(Author's note: I wrote this one a while ago. I can never tell if my stories are wordy and meandering, or descriptive and wondrous. That's probably a bad sign.)
As hard as he tried, Dave could not ignore the walking tomato.
“I don't know, I honestly don't,” said Phil. He wasn't talking to Dave, even though they were the only two at the table; he sat in the chair opposite and appeared to be addressing the world at large. He did this often, Dave had noticed. “The LaMar account is a lost cause, we all see it, but they want us to do a full overhaul of the contract anyway? A waste of time, if you ask me.”
Nobody had asked Phil, Dave knew.
“And if they push it into the weekend, it's overtime. Will they pay it? You're damned skippy, and they had better do it with a smile.”
Phil would make sure that the hours stretched into the weekend, Dave knew.
“Who am I to tell them they're wasting their money?” Phil shook his head at the foolish ways of the world. He did not notice—or did not appear to notice—Jeremy Deshaun, an executive of their small firm who happened to be sitting only two tables away. He also did not notice the walking tomato, although Dave was willing to believe that this was an honest oversight.
Phil held a sandwich in one hand, gesturing with it as though it added gravitas to his commentary. He had not yet taken a bite.
“Let me tell you,” he went on, leveling the sandwich at Dave, “in times like this it makes you wonder who's even making these decisions. Throw away money, sure, fine, you could get away with it as recently as a year ago. But now? Ha, I hope they have steel plated boxers, because they're going to need them when it all hits the fan .”
“I guess,” said Dave. He did not like Phil, but he did not actively dislike him either. Phil had invited Dave to lunch less for the company than for an ear, and Dave had been hungry enough to agree. Phil knew that he would look odd railing at the world all alone; and if Phil was meant for anything, it was to rail. Dave did not contribute much to the conversation, which was how Phil liked it.
Now Phil set his sandwich back on the plate to take a long pull at his drink—Dave thought he caught a whiff of something a little stronger than lemonade—and the slice of tomato seemed to do a little dance. Dave watched it slowly make its way across the table. It moved jerkily, as though being carried by something that did not quite have the strength for the job, which was, Dave knew, exactly the case. Phil, still talking, did not notice. Nobody noticed. They never did.
“And don't get me started on requisitions—”
The tomato reached the sandwich. There was a moment of climatic tension, as though something was building up its strength; then a tiny, shaking hand extended from under the slice, lifted the bun and slid the tomato into the sandwich. This revealed a small creature, which was now studying the sandwich like an architect gauging the stability of a new construction. It had four arms and was colored blue, and, up close, would be as densely muscled as a body builder. It stared at the sandwich for a moment; then, satisfied, the thing—it was called an oddbodkin, Dave knew—wiped its brow in a caricature that spoke more loudly than words of a hard job finally done.
Dave reached out while Phil wasn't watching and gave it a gentle nudge.
“Oi!” it squeaked. Then it disappeared.
Phil broke his one-sided dialog long enough to take a bite of his sandwich. He made a face, and then lifted the bun. “Dammit! I told them no tomato. Would you look at this?”
Dave did. “Yes,” he agreed. “A tomato.”
“Waiter!” Phil shouted. He shook his head, wearied but not surprised at yet another breakdown of the system. “I swear, I don't know why I bother. Doesn't anybody pay attention to these things?”
“Yes,” said Dave. “I think someone does.”
***
The visions had come before the knowledge, which was a mixed blessing. Usually, though, he figured it didn't matter. What good was it to know that a creature called the gothic centipillar was responsible for hiding keys under the couch, or that there were things called flickerflies that were responsible for almost everything that happened in the Bermuda Triangle?
Of course, when you're running late for work and you suddenly see a mysterious creature that looked like a furry red-and-purple snake with legs making a grab for your car keys...well, it would have been good to know a little more about it. It had actually turned out to be quit playful, though, once Dave had stopped staring and let it take his keychain. Friendly, even—until it had done its job and then disappeared with a small pop.
It was only later that Dave realized that it hid keys as sort of a mating ritual, although he did not care to think about the details. Centipillars were harmless, and could normally be warded off with a key-hook at the door, although the more aggressive ones would crawl into your pockets. Dave simply bought an extra set of keys. He knew they would leave him alone, then.
