BONDS

 

ROBERT REED

 

Robert Reed is the author of eleven novels and a big quivering mass of shorter works. His novella, “A Billion Eves”, won the Hugo in 2007. Reed is now at work on a trilogy of narrow novels set in his Marrow/Great Ship universe. The first book, now titled The Slayer’s Son, should be published in mid-2013 from Prime Books. The author lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, with his wife and daughter.

 

 

The Article

 

AN INTESTINAL AILMENT led to post-surgical complications, and the young man had to spend three or four months in a long-term care facility. Or it was a sick gall bladder and half a year of recovery. Or the patient began with a sexual correction or enhancement and perhaps has never fully recovered. There must be a true story, and maybe it is illuminating. But Desmond Allegato seems to prefer opacity and rumor. The only detail common to every account is Havenwood – a small private institution where the twenty-five-year-old language arts student could heal in peace, contemplating life and his place in a universe awash with profound forces and tiny people.

Havenwood is famous for its professional, trustworthy staff. Desmond Allegato’s case has never been discussed by any employee, present or past. But that seamless secrecy allows pretenders to step forward, each claiming to have been a patient during the right months, and to have met the genius long before he defined our century.

As a rule, you can spot liars and charlatans; they are ones full of self-affirming details.

The casual, inadequate witness rarely gets much of an audience. But they are the most reliable voices to us. Those people describe a handsome but dangerously skinny, very pale young man. Most never knew his name. Desmond took his meals in a room that he shared with an old laptop. His days and long evenings were spent playing first-person shooter games and FreeCell. Nobody remembers visiting family or friends, though it was understood that he was riding his parents’ health insurance. On those rare occasions when he emerged from his quarters, the gaunt youngster spent his breath complaining about the awful food and his cheap computer and how poor he was, and bored, and if only there was some way to make fat money fast.

These are the stories that appeal to a cynical, scientifically schooled audience. Allegato is our shared obsession, and we have a favorite story – an anecdote that broke while The Bonds That Free became a runaway bestseller. An elderly gentleman was living in a nursing home. His family was visiting when a stock photo of Allegato appeared on Fox News, and he announced that he knew that face. Then after pulling together his thoughts, he explained how he met “the kid” at Havenwood. They were neighbors and shared a nurse, some middle-aged black gal, and thinking about the nurse brought a wide, appreciative smile.

It seems their nurse had quite a few things to say on the subject of Allegato. “Mr. Locked Away,” as she called him. She never offered medical details, but she insisted that he was an odd broken child, and broken in ways no doctor could fix. Mr. Locked Away didn’t want people. He preferred to sit alone, which was unnatural. The boy didn’t have one friend in the world, and that’s what he deserved. And while every patient had his sickness and his special burdens, that idiot white boy was in such a miserable place, and he didn’t even know it.

Then came a morning when some unspecified incident put her over the brink. Entering the old man’s room, she announced that she’d had enough of Mr. Locked Away. Several years later, sitting with his daughters and grandchildren, the witness described how the nurse railed against the waste of being alone so much, never being touched in good ways. Then she stopped talking. Which was an unusual event, he mentioned. Silence was peculiar. The nurse worked quickly with him, and then, glancing at the time, she broke into a dreamy smile, and he asked what she was thinking, and that’s when she winked in a conspiratorial fashion.

“I’ve got a fix,” she said. “I know just how.” And with that, she returned to Allegato’s room.

The old man made a few assumptions. He didn’t confess his state of mind, not with the little grandkids sitting close, but he had made no secret of liking his nurse, particularly her “well-built” qualities. It was easy to imagine his mind – a frank firm woman in her forties would seem like a wish answered, and there sat that eighty year-old fellow with his new knee and happy visions about what was happening down the hall. His hearing wasn’t the best, but he listened. He thought he heard voices and then he definitely heard something fall, and that was followed by larger crunching sounds. An attendant jogged past the room. Another door opened. Then the Allegato kid was shouting about the unfairness and why did she do that, and the nurse said she was sorry but accidents happen. Except Allegato would have none of that. “Then why did you pick it up and throw it down a second time, if it was a damned accident?”

