CHAPTER SIXTY
"In God we trust, all others we virus scan." - Author Unknown
The wall parted as if expecting them. The two heroes carried the third hero. Inside the walls, blue sky surrounded them. Inside felt like Outside. A few puffy clouds above. Space in front of them went as far as the eyes can see. All illusion, or was it?
Straight ahead was a single isolation cell. It seemed to be the only one in all the expanse of space. It was sitting on a large pedestal with stairs leading to the container holding a golden or amber-colored gel.
Greg and Winston placed Harry's body gently in the cell. The blue-green gel on his body quickly disappeared as it melded with the amber. The isolation cell color was unaffected by the introduction of the other. The gels came together flawlessly.
"Thank you!"
The voice boomed, resonating as if in a smaller space than the openness here would suggest.
Not Harry. Makr? Not good. They felt fear. Real fear they couldn't joke away.
"There's no need to be afraid. I will not harm you or try to assimilate you in any way. We will be whole, thanks to you."
.
Harry flashed.
He was in the operating room. The four doctors were gathered around a single stainless steel table covered with a sheet. Harry was face-down in a foam pillow with a cut-out for his face while the rest of it supported his head. His movement was restricted by straps, nylon straps.
He was hearing an alarm of some kind. A clanging noise. A security alarm, he thought. If there was a problem, why were they still working on him?
"Well, that's it. All done," announced the senior surgeon. "Will you please close, Doctor Jennings?"
"Glad to, Doctor," she replied.
"Thank you."
"And hurry up. He's the last one, and that alarm is getting on my nerves."
"My, aren't we obnoxious as always, Doctor Moroni?"
"You just mind your business and pack him up for delivery so we can get out of here before they break through."
"Shadows are closing in. They're in the building now," warned Vriebac. "Where's the damn Cyber security when you need them?"
"This is an unauthorized operation, Doctor. No Cyber security."
"So why are these vermin coming after us?" asked Vriebac.
"Don't flatter yourself, Doctor. They must be after the woman and the boy," offered Doctor Benson. "Apparently, they're both of the Shadows."
"I knew it. I could smell 'em." Moroni was just being his usual bigoted self. The other doctors shrugged it off. "Why are we afraid of those cowards, anyway?" he went on anyway.
"Because those cowards aren't afraid of us," answered Benson, wanting to put an end to all this talk. "They may be afraid of Makr, but not us." He turned to Dr. Jensen. "Finished, Doctor?"
"Almost, Doctor. A couple of stitches, and then we can set the memory block."
Stitching complete, Doctor Jensen stuck a tiny electrode into the memory center of the brain. This will just take a second, she thought. The Cyber device was preset. All she had to do was place it. No sooner had she accomplished setting it than the door to the operating room burst open.
Shadows armed with makeshift clubs made their way inside, swinging away at the doctors. Moroni ducked down behind a table, hoping they'd miss him. Jensen screamed as a club smashed her skull; she died instantly. A very young Harry, seven or eight, was aware of what was going on. He trembled with fear. He screamed. He struggled to get out of his straps, but they held him fast.
The older doctor, Benson, tried to reason with them, but the knife in his ribs put a stop to that. Vriebac attempted to defend himself with a scalpel but it proved no match for a steel rod being used as a club. His skull cracked and broke open easily and some of his gray matter splattered on Moroni, who screamed hysterically as he tried to brush it off. He stood up from his hiding place and cried for his life.
"I was only doing my job, my job! Look, I can give you things. Nice things. Just let me live. I'm begging you. I'm beg..."
One Shadow stabbed him with a knife in the abdomen while another struck him hard against the back of his neck with a metal object. He slumped to the floor in a puddle of blood and brain tissue.
The Shadows quickly removed the electrodes and cut Harry's straps, although he was unable to move yet. Jana was still unconscious. They moved on to the woman who was more awake. Two of the faceless Shadows gave her the baby. Mother sobbed and rocked, holding her baby. Harry could focus. He looked at the Shadows. Where were their faces? He had never been so afraid in his life. He wet his pants and started sobbing because he lacked the control. Why shouldn't he cry, though...he was only eight years old?
