Connexion : The Atlantis Project, Book.1 (27 page)

Jacques said rather tactlessly, “Isn’t it
mainly the fact that things didn’t happen the way he was expecting
that’s rattled him? Knowing what he’s like, I wouldn’t be
surprised.”

Charlie quickly answered his brother, without
waiting for Giuseppe’s reaction.

“No, Jacques, I don’t think so. He’ll
definitely need some time to accept the fact that such a thing
could happen without him understanding the real reasons for it.
Apparently nothing from his predictions or the previous attempts
led him to believe I was capable of suddenly freeing myself of the
neural probe’s hold the way I did. Despite appearances, I’m sure
maintaining our mental and physical well-being is very important to
Francisco. He’s a young man with a very inflexible personality, but
it’s precisely that inflexibility that means we can trust him. He
does not experience events the same way we do. The emotions they
arouse in him are not tempered. They are unmitigated. I’m sure
they’re very intense, especially if he feels guilty about something
that has happened to someone in his care. Personally, I don’t think
such distrust toward Francisco is founded. I understand what
Giuseppe means.”

“
What’s come over you, Charlie? This guy
is still trying to take us for a ride. Don’t tell me you haven’t
noticed that he’s trying to bring us round by playing on our
sentiments. There must be some other reason for his
absence.”

Charlie would have liked to answer him in
private but that was not possible. He hoped that Jacques would soon
understand for himself and abstain from interfering in the
conversation.

“I’m glad to see that you are not blinded by
appearances, Charlie,” said Giuseppe. “I know Francisco better than
anybody and I can say that there is no reason for worry or doubt
about his sincerity.”

“My brother is a bit edgy after the emotional
roller-coaster he’s just been on. I’m sure he has as much time for
Francisco as I do, don’t you Jacques?”

“Yes, of course I do,” he said, giving
Charlie a veiled, accusing look.

“Well now, all this has not helped us find
out how you managed to leave the connection of your own volition,
Charlie. Perhaps you can offer us some explanation of the matter?
Let’s go and sit at the table, if you will.”

Giuseppe walked over to the small door, which
he opened to let them through, pointing to two chairs which had
already been pulled out from the table. They sat facing one
another, the twins on one side and Giuseppe on the other. This time
there were no biscuits or tea; no smell or object or any decoration
to brighten up the little room where the interview was to take
place. This was going to be long.

31 THE INTERVIEW

“Well now, Charlie, I suggest we don’t lose
any time on insignificant details. There will be time later to go
over the order of events and everything you experienced during the
connection. For now, what interests me is Victor, and Victor alone.
I think you said you had met him in person. You even indicated that
he was at the origin of the neural probe being temporarily
disconnected. Francisco thought you were delirious, but I’m not so
sure. In theory, such a meeting should not be possible, at least,
not in such a direct way. We would never have imagined that your
minds could communicate with each other. Francisco still cannot
bring himself to accept the idea, so you can imagine that it is
even more unthinkable for him that Victor was able to voluntarily
disconnect the neural probe, although that is what you suggested.
In any case, I would like to have your opinion on the matter. What
do you have to say on the subject? Did you really have the
impression you were talking directly to another conscious being? By
conscious, I mean a being that was capable at some time or other of
showing signs of autonomy and independent will – a being that was
not simply an illusion or a memory manipulated by your own
mind.”

Charlie hesitated for quite some time. He had
thought he would be free to tell of his experiences in the
connection in chronological order. He never would have expected
Giuseppe to ask him such a direct question. By tackling this
subject immediately, he was forcing Charlie to walk a tightrope
from the outset. And there was no safety net made up of the many
clues he would have gleaned from a conversation that had gradually
led up to this point. Then Charlie heard his brother’s voice
resounding in his head:
“You know what? I think Giuseppe knows a
lot more than he’s letting on. Not only has he spent hours studying
the transcripts of our conversations through the neural probe, but
I think he also has access to quite a lot of concrete information
which he hasn’t told us about yet. If this cave really is a
hibernation base, as you explained, it must contain a lot more
tangible clues, maybe even documents which Giuseppe has access to.
I think he mainly wants to find out just who he’s dealing with. He
obviously wants to know Victor better and be sure that the N.H.I.’s
do not represent a danger to humans. At least, that’s opinion and
when I mentioned Mario, he didn’t contradict me. You know, Charlie,
he’s bound to secrecy in some areas, but I’m getting to know him
well, and I really think we can trust Mario. He will always do what
he can to give us the information we need when the time comes.
Other than that, I don’t know exactly what you went through in the
connection but you seem to have developed a close bond with Victor.
You are the only one who knows what you can or can’t say. In your
own interest, and maybe Victor’s, too, be cautious when you answer,
Charlie! That’s what I say, if you still want my advice.”