More attendants arrived. The nurse was standing in the hallway, telling her supervisor how sorry she was and she would replace the machine.

From his room, Allegato cried out, “When?”

“When you listen to what I’ve been telling you,” she said. And with that she walked away, not smiling but definitely proud, her posture full of certainty, her fine full chest carried up high where it belonged.

 

 

TWO DAYS LATER, the kid had a new laptop and the hallway had a new nurse, and the incident was officially closed. And two days after that, our favorite witness happened to shuffle past his neighbor’s room and found the door opened. The kid was working with his new computer. He usually played idiot games, but not today. He was writing, displaying the swift competent typing of a professional student.

“What’s the project?” the old man asked.

Allegato had fine features and black hair, and whatever his ailment, he was beginning to regain weight and strength. “I’m writing an article,” he said. “It’s going to make me money.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’m a very good writer,” the kid said, eyes focused on the screen.

“That’s great,” the old man said, not caring one way or another. Then after a long silence, he asked, “So what’s your article about?”

“Something occurred to me the other day.” No mention was made of altercations or reassigned nurses. “You just think we’re living in different rooms. But then I realized that we aren’t.”

“Aren’t what?”

A mysterious smile broke out. “Apart,” Allegato said.

“We’re not?”

“Not ever.”

“So we’re joined somehow? Is that it?”

“Yeah, there this bond between us,” the kid said.

It seemed like a singularly silly notion, and the old man giggled, which didn’t offend anyone because nobody else seemed to be listening. And then he asked, “Do you really believe that?”

“Hell no. But that’s what I’m claiming.” And then Allegato finally glanced at his neighbor, and their last conversation ended with a simple request.

“Shut the door on your way out.”

 

 

The Bonds that Free

 

THE ARTICLE WAS published but only barely—a short-lived web magazine offered Desmond a hundred dollars for the honor and then paid him nothing. But among its few readers was a jobless editor/minor author/amateur psychologist named Clarence Parcy. Where most people found nut-cake baked from obscure reasoning, Parcy saw one grand idea begging to be domesticated. An exaggerated resumé and promises of a book deal helped him meet the young author. Allegato proved to be a self-serious, aloof lad with no charm but an inflated and very useful ambition. Promises were made. A partnership was forged, and the next five years were spent building the future bestseller. Because the public wanted an expert, the author had to acquire an advanced degree. Desmond earned two quick literary doctorates from online universities. Because a serious professional needed a serious job, the young doctor formed the Chicago Institute of Interpersonal Bonding and Love – an incorporated endeavor that filled one corner of his bedroom. Because science lives on research, he and his mentor devised dozens of web surveys, dangling the possibility of cash in exchange for a moment of the world’s time. Mountains of data were given away for free. A small portion of those files were massaged to create charts and graphs, while the comments sections were dredged for tales of personal woe and adoration. And because the first goal of any genuine professional is to practice his craft, Dr. Allegato gave a series of lectures and little workshops, teaching select audiences about his extremely new theory about the nature of human beings and how vivid, living connections tie all of us together.

Those were the venues where Allegato mentioned his undefined surgery and the long, illuminating recovery. He brought notes but never referred to them, speaking from memory as the PowerPoint show churned past. Every participant signed an agreement not to record the important, confidential material. Only one authenticated video log survived until today. In it, the speaker looks older than his years, the wardrobe and gray dye in the black hair creating the portrait of the wise professor who had been through much and who might know what he was talking about. Despite a relentless smile, Allegato seemed remote, even chilly. Presumably that was why Parcy sat in the audience. A heavy-set man in his sixties, Parcy had a winner’s grin and an infectious manner that couldn’t be taught. No one ever remembers Allegato mentioning his associate. The two men in the video act as if they don’t know each other. Parcy is a nameless character sitting near the front of the rented hall, intrigued by every word and every chart, lifting his hand high whenever the group energy diminishes.

