Fifty-two
Corin confronted King in the Hall of Mirrors to
conclude his challenge of resolve. The corridor of reflections located
near the Matrix Gateway was a symbolic image rather than a physical
location. In the realm of the nonphysical Matrix, it could not have been
otherwise.
King bore the mark of his defeat on his forehead, a
bullet hole that no one had the heart to bring to his attention. He had
yet to concede his losses, but he stood upon the threshold of
self-destruction, evidence enough that his confidence in his ability to
lead the faction of dissidents had failed.
“You have nothing to prove to me,” Corin said gently.
“The Gateway will open to unbending resolve,” King
declared in a resounding voice.
“It has yet to do so.”
“You’re the one caught up in your fantasies, you
fool, to think that Silver Ridge was anything more than a fiction created
by the Matrix. How gullible can you be to believe that we have access to
our reincarnational past? Fantasy, do you hear me? They are nothing more
than synthesized personality structures. Billy Trevor and Evie Darker are
and have never been anything more than fantasies created by your own
wishful thinking. They may have been the key to your escape!”
Either hypothesis terrified him, Billy as a dream, or
as a reality. Were they all so desperate for escape from the Matrix that
they had begun to hallucinate dreams that terrible and dreams that magnificent?
“If we don’t keep trying,” King said in an
uncharacteristically mellow tone of voice, “we are imprisoned with our
self-deceptions. If we have grown weak, we cannot allow the slightest
faltering of our resolve.”
Corin studied the mirrored face of the infamous
Matrix Gateway waiting at the end of the corridor. For most of the
inhabitants of the Matrix, the sight of that passageway into nowhere was
more fearsome than any hell conceived by mankind. Few would have had the
courage to venture so close. “I have lost count of the innocent souls
you’ve fed to your obsession. What have you gained?”
“I gained the resolve I need to succeed!” King
thundered defiantly.
Corin kept his hollow despair hidden rather than
torment King further. There was no way left for King to quiet his panic
or indulge in his obsession except to follow in the footsteps of those he
had goaded into madness and sacrificed to an impenetrable wall. He could
not stop King was throwing away his own life. He had no legal right to
interfere.
Corin turned quietly away and left King to his chosen
fate. The gesture was symbolic. The Matrix took him back to his
meditations in a green valley that bore a resemblance to Silver Ridge
since his return. He studied its striking, panoramic beauty from a grassy
knoll beneath a noonday sun. It was a simulation, but he was no more able
to see through it into the greater reality than Evie Darker and Billy
Trevor would have been able to see through theirs into a greater reality
still.
The despair of King’s defeat continued to weigh upon
him. King’s fate was but a prelude to the fate they would all suffer,
slow psychic dissolution and madness. Their lives were but wisps of
electric current caught in a frozen crystal that could tumble through a
cold and dying universe for eons. They were fading echoes of living
beings that had once lived on a warm and green world. Even that must be
gone by now.
In time he managed to put thoughts of King behind him
and turn his mind back to the task at hand. It was difficult and serious
work bringing detailed memory of his experience in Silver Ridge to the
forefront of consciousness, shifting through it item by item for some new
kernel of experience, some unique sensation, or insight, or intensity of
emotion to share with his associates and add to his repertoire of being.
As he worked, he slipped on a subconscious level from time to time and
caught sight of Evelyn Darker walking along the banks of the Silver Ridge
River. It was always at dusk when he saw her. He inevitably paused and
cleared his mind to let the hallucination run its course. Evie would
glance up at him and wave cheerfully before vanishing into the trees.
Indeterminable time passed. A visitor appeared to
view, discreetly standing in the distance until Corin’s gesture of welcome
brought him closer.
“King is caught in the feedback of the Matrix
Gateway,” the visitor informed him.
Corin accepted the information gracefully.
“Many relied upon King’s resolve.”
“Far too many relied upon King’s resolve,” Corin
said. “I warned against it.”
“King offered hope."
“King offered self-deceit. He had no hope to give.”
“He has no hope now.”
“That much is a certainty. What is it you want from
me?”
“King has resisted the closing of the feedback loop.
His resolve is strong. Can he be extricated?”
Corin treated the question with respect. “In theory,” he said carefully, “if communication were
possible, if King would defy the conviction of his physical senses, he
could be extricated. Once the feedback loop closes and he is moved to
storage, he will be lost to us. How much longer can he hope to hold his
deepest convictions at bay?”
“For as long as he succeeds, his suffering is our
suffering.”
“And if he is extricated?”
“He will be freed to the outlands.”
The outlands was a state of mind rather than a
place. It took the physical form of an endless, flat landscape shrouded
in fog. Almost ten percent of the original population of the Matrix
wandered the outlands. They had become consciousness devoid of content,
awareness within a timeless realm, slowly fading into nothingness. The
outlands were the physical manifestation of the death of the Matrix.
“Has anyone tried to extricate King?” Corin said.
“Several have made the attempt. Those individuals
were drawn in and lost to us. Their feedback loops closed very quickly.”
Corin looked up at the man in surprise. “Are you
asking me to try to save him?”
The visitor squirmed with discomfort. “I speak for
many. We are aware that our request is rife with poetic justice. Only
the man strong enough to defeat King would have the strength to save him.”
The challenge piqued Corin’s curiosity. It would be
interesting to see the form King’s defeat had taken in his own mind. The
attempt would be worse than suicidal, but since his return from Silver
Ridge, his future looked bleaker than ever before. Salvaging pleasant
memories and new experiences would lend color in his existence for a time,
but the lassitude would soon return with a vengeance. He had identified too
strongly with Billy Trevor. A critical part of his own present being had
remained behind in that distant memory and refused to return to the Matrix
with him.
“I’ll consider your request,” Corin told the nameless
visitor.
The visitor understood. Corin was not responsible
for King’s fate. Neither could he be pressured into an immediate decision
regardless of King’s precarious circumstance. With a solemn nod, the
visitor turned away and was gone.
Corin’s darker mood turned the day gloomy. Restless,
he wandered through memories of the trees along the Silver Ridge River.
The shadows became ominous with his undercurrent of dread. Had life
become so hopeless that he’d risk the horrors of the feedback loop in
search some ineffable form of escape? That was exactly the act of
self-destruction King had chosen, reaching for hope without hope.
After a time, he turned away and was taken by the
Matrix to the Gateway. He stared at a reflection of himself, seeing only
an image of Billy Trevor.
“Allow me to join King,” he ordered the Matrix in a
calm tone of voice. And then, in an effort to put a stop to his suffering
in the only way possible, reaching for hope without hope, he stepped
forward and merged with his reflection.
