The Soul Continuum (20 page)

“Relax, Salem. I will have the answer in a few seconds. It's nothing to worry about.”

“You don't sound as certain as I would expect, and I still feel very strange. I was a tree a few minutes ago. Or something like it anyway.”

“A tree?” If Qod had a face, I imagine she'd be raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, though not your average tree. I was—”

“Impossible!”

“What? No, I really was a—”

“Not that,” she snaps. “My analysis. I cannot break through.”

“What do you mean you can't break through? You're—”

“I mean the anomalous region in your brain won't let me examine it. There is an extremely complex atomic encryption surrounding it. Even I cannot break it.”

“How is that possible? You're practically omniscient. Or are you losing your touch after all these epochs? Perhaps it was this sphere. Maybe—”

“Quiet!” She pauses as I obey. “You shouldn't even know about this place. What exactly were you doing in here?”

The question is unnerving, as if I am about to receive a severe scolding. The truth is that I don't really know why I came to this sphere. Of course, I understand my reasoning behind entering the life memory of Diabolis Evomere, but the urge to enter the Sub-human Sphere and investigate was strong. Very strong. It was as if I was driven by some sort of subconscious agenda.

“It has to do with your disappearance and someone called Keitus Vieta. Does that name mean anything to you?”

Qod goes quiet for a long moment. “Well”—her tone is softer now—“it seems we have a lot to talk about.”

“Do you think that encrypted algorithm in my brain could have affected my higher reasoning?”

“Possibly. It is localized in the correct region.”

The clamps unlock from my hands and feet, and the usual flowing appendages reach in to extract me from the WOOM and rest me gently on the exit platform of the sphere.

“I suppose you want to go to the Observation Sphere?” Qod asks.

“Yes, the Observation Sphere. I'll walk. It feels good to have normal legs again, and I want to use them.”

“No.”

“What?”

“Actually, no. You're not going to the Observation Sphere yet. There is something else you should see first. In the Calibration Sphere.”

I stand still, absorbing her words. She has never told me to do this before. She usually discourages a visit to that sphere, saying it is unhealthy for me to stand and stare at the little specks of light as each life is reassessed and balanced for placement into one of the many categories. It is just a meaningless routine now. They never get moved, because the only opinion left that might change their designations is mine. And I am too busy living those lives to be a real person anymore. My opinion should not count for anything. Even so, I often argue with Qod, telling her that humans cannot be categorized so simply and that a person cannot be labeled solely as a Religious Icon or a Love Legend or a Galactic Philanthropist; humans are many things in their long lives. But being the type of being she is—quasi-organic or not—ultimately she can only judge things in absolute terms. It all comes down to numbers. Several billion people think of Encore Makar as the redeemer of the ancient laws, several billion people plus one think of him as the destroyer of worlds, and so Qod places his soul file into the Maniac Sphere.

But there is one reason I always visit the Calibration Sphere. I go there to see that one remaining slot. To think about what it would mean to have my life reduced to a single mote of light and complete the collection of souls within these vast archives. That is why Qod thinks of my visits there as unhealthy. A relic of the Great Artificial Intelligence or not, she doesn't want to be on her own.

I walk in silence for almost a minute along the clean white passages leading to the Calibration Sphere, wondering why she wants me to go there. The atmosphere is heavy,
as if Qod and I have just made up after an enormous argument
but still feel the remnants of the hurt.

“I'm glad to have you back again,” I tell her.

“Likewise.”

The answer is a little too blunt for my taste, and I stop halfway along the corridor. “Is . . . something wrong, Qod?”

“I told you. The anomaly in your prefrontal—”

“No. I mean
really
. . . wrong.”

Silence thickens for a few moments before the low female tone fills the air around me again. “Yes.”

Her answer settles on me like a cold and heavy blanket. “Are you going to elaborate?”

“I will. But let's get you to the Calibration Sphere first. There is something you need to see, and there is something important I need to explain. Actually . . .” The silence takes on an even more sinister feel before she finishes. “There are many important things I will have to explain.”

Inside the Calibration Sphere, Qod has provided a chair. That is also unusual. I have asked for one to be put here on many occasions, but Qod never obliged. It was just one more way for her to keep me from spending time in this sphere. It has never been an inviting place. It is simply a functional area enclosed by boring gray walls mosaicked with octagonal metallic panels the size of a man's head. One out of every four panels is a cavity spewing hundreds of fine nanostrands that writhe, wriggle, and quiver like tentacles caught in a tornado as they perform their tasks faster than the human eye can watch. It is the insect-like clicking of robotic activity that I find the least endearing.

On the end of each strand is a light. A life. First it is extracted from one of the thousands of spheres in the
Soul Consortium, and then it is passed by electroperistalsis
through one of these strands into this sphere, where it is analyzed and, if necessary, passed to a different strand to reside in an alternate sphere.

There is always one panel inactive, kept like some sort of holy relic to revere the sanctity of life. There used to be many like this one. Trillions, in fact, stacked up one behind the other, containing a honeycomb of empty slots waiting for someone to die so that a soul file could be generated, temporarily stored here, then calibrated, analyzed, and sent to one of the other Soul Spheres, ready for anyone to experience it. The only remaining inactive panel is mine. The last life clinging on, not wanting to join the rest.

But now I stare, numb and cold, openmouthed because the panel is no longer inactive. The slot is glowing. The slot is full.

“Qod,” I say weakly. But I don't have a follow-up question.

She is silent, but now I know why she provided the
chair. I flop heavily into it, still staring at the slot as it undergoes
a thorough analysis. It will be the last life ever to be categorized and filed. My life. But that is not possible; I am still here.

“Qod,” I say again. “What . . . what am I seeing here? Am I . . . ?” The word sticks in my throat.

