Threshold Shift (17 page)

“Where
are we?” Jon asked, rubbing his skull where it had collided
with the bunk. It ached.

Jacob
kneeled down beside the bunk. “This is where Asher keeps me,
locked up in a jail cell somewhere within his psyche.”

“Psyche?”

“His
mind, his brain,” Jacob said, tapping his own crown. “You
know, in here.”

Jon
sat up. “This doesn’t make sense. I was fighting the
Threshians and then I…” Jon paused, even remembering was
painful.

“Then
what?” Jacob asked.

“One
of them threw me into the fire. I, I burned Dad. I should be dead.”

“It
does sound likely,” Jacob replied. “After all, so am I.
That’s why he put me here.”

Jon
stood up, shaking his head in disbelief. Jacob smiled wanly in
response. Pushing past the old man Jon saw that the cell contained
two bunk beds, a small cupboard and a sink. He stumbled over to it,
turned on the tap, and splashed himself.

“It’s
not real water,” Jacob said. “You can’t wake
yourself up that way.”

Jon
ignored him, stepping across to the bars and looking out. There was
nothing but inky blackness. “Is this the afterlife?”

Jacob
laughed. “The afterlife? What an idea. No, of course it isn’t.
Like I said before, it’s a corner of Asher’s psyche where
he keeps me. Most of the time I just sleep, I get very tired. But
every so often he drops by, wakes me up, and asks for help.”

“I
don’t understand.”

“He
asks silly things mostly,” Jacob continued. “Like ‘how
do I hold a rifle?’, or ‘what is your security code?’
It’s not like he stays to have a proper conversation, no, he
just swans off again, back to the real world.”

“Dad?”

“Some
brother he is!” Jacob snarled, waving a clenched fist. “Just
collects what he wants and leaves me to rot, why I!”

Jon
took hold of his father’s shoulders. “Stop it.”

Jacob
stared at him for a moment, blinking a few times, the anger gone.
Slowly he closed his eyes and swayed gently. “I’m so
tired, I just want to go back to sleep. Do you mind if I go back to
sleep?”

“Please,
Dad,” Jon said. “I’m... I’m lost. Tell me
what’s going on.”

Jacob
patted his son on the cheek and smiled. “I don’t know
about you, but I’m dead.”

Jon
growled in frustration and pushed his father away.

“Don’t
be like that,” Jacob said. “It’s hard for me. I’ve
been here so long. It’s hard for me to think.”

“You’re
not my father,” Jon replied.

“You’re
right,” Jacob said. “But I’m all that’s left.
After I died, Asher took my memories. He can do that you know, absorb
the memories of another scout and store them. So here I am. Here we
are, stored.”

Jon
turned away from the mad old man and took hold of the prison bars.
They were so cold.

“You
said you were thrown into a fire,” Jacob said. “But you
aren’t burnt are you? Not even a little bit.”

Jon
pulled his hands away and turned them over. The palms appeared
perfectly normal, the fingers flexing as they should. He touched his
own face, it was smooth, unblemished. “I’m not burned.”

“How
could that be?” Jacob asked. “How could that be?”

Jon
turned away from the bars to his father. The old man seemed shorter
than he remembered, not matching Jon’s height as he should have
done. Instead Jacob only drew level with his chin. “This isn’t
real,” Jon said. Numbed by the discovery, he walked over to his
bunk and sat down. “I must be going mad.”

“Snap
out of it,” Jacob said irritably. “You aren’t mad.
You’re just stored in Asher’s mind, talking to a
construct of your father’s memories.” He stopped and
scratched his head. “That sounds mad doesn’t it? But it
isn’t. You may be dead, I don’t know, but you can think,
can’t you? So you exist, just like I do.”

Jon
studied the old man for a moment. He was sincere enough. “OK,
then.” He said, and walked towards the bars, taking hold of
them regardless of how cold they were. “Asher!” He
shouted. “Asher Smith, I want to talk to you. I want to talk to
you right now!”

Nothing,
silence, and then the ground rumbled beneath their feet. A crack
appeared down the side of the sink, working its way unevenly down the
cupboard.

“I
think he heard you,” Jacob said.

“Asher!”
Jon called again.

