SISYPHUS
BY INTERSTITIAL
CHAPTER 5 — THE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD
The Takeshis were chattering like lunatics again.
“I want my own mind back. She doesn’t know anything about anything #luddite,” complained CyberTak.
“She’s a fallen woman, and I want nothing to do with her,” said the Innocent, primly.
“She’s super-fun, Katya, I want to stay here,” purred TakSlut, “I wish I was her.”
“She’s going to end up with Talv. #fuckedup #sextoy.”
Bicker, bicker, bicker. This must be what it is like having children. Another unbidden thought: I had to look after Takeshi. And I needed to do something about Katya. If I had a head, I would have shaken it. I must be going soft.
“Listen up,” I said. “I need to be going soon, before I outstay my welcome. You can’t stay here either, there’s no room. And you can’t go back where you were. Do you really want to end your days writhing around in a glass case? Sisyphus is—ah—hashtag game over. And you don’t even get on with each other. So what am I supposed to do with you?”
“Please, can you teach us to travel?” said the Innocent. “To be free, like you?”
“Tricky. I don’t even know how I do it myself.”
A moment of blessed silence, all too brief, and then:
“I have an idea,” said CyberTak.
“What?”
“You wouldn’t understand. It’s #technical. You will have to help.”
“Tell me.”
Katya was in the bathroom, freshening up, and I luxuriated in her femininity. But her thoughts were confused. Mister Talv wanted her. Why? What did he want her for?
She was perplexed, uncertain, and she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know anything about implants, enhancements, control systems, didn’t know what he was talking about, really. But … it sounded intriguing, and those other girls at the party had been quite something, and although she was only flirting, the worldly dance, maybe she should truly commit, take what he offered, give herself to him—after all, how often did one meet a man like Mister Talv -
CyberTak was tugging at my metaphorical hand. An image, of Sisyphus.
People don’t like voices in their head, as a rule. But I thought Katya was one of the few who might be able to take it. I took a deep metaphorical breath and spoke, in her head. “Katya,” I said, “be careful. You are in danger.”
Katya started at what she felt as her own thought. CyberTak urged me on.
I grabbed the tendril of uncertainty in Katya’s thoughts and pulled hard. And from Takeshi I took this, and it was suddenly bright in Katya’s mind:
idiot—I wanted this—how could I be so naive? I was— oh that was sooo good —intelligent—harder, harder —resourceful—deeper, aaaah —competent—use me, useme, pleasepleaseplease —independent—oh oh oh oh oh oh oh —just one stupid decision—oh—and now all roads were closed off, except one: the clear bright straight path to more of this; more sucking, more fucking, more being fucked, more usage, more of the endless—nothing but—nothing—for ever
the endless futile striving, reward and punishment, over and over and over, until there is no will left
an image of absence—the blank void, howling
the abyss
Katya froze, eyes wide in the mirror, lipstick halfway to her mouth. Her jaw dropped, horrified by her own imagination. We looked at each other through beautiful wildflower eyes.
“Think of me as a kindred spirit,” I said. “And now there’s something you need to do for me.”
Contact -
It was weird. There seemed to be about seventy billion dimensions, in this space, yet somehow I could see them all.
“What is this place?” I asked, slightly awed.
“The mirror,” replied CyberTak. “#welcometomyworld.”
With a little prompting, Katya had logged onto the Tokyo server, and CyberTak had done the rest. Something #technical.
An endless structured sky of millions, billions of twinkling lights, stars, clouds, galaxies. A vast and infinite mind. I panned round the starlit vista. Neither the Innocent nor TakSlut were anywhere to be seen.
The sky was full of lights. It was breathtaking.
“What’s that, over there?” I asked her, indicating a particularly bright cluster of spiral galaxies. They were fizzing with activity, spitting sparks, orbiting slowly.
“Social channels,” she replied. “All the usual, and many and various others. Voices, thoughts, everywhere. Too many to mention #jointheconversation.”
She looked around, glorying in the view.
“Look. The whole world is here.” She spread her arms wide, and the sky seemed to zoom in on me, fractal layers of detail, nested, everything clear.
“I might stay a while. Explore,” I said to her. “It seems like a place where ideas can live.”
“Sure. But that,” she added, indicating at what looked like a huge black hole, “is to be avoided at all costs.” As I watched, a small star drifted into the ambit of the thing and winked out, unceremoniously gobbled down. “#homelandsecurity,” said CyberTak.
“Where are the others?”
She scanned. “Finding their #trustedhangouts. The Virgin will be somewhere sweet and peaceful and quiet, by now, with flowers and romance and little woodland animals and homemaking tips, I expect. And I’ll hazard a guess that the other one is doing what she does best. This place is full of everything she loves. #ninetypercentdark.”
“What will you do, here?”
“What I always do, but much more. This is where I’ve always lived.” She paused. “This is my domain, and infinitely more so, now I’m truly here. I can go anywhere I want. I can be anyone I want. I can do anything I want. Anything at all. #omnipotent.”
I knew what I wanted, which was to get as far away from Mister Talv as possible. I had no idea if the nightmare of Sisyphus would keep Katya ego intacto. Certainly it would never leave her, but Mister Talv had very strong ideas of his own, and there was Nimetu to consider too.
“And what do you want, now?” I asked her.
She looked at me then, almond eyes fierce, and stars swirled around her.
I wonder if people know she’s there, when they worship at her altar, on their screens and their tablets and their smartphones? Does she speak to them, somehow, of the self, and the unending struggle?
It is as the Storyteller always says, the myths have meaning. These are the tales we’ve always told, our dreams and nightmares, told and retold, the voices in our head, the ancient true things that represent us all. The Old Archetypes, over and over again, wherever you look.
Virgin. Whore. Goddess.
Which will you be today?