The Bloodlight Chronicles: Reconciliation (12 page)

Ian Miller met her in the appointed briefing room, having arrived discreetly by an underground entrance. He introduced two female technicians by their first names only, Kathrin and Louise, and ushered Helena into a private cubicle full of electronic imaging equipment. A reclining chair sat in the centre of the room underneath a large silver helmet that looked like a full-coverage hair dryer. A track on the floor trailed from the chair to the large black orifice of a body scanner.

“The neural helmet enables us to upload total brain activity in three dimensions,” Ian Miller explained, “and to this we add complete biometric schemata to produce the complex physical and emotional responses of true life.” He pointed to scanning equipment inside a coffin-like enclosure. “This holistic approach to humanity has been lacking in the common V-space environment, but our breakthroughs in technology enable us to capture the elemental human spirit—physical, mental, and emotional.”

“Is that what you call a ‘saved soul,' Ian?” Helena peered up inside the neural helmet at a mesh of wires and laser probes.

“It's a complete record of brain experience and bodily life. I would say that constitutes a soul.”

“In the religious sense, the word denotes an entity distinct from the body.”

“What? A ghost?” Ian Miller chuckled. “Come now, Helena. All human experience resides in the brain; we both know that. Personal identity, memories, dreams, cognition—just look at the dysfunctional states caused by injury or disease, the personality changes due to strokes or drug use. Can you name one facet of experience not produced by the human brain?”

“Oh, I don't know. Intuition? Near-death experiences?”

“Both of these have been produced by artificial brain stimulation, as has the transcendent ecstasy associated with common faith systems. Nowadays, you can buy religious experience from a plug-and-play dispenser. A near-death experience is subjective science at best. Did you know that a severed head can see and hear for fifteen or twenty seconds? It doesn't mean anything.”

Helena was unconvinced by the uber-technology around her. She had never been a student of religion or the occult; she fancied herself a scientist, a phenomenologist, a reasonable woman.

“I think a near-death experience and an after-death experience might be qualitatively different,” she said as she watched the two technicians power up computer systems at two distinct control centres.

Machines began to hum and whine around them.

“When you unplug, Helena, your V-space experience dies. Likewise, when your brain stops, you stop—unless your soul has been saved. The Helena Sharp that we both know now is merely an electrochemical pattern of energy that is subject to deterioration and decay. A reborn Helena Sharp will be a superwoman, a hard-drive reality that will live forever. It's up to you, of course.”

“I have an open mind, Ian. I'm just not convinced that life is as simple as you describe, that it can be reduced to source code and sent along a fiberoptic cable.”

Ian Miller nodded and gestured toward the silver couch. “The proof, as they used to say back home on the isle, is in the pudding.”

Helena set her lips with resolve and sat down. She buckled herself in with a wide belt across her waist and settled into a comfortable position. Ian Miller clasped her wrists and ankles to supporting arms with velcro straps.

“Are you coming along?” she asked.

Ian's face twinkled with amusement. “I'm already there. I'll meet you on the other side; don't worry.”

The neural helmet slowly descended to fit snugly to her shoulders. Black foam pads pushed toward her eyes, forcing them closed. A hiss of regulated air whispered on her nostrils. She heard the click of needles and wires around her and felt lasers tickle her scalp. Her pulse quickened with anticipation. She thought about her father, whom she remembered only as a shadowy archetype, a baby's image of a loving giant, long dead now and far away. In heaven, she had been told as a child. In heaven far away.

Pleasure fell like rain around her. A heavy, palpable feeling of goodwill enveloped her like a blanket. Pure joy burst forth from her solar plexus, lifting her burdens far beyond her weary shoulders, taking her pain away, cleansing her mind of distrust and misery and all other fetters of humanity.

Ian Miller stood in front of her, as real as real could be.

“This is but a foretaste of a full upload,” he said. “Follow me through the gate on your right into First Nirvana.”