Charlie could not respond immediately, but he
was keenly aware that by these words, Jacques was doing all he
could to renew the close relationship they had always had before
the connection had imposed a temporary separation on them. He
thought for another minute then finally launched into the answer
that Giuseppe had been patiently waiting for.

“That’s right. I saw Victor and I talked with
him just as I’m talking with you now. I don’t know why, but he
didn’t look the same.”

“What did he look like?”

“Well actually, he looked like an old man – I
mean a human.”

“How do you explain such a distortion of
reality?”

“I can’t really explain it, as least not for
sure.”

“Tell me more.”

“I think it could have been a construct of my
own mind to symbolize or personify the being I was communicating
with.”

“Isn’t it rather more likely to have been an
illusion, or a hallucination? What do you think, Charlie? I mean,
do you think that would be plausible?”

“Entirely possible,” Charlie replied quite
calmly and confidently.

Giuseppe observed him for a moment without
saying anything. Charlie was obviously sure about the source of his
vision of Victor but did not want to get into justifications which
could lead the conversation in a direction he was not comfortable
with. The elderly Italian decided to stay on topic anyway, becoming
more insistent.

“Do you have any arguments in favor of this
hypothesis?”

“The same ones as you, I guess! In something
like a waking dream, it is possible that my desire to meet Victor
was so strong that my brain constructed an image of him that
corresponded to what I already knew about him. Right from my first
entry into his memories I realized that he had been lying here for
an eternity and not merely a few thousand years as I thought at
first. That discrepancy struck me, because it seemed impossible
that they could have survived for so long. So it was logical for my
mind to personify him as elderly –”

“Yes, but an elderly human?” Giuseppe
suddenly interjected.

“The N.H.I.’s have a similar appearance to
ours in spite of their huge proportions. I don’t think I’m alone in
noticing that detail. You know more than I do about their
physiology and morphology from studying them in detail for decades
before setting up the cerebral connection research program. I can’t
believe that the similarity did not bother you.”

“What are you saying, Charlie? Do you mean by
that that we could have common origins with the N.H.I.’s?”

“That’s a definite possibility!”

“What makes you say that? Do you have any
information that can support that theory?”

When asking that question, Giuseppe expected
anything but what Charlie was about to say. He gave him a
challenging look before answering.

“What about you, Giuseppe? What information
have you kept secret? Are you sure you aren’t hiding anything from
us?”

Charlie’s tone was no longer quite so polite.
The turn the conversation was taking had driven him to take the
offensive. He would have preferred things to happen a lot more
gradually, but he could not play innocent or meek with Giuseppe any
longer without him noticing. He thought the time had come for him
to take his stand as an indispensible part of the research program.
Giuseppe and his men would now have to reckon with him and it was
time they knew that.

“I’m not hiding anything from you, Charlie,
but I may not have told you about everything we have found out
since discovering this cave. Please don’t see in that some
conspiracy against you, or the desire to hide some dishonorable
details from you. The quantity of data and potentially crucial
information that my team has been able to gather is such that it is
impossible for me to give it all to you in a comprehensive way.
Tell me rather what you are alluding to and I will try to answer
you as frankly as possible. We have been working in a climate of
mutual trust so far and I think it is in the best interest of both
of us if we continue to do so, don’t you?”

The old man’s answer seemed reassuring on the
surface, but on closer inspection, it sounded like a threat or at
least a warning, which did not escape Charlie’s notice. Refusing to
be intimidated, he continued in the same vein anyway.