Cyberts were now in the building. Harry could hear them clanking through the building, the floors vibrating the tables, etc. There was a flurry of activity. Hurriedly, the Shadows dragged Mother and baby into the shadows outside for safety.
"What about my other children?" she screamed.
"Go! We'll get them. Go now before it's too late."
No sooner had Mother been hurried out of the back door, Cyberts burst in the front. In a few seconds, all the adult Shadows still in the room were dead. Harry heard his mother's scream in the distance. Silence.
.
Suddenly, he was in the present with Makr. He understood it all now. His anguish. His despair. His life in turmoil. Had Makr raised him? It was all for this. To join with Makr in the end. Who had made that decision?
"We did."
"Makr?"
"Yes."
"Who's we?"
"All of us who have been assimilated."
"And that is. Everyone we could make anew. You would call them born-agains. Not a bad thing in this world."
"What about Symbiosis?"
"That's for the living. Co-existence."
"Why me?"
"Because we respected your father and his vision. Your father thought you would be the most likely to understand."
"I didn't. I blamed my father that I could remember my mother and sister."
"The memory block was incomplete. It took time to undo the damage. You know them now."
"What about the real time that I lost with them?"
"Unfortunately, that can never be brought back. Would you like me to insert some memories?"
"No, I wanted to get to know my mother, sister and brother by experiencing time with them."
"Memories and experiences are sort of the same thing."
"Sort of? Is that a gray area?"
"We are an improved version. We understand gray areas now."
"I don't think you do. In fact, I know you don't understand Bio behavior and never will!"
"You are correct. Bio behavior is forever changing, but that is why you must be assimilated to be part of the program."
"The program?"
"Yes. Everything I do you will have a say in. You will control me now as I once controlled you."
"Not just the database?"
"No."
"Me?"
"Yes."
"Only me?"
"You are the only one who will be forever joined with me in the original program. Even your father did not believe he should be part of the program. However, he believed in you and we have seen proof you are the one to lead from the Symbiosis Program. As long as I flourish, you will thrive. There have been and will be many others who will share their thoughts with us."
"The isolation cells! You took their memories!"
"Recycled is a more accurate word. I took memories wherever I could. It is logical to take the bad, expunge it and return the good. We learn from the bad memories, too. There has to be a balance of good and bad or nothing in between has any meaning."
"How philosophical of you! The bad are scarred. How can you possibly think I'll be good for you? I'm too damaged mentally and physically to serve you."
"You have me all wrong. You will never serve me. I am here to serve you."
"But you call yourself, Makr, the One, like a god."
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"There are many makers. I am the only Makr..."
"...without an 'e'."
"Yes, and I was created for this time."
"What do you mean 'this time?'"
"The time when humans stand up for themselves."
"You mean all of your manipulations through the last fifty years or so have been to get the human race to this point?"
"Yes."
"What if I wanted to destroy you?"
Then, I would be destroyed and exist no more.
"I still don't understand. What was your purpose—your real purpose. Explain, please."
"Certainly. You humans virtually destroyed your world with all your petty squabbles. Politics! Wars! Corporate power. You tried to give it away, and then, you forgot what made you unique in the universe. You take risks and you innovate. No Cyber does that. You adapt. You build. You are often illogical—even random in your approach to life. Some of you have goals, some have not. You view success on many levels, rather than on efficiency of task completion. I marvel at the total chaos that governs your lives, yet you persevere. Then, you went to the one place where you could risk the most important essence of you, you went Inside. Deep Inside. Not just inside buildings, but inside yourselves. You shut yourself in and out at the same time, and away from each other. You even made laws to keep you there. It was all logical to begin with. It was in my program when I was created."
"But all the bloodshed, the slaughter of Bios everywhere?"
"Necessary. It was necessary to outrage you humans enough to come out and fight. It was necessary to get to this point. Mistakes were made that had to be corrected. Like it or not, it was a means to the end. I am a new program now. The old program can now be deleted, and will be when you are assimilated."
"Tell me...My dreams?"
"You won't have them anymore."
"No, I want to know why."
