My poems and short stories

[Marcel Fritz]

Dead
By Dylan

One would think in grieving
It should come at 3 AM
Lying awake unable to sleep
No, it comes long after
Too long after, in the months to follow
When we've all begun to accept
The reality for what it is
It comes then, it has waited long enough
Standing in the kitchen waiting for waffles
Waiting in the car while running errands
Waiting in the waiting room, a doctors appointment
Now it comes with its own kind of elegance
Out of a memory so insignificant

It happened for me yesterday
A radio told me when it was time
They played an old song that I half remembered
Half because the voice was different
I am then taken somewhere familiar
From now to then, from here to there

My grandmother stands in the kitchen
She sings the old songs
The one I remember so well
I cry enough to stain my shirt

[Marcel Fritz]

PERSON 326 – Written in the style of Ken Kesey

I almost caught him, I almost caught PERSON 326. I have feeling again in my fingertips, but even if they were still numb I could remember how the touch felt. Salty with sweat, hot under neon light, and red from the wound I put in his shoulder. They allow quirks from time to time, and I have extensively documented that I enjoy the sensations collected during the capture of any PERSON, PERSON 326 included. If it had been a gunshot I wouldn't be running, but I wouldn't remember it so well either. I wasn't supposed to shoot, but it didn't matter to me. This stain was intimate, so that if I couldn't tear the fabric from his shirt, or jar up the fear in his breath, I could still be the Big Terrible.

The beggar with plastic over his torn shoes gave me that name, when he saw my frame against the orange LED sign that flashed the letters YOLO vertically, with each letter illuminating a portion of my body. I was the Big Terrible, which he shouted over and over again with an accent unfamiliar to Seattle, but one of extra-national accent. Maybe I was the folklore creature he heard from his mother, the one that would steal away misbehaving children, and in his stupor he only half-remembered, filling in the gaps with alcoholic ranting. The vagrant didn't have a WIID, but I doubt immigration would care. I doubt anyone cared about him.

But I cared. I made a mistake. I was seen. Caring for this town is realizing that other people exist outside of the routine. For the weeks I followed PERSON 326, and neither he or anyone else saw me as a danger. I blended into the traffic stream, and while the camera's could not identity even if an operator used direct analysis, they had no reason, I was operating. When I operate, I am less than a person in a crowd, I am the essence of the crowd. I cross sidewalks, ride in subways, stand on the ends of streetcars, and just so like everyone else, I do without a thought of others around me. People never seem to recognize themselves until they just stare right into a mirror, like it's some kind of revelation that they exist and could be seen or acknowledged by others.

The city has its way on people, so they aren't people any longer. They're all like me, parts of the crowd, parts of the whole. Working in the jobs that others like them do, reading the newspaper that others like them read, but pin one down with a conversation, and they repeat headlines or heard phrases. The talking points passed from passers passing on from their passers, a relay crystal clear but impossible to trace, everyone speaks like everyone else because no one wants to be left out. Well, some people do, I am tracking PERSON 326 because PERSON 326 is not a multitude digit in the city, they are of a few collection. The three-hundred-sixth person, the stencil that designates him always has the capital letters printed.

PERSON 326 is PERSON 326 because they acted in a way similar to PERSON 325, who acted like PERSON 324, 323, AND 322. PERSON 321 according to my manager, committed suicide after extensive tracking, the following ones are different because they were killed by someone and didn't kill themselves. That's about all the difference, I don't think much about the shades that turn from black to gray, or when one becomes the other.

What I do care about I can name on my fingertips, that I can feel again. PERSON 326 smashed them with the subway door. I care about PERSON 326, a positive attitude, a positive attire, my training, and the city webs. Our manager gives us a habit we can enjoy in between PERSON. I take pictures of the web of cables that the street cars leave overhead. Left on Madison, right on East Hudson, South on Stewart, sometimes it's so think you can't see the clouds that keep you from seeing the sun. When I sleep, which is in the morning to avoid disrupting the home-to-work flow, I dream I have six legs like a spider, crawling on the cables, hunting HOUSEFLY 326. Then I wake up and think that I'm doing the same thing, except with two legs instead of six.

