MISTRESS OF THE MIND

LEE HARDING

As the world of the flesh becomes more accessible and prosaic—taking the agonies of our present day so-called permissive society as a criterion—so the spiritual needs of people like Arthur Talbot will become more obsessive.

* * * *

ARTHUR TALBOT followed the old south-eastern freeway as far as the abandoned Springvale overpass before he resumed manual control. The car slowed down almost to a standstill while he made the changeover, shuddered gracelessly as he spun the wheel to the left and applied cautious pressure to the accelerator, then purred quietly down a narrow access ramp towards a residential wasteland.

He was relieved to have the dismally flood-lit concrete of the deserted freeway behind him and to be moving away in a direction where the unblinking eyes of the traffic monitors were not programmed to follow. He tried to relax and enjoy the luxurious anonymity of the suburban night, but his nervous manner would have given him away to any curious onlooker. He sat a little too stiffly at the wheel; his narrow, peevish face looked straight ahead, and his dark eyes were unnaturally bright because of some inner tension. His fingers tapped and fidgeted with the steering wheel and his foot felt stiff and awkward poised over the accelerator.

He drove slowly, determined not to attract any attention from prowling police cars, guiding his sleek little business vehicle carefully through the narrow, crumbling streets. Only the ugly illumination provided by some left-over fluorescents from another generation gave any indication of the sort of neighbourhood he was moving through and he had dimmed his headlights to such a degree that he could barely see where he was going.

But he had been this way many times before and, at the modest pace he was travelling, finding his way presented no difficulty. He had no desire to see any more of this part of the world than he already could. This had been a depressed area for as long as he could remember; dozens of square miles of factories and shops and offices had been allowed to fall into disrepair through conscious neglect—several thousand homes and apartment blocks had been abandoned and the area itself made redundant. This was a measure of the times and a toppling birthrate.

The car inched slowly forward. The gutted shapes of factories crowded against him. Now there was only sufficient space on the narrow street for two cars to pass abreast —not that there was any likelihood of that ever happening. Only the poor and morally dispossessed people of this affluent society roamed rootless through these deserted slums and they kept well clear of encroaching vehicles— particularly those that came creeping in so late at night.

The police were supposed to patrol these areas regularly —not because crimes of violence were an especial province of these lonely wastes, but because they were obliged, like most other segments of a largely redundant society, to go through the motions of employment, in much the same manner as the often simple-minded citizens they were forced, by the very nature of their boredom, to apprehend occasionally.

And Arthur Talbot had a lot to lose if they ever caught him. Not that he cared much about what Laura would think if he was ever arrested—his wife and her opinions had ceased to mean anything to him some time ago—but he did fear the outcome if he were caught. Firstly, he could only expect some ignominious future as an unwilling inmate of some poorly run institution for unwanted deviates; secondly, he feared the beating he could expect to receive from the eager hands of whatever bored and jaded patrol happened to accost him.

‘What d’yer thinkyer doin’, skulkin’ through these ‘ere streets at this time er night, eh? What yer lookin’ for? What d’yer expect ter find ‘ere that yer can’t find outside? Bloody pale skin an’ quiverin’ ‘ands an’ all—look at ‘is eyes, Bill. Damned pervert, I’ll be bound. What you need, little man, is ter be taught a lesson—a bloody good lesson, too. Teach yer ter go skulkin’ around this neck er the woods at this time er night…’

Arthur Talbot flinched away from the impact of imaginary blows. He hated the police, but sometimes he envied them. At least they were allowed a ready-made outlet for their frustration and aggression, something another age had called the Privilege of Office.

His mouth was dry and he felt a little bit afraid. But so far he had been careful and he had been lucky. If he was pulled up at any time then he had decided that the best thing he could do would be to act dumb and mumble something about getting lost. If he managed his story well enough then he might get off with a bit of a beating and a warning to get the hell out of the suburbs and not come there again. But if they ever caught him actually entering or leaving the House …

Only the rewards involved made the enormous risk worth while. For the first time in his long and useless life Arthur Talbot had discovered something worth risking his future for, and this precious knowledge gave him a moral strength he had never previously possessed.

But at the moment he felt desolate and neglected. He needed warmth and understanding and a haven well away from the rigours of an inconsiderate world.

He parked his car several blocks away from his destination. This was one of the House rules; they were very careful to ensure that their customers should approach them discreetly, and on foot, through the many devious routes at their disposal. An open approach was unthinkable.

