Крис Бекетт - The Holy Machine

She had grown up in Auckland, in an old-style ‘Western’ country where atheists lived side by side with believers of many different kinds, but I had always lived in Illyria and I had almost no idea of what she was talking about. And yet what she said did strike a chord with me. I longed too for a wider, more generous reality.

‘Okay, maybe they’re not real in the way that this table is real,’ Marija said, ‘but they are still in some way real. Perhaps even in some ways more real…’

She smiled.

‘Do you ever have that dream,’ she said, ‘where you are in a house and you are looking for an extra room which is somehow missing?’

‘Yes! I have!’ I exclaimed. I almost shouted in fact, so surprised was I to find that something so private and interior could be shared by another person.

‘You have? The very same dream?’

She studied my face carefully for a few seconds, then nodded. To my surprise I managed not to look away.

‘It’s nice when you meet someone else who has dreamed the same dreams,’ she said.

So it was.

‘I think Ullman and Kung have made Illyria a house with most of its rooms sealed off,’ she said. ‘It’s not science that’s at fault. It’s a sort of narrow literal-mindedness… I feel like I need to smash my way out somehow, or else I will suffocate. Do you know what I mean?’

I nodded.

‘Sometimes I think the AHS have the right idea,’ Marija said slowly in a much more tentative voice. I could see her watching for my reaction. The AHS after all were violent enemies of the state, and their members were hunted with great ruthlessness.

‘Yes, I suppose they try to smash their way out with bombs. Or smash a way out for all of us.’

‘Exactly – they just refuse to accept the rules, even if it means violence. And maybe in the end people in general just can’t accept those rules. Maybe that was part of the reason for the Reaction.’

‘Even the robots can’t accept them, it seems,’ I said.

‘Yes! Even the robots can’t live in two dimensions.’

She studied my face again, curiously, as if noticing something new..

‘You really do feel for those robots don’t you? You understand them in some way. I think I do too. I suppose that’s why I stuck with that silly job at ICC.’

She laughed.

‘Hey this is interesting! Are you hungry, George? Why don’t we go out for a meal or something?’

Now here is a strange thing. Here I was, a very isolated young man who longed to break out into the world. And here was Marija, a very attractive young woman who I’d always liked very much, suggesting we spend the evening together. I was in a position which I’d longed for and which I’d feared I would never reach. You’d think that I’d have been more than happy to accept.

But instead something inside me suddenly froze. I felt a wave of revulsion that appeared as if from nowhere, revulsion for Marija, revulsion for being together, revulsion for friendship and talking and flirting. I was suddenly aware of the biology of it: my body, her body, hormones, itchings… just silly biological itchings dressed up as a social game.

‘No. No, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to be somewhere else.’

‘Oh, pity,’ said Marija with a disappointed shrug.

She started to pick up the empty wine glasses.

‘You know you really are a dark horse, George. It would have been good to get to know you better.’

But I’d got up already and was putting on my jacket. It was all to do with fear of course. Fear was breaking out all over me. Soon she would be able to see it and I hated the idea of that. I really didn’t want her to think of me as a creature of fear.

I suppose that was the reason I suddenly blurted out an extraordinary thing:

‘I don’t know if you know any way of contacting the AHS?’

She gave a whistle.

‘Now that is dangerous , George. I mean, when O3 catch people…’

She didn’t need to finish her sentence. A clear vision came unbidden into my mind of a bare white windowless room deep underground, lit with very bright lights, and of a prisoner in there who would never see daylight again, screaming and screaming.

‘I know,’ I said.

‘Well I know people who know people,’ Marija said, ‘I could see if someone could get in touch with you.’

‘I’d like that,’ I said.

Marija smiled and, to my consternation, suddenly kissed me.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘have a good time at whatever important place it is that you’re going!’

Down in the subway there was a crazy black man with ragged clothes and heartbroken eyes.

‘We are all fallen!’ he cried. ‘We are all in darkness. Darkness, darkness, darkness! Listen to me! We can’t even see who we are! We can’t even see each other’s faces! We can’t even tell how far we have fallen! Oh no, no, no! We can’t so much as glimpse that lovely light, far, far above us! We live in dark tunnels. Listen to me, people, listen to me! We are like moles, we are like blind fishes in the darkest depths of the sea!’

As the train moved off I glanced out of the window and saw two men in suits taking the black man by the arms and dragging him away.

I must be mad, I told myself, as I sat down beside an elderly Albanian woman. I could have spent the evening with Marija. But instead I’m going to spend it with a machine.

I could get out now, I told myself as we drew in at Newton South Station, I could go straight back to Marija just as quickly as I got here. I could go straight back and tell her my appointment has been cancelled.

The Albanian woman struggled wheezily to her feet and a young South Asian man took her place. I started to move. But something inside me pulled me back.

The train plunged back into its tunnel.

She doesn’t really like me, I told myself in Galileo Central. She just feels sorry for me. I’m a lame duck that she’s decided to be kind to. She’s one of those kinds of people. Probably she has a whole collection of lame ducks revolving around her.

The South Asian took a computer game out of his pocket. A fat American lowered himself into the seat opposite to me. A silver security robot stared in impassively through my window as the train set off again.

‘Hawking West,’ said the train as we emerged into the light of another station, ‘Alight here please for Western and Memorial lines.’

I don’t know if I really even like her , I told myself. All this wanting to change the world, all this agonizing and philosophizing, all this wanting to get to the bottom of things. So serious . It’s not really the kind of thing that I…

‘Doors closing now,’ said the train.

On Pythagoras Station, two security robots were dealing with a group of drunken Arabs, picking them up two at a time by their collars and carrying them towards the exit.

‘Damned squippies,’ muttered the American. ‘Why do we let them in at all?’

The South Asian got off the train. A Chinese civil servant sat down beside the American.

My thoughts moved off at a new angle. If you don’t like her, I asked myself, how come you’re prepared to risk your life to prove to her that you’re really not a coward?

‘Sorry we’re running a couple of minutes late,’ said the train. ‘I hope this hasn’t caused any inconvenience. This is Schrödinger Station. You can change here for the Coastal and Mountain Lines.’

Get out now, I told myself. Go back!

My brain even sent signals to my limbs to move. It was almost as if a shadow of me actually did stand up and get off the train – and who knows, perhaps in another version of my life story, this is what really happened? But in this version other signals prevailed.