A
younger version of his father abruptly appeared at the cell door.
“Silence Jon, you are distracting me from my work.”

“Asher?”

“Have
patience, brother,” the man said with Jacob’s voice.
“Your body is dead, but I can bring it back to life. I only
need time and energy. Your mind must remain here until I am finished.
Please do not distract me again. If you do, I will most certainly
fail.”

“But,
Asher,” Jon said. “How can you?”

The
image of the man faded away.

“Best
do as he says,” Jacob advised. “I’m sure he’s
working as hard as he can.”

“I
don’t understand any of this,” Jon said. “How can
Asher do this? How can we be here? What is he?”

“He
is my brother,” Jacob replied.

“What
are you?” Jon asked.

“Well,
that’s a long story,” Jacob said. “One your mother
and I vowed to keep from you.”

“She
knew?”

Jacob
sat down on the lower bunk and leaned back. “Of course she did.
She was my wife. How could I love her and not trust her?”

“You
didn’t trust me,” Jon said.

Jacob
stretched himself out on the bunk and closed his eyes. “That’s
different,” he said sleepily. “I wanted to give you a...”
he yawned. “I wanted to give you a chance.”

“What
chance?” Jon asked.

There
was no reply, Jacob was asleep. Jon walked over and shook him
violently.

The
old man woke up. “Hello?”

“What
chance? Tell me.”

Jacob
sat up, stretching as he did so. “Sorry,” he said. “I’ve
been here too long. I think I’m getting close to dissolution.”

“Dad,
tell me about this chance.”

“A
chance to be yourself,” Jacob said. “If you had known
about Wun, you might have tried to join with him. You almost did
once.”

“No
I didn’t.”

“You
blocked the memory,” Jacob said. “But I heard you, I
couldn’t not hear you. All those years ago in that warehouse,
how do you think I found you so quickly after it happened?”

Jon
looked away. “When Mum died.”

“You
called him,” Jacob said. “I don’t know how. He was
so far away. I couldn’t have reached him, but you did. Asher
came because of that call.”

Jon
looked into the darkness, the memory almost within his grasp. “I
killed Daniel, not you. How could I forget that? You just let Michael
think it was you.”

Jacob
yawned. “Killed him? It was for the best.”

“I
need to know everything, Dad,” Jon said. “No more
protecting me.”

Jacob
scratched his head. “Perhaps it’s time. I’m not
sure.”

“Dad.”

Jacob
sighed. “Promise me one thing, son, that whatever I tell you,
you will remain yourself.”

“What?”

“Promise
me, Jon,” Jacob repeated earnestly. “Promise me.”

“Of
course I promise, how could I be anyone else?”

Jacob
shook his head. “Aye, there’s the rub.”

*

The
prison cell was gone and in its place stood a room unlike any Jon had
encountered before. There was a fireplace in white alabaster, and at
its base stood a golden tray filled with black rocks. The walls were
patterned with not very convincing leaves and decorated with static
two dimensional images of ships and waterfalls. There were padded
seats in green, large windows, leaded in sections, streaming with
light and draped with fabric. Strange miniature ducks stood on
shelves in a corner, posed as if in motion. It was like something
from an archaeologists dream, not alien, but he couldn’t
understand it. The decor was pointless.

“What
is this place,” he asked Jacob. “Why have you brought me
here?”

His
father was reclining on one of the padded chairs, his head back and
eyes closed; a satisfied smile on his face. “Back on old Earth
this would have been my living room.”

“You
came from old Earth?”

“Shush,
Jon, can’t you see I’m enjoying this?”

Jon
leaned against the windowsill and peered out, but all he could see
was overwhelming whiteness, no detail.

“I
liked it here,” Jacob said. “I lived in this house, yes
it is a house. There’s an upstairs as well, and, bedrooms,
kitchen, hallway, garage, bathrooms, all the mod cons.”

Jon
pulled open the double doors that led from the room, only to be faced
with the same eerie blackness he had seen beyond the prison cell
bars.

“But
I can’t remember them,” Jacob revealed. “The
details are just gone.”

“Then
why is this room so detailed?” Jon asked.

Jacob’s
seat snapped upright. “Because of her.”

Jon
was startled by the sudden appearance of a woman lying at his feet,
her skirt and blouse stained a horrible crimson.

