To Sleep (part 1 of 2)
by Martin Higareda
They fed from her fears, they stole her smallest joys. She in turn shared their every shifting memory, every haunting lust. She was the handmaiden of their ecstasy, their terror. She endured thoughts of murder, of hatred, and dark clinging loneliness, long before she knew what these were, who she was, understood what she did.
She was never alone, asleep.
There was only one other she knew of; a little older, taller, and pale like the salt shadows she used to scrape away. He had deep brown eyes, and wore a little scar through one eyebrow. He used this eye to smile, or show pain...his? Or another’s? He told sidelong tales with those dark, dark eyes.
They had never met, had known each other beyond memory. She understood after a time who he was, and the knowledge had startled her; she would never know his secrets, an intimacy beyond measure. His name was Saul, but they called him Lazarus, which made him laugh. She would look at him, and wonder.
Pain.
She turned, and stood behind herself. She reached back, and soothed her neck, watching her small white hand move like a serpent. Now her hands slipped down, and she watched them glide over her hips...turned again, to see herself in profile. Maybe, older. Not much. She inhaled, exhaled. It wasn’t the body, after all. It was the eyes. She stepped forward, until they filled her view, the room. Oceans of deep blue, sparkling; too much brilliance. They caught and held glances the way diamonds abducted the sun. Dark little gems. Hard. She watched herself, watching herself.
The water continued over her, hot, until she felt nothing.
The Reflection disappeared as she stepped out of the water. She dressed, still wet, and tied her hair. When she was done her hands seemed to move of themselves, searching for purpose; she stared at them until they didn’t. The room darkened as she left.
She could have taken the lift or the rail but preferred to walk, taking lesser avenues to avoid the early morning crush of pedestrians. Still she was buffeted now and again, soft murmurs of polite apology sometimes reaching her, sometimes not. The walk was long, but well known; she did not have to raise her eyes at all. And it was real. The ground felt like ground.
The early sunlight already warmed her, despite the waning moisture in the air, so that she was completely dry by the time she reached the DEI building. She continued in; there was no use hesitating, even here. She was identified, admitted, escorted. Receptionists nodded, passersby smiled. She didn’t see Saul, which was just as well. She could still taste last night.
A lift took her down, into the engineering levels: white corridors, the smell of electricity and disinfectant. She found her ward, shut the door, removed her clothes. And waited.
*** Media had been reduced to pure sensory input, words and pictures in one’s head, sounds and feelings on one’s skin. Data, statistics, timetables, formula…all instantly programmed into the cerebellum via strobe, or what was known as the Kaleidoscope. Immersion in polymer gels for tele-interactivity; more necessity than entertainment. Popular culture, like anything else, had become an area of quaint reflection.
The homogenization of language and culture had been complete long before institutes were erected to preserve and study them. Education was a hobby, contrived through programming and influence, mastered without impetus. Histories were regaled in conversations whose very forms were subjects of study: banter, discussion, argument, debate. Indices were created daily by the thousands, cataloguing the offspring of incestuous and random investigations, analysis: the influence of meteorology on social revolution, plate tectonics and the origins of religion, criminology and music aptitude. Nothing new.
Research was not an idle luxury; it was a matter of survival. Learning had replaced imagination, because nothing else could.
*** Brainwave patterns of participants were known to “spike” on occasion, to reach a point of unusually intense activity, characteristic of REM, duly noted and controlled. An overload of perceptions; a breaching of the intellect, from out of the depths.
They didn’t, after all, know how to do this themselves.
An hour before ending his last deep sleep cycle, Ilyetski’s patterns spiked, and held. Moments passed, then minutes. Computers raised an alarm the techs had never heard before. Standard electrochemical treatment proved useless; Ilyetski was locked into a hyperactive dream state. Technicians brought him to consciousness, but his Alpha never resumed. He appeared violently delirious and was restrained. Acute aphasia made communication impossible. He was sedated, yet still went into shock. He died shortly thereafter.
Ilyetski had certainly spiked before, but had always remained comfortably within accepted parameters for a dreaming session. There had never been concern, it was a natural phenomenon. As natural as sleeping.
The techs stood motionless, stunned by the loss, the permanency.
He was 22.
“Nineteen.”
“Prior ward?”
“DEI, New London.”
“Prior episodic treatment?”
“None.”
The Lead technician paused and glared at her. He was a heavyset man, balding, with a prodigious beard. His thick brows made his reddened eyes enormous. She watched him enter “unknown,” and smiled a little. He’d find out soon enough. He caught her smiling and turned away.
“Where’s Dr. Haubb?”
