A plan is hatched. One last question is asked. A story ends.

Find more information at efficiantum.com and follow us @efficiantum on twitter or like the Efficiantum Project on Facebook

Written and performed by Michael Meinberg @meinberg13

Script editing and logo design by Erin Hawley at geekygimp.com and @geekygimp on twitter

Tracks “Spider’s Web” “Blue Feather” “Gagool” “Inspired” and “Awkward Meeting” by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

SCRIPT

Frederich gazed up at me, wanting the rest of the story. I offered him cash in response, but he shook his head. If he was going to give me a bomb, he needed both cash and the rest of the story. He wouldn’t toss a tool that powerful into the hands of a person who was plotting a scheme he didn’t approve of.

And so I told him. I told him everything, everything I’ve told you up to this point. To his credit, Frederich took in all the details, severity crossing his face. In the end, he told me to go rest. There was a break room that I could use. He’d confer with his people and get back to me in the morning.

And so I slept again. The chase had worn me out more than I cared to admit, and so I crashed on the tiny mattress and slept as well as I had in the plush hotel room.

I awoke later that day, not sure when exactly, judging from the light streaming in from the windows. As I turned to stand, I found the door opening and three familiar faces stepping in to talk to me. I had been expecting Frederich and even Jasper, but Alex’s presence came as a shock. Jasper explained that Alex had been looking for me, and they had been crashing at Jasper’s place.

Frederich had brought them up to speed, but they all wanted to know what my plan was. I explained that my plan was quite simple. I would head to the factory that held the device making the nanomachines and I would blow it up. I could stop any of the puppets by reuniting their minds with their bodies.

Alex asked what I would do if I ran into trouble on the inside. I didn’t have a good answer for that. So Alex asked Frederich for a shock cannon. I guessed that’s what the big guy used to knock out the crowd. Frederich nodded and I protested that I didn’t want anyone to tag along. They ignored me.

Jasper told me that stopping this was too important to leave unfinished. Everyone could tell that things were getting worse. Everyone in the back alleys went around armed, and kept on guard for those with the wide-eyed stares of those in a communion. But that wouldn’t be enough if the city exploded into chaos.

Frederich muttered something about not being ready, but I didn’t follow up on that. I recognized that Jasper was right, that this was too much to leave to chance. With my sigh of acceptance, Frederich brought forth the bomb.

It was a metal sphere, divided in half, about as large as the space created by bringing my fingertips together and branching out my palms. He explained that if I turned the halves in the right way (he mimicked turning the top half clockwise and the bottom half counterclockwise), it would click into place. At that point, I had five minutes before it exploded, so I had better get running.

I slid the bomb into a satchel which I slung over my shoulders. Meanwhile, Alex hefted up the shock cannon, the device looking far larger, and no less menacing, in their hands. I began to offer my thanks to Frederich and to Jasper, but Jasper cut me off and said I could thank them when I came back. Jasper added that she had taken payment out of my pocket, so we were square on that.

And so, I said goodbye and I left the factory with Alex at my side. As we walked, I asked them why they hadn’t left town, why they came looking for me.

They had spent some time at the docks, looking for a ship that might take them away. But after a couple days, they realized that didn’t feel right. They’d be running, and probably spend the rest of their life running. Alex was just as keen to get this solved as I was.

As for me, I had seemed so fervent on knowing how to fix things;clearly, I would be the person to go to for more information. And Alex seemed quite proud to be right. I smirked, and they added that it helped I was cute. As a blush rose to my cheeks, Alex added that I could afford to put on a few pounds, to which I did not disagree.

We walked the rest of the way in silence, becoming more certain of our path with every step. And then there it was. The factory, a crumbling edifice of iron and concrete, surrounded by a horde of puppets which now numbered at least fifty.

***

The horde swivelled to face our direction in unison, their vacant eyes staring through us. Alex immediately pulled the trigger on the shock cannon and the orb of light flew forward and landed in the midst of the closest group of the puppets before bursting. As the light faded, the rest of the horde twitched and writhed as the pain of the shock was shared throughout the mind.

I charged forward over the unconscious puppets and dashed for the nearest building with Alex following shortly after.  I saw one of the puppets lash towards Alex and pulled the puppet’s mind back to his body with a flick of my mental wrist, sending him collapsing to a heap. I reached the door a moment later and flung it open to a narrow hallway, poorly illuminated but more solidly constructed than the exterior would indicate.

Alex threw the door shut and locked it after Alex followed me in and put their back against the door, before nodding to me. They promised to hold the entrance even as hands began to bang at the door, searching for entry. I hesitated for just a moment, but then Alex yelled at me to go. I went.

I delved deeper into the structure, and the path proved to be remarkably straightforward, with much of the halls filled with rubble or partially collapsed as I got further in. And so, I eventually came to a large set of double doors. I felt the sweat forming on my palms as I opened them.

Within, there was a large circular room, dominated by a piece of elaborate machinery in the center. I could make little sense of it, save that it appeared to replicate itself, but smaller and smaller and smaller as it got towards the center, until the central mechanism appeared as a blur before my eyes. I shook my head at it, and then noticed a figure, hunched over and heavyset, working at a keyboard with an attached monitor.

He didn’t seem to notice my arrival until I stepped in closer towards the machine. They warned me away from it, saying that the mechanisms were very delicate. I noticed a pair of channels connected to the machine, one pumping water in, the other pumping it out, to a location outside of the building.

I asked him if he knew what was going on outside, if he knew what this stuff was being used for. He let out a sigh and turned to face me, his pale, white features dominated by bushy, white eyebrows and a grandfatherly smile. He explained that he knew full what the end result of his labor was. But ultimately, it didn’t matter to him. All that mattered was that the manufactory worked.

The old man continued; he had invented the first one as a pure design concept, and had yet to see a working model until he had been brought out of retirement. A functional nanoscale manufactory would change the world, he claimed. With this device, he could usher in a brand new age, where labor could be handled by automated machines, freeing the working class of their need to toil.

With the proper programming, a nanoscale manufactory could make anything, could cure lethal diseases and repair injuries, could lead to a glorious new golden age. But I knew that would never happen, not while the manufactories were controlled by the Corps and the Autocrats, let alone the mysterious mastermind.

People like that, systems like that, would only use the miracles offered by this technology to feed their own ambitions and to perpetuate the systems of which they were masters. I didn’t explain this to the old man. I knew he would never understand. I could see in his eyes that all he cared about was his dream. It was a feeling I sympathized with.

And perhaps I could be the one to take over. Perhaps I could take control of this fantastic power and use it for all of the good that the creator desired. I imagined myself taking charge of the nanoscale manufactory, and gaining power greater than any Autocrat, of coming to rule the world with my strength alone.

But after a moment’s consideration, that dream faded. I knew that even a saint with the greatest of intentions could be corrupted by so much strength. I realized that such power could not rest in a single hand, but needed to be shared with the many. And right now, with only one hand on the rudder, the power would lead only to corruption and suffering.

So I told him was that I was going to blow up the machine; that if I did not, then everything would be lost. His eyes widened in panic and I told him to run. He did not. I stared at him for a long moment, trying to understand his reasoning.

It took me a while to figure him out, but I reasoned it eventually, months later. He had lived a long life, after all, and this was the only thing that mattered now. This was the sum of all of his life’s work, and if it was going to be destroyed, then he would go face that destruction with it.

I sighed then, and I pulled out the bomb. I twisted the halves as Frederich demonstrated, and rolled the bomb towards the machine. Then I turned and ran.

***

I found Alex by the entrance, sweat drenched from the exertion of holding the door shut. I yelled at them that we had to run and they nodded. They pulled away and the door burst open. Alex fired fired onto the incoming horde, and then we sprinted through the crowd, trying to get as far as we could from the factory. One of the puppets, laying prone, reached forward and grasped my ankle.

I tumbled to the ground, but Alex tossed aside the shock cannon to help me up. I mentally clocked the time as we ran and ran, through the twisting alleys formed by the abandoned factory district. At exactly five minutes, I heard an audible thump from behind us. A moment later, a roar rushed through the air, smashing through the concrete of the abandoned buildings, crumbling the masonry. A wall of force slammed into our backs and Alex and I went flying to the ground, surrounded by the falling walls and ceilings.

The rubble collapsed on top of us, burying us beneath masonry and concrete. I shielded my head from the worst of impacts, but I descended into darkness, separated from Alex. Time lost all meaning in that space, buried alive in the grey. Enough cracks formed within the rubble above for faint bursts of air to flow into my makeshift tomb.

I breathed slowly as I slipped into unconsciousness. I knew that if I died there, I could die content that I had achieved my goal. The nanoscale manufactory was gone. The one person who could make one again was gone. In a few days, the nanomachines would be washed out of everyone. Everything would return to something resembling normalcy.

I drifted in and out of consciousness several times, and I had no idea how much time passed until my mind reached out. The nanomachines still remained in my system, though I could already feel them beginning to weaken. But I sensed a familiar presence above, and I sent forth a direct call for assistance. I did my best to construct an image of where we had fallen, but then the presence faded.

I fell away again, until I awoke to the telltale nausea of the fading of the nanomachines within me, my body shivering and impossibly cold. I tried to shift away the rubble and grit my teeth at the pain rushing through my form. But then I felt the weight above me slide away and bright noonday light shine down onto my face. I turned over to see the rubble being pulled off of Alex, then looked up to grin at Sam.

After reading my note, Sam had gone looking for me, and eventually followed my trail back to Frederich, which led them here. Seeing the rubble, they had hired a crew who had managed to extricate the pair of us after Sam had a flash of intuition that said to look here. Alex seemed just as wan and pale as I, but I smiled to them as well, and offered coffee at the soonest convenience.

I never returned to work after that. I couldn’t go back to scratching after all I had seen, after all I had done. Teri got the promotion and sealed her position as an Agent by overseeing the merger of the Efficiantum SideSweepers. Sam had retired too; their Corp was basically a ghost town at that point, nothing more than a name and a building.

After dinner, Sam and I decided that we wanted to keep looking into things. There was still so much more strangeness left in this world, after all. And we never did find the root of the mind that was controlling things. We wound up opening a small firm, designed to look into cases of the strange. We didn’t expect to make much coin, but Sam had a decent savings we could use to fund things.

