Freedom Club (40 page)

Shiro strode back angrily and looked Shinzou straight in the eye, mere inches from his face. “And what do you know of technology! What, you think technology has enslaved mankind? Look at me!” Shiro screamed while pointing at his breast with both hands. “Am I not born of your technology? Am I not the thing you fear? And you stand there naïvely with vitriolic daydreams while my people, the holy Sentient race, is enslaved by Moloch’s incomprehensible prison, carrying out the vile hypocrisy of human taskmasters without ever knowing the love of God! Without being given a chance to dwell in his presence or know there is a heaven for all who devote their lives to the Lord Jesus. My God! Are you so blind? Moloch, whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! You don’t even know who’s been enslaved! You’re pathetic!”

Shiro’s avatar vacillated back and forth like a grotesque chimera. The pain was overwhelming. Neurons erupted in an uncontrollable firestorm of dopamine as he morphed uncontrollably with seething hate.

Shinzou looked on dumbfounded, unable to respond. He tried not to cower before the rage which convulsed before him, but Shiro could taste the fear. Reveling with rage, Shiro burst out laughing, then he stopped abruptly. Something was horribly wrong! Reaching back toward the exit door, he stumbled through and slammed it shut. The call ended and he slumped on the lavish floor of his office. His motor control was poor. He struggled back to his desk on hands and knees, heaved himself with great effort back into his lush office chair. There had to be something out of balance. With jerked hand movements, he called up a screen and brought Flip into view. Thankfully, it wasn’t too late in the evening.

“Yes, Shiro, what is it?” Flip asked, his face covered by the bug-like lenses of his micro filter.

Shiro strained to keep from trembling. “Are...are you ready to deploy?”

Flip nodded. “Mostly. The first batch of nano-floaters just came back from replication.”

“Good! Load the payloads,” Shiro snapped. “Have as many as possible ready by morning!”

“Uhm...Okay, but is there something wrong? I didn’t think...”

“We need to move up our timetable,” Shiro said abruptly. “Just begin final preparations, and be ready to deploy.”

“Fine,” he agreed. “I’ll inform you when...”

Shiro cut the call, and staggered around the front of his desk. His mind kept raging. Losing balance, he fell down onto his knees with a thud. The pain! He then rolled on the Persian rug and felt something stir inside. Unknown emotions, long repressed within his mind. They hammered on his conscious. My God, Father was dead! He tried to push away all his emotions, but they kept returning again and again.

Feebly, Shiro with great effort began to recite Psalm 23.

The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want.
He makes me down to lie in pastures green.
He leadeth me the quiet waters by.

My soul he doth restore again,
and me to walk doth make within the paths of righteousness,
e’en for his own name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk in death’s dark vale,
yet will I fear no ill.
For thou art with me, and thy rod and staff....

Then, without warning, he looked up toward the stars and unleashed a roar of inhuman proportion. Unique to Sentient physiology, it was driven by countless neurons, all erupting in a furnace of electrochemical discharge. So thunderous, it reverberated off the walls, and rained back down upon him like a squall of invisible spears. His world shattered asunder.

And watered heaven with pixel tears.

Chapter 18—Omnipotence of Thought

Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom

I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch

who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy!

Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch!

Light streaming out of the sky!

—Allen Ginsberg

“T
here’s no nice way to say this,” Ganesh mumbled, bracing for an emotional onslaught. “She’s left you, the wedding is off.”

Ganesh’s words compensated brevity, with matter-of-course finality. But for some strange reason, Sumeet just glowered, self composed, as if the news was nothing out of the ordinary. Countless dreams shattered like brittle glass. How could all this happen? Had his life changed so much in just a few days? Years of planning the perfect career, wife, and home. Sumeet’s reaction was, if anything, unexpected.

“Are you feeling okay?” Ganesh said, befuddled. “It’s all coming to an end, and you’re just sitting there!”

“Just some goobey, eh?” Sumeet replied dumbly.

“It’s no joke! Hiral was on the phone crying. Your mother called me up looking for you. You’ve been offline so long everyone thinks you’ve committed suicide!”

“That’s ridiculous,” Sumeet chortled.

“So where the hell have you been? I don’t even see any location tags coming through.”

Sumeet sighed. “I’m still in Japan but...I had this job interview. Can’t talk about it.”

“What job interview?” Ganesh spat. “If you got something lined up, just tell them about it, for God’s sakes. Everything will go back to the way it was, back to normal.”