I sleep and dream as a spider, then I wake up at 11 in the evening. I don't need an alarm, I heard they used to need alarms. I wake up at 11 PM because it's 11 PM, I do it because it is as it should be. Everything is as it should be, even PERSON 326, which is something my manager calls “an acceptable loss,” with the sort of voice that's not confident but lamenting or sorrowful, with the subtle change in tone and the twitches his face muscles make. I should know, I am an expert at seeing these things. He has that sort of face that I pick up on easily, and not just because I read him, but because I recognize that look.

PERSON 326 looked like that, except his flight from me tells me he's sorrowful, but still resisting for a reason that is his own. He spoke to me though, every PERSON is unique that way, speaking to other people and actually meaning what they say. This was before he knew I wasn't going to respond, but after he tried running. This is what reasoning is, and most PERSONs will attempt to use reason before fight-or-flight. I tracked a list of cloud words, words he would repeat or use with vocal emphasis that deemed importance. Here are some of those words

INDIVIDUALITY. AUTONOMY. AGENCY. COMPASSION.

He used a lot of expletives, but those don't mean anything, but they seem to amplify meaning to the rest of the sentence, I suppose. In any case, I'll leave my domicile that was assigned to me, and I'll become the Big Terrible again. PERSON 326 spoke to me extensively, and I collected his words, but it wasn't the words that grip my knuckles. Recording the words is protocol. What isn't protocol is undisclosed quirks, and I believe, again with the quirks, I believe that PERSON 326 and I have a connection that needs to be severed. I almost finished the search 19 hours ago, but I failed. I left a mark on him, a wound on him, but I didn't subdue him. Tonight I will subdue PERSON 326, and I will do with, I can't remember what the words were. The words that formed the saying at meant the sensation that is burning in my CPU. Wait, here it is.

Tonight I will subdue PERSON 326, and I will do with EXTREME PREJUDICE.

[Ebeneezer Obey]

Babylon Overdrive
By Dylan

Western Macross was glad he could feel his heart beat, because that meant he was still alive. For the past two years, he was unsure about the difference between life and death, for the job he was assigned blurred the line of temporal finality. Sleeping alone gave him time to think, and with the night template turned on he could lie to the world and sleep against the sun. But the night had come, and with the night came UNIT 2.

In his room the opaque gave everything authenticity. As his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, every thing faded into view slowly, naturally, in tune with the rhythmics of his body and heart. The breath leaving his lips filled the sealed room with sound, cradling him in the real organic humanity. Nothing was more separated from technology as human thought, a creation of biologically chemical reactions that, along with the mind and consciousness, kept humanity in own league against the synthetic wonderland.

Behind the blinds against the window the world banged silently against the frame, obsessed with filling the room with coils, wires, and the wireless haze of connectivity. Everything had to be known, seen, observed, and known. Western was defying the information renaissance by seeking out something so foolish and selfish as an individual moment.

Across the room, life remained still and unknown, and at the far of the room, Western could not see what waited in the absence of light. Granted, living units offered not photo-based illumination, allowing for neural reflective illumination. No light, but a composition of the layout established via echo sonar and spacial analysis. Still, Western kept his aging filaments intact, although finding it more difficult to sustain their operation, with even florescent lighting reaching complete obsolescence. Only the city had lights, but in LED kaleidoscopes that addled the brain so wrong and so right, reflecting the up-tempo drug-laced pulse of a Network Messiah base-state.

“Waaaaaake up! WESTERN MACROSS! Time to show the world just what your worth! Waaaaake up! WESTERN MA--”

It was always the same, that hollow tonality of identity pronunciation, and while the rest of the message was translucently clear, his name always changed the message to a metallic word processor that couldn't understand that his last name was pronounced Ma-cross and not mec-ross. Strangely enough, it never seemed to pronounce Macross incorrectly the same way twice in a row, but never managed to say it correctly. It always bugged him, it always annoyed him, but he wouldn't have it changed, he never asked them to update the firmware to smooth out the digital roughness. So long as he noticed the quirk he could take one step away from the routine of his work commute.