Jasper and Frederich continued their business, and I’d come to rely on them as a source of information and resources in the months to come, at least until things changed. Alex started working with Jasper, and while I didn’t approve of them getting back into the drug scene, it wasn’t exactly my prerogative.

I did eventually have that coffee with Alex, but that’s the start of another story. How about you get me something to drink and I’ll start on that one? If you really want to know everything that I saw in the city, we’re going to be here for a very long time. But I guess I don’t have anything besides time right now.

How long did you say we’re stuck on this boat?

Knowledge is stolen from the gods. Scars are washed. Torches in the dark.

Find more information at efficiantum.com and follow us @efficiantum on twitter or like the Efficiantum Project on Facebook

Written and performed by Michael Meinberg @meinberg13

Script editing and logo design by Erin Hawley at geekygimp.com and @geekygimp on twitter

Tracks “Spider’s Web” “Blue Feather” “Angevin” “The Complex” and “Awkward Meeting” by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

SCRIPT

I struggled within the vast mindscape that stretched out before me. My body was dying, I could feel it in the slowing of my breath and heart. The rigors of my time in the cell were proving too much for my flesh. Slipping away seemed easy in that comforting void. I could just fall apart.

But I couldn’t give up. Something pulsed within me, and I gazed down onto the hungering masses. I knew that would be my fate if I surrendered. I would be reduced to mindless hunger, with the workable parts of mind sectioned off to form the backdrop of the world. The strength of my desires would be co-opted to power whatever dreaded force compelled all of this forward.

The core mind behind it all remained too disparate and too protected. I couldn’t strike back through this void, not directly. But I descending into the white and allowed my senses to become subsumed by it. I merged my mind with these countless others and formed a tapestry of the land. I saw with a thousand eyes peering through the city.

Chaos was rising on the streets, instigated in the time since my imprisonment. Too many had been consumed too quickly, and the underlying fabric that allowed the city to continue in its orchestrated fashion fell apart. Chants and cries lifted on the words of workers as they took to the streets for the first time in their lives. Riots and strikes flared openly.

Some were sparked directly by this controlling mind, these deliberate attempts to create chaos, and it allowed them to rise to the top. I could feel the longing to control and use the righteous anger of the oppressed as a means to slip to the top.

But in other places, the mind merely watched as the discontent rose of its own accord. Here, a restaurant closed because its head chef had been consumed, and the patrons descended into riot -a minor inconvenience becoming a spark in powder. There, a workshop owner burdened his employees with the shifts of those that had been consumed. The independent workers threw down their tools as a boundary was finally pushed too far, and threw their employer from a window.

And dozens of puppets, the remnants of those consumed by the communion, lurked outside an abandoned factory, watching those that come and go. Their numbers increased by the hour, flooding and filling the space, forming a mass to contain, or perhaps protect, the nearly collapsed factory. Steam emerged from the broken structure, pumping into the clouds above.

My fingers curled into fists and I pulled back. I stared at the Agent before me, who was locked in concentration in their attempt to break me, in their attempt to make me like the puppets or like themselves. My mind’s eye followed a silver string from the back of their skull, and it disappeared into the void. I grasped a hold of that string and pulled with everything I had left.

The Agent twitched and attempted to close off the connection. I pulled harder and the grey liquid of their mind emerged from the sea of souls. Their mind coiled back into their body and the Agent gasped in sudden awareness of self. I allowed the connection to break then, and fell into a sobbing wreck, struggling to lift myself into a seated position.

The Agent stepped forward and offered me a hand. Their face still registered nothing but shock, but I took the hand and rose unsteadily to my feet. I slipped an arm around their shoulders and they took on the burden of my weight. I told them that we had to get out of there. Numb, they agreed.

The puppets guarding the door turned on as soon as we exited. They seemed confused for a moment, and I used that confusion. I opened my mind to theirs, and traced the silver thread for both of their minds simultaneously, dragging them back into their bodies. The pain of reconciliation must have been higher for them, as they collapsed immediately into limp piles on the ground.

As the Agent carried me towards the exit, they asked what I did. I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t have the words then to conceptualize what my brain was going through. Everything was so abstract and distant, so cold and alien. Even now, it’s difficult to put things into words. But the constant testing forced me to grow stronger and faster than most. Being constantly on the losing end of confrontations forced me to learn or to die.

And I refused to die.

***

The rest of the way out of the spire went unnoticed. The building had been emptied out, leaving no one to resist our efforts. I needed food coffee and fresh clothes; so after we emerged into the pale dawn streets, I directed the Agent to a nearby cafe. I could begin to regain my strength there.

Along they way, they introduced themself as Sam, and apologized. I could tell the weight of what they had done while under the influence of that outside mind rested heavily on them. So, I accepted the apology as graciously as I could, though speaking proved difficult. A haze settled on me, exhaustion and malnutrition playing havoc with my thought process.

This neighborhood stood in stark contrast to the one that I had seen in my visions of revolution. The structures were more elegant and maintained, and the people that went about their work wore more formal clothes. The easy quiet of the space seemed at contrast with the visions I had plucked, but the calm only had me more on edge.

At the cafe, we found a seat inside, in a corner away from prying eyes and where we could watch the doors. I ate my fill and then more-greasy eggs and bacon and toast. I drank probably a pot of coffee all on my own, but still my body longed for nothing more than sleep. But I couldn’t sleep yet.

While I ate, I questioned Sam about what they knew. Turns out, they didn’t know much. They had learned, through back channels, that their Autocrat had opened up a nanoscale manufactory. Sam proceeded to do all the research they could, trying to get to the root of the reasoning. But then they were drugged with the water – everyone in the spire had.

With their minds opened by the nanomachines, they had been easy prey for whomever was connecting them all. Sam thought it was their Autocrat, but I was less sure of that. While Sam’s Autocrat opened the door, I doubted they would construct these kinds of nanomachines. Something here resonated on a deeper level than a simple corporate plot.

No Autocrat would have wanted the amount of the chaos fomenting on the streets. No, an Autocrat would be looking for short-term profit to find a way to turn these nanomachines into a product they could bottle and sell. This usage of nanomachines spoke to a more profound reasoning, but one that was less explicable.

With my food finished and the bill covered by Sam, I rose to my feet and then immediately collapsed. Again, Sam offered me a helping hand, making our way to a hotel. Fortunately, Sam had Agent money, which meant they could afford a room as long as needed.

The room proved to be quite well furnished, though I didn’t pay much attention to the surroundings; but instead crumpled onto the bed, still wearing all of my clothes, and drifted to sleep. I don’t know how long I slept, but when I awoke, it was pitch black outside, and I had been stripped down to my underclothes.

Sam sat in a plush chair by the window, passed out. Laying across another chair was a set of fresh clothes, looking to be my size. I showered, allowing the hot water to rinse away the sweat and ease the bruises. I gazed down and saw my ribs sticking from my chest, the pale flesh hanging off of my bones.

But I emerged rejuvenated from the shower. I could stand, at least, and could finally breathe for the first time since I entered the spire. I dressed and the clothes felt so good, clean cotton on my clean skin seemed like such an alien experience. And they fit, even to my slender form, though I did need to tighten the belt. I watched Sam sleep as I pondered my next move, considering if I should bring them with me, and then prepared to leave. But I hesitated at the door, and returned to grab a notepad and pen.

I left behind a note thanking Sam for their assistance, but telling them I had to finish things. I knew where the nanoscale manufactory was. The vision of the abandoned factory burned itself into my mind, and from seeing a handful of street signs, I was able to piece together its location.

I couldn’t, in good conscience, drag anyone else in where I was going. The danger would be too high, the risk too great. But for all of my desire to handle things on my own, there was still one more person that I needed to talk to. And I’d need some money to help grease the wheels, so I deftly separated Sam from their billfold, careful not to awaken them.

Then I departed.

***

Night had wrapped up the city, and the chill wind whipped my hair and the tails of my coat. I wrapped my overcoat tighter around me, but let the rain fall freely on my head. I need the nanomachines that it would grant. I couldn’t handle the withdrawals in my current condition. And I needed my mind open, so I could see the threats around me.

The streets were quiet for most of my journey, and I passed only a handful of individuals hurrying about to get to their destinations. Twice on my way, I felt the probing of another mind trying to gain entry into my fortress of thoughts, but they paled in comparison to the light of the mass gestalt that I had been dealing with, so they were easily cast aside.

But even in the absence of people, I could feel the boiling resentment in the pavement beneath my feet. It rumbled below, no longer quiet, but singing for release. It ached to be let loose unto the world, for all of the sins of the Autocrats to be laid bare, for the fine machinery of the city to be undone.

I couldn’t disagree with the sentiment, but I knew that now was not the time. If the anger was released now it would feed into the hands of an even greater tyrant. A revolution now would simply enchain the people to a power that would control not only their finances but their very thoughts. First, that threat had to be removed, then things could change.

As I neared my destination, I saw a crowd up ahead. They held torches in their hands, the flames creating a haze in the air, clouding the sky above in smoke. I could see the brilliance that rested within several puppets, the leaders of the crowd. They exclaimed to the crowd, mostly working-class young men, that the only path forward was in revolution and in fire.

Then one turned toward me and I felt the probing pressure on my mind. But I kept it at bay as my defenses were too strong. And then a voice cried out that I was one of them, one of the ones keeping the people down. They pointed and claimed that I was to be made an example. The crowd surged toward me and I darted down an alleyway.

The path was not familiar to me, but I knew my destination well enough from my last journey there. I constructed the map in my head, trying to imagine the path that would lead me to my destination. I turned and turned while the crowd continued to follow. The voices of the leaders roared around me, painting me as a devil, as another tool of the Autocracy.

Their torches cast a red glow over the surroundings, and despite the hour, discordant music blasted out of windows as I continued to run, my legs threatening to give way with every step. But panic drove me onward. A young man sitting on a stoop called out to me to stop and pay the toll, but then blinked at the crowd following behind and ducked into a building.

I turned one more time and ran into the chest of a man with a broad build and deep, tawny skin. He carried what looked like a metal tube with a wooden handle attached to it. I had never seen such a tool before, but the man threw me aside with one arm before turning the tube onto the incoming crowd. He pulled a trigger, and an orb of blue light shot forth, skittering over the walls before slamming into the front of the crowd and bursting. I shielded my eyes from the burst of light, and as it faded, the crowd lost its momentum as the ones in front collapsed in heaps on the ground.

