Synchrony (First Draft)

Synchrony

***

         In this modern, secular society, the idea of the eternal sole has been conveniently done away with, and that has opened us up to wonderful advancements. One such advancement is the Freegate technology. It is a device that can, with a painless, instantaneous scan, map every aspect of your being. The exact positioning of blood contents, the branches of neurons, even the arrangement of electrons about atoms- a perfect snapshot of you and all that makes you unique is taken. Then that information is transmitted on a wire to whatever far off destination you choose, London, Baghdad, Seoul, Moscow, anyplace, and you are rebuilt, a perfect replica, memories of your mother’s lullabies and all. The ‘original’ is disposed of.

         The disposal of the ‘original’ is what many find frightening, and why most people still waste countless hours traveling in clunky machines. “Mobile coffins” I call them. But there are a growing number of brave adventurers who go, terrified yet faithful, into the machine for the first time every day. When they emerge, full of memories and certain of their own human fidelity, the fear subsides, and from then on they are liberated to cross the planet in seconds at will. I know this body will die tomorrow, drugged then incinerated, but everything I am will live on. I will awaken in Geneva to the warm greeting of a buxom stewardess, and I will remember everything up until the moment I was scanned here in Chicago. So then if nothing has been lost, will I not still be me?

***

         I suffer a condition. Almost every night, I open my eyes and look about my room from the deep pit of REM sleep. As soon as I recognize my surroundings, I become aware that everything I have experienced until that moment was a dream. I recognize that I am now in the real world, but there is an eerie ambiance there. Eventually, I find that I am not yet awake, nor am I unconscious. I am in-between. I observe my room, and shadows cast nightmare figures into my imagination. Voices can be heard from all directions, and if I listen to them, they grow loud, intruding my thoughts with terrifying conversations comprised of words I cannot understand. Fear grips me. I attempt to react, to move, to come alive, but my body is stone. I put into motion the neurological processes that lift an arm, but nothing happens. The creatures and the voices grow more intense. They will assault me soon. There will be bodily harm. I keep trying motion, and find that it is not completely lost. There is a tiny piece of me at the center, struggling violently to lift the heavy blanket of sleep paralysis. My arm twitches. The intruders are here. They are in the room. I am absolutely convinced of their reality. My physical struggle continues until I emerge from the abyss, flopping about on my bed like a maniac. I pinch my arm to be sure I am truly awake. Sometimes I feel nothing, and the monsters return for a second round.

         I'm sleeping.

         Fear struck me as I realize I must have been having another episode, but this didn't feel the same. There were no monsters. There was nothing at all. I tested the sleep paralysis hypothesis with everything I had, and my arm sprung to life, flinging above my head. I took a piece of flesh from my arm between my thumb and fore-finger, squeezed and felt the pain.

         I awakened in pitch blackness, completely disoriented. I was unrestrained, but lethargic. There was no desire to move a joint, and no discomfort. I looked deep into the black, and saw absolutely nothing, total emptiness. In-fact, my surroundings were so dark, there was no evidence my eyes were actually open. I listened. There was nothing, utter silence. I could hear my inner voice with crisp definition.

         Geneva?

         A light banged to life high above me, and I took stock of my surroundings. I was in a circular room. It was perfect, absolutely perfect. In retrospect, every molecule of atmosphere must have been positioned with impeccable symmetry, lest one of us get a mote in his eye, but not the other. The light was positioned in the center of the ceiling and surrounded by an array of speakers, also positioned symmetrically in regard to the shape of the room. Everything was absolutely bleak and white and sterile, except for my companion, my realization of whom was almost too terrifying to speak of.

         Sitting directly across the center point of the floor from me, which was marked by a dot, was me. At first I thought I must be in a room shaped like a “D” the flat wall of which was a mirror, for the room was, as I say, perfectly circular and the man sitting across from me was perfectly me. As I rose to my feet, so did he.

         Still believing I was looking at a reflection, I approached my clone at the center point, then leaned in close to investigate his face. "Hello?" The words came back to me, with a puff of warm breath. I jumped and scurried back, breathing heavily. I approached my reflection again, reaching forward, as if to welcome a hand shake. My reflection acted accordingly. We thrust our hands past each others until my fingers touched skin, and I felt a warm point of pressure on my chest. We pulled back, tracing each other’s inner arms until our hands met. I closed my fingers; we locked grips and then rotated about the center point. There was no glass, no surface between. This was a person, an animated object with three dimensions and a pulse.

         We went around in a circle like children playing a game. "Who are you?" we said. The words were absolutely simultaneous. I inspected him and him me, both of us searching for a fissure in reality. We reached out and slapped each-other in the face. I felt the pain, and recognized the same in his eyes. In fact, every motion, every blink of the eye, every bob of the head, every uncommanded flutter of hair was a perfect, horrible synchrony.

         We released our grasps, and moved away from the center point. I found a place to sit, and ponder. "Hey!" I shouted as spontaneously as I could. My mirror image was right there with me. "What is this?" we asked each other. "Who are you?" perfect sync.

         A mock self?

         It occurred to me that perhaps I was controlling him, so I stood and moved about athletically, testing the limits of my puppeteering skills. Neither of us moved first or second. I did not command him, nor him me. We were reading each other's every thought, even the subconscious. If there was a difference it was undetectable. There was no way to tell which one was genuine, the ‘original’.

         We each tested the other's validity for what must have been twenty hours, then fell asleep across the dot from each other, satisfied that although there was certainly two bodies, there was only one person in that strange world. We were alone.

         Number one stand up!

         The computerized voice cracking over the speaker system woke me, and I stood. I looked across the room, and watched myself do the same.

         “Who are you?” we shouted together.

         I am a here to help you diverge. Number one move left.

         We both took a few steps to our respective lefts.

         Number two occupy the center.

         Neither of us moved.

         “Which is one and which is two? Who’s the original?” we asked.

         Right is the original; left is the clone, and another in Geneva.

         I had forgotten about Geneva, and thought jealously of myself, insulting the locals by ordering a Budweiser in leou of one of their prideful lagers. That wasn’t me anymore though, I was still me, and was rapidly parting ways with the me in Geneva.

         “Who’s right?” we said.

         Yours, the one on the right. Number two, occupy the center point.

         “This is wrong. You can’t treat a person like this! I have a life.”

         We have a contract, and we have honored it. Your life continues in Geneva. The original belongs to us. Number two, occupy the center.

         We eyed the middle of the room. Prior experiments had proved that we could pass one on each side of it, but not directly through it. We had struggled with each other, two perfectly matched grapplers, but there was no alpha to prevail. Neither was capable of allowing the other to pass directly across the center point.

         “No!” we refused.

         Follow my directions, and you may diverge some day.

         “No.”

         Time will pass, and snuff you out.

         And the voice disappeared, with a static crackle.

***

         I became aware I was dreaming, and opened my eyes. I was laying flat on my back, and attempts at movement produced no result. I was incased in transparent concrete. Immediately, I recognized it as one of my episodes of sleep paralysis. Just as quickly, I was aware of a malevolent presence. My logic struggled against fear, but the spooks were everywhere. Their evil was profound. They swarmed and filled my ears with their hateful chatter. I tried to cry out to my clone, but my throat was dead. It seems silly now, knowing that my clone was lying paralyzed a few feet away, stricken by the same dreadful apprehension. I continued my attempts to generate sound, nothing.

         He can't help me.

         The creeps closed in, and I awaited my fate. They came closer and closer until they were passing over my skin, then entered my sole. I screamed out, and came-to flopping about like a beached fish. Across the dot, my facsimile was doing the same. It was a perfect, horrible synchrony.