The window plate recognized the sleep template had ended and pulled up, spilling in the world like raw electronic sewage. The cell had awoken in the sick body, aware of its own insignificance in the afflicted networked multitude. Outside drums of light and vibration called him, and called everyone. These drums were pistons, and these pistons were the multitude heeding the call of the drums. Every day and night and every second in between the city was wired with fresh fire in their circulation, operation in sustained hypertension and adrenaline.

They forged a steel of break-neck speed addiction, where patience and gradual mindsets were devoured in the infernal machine crafted by their addled brothers and sisters. Everyone hated the system, everyone loved the system, but no matter who you were, you needed the system. Call it what you want, the combine, the assimilation, the network, the infernal machine, but it was always there. If god had made man, he no longer mattered. Man made a new god for itself, one so unforgiving and uncaring, but powerful and omniscient, that would dominate their lives in inhumane efficiency, with a love of wires and coils and turbines and sacrifice and blood and everything that could ever be known.

His clothes were pressed, cleaned, and primed without his hand, his movements towards his wardrobe a silhouette in the neon nightmare that filled his room from the window floodgate. There were no blinds, only the metal screen that blocked out all light, until his work schedule began, then it pulled up and allowed the city's infected grip to reclaim its victim. Unseen forces purified his work-wear in his sleep, there could be no delays by human incompetence, so his routine would be as routine as possible.

Just as his uniform slipped into form on his body, the habitual droning tones of the phone blew away the silence of the contained room with the corrosive heartbeat of the city, the UNIT 2 industrial communication alarm. If the city had birthed its own frequency, the UNIT 2 was the autonomous orchestra that inspired that vibe, and this telephonic relay its calling card. After the third ring, a voice followed, so clear a younger Western would fear for his life as he would think an intruder had broken in.

“Western Macross, hello and good evening. Your rail-car transportation arrives in schedule in seven minutes, please be sure to be present at that time. Here is your assignment for today. Connect to Prime Regulation 3-2-33.” Following muscle memory, Western covered his ears to soften the auditory whiplash of the screeching transfer, new technology crossing old channels to repurposed to Prime Regulation, the pulmonary artery of the toxic heart. Finally, a familiar voice reached him.

“Western, it's Maxell. You are at the dynamo chamber tonight. Watch your counters and do not let overclock set in too deep. You will be working with Russian and Iranian operation protocols, let the translator do the work. I'm out.” As familiar as Maxell's voice was to Western, his morose dialect had all the humanity of a text message, the spoken words rung like hollow metal and rusted halls echoing a voice that once had life and color. Although he could have responded quickly enough, Western kept silent, as conversing with the quasi-genuine human voice seemed a more draining prospect that worthwhile.

Down sterile steps and off-white waiting rooms where other tenants, like engines, droned out of their hovels or stalled in static-comas, too infused in the routine to deviate with thought, forgetting to remember the simplest of concepts. Soon enough the spark would alight weak in their minds and they would continue. This routine was crafted fine-tuned for these humans, but not for these humans, the programming algorithm cared nothing for the names, lives, or minds of these humans, as it was unable to do so.

As he left the complex he could hear other voices from other rooms. The nighttime crowd never slept, but crawled and bayed in idiocy against the reason of the day, in pools of addiction and neural diving, entering the pits and shadowed valleys of cyberspace neurologically, their brains the gatekeeper and toll. Their voices merged into one then separated in doubles and triples, clinging to the walls and corners and bleating out perverse cacophonies. “Ooooh, I am back! Daddy's back! Look me in the eye you goddamn little man. Can't feel nothing, can't feel nothing. I am interfaced! Forever, always forever. It's all data, you me and the man in the sky who hates us all!” The chanting of addicts faded into the cities vibration frequency as he neared the door, plastered with half-torn fliers for new neural connectivity equipment that promised you 'A chance with the gods.' He pushed against the smiling face of an anatomically ideal woman and stepped outside into the stale electric air.

Looking up to the sky above, and like so many times before, Western wondered what the sky looked like ten million years ago, when only primeval life could look up with primitive senses and see, in wonder and ignorant terror, at the celestial firmament of places beyond the earth. As it stood today, all places beyond earth had been found, and they were all dead. Earth denied the cosmic silence of its own universe, lying to itself in pleasant neon and thumping bass, a planetary junkie too afraid to face reality's silent permanence.