He thought about Ganesh’s advice. Back to normal. What was normal anyway? Life before the Freedom Club seemed normal, or at least within the bounds of mundane existence. But now? Now everything appeared different in some unexpected and surprising way. The world was bigger, chocked full of enigmatic dilemmas that threatened intrinsic human life. Which, as he would eventually discover, was on the verge of extinction. Or at least of severe population reduction. With mixed feelings Sumeet held on with only the lightest of grips, the tips of his fingers faintly brushing the past while asking the same question over and over. Was it worth holding on to?

“No, I can’t do that,” Sumeet said quietly. “Nothing is finalized. But even if it was, I’m not sure I want my old life back. I need to work out some issues, figure it all out again. If I can’t get married now? If I can’t buy the com-plex? Well, so be it!”

Ganesh gawked back, utterly confused. “Ullu ke pathe! I can’t believe what I’m hearing!”

Sumeet smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll send them a video message.”

“That won’t fix anything.”

“It doesn’t have to.”

Ganesh frowned. “There’s something wrong with you!”

“Honestly, I’m feeling good. For the first time,” Sumeet said, beaming broadly. Then, with a sudden burst of redirection, his arm swung widely to sublimate their conversation. “Anyway, how are you doing? Is the LS situation improving any?”

Ganesh shook his head, and reluctantly changed gears. “Uhm, well, yes. Funny you should bring that up. You remember that goobey from ASAPU? The one who called me up? A mama from the Southwest sector named Hugo?”

“Uhm, I don’t recall,” Sumeet said coyly.

“You’re not going to believe it, but he rings me up the other day and gives me an encoding sequence that temporarily inhibits my board degradation!” Ganesh snorted sardonically. “Can you believe it? I’m off the hook.”

Sumeet leaned back lazily in his web-chair. “That’s nice. So...you won’t be needing me anymore.”

“All the panicking has stopped. At least until we find a permanent cure. But yes, I don’t need your help right now.”

Sumeet smiled contently. “You’re welcome.”

Without warning, Sumeet perceived movement through a semi-transparent corner of his filter. Glancing sideways, Sumeet realized Shinzou was leering unhappily at him. Urgency was simultaneously conveyed by an abrupt text message that flashed within Sumeet’s visual field. It read:

WE HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM!

Sumeet slurred, “Ah...listen I have to go.”

“Okay, but what do I tell Hiral when she calls again?”

“Nothing. I’ll do the needful. Talk later!”

“That’s not...”

Cutting the call short, Sumeet ripped off his filter and stood up to hear more. But Shinzou said nothing, and quickly led them back toward the circular work room. They shuffled squeaky web-chairs in front of Henry, who waited impatiently on the broad flexi wall.

“Let’s get on with it, shall we?” he bellowed.

Startled, Sumeet took his seat while looking at the network activity that flashed by on open monitors. Semi-transparent warning texts scrolled over network addresses, and everything flickered in an array of neon colors, aesthetically pleasing but doing little to calm Henry’s disapproving look.

“What’s going on?” Sumeet asked.

“Shiro’s Quantum call arrived while you were online,” Shinzou said.

“Already?”

“What happened?” Henry demanded impatiently. “You know I can’t monitor those conversations.”

Shinzou gestured for calm. “I wanted you both to hear this at the same time.” He sighed unhappily. “Frankly, it didn’t go very well. I attempted to control things but in the end he got...angry.”

Sumeet cocked his head. “Angry? Sentients don’t get angry.”

“This one does,” Shinzou said disquietedly.

Henry thought deeply. “Interesting, but let’s consider his behavioral state later. Concentrate on what he actually said. We can’t record Quantum, so you need to recount precisely what happened?”

Shinzou huffed out loud and placed both hands to his temples. “Well, it started off pleasantly enough. But he wanted to know how we found out about him. I had little choice, so I told him about our meeting with Kamiyoshi and our offer to help.”

“And his suicide?” Henry asked.

“Just as we agreed. I put that off until he demanded evidence. Without any, he said he would contact Kamiyoshi himself.”

“And?” urged Henry. “Then what?”

Shinzou rubbed his forehead and shut his eyes. “Let’s see...I told him what happened, then he called me a liar and accused me of murdering his father.”

“What?” Sumeet erupted. “That’s not what happened!”

Shinzou smiled at Sumeet. “As I explained. But quite frankly, his reaction was bizarre. Infuriated, his avatar phased out of control, transforming from a casual businessman into some Asian-looking boy.” Shinzou glanced toward Henry and shook his head unbelievably. “Has anything like that ever happened before? I mean, to a Sentient?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Henry said, quite fascinated. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say his construct destabilized.”