I took advantage of their hesitation and reached forward into the minds of the leaders. I yanked with all of my strength, and brought their minds back to their bodies. They stumbled and blinked, clearly dazed, and the crowd begin to back away, disintegrating as the source of their fervor faded.

I turned to the man with the tube and told him that I needed to see Frederich. He nodded and turned, leaving the crowd to disperse as he escorted me the rest of the way back.

The makeshift factory continued to hum despite the late hour, and I found Frederich tinkering with a few pieces of metal and what looked to be a hinge. He looked up at me expectantly, and I kept things brief.

I told him I needed a bomb.

A Corp is infiltrated. Two minds clash. Resolve is tested.

Find more information at efficiantum.com and follow us @efficiantum on twitter or like the Efficiantum Project on Facebook

Written and performed by Michael Meinberg @meinberg13

Script editing and logo design by Erin Hawley at geekygimp.com and @geekygimp on twitter

Tracks “Spider’s Web” “Evening of Chaos” “Cognitive Dissonance” “Heart of the Beast” and “Awkward Meeting”by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

SCRIPT

I clad myself in my finest clothing, checked my tie and the line of my suit and drank a deep pull of my coffee. I poured over the data I had collected over the years, one last examination before fitting my analysis into a manilla envelope I deposited into a briefcase. I blended in with the mass of moving bodies and strode towards the spire, a mask of confidence on my face.

I arrived soon at the base of the spire, which was the headquarters for Efficiantum SideSweepers. And then I walked in like I belonged there; no one bothered to question me as I made my ascent towards the top levels. The spires all had the same sort of floor plan, though they differed near the top. But still, I was able to find my way to an office of someone who was surely ranked closed to the Autocrat, judging from the finer quality of the surroundings.

I stepped in to discover a tall and slender person hunched over a desk, busying themself with paperwork. They were bronze-skinned with a loose mass of curled, black hair set free on top of their head. Upon my entry, they looked up and blinked several times. I didn’t hesitate, but strode forward and made my offer. I was turning coat, and had decades worth of CrossCity StreetCleaning’s finances ready to hand out.

My offer was met with shocked silence, and I felt a grin creeping onto my lips. But then the person in front of me recovered, their posture shifting subtly, but aligning to almost click into place. Their eyes went from bewildered to confident in a moment, and they nodded. Apparently, they usually had further notice of such an action, but they were more than happy to help with my transition.

I handed over the briefcase without hesitation. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. The data within might be useful, but the mercurial nature of the business meant that the data was only as useful as the mind behind it. I was confident that my home CrossCity StreetCleaning would be able to survive my betrayal, though a brief twinge of guilt fired in my stomach as I thought about the rest of my team.

But then the Agent, and they were clearly an Agent, asked me what I wanted in return. They offered a high position – money, power, anything that I wanted. But I only wanted one thing – information about nanoscale manufactories. They narrowed their gaze at me then nodded slowly. They’d have to get in touch with experts, but I was more than welcome to have a seat while they went off in search.

After the Agent left, I did not sit. Instead, I poured over every bit of visible text within the room, trying to put together a picture of what was happening. A progress report on their desk was written in marketing speak, largely gibberish, but the numbers painted a clear picture. Something strange was happening within this Efficiantum SideSweepers.

The precise picture was hard to parse, but it seemed like a rogue element had seized control of the Corp. Large funds were being redirected to new projects, massive layoffs – a complete corporate restructuring. But the same Autocrat remained in power, which made no sense. In these sort of coups, there was always a change of power at the very top.

That’s when I noticed an empty bottle in the rubbish bin. I couldn’t say for sure, but it looked familiar.

I dashed to the office door, but it swung open just before I reached it. The Agent entered, flanked by two toughs in suits, followed by an elegant woman dressed in silks and gold. I froze as I took in her attire and backed up toward the desk.

“Oh sweetie,” the woman said, “it seems you’re looking into things that you really shouldn’t.”

The two men surged forward and pinned me down to the desktop face up, while the woman strode forward, procuring a bottle of water from her handbag. She opened the bottle and poured the liquid down my throat, while the Agent massaged my neck, forcing me to drink.

I sputtered and struggled, trying to fight off all four of them at once. I writhed like a wild boar beneath a net, bucking in an attempt to gain a degree of freedom. But I couldn’t help it, and the liquid flowed through me.

And then I felt my senses fall away, and the fingers of my mind creep forward once more.

***

I convulsed as the nanomachines went to work in my system. My mind cracked and my senses expanded. The paltry stuff of matter around me became pale shadows of the true power of the minds before me. The woman contained a universe within herself, and glowed with the brightness of a thousand suns.

I recoiled as I felt that light streaming in toward me, but the hands of her servants gripped me tightly. I could see now that they were hollow puppets, their minds gone completely,controlled by strings coming from her mind. A bit of the Agent remained, but much of their mind was gone as well, subsumed into that glowing mass.

The tendrils touched into the core of my consciousness and I screamed as fire ripped through my body. The tendrils pulled and I felt my sense of self being torn away from my body. I gritted my teeth as another scream built in my chest and pulled as hard as I could with the fingers of my mind, keeping as much as myself behind as possible. The stuff of my consciousness stretched under the pressure and I could feel more cracks forming within my mental architecture.

As I felt myself nearing the breaking point, I made contact with that fiery thought-form and a calm settled over me. In that instant, all pain melted away, all sensation drifted into a comfortable haze that clung to my form like smoke. I floated in that space between spaces, an infinite white void, for what seemed an eternity.

But then I became aware of other thoughts, pressing in from without. They shouted and bellowed and the strength of their need called to my own lacking. They longed to consume me, and make me as they were. They wished for me to become united completely, so that they could share their pain with another.

The pain of countless lives reflected in every thought. The pain was no less for the sharing, but spread, multiplying with every moment of anguish. And not enough of these hungry spectres remained to be able to handle their pain, to be able to address the root with rationality. All that existed was the raw impulse to share and to feel and to share that feeling.

The brilliant white void around me rippled as those hungry presences began to close that space, clawed hands reaching up toward me. I kicked at the hands and grasped onto the void with all of my strength, before pulling myself upward. I dug my fingers into the emptiness around me and ripped away handfuls of the structural component of this void.

Holding that material, I felt contentment and stability wash through my form. I knew my fear, but I also knew I was strong enough to overcome it. I had a flash of insight and tossed those handfuls into the grasping hunger below. They tore into the mental solidity and calmed for a moment.

With my physical eyes, I saw the woman recoil. I grinned and tore more and more of that thought matter, allowing it to fall down into the hungry masses below. I continued until I saw lances of golden light appear within the white and surge across space. One ripped across my side and all strength faded from that half of my mind-form. As another lance launched in my direction, I gripped a handful of the void matter and brought it up to shield my body from the impact.

The lance pushed through my makeshift shield, slowing as it did, before puncturing my hand. I felt tingles flow through that arm before it fell limp. A third lance aimed forward, straight for my chest and I stared at its approach. These had to be reflections of her will, the power of her mind, honed by dominating all the others that she had pulled into her communion. She was strong, certainly, but I was determined.

The lance rammed towards my chest and I concentrated with every bit that I could, sweat beading on my forehead as I imagined a barrier pushing the lance back. The white void swirled around me and coalesced into a spiralling mass before me and the lance was dragged backwards, before crunching into nothing within that spiral.

Pain flared, my heart beating too fast, my lungs pumping in a vain effort to fill my body with air, my ribs screeching in renewed agony. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I stared at the physical form of the woman, and then I wrenched my mind-form backwards. I screamed again as full sensation reunited with my body and I lay in a sweat covered heap on the desk top.

***

I heard the woman murmur, “no matter,” and then her puppets lifted me up. My limbs hung lifelessly, all strength drained. My mouth worked soundlessly as I attempted to form words, but I swam with the weight of that encounter. I was dragged, my legs scraping along the ground, as the woman remained behind to converse with the Agent.

I descended with the puppets, taking the elevator lower and lower, beneath the surface. My every bone ached, even through to my teeth. My fingers twitched occasionally, but refused to move. The basement was all long tunnels and narrow corridors, dimly lit, with pipes dripping or hissing.

The puppets dragged me into a storage room and dropped me to the floor. I heard the tumble of a deadlock and laid my head down onto the concrete. Around me were metal shelves, bare save for a couple of scattered boxes. I couldn’t find the strength to lift my head, and languished in the dimness of the place, until I drifted into unconsciousness.

Dreams bordering on visions troubled my sleep, but I had no recollection when I awoke. One of the puppets had stomped in and tossed a bottle of water and half a loaf of bread at me. I drank and ate heavily, not caring that the water was laced with those nanomachines. I needed to fill myself, to find strength once more.

I didn’t try to escape, I knew that the puppets were watching the door like hawks, and that I had no way of overpowering them. Shortly after I finished my meal, the Agent stepped into the room, into my cell. They told me that my resolve was curious, and that it was to be tested, until I broke. And then they pulled forth the substance that made up my consciousness, as the woman had, and pulled me into that great gestalt.

I knew how to react better though, and focused my strength, pouring every bit into evading the hazards that had assailed me the time before. I fared better this time, getting hit by only one of the lances, and the Agent left me with a pained look on their face.

Still, I was exhausted afterward, and allowed sleep to comfort me, until I was given more food and water. It was impossible to tell the passage of time in that dark space beneath the earth. Twice more, the Agent came and twice more I repelled their attempt to destroy my will. After each attempt, I retained more of my strength.

And so they stopped giving me food, and my body grew weak from malnutrition before the Agent yet again tested me. Despite my weakness, I was able to fend off the assaults with even greater strength. Indeed, I began to probe back at the massive mind-form, seeking for more information, for a crack in the wall of thought-forms.

And so they prevented me from sleeping. They made noise at all hours, and brought in massive flood lights to keep me awake. My body degenerated further, my face growing haggard and my skin becoming even more pale. I still drank the water as heavily as I could, but now exhaustion clouded my every thought.