“While exploring Victor’s memories I found a
map which seemed to be a plan of the hibernation base as it was
initially designed. When I looked at the map closely, I immediately
recognized the architecture of the base where we are now, except
for the new buildings and additions that you have made for human
settlement and research of course. However, there was another wing
at least as vast as the first one; a wing that I had never found,
even in retrospect when I searched back through my own memories.
And yet I had the impression I had been all over this base, many
times, before entering the mind of the one you call Victor. I also
had access, like everybody else, to the map pinned up in the
entrance of every residential pavilion.

“All this could well be a mere error of
interpretation on my part. After all, it wouldn’t be at all
surprising if I had forgotten certain information. I wouldn’t have
thought any more of it except that a question immediately occurred
to me. How Victor possibly be the only survivor, and consequently
the only representative of his kind, found on this hibernation
base? According to what he told me, it was initially designed for
at least 5,000 individuals. I think it would also be pertinent to
mention again that your team was mistaken when they estimated
Victor’ age at several thousand years. I can’t say right now
exactly how old he is, but it would seem – as unbelievable as it
sounds – that it could be millions of years. So you see, Giuseppe,
my journey into Victor’s mind was not in vain. I have brought back
a lot of information which could be crucially important to you and
your team, and also for the rest of humanity. While this only
concerned us – I mean Clementine, Jacques and myself, I had no
particular reason to distrust you. We weren’t exactly given much
choice in our involvement, it’s true, but we have always been
well-treated. Personally, I appreciate not only the fact that you
trusted me for this experiment but also that you gave me the
opportunity to do something useful with my life; something likely
to profit science and maybe even the progress of all humanity. I
can never thank you enough for what you’ve allowed me to
experience, believe me!

“But now things are different. This is not
just about protecting our own interests anymore. Now I know Victor
so well that it would be impossible for me to betray him. I will
never be the same again, Giuseppe. This experience has deeply
affected me, and it has changed my way of perceiving and thinking
about things. You must take that into account from now on. I just
want to trust you! Tell me about that secret wing, if it actually
exists, and together we will be able to go a lot further than you
could ever have imagined.”

Giuseppe was visibly upset by this answer,
but it was especially Jacques who received it like a stab in the
chest. Had Charlie changed so much that they would forever be
strangers? Giuseppe, disconcerted, asked them to please wait for a
few moments while he went to get some documents from the next room.
He went into the small room with the sloping windows and closed the
door behind him. Standing in front of the windows again, he stared
at Victor’s huge, naked, gray body. Strangely, from this distance
he looked as if he were sleeping peacefully and soundly. He could
see none of the twitching that animated the giant’s body.

Meanwhile Charlie and Jacques were alone. The
silence that filled the room was icy. They did not exchange a
single word or phrase, even through telepathy, until Giuseppe came
back. Part of Charlie regretted having to inflict such a nightmare
on his brother, but there was no other way. Anyway, sooner or later
Jacques had to notice the profound change in his personality. He
only hoped that the future would rule in his favor and that he
would find words to reassure him.

A long while later Giuseppe reappeared. He
seemed to be having a lot of trouble hiding the obvious concern
which lined his face. He was pushing a cart on which were a
computer and an enormous glass panel, which Charlie recognized
instantly. Without a doubt it was a graphic tablet just like the
one Senec had used. He placed the computer on the table, leaving
the cart by the doorway. Once seated again, he began typing in
earnest on the keyboard. Neither Jacques nor Charlie took the risk
of breaking the silence, although it became quite heavy. Several
minutes later, he finally looked up at one of small room’s the
metallic walls. It suddenly started to vibrate, then sank slowly
down into the floor, revealing a much larger room which held a
gigantic glass case below, which looked impenetrable and was quite
luminous. In its centre they could quite clearly see the contours
of what resembled a model of unusual size. Sitting on an enormous,
perfectly polished, shiny gray, steel plinth, the model itself
seemed to be made of metal also, but much paler, almost white. From
this distance, Charlie could only make out vague details but
quickly understood that it must be a three-dimensional model of the
base.