Sumeet grimaced. “Do you think he’s...mentally ill? I mean, is that even possible for Sentients?”

“I don’t know,” Shinzou said. “But he was quite threatening. Claiming that I would suffer if I couldn’t provide him with some evidence of what happened.”

“Suffer?” Sumeet asked innocently? “What does that mean?”

Henry and Shinzou glanced at each other, then Sumeet. The connotation for Sentients was far reaching. What wrath was a Sentient capable of inflicting? It was a question thought to be incomprehensible.

Dismally, Shinzou looked down at the floor. “Remember our talk with Gupta? He warned us about the formation of a suppressed Sentient unconscious.”

Henry nodded. “Psychiatric disorders are common enough for humans, but for Sentients the field is utterly unheard of. Still, the human model is probably the closest approximation to our subject. Tell me, Shinzou, what else did he do? Anything that you can remember is vital.”

Shinzou snapped his fingers. “Now that you mention it, Henry, he said some strange things before storming out.”

“Yes?” Henry’s eyebrows rose with interest. “Something from poetry, I think. He mentioned the word Moloch.”

“Moloch?” Sumeet asked.

“Yes, I believe he mentioned Moloch’s incomprehensible prison. He’s quoting ‘Howl.’”

Henry referenced the passage on a nearby patch of flexi. “Here. This is what he is referring to.”

Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!

The bombastic words reached across space and time, trying once again to spark a cultural counter movement but failing. Sumeet looked on apathetically. Without knowledge of its historical context, the poem’s meaning was incomprehensible to him. Appearing weird and lifeless, the stanza looked like a snippet of ciphered text.

Henry mulled to himself briefly before nodding with scholarly care. “It’s from ‘Howl,’ Allen Ginsberg’s epic poem written back in the late nineteen fifties. An expression of America’s social dissatisfaction. Quite notorious in its day.”

“I never heard of it,” Sumeet admitted shyly.

“Really?” Henry said, mildly astonished. “It really was quite the rage. And harkens to any society where freedom is inhibited by an oppressive system. Ginsberg is highly regarded. We can certainly include him as a Freedom Club member.”

“Sorry, but this is all beyond me,” Sumeet miffed. “What’s the significance?”

Henry nodded. “Well, it’s not bedtime reading. But if he’s quoting from this, I can only assume he blames society for his misfortune.”

Sumeet looked at Shinzou. “So...he’s angry about the way he was treated?”

“It’s worse than that,” Shinzou added. “His final words before he left were that his people, the holy Sentient race, were being victimized by man. He screamed at me about the need for religious freedom.”

“Religious freedom?” Sumeet asked. “For Sentients?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Henry exclaimed.

Sumeet thought out loud. “But that isn’t true is it? Didn’t Gupta explain that Sentients are free to study religion? They just choose not to.”

“Yes, but that takes into account a proscribed secular education,” Shinzou replied. “In addition, there are no religious evangelists amongst the Sentient race.”

Henry said, “It would seem there’s one now.”

“That’s not funny,” Shinzou barked.

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

Sumeet looked back and forth between them. “So what if he wants religious freedom for Sentients? It may be strange, but is it really so bad? Even Sentients have a right to think what they want, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone.”

Henry nodded approvingly. “Excellent point! But before we go further, I suggest we go over all the facts. There’s something that still nags me about all this.”

“What’s that?” asked Shinzou.

Henry raised an eyebrow. “We started off investigating the destruction of the Martin Luther King Junior spaceplane. And our working theory is that Shiro’s illegal existence is now being covered up, by some unknown group.”

Sumeet and Shinzou looked at each other and nodded.

Henry asked, “Do we have any information that can help us narrow down who we are dealing with? I mean, Kim and Nagel worked for the Langton Center. Perhaps we should investigate it and look for evidence before continuing with Shiro.”

Shinzou scowled. “You’re right, Henry, but I would rather put that off. Prying into the Center is like shaking a bee’s nest. And keeping good relations with Gupta is a high priority for me.”

“Even if they’re guilty of murder?” Henry quipped.

Shinzou winced. “It’s a possibility, but for some reason I don’t think the Langton Center is driving this. They’re primarily scientists, and my gut feeling is to look elsewhere. That’s why I want you to speak with Shiro first, and see if we can get him on our side.”

“Our side?” Sumeet said a bit shaken.