“Yes, sir,” Allegato says in the recording. Pointing off screen, he asks, “Do you have a question, sir?”

“No, just a comment.” The shaky phone-camera pans right. Parcy takes a moment to look back at the audience, making sure everyone feels involved. “I did some checking, sir,” he begins. “I can tell you’re smarter than me, and goodness knows, I don’t have half your education. And I’m sure this is all very obvious to you, this business of bonds forming around distinct personality types. But what do these bonds mean? And how can I use them in my life?”

“That’s more than a comment,” Allegato points out. “Those sound suspiciously like questions to me.”

Parcy breaks into a delightful laugh, dragging the audience into his pleasure. “I guess you’re right, sir.”

A smattering of laughter has to die away. Then with a tone both caring and a little wary, Allegato asks, “Do you have children, sir?”

“One son, yes.”

That happened to be true.

Allegato nods. “And are you close to him?”

“Very close, yes.”

“So that’s your son sitting beside you?”

His ‘son’ is a sleepy fellow in his seventies who looks up in surprise.

The lecture hall fills with hard laughter. Parcy is still giggling when he says, “No, no. Brad lives in Arizona, with his wife and twins.”

“But you said you were close to him,” Allegato says.

“Yes.” Parcy frowns and looks at his hands. “Oh, wait. I understand. I’m not talking about Brad. I’m talking about the bond between us.”

“Because that’s what is real to you.”

The audience shifts in the chairs, whispering.

“That’s not to say your boy is inconsequential.” Allegato needs a pointed finger to underscore the implications. “The human species acts like a very complicated molecule. And what is a molecule? It is a mixture of elements, some similar and some very different, all linked together by powerful, powerful bonds. For instance, hydrogen is an elemental gas that burns. Oxygen is an element that supports burning. Yet the molecule born from that fire is water. Hydrogen and oxygen are still present, but what we see is a delicious essential liquid composed of the bonds between these most common ingredients.”

The audience probably doesn’t understand the concept, such as it is. But the air fills with interested noises and whispered questions.

Parcy nods, seemingly ready to surrender the stage.

But Dr. Allegato won’t let him go. “Now tell me the truth, sir. I want to know about your son.”

“What about him?”

“How strong is this bond between you and Brad?”

The son hasn’t spoken to his father in a decade, lending the moment its poignant life. Parcy drops his gaze, saying, “Well. Honestly, we have had our troubles.”

An empathetic nod is followed by, “I see. I see.”

“There was a fight. A while back, and maybe it was my fault. And since then we haven’t been keeping up like we should.”

“Sir, I am sorry for your difficulties,” Allegato says. This is where his natural remoteness helps; the words are compassionate but his mouth gives them heft and a clinical tone. “However, if I might, sir, I would like to point out that there are no problems between you and your son. Sadness and shame are wasted when they aren’t applied to the correct part of the equation. Which is, as I have said –”

“The bond,” another voice cries from the back.

The lecture hall feels alert, involved. Everybody watches the young gray doctor nodding, seemingly gathering his thoughts. Then for nothing but the minimal cost of attending, he gives them an idea that in another two years will make him wealthy. “Every person is unique,” he says. “But each of us can be categorized according to his or her properties. There is a periodic table to the human species. I have mapped it. In nature, each element is fundamental. Each plays best with certain elements – like hydrogen joining with oxygen. Those bonds are stable and useful, and yes, the same can be said for people. But we waste so much of our lives worrying about what we cannot change. It’s the quality of our bonds that brings us happiness or despair. Some bonds are essential, others dangerous. The trick is to know how to manage these powerful, ultimately beautiful forces.”

Hands rise and voices call out. One woman wants help with a difficult husband. Another is grieving her dead, difficult mother. One loud man wonders how bonds can help him sell cars.