“Yes. You are dead,” she says. “And no, you are not dead.”

An unexpected rush of anger causes me to huff petulantly. “Yes and no? What exactly is that supposed to mean?” I finally take my gaze off the glowing slot and stare at the palms of my hands. “I am alive. I know I am alive. I am sitting here talking to you. How could I possibly be dead? How can that slot be—?”

“Salem!” Qod's voice is authoritative but not too loud. It is enough to silence me. “You have to compose yourself. This is just one thing I need to explain. There are other things I need to show you that are going to have far greater repercussions. Greater mysteries. Greater shocks.”

The panic and frustration are even higher now. “Greater
than finding—”

“Salem, you
have
to get ahold of yourself.” Her voice is loud enough to make me wince this time. Gently, slowly, I lay my palms on my legs, just above my knees, and take in a long breath through my nose. My eyes are back on the slot. “You must trust me,” she says. “I can explain.”

I take in another long breath. I have no idea what she thinks could shock me more than this, but I already have a host of questions lined up for her. The truths I learned from Diabolis have opened up a universe to me far greater than I had expected. And I want to know why I knew so little of these things in my so-called enlightened existence before.

“Okay,” I say, calmer now. “Explain. As far as I know, soul files are generated when people die and are not expected to resurrect in a genoplant. For that slot”—the glowing light draws my gaze again—“
my
slot to be filled, the
Control Core must be under the impression that I died with no chance of resurrection. So is there a problem with the software?”

“No, Salem,” Qod says. “There was genuine death. You sacrificed yourself to remove the threat of Keitus Vieta, the entity which I believe you have recently found out about. Effectively, with a little help from me, you tricked the algorithms and set a trap for him. You timed it perfectly so that, at the end of your life, you were entering the WOOM to experience your
own
life. You created a never-ending cycle so that anyone living it would never get out. When the file reaches the end, it simply loops back to the beginning again.
Usually there are safeguards against this scenario. Whenever
a soul is selected for immersion, it disengages at the point of entry if it discovers that the person is not actually dead. That's why the timing had to be exact. The file was generated at the precise moment you died.”

“I did all that? But I don't remember any of it. Did I erase my memory? And if I
did
die, why am I here now? Did you bring me back afterward?”

“No, I didn't bring you back. You died.”

I shake my head, completely confused. “Then what—?”

“It's time for you to go to the Observation Sphere. Everything will be much clearer when I show you the next thing. It's going to come as something of a shock, I'm afraid. I don't quite know how you are going to take it. It will change everything for you.”

“Tell me now.”

“It is better that you come and see for yourself.”

T
he doors of the Observation Sphere open silently before I reach them, and as I pass through, the feeling of apprehension grows; it is much darker than usual inside. There is only one light source: a golden orb localized at the center of the sphere fifty paces away, enveloping my favorite chair. It looks ready for my interrogation, rather than my usual refuge of contemplation and relaxation. I have seen the Observation Sphere like this only on the rare occasions when the gloom of morbid superstition overtakes my mood, and I dare to stare directly into the nothingness of hell.

Hell is not fire and brimstone. It is not the home of
demons and devils or the realm of torture and pain unending.
It is worse. It is darkness. Profound, bottomless, uncompromising, unsympathetic, endless . . . darkness. It is a terror
too broad for the human mind to accept. Known throughout
most of history as the Quantum Abyss, it is the time between cosmological cycles when the universe—in all popular
interpretations—ceases to exist. There is no time, no space, no dimension at all. There is simply nothing. Only the paradoxical quantum vibrations of nonexistence remain. Long after the heat death of the previous cycle. Long before the cataclysmic imbalance of those vibrations leading to the next cycle.

I remember staring into its depths once before. It is not like looking into a deep or starless sky. There is something primal that the human soul recognizes there, like a wolf's prey sensing that its slayer is near. The Quantum Abyss warns me what death may be like. It is one of the things that has consistently kept me from flipping the switch and ending it all. I am so very tired of living the endless dead lives, and so very tired of not having a life of my own, but the Quantum Abyss has always crushed that weariness with the fear of slipping away into nothingness. And so that feeling returns as I gaze at my waiting chair and glance about me at the oppressive darkness pressing against the walls of the Observation Sphere.

But it should not be like this. The next cycle of the cosmos had already begun long before I lived the lives of Salomi Deya and Diabolis Evomere. I should be looking at the birth of stars and galaxies.

“What's going on, Qod? Why is it so dark in here?”

Her response is gentle and close to my ear. Not the usual confident voice emanating from all around. “Please,” she says, “take your seat. I have obscured the sphere's visual scope until you are prepared for what I need to show you.”

“What could possibly have happened for you to—?”

“Please!” she insists. “Just . . . sit.”

I make my way up several disc platforms to reach the soft chair at the sphere's center. Microscopic nanodrones busy themselves inside the gel to mold it perfectly to my shape and preferred texture, and it warms itself to maximize my comfort. Memories of blissful days watching the cosmos burst alive as Qod and I discussed the many souls that will one day be born. The same souls that I have lived thousands of times. It seems somehow wrong that I should enjoy those lives more times than the actual people themselves, but I am content to remember that, even though many of them do not know it, they will live those lives over and over again without end. Salomi Deya, her days full of drama, yet in permanent rapture, is eternally repeated.

“Are you ready?”

Qod's question shatters my nostalgia. “How am I supposed to know that unless you tell me what it is you're going to show me?”

“What I mean is, are you prepared for your shock?”

I take another deep breath, grip the arms of my chair tightly, and stare directly ahead. I could offer another sarcastic response, but both Qod and I know that it would be pointless. She needs to show me, and I need to see it, whatever it is. “Show me.”