“Away,” the Lead answered immediately, his back to her. He brought up her screens and pretended to review them. She waited what she thought was an appropriate time.
“For how long?”
“Please be quiet,” he said. He busied himself for another two minutes, and turned back. “Last physical?”
“I asked how long.”
“I don’t know. Last physical, please.”
“May 17th. Nominal,” she added, diverting his next question. She didn’t have to like him either. He glared some more, and went back to the screens. He coded and re-coded her data until it arranged itself to his liking, and ignored her. She watched a twitch in his eye for some time, and wondered why he hadn’t had it removed.
Medicine had ceased its scientific thrust with the advent of genetic surgery, and become more like an enterprise. It wasn’t about cures anymore; it was, rather, maintenance. Migraine? Allergies? Chronic rash? A few tissue samples, some treatments, a few days rest. The Kaleidoscope was easier yet, but took much longer...weeks of programming, tailored to the individual: better memory, faster reflexes, custom personality. Even learn to play the piano.
But not for her.
“You know how to breathe?” he asked, as if she were some trainee. “You know the signs of distress?” He arranged the web for her, unnecessarily, and her scalp itched. She’d adjust it when he wasn’t looking. She stepped down from the pallet.
“Yes,” she answered, patiently.
“Well get in then.”
“Yes, doctor.” It amused her to think he might feel flattered by her error. He was no more physician than she was human. There was a small pressurized door before her, which she opened herself. A dark topaz light from within bathed her, made her glow. She slipped the mouthpiece on and stepped forward and down into the warm slippery gel, and vanished. The door shut behind her with a hiss and click.
She knew, viscerally, what love was, knew what it felt like. It was more compelling than any other dream she’d shared, and she could almost understand what made the others so obsessed, even addicted. The nights that she dreamed of love made the following days surreal, hypersensitive, meaningful. She could only wonder what the others felt.
The others never knew they were dreaming.
Dreaming was like immersion, but completely out of your control. Time didn’t apply. The superego was non-existent; self-awareness, muted. The subconscious wasn’t merely unleashed, it reigned supreme. It defined a reality that could never be measured or quantified, denied or debated. Memory and experience were the temporary absolutes in this infinite space, separate from waking states, but just as real. Real, because she was there, to witness and validate. A mirror to confirm the soul’s reflection. Yet she alone knew what was happening to them.
Dreams.
The quantum physics of desire. Refractions of reality. What is a fantasy realized, a myth incarnate? There is a world older than man, touristed by him, never quite understanding the language, the culture. A universe of ninety minutes, and never the same, for thousands of years. There is a silvery gate, beyond which is only what you didn’t know you could imagine. And she is there, waiting, to hold your hand as you fumble within.
Multitudes. Many. Legion. She watched them all. She enhanced dramas, she ended conflict, she spoke or whispered or said nothing at all, only watched their scenarios and quests, nightmares and wishful thinking.
The night it had actually begun, she’d felt the need to travel on her own, an unusual impulse. Vistas glided by, above and below, whole lifetimes at fingertips reach. Daytimes, nighttimes. She moved through others like a ghost, gently embraced some because she could. One of them embraced her back. She was startled.
“It’s you,” he said.
“A fight,” he murmured around a peach, juice running from his mouth. He looked up, embarrassed, and wiped it away.
“Fight?” She wasn’t innocent; she had been in several, but had never heard the word spoken before.
He feigned a seated scuffle with many foes, finally knocking himself out. She laughed, and caught herself.
“Really? You’re not joking?” Apprehension lit her face when he shook his head. Droplets slid down his face, and he wiped them with his sleeve.
“You’ve never had a fight? A real one?” Saul put down his peach and hugged his knees.
She said, “No. Not really. Yelling, maybe. Lots of that. But not like....” She shrugged.
“Oh.” He nodded. “I had them all the time, or at least, I used to. Now I’m older, and it can get me in trouble. Now I just, you know, walk away.” He shifted slightly. “I don’t even care much, anymore.”
They ate a little more, not speaking for a time.
“Can you talk about it?” she asked finally. He touched his scar, and she nodded.
“Just some kids. I used to go to DEI in Japan, when I was little. You been to Japan? No? It’s beautiful. You should go.”
She smiled.
“There were a lot of us there, we got along great. I still talk to most of them. But then I moved here. They were just building this DEI, and I was going to be the first. Some of the kids in my neighborhood weren’t too happy about it, I guess. Heard some stories or something. Maybe they were just mean.” The wind had picked up, and showered them again. They waited until it had gone.
He continued. “So I decided to tough it out, show them I wasn’t any monster. Then I decided to fight back, show them I could be just as stupid. I guess I was. They held me down one time, and threw rocks at my head.”