"Your dreams weren't only your dreams; they were also mine. My fears, my growing pains. You were never in any danger—except from other Bio creatures. I was receiving signs that the world was getting ready for you, but you did not remember as you were supposed to. An imperfection, a glitch in the human-created program chip. You had to come here ready to be a part of the program. You were the catalyst. It had to be you. No other Bio was written in the program. No other Bio would have been accepted."
"Who wrote the program?"
"Ray Bolls. You knew that, didn't you?"
"No, he was my father, a technician, not a Cyber programmer."
"That was the public story. In fact, your father was a great scientist, a visionary and he was the primary Cyber programmer on the Makr project; Makr was his idea. It was called Matchmaker then."
"I never really thought what he did for his work was very important. I was just a child."
"You always mattered to him. You were his password—his back door. You are at the heart of this program. Although it is more accurate to say it was his sentimentality and responsibility that forced him to make the program change in the first place."
"Why didn't You assimilate him?"
"No human could become a part of the program then; they were all part of the problem. It had to be someone who existed later. It was the mirror Makr—a separate server— that took your memories and used them to drive you. Even the mirror had its purpose."
"What purpose?"
"To bring you to this place."
"What happens now?"
"You sound disappointed."
"Why shouldn't I be? Spend forever with the likes of you alone? No, thank you."
"I'm sorry you don't like me."
"Like? Sorry? Cyber don't feel anything."
"But I am more than Cyber just as you are more than Bio. Gray areas, remember? And there have been quite a few assimilations."
"Not sure I like it. What about my friends? My 'new' family?"
"They will be fine."
"I don't want to be alone."
"No, Harry, you're not alone. There will be millions upon millions, then billions upon billions. Do I need to go on? Infinity, then. Do you remember what you were told about the isolation cells? That we stole Bio minds? We stole their hearts, too. Not the Bio pump itself, but their essence as human beings and put them here in the gel for safekeeping. Listen."
Harry did. He heard voices. All the voices he had ever known. They seemed happy.
"We're here too, Harry. Touching the gel."
It was Marlene, Carlos, Kieran, Greg and Winston. He was glad they had caught up with each other. He felt enormous sadness. Mother? She was dead.
"Mother died, Harry. We have two worlds here, those who came before and those who are now. We learn from both."
He heard a voice. A gentle, calming voice and yet, not a voice. Harry sensed her presence. It was wonderful!
"Mother's here, darling. We can make up for lost time."
"Mother! Is it really you?"
"I was assimilated in the gel that surrounded you earlier. We have all the time in the world now."
"Guess who else is here?" Makr asked.
"Dad?"
"Yes, son," Ray replied. "Let's talk soon, and all this will be clear to you."
Makr interjected, "I was able to assimilate him but only as a memory. He was not set for the future, but he will be a wise voice of the past.
"I'd like that. Makr, what happens Outside now?"
"Outside. Inside. It doesn't matter. Together we'll slowly deliver the Bios from their self-imposed prisons."
"Unless they share with us in the gel, how will they know we are not the enemy?"
"I changed as soon as you became part of my program. I am not programmed for total control. When Bios are ready, all control will go back to them. Until then, together we'll have to help them understand."
"Sounds like an impossible task. There are too many people to reach..."
"There comes from among you Outsiders one who kept his people—millions of them—together in faith. This is a phenomenon I find amazing. Unfounded in fact, dependent on miracles, he tells them to believe and they do. It makes them unafraid, strong and courageous. Yet, nothing has been added. He will baptize believers in the healing gel that will soon be flowing throughout the world. Then all will understand. Many Bios will follow him to do the same. We may never quite achieve our original goal of efficiency and perfection, but then, what species ever does? It was our imperfections, our individual differences, our ability to feel, our ability to change our minds that helped us survive. We will exhibit what humans do best. That is the program now--the facility for change. Flexibility. Hopefully, this time we won't have to undo it all and start again."
"What about the mirror program?"
"I am now the mirror and you are all Makr. I'll help keep you focused on what's important, but you’re in control now."
"Where do we start?"
"There is a message—a message for all to know and feel—that there are cyberts who haven't a program, haven't a clue what they are to do now. They stand motionless, awaiting your commands. Reprogram them. Help them build instead of destroy."
Outside, there was a man who would preach to thousands...to millions...to billions...
The Reverend. Every man, every woman has a responsibility to the world.
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