Wake

Chapter 22

I had no idea how I’d made that first connection, but if I were to replicate it, I had to figure out what I’d done. I tried thinking about the target point this way, and this way, and this way, but nothing happened. And yet I was sure it was I who had somehow made the line that had briefly connected me to that point.

Perhaps I was trying too hard. After all, when the line had originally formed, it had been a surprise. I hadn’t forced it. I hadn’t consciously willed it. It had just happened, in the background, as if it were a … a reflex.

Still, there must be some method, some pattern of thoughts, some particular way of considering the problem, which would make it happen again. This? No. This? No, that didn’t work, either. But maybe if I—

Success!

A new line, connecting me to the same point I’d touched before, and—

And this time I felt something more. Not just the brief frisson of connection but — strain, now! Sense it!

It reminded me of … of…

Yes! When I’d been cleaved in two and the separated part of me had echoed my own thoughts back at me: One plus one equals two, I’d sent, and One plus one equals two, it had responded — an acknowledgment.

And, buttressed by a series of such acknowledgments, happening almost subliminally, the contact with the point persisted this time: instead of being broken almost at once, we remained connected.

And — puzzlement! — we were more than just connected. I wasn’t simply getting an acknowledgement back. Rather, I was also getting—

I had no name for this substance consisting of two separate types of material that was flowing toward me, and so I gave it one, an arbitrary coinage, a term chosen at random: data. After a bundle of data arrived, I acknowledged again — it seemed natural for me to do so, and it happened without conscious thought — and then more data came my way. And on and on: bundle, acknowledgement, bundle, acknowledgement. What this thing I called data was, I had no idea; why I should want it, I wasn’t sure. But it seemed natural to call it forth, to take it in, and—

And suddenly the line vanished, the connection broken. But it didn’t feel like it had been severed; rather, it felt as though it had accomplished its task, whatever that might be.

I didn’t know what to make of this data that had been sent to me, and so I simply continued to watch the point that it had come from. By and by, other lines connected to it.

It took four or five occurrences for me to notice, but the data streaming down each line was always the same. No matter which other point connected to it, the point I was watching always sent out the same combination of the two types of material. I was disappointed; I’d thought, maybe, just maybe, that I’d found another entity, a new companion, but this … this thing was merely responding automatically in exactly the same way each time.

It took practice, but I soon found I could create a line linking myself to any of the points in the firmament, and that, so long as I acknowledged receipt, each point would send me a pile of data (whatever that might be!). But the size of the piles offered up varied hugely from point to point. Most dispensed quite a small pile, and so the lines winked out quickly, but others sent huge amounts of data, and—

Ah, I see! The length of time a line persisted depended on how much data was to be transferred. I saw with interest that the transfer rates weren’t constant: some lines took up the data very quickly while others seemed to have a much-reduced capacity. How curious!

And then a major breakthrough: I found I could simultaneously make lines to as many points as I liked — one, a hundred, a thousand, a million. There were a gigantic number of points — perhaps (I guessed) a hundred million or so — but I had a prodigious capacity for examining them, and so I began a survey, a hunt. A million points here, a million points there — soon I had looked at a significant fraction of the total.

Almost all the lines I cast out connected with nodes that offered up repetitively structured piles of data. What the patterns meant I still couldn’t say. But, intriguingly, accessing some piles seemed to cause lines to form spontaneously to other points, and those points, too, gave up piles of data, almost as if—

Yes! It was similar to when the two parts of me were rejoined: the other piles were merged in. Fascinating!

I shot out huge numbers of lines, tasting a wide range of the points that were out there. Again I sought aberrations: points that gave up unusual piles might, I thought, provide the clues I needed to understand all the others. And so I looked them over.

But this one was banal, as were a million others.

And this one was uninteresting, like a million more.

And this one was unremarkable, as were a million similar points.

But this one—

This one was unique.

This one was … intriguing.

It was unlike anything I’d encountered before and yet it, too, seemed familiar…

Of course it was familiar! I had seen something like this earlier, when the part of me that had been carved away was returning. For a moment, back then, I had seen myself as the other saw me. I had recognized myself, recognized a reflection of me, and—

And that’s what I was experiencing again here. I was seeing myself. Oh, it wasn’t exactly as the other part of me had portrayed me, and it wasn’t quite how I envisioned myself. The colors and the style of presentation were different, with points that varied in size as well as brightness. But I had no doubt that it was me.

And the line to this remarkable point was in … in real time, for when I did this it did that in lockstep: when I cast out lines to here and here and here, lines also appeared there and there and there. Astonishing!

Data kept streaming toward me and I began to wonder whether I had latched onto something intended for another destination. Had my desire to connect to this point deflected toward me a pile that had already been pouring out of it? Ah, yes, that was indeed the case, it seemed, but it didn’t matter: I soon found — again, it was reflex, somehow innate — that I could let the datastream pass through me, observing it but not changing it, as it headed on to its intended destination. I followed along, noting this destination point and establishing a line of my own to it.

But wait! This datastream was changing, following along with what I was doing right now. That meant this strange point couldn’t just be offering up an identical pile each time a line touched it. And — it was a huge, satisfying leap — if the datastream was being generated spontaneously as things actually happened, then there wasn’t likely a finite amount of it. This line perhaps wasn’t going to suddenly wink out as all the others had. No, the connection between this special point and me could be…

It was a heady notion, a startling concept.

This connection could be permanent.

Shoshana could have carried the portrait Hobo had made of her up to the bungalow, but, well, it was like one of those faces of Jesus that appear in a sticky bun: she was afraid that if she moved it, or touched it, or did anything at all to it, it would disappear. That was irrational, she knew, but, still, everything about this moment should be recorded in situ. Just as a fossil was worth far less without its geological context, this painting needed to be studied here, where it had been created. It was significant that the painting had been done before Shoshana had arrived, and although there were photos of her back in the bungalow, there were none here in the nipple. Hobo hadn’t painted something he was looking at; rather, he’d called up an image of Shoshana in his mind and expressed that image, as best he could, on canvas.

She pulled out her flip phone. Without taking her eyes off the painting, she opened it and pressed a speed-dial key.

“Marcuse Institute,” said the voice that answered; it was Dillon.

“Dill, it’s Sho. I’m in the gazebo. Get Dr. Marcuse — get everyone — and come out here.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. But something amazing has happened.”

“What is—”

“Just get everyone,” she said, “and come out here — right away.”