by Kate Kelly
Martin charged up the stairs two at a time, his jaw tensed, teeth gritted together and hands clenched into fists by his side. His anger surged like a tide in full flood and his trainers thumped on the marble steps, and repeated as dull echoes beneath the high ceiling of the faculty building. He saw eyes turned towards him and knew that his rage was plain for them to see, but he didn’t care. How dare Professor Kermeen!
Sylvie was coming down the stairs and she flattened herself against the wall as he barged past. For a moment he had the impression of brown eyes, wide with surprise, white lab coat flapping open, a short skirt and shapely legs. But he could see the door to the Professor’s office on the landing up ahead, and the door was ajar. He would speak to Sylvie later.
He thrust open the door and stopped short, just over the threshold, his breath catching in his throat, his chest heaving. Professor Kermeen was standing by the window, and turned in surprise at the sound of Martin’s entrance. His white hair was disheveled and a grey cardigan hung limply over his crumpled shirt. But he wasn’t alone, and Martin narrowed his eyes and frowned, for he recognized the man before him, a tall man with greased back hair and an expensive suit – it was one of the sponsors who had been at yesterday’s presentation, the one who had asked the questions that had made Martin’s flesh start to crawl.
The man turned towards him, recognition in his dark eyes, but no expression on his face. Martin hesitated. His rage was unabated but he didn’t want to take the Professor to task in front of this man. Not the head of Italian National Security.
“Ah Martin.” Professor Kermeen smiled as he spoke but Martin could hear the tension in his voice. “This is a surprise, we were just discussing your research.”
Martin scowled at him but didn’t reply.
“You remember Alessandro Moretto, don’t you?” the Professor continued. Martin could feel the man’s eyes probing but didn’t turn to meet them. How could he not remember? Those outrageous suggestions he had made! He continued to glare at Professor Kermeen.
“I’m so pleased you’ve joined us.” Moretto’s voice was liquid and Martin felt an inadvertent shudder pass up his spine. “I was hoping we could resume our conversation.”
Martin’s stomach started to squirm, tying itself in knots inside his abdomen, and he suddenly knew what this was all about. He took a deep breath and turned to meet those cold brown eyes.
“I take it you’re the reason I’ve been locked out of the network?” he challenged. Moretto smiled, but it wasn’t a friendly smile.
“I’m sure you appreciate that this is a matter of national security. We cannot return your access until we’re sure we have your full cooperation.”
Martin turned towards the Professor and raised his eyebrows, but Professor Kermeen shrugged and avoided his gaze.
“The Professor fully appreciates the situation,” said Moretto, and his eyes had hardened, like a predator anticipating his preys next move.
Martin stared back at him. “You really mean to do it, don’t you?”
Moretto flashed his teeth in response. “It’s the logical application for your research.”
“No it’s not! It was never designed to be used on normal people, or on more than one person at a time. The resonant frequency has to be targeted. We’ve only ever tried it on one man…”
“The subject you introduced to us yesterday.” Moretto nodded slowly and his smile became more wolf like. “Yes, I was certainly very impressed. Your research has come on faster than I had ever anticipated.”
“But he was criminally insane, a habitual offender, he couldn’t control his violent tendencies, he…”
“Indeed. I saw the CCTV footage of the mugging and the robbery too. And I also saw the man he has become, thanks to your little device, the calm gentle man walking in the garden, listening to the birds singing and smelling the roses. I would say that was a pretty conclusive result.”
“But that’s just one crazy man – you’re talking about using it hundreds of people at once.” Martin held out his hands, pleading, but Moretto just licked his lips. Martin paused, the let his hands drop. What sort of people were these?
“You’ve taken it haven’t you?” he said softly, thinking of the empty bench in the lab he had just left, only his locked out computer terminal where yesterday there had been the tangle of wires and transducers that comprised the system. Behind him Professor Kermeen cleared his throat, but didn’t speak. Moretto glanced at him, then fixed his eyes on Martin once more.
“So do we have your cooperation?”
