15

Uzine looked in the mirror at his tattoo. The red traced down to his waist. He hadn't been to work in several days. For the first time in his life, he simply had not felt the need to. He replayed the events of the previous few days in his mind.

After he had found Brezine in her glitchy state, he had at first refused to believe the obvious. He had thought someone had made a holographic image of Brezine. Emotionally he wanted to believe this idea badly because if it was wrong it would mean a significant portion of his life had been a lie. Some part of him knew the truth already, however. Deep down, he knew that the emptiness he had felt with Brezine during what should have been the most intimate moments now had an ugly, shocking explanation. She didn't exist. But who most benefited from her non-existence? Who would have reason to fool Uzine?

As Uzine had considered it, it became clear why Brezine had always been so militant about work. Clearly, the corporation that he worked for had concocted this scheme to give the chimeras the illusion of living. It would be one thing to force the chimeras to work on the pain of death--many would likely choose death. It was quite another to create a phony fabric of reality where a chimera would willingly assume their own lives were circumscribed by work.

Uzine had seen in a flash the entirety of his life. Everything in it had suspiciously been centered on work--even what was more or less his God, Hiro, appeared to have been manipulated to bring about a sense of company loyalty. When he had this thought, he felt the familiar twinge he had felt before, only this time it threw him into a deep cavern inside himself. The twinge before was trying to tell him something was wrong--that something had been done that should not have been. He wondered back to all the times he had a similar feeling. There were far too many occasions for his liking that matched this paradigm. Most of them had involved work.

When Uzine had traced this back to his satisfaction, he had elected simply not to work. His tattoo would slowly turn red, and he would die. In his mind, though, he had died the moment he had found Brezine upstairs. All of his values had been false--and the person he love the most--his wife--was nothing but a fiction. If his body died at this point, it would simply put an end to his miserable existence. He had nothing left to live for anyway.

Mercifully, the glitch that had affected Brezine had taken her permanently offline. It would have been more torture than Uzine could have borne to see her walking and talking as she always had knowing what he now knew. The temptation to pretend none of what he knew had ever happened would have been greater in that circumstance than he would have liked to have admitted. Yet, there was a sense that he had always known, and the seed of his awareness had been watered delicately and slowly until it burst forth into his psyche. Once some things are known, there is no unknowing of them, no matter how much we might wish otherwise.

Uzine figured he might have a couple of days left by the working clock he had internalized which was not at all similar to standard time units. He would spend the remainder of his time in his home until he expired, and that would be that.

It was somewhat surprising, then, as he contemplated his end, that he heard a knock on his door. At first, Uzine elected to ignore the knock, but then it got louder. Uzine had really hoped the knock was in his imagination. Before he understood why, however, his feet were carrying him to open it.

Uzine made his way down the stairs and opened the door. Something was strange. For one thing, it was nighttime and through the initial crack in the door there was a light that should not be there. As the door swung more widely open, Uzine was awestruck and simultaneously dumbstruck. There, in what appeared to be heavenly radiance, stood Hiro Triack.

Uzine stumbled back from the door.

"May I come in, Uzine?" Hiro's voice thundered.

Uzine made no response, and Hiro took this as consent.

Uzine noticed Hiro was not in his normal working attire. Instead, he was adorned in mostly white. If Uzine had ever been familiar with more than his limited existence, he would have recognized the garment being worn by Hiro as a toga.

As Hiro entered, Uzine finally found his voice.

"N...NO! You cannot come in, you fraudulent god! LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Hiro stood just in the doorway and faced Uzine.

"You speak harshly, Uzine. I can see that your tattoo is at your waist, which I assume means you have not been to work, and that you have elected to die. I am here to give you another option if you wish. I am aware you have been lied to. In my own life, I too did a fair amount of lying."

Uzine's features darkened, then turned to crimson.

"You are NOT REAL, HIRO! No more REAL than my WIFE! GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE!"

"Uzine, it is true your wife was not real. She was a fiction. A fiction generated to keep you satisfied enough to keep you working. It is not true that I am a fiction."

