Kinesis

Peace of mind was no longer a state attainable, at every turn there was something clouding the thought process and something jumbling the reasoning. It was a balancing act to sort the current waves of reality from the white noise but somehow Atha had learned to adapt. The realization that normality would never be obtainable again was a mind numbing prospect and in this corner of the universe there was truly no where to run. If one was to feel suppressed by a person or place there might be the option to leave or disconnect but to be a prisoner in one's own mind was truly the worst type of punishment a human being could endure.

There were distractions, necessary to the survival of the psyche or there would be no option but to self destruct, although the distractions themselves became progressively more and more self-destructive. One could now question whether these were more a slow motion method of suicide rather than the constructs to keep a tortured mind occupied but at the end of it all there she was and that was preferable to not being.

Nowadays it was understood, the process behind what had caused this disaster. Machines may become progressively more human but a human is not a machine, all we share is the electricity that runs through our circuits. The interactions betweens biological systems and man made ones were not fully understood when she was a child and as a result she was amongst the first to develop the disease and through another process in which the human mind becomes more adaptable, her abilities.

Myelin sheathing protects the neural circuitry of a humans brain, without it we either end up with neurological disorders or mental illness. The brain finishes laying down the sheathing sometime in our mid forties when the ability to access and handle all the information in it becomes easier. Children were the first to be affected but it was attributed to a variety of other disorders and for big business there was too much money to lose to admit the real source of problem. Immunizations, drinking water, air pollution, every other possible cause imaginable was attributed as the reason behind it but as the rates soared it became apparent that there was some other mechanism at work.

To live in a world where sounds have shapes, optic nerves can pick up the signals of other people and devices, your thoughts can mingle with others and your emotions can change the substance of the world around you is not an explicable experience for a small child. By the age of 7 Atha was recieving psychological counselling and was diagnosed with a severe mental disorder, although the therapists who had seen her could not decide whether or not she had some form of schizophrenia in conjunction with synesthesia or some as of yet undefined type of high functioning autism. They sent her to a school for children with developmental disabilities which simply served to her disconnect from the world around her further.

Decades later in this seedy world where almost everything is a commodity, even the human mind and soul, Atha was at the top of her game. The years she had spent being treated with condescension rather than being given the tools she needed in life meant this was all she had left for survival

“This is the target,” Yôsuke patched in a neural transfer of a man, clean shaven in his early thirties, a French military type. “He lives in Unit 87 at the end of Kojima Block. He has a history of drug use so we believe liver failure would be appropriate.”

“I'm low on energy this week so I'll have to rest a few days or I'll burn out,” Atha was getting white noise for days now, 72 hours in a darkened room was the only way to recharge or she would be virtually disabled.

“Okay, but the hit has to be completed by the end of the month, your drop will be 24 hours later as usual,” Yôsuke had a sudden small convulsion and then returned to himself. As many others did, he had a form of epilepsy that was caused by the neurotechnology he used and abused so frequently. He left abruptly and Atha turned off the lights to commence her three days slumber.

In dreams most people find solace or escape but not for Atha, these were the tunnels of terror and that dug deeper into her psyche and siphoned up every aberration and malignant spirit that clung to the trenches of her marrow. Years of abuse had ensured that she would never have a peaceful period of sleep and even this could be turned into a commodity for someone, a type of pornography for the new age of perversions. There was no possibility of tranquility or any juncture close to it in either state of consciousness but even when she considered the only other possible option the thought occurred to her that perhaps even this state could be interfered with, her soul being used as energy from the vacuum to power some device for the rest of eternity.

Often the faces of the people she had eliminated would appear to her but she still somehow felt detached from what she did to them. She felt as though it was almost a natural process, someone had called her because their time had come and this was virtually a cycle of nature, like the food chain. As of yet there was no law against what she did, it was not recognised as a crime because it could not be traced. Perhaps she was able to do what she did to these people because they had bad karma, perhaps she was simply a conduit for what they had brought upon themselves?

“Listen to your conscience,” said the wall of whispers, commanding Atha to do something of which she was incapable. The voices may as well have asked her to paint the sky green.

A hazy holographic image of face of her new assignment appeared beside her and stared serenely into her eyes. His pupils were black and wide, his expression was calm and she could feel his breath until it turned into the sound of a loud rumble that shook the room. He ran his fingers from the tip of her chin down to her jaw and throat, reaching with his other hand into her breastbone which transformed into a glowing dance of lights and forms that twisted into shapes around his torso. He thrust into the mass of light and Atha saw a collision of shapes and colours diffuse into the white noise that now blinded her vision.

Yôsuke then appeared abruptly and his eyes rolled into the back of his head, he convulsed again and again in a digital like loop. He would often appear when the dreams became too vivid, like a valve to release the pressure of her neural traffic.

“Unit 87 at the end of Kojima Block”

Atha walked along the path until she reached the turn at Kojima Block, the noonday sun blinding her sight as she tried to read the numbers along the residential units, she walked until she reached number 57 and stopped. A strong wind nearly blew her off her feet and she held onto the handle of the door.