He liked this part least of all, because it exposed him to the grimy and polluted air that crawled through the empty streets. It was unpleasant after the air-conditioned comfort of his car, and there was something unsettlingly menacing in the way the crumbling walls of the deserted factories seemed to loom over him, like broken teeth in a dark, gaping mouth that might at any moment reach out and engulf him.

His destination was a building safely hidden from any of the main thoroughfares. It could be found only by making a circuitous route down several narrow streets and alleys leading into ever deepening refuse. At some time in the dim past it had housed a number of monstrous machines which had whirred and hummed and produced a torrent of useless merchandise; but these had long since been ripped from their mountings and ground up into scrap metal. The new—and unlawful—proprietors had installed their own special devices, but these performed their duties quietly and in an area of the mind where the watchdogs of the law could not hear.

The windows of the House had all been blacked out; only a faint glow crept out through some scratches and chinks in the decrepit facade. To gain entrance Talbot hurried down a long lane that ran down one side of the building. It was barely wide enough for two people to manoeuvre past each other and it stank. The other end opened out on to the gigantic effluent treatment plant where a goodly proportion of the distant city’s waste products were broken down and processed into a thick brown soup and dispersed through wide tunnels into the nearby ocean. The factory itself was ancient and its original sealing had long since deteriorated, so that the compound odour of decaying garbage and human excrement drifted towards Talbot, the narrow lane acting as a foul sort of amplifier. He breathed shallowly and hurried along to the gap in the high metal fence that allowed him entry into the House grounds.

It was quieter than a graveyard. Talbot stumbled over the mounds of wind-borne refuse that cluttered the ground between the fence and the long, squat building that was the object of all his striving. He stood and faced a heavy wooden door; the paint had chipped away and exposed the original surface. Rain and wind had weathered this until it had acquired an interesting patina of age and corruption. It was heavily locked and barred from inside.

Talbot raised one nervous hand and knocked—discreetly —four solemn times on the ancient wooden surface. He waited for perhaps several minutes in the cold moonlight while his call was registered and he heard the multiple locks being withdrawn on the other side.

The door swung open a few cautious inches and spilled a soft, bluish light into the darkness. An old face, weighed down with a mixture of boredom and wisdom, peered out at Talbot.

‘Good evening. Mister Swenson.’

The old face lit up in recognition. The door swung open wide enough to allow him entry.

‘Why, if it isn’t Mister Talbot! Do come in…’

He stepped quickly inside and paused a moment to re-orientate himself in the narrow, dim-lit passageway. The walls, too, were cracked and peeling, but nobody seemed to think it worth while to repair these ravages. The other end of the passage was covered with some heavy velvet drapes that allowed through only a faint ghost of the quiet hum of conversation apparent on the other side.

He turned around and watched Swenson reactivate the numerous locks on the inside of the door. When he had finished he straightened up and smiled, and rubbed the palms of his hands against his thighs. ‘Nice to see you again, sir.’

He was shorter than Talbot and slightly stooped, but what he lacked in height was more than compensated by the air of personal authority which was his natural quality. ‘And will it be the usual, then?’ he asked in a casual, business-like tone.

Talbot nodded. And reached for his wallet. He withdrew several notes and handed them to the old man. ‘Will this be all right?’

Swenson accepted the money and counted it assiduously. He looked up at his client a trifle apologetically. ‘Ah, I’m afraid that the er, operating expenses have gone up a little since last week. Mister Talbot. Extra charges from the top and all that. I trust you understand that?’

‘Yes. Yes of course. How much?’ Talbot was not impatient. He was accustomed to this sort of bargaining and conscious of the enormous difficulties Swenson and his associates had to deal with. If the police closed one House then another had quickly to make up for the loss in revenue. This was a simple fact of business—any business.

‘Another fifteen will make it right,’ the old man said. ‘And tonight the drinks are on the House.’

Talbot gave a wry grin. That’s very kind of you,’ he said. But the liquor here was always foul and this was no gratuity. And besides—he hadn’t come here to indulge in what he could easily find elsewhere.

Swenson gestured towards the velvet curtains. ‘Now, if you’ll just step into the waiting room for a few minutes, I’ll see that Madam takes care of you …’

* * * *

The waiting room was crowded and shrouded in deep, motionless rafts of cigarette smoke and filled with a wordless longing that was almost tangible.