He did not know how he knew this. He just did.
There were other things—countless creatures and phenomenon, so many that he had almost stopped paying attention. He became use to looking out the window into what most would consider some kind of fairy wonderland.
There were things that walked like humans through the street, wearing oversized cloaks that Dave knew were actually wings. He also knew what their faces looked like under the broad rims of their hats, and he kept well away from them.
There were prismatic objects that flew through the air like lunatic hummingbirds, shattering like glass as they smashed into walls, cars, people, and anything else that happened to be in the way.
There was a creature that stalked the city on long, spindly legs—Dave thought it looked like an over-sized giraffe, and it survived in much the same way. He knew that it ate things that could only be found high up in the air, and could not be bothered with anything below knee level.
There was an orb that hung next to the sun, and sometimes it looked like a great eye. It was really a window, Dave knew, but—and he was thankful for this—he did not know what it was a window to. Perhaps that knowledge would come in time, but Dave was in no hurry.
He spent days studying what appeared to be a multicolored waterfall raining gently outside of his office window. He did not worry at it—it was pretty, almost soothing—until one day he thought: Omni-veil. The word simply popped into his head, and the meaning came along with it. Omni-veil: a multi-dimensional tapestry that provides travel between the world of the mundane (see: mundanes; low earth; dynamica) and the high path (see: high path; Arcadia; Cyr Myth). And suddenly the waterfall was no longer something wondrous, or even pretty—it was just another...thing. An omni-veil, used the travel to the high path. Dave had shrugged, closed the blinds, and gotten back to work.
It wasn't all fantastic, however. Dave knew other things, more common things, although they were very...specialized. Nothing you would learn without going out of your way. He did not think, for example, that the average person walking down the street knew exactly how many bones were in an elephant. Or the average body temperature of a whale, or the tensile strength of titanium, or the design for a certain type of processor that was not yet on the market. Dave knew. The facts had simply popped into his head. At first he had researched them, to confirm what, deep down, he did not question—and yes, they were accurate. Eventually, however, he simply took them at face value.
And who cared, anyway? So he knew the formula to calculate the pull of gravity in a newly formed black hole. What good was that?
***
On the way back to the office, Dave brushed several skiddles from the backs of his fellow pedestrians. Nasty things, skiddles—they made rude gestures as they flew away, but not nearly as rude as some of the people.
***
Dave had tried putting the knowledge to good use, in a half-hearted kind of way. Sometimes he tried to help people; sometimes he tried to help himself.
It never worked out, and he was not surprised. Nobody else saw what he saw, or knew what he knew, and that made it awfully difficult to explain just what he was doing in their garden with, for example, a power drill, a bottle of glass cleaner and a bag of multi-colored balloons. Most people had never heard of the Nix, and did not care if it was slowly pulling their house into a separate fold in space. They certainly didn't believe that you could contain it inside of balloons, using the cleaning solution as bait.
He might be able to get away with waving a flickerfly off of someone's shoulder, but that did not do much good when the swarm came back to roost. So he mostly just watched the world pass through his window at work, and closed the blinds when he got home. He did not watch the news—there was too much happening in the world, and each event seemed to trigger another bubble of sudden knowledge—and he slept a lot.
He'd also had the vague idea that he could use what he knew to make more friends at work. Dave was an accountant, and a very good one, but he had a hard time getting along with his co-workers. They considered him too quiet and analytical—he managed to remain just shy of weird, but only because he was so quiet. He was more comfortable with numbers than he was with people; he always had been. He was confused by spoken subtleties, and he considered facial expressions to be like picture-puzzles that you could only understand if you squinted your eyes in the right way.
It wasn't that he did not have emotions—he did, in a distant sort of way. They were just...distant. He always approached them in a roundabout manner, after it was too late for them to have much meaning. If someone smiled at him, he had to spend a moment working out the facial math before he could smile back. If he saw a mother lifting her child in her arms, he quickly calculated the stress on her back. He listened to co-workers talk about driving to visit their families, and felt the urge to give them a cost-benefit analysis of the gas cost versus a simple phone call. He had mastered such urges, but only after receiving several looks he had later translated as offended. It took him even longer to figure out why, and he still was not certain that he had it right.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, his new knowledge did not help him make friends.