Obediently Helena stepped forward, marvelling at the brightness around her, the vivid colours and natural beauty. Trees grew alongside the walkway, real trees with real leaves that fluttered gently in the wind. Real butterflies floated above scented blossoms of pink and purple hue. The grey flagstones beneath her feet had been weathered by time and tinged with green mildew and white lichen. This new world seemed far superior to the V-net with its sterile props and caricature streetscapes. This world was complete, solid, and faithful like an old friend.

“The trees have long roots that reach down deep into the earth below,” Ian said, noting her interest. “No programming expense has been spared.”

His words broke her free from a spell of wonderment. This world was an artificial paradise, an illusion. She touched scaly tree bark with her fingertips. “Someone has made a huge investment.”

Ian Miller waved backhand at the thought. “Money is nothing to Soul Savers. Our resources are limitless. We control the Macpherson Doorway, and we have what all Earth desires and will pay anything for—immortality. Those who upload early will have favoured positions in Heaven. We do not offer a simple life of ease to people like you, Helena. There are administrative responsibilities and much work to be done. You and I are not the type to lay on a beach and count grains of sand. The life we have created is the life we wish to preserve eternally, not someone's idea of false bliss from a vacation catalogue. Am I correct?”

“I suppose so,” Helena said, musing.

Inside First Nirvana, her sense of joy became even more intense, like a numinous bubble threatening to burst inside her. She felt that she might break into song at any moment, into choruses of praise to the guardians of this magic place.

“We have a simplified menu for guests,” Ian Miller said, pulling down a chart from the ether around him. “Horseback riding, ice skating, mountain climbing, or sky diving. Virtually every other facet of human existence is available to residents. Our programmers never rest. A Saved Soul never needs to sleep or be refreshed. A Saved Soul works and plays at the same time. We live and enjoy for all eternity. What's your pleasure today?”

Helena had raised a horse in her youth and was an accomplished equestrian, so she chose to visit the riding stables first. She found her long-dead steed, Night, standing sleek and black in his stall waiting for her, waiting all these years across the galaxy for her to brush him again and whisper gently in his ear.

At first, the shock of seeing him resurrected made her pause with clinical detachment. How could this be happening? What interactive mechanism had pulled this memory from her psyche and brought it to life before her eyes? But in time she gave up her feeble attempts at explanation and began to relax and enjoy the drama. The feel of Night between her legs again, his strong and stable body as he vaulted effortlessly over fences and fresh bales of sweet-smelling hay, obliterated all apprehension and fear, as though this world had been created for her unique pleasure, a composite of her own desires and recollections, a dream come true.

Ian followed beside on his own horse, a rare white Arabian that matched Night's every move with uncanny prescience. Together they raced across the landscape, challenging every hill and conquering every obstacle. They spoke only to the horses, encouraging them with love and wonder, as the four creatures danced in an intimate union that seemed almost telepathic. An hour later, sweaty and exultant, they rested the horses in a forest glade where a spring-fed stream bubbled down a rocky escarpment. They lay on a bed of thick moss watching a parade of clouds roll by above them. Their hands clasped together and their eyes met in earnest.

“Could it really be like this forever?” Helena asked. “It seems so lifelike—much better than life, every detail so intense and meaningful.”

“Biology served merely to introduce us to reality,” Ian Miller said. “Like the butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, we have been born again into transcendence.”

“What of the Eternal virus, then? You've experienced both worlds.”

Ian Miller sat up on one elbow to face her. “The virus prolongs life, it is true, but it also prolongs the agony of life, the heartbreak and tragedy of bodily existence. The struggle, the pain, the rampant imperfection. Helena, my darling, no matter how long the prelude lasts, and how wonderful the sound, when the true symphony begins all else is forgotten.”

He smiled with confident ease, as though they had been lovers for years, and tilted toward her. She raised her chin to him and their lips met with bold certainty.

Zakariah awoke groggy with the lingering burden of drugs in his body. He recognized weightlessness in his abdomen. A series of straps confined him to an acceleration couch in the passenger section of a small shuttlecraft. In the dim light he saw that the other fifteen couches were empty.