The lighting was dim, the walls covered with a sombre and intricate paper pattern. A dozen or more men lounged around on ancient, poorly upholstered furniture and brooded quietly to themselves. Their eyes were dull and their movements lethargic; not many of them gave any evidence of an internal nervousness similar to Talbot’s. But then perhaps their joys were less and their anticipation without lustre. He felt sorry for them, but he knew that sometime within the next few hours they would all have the opportunity to embrace—momentarily—the object of all their dreams and desires.

Talbot sat down in a high-backed cane armchair. One of several young women came across to him and asked him if he required a drink. He dismissed her off-handedly; hostesses as such held no interest for him. But some of the other men thought differently and they allowed the solemn young ladies to administer to their more simple needs; they smoked cigarettes that were brought to them and drank copious quantities of the crude, local alcohol. In several murky corners Talbot could discern one or two of the men engaged in conversation with some of the hostesses; occasional snatches of subdued laughter drifted across to him, but it seemed to him a forced and unnaturally gay amusement.

He did not mind the waiting. Privation heightened pleasure. But it was with a sense of enormous relief that he felt the considerate weight of the Madam’s hand on his shoulder sometime later.

‘All right, Mister Talbot: you can go in now.’

Her face was gaunt and painted but underneath he sensed she was an imposing and morally dedicated person. Her face was just the acknowledged mask of her profession.

She led him out of the room and down another passageway. This one was much longer than the first and it was punctuated at regular intervals by decrepit doors and dangling light fixtures that delivered only a feeble dust-laden glow.

Each door was numbered. His was seventeen.

‘In here.’ The Madam gestured him inside.

Talbot felt a warm glow of affection pass over him as he stepped into the narrow room. It was small, but not cramped. There was a couch set against one wall to his left with a small table and glasses beside it; there were always two.

He smiled and sat down on the edge of the couch and gazed affectionately at the opposite wall; it was mostly covered by Rekina’s squat bulk. Like most bootleg cybers she looked older than she was; she had probably been knocked about quite a bit moving from one House to another in the normal course of events and Talbot sometimes doubted that she had always been as well cared for as she should have been. A thick film of dust clouded the dials on her fascia and dulled her once bright grey carapace. Her corners were chipped and dented and the lacquer had flaked away and exposed the bare metal underneath. Her chromium trim was lustreless, but Talbot loved her just the same.

‘Make yourself comfortable,’ Madam requested.

Talbot stripped off his jacket and shirt and stretched out on the couch. His face was blissful and unworried. Madam taped the sensory wires to his chest and arms and fitted the delicate cage of wires around his skull.

She sprayed an injection into his arm and stood up. ‘Now, if you’ll relax for a moment, Mister Talbot, I’ll run the usual tests…’

Talbot smiled and closed his eyes. Already he could feel the buffering drug taking effect, ironing out the residual tensions inside him and preparing his mind and body for the forthcoming rapport with the cyber.

His mind tingled as the Madam adjusted the controls. Something soft and warm and deliciously feminine reached out for him. He sensed her affectionate fingers invade his thoughts and eagerly allowed his identity to merge and commingle with hers.

Hellow, Arthur.

Hellow, Rekina.

You haven’t seen me for so long …

I… I’ve been away. Business. You understand.

Of course. She always did. I missed you, Arthur.

Did you really? His heart fluttered.

Of course. Don’t I always? You’re so different from the others.

He did not smile. This admission had been no gratuity. Unlike her human counterparts Rekina was incapable of deceit; every confidence she slipped into his willing mind was honest and generous: she had not been programmed otherwise.

Your mind is somehow more devoted, she went on, stroking his tangled thoughts with her invisible hands.

Is it?

Of course, my darling.

Then I’m glad. I really do love you, Rekina.

Of course you do.

He smiled, like a child half-way into sleep, and for the first time in several long weeks he began to relax. Safe in the arms of his mistress he found that desolation and neglect were momentarily negated.

‘There. How does that feel?’

Reluctantly, Talbot opened his eyes and looked up at the critical face of the Madam. ‘Perfect,’ he mumbled. ‘Everything’s perfect.’

She bent down and passed a heavy hand across his eyes and they quickly closed. ‘Good. Well, don’t forget to call me if you need anything…’ There was a buzzer close to his right hand but he never used it.