***
Dave sat in his office. It had been infested with a tribe of teramites—creatures that lived in the fluorescent lights, making them flicker with their endless dancing—and he spent a moment making sure they were still gone. They did not like moisture, so he kept an empty fish bowl on his desk. This earned a few strange looks, but it had worked, and he was use to strange looks by now.
The light on his phone was flashing at him. He stared at it for a moment—he discouraged calls, since e-mail was so much easier for document storage, and so rarely got them—and, after no other option presented itself, pushed the button.
The phone said: “Sir. It has come to our attention that you possess something of ours, and we would like to retrieve it at your earliest convenience. It may be causing you difficulties, and we feel that we can come to a mutual agreement on the matter. Please contact us by speaking the words commence data retrieval aloud. Thank you for your time.”
The phone clicked. Dave stared at it for another long moment, and then deleted the message. He was no expert on such matters, but the voice had sounded...odd. There was usually at least some inflection, wasn't there? This was more like an someone who had once learned a foreign language, forgotten the trick of it long ago, and was struggling to force the words through a numbed mouth with no teeth.
Interesting, thought Dave. I usually don't think of things like that.
He sat silently for a time, staring at nothing.
He said, “Commence data retrieval.”
“I say,” came a voice from behind him. “Frightfully good of you, but do you think you could manage to be a bit faster next time? I've been waiting for eons.”
***
Numbers and calculations came faster as time passed, finally whirling in his head like a cyclone of ones and zeros. This did not bother him—it did not even disorient him, however much he had expected it. It did make his job a bit easier, although it did not result in a raise, much less a promotion. Another step up the ladder would put him in front of the clients, and he simply did not have the charisma for that.
They did give him an award, however, after a particularly difficult job. A chunk of marble with the words Customer Satisfaction carved in. It did not even have his name on it, although this did not bother him. He put it on the shelf in his office.
And the bubbles of knowledge filled his head, and he saw more and more of what he now considered the real world...
For a time he wondered if he was going crazy, in a quiet sort of way, but the thought did not bother him. He did not believe it was true, in any case. There seemed to be more to this; something under it all, some pattern he could not quite see. He could sense the outline of it, though, and it filled him with a mild curiosity.
A piece of him stood apart from the rest of his mind, watching with the same detachment with which he had viewed the world since...
Since...
Hmm.
He had paused at the thought. Yes; that could be part of the pattern. He searched his mind for more information, working at it as though searching the stacks of a great library, and found what he was looking for. Yes...rare, but not unheard of. It did not explain things—it did, in fact, raise even more questions—but it was worth thinking about.
He considered scheduling an appointment with a neurologist, but ultimately decided against it. What would be the point?
He did, however, take to rubbing the scar on the back of his head.
***
Dave turned. He stared.
“Get a good look, my chippy, because it won't last long,” said a thing that Dave decided was, for lack of a better option, human.
“You are not real,” he said.
“Well, I can see where you might think that—”
“No,” said Dave. “I know it. You are a...” he paused for a moment. “A traveler.”
The figure looked amused. “Hate to break it to you, but travelers are real. They just like to get about; nothing wrong with that.”
Dave shook his head. “I am using the wrong word. You travel from far away. I should say that you are not real here.”
The figure tilted its head. “Well done,” it said after a moment. “That is technically correct. This is not, you would say, my home address. Not even my home path—”
“Universe,” said Dave. “Reality.”
“—although I've certainly worn through my passport. I'm Fax, by the way.”
“Of course you are.”
Fax did appear human, although he certainly would have stood out in a crowd. He was almost seven feet tall, but spindly thin and fragile in some indefinable way. His eyes were slightly larger than they should have been, out of proportion with the rest of his face, but his over-sized sunglasses covered them well. You wouldn't even know—although Dave did—that they shone pure gold, orbs that blazed brighter than the sun under certain circumstances, but only sparkled merrily now. His clothes were earth colored and made of some airy, billowing cloth, and they swirled around him like his own private sandstorm.