Martin tensed his fists. “No.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Moretto shook his head as if he was sad and Martin gritted his teeth at the insincerity of the gesture. “Well if you’ll excuse me gentlemen.” He stooped and picked up a briefcase, ran a hand over his greased hair, smoothing it down, and left the office without looking back, his shoulders rigid beneath his suit, his shoes clicking against the stone floor.
Martin turned to the Professor who was stroking his beard and looking out of the window. He was staring at the protestors in the street below, and yet his eyes were unfocussed, not really seeing them. Martin had passed them on his way in, blockading the building across the green where they carried out medical tests on rats and monkeys. There was always someone protesting about something.
“So?” he said, but the Professor shuffled his feet and didn’t look round. “Why did you let him take it?” Martin pressed.
Professor Kermeen sighed. “I’m so sorry Martin, but it was his to take. He funded your research.”
“But he’s going to use it for crowd control! It wasn’t designed for that! Who knows what will happen.”
Professor Kermeen shrugged. “I’m sorry Martin.”
“And why have you locked me out of the network? My thesis is on the drive. It’s nearly finished!”
“I’m afraid you won’t be finishing your thesis Martin.”
Martin felt his jaw drop open and he stared at the Professor.
“What?”
The Professor paused a moment, eyes still fixed blankly on the scene below, and when he spoke it was in barely more than a whisper. “I’m sorry but your position here has been terminated. You will receive a month’s pay in lieu of notice, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to vacate the premises.”
Martin stared at him. He opened and shut his mouth and didn’t know what to say.
* * *
Martin sat in the warmth of the morning sun in a pavement café on the edge of the piazza. His head was thumping from the night before, his pulse throbbing in his temples. He lifted his espresso to his lips and relished the caffeine rush that promised to quell his hangover. And he wondered what on earth he was going to do now.
To one side of the piazza a few market stalls had been set up and Martin watched the people as they milled about and argued over the prices, arms gesticulating. Beside the fountain a young couple were kissing, passionately entwined, neither seeming to draw breath and Martin felt himself blush as his eyes lingered. A young man sped past on a Lambretta, his hair flapping in the wind, helmet looped over his forearm. He beeped his horn as he passed in support of the picket line outside the entrance to the office building next to the café where Martin was sitting. They waved back to him and Martin glanced at the placards propped up against the wall; a pay dispute. There was always something.
He leaned back and closed his eyes, the gentle warmth of the sun massaging his skin. It was that fresh warmth that comes before the heat of the day and he breathed in the scents of the town, coffee and fresh bread, geraniums, dust and dry heat. He listened to the murmur of voices, the occasional passing vehicle and the background of soft splashing from the fountain, and somewhere on the buildings above him a pigeon flapped loudly from one perch to another. He was going to miss this place.
And then something passed between him and the sun, and he felt a cool shadow where the sun had been playing just a moment earlier. He opened his eyes.
“Sylvie?”
She smiled down at him as she removed her sunglasses. He couldn’t help noticing the curve of her hips and the bulge of her breasts beneath the light cotton dress. Her smile was generous but her eyes were concerned.
“I thought I’d find you here. You didn’t go home last night.”
Martin gestured for her to join him and she slid into the chair beside him in one liquid movement. Her dark hair tumbled down to her shoulders.
“What happened?” she said.
Martin shrugged. His head seemed to start throbbing worse than ever. She reached across and touched his hand. He looked down at the smooth skin and a tingle passed up his arm. “Professor Kermeen won’t talk about it,” she said. “What did you do?”
Martin looked into her soft eyes and something lurch inside his stomach. She really cared! And she hadn’t turned up here by chance. She had come looking for him.
“I didn’t do anything,” he said, and cringed at how lame he sounded. “Not like that anyway.”
“But you must have done something. They don’t just march people out like that unless they think you’re some sort of security risk or something.” She was frowning, fine creases appearing between her eyebrows. He finished the last of his espresso and realized that he was still shaking.
“It’s all to do with my research,” he said. “It was funded by the Department of National Security. I thought it would only ever be used in very special cases. It seems that they have a rather more sinister application in mind.”