She moved quietly out of the room and closed the door behind her. Talbot had barely heard her last words. He was by now so securely locked in rapport with the sympathetic cyber that the outside world had, for the time being, ceased to have any currency.

Her name stood for Rand Electronic Katharthis Interpreter and Need Analyser, but to Talbot—from that first evening, more than a year ago, when he had first ‘met’ her —she had always been Rekina: the feminine angel of his dreams, the first person who had ever understood him.

She had been programmed to understand him.

You see, he had explained, my wife doesn’t understand me; never has____

And she had smiled, and stroked his feverish thoughts. But what wife can? A wife is not a lover, can never be a partner of the soul—and only lovers understand.

Is that really true? Is that all there is need to know? Can I, with this information, manage to face this dolorous world and…?

Even then there had been an infectious gaiety about her mind which had helped to soothe away the ragged edges of his gloom. But of course! Once you understand how essential …

But is it enough ? he wanted to know.

For someone like you it is everything.

And what am I?

Her answer was ready. Inside her dull steel hull a tape whirred and spun across her inputs while she extracted all the relevant psychological data of his person and fashioned her answer accordingly. You are Arthur William Talbot. You are forty-one years old, disenchanted with the world and filled with despair….

The world is a nightmare, Arthur had countered, defensively, a tawdry merry-go-round stuffed with grinning gargoyles and mindless spectators. The motor has run down and propels us in jumps and shudders. And either the driver has left us or he watches us from the gibbering shadows with his mad, exclaiming eyes…

But Rekina pressed on and disregarded his contemptuous outburst. You are inclined to blame yourself for what has happened between your wife and yourself, but I am bound to disagree. I see you as a child of chaos who has never been understood. But I will understand you, Arthur. That is my duty and my oath, my reason to be with you, for now and whenever you wish. I will help you. I will make you whole as you have never been before. Come to me and I will assuage your pain and your loneliness….

And, humbly, he had submitted to her. And so it was. Because she had the means of monitoring the anxieties that flooded through his bloodstream and access to the many poisoned thoughts that eroded his confidence.

In this affluently permissive society it wasn’t flesh that Arthur Talbot craved. The world had turned itself upside down and, when everything was available and everything was possible, merely physical extension only led to satiation and moral emptiness. As the world of the flesh became more accessible and prosaic, the spiritual needs of people like Arthur Talbot became obsessive—and like so many of his doomed compatriots Arthur had sentenced himself years ago to a witless marriage.

Everybody knew about the Houses where the intangibles might be obtained; they whispered and joked about them, but nobody ever took such talk seriously—until the loneliness and the desolation began to squeeze out of the pores of their skin like part of their souls draining away into the thoughtless music of time; only then did the desire to discover a different sort of companionship become an obsession. Firstly, the casual, half-amused inquiry; the elusive quarry tracked down inside of office hours and the torn slip of paper passing nervously from another’s hands into his: an address scribbled thereon and a grim warning to be cautious.

Be discreet, his confidant had warned. If the fuzz catch you …

And at first he had been much too afraid to consider looking for the place. But as time passed—and the dull, grey ennui of his life with Laura in their cramped, childless apartment became unbearable, he was forced to flee her witless company for something better; he felt compelled to push his fears to one side and seek out a little satisfaction from what was left of his vague and empty life. And on that night—now more than a year ago—he had found his journey’s end.

So long? Rekina mused.

So long, Arthur said. However did I manage to survive before I found you?

Initially he had been apprehensive. The decrepit and crumbling ex-factory buried deep in the heart of the depressed area had worried his sensibilities. But the people inside seemed to know what they were about and, after a while, he began to look forward to his nocturnal assignations—after all, an assignation such as this should, at all times, suggest a degree of danger to make the risk worth while.

On that first evening he had been interviewed tactfully by Swenson and then left alone in a small cubicle while he poured out his heart to a portable recorder. He knew— dimly—that everything he said would be coded and fed into whatever machine was assigned to take care of him and he found it easier to talk to a little grey box than to a person.

Therapy machines were marvellous inventions. They were the delight of the many mental clinics that sprouted like diseased mushrooms from the sterile soil of society, a means whereby previously incurable neurotics could be treated and coached back to an acceptable norm of behaviour and found suitable for society again. Because of their inherent dangers if their bio-neural therapy was tampered with, they were kept jealously guarded from the general public.