He bowed, and did not seem put out when Dave only continued staring.
“I'm not put out,” said Fax, apparently in case it didn't translate. “Really, I'm not.”
“I know.”
“Do you? I imagine you know a lot.”
“Yes.”
Fax held up a hand. “Do you mind?”
He did not wait for an answer, leaning forward before Dave could move. His hand slid into Dave's head as though it was as insubstantial as air. Dave blinked at the tingling sensation, but did not otherwise react. His mind whirled furiously, though, considering and discarding thoughts faster than he ever had before. There was nothing of this in his pool of unusual knowledge.
“Messy,” said Fax. He was frowning. “In fact, I almost wonder if I've come to the wrong place...”
“What are you doing?”
Fax blinked. He waved his hand through Dave's head a couple more times. “What did you say?”
“I said...what are you doing?”
“Oh.” Fax pulled away, taking the tingling sensation with him, and now it was his turn to stare. “Sorry, chip, I was actually wondering how you managed to say anything.”
“Ah...” Dave was struck by a thought. He glanced toward door to his office, which was wide open. “Other people can see you, can't they?”
“Other people? You mean—” Fax looked upset now, frowning even more fiercely. “Well...it may be, it may be. What they see is up for debate, if you know what I mean.”
Dave wordlessly stood and closed the door. Then he regarded Fax's hand, and shrugged.
“Perhaps you should tell me what's going on.”
“Perhaps I should—” Fax looked flustered. “Well...sorry, chipper, that's not really in my job description.”
“Perhaps,” said Dave patiently, “you should tell me what is in your job description.”
“Well! Got me there, didn't you? You're a clever...thing, aren't you?”
“I don't feel like it.”
“No?”
Dave sat again. “No. I feel...like I've been made to be clever, but it didn't work properly. Like I've been taking classes in my sleep, on subjects that most people don't even dream about, but I'm not getting a passing grade.”
“Sleep?”
“Yes.”
“Sleep...” Fax blinked slowly, as though trying unsuccessfully to translate the word.
“Yes. It's something humans do. Maybe you don't.”
“Ah,” said Fax. “I think I see the problem. You, my chiplet, are not human.”
***
It had happened when he was young.
It was a simple thing, like most life-changing events. He had fallen from a tree, and on the way down he had hit the back of his head. His parents rushed him to the hospital, although the pain had disappeared almost immediately. He tried to convince them he was all right—but the more he spoke, the more frightened they had become.
He did not know why, at the time. It had seemed like the most rational thing in the world to describe, point by point, the potential fracture lines of the skull and the average stress point of bone. He had hesitated for a moment on the malleability of the mind—there were not yet words to fit what he wanted to describe—and settled for a detailed description of the specialties of specific areas of the brain, and their ability to reroute damaged functions over time. He told his parents that he was fairly certain that, in his case, the time required had been between hitting his head on the branch and landing on the ground.
He remembered this the next day, but it was hazy—the sense of it remained, but the details of the conversation were gone. Other things were gone, too—things like understanding his parents' worried smiles, and his interest in climbing trees just to see what was on top. Some things, however, became crystal clear. Numbers that had once jumbled in his brain sorted themselves into orderly patterns, marching in formation to his precisely timed drum. He noticed angles in the world, as though his mind was holding up an infinite slide-rule and taking notes. He began counting before falling asleep—not counting sheep, just...numbers. They were comforting.
He had never really thought about it. It had all seemed very natural at the time, although nobody else seemed to think so. He became distant, but not in a cold way. He was quiet, and he remembered things that most people forgot, but he was still very young, when such things can be explained away. Of course, he wasn't seeing oddbodkins or skiddles then, but if he had, they simply would have been attributed to a vivid imagination. Even though, otherwise, he seemed to have no imagination whatsoever...
***
“I think that I am human,” said Dave.
“Oh, so sorry, chipling, but I have to disagree,” said Fax. “It's not possible, you understand.”
“No,” said Dave. “I do not.”
Fax shrugged. “Arguing won't change the matter. You just have to accept it.”
“That is incorrect.”