Sylvie looked skeptical. “And I take it you didn’t agree with them?”
“Exactly. What they want to do with it – well it could be really dangerous!”
“But you don’t know.”
Martin sighed and gazed out across the piazza. The couple by the fountain had stopped kissing and were sitting, hand in hand, staring into one another’s eyes.
“No,” he said.
“So what are you going to do now?”
Martin shrugged. “I guess I’ll just have to go back home. I’ll miss this place.” He really wanted to say I’ll miss you but the words faltered on his tongue. He blushed and glanced towards the picket line. They were waving towards a group of people who had gathered on the far side of the piazza. The group waved back and the picketers cheered, then they melted into the side streets and were gone. Martin frowned.
“Perhaps you can sort things out, at least finish your doctorate,” Sylvie said. Martin shook his head.
“You ought to at least try. You can’t roll over and admit defeat?”
Martin glanced at her. Yes, it probably was worth putting up a fight. If only to spend a bit more time in her company. Then he frowned. Another group of people had appeared at the far side of the piazza.
“What’s going on over there?” he said with a nod of his head. Sylvie glanced round. The people melted away just as the first group had.
“What them? Just some people going to the demonstration,” she said.
Martin felt as if he had been run through by a dagger of ice. He stared at her in horror.
“What demonstration?” he gasped.
“Anti-globalization protest this one, I think.” Sylvie shrugged. “There’s a big march planned, right through the city centre. I’ll be giving it a wide berth.” She grinned at him with a flash of white teeth. Like him she was a foreign national here, but he was sure that there would be plenty of people from the University at the protest. Fear for those people crushed his spirits once more, and his pulse thudded behind his eyes.
“When did they take it?” he said softly.
Sylvie frowned. “Night before last, just after you left work. They were hanging around after the presentation. Came into the lab, unhooked it all and took it away.” She frowned and hesitated a moment. Then in a hushed voice she said: “You showed them the subject didn’t you?”
Martin nodded.
“So what’s his story? I heard he was a violent criminal and now he’s gentle and calm.”
“That’s about right.” Martin paused. He had never really discussed his work with Sylvie. In fact this was the first time they had exchanged more than a few pleasantries. Somewhere, deep down beneath the pain of his hangover and the more pressing concerns surrounding the demonstration, he was enjoying her company. “If you like I’ll explain it to you on our way.”
“Way where?”
Martin pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. Across the piazza more people were passing in a constant but disjointed stream.
“We need to follow them. They’ll have set it up on top of a building somewhere above where the crowd is going to gather, where the transducer beam will give the best coverage of the most people.” He swallowed and his mouth was dry.
“Why?”
“We have to stop them,” Martin said, and started to walk away. Behind him he heard the scrape of Sylvie’s chair and the click of her heels on the flagstones as he hurried to catch him up.
“So tell me what it does,” she said adjusting her sunglasses and shouldering her bag. Martin glanced at her but didn’t slow his pace.
“Have you ever wondered what makes us different from other animals? What it is that sets up apart from the higher primates?” he said.
“I guess we’re just more intelligent. I’ve never really thought about it.” Her heels scraped on the cobbles as she hurried along beside him.
Martin smiled.
“Have you ever wondered why, of all the creatures on this planet, we are the only ones that are not in harmony with it?”
“No?”
They reached the far side of the piazza and joined the straggle of people heading along the side streets. Some carried banners, most walked in muttering clusters with determined strides.
“We rape and pillage this planet, strip her of all her assets and give nothing back. We are like parasites on this lovely world. Did it ever occur to you that maybe we don’t really belong? That something might have happened to us that changed the way our species evolved.”
“I’m not sure.” Sylvie’s voice sounded uncertain. He glanced round and saw that she had pushed her sunglasses up onto her head and was frowning at him, but she still kept pace. “What has this got to do with your research?” she said.
“Did you know that not all intelligent life is corporeal?”
“What do you mean?”
Martin smiled at her dubious scowl. “Did you know that there are beings of pure energy?”
“I don’t believe you? We’d know if they were.” Sylvie slowed her pace slightly, then quickened it once more to keep up with him.