The sky burned black and bleed red orange and green from spears of light that pierced its skin. Perhaps the stars were dead, their light only now reaching us long past their magnificent death-throes. Alas, their trans-cosmic journey would be for naught, as their light would be denied by our spiteful mechanized earth, the science cities made novas of their own, we have our own stars.

Steel black cable cars rolled down the street, nearing Western as he left the empirically crafted living unit apartment complex. Metal wheels against the tracks gasped and screamed in sparks and screeches, and Western wondered when one of those sparks would ignite the electricity in the air, incinerating the neurotic tumor of the city from the earth's face. As it neared him, he could see other forms clinging to its frame both within and without. It neared him, and other forms neared him from his sides. Some wore the same uniform as his, and for a half second they acknowledged their unifying attire with a timid nod.

Western clung to the end of the tram as it skittered down the street. As always, this would be a strange journey, the lights and sounds both beckoning to the future and a past long forgotten. Billboards that drifted like digital ghosts proclaimed how the UNIT connected the world, and would soon connect the universe. The city was its hub, but Western didn't feel so connected. On a technological level, everything could be known by everyone else. It was all the collateral effects, how privacy was systematically eliminated, how even actual spoken word was slipping into the same black hole of obsolescence, and neural communication was becoming the norm, with entire populations conversing digitally through their minds, never opening their mouths. It left those unwilling or unable to pay for those marvels alone in a city choking with populace. For such a loud place, the ride was as silent, as usual and yet still disturbingly so.

The tram neared Western's destination, anyone could see it for miles around. It rose up from the distance, the obelisk at its base rising into dark places where dark lights illuminated dark figures and even darker intentions. Against angular theory of the efficiency apartment blocks, and against the triangular architecture of downtown's aging business district, the tower curled in itself with two spiraling columns that were devoid of humanity in both practice and design. They curled vertically, like two heads of a hydra coiling together in the final hours of its life. Opaque metal covered its surface that sucked up light, air, and good feelings, processed them and returned a humid black light, thick air, and a reaction of profound discomfort. At the summit, the beast released its maw, in legions of thin steel wires, little needles each one the tooth of the razor sharp jaws of the beast.

Every few moments a low rumble, palpitations against the vibration of the city, and white-hot raw electrical power surged through the tower in spectrum of force that could rattle your teeth or send you to the floor. The surge culminated in the summit, where, like a rush of vengeful spirits raging against the gates of the underworld, sparked in wide arches of voltage, buzzing maddeningly as the arches waltzed from steel needle to needle. The whole of it was chthonic, a relic corpse pulled from the outer world, the powers of the beast-deity stolen and raped for the benefit of greedy men.

This was BASE 1 of UNIT 2, the most important network site of the entire United Kingdom. This was the heart of the Network Messiah system of wireless communication and global networking, and it was one of only five in the world. Against the entrance was plastered that phrase that was heard at every press conference and advert as each UNIT was crafted for the world. A CHANCE WITH THE GODS. It wasn't one year ago that those words were heard world-wide, spoken in that tone most becoming by the CEO of Network Messiah.

“We are the conquerers of the planet. We know her intimately, her beasts in the thin air, ancient forests, and black depths. We know her movements and motions, even now we change the weather to our benefit. We are master's of the planets domain, but now we must master our own domain. The world manufactured by our own hands. Virtuality.”

“Today we have conquered Virtuality. Our planet is small to us now, and distance is meaningless. The Network Messiah will be our Babel, the world will be forever connected. Our towers will rise us above the earth as the Ziggurat first raised the kings of Ur over the first civilization, and we will be our own Gods once more.”

Hundreds of would be engineers and scientists were swept up in training programs that locked them deep in the chemical depths of UNIT 2, for as the tower was designed inhospitable to man, its underground facility was designed to fill with as many humans as possible. As the tower a terrible obsidian tower was the flower and petals, the facility was the bud and grasping roots, sucking electromagnetic life from the beyond, and draining the spirits of the men and women inside. Across every wall monitors ran like torrential downpours lines of data and language, most of which foreign to Western. Russian, Chinese, German, even dying languages like Hebrew or Arabic.