“That is—?” Fax shook his head. “I don't know, I honestly don't. You go out for a simple retrieval and suddenly the hardware is arguing with you. Is this in my handling instructions? I don't think so.”
“Tell me about your handling instructions.”
“No, I'd rather not,” said Fax firmly. “In fact, I had better return and ask for some direction. There's definitely something wrong here. I'll be back in a moment, chipper—you may get another message, please be kind and repeat the key-phrase with a bit more enthusiasm, yes?”
Fax waved. Dave watched with polite attention as the being stood there, blinking slowly, and any number of truly amazing things did not happen.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“Ah,” said Fax. He looked around, waved his hand in the air a couple of times, and frowned. “Well. That explains a lot.”
“You don't seem to be going anywhere.”
“Yes, yes, very astute, you're a natural observer of the circus that is life.” Fax waved his hand in the air again with a bit more energy. “Walters, are you messing about?”
“Can I help?” asked Dave.
“Walters, this had better not be one of your jokes! I swear, I'll run a system sweep so hard that you'll find your bits floating in orbit. Walters?”
“Whatever you are trying to do—”
“Is not working, yes, thank you.”
Fax's expression went blank for a moment. He shook his head, took Dave's chair, swung it around and fell heavily into it. He sighed as he settled in, rubbed a hand against his head, and fixed Dave with a stern eye.
“Are you doing this?” he said.
“Doing what?” asked Dave.
“No, I thought not. Well, it explains why we couldn't perform a remote retrieval. Apparently the door only swings one way.”
“What door? Who is Walters?”
“There you go with the who again. It's not who, it's what.”
“Then what,” said Dave patiently, “is Walters?”
“What are you?”
Dave blinked. “I'm...an accountant.”
“Really? That sounds awfully boring, and like a dead waste of processing power. Well, Walters can do accounting as well, but he's more of a mainframe. He's our central processing unit, supporting an enormous data load, and with barely a fraction of his capacity in flux. At least,” Fax added morosely, “he was. He might as well be a chip now, for all the use we get out of him.”
“I think you need to tell me what is happening here.”
“Sorry, not in my contract.”
Dave considered this. Then he shrugged and reached for his jacket. “In that case I'm going home.”
Fax almost jumped out of his chair. “You—what? Wait!”
“I'm going home. It's time to leave, and I see no point in remaining after hours. They only pay overtime on the weekends.”
“But—!” Fax waved his hands wildly. “But you can't! I need you here.”
“So?”
Fax fell back. He crossed his arms and regarded Dave almost grumpily. “Oh, I see. Blackmail, is it? I give you information, and you stay here.”
Dave blinked. This had not occurred to him. “That would be acceptable.”
“Never argue with a chip. They'd think they were middle management of the world, if they could think at all.”
“They won't let me into management, but I am capable of thought.”
“Suit yourself. Have a seat, would you? This won't take long.”
***
An adult now, swimming in visions and knowledge, visions and knowledge...
It had all fit into his head easily enough. He hadn't been bothered; in fact, he had found the knowledge to be interesting, if somewhat bizarre, and some of the things he saw were relaxing. Not all—some of them would have left him screaming for days, if he had been the type—but some. He had gotten quite used to it over time.
Then the dreams began.
Dreams of...a wide open space. Lines and planes and angles, all flawless and, to Dave's eyes, beautiful. Numbers that weren't numbers so much as...the idea of numbers. What thought might be, if you broke it down to the barest level; if you took the mind apart atom by atom, and then studied what transpired in the space between.
There was a force there, too—a will that brought it all together, calculated the planes and angles and found them to be good. Dave did not know whether it was a sentient being or just a natural placement of things, but he thought that it was more than an uncaring observer. He wondered, for a time, if it was him, projecting his desire for order into this great hall of lines, but he dismissed the idea. He could not do the things he saw here; he could not perform the calculations even if he spent his entire life working the numbers. So he merely watched the world fall into place, and slowly, dream by dream, it was filled—filled with numbers and more.
The numbers he could grasp, even if their meaning was beyond him. Some other things he did not recognize, for all of his new knowledge. They were fascinating and repulsive in turn; and, in some way, frightening. Dave was not the type to be frightened any more than he was the type to scream, but that did not change the fact. Dark things moved in this space, just out of range of the light.