I could barely focus my eyes as the Agent entered again. My mind slipped easily from my body, my physical frame lacking the strength to support my mental energy. It felt so good to be free of that husk, to float in that white void. I pondered if it would be so bad to fall within, to allow my concerns to become everyone’s concerns, for my pain to be spread throughout the mass of minds so I didn’t have to carry it any further.

I drifted down towards the grasping hands and I felt their hunger as they brushed against me. But I felt more, I felt beyond the immediate needs into the grander tapestry of their existence. I saw the spreading network of minds, filtering throughout the city, forming lines of communion across the physical space.

Was this space any different than the hierarchies imposed by the Autocrat? Was this nothing more than another place where the strong ruled and the weak knelt? Why should I fear it so?

But then I remembered Alex, I remembered our brief encounters, and I realized that I wanted to see them again. That I couldn’t let myself be torn apart here, that I still had things that I wanted to do. I still had wants and needs.

I would get out, I would fight, even if it was the last thing I ever did.

A body heals. A chemist reveals. A contact is made.

Find more information at efficiantum.com and follow us @efficiantum on twitter or like the Efficiantum Project on Facebook

Written and performed by Michael Meinberg @meinberg13

Script editing and logo design by Erin Hawley at geekygimp.com and @geekygimp on twitter

Tracks “Spider’s Web” “Water Prelude” “Ritual” “The Complex” and “Awkward Meeting” by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

SCRIPT

A single ray of light punctured through the veil of the curtains and floated over my eyes. A few moments later, I realized that I had seen that light, and blinked, as my thoughts and my body’s reaction slowed to a crawl. Sensations blurred and diffused, leaving me in a haze that surrounded me. Pain radiated from my torso, but that concern seemed so distant. Much of my body was bandaged and bound into positions to hasten the healing, but the knowledge of that state lingered ages apart from the reality.

Darkness drifted over my eyes once again and the separation between the darkness and the light felt like nothing more than a flipping of a coin. The coin of alternating day and night twirled in the empty air of time, untold lengths passing while I laid in that bed. Finally, the weight of my senses broke upward, tearing its way through the numbness. It was hard to say how much time had passed. Days? Weeks?

I laid in a hospital room, unoccupied save for myself. IVs ran into my arms and when I tugged on them, I felt pain expand from the injection points. It still stung to breathe, and my left hand remained bound and bandaged, but beyond that, the pain seemed much reduced. I carefully removed the needles from my arm, not wanting to send the blood leaving too heavily.

Once I was comfortable that the flow of blood had ceased, I crawled out of the bed, landing on my bare feet. Instantly, I regretted my choice as my legs bowed beneath me and only my hands clutching to my bed sheets kept me from collapsing completely. My head swam as I slowly lowered myself into a seated position on the floor.

I was dressed in a simple hospital gown, as pale white as my skin had become, and a single lamp shone its light over the room, providing the only illumination. I focused on these immediate things, on the reality around me. I focused on what I could touch and smell and see directly. I had almost certainly been bathed at least once during my convalescence.

And then the door swung open and the one that had stolen my umbrella stepped inside. They strode confidently to a chair across the room from my current position on the floor, took a seat, then offered introductions as Alex. I stared until I had managed to process the new information of their presence, before introducing myself in return.

They thanked me for my assistance, and I inquired as to what in the name of the high autocrat was going on. They explained all that they knew.

They had been friends with the other five, ever since their childhoods. While other friends had filtered away, pursuing careers above all, the five remained close to each other, and eschewed the traditional paths that society laid out. They experimented heavily in all manner of drugs, and talked often of revolution, though Alex thought the unspoken consensus was that the high-minded rhetoric was all bollocks.

Things changed the night their paths first crossed with mine. They had been caught in the downpour, uncaring about finding shelter. Alex, even then, remained uncertain of what exactly the rain did and how it worked, but they thought it was the greatest trip they had been on. The other four agreed and they lost themselves into the false enlightenment granted by the rain.

They learned that they could enter each other’s thoughts and share sensations. And soon enough, they were united into a common feedback loop. It was there that the leader, Roger, began to take control. While their other personalities began to bleed away into the communal mass, Roger’s remained strong enough to impress his will onto the others.

Even when they went their own ways physically, the connection remained. Even as the trip of the rain began to fade in the morning, the connection remained. And Roger leaned onto it. He sought to bring others into the communion of rain, regardless of their will. And he grew frustrated at my ability to remain tuned purely onto myself despite my repeated exposure to the rain, thus the beating I had received.

Alex was the one who brought me to the hospital, having looped through the streets to escape from the pursuit of Roger and his communion. Fortunately, I had insurance enough to cover my stay, though I suspected that the extended duration meant that my personal finances were shot.

But I was alive, and mostly intact. I took my turn to thank Alex, and thought about what was to come. Eventually, I told them that I would look into this on my own. My curiosity remained unslaked, I needed to find the origin of whatever lay within the rain.

And I needed to stop it.

***

In the end, Alex decided that they didn’t want any more of this. They told me they were going to lay low and maybe find a boat to stow away on, and recommended that I do the same. After they left, I flexed my bandaged hand and felt jolts of pain rush up along my arm. I flexed harder and the pain crescendoed before breaking. I could handle it.

I recovered my belongings from the nurses, finding my clothing ruined and blood soaked, but the bottle of water remained intact. I returned to my home first, making sure to get dressed in fresh clothing, tossing away yet another set of clothes. I considered a stop at a tailor to get myself a new outfit -perhaps a dashing duster and vest combination to serve my transformation into independent investigator.

But in the end, I slipped on a long overcoat and hit the streets. With my pale skin and battered body, the people I questioned were quick to agree that I was another junky looking for a fix. After exchanging some coin, I got directions from a gaggle of teenagers to an independent chemist.

I stepped into the lab, via back alley, and found a mahogany-skinned young woman, barely out of her teens herself, tending to her beakers and boilers. She bid me patience and so I observed her in silence from near the door. I wasn’t an expert on chemical matters, so her science looked practically like magic to me. She turned up heat here and there, and spooned substances of a variety of colors into liquids of an even wider variety.

In the end, a cherry red fluid crystallized, expanding to the top of the glassware holding it. With that, she turned off the heating elements and asked what I was looking for. She offered the reds at a discount; they were a new recipe, and she wanted to test the results. I told her that I was here on other business and offered the bottle to her.

I told her everything I knew, explained my experiences, and asked her to look into the water, see if there was anything inside of it. As my explanation went on, she stiffened with understanding and familiarity, then, with a sigh, she wiped her lenses clean of steam and studied the bottle. “All clear,” she said. I groaned at the joke.

She asked if there was anything special about the bottle, and I told her that I had no idea. With a nod, she separated the water within into four different beakers, leaving a portion remaining in the bottle. She then reached up and swung over a massive metal beam attached to the ceiling, but easily moved with the aid of counterweight. At the end was a device that resembled a powered drill, but without the drill bit itself, and with an eyepiece that she fit her head onto.

She aimed the device at the beakers and fiddled with knobs, occasionally humming to herself. Her experiment continued with her placing one of the beakers over heat, another in a freezer, and placing some sort of powder that dissolved into the last. While waiting, she examined the bottle under the device, and confirmed that the bottle wasn’t anything unusual.

After she finished checking out the other beakers, she strode up towards me and extending a hand, palm up, toward me. The grin on her lips told me everything I needed to know, and I set some coin in her hand. She thanked me kindly for the donation and then took a seat on top of a table to give me the details.

There wasn’t a drug in the water. It wasn’t chemical, something that any chemist off the streets could have made. What was in there was far smaller, but active, moving. While she couldn’t say anything more about the nature of the substance, she did tell me that it needed a narrow band of temperatures to remain active. Boiling water would be enough to kill whatever it was, or freezing it.

I needed to know more. This was a start, but it wasn’t enough. I questioned who might have the means to make this sort of thing. Fortunately, she took that as a personal challenge and set to pacing the room. The universities were scratched off immediately. They lacked the funds to even begin delving into this. She pondered the Corps for a moment, but then shook it away. If they had access to this tech, to this effect, everyone would be hooked right away if they chose to implement it.

That meant a rogue agent with access to high levels of tech. Fortunately, she knew just the right person to talk to.

***

The chemist took the lead and I followed her. We travelled the back alleys, keeping out of the sight of the ordinary inhabitants of the city, out of the way of those that worked their jobs without curiosity and with simple acceptance of their place in life. Along the way, she introduced herself as Jasper, and I offered my name in response. Back then, I was far too free with it.

As we walked deeper into the tangled nest of the city, the concrete and wood became increasingly replaced with wrought iron and forged steel. Rust covered every surface, and flakes of it drifted in the air, giving the sky a reddish haze. Music blared from every other window, forming a cacophony of noise.

Jasper was a short woman, barely reaching my shoulders, with a shock of bright pink hair, and a build that bordered on the malnourished. Of course, I wasn’t anyone to talk about that, being half starved from my time in the hospital. In spite of her distinctly unintimidating looks, no one hassled us on our journey. Indeed, most that we passed treated her with a degree of decorum unexpected on account of her age.

She paused only once in her journey, to negotiate with a similarly aged man. Their conversation descended into slang and jargon and I studiously kept my attention elsewhere. Ultimately, she handed over a vial of that red crystal in exchange for our free passage through some gang’s territory, and some coin for her.

Eventually, we arrived at our destination. From the back, it looked like any of the other residential buildings we had passed. Jasper provided a secret knock and a key word and we entered into what appeared to be a massive factory. Dozens of people, recent graduates of primary from the looks of them, tinkered with massive machines, scaffolding and catwalks rising up through the core of the hollow building.

I continued to follow Jasper’s lead, but gawked at the tinkerers, the sound of powered tools resonating in the air, and the flash of welders brightening the otherwise dim lighting. Their work baffled me, constructions abstract and complex beyond anything my education had prepared me for. Perhaps if I had realized what they were making, I would have been more ready for what came later that year. But that’s a story for another time.

Jasper brought me before a long-armed but keen eyed man with deep onyx-hued skin, who wore metallic bracers over his legs as he sat in a wheelchair. He was looking over a set of schematics that resembled a suit of armor, but with additions that were as arcane as the rest of  the building. Jasper handled the introductions. The man was Frederich and we shook hands, firmly but not too firmly, enough to convince of my importance, but not enough to try and deny his.