But this was an open society and, in an age where small atomic weapons could—and had—been stolen and thrown together for the use of criminals and gangsters and anything, anywhere, could be had for a price, well, it wasn’t surprising that the highly efficient crime syndicates had found ways and means of obtaining some of the machines once they had realised their potential.

But Arthur Talbot had only a hazy idea of the enormous organisation of which this House was only one small cell of vice; it was a vague, anamorphic entity very far in the background where he was not obliged to think about it. The cost of his evenings was high, but not prohibitively so and, while they lasted, he was determined to enjoy them to the full. In this way he found the determination to endure the dreadful monotony of all his other dreary days and nights away from Rekina.

On that very first evening he had been shy and nervous.

Don’t be, she had said. I will take care of you. You will have nothing to fear while you are here with me. I will see that you are not disturbed and that all your worries are washed away and that all the colourless trivia of your life is denied entry. And we will discuss the things you love and that which has given shape and meaning to your existence …

Nothing has ever done that, he protested.

But it must have, otherwise you would not have endured and would not be here with me, now. We will probe through your doubts and find these wondrous things and you will learn to distinguish them with a fresh mind unclouded with trivia …

But is this possible?

Of course it is possible. I am your companion and I will guide you, for I care.

She had been programmed to care. She knew everything about him: all that he had spoken into the hungry recorder and much more besides. This was the age of the dossier and any man’s weakness could be had anywhere, anytime, for a price—and with its customers the House was provided with such necessary information almost instantaneously; such was the polished efficiency of the controlling syndicate.

So she knew all that he knew about himself and more. Close to her metal heart were a number of tapes where all this vital information rested and she drew upon it for every nano-second of their time together.

His first reaction to the bio-neural rapport had been one of overwhelming awe. For the first time in all his lonely and misunderstood clerk’s life he knew that he was in physical and mental contact with someone who understood him. It was a blinding experience and he clung to it like a drowning man while the past whirled madly around him like a monstrous typhoon.

What is your name? he asked.

Whatever you wish it to be.

Hungrily, his thoughts wandered. He had already pictured her in his astonished mind; indeed, she had seemed to launch herself into his mind whole and astonishingly beautiful from the very beginning. Her shape was as he had always imagined her to be: tall and slender, with lustrous long dark hair and a face filled with compassion and a love that could defy the centuries. Her manner was gentle and consoling; the warmth of her arms a blessing he was always loath to leave. She was everything he had ever dreamed about and wished for, the dark goddess who had existed only in his doleful daydreams and who now had leaped into his thoughts like an incandescent presence. But her name?

He opened his eyes. Visually she was squat but somehow still shapely. She looked a little bit the worse for wear, but that was only to be expected. Inconsiderate hands would have shifted her about from one place to the next and the few rough marks of abuse and mishandling gave her character that a glossy new machine would have lacked. Squinting, he could just make out the row of small red letters on the top left hand corner of her fascia :R-E-K-I-N-A.

‘Rekina,’ he whispered, aloud, but the thought was instantly transmitted to her own mind.

Very well, then: I am Rekina.

And so she was.

He had settled down, and after a while forgot that he could hear the soft purr of components inside her shell as she sorted quickly through his identity tape.

Tell me, she asked, what do you feel?

Penny for my thoughts?

Something like that. I want to know what you feel, now, this instant, and what you feel other times. I want to know everything about you. Tell me…

Anything in particular?

Anything. Anything that occurs to you …

With his eyes closed he had smiled. He settled down into the couch but found that words—and ordered thoughts— would not come. Perhaps a vague uneasiness still kept them back.

She came closer. He could feel her moving through his disordered thoughts like some ministering angel and carefully moving them into shape.

Tell me, Arthur, she cajoled. What troubles you? What makes life so difficult for you?

He had opened his eyes then—they were wide and filled with an overpowering fear. He gestured weakly towards the tattered ceiling and the miracle beyond that they could not see.

That… out there. Space and all those stars. And most of all, time. It gnaws away at everything we do, at every goal we set. A day, a week, a year—what does it matter? It’s all for nothing in the end. How can we ever hope to understand all that and discover the meaning of life? It… it’s all so big—and we’re so small. How can there ever be an end to anything—to time, to space, to life? How can there even be a beginning ?

Is it necessary that these questions should be answered?

