Solipsis: Escape from the Comatorium (37 page)

“
Well
we could both be in different avatars. Then it's not as weird.”

“
We
could both be dudes and make some gay love, how's that sound?”

The
girls laugh at this surreal situation.

“
Why
don't you want to go home?”

“
I
don't know why, I just...I'm not ready.”

“
Because
dad won't be there. You're in denial about that. It's not real to you
until you go home and he's not there.”

“
How
am I in denial and you aren't?”

“
I've
seen him more recently.”

“
Right,
your near death experience.”

“
I'm
sensing you have something more to say on the subject.”

They
exit the stairwell, walking through the first floor beneath the
atrium. This floor was used like a kiosk for visitors: welcome desk,
check-in, a small museum of vivisection and animatronics, price and
health information, etc. Much of it has been destroyed or vandalized.
A few dead animatrons lay on the ground, victims of the cut
neural-net.

“
Near
death experiences are nothing but a high produced by
Dimethyltriptamine. Let me guess, warm feelings of love, a tunnel, a
light, break down of your time sense, a positive feeling about an
after-life or an acceptance of death.”

“
Yeah,
and?”

“
You
can get the exact same high by ingesting a chemical. You didn't see
Dad, it was just an experience constructed by your DMTed brain.”

“
You
realize that
I
know what you know.”

“
Which
is why it's baffling that you read anything into that at all.”

An
unconscious cult-member lays face down, his legs pinned by a fallen
animatron. The Renees move in carefully, guns drawn.

“
No
pulse. He's cold.”

They
relax and enter the exhibit on the history of vivisection. There's a
robot on display, the first animatron ever piloted in history. It
looks more like a skeleton than a person.

“
That
was dad.”

“
You
mean mom.”

“
Dad
slash other mom. I miss him, but... in a way that I feel like I'll
see him again, he's just been gone for a while. It hasn't hit me that
I'll never see him again. Don't even start talking about how you just
saw him.”

“
Well
I did.”

“
Well
I don't plan on dying any time soon and seeing him. Why do you read
anything into your NDE? I mean, you know it's just a high.”

“
Because
it's one thing to understand the mechanism, but it's another to have
the experience. It affects your brain in a way that changes your
thinking.”

“
But
it's just a drug.”

“
LSD
is just a drug, but one dose can seriously alter your perceptions
because it alters the way you think. It doesn't change your thoughts,
it changes your thinking. That's the real beauty of drugs, at least
the good ones. They don't just make you feel good, they fundamentally
alter the makeup and operation of the physical brain that constructs
your consciousness. They change your mind, your consciousness is
produced differently in a way that experiences things fundamentally
differently. I mean, you can travel the world all you want, but me,
I'd rather alter my consciousness, it's the only way to really
experience anything different.”

“
Okay
but any insight you get from this different viewpoint should be
something you could express logically to another person and convince
them of the truth of that new idea. But you can't, so it's not
insight, it is just a superficial jerk-off.”

“
But
that assumes that the standard mode of thinking is somehow privileged
against all other modes of thinking, and that the way you understand
logic and reason is the
true
way
to understand it.”

“
Well
you took a drug and saw things differently. Why should I put any
faith in the truth of those visions or ideas?”

“
You're
still putting standard consciousness up on a pedestal where it gets
to be the arbiter of truth. But there is no such thing as standard
consciousness, even supposedly unaltered minds are operating on drugs
and chemical impulses, they are just the ones stumbled upon and
refined by evolutionary processes. There's no such thing as a pure or
right consciousness. I mean, look at the people who did this to us,
they see things differently from you without the need for either of
you to be drug altered. There's just not a standard, pure, right
consciousness. Changing it up with a drug doesn't send it further
away from purity, they're all just lateral moves.

“
Shhh.
There's a man looking at us.”

The
Renees walk down the stairwell with their prisoner. Footsteps come up
the stairs towards them. They freeze, getting guns ready. One Renee
takes the lead, the other holds the prisoner. They open a stairwell
door and find several piloted animatrons, busily making repairs,
moving damaged animatrons, putting repaired ones into docking
stations to be charged.