The many tongues of men babbled monotonous data, creating a nebula of empirical runoffs that would never cease and seemed to be worked into the essence of the tower and facility, and although every translucent monitor ran without pause, it seemed to Western that it would be more easier to engrave their maddening code into the black walls, keeping them as permanent as they appeared ad-nauseam on the screens.

Western entered the elevator, it would be the first of many, a harrowing descent with each level powered with lighting more bizarre than the next, with the white hue changing to red and blue and other atypical colors for illumination. Perhaps this was the antithesis of the tower above that riped the heavens asunder with its divine voltage, and this backwards spiral tore open the hell-mouth, now a sword of hubris that slayed the infernal beast of the underworld and yet also gave it power, now in its undeath.

The familiar chill crept up Western with each descending level, necessary air conditioning to keep the surging electronic power supply flowing without super heating these lower depths. Through the pellucid door of the elevator each floor bore less and less signs of humanity. Perhaps they were hiding in the industrial crevasses, tinkering on draconian substations or maintenance rooms, nurturing the leviathans constant needs. Then, just as all humanity seemed to be vacated, he reached his floor. Military stencil hung over him, with the words PRIME REGULATION. The doors slid open, and stepping with a dispassionate stride Western traversed down familiar halls.

A thick fog settled at the floor, and small bits of frost collected in corners and on the edges of screens. Overhead the ceiling had splotches and gaping holes where dens of serpentine wires coiled together in nests, as if protecting their automaton youth. The hallway ended abruptly with a checkpoint, Western retrieving his multitude identification. The barrier, much unlike the rest of the tower's collective assimilation and connectivity motif, this barrier was built to seem primordial in its bulky shape and design, locking away tight and dividing this communicational apex, a partition quarantined from itself. Swipe cards, bar-codes, QR codes with designs that mocked the finest Rorschach, all one after the other devoured by the security machine.

It was a mass of eyes, a legion creature that fed on hidden knowledge and kept hidden knowledge locked away. His codes were the price to pay, and with the last encryption read it relinquished its grip. The gateway opened with surprising efficiency, for a door so medieval in appearance it pulled back into slots in the wall swiftly and without delay. A mass of incandescence warmed the room into view, monitors and displays fading into life. This was the core of the Network Messiah, the marvel that made the world so connected that the life material was succeeded by the new life virtual.

The room was built on a circular pattern, with a revolving workspace that encircled a cylinder center. His workstation was around the other side, and as Walken neared his terminal, he heard the familiar whispers emanating from the cylinder. Someone new would not hear the whispers over the hum of the circuitry, but he had been here before, and was accustomed to the sounds that hid behind sounds. Still, it was usual, the whispers meant positive activity and processioning, which in turn meant Unit 2 was enjoyed. Western's station was a rising platform that was a part of the floor, a pedestal that rose up, its its flat summit lined with sensors that awaited his arrival. It was one of the experimental monitors, but Western knew its methodology. As he heard the pillar, the sensors lit up, and he felt a soft sting against his eyes.

As square and rectangular shapes covered in scrolling empirical information materialized before his eyes, Western did not fear that he was suffering hallucination. This was the alternative reality monitor the facility was experimenting thing. Virtuality and reality, though now both conquered were separate and a union was still in its infant stage, only just beyond the realm of theory and suggestion. This however, was the conduit, and as he monitored the day's diagnostic report, he heard the sounds from the other side.

The AR view was still young in development, so the sounds from cyberspace were distorted but still recognizable. Perhaps UNIT 2 knew he was watching, as the cylinder grumbled a bit, causing the date on his screen to wax and wane as curtains against soft wind. The report was modest in its findings. A firmware update needed in 3.22.12, and a security definition overhaul needed in 7.2.1.3.55. These were external software issues, to be solved by other souls in higher places than he. Western was not selected for Prime Regulation out of chance or by lack of effort on some other's part. Suffice to say, he had the abilities to handle direct interventionary action in the inner neural network of UNIT 2. But this would require much more than the experimental AR, but Prime Regulation could only be done with a secure connection, with neural-cabling directly tethered to UNIT 2's cylindrical container.