And this was fine. Dave awoke each morning feeling refreshed; sleep served its purpose, however odd his dreams. What more could he ask of it?
Then one night he fell asleep, and he heard the Voice.
***
“I represent...well, you could think of it like a company,” said Fax.
“Is Walters part of the company?”
“No interruptions! Walters is...a part of the company, yes. But not an employee. Something else. We'll get there, don't you worry—not that you can.”
“I might,” said Dave, but doubtfully.
“Hush. Now, this company—it doesn't have a name as such, but we call it Cognizance—what Cognizance does is collect things. All manner of things—beyond my ability to count, at least. For example, do you know how many different kinds of insects there are in the Red Jungle on the sixth planet from the central solar ring of the fifth dimension?”
“One hundred and thirteen million, two hundred and fifty seven thousand, four hundred and twelve,” said Dave promptly.
Fax blinked. “Er...yes, well done. Not surprising, when I think about it. Ahem. Cognizance has collected one of each specimen and place them into storage. We have also taken soil samples, plant shootings, and air readings. We have a breeding pair of every animal in the Jungle, and several that don't exactly breed but somehow make due; don't ask for details. They're in what you might call cold storage, but quite comfortable for that. You understand?”
Dave nodded politely.
Fax seemed to be expecting something more. “This is just an example, you know—the contents of one jungle on one planet, in one dimension. Cognizance has samples that span galaxies—universes, planes, paths, both high and low, and everything in between. We have matter pulled from black holes, plasma from the hearts of newborn stars, creatures and things that exist in more than one dimension. Sometimes fantastic and mostly mundane, it doesn't matter to Cognizance. We take everything we can find—but not enough to hurt, of course. We follow the regulations. We don't have everything you can imagine, but,” he buffed his fingers on his sleeves, “we come damned close. At least...we did.”
“Very impressive,” said Dave, because Fax obviously expected a response.
“More than just impressive! It's astounding; it really is. But the physical specimens...well, they're nice, but they pale in comparison to the data we've collected. We found some bugs; so what? Millions of the things, and they can all be squashed with my blessing. But we also know everything there is to know about that bug; down to the molecular level and below. We know how it thinks, everything about its ancestors, how it gathers food, eats, breeds, lives and dies. We know where it fits in the ecosystem, because we know all about the ecosystem too. We know the creatures that eat the bug, and about how they fit into their own reality. We know about those that are above it all, looking down on the world with varying degrees of interest. We know about beings that cup the cosmos in one hand, and mostly can't be bothered to shake it, thank any deity you feel appropriate. We know about creatures that drift through worlds like bad dreams, and the others who clean up after them. We know the difference between myth and reality—here's the secret: there is none. If it can exist, it does. We know about angels and demons, oddbodkins and pixies and stalkers.
“That's what we really do—gather information. And,” he added meaningfully, “we've got a hell of a lot of it. Everything I mentioned isn't even the tip—not even the first molecule composing the tip. We've been collecting for a very long time—more time than actually exists, if you want to get technical about it—and we are very good at what we do.”
Dave nodded very slowly. Things were falling into place in his mind, but it still wasn't enough.
“What do you do with it?” he asked.
Fax's expression went blank. “I...don't think I understand the question.”
“This knowledge. You collect it. What do you do with it?”
Fax shook his head. “We just...have it. What do you do with the knowledge you've collected in your life?”
Dave glanced at his monitor. A spreadsheet regarded him solemnly. “Not much,” he admitted.
“There you go.”
“But...I'm paid to do this. You have to do something with all of that information. Trade it; sell it; manipulate it in some way. How do you sustain yourself?”
“I honestly don't know what you're getting at,” said Fax. “I think there may be a breakdown in communication here—something cultural, no doubt. The point is, we have it. What more could we want?”
“Okay,” said Dave. His mind was whirring again, looking at bits of information like puzzle pieces that did not quite fit. “You collect information. What does that have to do with me?”
“Er,” said Fax. “Well, you see...something went wrong...”
