In another place of time ...
"In a few minutes the warriors of the last
conquest will arrive, a couple of eromenois,
M and Ayazx, who were in charge of
looking for the data and they will bring it," told Ahelios, already mature and lean. Ahelios's dark eye bags showed that he had been worked for years by
an ancient evil, he was affected from his youth by a rare form of the atavistic
disease[1].
"Maybe I'll be able to check my prediction about
meta-dimensional animals[2],"
said L quietly, dreaming precariously of being right. I will be able to verify
my assumption and ... a new way of thinking about matter - he concluded,
intoning this last sentence only half - ... And its nefarious universe will
finally end.
Ahelios looked at him, guessing his sad hopes.
"Don't wait too long, we'll just relocate them
and continue the search," he told fatherly. He looked at his young ward
with a certain pity, this came from seeing him more and more lost every day in
that erroneous theoretical labyrinth that he built and in his indifference to
life, his own or that of others.
L fell slightly offended by his superior, who was
condescending but incredulous of his ideas.
–I would also like something extraordinary to happen,
this work has consumed our youth, and it is of such sterility that it will bore
our old age, I understand your hopes, said Ahelios,
understanding and intimate, “with time you will learn to stop dreaming of
another universe other than this one. This is why virtual life is so popular in
those days. This technology has evolved to give people what they are forbidden
to have: a real life.
–But… What would happen if there were no data on its
existence in the investigations of the conquered meta-corporation? L asked,
doubting his own hypothesis.
"We should examine if there is error in the alien
monitoring equipment," Ahelios
replied skeptically, who knew very well the procedures, repeated by them so
many times.
"According to all the reports, these are in
perfect condition," added L, timidly believing in himself again, "I
know that meta-dimensional animals no longer exist." And perhaps that
determines a next event in what we call life and that everyone is so anxious
about.
Ahelios looked as if reproving his apprentice for that
disdain he had for existence.
–It is impossible that they no longer exist, why would
they disappear? Ahelios said,
somewhat tired and ending the conversation with a subtle gesture of annoyance.
"The warrior couple is waiting outside to deliver
the requested material," said a perfectly human voice, it was the android Nimis, with an angular aspect and
intense eyes. No one would suspect when saw she her perfect imitation of human
appearance that she was not a person like the others and that instead of a soul
she had a hole.
"Order them to come in," Ahelios said, gathered to the
responsibilities of his scientist. Nimis
escorted the iron giants.
The large,
beautifully drawn figures of the two warriors appeared among the sophisticated
science equipment. M, strong and serene, with a glint of purity in his eyes, Ayazx arrogant and proud of her stature
and beauty. Their healthy, muscle-swollen flesh exuded a sensuality and beauty
that contrasted with the aseptic and sad technology of the locus and with its gray officials, it was as if nature itself
entered showing all its terrible beauty and was arrogant in the face of the
poor ugliness of artificiality.
The conversation started.
–Inform us of your findings, did you manage to save
the files on meta-dimensional animals? L ask the massive M as if addressing one
thing and adding lowering his voice, "perhaps an old theoretical universe
will die with the results of its finding and another simpler and more true one
will show itself ... the causes are always simple and few; and the numerous and
complex effects —he added, as if wanting to share with this stranger, his hope
of discovering a new world. A world hidden under this world.
"Yes," M said with a deep and warm voice,
which did not understand what L meant but which was concerned for him. They are
completely intact.
- What did you find? Did you check them? Ahelios asked methodically.
M, seemed not to have heard him, looked at L for the
first time and his curiosity was diverted to the interior of him and to the
rare words of him, almost imperceptibly, a few steps beyond what was normal.
His broad chest began to breathe a little faster and harder.
No one, not even himself, noticed it.
L also felt
a vain sensation that he couldn't identify as his breathing hitched. Something
activated a mechanism that he expected invisible in the most primitive part of
his brain. Something primal and dormant that had sprouted to take control of
his most evolved mind and was now looming for the first time. But not for the
last time. Ahelios interrupted:
–Tell us about the results.
"What we have found," said M monumental and
firm, "is that the other meta-corporation concluded that there were no
longer meta-dimensional animals in their entire known universe." Ahelios
was stunned, this was incoherent with everything known ... but he could not
refuse to accept it, he looked in astonishment at his pupil L who had foreseen
it. He felt a certain intellectual happiness to be correct, but then a dull
regret invaded him. He was the first human to know of the end.
- Where is the data? Ahelios asked, still astonished.
–You can examine them at the heart of the information
system. They are already accessed to the general library —answered M, big and
beautiful as a feline.
L and Ahelios
rushed to decode the data and went through it mutely while the two giants
waited. For Ahelios it was an
impossible phenomenon that broke with various theoretical principles, for L the
confirmation of an old suspicion that he had been meditating for years and that
now amazed him. The evidence that the structure of the cosmos had still kept a
secret about itself. That day was unveiled, and with it, terrible news for
everyone, except for him, who was indifferent to the practical considerations
of his ideas. Although this one was terrible.