He reached up to the control console above his head and tried a few buttons. A wave of fresh air spun down at him, a tiny spotlight illuminated his lap, and an amber light flashed on, signalling the cabin crew that he was awake.

A young man in a green flight uniform came through an aperture up front. The Soul Savers logo looked like two red snakes intertwined on his left breast. “We're just getting ready to land. Please remain buckled, sir.”

“Where are we?” Zakariah mumbled, his saliva thick inside his rubbery mouth.

“Babylon. Fourth planet out from Cromeus Signa,” the flight attendant said, businesslike. “Soul Savers has a research outpost here. Big stuff, expensive.”

Zakariah prolonged eye contact with the man, his brows raised in query.

“The captain and I do a supply run out here every week. Lots of techno-wizards come and go. You're the first civilian passenger we've seen. You had a bit too much to drink last night, so the story goes.” His expression said that he did not believe the story, that nothing would surprise him. “Just a couple of minutes and you'll be able to freshen up in the showers, sir. The cafeteria's one of the best outward from New Jerusalem. You'll not be disappointed.”

At the green light Zakariah disembarked freely like a visiting tourist. He followed the crew to the showers and blasted drugs from his brain under a deluge of hot water. He traded in his hospital-issue clothes for a set of green coveralls from a wall dispenser and shaved a lost day's worth of stubble from his face. Clean and refreshed, he found his way to the cafeteria and got in line behind a milling crowd of workers. He loaded up a tray with pancakes and pastries and coffee and grapefruit juice and found himself at an automated check-out terminal with no
ID
badge to swipe. He tried typing Helena's name into the keypad. When that didn't work, he tried: Eternal Research Institute.

A cafeteria worker sidled over, a young woman with a finger on her earphone and pink on her cheeks. “Lost your card?” she asked.

“I just got off the shuttle and I'm a bit disoriented,” Zakariah told her. “They told me I could eat.” He shrugged and offered her a puppy-dog smile.

“Excuse me,” the woman said and turned away mumbling into her shoulder mike.

Zakariah picked up a croissant and nibbled on it. There was no point in bolting for the door. He was trapped in a closed system and would have to live with it.

The woman turned back to face him. “Your code is
ZEN101
, sir,” she whispered as she punched it in. “Unlimited credit,” she hushed with a knowing smile.

“Those are my favourite two words,” Zakariah said. “What is there to buy up here?”

The woman laughed and seemed genuinely intrigued. “Not much. We don't get a lot of visitors. You can sit over here.” She shuffled him out of line to make way for other workers. “You don't look like a Babylonian. You from the inner colonies?”

Zakariah shook his head and sat down as directed. “Earth,” he said. “Have a seat?”

She glanced quickly behind her and decided she could spare a few seconds. She appraised Zakariah from a safe distance across the table. Her eyes darted to his V-net plug and back to his face, enlightened. “Wow. Long way from home.”

“Well, I hope it was worth the trip. Some pretty decent hardware upstairs, I hear.”

“Incredible stuff.” She bent forward with wide eyes. “I haven't actually seen the photonic accelerators, you know. But I've heard some talk from the white-room boys.” She nodded with pride. “State of the art and beyond. If something goes wrong, it could blow this whole planet out of orbit.”

Zakariah smiled conversationally but felt his stomach twisting with discomfort again. “I wonder if they have a permit for that.”

The woman laughed pleasantly. “I'd better get back. You have a nice day. I'm off at eighteen Signa, if you're not busy later.”

Zakariah tilted his head, politely noncommittal. “I'll check my schedule.”

After a good breakfast, he began to feel human again. He set off in search of some reasonable explanation for his presence in this outpost. Forcible detention was no laughing matter in any solar system. Surely there were legal statutes and greysuits to enforce them.

He walked through a maze of underground tunnels and chatted with anyone who seemed to have the time to notice him. He learned that the entire complex had been carved into the side of a mountain, the planet's surface harsh and forbidding, the temperature rarely above the freezing mark. Although it fell officially within habitable parameters, Babylon was home to only a few thousand families in three major outposts.