“Meet Surl Adiz and Surl Adiza,” Mark said, “the progenitors of all life on Earth, and the technology they’d brought from their homeworld.”
The spaceship melted into the background. Grass turned to sand.
Half a hundred men dragged a stone monolith across the desert toward a pyramid on the horizon. Others studied papyrus scrolls as they inspected the work. Some men just stared at the sky.
“These beings taught us astronomy, navigation, the principles of language and mathematics; in essence, they’d taught us about the dreamweb. They’d always been a part of it, on a much deeper level than we ever were. Imagine telepathy, imagine feeling every life form around you and knowing the connectivity of all things, at all times. Imagine how that feels.”
“Must be nuts.”
“Well said. It is nuts. But not for them. Their race is ancient, attuned to the whispers of the world. We humans, on the other hand…”
The pyramid faded from the horizon, and the sand turned to a cobblestone road. A massive tower stood in front of them, its top hidden in the clouds, birds circling it and singing songs to the wind.
“They gave us a gift,” Mark said, “and we threw it away.”
A low rumbling came, and the ground began to shake. Irina’s hands tightened around Victor’s waist. He kept his balance.
“In our arrogance, we decided we could be like them,” Mark went on, “that we could be one with the stars, that we could be more than they ever were. The creators decided we must be put back in our place.”
A stone fell away from the tower, then another. Its wall cracked, and a part of it slid down, disintegrating into small pieces, while thunder roared through the air. Dust enveloped them, finding its way into Victor’s ears, nose, hair. He shut his eyes.
“So they limited our connection to the dreamweb, almost like turning a valve to the least possible setting; no more telepathy, no more bonding with fellow living creatures, no more magic. And still, we humans remained deeply spiritual creatures. We always knew the world was more than the eye could see. On some level, most of us understood that death was but a change; the assimilation back into the immaterial, the ultimate dreamweb dive. The mystics and the shamans knew it best. Quite a few chemistry students knew as well, like Yours Truly, for example. Open your eyes.”
Victor did. They were in Victor’s laboratory, where the orphan brothers, he and Mark, sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by stacks of paper, pizza slices, coffee cups, an electric synthesizer, and Mark’s entire chemistry kit. A ray of light shone through the open dome, painting the young men in stripes of gold.
“We did what our civilization couldn’t do in ten thousand years: we found a way to dive into the dreamweb.”
Irina slid her hand down Victor’s chest and rested it on his crotch, breathing heavily in his ear. “Then you met me,” she said.
“And then you met her.”
The laboratory morphed into Margaret Island. Irina walked along a running lane by the river, head bowed, lips tight from the philosophical musings of a twenty-three-year-old diagnosed with cancer. Victor watched her approach his bench, where they started small talk, shared a joint. He was dressed in that ridiculous monkey suit Mark had forced him on a bet to wear for a day. Irina didn’t seem to mind.
Scenes of what had come next flashed one after the other: Irina’s upload; the suicide; Irina inside the dreamweb, helping Victor run the company; Linda; Mark, starting an activist group to ban the dreamweb; the plane; Linda again, crushed against the ceiling; Gabor, a balding young man in a pair of shorts and a tight yellow T-shirt.
“Ah yes, Gabor,” Mark said. “Gabor… Did you know Gabor made a dreamweb dive every day to be with Irina, after she’d died in the physical world? What I did for him at Bogazici was his dream come true.”
“You? It was you?”
“It was us,” Irina whispered into his ear. “I was so lonely. I begged Mark to help.” She nibbled on the ear before continuing. “Your brother lied. What he did wasn’t help; what he did was murder.”
“Not murder,” Mark said. “He did that all on his own. I just gave him the drugs, the booze, and the razor blade.”
“Why, Mark?”
“Because it was the only way, brother. I needed at least one more neo-human inside the dreamweb.” Mark crossed his hands. “The dreamweb was never made to handle human input; our minds simply aren’t on that level. Every worldspace somebody built was like surgery performed with a chainsaw on the fabric of the web’s reality. Finally, time came when it could no longer handle the twisted minds of us mortal fuckers, and it started sucking parts of our world into itself. Irina even gave it a nudge in your direction. Enter missing pilots and a falling plane. Hello, and welcome to the afterlife.”
“What does this have to do with Gabor?”
“Shhh…” Irina whispered. “Let him finish.”
“Everything. The dreamweb is not a piece of technology; it’s a living thing that self-regulates. It had adjusted itself to Irina’s presence, but it’d had a hard time. I figured if I introduced another neo-human to it — the more unstable the better — it would do what any living system would do in such case: it would severe the connection with our world entirely.”
“You based this all on guesswork?”
“It was very scientific guesswork.”
“And?”
“It worked. The world’s no longer disappearing, but… well, the damage is permanent. The dreamweb’s rearranging itself. In a few minutes, there will be no more dreamweb for the people of Earth. We won’t be able to feel it at all, to feel the world around us, the auras of one another, much less dive into it. No more premonitions, no more déjà vu. Trees would die, and probably most of the animals. And when our time comes, the essence of who we are will never touch the dreamweb; we will be forever gone. It was a compromise I was willing to make. If not for this, our world would have simply ceased to be.”
Victor lowered his head. “Because of us,” he said.
“Yes. Because of us.”
“What now?”
The room rippled into a meadow by a roaring waterfall crashing into rock. A catamaran with a retracted sail stood on shore where the rocks gave way to grass.
“There’s only one more thing,” Mark said. “I don’t know how much time I have here, but it’s not long. We won’t meet again.”
“And so I said we’d make this special.” Irina walked around Victor to face him. She kissed him, her lips against his like butterfly wings, then got to her knees and pulled down his pants. Victor looked at Mark, thinking that if sex was the gateway to hell, the three of them would dance with devil. Mark removed his shirt.
Irina gently wrapped her fingers around Victor’s balls, licking him between kisses. He closed his eyes, his head clearing as his body reacted. Sex, he thought. The union of bodies and minds. First comes the mind, then comes the body. He looked down. Irina had spread her legs wider and was helping herself with her fingers, her tongue running along the length of his dick. Victor took her by the hair and slid deeper down her throat. Mark came closer, naked and ready. He got on his knees behind her, licked two fingers, and put them between Irina’s legs. She almost choked. Victor released her, and the moment the edge of his cock left her lips, Mark grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head up.
Victor caught a glimpse of Irina’s green eyes as Mark entered her, before Mark pushed her head back down onto Victor’s cock. She grabbed onto his hips as Mark entered her from behind, fucking her hard and fast, and Victor had to lock her elbows to hold her in place as he slid along her throat — all the way in, and all the way out. His mind was empty. Only body remained — instinct, pleasure, desire. He wasn’t sure how long that went on, but when he finally finished, when his body finally spasmed and he came into Irina’s mouth, for that one moment, Victor felt more alive than he’d ever remembered. Or, at any rate, being dead could have been worse. We’re far from done, my friend, he thought, pulling out to give her some room to breathe.