But Dr. Allegato is a professional, and professionals deal with one patient at a time. Focusing on Parcy, he says, “First of all, forget your son. You have no son. What you have is a bond that is sick and unstable, and what you need to do is restructure and reconfigure the other bonds in your life. Only then will you be able to offer your son a new, more stable bonding.”

“But how can I do all that?” the suffering father asks. “I’m not a strong person.”

“None of us are strong,” says Dr. Allegato. “But of course, that doesn’t matter. It is our bonds that hold the energy of the world.”

“Do you think so?”

“I know it, and I have tests I can give you,” Allegato says. “I’m also developing a series of exercises that can be tailored to different elemental personalities. At the end of a long weekend, I promise, you will have the bonds you need, and you’ll drink in the energies borrowed from a universe that will give and give.”

 

 

The Unknown Element

 

MAYBE THE FATHER and his estranged son would have reconnected in the future – an event full of significance and press releases, no doubt. But men of Parcy’s age and physical condition often die with their first major coronary. Striking on the eve of publication was a coincidence, or it was the inevitable outcome of long hours making pretty the author’s stilted prose. Some claim that Parcy was suffering regrets about the project. Why didn’t he just steal the idea from the original article and put himself before an eager public? But he lacked Allegato’s marketable looks. And besides, regrets would have required confidence about the book’s success.

Confidence seemed ludicrous. Initial orders were sluggish, and the tepid early reviews used the words: ‘Contrived,’ and ‘Complicated’, and ‘Unconvincing.’ Parcy told several friends that his last big gamble had failed. Then he died and his body was found by his cleaning lady, and the autopsy and belated inquest found no substantial reason for a criminal investigation.

The sudden loss of his partner didn’t seem to sadden Allegato, which cocked a few eyebrows. But the earliest believers generally found the man’s reserve to be a comfort. Allegato spoke at the funeral. “The bonds between us and the deceased still exist,” he reminded everyone, “and it is each of our responsibilities to keep the bonds alive and helpful. Which I should add is exactly how Clarence would have wanted it.”

Clarence would have preferred money. He was guaranteed thirty per cent of Allegato’s take, which seemed like nothing for the first few weeks. But the online campaigns outperformed expectations and a pair of talk-show appearances went very well. Then one actress’ speech turned viral – a five minute sermon about how she had tried a thousand self-help guides before this and none worked and Bonds was remarkable. She was already at the Third Tier and on a good day she could see the bonds surrounding her, brilliant and lovely, tying her to her boyfriend and children and of course her many supportive and lovely fans too.

Orders jumped from steady to torrential. In an age of e-readers and wide scale thievery, it was impossible to know how many consumers were remaking their lives in the Allegato Way. Ten million Americans was a common guess, with a hundred million practitioners worldwide after the first year. Then the movement struck China. The One-Child policy left people desperate to cherish their scarce, valuable bonds, and seeing the wise Chinese embrace the concept caused a second, much larger wave of interest across the Western world.

Fifteen months later the second edition of Bonds was released – a minor reworking that dropped Parcy’s name as a contributor, assuring the young social modeler of one hundred per cent of the profits. The International Institute of Interpersonal Bonding and Love did even better. Good weekends saw ten thousand clinics on six continents. Motivated teachers flinging out jargon and smiles were transforming lives. One neutral study claimed that the Allegato Way was more effective at enhancing happiness than any religion and most psychoactive drugs. Other studies were less certain, but they didn’t gain the media foothold. Add the machinery designed to measure bonds and enhance their power, and it was possible to believe that ninety households out of hundred were blessed with Dr. Allegato’s presence.