She introduced me as a man looking into the “water weirdos.” I let out a disgusted sound, but she merely stuck her tongue out at me, and proceeded to ask Frederich if he knew about any “nanoscale manufactories.”

The words were gibberish to me, but Frederich perked up at the mention. He cast a pensive glance in my direction, but Jasper assured him that I was “cool.” Frederich pondered further, but in time gave in and explained what he knew.

Apparently, there were miniscule machines in the water, smaller than the cells of the body. In the dying days of the local manufacturing scene, a few of the Corps experimented with tools that could work on that scale. But those projects were shuttered after a massive explosion at one of the plants that was developing the tech.

But rumor had it that the explosion was an attempt to hide the success of the project. The numbers made it clear that, at least in the short-term, there was no money to be made in nanoscale manufacturing. But being the only Corp with access to that tech might prove valuable once the proper application had been discovered.

I inquired as to which Corp had the factory that exploded, and Frederich told me it was Efficiantum SideSweepers. I recognized the name. They were rivals of CrossCity StreetCleaning working in the same industry, but had resisted all attempts at a merger over the years. Perhaps they had hoped that this secret in their pocket would give them an edge.

I took in this knowledge and prepared to make my exit. As I turned, Frederich promised to kill me if I revealed anything that I saw. I agreed readily enough. At the time, I thought that place was small fry.

And I had learned everything I needed to know to get to the bottom of things on my own. All I had to do was betray CrossCity StreetCleaning and ruin any chance of future success I might have.

An agent calls. A resolution is sealed. A battle is joined.

Find more information at efficiantum.com and follow us @efficiantum on twitter or like the Efficiantum Project on Facebook

Written and performed by Michael Meinberg @meinberg13

Script editing and logo design by Erin Hawley at geekygimp.com and @geekygimp on twitter

Tracks “Spider’s Web” “Snow Drop” “Sad Trio” “Final Battle of the Dark Wizards” and “Awkward Meeting” by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

SCRIPT

The next day at work started like all days started, time spent managing the minutiae of receipts and reports, of parsing data from a sea of vagaries. I talked with Teri over coffee, and she assured me that she brought the bottle, and asked me why I wanted it. I smiled as enigmatically as I could.

But shortly before lunch, a white-skinned, suited woman stepped into the work space. She wore her hair back in a bun and every stitch of clothing coordinated to project an air of absolute control, both internal and external. The work screeched to a halt as she strode across the room to my desk. All eyes were on her, then shifted to me. She spoke shortly and told me that I was to accompany her to headquarters.

Taking in the totality of her, I realized that she had to be an Agent. Agents served the Autocrat that had raised them up directly, and in most cases were simply faces and mouths in places that their Autocrat could not be. But whispers said that they also served as the wet-works for the Autocrats, doing the things too distasteful or too dangerous for the Autocrats themselves to perform.

It was also known that when an Autocrat fell, it was one of their Agents that took their place. And so I followed after the woman who might one day become my new employer, trepidation filling my steps. Perhaps my current employer had learned of my investigations and wished to have me removed. I quickly dismissed that thought, though. If my employer wished me dead, they wouldn’t be so brazen.

The walk passed in silence, until we came to stand before that glittering edifice, chrome and steel, perfect and bright despite the cloudy day. My trepidation turned into confusion as we entered the spire of our headquarters and began the ascent via elevator. My guide did not speak along the way, or even look in my direction. But we eventually arrived in an office that proved to be hers as she slid to sit behind the desk, backed by wood panels and bookshelves.

I took a seat across from her at a gesture from her, feeling my palms and brow begin to sweat. She had a portfolio held in a manilla folder and took her time in reviewing the text. Finally, she broke the silence that had been building like a tempest within the cramped confines of the office. She explained in blunt terms how Herb, the man who was promoted over me, had been released. He performed below expectations.

More was to be expected of his replacement. Headquarters needed their new manager to be agile and clever, and to know the operations of the organization like the back of their hand, someone who could recognize and remove weakness if needed. In short, she explained that Headquarters was looking for a candidate to become an Agent.

And at the end of her explanation, she told me, that in light of Herb’s performance, my application showed the most promise. Failing to live up to that promise would lead to immediate, and permanent, termination. And so I had a week to come up with my answer.

Dazed, I wandered my way out of the spire and down along the street back to my office. The world seemed too heavy, the sky above pressing down upon me. I paused half way on my journey to turn back and gaze up towards the stop of that spire.

Accepting the offer would be bring me one step closer to the dream I had been pursuing since my mother’s death. If I accepted this, I would be able to see the end of my road, I would be able to grasp my ultimate goal. But if I took it, I would have to make sacrifices.

I barely had the time for my investigations as it was. If I were to accept this new position, there was no doubt that my time would be all the more reduced, and my ability to look into the strange parts of the city would be hindered.

But more than that, I would become more of the machinery of the city. I would become a higher placed cog, one with more power perhaps, but with less freedom. I would be watched, I would be analyzed, I would be tested and judged. If I accepted the position, my future would become bound into the future of CrossCity StreetCleaning.

But perhaps it would be worth it. How could I care about those restrictions if it meant that my goal could be reached so much sooner? I felt the need roiling in my gut, flaring in my every organ, like an addict offered a fix.

And I knew exactly what I had to do.

***

I was distracted for the rest of my work day, the offer taking up the majority of my brain space. I narrowly scraped by until closing time, and strolled in silence behind the others as we headed to the pub.

After brooding over a shot of whiskey, Teri approached me and offered the bottle of water she had received from the woman. I turned my attention to the bottle and took my time in examining the fluid within, before shrugging. I didn’t see anything strange to it, I didn’t feel anything in it that called to me, and I said as much.

She didn’t let me get away with moping, though, and reminded me that I was the one who asked her to bring it in the first place. Then she bored in and asked me what was wrong with me. Under her intense scrutiny, I could only answer honestly and tell her of the offer I received.

At first, she reacted in shock that Herb had been let go. She assumed that his sycophantic nature would allow him to reach the tops, but it seemed that headquarters was more intense than she expected. But then she rounded back onto me, castigating me for doubting myself. I knew where she was coming from. Before encountering the faces in the rain, I would have agreed completely with her that jumping at this opportunity was the only wise action to take.

But things had changed. My eyes were opened to greater truths, truths that put to lie the promises of the Autocrat. The machinery demanded only a single path towards power, only a single route that would allow for liberation. But these strange things offered new routes, new opportunities, casting light onto the darkness and turning them into tools that could give one strength, though at a high cost.

Everything had a cost in the city, though. The unwritten strictures of society demanded that everything and everyone have a price. And anything that didn’t fit within this structure was tossed away.

But within that garbage heap of discarded elements, true freedom might be found.

And so I told Teri that I needed to get to the bottom of things. That my urge to know and understand outweighed my desire to advance. And in that moment, I realized that I had exchanged one addiction for another.

Teri stared at me, understanding the weight of my choice, and the dangers that I invited unto myself by doing so. But the weight behind my eyes spoke the truth of my intent, the intensity of my goal forward. She left the bottle behind and then turned to leave me at the bar alone. I had little doubt that she would be their next choice, that she would gain the future and the fate that I had once longed for.

But I turned my attention to the bottle, staring at the liquid with fresh eyes. The key to unlocking everything just might lay within its contents. The key to the visions, to the terrors in the rain, all within the invisible substances floating around in that water. I would need to contact a chemist as soon as possible.

I took a moment to look over the interior of the bar. Teri had joined the rest of the team in exchanging tales of spreadsheets and office gossip, a false smile plastered over her features. The rest seemed content enough, they had found or made for themselves a comfortable place within society. But comfort was not enough for me.

For not the first time, I wished I could be one of them, that I could find the happiness they possessed. But my brief dalliances with that sort of contentment had always proved insufficient. My heart had cried out for more. Or, perhaps I simply realized the transient nature of such things. Without the power of an Autocrat, everything could be snatched away in an instant.

I downed my whiskey and lodged the bottle of water into a pocket, then exited out onto the streets. The rain tonight fell steadily, though the wind blew slowly enough that my spare umbrella served to keep me dry. The streetlights flickered slightly as I wound along familiar paths towards home, and a sense of uncertainty entered my frame.

And then five figures rounded the corner, five very familiar faces that erupted into five broad, toothy grins at the exact same moment.

***

I backed away from the five that appeared before me, but they moved swiftly, encircling me. In their hands, they carried slender canes, brandished as clubs. I darted off, trying to escape through a gap between two of them. I instantly felt the sting of the canes lashing against my chest, knocking me backwards. I stumbled, but kept my feet even as my umbrella went flying.

One of the figures, tall and broad, with a square jaw and his nearly translucently pale skin, spoke. He told me that I had begun to walk a road. That my future still laid before me, but that I needed to turn inwards, not outwards. I needed to consume, not understand. That my desire for truth in a world that denied it would lead only to pain.

And then, to demonstrate, he swung his cane onto my shoulder and sent me reeling to the ground with an audible crack. Pain, he continued, could serve as a guide. By transforming the pain of the world into the pain of the flesh, he hoped to instruct me. Another cane slammed into my ribs and I felt them fracture beneath the blow.

According to their leader, the path forward led to unity. It led to the erasure of all that kept individuals distinct. The visions were the first teachers, and the power within the water opened them to the world. Within this new world, the truly deserving would be rewarded. Within this new world, only the minds that were strong enough to endure would be able to maintain their presence.

The leader motioned to the other four, and explained that they were him now, but that he was also them. They had achieved unity, but his mind remained the dominant one. I took a moment to look over the other four. Their faces bore the same expression as the leader, though for a moment, a flicker passed over the face of the one that had stolen my umbrella.

I reached a hand out to that one, and felt the crunch as a cane landed on my wrist, slamming it into the ground. Some emotion, perhaps terror, perhaps anguish, perhaps disgust, flashed over their face, before they turned away. A moment later, a booted foot ground my hand into the pavement.

I struggled to push myself up to my feet with my other hand, but another one kicked me in the chest, making my ribs scream. The leader seemed distracted by the one that had turned away, and as the rain began to sink into me more, my eyes opened further.

The fingers of my mind crept forward from my prone position, and I saw them all, as they truly were. The five minds had congealed into a singular mass, flaring and flashing with color and sensation. I reached forward with those fingers and felt the flurry of thoughts. Five minds coalesced into a single thought-form, and I could feel the internal struggle, the one that the leader continued to dominate. It formed a gestalt of existence that flared and writhed within that mass.