"You are just another part of the holonosphere! GET OUT!"

Hiro smiled widely at these words.

"It is true that I am part of the holonosphere, yes. Yet, I am also part of the hologram you refer to as physical reality. My existence is neither of those things, yet both of them. As evidence, consider that your wife would never have been able to make the holonosphere obey as I am about to suggest. Would you believe my words if I produced to you something which otherwise should be unfathomable?"

"I...", stammered Uzine.

"So be it," spoke Hiro. With a sweep of his hand, he turned the entirety of Uzine's ground floor into a raging waterfall. The only shelter was around Uzine and Hiro.

Uzine was absolutely terrified. He knew that the holonosphere could generate convincing illusions, but they lacked a solidity to them--the same solidity that was missing where his wife was concerned. What he saw before him now was more than mere holonospheric trickery. He knew in part because he did not feel the twinge he felt before--there was no emptiness here.

Hiro waved his hand again and Uzine's living room re-materialized.

"Are you satisfied now?" smiled Hiro.

Uzine fell down in prostration. "Forgive my insolence, oh great Hiro!"

"You are forgiven, Uzine, but you need not prostrate yourself before me. I am not a God, though there are some that would have me be one."

Uzine averted his eyes. "Then, if I may ask, Hiro, what is it that you are? I do not wish to offend one such as yourself!"

"The best way to think of me, Uzine, is as an interested party." Hiro stopped and a sly smile crossed his face. "Consider me an interested party with unique abilities from your perspective."

"So should I worship you then?" asked Uzine.

"Worshiping me would distract from my purpose, and it is not something I would seek, no. In fact, worshiping me would be the same as worshiping yourself."

"Oh Hiro," began Uzine, "I cannot begin to do the miracles you have done here. How could you be anything like me?

"Well, Uzine, I am something that those who would claim to be your makers and masters never counted on. I was one of the first chimeras, yes. Yet, all chimeras are a part of me. We share a common soul. When the biological programmers who make us program in their parameters, they hijack the process of procreation. However, no one has the power to control a soul besides the Original Programmer. The hubris of the biological programmers is to assume that because they produce beings that look physically distinct they are producing unique souls. I possess the wisdom and accumulated spiritual innocence of the chimeras who have been produced, which brings us to you, Uzine."

"What do I possibly have to do with all of this, Hiro? I am not even sure of what this thing you call a soul is."

Hiro placed his hand firmly upon Uzine's shoulder.

"Your inability to recognize the wording is understandable. Consider the twitches you felt. Do you think all chimeras feel them? They do not. You are the first of your kind to feel such a twitch. You are the culmination of a process of genetic programming that has resulted in a collective soul awareness. You are the first chimera to feel such an awareness, but it will not be long before many others do."

"I do not believe that I am so great, Oh Hiro."

"Modesty is a virtue unless taken to excess, then it becomes nothing but a mere hindrance to the perception of truth. The words I have spoken to you are true. Would you deign to call me a liar?"

Uzine flinched at the accusation.

"No, HIRO, no. I am sorry for my rash words."

"Do not worry, Uzine. I said that I came here to give you a choice, and so I shall. As the first of you kind, you have the ability to set the tone of the path subsequent chimeras follow. It is possible for you to die now out of despair, yes. If you choose to do this, however, other chimeras who have your awareness will tend also to be prone to despair. On the other hand, should you choose a difficult quest, you have the ability to obtain freedom and to set the minds of other chimeras after you to do the same. The choice is entirely up to you."

Uzine, despite everything he had seen Hiro do, was torn where this decision was involved. His life as he knew it was essentially over. What Hiro was asking him to do was to widen his perspective beyond himself and to consider others. His life would have a purpose in the sense that his actions would shape what would happen to those who came after him. Emotionally, however, Uzine was exhausted. All of his personal desires had proven to be illusions--no, they were worse than illusions. An illusion would allow a person to at least choose it. In Uzine's case, the illusions had been foisted upon him--woven into the web of his life from the moment he had set foot on the planet. What Uzine had been was a slave---a slave of the worst sort.--the kind that does not know he is one. Now he had to choose whether he wanted to allow his life as a slave to define him, or to make his life purpose the chimeras that followed him.