It was when that sensation overcame Western Macross again, the same feeling he had in waking, thankful for the beat of his heart. Nearing the cylinder's titanium shaft, the sounds of habitation slipped out like a soft cavern zephyr carrying forgotten dreams spoken from the past. A weight pressed against the other side, then adjusted in quiet movements to another side, accompanied by the metal clinking of coils and pipes. Western stared at its opaque surface, and while he could not see through the blackness that emulated the deepest of penumbrae, he knew what existed within. The Network Messiah itself, the public secret surreptitious yet embraced, the undeniable and unspeakable norm of the world in this year, this month, this day. A human being, a candidate not slave, elected not forced, into the most important crux of a global communicational empire.

No use speaking to him, Western reminded himself as he prepared the regulation connector. While UNIT 2 still had his lips, teeth, uvula, and all the other necessary organic mechanics of speech, the neurological aspect was changed on a chemical level, the alterations negating obstructing human routines to amplify cybernetic regulatory abilities. Western learned this in English, then again in Russian, Chinese, Polish, Hebrew, Aramaic, and once in Latin. That last one for a small linguistics college on the East Coast of America. Every language stemmed from enclaves across the globe that drew from the electronic geyser of UNIT 2.

UNIT 2 took on the role of the communication in Europe and its surrounding global communities, after UNIT 1 handled most of the North and South American continents. The secret of who was selected for which role was kept tight, so in reality the number of the UNIT was irrelevant. One came, than two more a year later, then finally two more to encapsulate the globe. There was no downtime for development, and the only delay for the world to become enveloped and thus made minuscule was how fast each country embrace the revolution.

Virtuality was the Network Messiah's most notorious achievement, and the only place Western could directly regulate with the most primary systems of UNIT 2, as well as conduct direct interaction with UNIT 2. Western situated himself into the one-man Virtuality inclusion device and felt the subtle dizzying effects of its activation, he would once again have the whole of his consciousness dissolve into digital solute.

In the Network Messiah's formation, Virtuality was an idea, formless purposeless, and non-existent. The activation of the UNIT sparked conception into digital reality, and while it took form, it had no form. Then, as the UNIT acclimated to the connection, whisperings in his brain gave birth to forms and shapes. Then, as the communicational crux was forged, raised, and charged, and the leviathan of global data was roused to a new singular host, the world took form so rapid it expanded, exploded, disintegrated, and reformed several hundred thousand times. This was nine months ago, and Western had entered the second world more than twenty times, with countless more in off-site personal zones. He took form slowly, as the collection of sensor runtime operations compiling into human form emulation.

Virtuality was the first world, the physical world, warped by the will of man. Human knowledge crafted the spacial perceptive space, while empirical and generated data, without intention to take form, occupied a non-spacial invisible place, like the current beneath the deepest cave that flows ancient water condensed at the eve of time. With human involvement came preference both conscious and unconscious, coloring the digital world with the irrational emotional paintbrush of humanity's idiosyncrasies. Unable to accommodate to the nebulous atypical multitudes of data and information, humanity settled for the familiar primitive shapes, symbols, and forms in their virtual world. Western Macross filled the human shape not out of necessity, but because it worked for him. Humans liked to think their minds were shaped like humans too, and not the simple three wrinkle covered brain encased in a bipedal flesh-bag.

So often advertised as the chance with the gods, the imaginative fervor took hold as the icons and symbols made by human thought manifested. Imperfect towers and cities, ancient and yet contradicting to history, architecture impossible and flawed in design rose from the electric ether. It was a parade of perverse facsimiles driven more by emotion than reason. As people took their place as their own gods, wading deep in torrents of endless information and communicational revelation, they sought to craft these temples and towers as symbolic singularities of their knowledge and connectivity. Beyond the decayed realities of the real earth cities, they forged these ancient cities as homage to the first civilizations of man and the kings who saw themselves as deities or demigods.