“You
aren’t seeing her at her best,” Jacob said.

The
older man stepped across the room and knelt beside the body, a gentle
hand reverently sliding strands of long auburn hair behind a
delicately small ear. Her features were simple, fragile, a small
mouth, a subtle chin, and a slight nose, all highlighted by pale skin
with a slight blush. The eyes were open, but sightless, her facial
muscles frozen taut in a moment of terror that would never end.

“Who
is she?” Jon asked. “What happened?”

Jacob
didn’t look up, he simply continued to stroke her hair. “Her
name was Sarah,” he began. “She was my wife long ago, my
first wife.” He looked around. “She was murdered in this
room.”

The
scene faded and they were returned to the cell.

“In
2030,” Jacob said. “I was convicted of her murder and
locked away in a cell like this one.”

I
don’t understand,” Jon said. His father was not this man,
how could he be? Jacob was not over a thousand years old. He had seen
the man age. He was not immortal and he was not a murderer. He was
not. “Who did it?” Jon asked.

Jacob
stretched again and pinched himself. Jon could see that he was
struggling to stay away.

“Dad?”

“I
don’t know,” Jacob replied. “But we had argued, oh
how we argued. The neighbours heard us, everyone in the street heard
us. I had a little bit of a temper in those days. When they found us,
I was covered in her blood, holding the hammer. I let them convict
me.”

“You
didn’t do it.”

Jacob
shrugged. “I don’t remember doing it, but they told me I
had blanked it out, made myself forget, just like you made yourself
forget what happened at the warehouse. Not once in all this time have
I remembered how I found her. I just remember her, lying there.”

Jon
was silent, because he couldn’t tell, no matter how deeply he
stared into his father’s eyes. He couldn’t tell.

“Because
of my crime,” Jacob said. “The authorities of old Earth
could do with me as they pleased. So I was tested, like all the
inmates, in a quest for the subject.”

“The
subject?”

“You
have to understand, the Earth of 2030 was a highly complex world. The
population had worked, to earn credits, to buy food, homes,
entertainment, for thousands of years. But by 2030 the world had
changed. No-one needed to work, no-one wanted to work. With the
latest machines, the requirement for manpower was greatly reduced.”

“But
surely some people had to work? You can’t automate everything.”

Old
Jacob smiled. “I think you can. But on Earth things had moved
too fast. Computers did the complex work that required thought while
machines did the complex work that required skill. The only things
left were the menial jobs, and there were no volunteers for those.
No-one needed to volunteer. They were already fed and housed. There
was nothing for them to gain.”

“Wasn’t
it decided to halt automation?” Jon asked. “I think I
remember a history lesson at school saying that such a system was
unsustainable.”

“History
is vague on the detail,” Jacob replied. “As it happens,
the computers didn’t come up with the solution, it was the
scientists. A final generation of thinkers who decided to make one
last effort to shape the world before the computers took over
completely. They concluded, after much deliberation, that the answer
was simple, if humans didn’t want to do the menial tasks, they
would build a new race of humans that could be programmed to do the
tasks anyway.”

“Slavery,”
Jon said.

Jacob
raised a forefinger. “Yes, there you have it, an old word we
all avoid and attempt to rationalise out of existence. In 2030 it was
no different, the scientists believed, or pretended to believe, that
any human being that could be grown, rather than born, was not a
human being at all. It was just another machine. The replication
process was simple enough. All they needed was a template.”

“You,”
Jon concluded.

“Well,”
Jacob said, “the original me. It’s difficult to explain
the difference, even to myself. It wasn’t an effect the
scientists were expecting. But each and every unit replicated from
the subject, were linked together. No matter how many units they
created, there was only one individual, one mind. My intelligence
increased exponentially, so naturally, I did the intelligent thing. I
played along.”

“What
happened next?” Jon asked.

“The
inevitable,” Jacob answered. “War.”

The
cell was replaced by a vision of a city, its buildings all the
colours of the rainbow, its many spires and towers penetrating the
very clouds in the sky. Jon marvelled at how complex it was, how it
possessed so much complexity and artistry than he had ever seen
before. These were not buildings merely fit for purpose, each one
possessed a life and a majesty he could barely comprehend.