*
My head was filled with a fever sweat.
Groaning, I managed the movements required to silence my alarm. It obeyed without protest. Where had I been? Had I dreamt the interview? Everything seemed different. Everything was the same. It was as though alien hands had sifted through everything in my room and placed them back into its previous position. It was like a scent I simply couldn’t place, or a shiver in a warm room.
Foreign words fluttered to my mind, out of place and no way out. ‘New eyes’ and ‘cognition.’ I knew that they were not my own. It hit me. The very narrative of my mind had changed, as though it had been invaded and replaced. Or maybe I hadn’t. I was still there, all the flaws were in the right place, just where I’d left them. Hello insecurity, my old friend, and avarice you’re looking as ravishing as ever.
We all have our own internal voice. But did not speak as it once did; fragmented and disjointed, instead it spoke precisely. It delivered sentences with the kind of clarity that separates crystal from glass, difference that at once as imperceptible as it was familiar.
I stood and was strolling toward my blue dresser when I saw the world shift. Spears of light punctuated my room from no apparent source. But unlike the light in the interview room my understanding of it had changed. This time it seemed to have a presence, as though it had grown a life of its own. It was as though I was able to see beyond its surface detail and into its soul.
The light seemed to flicker and began to fade. The world gradually darkened. All the hues and colours that were, seemed to be no more. Then it was gone, I was gone. I felt my body impact the floorboards harshly. The room faded from monochrome to obsidian.
Awakened by some imperceptible notion I rose from the floor, brow bloodied from the fall. Yet I did not feel hurt. I felt rejuvenated. My world had become descriptive, detailed beyond any possibility. The flakes of dust, human skin, captured by the light, were thrown to the floor as though caught in a downdraft. The image translated itself into something beyond the reaches of linguistic description. I watched every motion and every movement that those flakes made as they tumbled on a current of air with an excited interest.
The small ink stains on my curtain, a teardrop burned into the soft velvet fabric, stirred something inside me. I was seeing everything with value. The world around me was being weighed and measured, itemised and stored.
In the corner of the room was a single black stone cut in two. Its very darkness screamed, calling me, for me, forever. The two spheres, a present wonder and a future damnation brought me to my knees. I might have lost all of the capacity to move from that spot had my phone not dragged me away with an incessant calling, and just like that the moment passed.
‘Hello Mr Engeltine, how are you feeling,’ stated the unflappable voice of my interviewer. His very tone seemed riled with a confidence and slight amusement.
‘What have you done to me?’ I asked him holding back a dull sense of violation.
‘Mr Engeltine, we have done exactly what you wanted. We have transformed you. Just yesterday you were merely a drain upon the investment of the state. In we will have given you real value. You did want to something meaningful with your life, didn’t you?’
‘What? You came after me, you wanted to give me a job.’ I didn’t have any idea what was going on but one thing was for sure, Sephra had better get ready to pay him a decent settlement.
‘Of course Mr Engletine. The job is yours, if you still want it. Meet me at midday by the entrance to the Sennaca War Memorial. It is here that all of your questions shall be answered.’ With a click he ended the call at his end. The screen on the Compass® dutifully switched over to power-save.
I thought about going straight there. I thought about going in to confront them, to hold him to account. But this was the Eternis Systems I was talking about. You could not simply go in and demand answers. You had to listen and be smart. These were two of the very qualities that I was sure I did not possess. My thoughts were still cloudy from the fall. My heart felt like it might be about to tear itself from its arteries and spring a leak.
I thought about calling for help and looked at the call screen but my fingers could not operate the dial command. They contracted to form a partial fist and could not be coaxed back into life. Besides I couldn’t exactly say, ‘hello I went into an interview and now I think that I’ve become part of some nefarious scheme.’
I dropped the phone down onto the bed with the futility of it all. Who would believe me? There was only one real option. I had to go to that meeting. I had to find out.
I gathered together my things. The keys for once were hanging on the rack. At the doorframe I paused. I shuffled around in my pockets until my fingers connected with the hard flat lump that was the Compass®. I should let someone know where I am, I thought.
It had been so long since I had spoken to anyone. Since the labour crisis every had seemed to just disappear. I thought long and hard before I entered a number. It was risk, Adrian and I hadn’t spoke in a long time.
‘Hello this is Adrian,’ a ruffled, tired sounding voice announced.
‘Adrian, look, I know we have not spoken in a while,’ I began, but Adrian cut me off.
‘George, look, the way we left things off, I just can’t...’
Adrian’s voice had trailed off. I was desperate to keep his attention and so I said, ‘Listen I’m in a lot of trouble’. He sighed on the other end of the line. ‘I can’t explain, just hear me out. I promise I’m not asking for a lot.’ There was a silence so long I had begun the motion of moving the phone from my ear when I heard his muffled reply.
‘I’ll give you five minutes.’ I breathed with the relief. At least one person might listen to me. At least one person might have my back. I knew I didn’t deserve it, especially not from him, but I had to try and so I gave him my request.
‘Adrian I’m going to meet a man, he works for Eternis Systems. I’m not sure what’s going on but I just want someone to know where I am. Just in case…well, just in case. I’m meeting him at the Sennaca War Memorial in an hour. If I don’t call you back this evening I want you to call the police. Tell them...tell them that you think something might have happened to me.’
‘I’ve got to go,’ I continued. ‘But before I do I want you to know I’m sorry for what happened.’
I tore the phone from my ear before he could ask why. He had always wanted answers, answers I couldn’t give him. It was hard to admit to him that I needed his help. Well, it had always been hard with him full stop. But asking him for something now, felt like a small defeat, as though I was losing a war I’d been fighting for so long that it felt like treachery.
I stopped dwelling, after all there was a time and a place for everything and with a resolute determination I walked out of the house, stuck the keys in my car and departed.
3