UNIT 2 above even the most sophisticated and expensive constructs, rose to seraphic conceptions, with his technological crucifix channeling the networking mass of entire nations and populations. Saturated in the iconic buzzwords of the company that modulated him, UNIT 2 took on the ancient mantle of Ashurbanipal, high king of the ancient Assyrians. Trapped in perpetual Virtuality, his unconscious mind redefined the simulation as reality and the reality as fantasy.

Distance had as much meaning as one would care to apply, so as Western across the space between himself and UNIT 2, there was no space between them. At times, protocoled or rules of logic were imposed by managers and administrators of autonomous sections of Virtuality, but this was UNIT 2 and in his private area network laws were distant foolish things made by weaker forms fearful of his dominance atop his Ziggurat, his Babel, his Babylon. Seeing a similar form approach him, he followed the patterns of communication he had generated for himself. His voice was rough and analog, low quality to mimic old history.

“Name yourself, so that I may know you. I see the cities beyond, the little towers rising and falling, the creatures below think nothing of me, they are unaware of the seer that I am who watches them forever and eternally. Yet you see me, know my form, perhaps even my place in your world. Speak so that I am know you!”

Western didn't care for the simulated antiquated dialect, it was as artificial as his perceptions. “UNIT 2, I am Assistant Chief of Prime Regulation Western Macross. I am checking your power distribution, allow for diagnostic run-time operations to commence in the next fifteen seconds.” Western's voice clanked and droned with a default audio processor, the tone was not his own, but he didn't care enough to activate accurate vocal synthesizers.

Ashurbanipal understood the words, but didn't care to respond. Instead, he saw within the Western's avatar form, reconfigured the code pattern, and promptly dissembled it. “Are you to expect my kindness with such a informal request? Are you my equal? Are you my sibling? No, you know this answer, still you act with insulting impertinence! Begone!”

Virtuality could be as authentic for anyone as reality, but for everyone but UNIT 2, it wasn't reality. Even the best equipment required cool downs, least the user suffer neurological damage and a loss in mental differentiation. From the virtual they returned to the decayed reality, and while often eager to return, they had to adhere to the technologies limits. Unit 2 did not have that ability. In perpetual hibernation UNIT 2 could only operate in Virtuality, and accepted this as the primary world, ignoring and finally forgetting the world where he was born from. Yet, for all his important to the global communication network, even in his personal network realm, he had no true power, if one would see power as choice, ability, or agency.

Western rematerialized a few moments after Ashurbanipal's punishment, unscathed and only somewhat annoyed. UNIT 2 could unconsciously conduit the communication and infinite data of entire nations, but could do very little with intention or preference. The temple atop this mathematical mountain governed over all but with no authority. Worst of all, he was either unwilling to unable to comprehend his binds that neutered him to a harmless deity. He was an all powerful idiot.

“Obstruct diagnostic operations again and I will enact administrative powers. I don't think you would enjoy that.” That last sentence from Western dripped with the thin stain of personal ire, and for all the detached attitude he took to this world of arithmetical and logarithmic perceptions, he let himself be human for a moment. This struck a chord within Ashurbanipal, perhaps even the realness of UNIT 2, for he flinched and gave pause.

“Ah... I believe you have made yourself known to me now. Stay your hand emissary, I... will give you the privileges.” As if an old wound was partially damaged fresh, speaking in a manner that acknowledged the technical mechanics of the world exposed its artificiality. Within his cylinder UNIT 2's brow tightened in discomfort, as the walls of his quasi-dream world felt a small fissure of self-awareness. But more than that, it gathered a peculiar collection of facial expressions on the high king's face. Confusion, apprehension, anxiety flushed in and out like rapid tides, debating and contemplating many unspoken words and arguments, until finally he spoke out in a voice that was once came from his real body.

“Give me direct maintenance. I know it isn't time, but I've earned it. Four months without it and still going, but I know the policy. Let me have maintenance. I want to see, so that I can let myself forget easier.” During the first month of UNIT 2, direct maintenance meant deactivating his Virtuality and examining the biological connections to the network. The other UNIT's would compensate for the loss of computing power, and in an hour, sometimes less, the UNIT would return to the hibernation state under the protection of the cylindrical container. However, it was becoming optional and at times completely unnecessary, like a human healing its own wounds without the aid of medicine. Needless to say, direct maintenance was no longer needed.

