Day 118 b - Babel - Chapter 14 (1442 words)

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Babel

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 14

Philip opened his eyes to an enormous sense of well being, safety, security. Nothing had actually changed, he was still in the same room with a lighted rectangle in the shape of a door that provided a soft glow to allow him to see. He had a soft floor which he had lay down on some time ago that he recalled and feel asleep on. He had no concept of how much time had passed but he did not feel tired or groggy so he was sure that it had been at least the standard eight.

The room and his sense that things were OK just felt right and correct like he knew without knowing why or even how this were true. It was morning, again he didn't 'know' this but he felt it and there was a gnawing hunger that suddenly reared inside of him and he heard his stomach growling, a thin echo in the chamber where he had slept.

The rectangle of light changed from the diffuse white to a blue colour, soft but definitely coloured and then it blinked out of existence and there was a hole in it's place. Philip could see through to the outside of the room to a corridor, a featureless wall and hallway that lead away from the room in both directions. He stood and stuck his head out of the door and looked up and down the way to see if there were any clue as to where he was or why he was here. It was then he saw that he was not alone, there were more people along the way that had a similar pose as him, head or halfway out of other doors all along the way in both directions, figuring out where they were.

He walked along the corridor to the next room and met the person there, a woman around his own age who was smiling at him as he walked up to meet her. There was a swift embrace as soon as they came in proximity with each other and they froze on the spot as something completely unexpected happened. There was an instant physical connection between them, an intimacy completely devoid of any sexuality but made them each acutely aware of the other at a frightening level of detail. This occurred in the instant of the first touch of their skin, his hand brushed her exposed forearm and a download of a kind happened, synchronous and high speed flow of information between two organic data storage and retrieval systems.

While she was processing the information about him, he was assimilating all the accumulated data of her life to date. Her name was Susan Dormen and she was from Wellington originally and had fled the city to the countryside of the Manawatu when fire and quakes made the city unliveable for most and she followed a train of Babel led by a person who could read signs and direct them in a limited way through pictures and basic diagrams. Her parents location were unknown and she had been hungry and afraid for some time before settling in a camp of Babel in a vineyard near what she thought was Carterton, but she did not know for sure she was guessing from what memory she had of a trip to the area over ten years before then when she was a teen. She was cautious about life since the Babel but before that she had all sorts of plans that lead nowhere in particular and then she had gotten sick and then caught the Babel and things had gone badly for a while.

She had been raped, he could see the face of the man attacking her a Babel himself they thought together. He could feel the pain, feel the terror of being unable to stop him, feel the despair of being unable to stop it, to say no or to process the feelings before fleeing for her life. He could feel it all, and it made him feel hollow and scared for her, and for him as well. He buckled at the knees and fell on the ground feeling sickened and becoming a carved out shell of a person, like Susan had afterwards. He felt the operating on remote control, the need to belong and follow the group she lucked upon that climbed the mountain to safety, walked the road over the Rimutaka ranges, avoiding the slips and the wrecks and leaving the danger zone and the bad memories in her wake. In their wake, Philip felt it all happening in nano seconds of information exchange.

Susan felt more belonging, needed and trust in her receipt from him, the family that had taken him in and the sense of Community in the recovering city of Christchurch, the banding together and the taking back of the City from the violently and hardened insane things who tried to rule. Where Philip had fallen to the floor, she stood up stronger and prouder in the same moment, they looked like a pulley system. He dropped down, keeled over while she rose up and ascended at the same time.

They equalised then, he felt her exultation at the experience that he had, they now both had and she felt a little of the backwash of her own pain as the effect of her imprinting on him. They stood eye to eye and looked at each other, overwhelmed on one level but entirely comfortable on another. They held hands, not wanting to break the connection between them and they looked around to see that as far as they could see along the corridor, which curved out of sight, there were more pairings of people, in no particular order or semblance of pattern but all embracing or touch in the same way as they were.

They both let go of each other and walked in opposite directions, both back the way they came, but instead of going back to their rooms they did what every other couple in the structure did and swapped partners in a long, winding dance between the rooms. In the previous seconds Philip had not wanted to ever let go of Susan and the amazing closeness, the intimate knowledge he had of her in that grasp. Without questioning why that feeling was instantly supplanted with the need to let go and touch someone else.

Philip passed his own room where he had been and walked towards the man that was walking towards him. He had been in a clinch with another man, one much older and it had looked as loving and familiar as the one that Philip had been in with Susan. They embraced in the very moment they reached each other, lunging forward and connecting with a little ferocity as they both knew now what awaited them as they connected again with another human being.

This was different, there was more to it than the flow of information he exchanged with Susan, this was six times as strong. Philip got a sense of Darren, James and Susan all at once, but then also got the two new people, Fiona and Greg whom Susan had walked to connect with. The same level of knowledge and connection but he bow had the length and breadth of five other fully complete people in his head, like they were memories of his own, but of six people now including himself. He lost none of the connection with Susan and he added Darren, James, Fiona and Greg. And they got him added to their own sense of self, with no knowledge of each other prior to this sudden and new communication.

Everybody in the mental chain that connected them all, equalised so much faster this time round and the emotional wrench that he had felt in the first transfer was lightened this time round, it was no longer new and shocking, it was a new routine.

Philip felt hungry and his stomach rumbled again, a thin sound echoing around not just the room anymore but echoing in his head. He felt hungry and so did James, while he could sense that Susan and Darren were not experiencing the same need in the same way, but they felt his need radiating out along the spider-webs that ran between them now. Philip rubbed his tummy, hoping there was food wherever he was now, and he could see that the man in front of him was rubbing his as well, and he saw in his mind everyone else either resisting the urge to rub their own or just going along with the motion themselves.