After carefully turning over the question in his mind, Uzine spoke.

"Hiro, as you know, my life has been one of slavery. I do not wish to enter into anything else that seeks to place a chain around my neck. If I do what you suggest, how am I not yet again a slave?"

Hiro who had so far been fairly jovial became stern-faced. Uzine almost wished he had not asked the question.

"The difference between a slave and freedom, Uzine, is that a slave has no choice in the predicament in which he finds himself. You here have a choice--to do as you intended to do before I came or to do what I am suggesting. If you look within yourself, you will see that part of you always wanted to serve others, just not in servitude as you have been. Your instinct was not wrong, but the world in which you inhabit has twisted it to make you believe it is a weakness when it is in fact a strength. Frequently, it has come to pass that those who wish to serve others for their highest good are often overcome by their inferiors who wish to use these people for their own selfish gain. The problem in such situations lies on both sides--for the selfish people it is their intentions that need to be challenged. For those wishing to render service, the problem comes from not remembering who or what they ultimately need to be serving. It is no one's purpose to live a life in abject slavery, yet the world often does just that to those who come to it. What matters now is your intention, your choice. Will you allow the world and its false values to define you? Therein lies the question you must ask."

Uzine paused. All of his experience of the world seemed to suggest he was a slave. Yet, if he had twitched and no one else had, then what Hiro was suggesting was that he was something other than a slave. Perhaps the background with which his life had functioned had cast him in the role of slave, but that was more the fault of the world and less the fault of Uzine. It certainly was not his identity. If slave was not his identity, then paradoxically what was false was Uzine's assumption he ever was one. What was more, none of the other chimeras were slaves either, nor should they be. Where a society had work it wanted to be done but did not itself want to do, that society often appropriated slaves. It was only a job half-done if a society took slaves. The job was completely done when a slave no longer felt like they were anyone BUT a slave.

A slave was coerced or brainwashed. The first movement was almost always coercion--the second was almost always brainwashing. Uzne's tattoo was coercion. His wife and god were brainwashed. At this moment, Uzine might be the only chimera aware of the truth of what was happening to others like him. As he considered this fact, he felt his anger rise. The people who did this needed to pay for their crimes, and the first way they would pay for their crimes was by not having chimeras to do their dirty work. What Hiro was proposing served two motives at once for Uzine. It allowed him to right what he now realized was wrong, and by so doing this, also allowed him a measure of revenge.

"Hiro, your words have convinced me. My resolve is firm. I intend to do everything in my power to ensure all other chimeras are free. If by so doing, it convinces my fellow chimeras to follow my example and be hopeful, even better."

Hiro shot Uzine a pensive look. "Be careful you do not become that which you seek to upend, Uzine Braten. There will come a time when you will have to decide whether to perpetuate the cycle or put an end to it. However, that is another choice for another day. What is important now is that your tattoo is red, and does not have much time before it becomes completely so. This must be remedied."

A moment of silence passed while Uzine waited for Hiro to wave his hand and make his tattoo non-existent. When Hiro failed to do this, he became semi-irate.

"Hiro you have come and produced miracles. Surely you have the power to modify a silly tattoo if you can perform all these other miracles. Please help me with the task that you have made me aware of. Do not assign me something and stand mutely by!"

Hiro appeared slightly bemused. "Uzine, I cannot do what you ask, but not because I do not have the power. The best way for you to think of it is to consider it against company policy. I must respect certain boundaries of your free will, and your tattoo is, ironically, part of your free will. What I can do is point the way for you to achieve that which you seek."

Uzine silently fumed. "I don't understand why you behave as this, Hiro, but after you have shown me that which you have shown me, I respect your judgment and so shall not question you further on the matter, though I do find it aggravating. What do I need to do to remedy this tattoo problem?"

Hiro smiled a knowing smile. "I thought you would never ask, Uzine. For that, you will need to visit Merlin."