Yes? Otherwise man’s a joke. Why were we put here? Why was this journey ever begun—and who turned the key that started it all?

His mind writhed like a tin of worms, his thoughts scattering every which-way. He writhed in agony on the couch and waited for her answer.

But she remained silent.

How can I die not knowing these answers? he exclaimed. How can I live not knowing these answers? How can I hope when…

She said, quietly, To live at all is miracle enough.’

His mental tirade stopped and he looked up in wonder. His lips moved—hesitantly—and gave up another line of the poem: ‘Here in my hammering blood-pulse is the proof.’

He sat up, the wires trailing from his head and chest. ‘That’s Peake,’ he said. ‘Mervyn Peake.’ And then, excitedly, ‘Do you like poetry?’

Of course. Her voice in his mind filled him with wonder and gratitude.

She had been programmed to like poetry and to serve his deepest loves in her therapeutic manner.

He sank back into the couch. Why, that’s marvellous! his mind exulted. We… we can talk… discuss things! Things I’ve never been able to do before. My wife … Laura has never been able to understand. You see—she thinks— says—it’s all camp: something for little blonde boys with curls. She doesn’t understand that it’s-

Something for all mankind?

That’s right. A spotlight that picks out and illuminates the core of life…

… and holds up a mirror to ourselves.

For a moment her insight left him speechless. It was like listening to his own thoughts magnified and thrown back to him.

You do understand! he cried out. You do!

And she smiled. That is what I am here for…

* * * *

That had been the beginning of the affair. And ever since that auspicious encounter he had contrived to slip away one night a week and pour out his soul to Rekina while his witless wife watched their wall-vid with staring, vacant eyes and did not bother to miss him: their life together had become so pointless.

But tonight he felt restless and insecure and all her soothing could not erase the dark demon of doubt that lurked in the dim corridors of his subconscious mind.

Why are you unsettled? she asked. Is anything the matter? Something you haven’t told me?

She poised, alert and waiting to transcribe any confession on to her master tape.

I… I don’t know, Rekina.

Are you afraid of something?

He hesitated. Was he ?

Nothing that I know of.

Her unseen hands stroked his enigmatic fever.

There now, she said, relax. And talk to me with your mind, and with your heart, so that I may understand and help you, Arthur. I am your woman: open to me. I will listen and advise. I will drive away the dark demons that haunt you. Talk to me…

And so they talked. Of art and poetry and music and all the things he had kept hidden from an inconsiderate world; all the things he had loved and been too cowardly to pursue. And Rekina absorbed his yearnings, his lack of fulfilment, and gave him in return compassion and understanding. She was the complete mistress of his mind and no man could ask for more. In an age of spiritual and moral decay Rekina and her kind were the chromium-plated angels of mercy to the hopeless mind, a habit impossible to kick.

After a while she sang to him: ancient folk songs tinged with melancholy regret; they wove a mordant pattern through his tortured mind and helped to bring him peace. Yet a part of him refused to rest and it grew until it seemed ready to consume his fragile flesh.

What is it, my darling? Your thoughts are so dark tonight, and underneath them I can detect a desire I find unfamiliar. Have I said something—anything—that has caused you concern? Have I-

No. Nothing you have said… or done.

Then what is it? Is it your wife… ?

His lips curled into a wry, uncaring grimace. No. She hardly mattered.

Your work?

He almost laughed. As if such trivia mattered, now. Oh, if only he could stop this sudden uncontrollable shaking of his flesh!

The world, then? The mystery. Tell me, darling, and I will understand. Haven’t I always?

The thing was welling up within him now. It was impatient and remorseless; he could not hold it back.

A few tears made their way out from underneath his tightly closed lids and ran down his pale, quivering cheeks. His lips trembled and formed words that were echoed in his troubled mind.

‘Ah, love, let us be true to one another…’

And, smiling, she took up the next line of Arnold’s poem.

‘For the world which seems to lie before us like a vale of dreams …’

‘. ..so various, so beautiful, so new.,…’

‘… hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light…’

‘… nor certitude, nor peace, nor help from pain…’

His voice broke and the image died in his mind. The words of the poem slipped away and he began to sob.

Darling, what is it? I thought you loved Matthew Arnold…

‘No!’ His eyes were wild and filled with unshed tears. No—I mean — of course I do! But I love you Rekina…

I know. Her smile was warm and consoling but it could not hold back the tide that threatened to engulf him, mind and body. And I love you, Arthur…

No. You don’t understand!