Yet as successes grew, the man became more of a mystery. Even employees who saw him on an irregular basis were perplexed by his manners. Desmond could be pleasant in conversation, but he usually ignored the room full of corporate officers, preferring the DS held close to his face. He made decisions when decisions were necessary, and when it seemed essential he could meet a national leader or open a new hospital, mustering a passable charm for several minutes straight. But the man’s only true friend seemed to be Desmond Allegato. His ideal day involved solitude inside one of his dozen mansions, playing games designed by a team that built games only for him. Beautiful women and a few men tried to entice that billionaire, but besides a few laughable/sad adventures, nothing came of their bold advances. The man had a pathological indifference to the rest of us, and that only made him seem more brilliant and intriguing and perhaps tragic.

For twenty years his books and courses and hardware continued to sell, and there was more praise than complaints about the results, and there was no reason to suspect that would ever change.

Then, last March, without a whisper of warning, astonishing news broke. The corporate office panicked. The announcement was absorbed and often misunderstood and, according to several sources, the vice-presidents told one very loyal officer to find out where the Master was, and then they started to battle about who would deliver the thunderbolt and how.

The officer had ambitious and very bold bonds. On his own initiative, he drove to the Master’s favorite house. There were rings of security to pass through and, getting wind of this event, the vice-presidents called their man to order him home again. But the officer was already inside. He kept imagining the thrill of sharing what he knew with the world’s greatest man. Sitting in what seemed like a random room, the fifty-year-old game player was filling a very comfortable chair, holding a controller while armored gnomes lived in three dimensions, fighting hard for dominion over nothing.

“Sir,” the officer said.

The Master continued to play, apparently not hearing him.

Again, louder this time, he said, “Sir.”

The game was paused. But it took Allegato some time to pull back from the place where he had been, rubbing his eyes and sighing twice before looking over his shoulder at the intruder.

“What is it?” he asked.

“There’s been an announcement, sir.”

But Allegato raised his hand first, silencing him with the gesture. “Your name is Greg, isn’t it?”

An eleven year veteran of the company, Gary knew well enough to nod and say, “Yes, sir.”

“Okay. What’s this announcement?”

“Researchers in Australia designed some new equipment. They were using it to study quantum effects. And they just determined that you were right.”

Allegato had no reaction, save for another small sigh. Then a look of doubt came into the still-handsome face, and he calmly asked, “What am I right about?”

“There are bonds,” Greg/Gary stated.

“What do you mean? Bonds where?”

“The air is full of them, and they’re real, and just like we’ve always said, they weave us together.”

“No,” the great man said.

“But it’s true, sir. They just had a press conference...”

“I meant ‘No, I am not right.’” Allegato picked up the game control, studying a partly disemboweled creature. “I made it all up to begin with. So you see? I can’t be right. I’m just lucky.”

 

 

A Team of Dreamers

 

GOSSIP AND APOCRYPHAL stories make unreliable sources, and that’s true with groundbreaking science as well as with affairs of the heart. Something intriguing lay inside an ocean of data. But even the Australian researchers were uncertain what their work meant, and they said so many times. Yes, the universe was laced with subtle quantum relationships. That was always known, at least for the last century-plus. And yes, the human mind seemed to be connected to other minds, including evidence of persistent influences shared between friends and family. The first news conference was wrapped around those modest claims. Then a reporter asked, “What do these bonds look like?” The “bonds” didn’t look like anything. The effects were invisible and always tiny, and everybody at the podium said as much. But once used, the telltale word was embraced. “Bonds” was the most popular word in the world now. It took another three days before the science team realized the significance of the word, and they released a joint statement to warn the public away from a label that delivered history and color and a lot of money-making expectations.

Yes, something new had been found. But the discoverers were hardware savants armed with competent software. Those Australians were in no special place to assess the new phenomenon, and the real groundbreaking work required theorists possessing special training and the interest and a properly warped nature, plus that rarest blessing, which was the free time to invest in the chase.

We are the hunters.

Counts vary, but there are about fifty of us worldwide. We know each other mostly through webcams and emails. Some of us are graduate students, others tenured professors, while the largest group are presently unattached to any major institution – the result of economic downturns and little scandals, bouts with mental illness and probably more than a few cases of plain stubbornness.