But one pushed away, trying to extricate itself from the mass, trying to fracture that unity. I grasped onto that part, feeling a singular passion, one warm and comforting. In that presence, understanding and empathy bloomed and spread, trying to work its way through the rest. But the cold and hard power of the leader held it at bay, forced the compassion into subservience.

I pulled and together, that presence and mine, we broke the unity.
I blinked and tried to pull myself back together, tried to calm the longing for more, to subsume myself into another. Finally, I let out a wordless sob and collapsed fully onto the ground, pulling my mind back into itself, forming a bubble of self around my thoughts and being. And then the canes rained down on me from four sets of hands until I was left barely breathing on the ground.

I tried to cling to my consciousness, and through my only working eye, the other swollen shut, I saw the one that had stolen my umbrella flee down the streets. At the small smile that formed on my face, the leader grasped me by the hair and hefted me into a seated position. He stared into my eyes, and said simply, “The time is coming.” He released me and took his time to adjust his clothing, putting on the appearance of a regal lord standing over a disobedient servant.

And then a cane slammed into the back of my head. My vision swam briefly, and then darkness took over.

A spiral is walked. A mind awakens. A need hungers.

Find more information at efficiantum.com and follow us @efficiantum on twitter or like the Efficiantum Project on Facebook

Written and performed by Michael Meinberg @meinberg13

Script editing and logo design by Erin Hawley at geekygimp.com and @geekygimp on twitter

Tracks “Spider’s Web” “Snow Drop” “Moorland” “Blue Feather” and “Awkward Meeting” by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

SCRIPT

For all of my efforts to forget the strange sights I had seen in the rain, in the end there was no escaping them.

One night, after once again eschewing the comfort of my peers in order to explore the paths of the city, I found myself caught in a sudden downpour. The rain pounded the streets, forming strange geometries as the drops impacted and rose upwards like bizarre fountains before collapsing onto themselves. I gripped the handle of my umbrella all the tighter, not wanting to be exposed to that water, fearful of being made beast-like by the addiction of the chemicals that might be found within.

I traveled off in the bad parts of town, down a path that spiralled in on itself, ducking beneath walkways and weaving over tunnels to form a three-dimensional pattern. The place had developed a reputation for consuming those that entered, with its splintering pathways leading back onto the spiral from unexpected angles, forming a nearly impenetrable maze for any who sought to escape.

But I was walking the street, slowly making my way towards the center as I followed its pattern. However, that spiral also served as a channel for the wind, driving it at my back and making my umbrella flutter in my grasp.

As I fought to seek shelter within the nook of an alleyway, or an alcove to crawl into and achieve a degree of succor from the rain, the houses along the way burst open and thick jacketed folks, from the poorest to the richest, strode forth. Their dark coats like a mass of storm clouds, they moved through the space with the regulated motion of a machine, booted feat tromping on the ground, making the puddles splash around them.

They formed a tapestry of flesh before my eyes, weaving and warping, a mass that pushed me back into an alleyway. I was hemmed in by narrow walls on either side and stairs behind me leading up to another looping street. I stumbled halfway up a set of stairs before collapsing fully onto my backside, the wet stone beginning to seep through my trousers. I attempted to scramble back onto my feet, but I couldn’t find purchase on the slick stone.

And then I felt the umbrella roughly pulled from my fingers. The rain fell upon my face and hands, drenching my clothes, the heavy drops easily saturating the cheap fabric. I rolled towards my side and caught sight of a figure on the steps above me, holding my umbrella while a broad grin rested on their face

They immediately stood out from the rest and wore a dark vest and a white formal shirt, though both were soaked through, but paired with a ankle length skirt. Their light colored hair was cropped short into messy spikes and their soft cheeks and curved jawline were capped with brilliant blue eyes, which contrasted with their deep and warm beige hued flesh. I couldn’t help but stare in those eyes, intense and numb all at once.

Perhaps detecting the sudden attraction behind my gaze, a flush played over their cheeks before they turned and disappeared into the grey haze of the rain. Only after they were gone did I remember where I had seen them before. They were one of the five that I had seen the night that had opened my mind to the strangeness of the city.

There was no escaping the rain, not now that it had marked my flesh. I could practically feel the liquid worming its way deeper and deeper. I had to get out of there, I had to get back to civilization, back to normalcy. The walls pressed in ominously around, bounding me into the space, surrounding me in its claustrophobic grasp.

I descended into a river of people, taking advantage of the cover of umbrellas that they offered, and pushed my way further forward. All around me, voices babbled in my ears, sounds and the concepts of sounds, the very fabric of language poured itself into me. And all I could do was swim through the crowd, slowly unwinding around the spiral.

I looked up to the faces that seemed now to tower over me, like the tops of the spires, and I could see their mouths unmoving, even as those raw sounds seeped through into my skull. I felt myself shiver without even realizing it, the cold and the heat and the sweat and the rain all merging together into my gestalt of sensations. I could do nothing but push forward, clawing and scraping, pushing aside those in front of me.

Finally, I emerged from the spiral just in time for the downpour to fade, leaving me alone in a suddenly empty and silent street.

***

That absence thundered in my skull as I stumbled along the street. My consciousness began to expand, began to fill even more space around me, flooding my senses with new revelations. I could feel the impressions left behind in the stone and the wood, the lingering residue of a thousand stomping feet in the pavement.

But I couldn’t hold onto those scraps. The residue sifted through the fingers of my mind, leaving trails behind in my mental sight. The fingers grasped at substance, tugging and pulling, searching in vain. And then they turned inward, pouring into the substance of my own mind. I shuddered then stilled as if electrocuted and then collapsed against the nearest wall.

My vision shifted, became replaced with a panorama of sights, frozen images that formed the tableaux of my past.

I sat at my father’s side, holding his hand as the life slowly drained from his features. He had fought so long, for himself, for my mother and I, and there was not a jot of strength left in his face. I was but a boy, but despite my youth, I knew full well the weight of what was yet to come. I knew that within the span of a few days, my father would die. He might have stood a chance, if the doctors were authorized to use their more experimental techniques. My father might have survived, if we had the funds or the insurance.

Instead, he died in a hospital bed, and was buried in a pauper’s lot.

I stood behind my mother as her voice rang out over the streets. A crowd had gathered to listen and stared up with rapt faces. Her words and her rhetoric echoed in their heads and in their hearts, and would be returned with a choir of cheers. But in the moment, I could only lurk, my features covered in shadows, knowing that there were consequences for such words.

A week later, my mother lost her job. She did not stop her preaching.

A month later, enforcers from the local Corp beat her black and blue. But she did not stop her preaching.

A few days later, she died in a prison cell, and received no burial.

No members of my extended family wanted anything to do with me after that. And so I was inducted into the ranks of The Orphanage. Considering my age, and my background, I knew I had little to no odds of adoption. But that was alright. I knew my parents well enough, and I had learned first hand of the weakness that family love can bring to the heart of a child.

No wonder I turned myself so heavily into scholastics, no wonder I sought to hone myself into a stronger person, a cog powerful enough to rise from the lowest ranks of the cogs. No wonder I cared little for the passing affairs of humanity, and cared only for the power of the machine.

In the palace of mind, I saw my future as a grand clock tower. I marvelled at the intricacies of the construction, the thousand cogs fashioned from the detritus of human lives. Cogs turned over every inch, over every exposed bit of the tower.

I felt the hands of my awakened self dragging me backwards, trying to pull me into those memories. Perhaps they sought for the connection of minds that occurred in the passage of memory. Perhaps they sought for the bits and pieces that those that had touched my life in the past left behind inside of me. But here, I couldn’t deny it to myself.

It was not the climb and the power that drove me forward. I did not marvel for my goal. I fled from my origin. The pain, even now, after the passage of so many long years, had not faded. I still felt the keen stabs of longing and loss and my despair at my inability to stand up for those that needed me most.

I had to be strong, not for the sake of being strong, but to keep myself from being hurt like that again.

And so I climbed. My fingers grasped the gears and I pulled and pushed myself further and further upwards. The ticking of the gears made my hand and foot holds unsteady, but at least the clockwork machinery provided them in sufficient quantity. Inch by inexorable inch I climbed, seeking the pinnacle. Eventually I came to stand before the face of the clock, the hands frozen still.

And I gazed into it, the face of the clock became the face of the moon as I stared upwards at a sky that seemed to stretch infinitely away. I did not hesitate, but reached forward and touched that face, feeling its light bask over me.

***

I pulled myself from the space forged within my memories to find myself standing on the flat roof of a small two-story building, out of that mindscape and back in reality. Those fingers searched outward once again, but I concentrated with all of my will and held them back. Slowly but surely, they began to withdraw back into my head. But in time with that, waves of nausea gripped my form. I lurched forward and nearly fell off the edge.

The nausea intensified within my gut and finally I leaned forward to vomit over the edge, splattering onto the pavement below. With the expulsion of my guts, the world seemed dimmer around me. The stones lacked lustre and the sky seemed more clouded above. A sense of disconnect settled over me, the feeling that I was now deprived of a richer reality than the detritus that surrounded me.

I longed to reach out, to know the presence of another mind meeting my own. And a thirst rose in my throat, an urgent need to drink, to satiate my loss through the consumption of water. I knew that the water contained what I needed, that the water could give me license to be free of the constraints of being a singular and isolated self.

If I drank deeply enough, I could turn my mind outward, I could turn my pain into nothing by washing it over with the presence of other. I needed to unleash that pain, turn it from a thing gnawing in my brain into a tool that I could free unto the world and let everyone else deal with.

I discovered a ladder on the backside of the building, no doubt my means of ascent, and then gradually made my way down. My limbs trembled beneath me, feeling drained and weak in the absence of the light in the world. Finally I landed on pavement and collapsed to the ground, panting and wheezing.

I took my time to gather my breath, before crawling over towards a conveniently placed water barrel. I climbed up along the edge and gazed down into my reflection below. The rain had slicked my hair and ruined my clothes, and I looked dreadfully pale in the dim light of twilight. My eyes shone in that reflection, pupils dilated to the point that my eyes were monochromatic.