She said nothing, only looked at her hands, which were twisting themselves.
He watched her. “Kind of funny, huh?”
“What is?” she asked.
“How much they need us.”
She stared at her hands, older than she was a few moments ago, and didn’t answer.
*** Towards the end of the twentieth century, scientists already had an arsenal of successful neuroleptics, anti-psychotic medicines. These were used almost exclusively for the treatment of schizophrenia, a genetic condition afflicting mostly males. Following the huge advances in genetic research at the turn of the century, it became possible to manipulate genetic structure and sequencing; diseases no longer needed to be coaxed into submission by debilitating chemical treatments...they were simply eradicated.
The population explosion of the next two hundred years was heralded, celebrated. Yet the swift, horrific increase in crime and conflict surprised all. Laws broke down under the apathetic, immeasurable pressure of many, many billions of lives. Cultures were eaten away from within, and attacked from without. Most governments were crippled overnight. World war came to mean nothing after a time...there was no more world. Within only three generations, there was only us, and them.
Research that had previously focused on abnormalities of cell and tissue structure became research on the abnormalities of human behavior. Racism, violence, thievery; all these were products of evolution and environment. Perfectly normal. And not evolved enough. The quest for answers began anew.
It was already known that schizophrenic patients tended to have smaller than average temporal lobes. One portion held a major role in the regulation of language, and was directly involved in several developmental disorders, such as dyslexia. Another portion directed information into the limbic system, itself helping to manage those basic yet flawed characteristics of the psyche: social behavior, emotions, the animal drives of hunger, sex, defense. Misdirection was simply chaos. The solution appeared to be a matter of taking out the genetic trash. Yet, where lay the precise difference? How does one quantify normal?
Frenzied research followed. In time a simple genetic code was introduced into the living population, irreversible and, to some, irresponsible. Yet the benefits far outweighed the waning ethical considerations; eventual extinction pleased no one. The civilized world was dwindling.
It wasn’t overnight, and it wasn’t painless, but the changes occurred. No more homicide, no more suicide. No more neurosis, the conflict of basic emotions with higher reasoning; no more unknowns. No socially deviant impulses, no intractable depression, no criminally aberrant behavior whatsoever. Gone, all gone, forever.
It worked. And it was perfect...at first. What no one could overcome was the explosive mayhem of the pituitary gland at the onset of puberty; therefore, the genetic “cure” did not take place until after adolescence ended. And over the years, for no reason at all, the Delta brainwave disappeared. Along with it, every trace of creativity, ingenuity, and the ability to dream.
***
Short Stories
When she was little, the salt solution caused rashes all over her body. The crystallization would have to be scrubbed away, which sometimes drew blood. She never thought to question why, it was too common to even be ritual. Every morning, the bathing. Every night, the dreaming. And on, her whole life. And now, merely darkness and the drug. She was old enough, she was young enough. She was the difference.
They came at night.
The flickering halo spun quietly in the darkness, high above the cocoon, obscured now by the fever of emergency lights. Dozens of arcing limbs terminated in baleful white glare, cleansing her body of shadows. The technicians were a cloud of arms and faces, and low urgent voices began abruptly in her ears as soon as she remembered to hear. Her arm was tugged sharply, again and again, as hard fingers dug into the skin to prepare the injection, her anti-venom. She stared upwards without seeing, waiting patiently for lucidity, her bright eyes still directed by other, fading, intelligences. She felt a tingling coldness spread across her chest, down her arms, and she gasped, lips shaking. She heard her name, and this time it had meaning. Objects brought familiarity, faces brought recognition. Someone brought water, almost as cold as the medicine. She drank, and choked, and began to cry.
Her Reflection lied, told her she was tired, frail, old. She was not. She wiped her dripping eyes with dripping fingers and told herself that she was not. A special morning sermon to herself, faith the fabric of tenacity, threadbare from use. She washed her face again, but not because she needed to.
Literature was dead.
The participant, Nyle Geoffrey Alan Ilyetski, slept. He dreamed, and many others dreamed with him. He smiled in his sleep. He would never wake up.
“Age.”
She had thought it was love.
She remembered the conversation with Saul, when they had spoken of the difference. He had been maybe sixteen. They were eating in one of the parks above ground, enjoying the afternoon. It had stormed recently, and the air was alive. She loved the smell of it, had dragged him up and out to feel it also. Wind in the trees overhead made a brief rain from time to time, and they each were covered in droplets. One clung to his scar, and she had asked its origin.
The chemical warfare had ended in victory; the chemicals had lost.
Gone, all gone, forever.