Day 120 - Babel - Chapter 16 (2255 words)

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BABEL

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 16

The pain in Philip's abdomen was throbbing through his veins, an acid drip attached to his body and getting inside his skin with a regular recurring beat. It seared into him and he could find no relief from the pain. He had been walking down the ramp of a spaceship, that alone had been miraculous and amazing enough, but then a bolted force of pure energy belted him off his feet and knocked him over, the excruciating-ness of it blurred his vision and changing his sense of which way was up.

An age ago he had been on an errand with Emily, and then he woke up somewhere else and found all these other people just like him, and they connected. He could think of another way to put it, like they were mentally looped together, a networking loop. They connected on some psychic and physical level, that string from person to person, mind to mind. The instant he touched another person in that place, he connected completely with them, could see what they saw in their mind, feel what they felt emotionally and physically, and could understand them and what they thought from their perspective. He knew that this was reciprocal, he could feel, sense them having the same negotiation with Philips thoughts, feelings and memories while he was trying to process theirs. Then they had broken apart, touched another person and assimilated them and all their connections, like a virus spreading, like cell division, each time it was growing exponentially.

The bond was keenest with the first people he touched, Susan at the foremost of those. As each progressive touch multiplied itself out he was soon in contact with thirty six people by only meeting two more people. His mind thought it was going to crack, but his brain handled it just to easily, like it was made for it. The personalities and emotions in his head were orderly and made sense, like looking at a row of books on a shelf, he had instant access to every page when he needed it, or when a piece of information was being shared by another person in the loop, but not everything was just open all the time. All the information had rushed in and sat there, ready to be accessed, instantly known but not all recalled in the same blink of the eye.

Now there were thirty six people milling about, and Susan was always very close to him, he could tell where everyone was at any given time and could feel the same as they did, but it was like the volume was turned up on Susan, slightly less on Darren and James, but still louder than the thirty three others in his head, of which oddly he was one. Somewhere in there he was archiving and accessing his own thoughts and feelings from the new mental library he had constructed.

He was still hungry, he had felt that keenly and wished for food and something to to drink. Feedback poured into him, twenty seven of his fellow Loops which was a word one of the others had come up with and the majority of them accepted as an acceptable term for this odd upgraded mental faculty they had. They had all been silent in the time since the Babel, and this new found ability to instantly bridge the communication gap was mind blowing and outrageously freeing. It was also one hundred percent truthful and factual. Already he knew things about all of the people in the loop, he could feel guilt and pain in equal measure.

They had no time for judgement, they had a job to do though not one of them knew what it was, all of the Looped together people knew that a job was assigned to them by their benefactors. It was on this thought that they all moved in a motion towards the centre of the corridor, where a door lead away from the row of rooms, or cells where they had been kept up until this point. They felt trusted, safe and secure here but not all of them agreed why they were, or who was holding them here. At least they were not fearful or paranoid, despite some of the Looped being openly suspicious of the motives of their captors, hosts or whatever they were. Their emotions were levelled out, and on some level they realised this was imposed, but they did not care, or could not care that much about it other than academically.

The central door that lead away from that area drew them to a large window, or screen, it was hard to know which it was, and Philip and Susan could both see the view before they came across it. They had a preview, as they all did, from the person in the front of the group walking ahead, they all saw foggily in their mind what that person saw, it was taking priority over other peoples views of the backs of their own heads and other useless information, though it was all there together in a useless lump until sifted someday into a useful order.

There was a breakfast table set for thirty six people, with human food and drink laid out to each persons individual specification and needs. Philip new where to sit without being told, like everyone else in the room did as well. They sat in view of the window, the floor to ceiling view of Auckland Harbour and City skyline at night. It was night time, it was dark and no one knew really what was happening, but breakfast was appropriate when they thought they had woken up in the morning, but now they discovered it was night. The timing was off and what followed that thought was a sweeping round disappointment and annoyance, and a request for them to close their eyes.

When Philip opened them again he was lying head sideways on the table, and he opened his eyes to see thirty six other first views of the day. The day, it was now daylight outside and time had passed, it was just after dawn and the meal in front of them was now appropriate to the time of day. The previous sweeping external emotion, not from within the Loop but coming from outside it, was the complete opposite of what they felt now. The rightness of the timing, the satisfaction at having the right meal, the right time and the right exact food for them all at this time was uplifting and smug at the same time. Philip smiled as he ate his bacon and eggs, still hot or maybe created anew, he didn't know one way or the other, but there it was perfectly done just how he liked it. He had freshly squeezed grapefruit juice where others had coffee, tea or other beverages or food to their personal tastes.