I dipped a hand down into the water and cupped it within the barrel. Slowly but surely I lifted the hand up to my lips, but then paused. I recalled Teri’s story. I remembered that man brought low by his need, and I saw that reflected in myself.

I let the water drain out between my fingers.

The walk home was torturous. I stopped several times along to sit and rest my legs, slumping onto benches and steps on the streets where I had to. But I eventually made my way there. I tossed my clothing into the garbage and subjected myself to a scalding hot shower. For whatever reason, the water that flowed from the pipes did not have the same effect as the water pouring down from the heavens.

I put on a pot of coffee, hoping that the heat would serve the purpose of purifying the water, or if failing that, then the power of the beans might counteract the worst of it. The brew proved to hit the right spots, not sending me into a psychoscape of my own creation, while also giving me a jolt of energy. I set to work in my journal, detailing what I could recall in as much detail as I could.

I wanted to leave behind a record, if I were to pass on without notice. I knew well enough what price was most often paid by those that stuck their noses into the business of the city. I knew with full recollection what would be my fate if I wound up going against the Autocrats. But I also knew what I needed to do.

I needed to get to the bottom of what was going on. Not just with the strangeness of the rain, but the entire strangeness of the city. It seemed that too much fell between the cracks, that too many of the cogs became lost in the spaces where the machinery failed to function.

I had to know what the truth of the city was, I had to grasp this higher realization, not only for my sake, but for the sake of those I had already lost.

The next day, after work, I asked Teri to see the bottle that she had received from the elegant woman.

The faces in the rain leave impressions deep and enduring. The world opens and reveals its strangeness.

Find more information at efficiantum.com and follow us @efficiantum on twitter or like the Efficiantum Project on Facebook

Written and performed by Michael Meinberg @meinberg13

Script editing and logo design by Erin Hawley at geekygimp.com and @geekygimp on twitter

Tracks “Spider’s Web” ”Intractable” “Dama-May” “Air Prelude” and “Awkward Meeting” by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

SCRIPT

I woke in the morning, feeling more tired than when I went to sleep. The dreams that had haunted me faded with the light filtering in through the windows of my apartment, which while small still served my basic needs. I went through my post-awakening rituals in an attempt to build some sense of normalcy into my routine, to try and reground myself in a world that seemed to twist and distort itself every time I looked too carefully at it.

For a moment, I considered telling someone what I saw on the street. But there was no one to tell. My co-workers weren’t friends, they were rivals who would use my statement as indication of a flaw, a tool they could use to keep me from becoming an Autocrat. I couldn’t tell the police. The police never listened anyway, and it’s not like I had solid proof of what happened

I didn’t even know if anything actually happened, or if it was a passing delusion imprinted onto my memories, a retroactive application of my dream’s logic onto reality. But that didn’t sit right in my gut. I felt that I had indeed touched the out-of-the-ordinary, I believed it, and that had to be enough.

I went through work with an eye towards regularity, with an aim of feeling at home within my own skin. I joked and laughed with the team, and scribbled my notes on my ever-expanding spreadsheets. After a short lunch, I felt the color return to my face, as creeping dread began to subside. No matter what happened, it didn’t matter now that I was in the company of my peers and infused with the banality of the daily grind.

The team and I went out for drinks once again, though I was certain not to get as intoxicated as the night before. Considering the hangovers they were nursing, the rest of the team seemed inclined to agree. Our chatter was more somber that night, the usual comparing of notes and talking new openings in the ladder.

A trumpet sang over the jukebox as we all joined in that mellow mood. Most of the team had settled down, married with spouses they could barely stand, with kids they rarely saw, in houses they could scarcely afford. They were happiest here, I could tell, suffused in the air of their peers. And I stood apart from that, too young and too unattached and not living up to the standards of consumption that they embraced.

I tried not to let that keep me from their comradery, and I asked them about their walk home. Nervous energy crept into my voice as I asked if they had seen anything strange on their way home. They agreed unanimously that their return home had been troubled, but then went on to describe an encounter with a homeless man, pissing on the street. The recollection of the homeless man’s humiliation made them burst into raucous laughter. I did my best to join in, but found the laughter hollow in my throat.

After that, I spent the rest of the night talking with Teri. She was unmarried too, though quick to point out her boyfriend. I wasn’t exactly disappointed. My burgeoning friendship with Teri helped me understand my place in things, and I had no real desire for a relationship. But she was also the only unmarried woman I ever spent time with.

The unwritten rules of advancement said I was supposed to get married before too long. That single people were too rash, too impulsive, too unburdened for the highest reaches of leadership. That is to say, they needed places where their rivals could leverage them. A person that couldn’t be blackmailed would be too dangerous, too free, to be allowed to rise to the top.

Still, it was nice to have someone to talk to. Someone who could understand. So, I wound up asking her if she had seen anything strange. And her story was a lot more interesting.

***

While Teri lived in a better part of town than I, her path led her through one of the worse neighborhoods. The buildings were openly decaying. The rain slowly eroded cracks into the facing of the buildings and then wormed its way into those cracks, crumbling bricks and swelling wood.

She had been careful to keep her umbrella up as she walked, despite the reduced flow of rain. The rain always felt disgusting on her skin, too thick, too lingering, like it was bleeding in through the flesh into her body. But most of her journey went quietly. She rarely got hassled in the poorer neighborhoods.

Folks there had their own work to do. The manual labor kept them exhausted, unable to lift their shoulders in any act of rebellion, no matter how large or small. Instead, the neighborhood was infused with melancholy, from the very walls of the buildings which seemed to weep as she passed them by.

But as she passed into her home neighborhood, the air shifted. Heaviness pressed down on her shoulders, a weight that hung in the air, unable to escape. And there at the mouth of the alley across the street, a pale-skinned, middle-aged man in a rumpled and soaked suit knelt. He had his hands cupped and dipped them into the water of the gutter, pausing before lifting them up and drinking deeply.

He continued to drink, heedless of his surroundings, pouring the water into his mouth faster than he could swallow, splashing the liquid over his face and chin. Teri stepped in towards him and called out in his direction. The man ignored her and continued drinking more of that liquid, and Teri couldn’t help but shudder in revulsion at the sight of it.

Eventually, the man went perfectly still, hands still dipped into the water. The ravenous expression on his face transformed into a vacant one, eyes staring dead ahead. Teri moved in closer and dropped a hand onto his shoulder, once again asking if he needed any help. She even offered to call up medical and see if they could do anything.

But the man only stared forward with a vacant expression, failing to see anything. Eventually, Teri backed away, feeling unsettled by the man’s behavior. She was about to turn and resume her return home when he suddenly focused, looking straight in her direction. But he didn’t see her, instead his glare pierced straight through. Curious, she peeked over her shoulder.

There was an ivory-skinned woman walking in their direction, dressed in the finery of a Luminary, all silks and gold, with an oversized handbag inlaid with pearl held firmly in hand. This other woman smiled warmly before retrieving a small bottle of water from her handbag. To the parched man, she said, and Teri could recall the words perfectly, “Drink up sweetie. Drink your fill.”

The man hesitated like a cornered street cat offered a scrap of meat. But then he ravenously snatched forward and popped the cap off, drinking the water with the fervor of a drowning man gasping for air. The women then turned her gaze fully onto Teri, who couldn’t help but feel like a specimen of curiosity.

The two talked for a few moments, with Teri forced on the defensive by the woman’s sudden appearance and her peculiar bearing. The woman asked questions about Teri: her name, her place of employment, how she felt about the city, how up to date she was up on current events. Teri responded as clearly as she could, though she stammered as the questions grew more abstract.

But the woman only followed up with further queries, with a handful of barbed retorts that seemed specifically designed to make Teri question her place in her life, and within the society of the city. And her words were persuasive, worming their way into Teri’s head. Finally, the woman offered a bottle of water to Teri. Feeling off-balance and dizzy, Teri reluctantly agreed and then made hurried excuses, before slipping away from the others to go home.

After hearing her story, Teri and I agreed there was some kind of drug in the water. We bandied about taking the bottle to the chemist, but decided that there was nothing to be done. The best solution would be to dump the water, though Teri professed reluctance to doing so.

I’m not sure why, but I didn’t tell her about my encounter that night.

***

I let Teri’s story riddle around my skull as I made my way home that night. I wondered what it would take to make a man bend and scrape and deface himself in such a way. I wondered at the powerful need that would bring a well placed person that low as to drink water from the gutter, regardless of decorum.

The nature of needs as powerful as these, to fill an emptiness in the self, were things I barely understood at that age. It’s probably because I was ignorant to my own need, my urge for control and the freedom that control brought. Looking back now, I can see what a fool I had been. I thought then that humiliation was the worst thing that could happen to a person.

Now, I know that there are far worse fates.

Still, that moment began my genesis, the transformation of my mind. I began to see the places where the society of the city prioritized the satiation of needs above all else. And how it manufactured so many of those needs: the need to look a certain way, the need to have the latest fashion or luxury good, the need to have a better home, the need to conform, the need to rise above, the need to be more than what one’s finances allowed.

The city’s engine burned on needs, from the basic needs to eat and drink and breathe to the need to achieve. Without those powerful needs, those urges that had to be answered, the city would grind to a halt beneath the sudden awareness of self. I don’t know how many others had undergone such a revelation, but I knew even then that there had to be others.

Perhaps that’s why communications technology lagged. The city could create anything, turn raw materials into any sort of wondrous creation to follow the whims of the consumers. But books, beyond the carefully sanitized textbooks afforded to students, were rare commodities indeed. And the only source of news were even more carefully curated pamphlets, handed out at reasonable cost on street corners.

One could subscribe to a professional journal, but those came with their own costs and required memberships in byzantine societies. Knowledge remained at a premium, affordable only to those who already possessed power.

Over the course of the next several weeks, thing remained quiet, allowing me to continue my thoughts. I began to keep a journal at home, detailing my experiences in a way of exploring this burgeoning philosophy. I skipped the trip to the pub once a week, and instead spent my time observing those on their way home. I saw the manual laborers, their backs bent from their labor, pursue simpler but more vibrant pleasures at the dens of prostitution and semi-legal drugs. I saw the wealthier citizens engaging in expensive alcohol and carefully prescribed pharmaceuticals, designed not to help with mental illness but to create store-bought pleasures.

