrugs,
a gesture that carries considerable calm and acceptance of what is. "I took your name from you before you left," Papa Lo says, like it’s something he tells everyone when they wake up not remembering who they are. "You’re the only one who can find out what your new one is.
"You are part of our tribe. We are called the Netwalkers and we live in the Rox, a section of the Boston sprawl, like many other tribes we trade with. You had no family or means, so we took you in off the streets. You became part of our community, and you showed you had the potential to experience the Resonance."
"You mentioned that before," I say. "What is this resonance? Is that why I can’t remember anything?"
If Papa Lo is upset at being interrupted he doesn’t show it. Instead he smiles. "Yes," he says. "Temporary memory loss is not uncommon with the experience of the Resonance, although I think you will find that your memory will be much improved when you have fully recovered, and that you will recall events and information with great clarity from now on.
"Unlike the other tribes of the city," he continued, "we are the Walkers-of-the-Network, the intermediaries between the world of the physical and the world of light and knowledge." He reverently brushed a hand across the smooth plastic finish of one of the pieces of hardware laid out on the floor.
"The Matrix is a place that exists within the infinite data-space of the world network, the grid. It is another world created by computers and mathematics, a world we can visit using computers as our gateway to enter and explore."