Two
animatrons see the Renees. They stop and watch her in awe. Renees
walk past silently, the stare makes them uneasy.

“
Is
he one of them?” a boy asks, his voice-box crackles with
hatred. The Renees turn to find the animatron of Bobby, their first
patient.

“
Yeah.”

Bobby
rushes forward, sending his metal fist at high speed toward the man's
stomach. Renee deflects the blow, slapping his arm out of the way.

“
Don't.”

“
We're
collecting the prisoners in the atrium,” a wise, elder voice
announces. It belongs to Dr. Graeme. “Don't worry, we'll take
it from here, you've done enough.” He puts his hand on the
shoulder of Renee's animatron. Two animatrons working with Dr. Graeme
take the prisoner away, leading him back to the stairwell. “I
told you you were capable of great things,” he smiles, fighting
back sentimental tears.

“
It
wasn't just me,” Renee's animatron replies. “Actually she
did more than I did,” Renee gestures to the other Renee, who
Dr. Graeme doesn't recognize as Renee. His mechanical eyes focus on
her face.

“
Sarah?
Sarah...Wissenger? But how did you help?”

“
You
might not recognize me in this body.”

Dr.
Graeme's eyes focus on her, his mind's eye turns on his display
system and searches for the meta-data that normally would communicate
her name, age, gender, and other information. However he finds that
the data belongs to Renee. He turns back to Renee's animatron,
finding that her meta-data is completely missing. The Solipsis
servers have no profile for this connection.

“
If
you're Renee, then who are you?” Dr. Graeme asks.

“
Renee
two-point-oh.”

“
You
can't be two-point-oh, that makes it sound like you're an improved
version of me.”

“
And
that's inaccurate how?”

“
Okay,
then I'll be Ren-A, and you can be Ren-B.”

“
There
are two of you?” Dr Graeme can't believe it.

Renee
steps out of the televator into the home in which she grew up. Medved
and Gwen are asleep on the couch, curled up together in a ball of
fur. She quietly closes the door behind her, it clicks closed.
Medved's big brown eyes drowsily open, then lock on, becoming
ecstatic in an instant. Renee tries to shush Medved to keep him from
waking Gwen, but his enthusiasm cannot be contained. He leaps from
the couch, he gives her the embrace only a an anthropomorphic teddy
bear can give. He lifts her off the ground. She makes eye contact
with her mother through the fur on his arm.

Gwen
doesn't smile. Her eyes only stay on Renee for a moment before
darting toward the floor.

Renee
pushes Medved's arm away and goes to her mother's side.

“
We
made it Mom,” Renee says. “Everything really is going to
be okay.”

Gwen
barely nods in response.

The
televator door opens and out walks another Renee.

“
Medved!”
the new Renee says, rushing to hug him. He hugs her happily but is
deeply confused by this development. This Renee greets Gwen, sitting
on her other side. Her spirits still cannot be lifted.

“
I'm
sorry about everything,” Renee says. Both Renees, who appear
entirely identical, sit beside Patrick in his tree house. Six feet
dangle off the edge.

“
I'm
just sorry that I can't be everything you want me to be for you,”
Patrick says with sad eyes that break both of her hearts.

“
I
want exactly who you are and nothing more,” the Renee on his
left replies.

“
You're
my best friend, and I love you, and that's that,” the Renee on
his right adds. He lets out a small sheepish smile.

“
You
really do need a new avatar though, I can't help but want to jump
these bones,” left-Renee adds, tapping her hand on Patrick's
chiseled abs.

Seth
awakens on a bed in an infinite white space. He turns and extends his
feet off the side, into the void. He slowly lowers himself, unsure if
there will be anything to stop him from falling. His feet find a
smooth floor and he stands up.
“
Hello?”

He
examines his hands, rubbing his thumb against his fingertips. He
feels his own face, hair, and even pokes his own eye, causing a
twinge of pain. He spins around, searching the nothingness, and finds
a televator not far away. He walks towards it, but before he gets
there, the door closes by itself.