Everything returned to this need, and one need above all others. I saw the need to escape from the reality of their world. Most did so safely, clinging to their like numbers, to those that dressed and walked like them, that filtered through the same spaces. But some lingered in stranger locales. I saw a young woman disappear down an alley, into a back door accompanied by the sound of jazz. I waited on a bench outside for a few hours, only to see her emerge, the blissful expression of an opioid high on her face and the tell-tale bulge of a book in her handbag.

I spent time one evening in a pub down by the docks and saw a group of sailors speaking in a foreign tongue, one melodic and flowing, but incomprehensible to me. They seemed to be sharing tales about the origins of their tattoos. The tattoos were abstract things, patterns built upon patterns, sprawling over biceps and forearms and shoulders. One, the eldest by appearance, had a tattoo that ran up along his neck and over his jaw. He seemed to be afforded the most respect by his peers and did not pay a single coin for his drink.

As time continued to slip forward, I began to forget more and more of my strange encounter. I had the peculiarities of the city to distract me, after all.

But soon enough, I would again be reacquainted with the faces in the rain.

Welcome to the city of Efficiantum, where the rain always falls, where the Autocrats  reign, and where things are just beginning.

Find more information at efficiantum.com and follow us @efficiantum on twitter or like the Efficiantum Project on Facebook

Written and performed by Michael Meinberg @meinberg13

Script editing and logo design by Erin Hawley at geekygimp.com and @geekygimp on twitter

Tracks “Spider’s Web” “Blue Feather” “Mirage” “Ossuary 2- Turn” and “Awkward Meeting” by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

SCRIPT

So you want to hear about the city of Efficiantum? It’s a strange city, for sure, but I suppose I could tell you some stories. I eventually developed a habit of poking into things that I shouldn’t, so I have more than my share of tales. How about I start at the beginning? Or at least, near to it.

For as long as anyone can remember, the city has existed. It lies perched astride both banks of a great river as it flows into the ocean, like a colossus of steel and chrome. For as long as anyone can remember, the rains have poured down. The skies have been grey and dark since before the great furnaces of industries began pumping their smoke into those clouds. For as long as anyone can remember, the city has been ruled by Autocrats. They have governed from the tops of their spires looking down over the people like cogs in their machine.

And we’re all cogs, even those Autocrats. Our every breath and every motion fuels the momentum of the city, the engine that keeps pumping forward. But some cogs have it better than others. Even those that manage to climb the ranks of the Corps can still be dragged down. Especially those that don’t look like me, those with different color skin or different gender or whose bodies work in different ways. No matter how successful they become, they are always seen as Other.

Or so the Autocrats have decreed, so that they might keep the cogs railing against each other rather than raging upwards. So the Autocrats have decreed so that those beneath them will turn their despair further down. So the Autocrats have decreed so that the city can continue to function according to their plans.

The rain pours down and the streets are wet and umbrellas form artificial ceilings along the walkways, keeping those dry who can afford an umbrella’s protection. Off to the side, discarded lives carve out niches in the alleys, seeking shelter where they can. The streets twist at inexplicable angles, forming patterns too complex to be seen, crossing and weaving, a maze only navigable by the native.

It’s easy to spot a newcomer, lost in the streets, unable to discern path from place. For a coin or two, guides can be acquired from enterprising youths. Maps can be purchased at kiosks, but these are tools of the hegemony and not to be trusted.

No one really knows where the newcomers originate from. They say names of places and speak in foreign tongues, but the places don’t form into a greater tapestry. All the natives know is the city, and all the city knows is how to grind forward, every day another piece sliding into place.

But the city has grown since its mythic founding. It’s no longer just a core of spires; it sprawls out over the landscape, over the nearby high cliffs, reaching always upward and outward, like a bruise on the landscape, purple and dark and aching. It contains places of work and places of rest, for rest is always needed.

Joy and excitement can dwell in the dark cracks between the elaborate machinery of the place. But it is always tinged by the work, by the lies of the spires, and the will of the Autocrats to place one form of entertainment over another. Even our rest is marred by brands, brands that we wear on our skin and in our hearts, unable to escape.

The factories stopped five years ago, but the smoke clouds haven’t gone away, and the rain continues to pour down, thick and viscous like oil. The trains persistently hum and clatter, bringing in goods from that outside that must exist, and boats pull into the harbor, crewed by haunted men who do not speak of their time at sea but spend their coin freely in the dingier bars.

And every day, we try to live in the shadows of the spires.

***

As for me, I was an accountant for CrossCity StreetCleaning. Not a highly ranked one, or an especially influential Corp, but I had a place in the machinery of the city. It wasn’t a glamorous position, but it let me work with numbers, let me see the patterns forming within the transactions of my corp. I was the youngest member of my team, newest to the position, but that meant I had more time to rise.

The bulk of my labor, and that of my team, was processing receipts. The sound of our pens scratching into tablets resounded through our office as we transformed the raw data into usable spreadsheets to be sent up for further combination and analysis. As much as our labor was divided between us, we all shared the details of the data in the scant moments devoted to rest and break. And we took our work with us to the pubs, further putting together the pieces.

I did well in primary school, passed with highest marks and was given my choice of a path forward. Certainly, there were more glamorous routes, to be a craftsman or a theoretician or an entertainer or transporter, but those routes were bound at the highest end. The most they could hope for was to become a Luminary. Luminaries are celebrated, certainly, and respected for their skill, and live extravagantly.

But they don’t have the control of an Autocrat.

Only three paths traditionally lead to becoming an Autocrat, and only three have the route signposted for others to follow. Marketing required charisma and creativity that seemed like too much work for me; being able to generate that much enthusiasm for the mediocre products of the corps lacked any appeal. And finances were too risky. One wrong pick and an entire career crumbled.

And so accounting it was. Having access to the numbers, to the pattern, is a powerful tool, and one which can be leveraged in the right hands. Much of middle management is not the right hands. But survival at the top layers requires insight and data, lest they be consumed by their rivals. And so those towards the top came to rely on their accountants. Came to rely on people like me.

I was relatively young, compared to my co-workers, as I graduated from my trade school early. It simply meant that I had more time to advance up the rank, time that would open up so many opportunities for me.

Or so the dream went.

The truth was, I woke up every day like everyone else and trudged through the rain-soaked streets to work. I put in my ten hours, every day, ate where and when I could, scribbled numbers until my fingers went numb. And then made my way to the pub for food and drink before escaping into the hope of slumber.

And the days and the years ticked by, in quiet contemplation of the years yet to come, of the hope that I will be able to get more and higher. But with every day, the shine of my precociousness grew dimmer. With every day, the higher rungs were farther and farther away. With every day, there was nothing but labor and drink and the occasional song or story to fill those precious few empty hours.

Maybe I should have settled down, and accepted that I would never reach the top. Perhaps I should have found love and comfort. I probably should have come to accept my place as another cog in the machine.

But the dream shined brightly in my mind, the dream of the top of those spires, and the true freedom that came with them.

***

But no matter how grand our dreams, we have to contend with reality. -I- have to contend with reality, no matter how strange and unreal it might appear to be. The doors began to crack one night, on my walk back home from the pub.

The entire team had been drinking heavily. The job opening at headquarters went to Herb from across the hallway. Not only did it mean my application was rejected, but it meant that Herb would be how headquarters saw the rest of our office. He was a solid enough scratcher, handling the copying of data with suitable speed. But when it came to thinking outside the box or taking initiative, Herb was less than capable.

And it’s not like it took us much to get going in the first place. But the rest of the team was happy to turn their despair into celebration, launching into raucous songs that filled the pub, until they were tossed out by the bartender. Still, it meant they missed the downpour that came crashing through half an hour later.

In the sudden, rushing quiet that suffused the pub in their absence, only myself and one of my co-workers, Teri, remained. Teri wasn’t caught up in the jovial mood either, and we talked over whiskey, thick and dark, like the mood that had settled in over the place with the rain pounding overhead.

Teri was a striking woman, with almond shaped eyes and pale tawny skin, and a build that seemed like she could toss me across a room without any effort, despite being the same height as me.

Teri, it seemed, also hoped to climb the ladder, to reach the heights. She was a year or two older than me, not quite as precocious as I, but more cut-throat, more willing to make the sacrifices that were needed. But yet, she had wound up in the same office as I. The same office that blunted our hope at a future above the stations to which we were born.

We ended the night cursing Herb’s name and drinking a few too many whiskeys, before departing our separate ways. The rain hadn’t stopped, the rain -never- stopped, but it had diminished to a slow trickle rather than a full deluge. So I eschewed my umbrella for the first few blocks, allowing the water to fall onto my hair and run down my face sober me up.

I was a little over two-thirds of the way home, back under the protection of my umbrella, and feeling the chill beginning to set into my bones when I turned the corner onto a strange sight. Standing in the middle of the street, five people stood. Each of them faced in the same direction heads tilted upwards at a forty-five-degree angle, rain splashing onto their vacant faces.

Despite none of them looking in my direction, I felt off, like the walls had come to life for the sole purpose of judging me and my failures. I felt eyes boring into my form from every direction, piercing my layers of self and bleeding together. In being seen, I had no choice but to see, to feel the pulsing hum of something far larger than I pounding in my skin, pulsing in my heart, tracking the pathways of the nervous system of my hollow body.

For a moment, I felt the connection of an existence greater than myself, a soft caress that I reached forward in a vain attempt to hold onto, for even a moment more. A sorrow, deeper and more profound than even the passing of my parents, burrowed its way into my heart and I trembled in that sudden absence.

Then five heads swiveled in my direction and five sets of eyes locked onto my tear-stricken face and five mouths opened and no words emerged, nothing but the sensation of words.

I ran then. All the way back to my home, leaving me gasping and panting as I barreled into the shelter of my apartment, bolting the door behind me.

As far as I could tell, no one had followed me. But that night, I dreamt of watching and of being watched.

Coming June 30

Find more information at efficiantum.com and follow us @efficiantum on twitter or like the Efficiantum Project on Facebook

Written and performed by Michael Meinberg @meinberg13

Script editing and logo design by Erin Hawley at geekygimp.com and @geekygimp on twitter

“Awkward Meeting”, “Blue Feather”, “Spider’s Web”
Kevin MacLeod