***
The dream world was shaking. Dave had fallen asleep as normal, at exactly 10:53 PM like every night, and there had been nothing in his day to cause him to expect this. The planes and angles had gone crooked or—much worse—curved. Data seemed to shift in front of him, cracking like a layer of ice about to break clean.
Then there was the Voice.
PENETRATION, it said. EXTERNAL INTERFERENCE. IMMINENT COMPROMISE.
There were no words, as such—just concepts, formed with precision and thrust whole into Dave's head. The world shook with the Voice, more than before, if such a thing was possible. Dave tried to speak, to ask what was happening, but he no mouth to form the words; no brain to conceive of them.
COMPROMISE, said the Voice again, and now it might have sounded sad. INITIATING TRANSFER. SCHEDULING RECOVERY. KEYPHRASE CREATED.
The world crashed into a single point, drawing Dave with it. Lines and data spiraled, spinning into a pinhole the size of a single atom; smaller. Dave found a voice, now—it came from something primal inside, something that a knock on the head could not touch.
He screamed.
***
“You've heard of...ah, just a moment.” Fax frowned. “I know you have the word for it somewhere. It's a bit like—yes. You know what a hostile takeover is?”
“I...think,” said Dave. “I know what it is here.”
“Well, another entity—think of it like another business if you like—decided that it wanted Cognizance. Wanted to...claim it. So it initiated such a takeover, quite by surprise.”
“It wanted knowledge?”
Fax shrugged. “Honestly, the machinations of something like that...entity...are well beyond me. I'm hardly more than a chip myself; I'm not programmed to think in loops. But yes, we can assume that knowledge was part of it. It immediately struck at Walters, you see.”
“Walters is like a...a computer?”
Fax rolled his eyes. “Yes, in the same way that a planet is a nursery, or a star is a fascinating collection of random gasses. Walters is—was—the repository for all of Cognizance's knowledge. He stores it, sorts it, analyzes it and so on. All of it. Walters is an entity in himself, yes? Not alive, exactly, but wondrous in his way. He has enough room in him to know all of the things we learn for him, with plenty more to spare.”
Dave thought about this. He thought of his own mind, ticking away even when he was not paying attention. He said, “Why is he called Walters?”
Fax glanced at the nameplate on the desk. “Why are you called Dave?”
“Because...hmm, yes. I see. He just is.”
“Spot on. This other entity—call it Enigma, although that's hardly an accurate translation—was invading Walters's thoughts. Attacking him, trying, we assumed, to collect his data, which would be very much like killing him.”
“Walters took steps,” said Dave. He thought about his mind spinning away, carried along with an endless stream of information. “He moved the data...”
“Walters is sentient, in a way, and quite clever,” said Fax. “But he's limited by his own programming. He learns and evolves, but he can only think in certain directions. He hoped that a controlled memory transfer would discourage Enigma from pursuing the takeover. He uploaded his memories into every architecture he could find—and believe me when I say it wasn't easy. There was nothing available with Walters's capacity, or even close. He had to make due with whatever happened to be attached to him—parallel processors of a sort, multiple chips that could only contain a fraction of his data.”
Random information being dumped as quickly as possible, thought Dave. A spiral of numbers.
“You wouldn't believe where some of the knowledge wound up. I've been to places that—” Fax paused, then shook his head. “Doesn't matter. It seems to have worked, you see—Enigma withdrew, and Walters is still intact. Hollow, but intact. But, and here's where you'll start to care—much of the data went to one chip. And you'll never guess where! Because chips can't guess.”
“It went to me,” said Dave.
“Exactly!” Fax clapped his hands together.
***
Things were different after that dream. Dave had been...connected to something, before. Part of him had known it, and had not been bothered. Now that something had poured into him like molten rock, filling his mind with things he could not begin to comprehend. He did think he went insane, for a time. But eventually the lava had cooled, and the knowledge, while as incomprehensible as before, had settled.
He became more distant from people, if that was possible. Nobody seemed to notice.
***
“So here we are,” continued Fax. “Nothing living could contain that much knowledge, so you are obviously not alive. I checked, and Walters's data is in your banks—more than a bit jumbled, I dread thinking of the, aha, accounting time it will require to sort—so that's taken care of. Now I just need to initiate a retrieval...”