Ayazx soon grew impatient, scorning the emotionless and
monotonous labors of the two technicians. Bored, he made an obscene gesture
with his oversized body. Something in his gaze frightened and offended others. Ahelios felt as if that cynical gaze was
telling him without words that in contrast to that of the vigorous giant, his
life was ridiculous and poor.
But the warriors disciplinedly waited for orders to
retreat. Their monumental bodies, like two masterful compositions, made of
perfect volumes and lines, stood out in the disorder and ugliness of the puny
laboratories.
Minute by minute and reading after reading they
checked it again. There were no meta-dimensional animals for the other
meta-corporation either and therefore there was no future either.
Ahelios said to his ward L:
"You can fire the warriors." I guess they
have more people to kill. —A tiny hopelessness ignited in L as a result of that
order.
L turned to M and seeing him clearly in the eyes
(which bowed tenderly as if in a dream) he forgot what he had to say to him.
After losing and finding himself in that abyss that is mutual gaze, he said:
- Your presence is no longer necessary, we thank for your
effort and meticulousness. —And when he finished saying it, he felt regret for
provoking with those methodical words, that this stranger disappeared forever.
Ayazx felt relief and haste to leave, while M felt a slight
and inexplicable brake. But disciplined, he walked away. Before disappearing,
an awkward movement of his hand brushed L.
It was hard for L to see him go. He was embarrassed by
that irrational emotion in him. He was a stranger and he didn't need to see him
again. He was nothing more than an organism of limited consciousness, a
symbiosis of chemical reactions with a banal purpose. A whimsical effect of the
evolution and inertia of nature. Of the blind and irrational life ...
But in the following conversations with Ahelios, the clean skin of the proud
warrior shamefully interrupted the reasoning and abstract considerations, which
both wove about meta-dimensional animals.
"You will be happy to confirm your
hypothesis," Ahelios said.
"It may be just a coincidence, a false alarm, but I congratulate
you."
-No. On the contrary, it saddens me, although I don't
understand why,” L said, drawing delicate concern and sorrow on his face. That
disappearance means something else. Something very serious.
"Let's not let our minds fly anymore, pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate[3],
let's stick to what we have discovered," Ahelios said sympathetically and methodically to his subordinate.
"They must inform the Thaumasios Herakón, he will have an explanation for this," he
said, coming back from his thoughts.
-I think you can do it for the first time, you will
take the opportunity to explain your theory.
Then L sat down and let his mind rest from
any calculation or consideration. An emotional tide rose within him, flooding
the dark landscape of his heart.
The structures of the mechanical brain of Nimis, as hollow with life as those of a
video camera, recorded and processed everything and responded to what was
observed. His neural systems reasoned, created, calculated, and communicated,
though without any awareness of what they saw, Nimis had no "self." She was not a subject in front of an
object, but an object in front of another object. For a man perception is
sensation and cognition, for her it was only cognition.
"L has no rank to
have an appointment with a Thaumasios,
you or I will present that report to the Thaumasios
Hekantokeinos Herakón," Nimis said.
L looked at Ahelios and Nimis, and felt that second, that he was in a very remote place
from theirs, in a place very alien to the concrete and rational world, there
some words appeared, a loop, a stumble in his mind took him out of space time,
a letter was written that had no one to send:
Your eyes are severe. They are a door ajar that I have
never crossed
Out of fear, maybe ...
I have drawn your eyes on so many pieces of paper
that….
"Ahelios," L said, interrupting
himself, "many times he told me about his atavistic disease, I have never
understood it and in general I hate that reason is plagued by rude feelings,
but ..." and he stopped ashamed.
Ahelios
took her shoulder like a young father.
"Although it's
forbidden, we all get sick from it at times, mine never leaves me," Ahelios said, remembering her and
hurting to remember her.
"Explain to me
again," L asked his intimate superior.
–In me it is a disease
without a cure, but if you are ill, I will be able to advise you on how to find
a chemical cure. The meta-corporation allows reproduction, but not love, if you
do not neutralize the atavistic disease with drugs, they will allow you to feel
it, but not express it. Only warriors can love and form pairs of eromenois among themselves, as this is
useful to their obligations. But it is absolutely forbidden between technicians
and it is never possible between different castes,” Ahelios said, suspecting something in his ward.
- But how to recognize
this atavistic disease? L asked his superior.
- How to understand it? Ahelios said. It is a rush, an aimless
urgency, an empty anxiety, a melancholy that lasts a lifetime and cannot be
explained, a taste that time is missing something. The longing for a tenderness
that is nowhere, but that I always need. That is the atavistic disease in me—
concluded Ahelios.
L, he heard it and for the first time
understood it. A clear meaning appeared in those words: Love is a void that
wants to be filled. That afternoon he began to feel what he protector felt.
Something that would never leave him and that would refocus every part and
purpose of his brief life.
[1] Love.
[2] Beings
of 10 dimensions, but invisible to the 4 dimensions perceived by humans, only
occasionally intercepted our world, for fractions of an instant. They were the
rarest living beings in this unique and closed universe that would die.
[3] Plurality
should not be postulated unnecessarily.