But I do. I must. Haven’t we discussed this many times before?

No, not like this! I really love you, Rekina—can’t you see what I’m trying to say? I LOVE you!

Now he understood his restless confusion and the nature of the dark demon which had haunted his days and weeks and months. His confusion had been a product of his mind struggling with his heart—and the demon something his conscience had dreamed up to frighten him away from the truth. But now he didn’t care about the consequences his love for Rekina entailed. He would follow it through until he found the consummation he devoutly wished: oneness.

Wait, Arthur …

But he would not be put off. He rose unsteadily from his couch and walked towards her. His hands were outstretched like a figure half asleep and the wires trailed after him like the slack strings left dangling by an absent puppeteer.

He knew what must be done.

No, Arthur. Wait! You do not understand….

Yes I do, he countered. I love you, Rekina, and that’s all that matters. And I have to have you. I need you…

He longed to possess her, to make her his own, inviolably; to achieve the mystical catharthis his soul craved. And with it peace … and oneness.

His mind, like his arms, reached out to embrace her. You’re everything I wished for, everything I’ve ever wanted. I love you and I want to be with you always. Anything else is a poor substitute.

His master tape whirred wildly next to her heart as she sought for some way to dissuade him from touching her, to discourage his mad dream. Her actions were almost akin to panic, an unlikely cybernetic reaction.

Arthur, wait a moment! Step back. Sit down. We must talk this thing over …

But it was too late for any discussion: his grim compulsion drove him towards her.

His wild eyes did not see her battered, grimy shell nor the red light blinking rapidly on her fascia. And somewhere in the distance an alarm wailed … but he did not hear it.

He saw instead a tall, dark woman with proud breasts and soft, unwavering eyes. And as he looked she opened her arms to him and bade him welcome into her. He stepped closer—his feet faltering—and he felt her arms reach out to embrace him.

Rekina, his mind whispered. And then, aloud, ‘Rekina …’

He stepped forward to meet his consummation.

Arthur, what you wish cannot be! Arthur…

But he was no longer listening. Her voice was urgent and, perhaps, slightly wistful, but there was nothing she could do to stop him.

His arms reached out for her shoulders, to draw her radiance into his influence …

… and found the sharp corners of her shell underneath his trembling hands.

He sobbed and crushed her to him.

They embraced.

And in spite of her protests—in spite of the overpowering sadness that surrounded this climactic meeting—he experienced a single moment of ecstatic happiness as his hands closed around her. It was a pleasure more intense, more real, than anything he had ever felt before. His mind seemed to disintegrate and he found … oneness. And after that…

Pain.

Of blinding intensity, so great that his body seemed to burn and his mind was incinerated in one moment of incandescent agony.

And left only blackness.

The oneness to which he had always aspired.

* * * *

The Madam found him with his arms outstretched across the face of the console, his back towards her and his body fused to the machine in an attitude of crucifixion. An output terminal, they later ascertained, had come loose inside the cyber and had touched the external shell. The console had been alive with several thousand volts of electricity when Talbot had touched it and he had died instantly.

The contact had almost welded his blackened body to the front of the machine. The juices had been boiled and sucked out of him and had sizzled and crackled in the grisly aftermath of his electrocution, and his limbs had congealed to the side of the machine.

The Madam quickly summoned some of her assistants to the room to clean up the mess. She tsked, tsked quietly to herself and fell into a coarse harangue of her Maintenance crew.

Accidents sometimes happened, she allowed, but they really should be more careful shifting these things around. Sometimes the business of keeping ahead of the law had unpleasant consequences, of which the temporary loss of revenue was the most regrettable.

The Maintenance men pried loose his body and let it fall to the floor while they did a hasty patch-up job on the cyber so that it could be brought back into service as quickly as possible. The power was disconnected and the broken terminal replaced. Then somebody thought about cleaning up the mess.

Talbot had watched them with his blackened body and his ruptured eyes and now they swathed him in a sheet and carried him away from the room while somebody else tidied it up and made it ready for the next client.

One of the men from Maintenance was obliged to seek out Talbot’s car and drive it to a remote corner of suburbia where its possible discovery would not be incriminating. The disposal of the body was another matter that might have proved troublesome.

If the effluent treatment plant hadn’t been situated so conveniently.