“Atha, I'm waiting for you,” the whisper was a single voice now, that of a man.

This was the very first time she had experienced this feeling. It felt like uncertainty but she couldn't quite place the emotion, it was almost like physical nausea and she didn't understand why. Here in this place that she would soon be visiting in her mind's eye during her waking hours she would do what she had done time after time without malice or remorse. There was no need for either of these emotions in her line of work, the execution of her targets did not require emotional involvement, simply mental concentration.

There was a darkening of the sky and a flash of lightening followed by a clap of thunder. Atha braced herself for rain but then there was none. The door to unit 57 opened.

“There's an alternate universe in the rotation of electrons,” shouted the unshaven maniacal man with heavy rimmed glasses, one lens of which seemed to be shattered to pieces but hanging in place.

“What?” Atha was startled.

“Come in, it will start raining in a couple of minutes,” the man beckoned her into his squalid room which looked like it had not been cleaned for several months. Something about the place was reminiscent of a mortuary yet it also stank of stale beer. Stacks of science periodicals and notebooks were towering all around, threatening to swamp the furniture and Atha was not sure whether or not she should sit down or exit immediately.

“Here, you can sit here. Don't worry, you won't damage anything. Wait, listen...”

The rainstorm started and the violence of it shook the unit until the stacks of books toppled beside them. As the lightening struck the static of white noise appeared before Athas eyes and the frequencies of different channels, conversations, radio shows, the images from random transmissions and whispers of the past melded into one another as she tried to focus on the moment to no avail. Sounds dissolved into shapes, colours prickled like sensations and she at once knew the neural web was tangled again.

She awoke from the absence to find herself on the strangers couch with a strange smelling concoction propped beneath her chin. She could see him at his desk immersed in reading and wondered what this madman's position could be in the corporation. He detected her movement out of the corner of his eye.

“You've recovered! You're okay. Epilepsy? Not uncommon these days.”

“No,” Atha was still disoriented as she spoke, “a type of synaesthesia, it's difficult to explain.”

“Ah yes, yet another type of neurological disorder. The cause is all the same nevertheless. I have the beginnings of MS it seems, now there's something to look forward to. The price we pay for technological advancement. My name is Jerome, by the way.”

“Atha.”

“Are you new with the corporation? Or are you just visiting? Work placement? Yes, you look like you're here on some sort of internship, is that what it is?” Jerome was sifting through the avalanche of papers on the floor as he interrogated Atha, oblivious to her stone cold eyes piercing through him.

“This should not have lasted so long,” Atha suddenly possessing the self awareness one sometimes perceives in dream states. This state of consciousness had never lasted more than a couple of seconds without her waking.

“Ah yes, but it has and here you are,” exclaimed Jerome, oblivious to his status as part of her subconscious.

“Then you should know precisely what I know. I'm here on a mission, to terminate my target,” Atha stated without emotion.

“I see. Then it must be essential for your survival,” Jerome sounded like a therapist reasoning some minor irrational behaviour. “But that doesn't explain what's been happening to you.”

Atha again felt the nausea. It was inexplicable, completely unexpected and she had a flashback to the luminous pool once again. Strings of light pulled a figure toward her from the ether and all at once time seemed to fold into itself as the shapes and sounds melded into a continuum that became a symphony and then once again a single vibration. The white noise enveloped her field of vision again and Jerome became an outlined figure in the static.

“Atha, I've always been here for you,” said the whisper of the unknown man whom she now recognised.

“I know,” she answered and for one exhilarating moment she did know but then forgot once again.

Jerome and the room now appeared as normal and she was back on the couch amidst the piles of books and papers. She felt out of control and this was unfamiliar to someone who was paid to control her mind to phase into the realm of matter. She could not wake from this dream but she had to, the target was due for elimination within 48 hours.

“I have to leave now, I have work to do,” Atha motioned to get up but found that her body would not cooperate.

“You can't leave Atha,” Jerome murmured, “until you remember.”

She could remember breath and skin, space and time, the strings of light that reached into the abyss to pull out pieces from another dimension but the puzzle was still in scattered sections, her mind was still fractured and the nausea continued. Her dreams had never lasted this long and she felt as if her sanity might be annihilated forever or perhaps that she never had it in the first place. What was it that was lost in those moments that slipped away like mercury and why did her body now feel like lead?

“Who is the target?,” Jerome's voice seemed hollow.

“Who?” Atha echoed.

“Who is the target?” Jerome repeated once again.

“Who?” Atha echoed again.

“Look at yourself,” Jerome's eyes motioned downwards.

Atha looked down at her swollen belly to find she was heavily pregnant.

“Benoit!” Atha awoke.

Yôsuke entered Unit 87 at the end of Kojima Block to find it empty, the sole inhabitant vacated and Atha nowhere to be found. The sound of white noise enveloped his hearing and static jumbled his optic nerves until he was blinded and could no longer see the door before him. He felt a sharp pain on the left side of his chest which radiated down his arm and up towards his jaw. Yôsuke was a company man no longer. Long at last in the infinite realm of the ether Atha was free.

© Naomi C. Pattirane 2010