More years later.

“I’m so tired.”

Michelle stared at the console and knew the lie would communicate her true meaning. Like any good therapist, or friend, or enemy well versed in antagonistic duplicity, her conversant would grasp the multiple layers of intent in the statement. The plain white curtains fluttered in the Italian spring breeze coming through the open window.

“The hardships you’ve endured are well known and respected.”

Michelle looked out along the tiny Via San Giacomo in the Lazio neighborhood of Rome, the murmur of the omnipresent traffic in the background.  The baritone voice from the console was a new variation, simultaneously soothing and authoritative. Michelle grudgingly acknowledged the aptness of the choice even as she recognized another attempt to manipulate. It was close enough to her father’s voice to have the intended effect. She had to respect the effort. The convenience of conversing directly with the yunk without intermediary Voices like Mei or Bina was yet more evidence of the groupmind’s continued evolution.

Even more impressive was the progress made to bridge the divide between the Entity and the rest of the human race.

More yunk bullshit. That thought brought pain, so she pushed it away.

“Are you recovered from your travels?”

Michelle heaved a sigh. With her lie punctured, they’d now move on to matters of substance.

She was more than recovered. The long trip from her home in Massachusetts to Rome was something Michelle hadn’t attempted in more than a decade. It broke her out of the dull routine she’d fallen into in recent years, hiding, and in truth, slowly dying, despite the façade of activity and engagement she’d constructed with her new life.

***

Archie’s funeral was one turning point. Seeing Fr. Ed, Mei, and Sahar was another step toward closure, catching up, or in Mei’s case, checking in. But it was Archie who had kept her facing toward life, who comforted her, sitting next to her patting her hand while she wept after their sessions meshing, whispering in his hoarse voice, “I’m thorry.” It was through Archie that Michelle’s anger at the Entity was reignited and gave her new purpose, at least back then.

Mei had finally persuaded her to meet with Archie so he could share the message from Bina, which only Mei knew of, as Archie hadn’t at that time consented yet to rejoin the yunk. Mei ended up brokering that as well, once the yunk began agreeing to Archie’s demands, so valuable was access to his vast memory store of all his interactions with Adam, Serena, and the yunk, but especially with Bina.

 After the first meeting with Archie, meshing with him completely, sharing the heartbreaking message from Bina, Michelle got a glimpse of the dizzying depths of his prodigious memory. Fully eidetic in detail and fidelity, the scope of what his mind held was overwhelming at first, especially with her limited skills. Archie became both her mentor and consoler, coaching her skills in his silent supportive manner, and gradually giving her access to not only his experiences, but all of Adam’s and Bina’s he’d absorbed from their interactions.  

Once she became comfortable interacting with the Adam and Bina memories, she’d spend long sessions with Archie replaying, listening, and even sometimes talking with them, dream conversations with the detailed traces Archie preserved.

Those experiences increased in fidelity and realism after Archie rejoined the yunk, with the added depth and scope of additional memories. Michelle began to suspect the yunk was doing something in the background to maybe reanimate those memories. Were they trying to reconstitute the imprints Adam and Bina left in the groupmind? She didn’t understand it, and the idea of conversing with simulacra of them became deeply aversive.

Then during one session the “memory Bina” who she was interacting with became upset and begged Michelle to “get her out,” pleading with increasing hysteria, “Save me! Save me!” It brought back all of Michelle’s guilt and grief and sent her into a spiral. She broke off all contact with Archie, upsetting him greatly. Shortly after, a member of the yunk from a ganglion she didn’t know visited her.

“That won’t happen again. You experienced a failed experiment. The reconstruction began to realize that she was not an embodied personality. Those memory traces have been sequestered and removed from Archie’s nervous system. You may mesh with him again without risk of exposure.”

“A failed experiment?!? Get out of here!!” Michelle screamed at the woman’s impassive face.

It was the beginning of her accepting their deaths and moving on from those sessions.

She became close with Archie’s caretakers, and eventually took a job with that organization helping individuals with disabilities. The work with the clients had its own rewards. She lived with Archie and some of the other clients, helping with their daily activities, preparing and sharing meals, sitting with them through their medical complications, and eventually with Archie, comforting him through his last days. All separate from the yunk, helping people who, through birth or misfortune, needed more support than usual.

With the Entity now collaborating so closely with all the government agencies that once feared it, concealing and protecting Michelle was a relatively small matter while she lived her quiet life, avoiding almost everyone except Archie and her other housemates.

***

Her charge to visit Rome to meet with the yunk had no date or agenda, and no explanation for why this couldn’t be done at home using the console she had there. But she obeyed.

She quickly discovered this trip was different. In particular, the time she spent sitting in the cathedrals along the way, did something to her, or for her.

It started on her first stop in London. She walked off her jet lag, killing time away from the hotel, mercifully unrecognized on the busy streets. It was a Tuesday morning and the tourist crowds at Westminster Abbey were light, so she bought a ticket for the tour. Clutching the brochure, she entered the massive structure, and was struck by the ancient immensity inside. The stained glass, the musty odors of time and incense, the statuary, tombs and memorials marking centuries of British and world history, the once famous and now obscure buried side by side, myriad human lives physically embedded in this spiritual monument; it moved her unexpectedly and mysteriously.

Interest piqued, she searched for other cathedrals to visit nearby, and set off on an impromptu tour of the churches of England. The next step was the nearby Westminster Cathedral, which stirred her dormant Catholic upbringing.

Father Ed would like this. Push it away.

Then off to Wells, Ely, Canterbury, and Salisbury. She took her time, lingering, sometimes revisiting on subsequent days, the awe and wonder of the physical experience of history awakening a long dormant hunger for perspective and meaning.