“They’re here now. They drifted in, a long time ago.”
Sylvie didn’t reply. Martin continued.
“Beings of pure energy can drift across time and space. It must be an empty existence for them. But when they chance across a world where corporeal creatures have reached a certain point in their evolution, a certain level of higher intelligence, they can join with them. They can gain substance, become whole.”
“This sounds like complete nonsense to me,” said Sylvie. “You’re making this up.”
“There’s a certain amount of conjecture on my part, I’ll agree. But everything I’ve seen in my research, all the evidence, points to this being true. What I did to the subject proves it.”
“He’s a man. Surely he has a name.”
Martin smiled.
“He’s more a man now that he ever was.”
The density of people around them had increased and Martin took hold of Sylvie’s hand to keep her close as they wove their way through the crowd.
“I don’t understand what you’re telling me,” she said. Martin grinned. Her hand was soft beneath his fingers.
“At some point in human evolution such energy beings chanced upon our planet, and there they found a race of early hominids, at just the right stage of evolution. And so they joined with them. That was the moment that we became wise man, or Homo sapiens, and stepped beyond the other species of our world. That was the dawn of humanity.”
“Are you trying to say they took us over?” Sylvie laughed, close to his ear, her breath sweet. “This is ridiculous!”
“No at all. They joined and the two species evolved to become as one. It’s a symbiosis. We are not one animal, but two, a symbiotic organism. That is what makes us different from everything else on this planet.”
Sylvie was staring at him, aghast and on an impulse he stopped and pulled her round to face him. He could feel the crush of the mob pushing past. He looked deep into her brown eyes, and the dark hair tumbling around her pretty, serious face. And then he kissed her. Her lips were soft and her mouth tasted of coffee and sugar. She pulled back.
“You’re a crazy man,” she said, but she was smiling.
People were pushing past them and bumping him into her, forcing her closer by increments. He glanced around. They were still in a side street, flanked by tall buildings, colorful washing hanging in the still air above, strung between the apartments. But up ahead the street opened out into what he knew must be another piazza, and here the crowd spread out and slowed, the murmur of their voices forming the drumming repetition of a distant chant.
“This must be it,” he said, and pulling Sylvie along behind him they began to weave through the crowd once more.
Once out in the open piazza the crowd was more spread out and it was easier for them to move through it. Martin scanned the tall buildings, searching. It would be here somewhere. To one side he could see a television van with a satellite dish on top, camera crew waiting. They were expecting this to be big. People were still flowing from the side streets and soon the crowd would become too dense for them to move. And by then it would be too late.
“There, above the Bank,” said Sylvie, tugging at his hand and gesturing with her free arm. Martin paused, staring up into the blue sky, dazzled by the brilliance of the sun. But it was there, unmistakable, the conical shape of the transmitter. The crowd was still gathering. The rally hadn’t started yet. There was still time.
“Come on,” he said, quickening his stride, dragging Sylvie along beside him. “We have to stop them.” He barged people out of his way, ignoring the curses and gestures in his wake.
“But what are we stopping?” said Sylvie, breathless beside him. “What are they trying to do?”
“I noticed the pattern when I was studying the patterns of human brainwaves.” Martin spoke rapidly, never taking his eyes off the building up ahead. Figures were moving around the transducer, and he could make out the distinctive uniforms of the Italian Carabinieri standing guard. They would make sure they were well out of the way before they activated it. He pushed an elderly lady out of his way and her handbag clouted him on the back of his head as he thrust his way through the deepening crush.
“The more I studied it the more it seemed that there were two interacting patterns. And in a few individuals, those with uncontrolled violent tendencies for instance, one pattern seemed to dominate.”
“You mean the two parts of the symbiont?”
“Yes. In most people both halves are in balance, but when one dominates, well, you have people like our subject.”
“So what did you do to him?”
Martin glanced round at her. “I killed the symbiont,” he said.
Sylvie stopped, her eyes wide, staring at him.
“You did what?”