However, in a place with endless data duplication, replication, and falsification, UNIT 2 seemed honest, if only in a desperate sort of tone. Western nodded, it wouldn't alter to the networking, he wouldn't be risking his job, and perhaps he might even settle his own troubling concerns, the sort of whispering thoughts that kept him away in the day. After a few loud and droning notification alarms and identification scans, the Virtuality dismantled itself, shutting down in sections until it left itself to oblivion. Western reopened his eyes in the facility, and focused his attention to the cylinder, which began to flush out the chilling wind, no longer in soft zephyrs but in fierce gusts that flushed out the container of conditioned chill.

A glissandi of latches passed vertically from locked to unlocked, each harness's release breaking off frost with a louder clank. It released its content slowly, chilled mechanical operations yielding its inner treasure. Silence clawed out from the cold, the dying echoes of container swallowed up by the hush. A chemiluminescence grew out from the chambers center, and led its form into sight. With a mass of wires and thick coils entering his brain, the red light generated from his skull, two soft crimson headlights peering out towards Western from behind his eyes. His facial motions were non-existent, and only the breath from his lips and chest, and the motions of his eyes showed life and intelligence.

He peered out through the space, seeing screens, monitors, and throngs of overhead wires, all once familiar one year ago. Western prepared a singular AR session for UNIT 2, amidst the creeping quietude, as the Network Messiah was unable to speak. The open network allowed UNIT 2 to go beyond the enclosed Virtuality, and find the information that would ease his concerns. What he searched for, what he found, and what settled his mind to forget, was only known to UNIT 2, as the information was invisible to Western, not wearing the AR equipment. The Network Messiah glanced up at Western, and overtly mouthed the words I'm ready.

The god king lied down in the cylinder's center, a fetal position wrapped while coils and wires lined his form, reaching up to the dark heavens above. He didn't care to mouth any more words to Western, nor did he seem thankful for the technicians assistance in the matter. The latches reunited one by one, until all at last the great enclosure was complete, with the last moment a flicker of the luminescent light from his brain.

Out of BASE 1, away from UNIT 2, Western took that monotonous trek back to his home, as a sun rose on a city, both of which were destined for death and oblivion. On trolleys with more nameless forms little more than shadows, up off-white stairs admits thick mists of addled yelps and howls, and back into the apartment, eager to rebel against the sun, lie to the day, and linger in simulated darkness.

The Prime Regulator noted, slinking back under covers, that he had neglected to speak a word from his lips. The thoughts in Virtuality, simulated words, were only means to an end. He could consider taking off work, vacation earned by his work was already several weeks in length, and think to spend time with people, in person, with all that speaking and laughing and looking and that sort of thing. Perhaps he could find someone that weren't the strange man-creatures called tenants in his complex, with mouths that could actually speak unlike the tech-god-mute that was UNIT 2.

But he didn't care too. Although noting his lack of activity beyond his profession, Western Macross answered himself with the revelation that became whole and answered the concern he had as he woke the night before. The difference between life and death, and what it meant for him. However, any profound existential or philosophical exclamation was too cliché for him. No, he didn't care to give that enough thought to actually call it cliché, but why should he care?

Besides the lack of connectivity shown by his fellow tenants, his supervisor, and UNIT 2 after settling some unknown concern bothering him in Virtuality, Western didn't attach himself to anyone or anything during his work schedule. This wasn't a new reality for him, this was more or less his usual work-flow, sans the direct maintenance. He was a half-sleeping worm in a field of rotting fruit, one of millions squirming together while simultaneously oblivious to one another. His heartbeat was as useless as the next.

The metal plate slid back over his window as the sun's weak beams tried to infuriate his domain, and the dying echo of his neighbors could be heard, as they capped off a 10 hour dive into their own personal digital inferno, one voice a dying leper mewing out her wounded whisper “M-m-my acquai-i-intan-ccc-es are i-in d-d-darkness....”