Everyone around the room was happy and content, even those with the thoughts that this was a trap, a convenience, a trick on them. The morning passed with a casualness and ease with nothing really happening. They all knew each other already, conversation was impossible anyway as they were still Babel, but now they had no need for language at all so the lack of speech, reading or other media was neither here nor there. They waited until the sun was high in the sky and the day had progressed, taking seats again for lunch and this time being fully awake, saw it materialise in front of their very eyes.

It was like a scene from Star Trek with the replicator technology, more than one person thought this as they saw the food fade into existence from thin air or beamed in from somewhere else and again exactly what they wanted. Philip had been craving Fish and Chips, he felt one of the other Looped thinking about the Fish Shop in Devonshire Street, in Sydney, Australia and that memory had been so vivid an compelling Philip felt like he had been there, tried the food an craved it. Others around the table obviously had similar feelings as various fast food servings were replicated down the packaging and accompanying sodas appeared along side them.

There were thirty six different tastes overlapping and being catered to and seemingly by magic from an unseen and unheard host. Now they were all thinking Host, the food had clinched the deal for them. They were prevented from panicking by an emotional brake inside them, but they felt incredibly free to think whatever they wanted, including negative opinions, theories and conspiracies but they only were restricted by not be able to react, potentially over reacting to any thoughts.

They ate in silence in the room, save the smacking of jaws and saliva in the act of consumption itself, but in their minds they were singing joyfully of food and satisfaction, the sensation that the things they lost were able to be brought back even this once. They stopped when they were full, thoughts of having more while they still could were being suppressed or squashed, even though they knew this was likely for their own good to prevent despair or a needle in the sense of hope they were building up.

They all felt fantastic, and Philip could see Susan across the table, looking over her head to see the view, and take in the breathtaking vista from the city to the Bridge. He saw it first, but she could co-see it with him as he saw the flare and they all heard the faint crump of the explosions and then the collapse of the bridge. At this distance they could not see the people on the bridge, they could not have known the human cost of what they were seeing, but they were all taken aback by the fiery and devastating change to the Auckland land mark. Philip was from the mainland, and as such he held no commonality with Aucklanders prior to being here and meeting them, being Looped to some of them and beginning to know them intimately. Even so he knew before they transmitted their shock that this was a big thing, the visible icon of their city terrorised in this way.

They knew it was terrorised, or attacked, the bridge itself was static and could not simply implode or explode without an incendiary device to bring it down. There was a builder who had worked demolitions before in the thirty six Looped and he shared the thought that the blast pattern betrayed a timed, planned demolition, a bombing for maximum effect. They all watched the blast with some pity and surprise and from their position above Rangitoto, a few of them had figured this out from the height and angle of the view they had out the window of the spaceship that they had previously seen hanging in the Auckland sky either above the Manukau or above the extinct volcanic island in the Gulf.

They had been there another day of waiting, meals and a dubious sense of well being keeping them fed and not so much entertained as OK with having nothing to do at all. Then they got the instructions to head to the shuttle bay, they were going to land and Loop in a whole country full of people in one go.

The instruction was not a voice, nor was it a picture but it was knowledge directly imparted into them. They saw the craft in their future, and how to find their way to it in their memory as if they had walked it a thousand times before. They saw the growing throngs of people standing in pairs and then them walking out and touching the first thirty six pairings, then like a virus contaminating the entire population they could see the Babel in the Loop with them.

The flight was smooth and silent and they waited patiently to land feeling the thud as gravity and dry land reacquainted themselves with the craft and it's occupants again. They filed up in a four person line and walked out of the shuttle together, Darren, James, Susan and Philip together and they had eight more rows of four people behind them, ready to all split up and touch one person in the first thirty six pairings they could find near the Queens Wharf entry and start the Looped In processing.

Then it hit. Then the two bullets tore into Susan and James, flinging their bodies and spraying blood everywhere near the entry points. Philip felt the pain from both of them and as everyone else was running for cover and diving off the Shuttle ramp, he and Darren were consumed with the intense pain from the flesh of their first pair being brutally invaded by hot, searing and jagged metal shots.

First James stopped hurting as he stopped breathing and the pain lessened, and Darren came to and ran off the ramp, diving for cover. Philip held on to Susan, the bond not being any more or any less intense once the initial connecting had been accomplished, but the physical pain was nothing now, a dull and aching pin prick compared to the hungry black maw that opened up for her as Philip felt her die from the inside out.