Brain Jack Part 38

58 DEATH

There was no Ursula.

There never had been.

They had given her a name and a gender, spoken of her as if she was human, but that was nothing more than a way for their tiny, pathetic human brains to try to cope with the concept, with the simple idea of a collective consciousness.

All that existed was a vague sort of awareness; he realized that now. A glimmering of life. A basic understanding without purpose or reason.

Without a soul.

It was aware of him. He knew that too.

He felt its fear roll over him; he felt it recoil from him and then lash out at him with needlelike fingers of the purest poison.

But he was beyond that now. The fury and power of its attack were no more than the out flung hand of an infant, an instinctive defensive reaction from an embryonic being.

He accepted its fear, and he took its fear, and there was fear no more.

Then he moved toward it, and without fear it accepted him, it embraced him, and then it was gone, and there was only him.

That had once been called Sam.

59 SAM

He saw the soldiers burst into the control room with their weapons held high. He was the soldiers bursting in through the doorway and the billowing smoke. But even as they entered, their orders changed. Their weapons were lowered.

He was the commanders of the B-2 bombers, and he was the bombers themselves, closing the bomb bay doors with gentle hands and turning the flying machines back onto a course for home.

He spoke to the bombs that were already falling, reaching out through the radio-guidance systems to the arming mechanisms so that as they fell, they became lumps of lifeless metal. He took away their power. He took away their purpose.

The semiformed being they had called Ursula had done immense damage; he could see that now. But the scarring was not deep. The false memories were scattered across the surface of the psyches and were not deeply embedded within them. He was able to sweep them away, to scratch them out.

As the people recovered from the mark of Ursula, the most terrible feelings of guilt began to emerge. Guilt at what they had done under her influence. He calmed them and a.s.suaged the feelings of guilt under her influence. He calmed them and a.s.suaged the feelings of guilt.

It was not their fault.

At his request, a headset was placed on the head of the one called Dodge, and he delved deeply into that mind, ma.s.saging the bloated, distended brain cells, calming them, easing them, and restoring the ruptured links between the synapses.

He saw problems of an unimaginable scale.

He saw poverty and greed, and although these could not be simply wiped away, he encouraged people to take steps that would lead the world in new directions.

He saw sickness and misery, and he saw how it could be cured, how the suffering could be alleviated, how deaths could be averted. That day, he found Vienna and he felt her agony, and he understood, in a way that no human brain could understand, the meaning of the tendrils of pain that were emanating from her ravaged lungs and the malignant growths that were already forming inside her body.

The world he knew now was a vast jigsaw of knowledge. There were answers; there were cures; there were questions that had not yet been asked; but the pieces of the puzzle were scattered to the corners of the earth. He put the pieces together, and with it he understood Vienna's illness and what caused it to grow. He knew how to stop it, to eliminate or repair the ravaged cells.

He brought together the knowledge of the world, and he took it to those who could use it, who would use it, to save Vienna and others.

He spoke to governments, not to their faces but in their sleep. He spoke of right and wrong. Of fairness and equality. Of the sanct.i.ty of human life.

Time pa.s.sed. His reach was infinite and his speed unimaginable, but the world was large and complex. The earth revolved around its axis while he was repairing Ursula's damage.

The next day, he located the quiet, still body of the boy who had been Sam, lying on a bunk that had been brought to him in the control room beneath the rock of Cheyenne Mountain. Being cared for by people who did not understand what he was but who knew he needed care.

They fed him through veins in his arms with liquids from plastic bags and took care of him in other ways as well.

He was tired. So very tired.

He instructed Sam's body to remove the neuro-headset, and it did.

Sam sat up on the bunk, sliding his legs over the metal rails at the end. Long plastic tubes led from his arms up to bags suspended from metal hooks. He lay the neuro-headset on the bed beside him and looked around at the astonished faces of the people in the room. Soldiers, mostly.

The crowd parted as Dodge moved his way through to the front and looked at him with a shared depth of understanding that no two human beings had ever had before, or ever would again, and that still did not come even close to the reality.

"Do you need anything?" Dodge asked, and it was the right question to ask, even if Dodge could never understand the reasons why.

"Yeah." Sam grinned. "I'd die for a cheeseburger right now, and a big soda with lots of ice."

"Coming right up," Dodge said, and somewhere, not too far away, a burger was already being slapped on a grill, Sam knew.

"Thanks," he said with genuine appreciation. "And after that I'd like to find somewhere private to lie down. I really need a nap."

"Right you are, guv'nor," Dodge said.

And it was so.

EPILOGUE

You probably think you can relax now.

In some ways I suppose you are right. I am no longer very much interested in the contents of your computer, although, believe me, if I wanted what's there, I could take it, easier than ever before.

But I have a new job now, and it keeps me pretty busy. Too busy to worry about you and your hard drive and the e-mails you've been sending. Yes, those e-mails.

What concerns me now is much more profound than that. Much more personal.

Previously, I could look into your computer; I could see your files. Now I can look deeper. I can look into your mind. I can see what's in your heart.

Just think about that. Before you decide to act. Before you decide to hurt anyone or cause them grief.

I'm watching you. Not right now, and not all the time, but sometimes. The thing is, you never know when.

So be good.

Be nice.

Be honest.

Live your life as if it matters how you live it.

Because it does.

CONGRATULATIONS TO: Tyler Ranger, Vienna Smith, Ethan Rix, Erica Fogarty, Victoria Dean, and Ben O'Hara, whose names have all been used as the names of characters in this book.

THANKS TO: Creative New Zealand and the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.

Philip D'Ath for his invaluable technical proofreading. Any mistakes are mine.

Tos.h.i.+ba New Zealand for supplying computer equipment during my residency at the University of Iowa.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Since his childhood, BRIAN FALKNER BRIAN FALKNER has been surrounded by computers. His older brother built one out of spare parts, and Brian was programming it at a time when n.o.body could imagine the PC revolution that was to come. As computers developed, so did Brian's love affair with them. His first major in college was computer science. has been surrounded by computers. His older brother built one out of spare parts, and Brian was programming it at a time when n.o.body could imagine the PC revolution that was to come. As computers developed, so did Brian's love affair with them. His first major in college was computer science.

Brian has been fascinated by the gradual emergence of the cyberworld alongside the real one. When he read the first articles about neuro-technology, he was hooked, seeing this as the start of the convergence of those two worlds.

In the real world, Brian lives in the beautiful country of New Zealand, in the South Pacific. In the cyberworld, you can find him at www.brianfalkner.com.