“It’s what my device does. It transmits a frequency modulated acoustic pulse that exactly matches that part of the brain’s signal that relates to the energy being. Increase the level to a critical point and the symbiont dies. It allows the human half to return to dominance. That’s what I did to the Subject.”
“But if what you’re saying is true then he’s only half a man.”
“Well yes. But he was a dangerous criminal, an exceptional case. They want to use it for crowd control. They’re going to turn it on this mob. The thing is, once you kill the symbiont there’s no going back. It’s dead. It’s irreversible. And we’ve no idea what will happen if you kill the symbiont in a normal person. The subject was insane!”
“Then we have to stop them!”
Sylvie pushed forwards, and now she was leading him, and he could feel the pressure of her hand clasping his. But the crowd was denser now and their progress was slow. He glanced up at the rooftop. He could see the white gun holsters of the Carabinieri as they moved back and forth in front of the transmitter, and for an instant he thought he recognized the tall figure of Alessandro Moretto, silhouetted against the sky. They were still working on it. There was still time.
The crowd around them was chanting now, their voices blurring together and the roar of their voices assaulted his ears. Sylvie was saying something, her lips moving, her voice drowned. He tried to concentrate on her words.
“How do you know?” she said. Beyond her he saw a half brick arc through the air, and a second later there was a yelp of pain followed be a roar of rage, rising as a deep rumble like an approaching earthquake.
“Know what?” he shouted over the racket. They had almost come to a complete standstill. He glanced up at the rooftop, but it was empty, only the transmitter, standing stark against the cobalt sky. They had taken shelter from the beam, leaving it on automatic countdown. There was not much time left.
“How do you know it’s the energy being you kill, not the other way round?” Sylvie shouted.
Martin paused. The thought hadn’t occurred to him, but now Sylvie mentioned it… He had assumed that he was killing off the energy being, leaving behind the human part that truly belonged to this planet. But what if Sylvie was right? What if he was killing the man? And then it dawned on him that maybe it was the animal part that gave mankind his passion and drive. He would be destroying the very essence that makes men human! What was left would be a void, an empty body, and the energy beings would be in control, freed at last from their symbiotic constraints. They would at last truly have become corporeal in their own right. The human bodies would become like the shells on the beach that the hermit crabs use and discard at will.
And then he remembered the news crew he had seen, broadcasting the images of this riot around the world. If the pulse was transmitted they would broadcast that as well. He felt a cold clutch of rising panic.
He shuddered and nearby another brick flew into the air. The crowd roared and surged forwards buffeting them in its wake. He staggered and tried to push his way through. They were so close to the door of the bank, but the press of people was too intense, and he could feel their anger flowing around them like an electric wave.
The hair on the back of his neck prickled and for a moment his vision blurred. He was intensely aware of Sylvie’s hand pulling away into the crowd. He clung to it and felt her fingers slipping through his. And then it was gone and he was swept along with the tide of human rage.
“Sylvie!” he shouted, but he couldn’t even hear his own voice.
His head throbbed and his vision blurred again, but this time it was slower to clear. He felt a surge of panic and there was a humming sound in his ears. And then the world spun as a wave of dizziness flowed over him with a sudden rush of fear unlike any fear he had ever known. For a moment it was as if he was falling, tumbling, empty and lost, spiraling downwards, the road rushing up to meet him.
His vision cleared and he looked around. He felt empty and bereft, but calm. There had been something, something urgent, but it didn’t matter now. The square was quiet, full of people staring around. He caught the eye of a woman and smiled. She had soft brown eyes and dark hair tumbling onto her shoulders. He wasn’t sure but he had the feeling that she was somehow familiar, as if he had seen her in a dream a long time ago. She smiled faintly and drifted away with the rest of the people.
Martin stared up at the sky. It was such an intense color. He had never seen anything so beautiful, and the intensity of it crushed him with an emotion that he couldn’t name.
He stood for a long time, staring at it.
About the Author
Kate Kelly’s short fiction has appeared in a variety of print and online magazines and anthologies including Hub, Murky Depths, Pseudopod and anthologies from Hadley Rille Books. You can visit Kate here.
©2010 Kate Kelly
