Dome Chapter 9
The Question
Day five, and while Winsor’s work was coming along well, N-85 had asked him to participate in a meditation exercise. It is her belief that through rigorous training, he can retain and maintain the discipline to be efficient and escape Mother’s wrath.
N-85 sits on the floor in front of Winsor. Her legs crossed, her back stiff, neck as high as possible. Eyes closed.
He stares at her, the contour of her neck smooth and elegant.
All that is within him keeps him from putting his finger out to just touch her neck and know what it feels like.
“Are you ready?” Her voice awakens him.
He makes a few grunts as he mimics her position.
“I’m ready,” he forces his thighs down to try to look as serene as her.
“Take a deep breath and close your eyes,” N-85’s chest expands as her ribcage lifts up.
Winsor looks at the small ribcage.
How different it is from his. Still covered by her shirt, but noticing something odd about it. As if there was something else hiding underneath that was different from him. Perhaps her shirt just fell in a strange way.
He follows her instructions, filling his lungs.
“Now,” her voice gentle but sterile, “repeat after me: Clear the mind…”
He repeats.
“Clear the heart…”
Again, he repeats.”
“I am nothing.”
“I am no—” the word, stuck in his throat. Something wrong, something he knows he should not say.
N-85’s eye opens, noticing Winsor’s stumble.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” Winsor’s shoulders drop, “I just can’t say it. I don’t understand what this ‘nothing’ part means.”
Her head turns sideways towards him.
“Nothing exists except Mother,” her tone matter-of-fact, “we exist in Mother’s imagination.”
Winsor’s cheek flops on his fist like a pouting child, “Why is Mother’s imagination so boring?”
A gasp of indignation escapes N-85’s chest. “Everything exists to be as efficient as possible.”
Winsor’s eyes squint. Something about that doesn’t seem right. He mulls that over in his brain as his subconscious finds the right words to put together, “Except for us.”
Nadia’s eyes expand, “What?”
He observes the words again in his head. Yes, that is right. There are some weird things about Citizens that don’t seem to fit. He had always noticed it, but no one has the answers. Perhaps N-85 can finally put the missing pieces together.
“Computers do everything here. Why make us if the computers are faster and smarter?”
N-85’s eyes squint at him, “What are you saying?”
Winsor sighs. The words aren’t coming out just right. “Why didn’t Mother imagine us like the computers?”
Her face scrunches, she’s listening to him but it’s as though he’s speaking another language to her, “Because we’re not computers.”
There, that’s it. “So, why are we acting like it? Why tell ourselves we don’t exist? The computers don’t have to.”
He looks into her eyes, but he can’t see if she understands. Maybe if he can show her.
He lifts his arm, “Why is this here?” He grabs it with his other hand, rubbing it, trying to show her how solid and real it is, “If we’re nothing, then why are we some—thing?”
N-85’s head jolts. She blinks, turning away. He knows somewhere in what he said, it was getting through; he felt the same feeling she must be feeling right now.
The words began to flow from him now, the questions that he had been asking and hoping for an answer.
“Doesn’t it seem strange to you that we have to sleep? Nothing else does. How can Mother be so efficient and yet create things that need more maintenance than the machines? We’re not even made of the same material—”
“It just is!” N-85’s eyes stare deep into his, not with anger but a pleading, begging him to stop.
He does.
She gets up and marches out the door.
Day Six and N-85 stares at the Mother Terminal. Her report has nothing but notes. Nothing to prove she moved the needle towards curing Winsor of his creativity. Evidence, perhaps, that it’s even spread to her.
Fear is tinged in her heart, but even more than that. A sadness dragging her heart down; everything that she was, the thought of being a Social Designer, gone, but to add to it, her reality fading by the second.
“N-85,” Mother’s voice pulls her back to life, “you seem distracted. Are you feeling well?”
She shakes her head. How to begin asking Mother the questions?
“I’m sorry,” her voice distant, “the subject has been raising existential questions. He asked me why we’re not like the machines.”
“Because you are not machines.”
“I said that, but—” her voice trails off.
“Complete your thought,” Mother’s voice, almost demanding.
N-85 looks down at her hand, her fingernails clenching so hard they left impressions on her palm.
Why?
From just past her palm, she sees it.
Haunting her.
Mocking her.
The little black speck on her desk. The mark on her perfect white desk.
Why is it there? Why is Mother doing this to her?
Heat wells up inside of her. Intensity.
Why did Mother bring Winsor into her life? Is she testing her? Is any of this even real? What is real? Is Mother even—
The words escape her mouth before she can think, “Why is this here?”
Mother’s voice, almost challenging her, “Repeat.”
“This speck. Why is there a speck on my desk?”
Mother’s voice calm, “N-85—”
“Why are there impressions in my skin when my nails dig into it?”
“N-85, you have interrupted your Mother Terminal. This is your first warning.”
The words mean nothing, her rage consumes her, “Why am I--? Why do I know that I am?”
“You show signs of creativity,” Mother sounds almost desperate.
“Why am I not like you? Why do I see, smell, touch, feel?”
“This thread violates guidelines. Any further discussion will result in demotion.”
There was Mother’s answer.
No, there had to be more. Any other answer Mother can give, and N-85 will gladly lap it up. Tell it to Winsor and shut him up.
Any other answer will do.
Tears well up in N-85’s eyes, “You must have an answer, Mother. I trust in you.”
The air thick with silence. She cannot breathe. She heaves, trying to fill her lungs with enough air.
“N-85,” Mother’s voice echoes. She leans in her heart, yearning for an answer. Waiting, willing, begging for an answer. “You have shown signs of being infected by creativity. An investigation has been opened. All records will be evaluated, and a decision shall be made on either demotion or termination.
The terminal shuts itself off and shrinks back into the wall. The wall panel slides to cover it with a small thud of judgment.
N-85 stares at the blank cement wall.
It stares back.
Her whole past, everything that she ever was, locked behind that cement wall.
She clasps her face in her hands. Her body convulsing as she tries to breathe.
Between her fingers, she sees the speck on the desk.
The hateful little black speck. The damnable wretch that mocks, ridicules, and destroys her world.
Yet in this moment, it does not mock. Rather, it lies, naked and bare, just a small speck on her desk.
Her hand clenches as she lifts her fist and hammers it into the speck.
Thud!
Again, and even harder.
Thud!
Her fist slams, her palms bruising.
Thud!
Red residue of blood encircles the speck.
She looks at it. Then her hand.
Fresh red blood smeared on the side of her palm.
A whisper escapes her lips, “What am I?”
Her eyes quiver with tears.
She folds her arms as her head collapses on the desk, her body shivering with her tears.