From England, she booked a train to Paris, and walked through Notre Dame, restored to past glory from the disastrous fire long ago. Now she was hooked, her ennui and spiritual fatigue held in abeyance by these invigorating explorations.

She ventured out to Normandy and took the ferry to Mont Saint-Michel, saw the old submerged roadway, the waves crashing against the walls, the rising seas reclaiming the little island, the church still perched above, beleaguered and solitary in its centuries-old vigil.

Then on to Reims, Chartes, Amiens.  With each visit, she read more, laid further plans.  Off to Spain, to the Sagrada in Barcelona, and the fetchingly named Santa Eulalia; then Sevilla, Burgos, Salamanca, Cordoba;  then eastward, a tour of all the St. Stephens: Vienna, Budapest, Passau.

The story of Stephen’s martyrdom hit close — the murderous crowd coming for someone representing change and a break from the past; St. Paul, Saul before his own conversion, standing by, maybe playing some role — but for the first time, she could ponder the parallels with some distance and control. Michelle felt an odd sense of comfort in that shared experience. Maybe Bina’s death had more meaning that she couldn’t see because of the fog of grief.

Then north to Cologne, the cathedral recently reopened after repairs from the most recent terrorist attack. The blast from the car bomb revealed deeper structural damage from over a century before during the WWII bombings, all of it meticulously renovated and restored. The pictures from back then of the desolation all around the cathedral while the spires stood unscathed deeply moved her. The story of survival and the demonstration of the hard work of cherishing and protecting sacred beauty amidst the chaos of indiscriminate destruction somehow assuaged her survivor’s guilt. She wondered what else she should be doing with her life.

At that point, she turned south, entering Italy for the first time in her life, working toward Rome more methodically, slowing down, enjoying the Italian countryside, warmer weather, and immersing herself in the abundant hospitality, even affection, of the culture. Milan, Venice, Florence, Orvieto; skipping Rome to Naples, Sicily, then finally back north to Rome.

She’d never been terribly interested in history, except for the fascinating lectures from Jonas, her editor long ago before the tumultuous changes to her life and her brother Adam’s. The ruins of the Forum, the Coliseum, the Pantheon; the sweep of the history of the empire, the centuries of world dominance, now all gone. They crystallized an insight into the parallels with recent and current world events, her place in it, and the connections from the present leading back from the chaos in Eastern Europe, the temporary dissolution and reformation of the United States, the endless little wars of the last several decades, the never-ending shifts in the balance of global power.  It was all there, played out again and again through human history. Were people doomed to keep repeating the seemingly endless cycle of achievement and disaster, human brilliance and folly?

After further procrastination by visiting as many other tourist attractions as possible, yesterday she finally toured St. Peter’s, at Father Ed’s insistence. Her renewed communications with him started with the usual check-in texting.

How are you doing?

Fine. All is well. Guess where I am?

Camden?

Walking through cathedrals.

That released a flood of reminiscences, recommendations, and advice. Something about the travel had eased at least that piece of her pain, and he welcomed the renewal of their friendship. He was a great source for what to see next, trading stories and impressions of his own visits. They made plans to connect on his next visit to the Vatican in a few weeks. Then she could put it off no longer and finally contacted the Entity.

***

Sitting in the rented room, the emptiness remained, and despite the conflicting pull created by these new adventures, she still, deep down, sought some surcease from the aching void inside. Tired of life seemed too dramatic to say out loud, so she settled for the shorter formulation. Then she considered the possibility that the Entity not challenging her lie was specifically to prompt this very introspection, leading her to question her own motives, once again. The familiar anger about manipulation returned.

“Your assistance is needed again,” the Entity continued their conversation. “A new project is reaching a point where your experiences and perspective are essential.”

Michelle suppressed a sarcastic remark. “I think I am finished with projects. As I said, I’m tired. I’m looking forward to not having to worry about anything anymore.”

They hadn’t spoken of suicide in many years, the earlier times of minders, medication, and endless counselling, initially unwanted and compelled, later less so, but the issue never went away. Although the Entity never explicitly forbade anything, anytime Michelle even alluded to self-harm, the level of interference in her life increased. She learned to keep it to herself, and eventually wearied of the emotional energy that internal debate demanded. Eventually, it seemed disrespectful of her pain and what it meant, but that also might be just another rationalization.

“What is under consideration may give you the release you seek.”

That got her attention.

***

The next day she followed the directions to the almost windowless, squat, blocky building with an uninformative name in Italian on the doors. She presented her I.D. at the desk and was escorted to an elevator that travelled down several floors. A young man in a white lab coat led her through three sets of locked doors, then left her on a balcony overlooking a large room. She gazed down on rows of human figures on tables laying bathed in soft blue light, surrounded by equipment. 

The illumination emanated from a large glass-walled structure like an aquarium at the far end of the room. In the center of the tank, a huge textured sphere floated, partially obscured by hazy fluid. The surface of the translucent sphere scintillated, evanescent patterns rippling and coruscating across the surface, slower pulsations of other shades of blue appearing deeper within. 

She gazed on the dimly lit assembly of apparently sleeping people stretching away. As her eyes adjusted, she could see they were all connected by wires and tubing back to the tank. 

The light was soothing, almost hypnotic. Michelle felt drawn to the prospect of laying down to join these slumbering figures for whatever project this was if that meant some kind of release from the prison of her grief. That feeling was immediately checked by the slow burn of her anger, the accumulated resentments of having her life manipulated and controlled by outside forces.  All that sent her back in memory to what she might be leaving behind, and she hesitated.

“Tell me about your dreams,” said the voice beside her.

THE END