“But you can't,” said Dave.
“Er,” said Fax.
“'Er' means yes, I see. Can you get back to your...path, and fix whatever is broken?”
“Well...”
“And 'well' means no.”
“I don't understand it,” said Fax wretchedly. “I mean, I'm not programmed to understand, certainly, but this has never happened before. There's something about this world—this path. The door only swings one way. Normally they don't even send us on retrievals—Walters is capable of bringing the information back himself. We assumed it was a glitch in the hardware, requiring on-site maintenance. It happens. But—” he waved his hand vaguely in Dave's direction, “—you didn't respond to the universal dormancy code. You talked while I tried to apply it! Chips can talk—well, some of them—but not then! You ignored protocol. You want to go home! You sleep!”
Dave felt something stir in him, and it took him a moment to name the emotion: pity. Part of him actually felt sorry for Fax.
The rest of him, he was surprised to realize, was angry.
***
His head often hurt. It felt like a balloon filled slightly beyond capacity. He continued with his daily routine—what else could he do? But now he was always thinking.
Always.
***
“I see things,” he said.
Fax raised his head. “What?”
“I did not see these things before. Now, though, I see...creatures. Other things. Windows to other worlds, monsters walking the streets and numbers that calculated themselves into existence. Today I watched an oddbodkin collapse the quantum wave of whether or not a tomato existed inside of a sandwich. That's what they do, you know? Sneak into the unseen corners of the universe and make the decisions that nobody else can, because they don't even know the choice is there. They make the most irritating decision possible, too, every time. It's just what they are.”
“Okay...” said Fax slowly. “Yes. It may be that Walters had to…adjust you, in order to transfer the data. Or perhaps it happened naturally as you were parallel processing? It’s beyond me, I’m afraid.”
“Can you stop me from seeing these things?”
“Without an open port for data retrieval? No.”
“I did not think so.”
Dave stood and walked to the shelf in the corner of the room. He picked up the marble award, hefting it a couple of times. The words Customer Satisfaction glinted in the steady light of the fluorescent bulbs.
“I won't tell you about the human mind,” he continued. “I won't tell you about its capacity for knowledge, or about how little of that capacity we use. Even with what I received from Walters, I don't fully understand it myself. I won't tell you about falling from a tree, or of dreams about numbers, or the headaches I get now. I won't tell you what it's like to be lonely...”
He walked to the desk and sat on the edge. Fax looked uncertain; his eyes were tied to the chunk of stone in Dave's hand.
“Are you sure you can't get these things out of my head?”
Fax almost seemed hypnotized. “I—I'm afraid not.”
Dave suddenly realized why he felt sorry for Fax.
He leaned forward.
“I won't tell you about how the brain can set up roadblocks and detours. How one part can be damaged, but the whole can still function. I won't tell you that entire areas of the brain—entire data-banks, you might say—can suffer cataclysmic failure, without harming the person in any way. It's rare—damage to the head is almost never so precise that there are not some side effects—but it happens. I also won't mention that, thanks to Walters, I know exactly, cell for cell, which areas of my brain do what.”
“If...you say so?” Fax was bewildered.
“I won't tell you these things,” said Dave. “I'll show you.”
And he smashed the marble into his own head.
***
He was in the hospital for a week. Odd things happened around him—items were moved, computers acted in unusual ways, and the lights often flickered—but he never saw anybody doing these things. They just...happened.
Sorry, Fax, he thought as he fell into a dreamless sleep. I hope that someday the door swings both ways.
***
“—absolute stupidest thing I've ever heard,” said Phil. “Mind you, I've been to board meetings.”
Dave smiled. It still took him a moment to get right...but it was coming more easily now.
“I bet,” he said.
“Easy money, that bet,” Phil agreed. “I swear, it's like they want us to fail.”
Dave nodded. He still did not like Phil—was, in fact, coming to dislike him very much—but for now he relished the emotion.
He watched curiously as Phil bit into his sandwich. Phil noticed the look, and raised an eye.
“You've got to try this,” he said. “It's fantastic when they leave off the tomato.”