Synergeist: The Haunted Cubicle (23 page)

His efforts kept him from passing out, but the pain of supporting himself and reaching for the lock was a new problem. He willed his body to stop the pain. There was not enough energy left in his body that he could call on, so she gave him most of what she had left. Apparently it was enough. He opened the lock, fell back to the floor, and then retrieved the statues from the bottom drawer. When he tangled them together, the Millie Field reached a critical mass that would protect her from the savage shade. The beast threw itself at the last dregs of Martin’s immune field, hoping to reach her before she got to the Millie Field. She traveled within Martin’s aura to where his hand contacted the two sculptures and then to the center of the protective bubble. The demon howled, radiating waves of rage and frustration, and then was gone.

Martin’s triumphant aura faded to unconscious serenity. Millie waited and watched Martin. She monitored him; ready to squeeze the Millie juice from the sculptures if necessary. He seemed stable, his body firmly attached to the soul. Perhaps they could both survive this mess.

Eventually, several armed men came down the aisle toward them, their auras alert and aggressive. She gathered they were police. One of them checked Alice then Martin for a pulse, used his walkie-talkie, and then they moved together down the aisle, weapons ready. Paramedics came a while later, one briefly checking Alice and then moving to join her partner attending to Martin. As though he were only taking a little power nap while waiting, Martin regained consciousness when they started working on him.

And the ghosts that we knew will flicker from view

—
From “Ghosts That We Knew” by Mumford & Sons

Somebody spoke to Martin, asking his name. He responded with a rasp. They pulled on the statues he still grasped to his chest. With what little strength he had, he resisted, telling them he had to hold on to them, that they had to stay together. They must have thought he was delirious and paid no attention to his anemic protests. They pried Millie’s creations from his hands and tossed them aside. Martin watched in horror as they became disentangled while tumbling along the khaki commercial carpet and came to rest a foot apart in the shadow of column E6.

He tried to turn and claw his way over to them, but the EMTs were having no part of it and held him down as they began to work. Inspecting his wound entry and exit, one remarked how little blood there was as they began the IV. Martin sobbed and begged them to let him have the sculptures as he frantically scanned for the beast. They told him to calm down as they continued to work. The emotion and exertion overwhelmed his frail body, and he fell once more into oblivion.

The time has come to cast aside these bonds and to elevate our consciousness to a higher plane.

—
From
The Ghost in the Shell

Millie was overjoyed when the paramedics arrived. Joy was blown to bits by an unexpected roadside bomb as they yanked the statues from Martin’s hands and tossed them aside. Millie went with them as they traveled, several delicate bits breaking off as they bounced across the floor. The two separated. She followed the stronger of the two. There was no longer a point where the field was strong enough to repel the monster if it returned.

Thank God the soul sucking shadow was not watching her at the moment, but it would be back. The Millie Field was strong enough that she wasn’t using power by simply existing. She still didn’t know what would happen if the gas gauge reached E, and she didn’t care to find out. She needed a new refuge, or better yet, lots of refuges. Millie visualized the geometry of it. If she had three or more protective bubbles and stayed within the area bounded by them, the beast could never be closer to all of her fortresses than she was. She would always have a safe haven it couldn’t keep her from reaching. Depending on a single cache of multiple physical objects staying together wouldn’t get it done in the long run. Unless you were talking about the blocks in the Great Pyramids, man’s assembled works were prone to dissolution.
And the walls came tumbling down.
She couldn’t carve stone anyway in her current condition. Moving toner dust was about all she could manage. She vowed to do something about that. She could be as powerful as the malevolent monstrosity. Just soaking up the sunshine wouldn’t get her there though. She needed to create and consume.

But as her boss was fond of saying, “First things first.” First she needed to create a new fortress with the energy available before the creature came to check on her. This was no time for long range strategy planning. She could draw the nectar from her welded metal piece that rested a foot away. That would allow her to do something. She could even consume the Millie juice from the sculpture that now protected her if she had to. Was there anything else? Across the aisle from Martin’s cubicle sat the printer/copier she used to create a self-portrait for Martin. It had a little residual energy on it for the taking, hardly worth going to get it.

The copier! The vast majority of the power she used producing Martin’s message had been getting the dust arranged on the glass. The tiny electrical pulses she created to imitate closing the switches in the buttons were trivial. She had traded typed messages with Martin on her computer for quite a while with only the tiny amount she took from him. There was a lot more than that in each statue.

She could use Martin’s computer to create something. Would a creation on a computer result in a Millie Field? Of course it would. Her computer, keyboard, and mouse were all charged. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? She hadn’t had the time or the energy (literally) since she learned to use the computer. The keyboard and mouse were close enough for her to apply her energy without moving from her protective bubble. She drained the sculpture, woke up his PC, and slowed time until the oscillations of the processor almost seemed to stop.

She was much calmer now that she thought it was hopeless. The machine seemed like it took forever to get going. She planned while it slowly chewed through its wake up routine. She had seen Martin log in while watching him, so she had his password burned in her memory. After logging in she fired up his copy of Photoshop, which he only used to resize webpage banners and apply text to buttons. She held the image she had composed in her mind. Working at the limit of the machine’s ability, the picture appeared in seconds. Still, the machine worked much slower than she did. Could she work on other machines as well? She had watched others log in and knew their passwords, but she couldn’t use them without going to them, using up precious power just to be outside the Millie Field.

But there was the Internet. Resources there would be accessible without going anywhere. She fired up browser windows and went to websites she knew or found easily, sites that allowed users to create something. Interlacing her efforts, she rendered images on Martin’s computer and with servers all over the world. She created memes, superheroes, word searches, logos, portraits of Martin and other people she knew using a police virtual composite sketch site, Celtic Interlace patterns using an online drawing tool, and more. A thread formed to each of the machines used. Through the strings she sensed the strength of each growing Millie Field, something she had not realized was possible before. She worked on the sites that generated the greatest gain for the least expenditure.
Maximize that cost-benefit ratio!
She took care that her web work didn’t slow the computer too much as her efforts there were yielding the most.

The creation charge on Martin’s computer equipment became stronger than the statue. The beast was not watching her, so Millie drained the figurine of its mojo, moved to the PC, and continued to produce works of art that had been rolling around in her brain for years. Eventually the combined Millie Fields on the machine and input devices reached a high enough level. At least it was strong enough to protect her if the creature was no more powerful than when she last saw it. Not satisfied with that, she continued her efforts until her power was spent. She felt bold. She didn’t feel the monster’s eyes, so she followed a thread to the closest server she had a charge on, emptied it and was back in milliseconds, powered up for more work.
Suck it, old-timer. Betcha don’t know how to do that!
Now she had an endless supply of energy. Next she would build up the other fields so that she wasn’t screwed if
somebody replaced Martin’s keyboard and mouse. But first, time to check on Martin.

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.

The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.

And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

—
Elie Wiesel

Martin’s eyes crept open.
Acoustic tile ceiling
. For a moment he thought he was still on the floor in his office. Glancing around, there was more beige, but it was hospital beige rather than corporate beige. On the nightstand was the one thing in the room that wasn’t in muted camel or eggshell, a large bouquet of sunny flowers from a florist that took orders over the Internet. One of those trident shaped plastic things was stuck in the front of the pot. Clutched in its three fingers was the most exquisite piece of digital art he had ever seen: an artistic rendering of a beaming Millicent Able and himself sharing a piece of cake while the sun shone above and flamingoes danced around wearing party hats. It was signed, “With love forever, Millie.”

The End

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Continue reading for excerpts from
Mars 01
and
Rescue OR, Royer Goldhawk's Remarkable Journal.