Except by reputation, we didn’t know one another before this. Yet now we’re in the same grand endeavor, and bonds have formed. We talk about this daily. And we use the word “bonds” without qualifiers or scorn. Our new mathematics has been woven into the physical research, and we can put numbers to the ways that the fifty of us are bonded. We aren’t one mind united by a holy quest, no. But in a given twenty-four hour period, on average, the fifty of us share one-and-a-third thoughts that otherwise wouldn’t have existed.

Allegato demands our attention. Last year, most of us didn’t give a damn about the man. Yet while the media keep simplifying and misunderstanding our work, they can’t stop talking about linked minds and Allegato’s innate genius. It pisses us off. Every month, a fresh edition of Bonds is released, and each volume culls a few of our equations to illustrate points that were never intended. Doesn’t the world understand that the man is a phony? How can brilliant people like us be so unappreciated while his organization of con artists and tag-alongs continues to swallow up billions in new revenue?

That’s why the old hermit can’t be ignored. The world talks about Allegato, and some of those thoughts leak our way. Our math gives us a reliable number: We endure six and a third Allegato moments every day, and some of us think about him quite a lot more than that, particularly now.

Several months ago, one of the Master’s officers contacted us, and because my name was first on the latest paper, I ended up being the rich First-Bonder.

The young woman had two tasks: to show me a pretty face and a polite, respectful manner, and once that goal was met, to arrange a video conference between my group and hers.

Twenty-three of our fifty were present at the meeting. Some of us expected Allegato at their end, but of course he wasn’t present. One of us asked about the man, and we were told that he was quite healthy – did we think otherwise? – and he was certainly watching the feed but preferred to keep a low profile, which was everyone’s right, and since our time was precious, shouldn’t we move things along?

“Things” included us describing exactly what we were doing and what it meant to science and human existence.

Every living mind was connected to every other mind. “Bond” was a poor word, implying some sort of profoundly stubborn joining. There wasn’t anything like that, at least not that we could see. What our work showed us were influences and the ghostly quantum motion of information. “Thoughts” didn’t do justice to the concept. In a random day, there were anywhere from five hundred to a thousand thoughts that would pop into existence inside a healthy adult cortex. And yes, that seemed like a lot, but the number needed a proper context. Most “thoughts” went unnoticed by the conscious mind. The average person ignored a thousand “thoughts” every minute, and the ghostly glimmers arriving from outside were usually weaker than those generated by the resident brain.

In the media, self-described experts were promising that the world could be woven together with some kind of a telepathic Internet. But that was a farfetched if not out-and-out ridiculous thought. There was a lot of neurological rain falling, but most of it was senseless and, in any storm, who can count individual drops?

We ran out of thoughts that we were willing to share verbally. And when the silence was noted, the pretty lead woman smiled and straightened her back, telling us, “Well, thank you. This has been very fun and informative, and I know that all of us feel energized by this last hour. Thank you very much.”

The conference ended with a blank screen.

Three hours later, the PR wing of Allegato’s organization went into overdrive. A clipped and deeply misleading version of our conference was given to the world, and with it came words attributed to nobody. That’s when we learned that our work was lending meat to bones laid down by the famous man himself. According to the nameless spokesperson, Dr. Desmond Allegato believed this was the moment to step forward and accept the duty for which he was born. He wasn’t merely a deep thinker and a grand scientist, but in a world tied together by infinite Bonds, there had to be a leader, and who would be half as perfect as him?

 

 

The Bondless Man

 

AS MENTIONED, THERE are fifty of us, give or take. Some of us feel like “grand scientists”, but most realize that he or she has some narrow strength as well as broad limitations in a venue that was invisible just a year ago. On the whole, we love our work. We accept being collaborative. We respect some peers and despise others. Lying awake in the night, each of us contemplates pseudo-telepathy and quantum mysticism, and we imagine future successes while our sleepless minds play with erratic and lovely high mathematics. But there is no way to avoid thinking about Allegato – he is never “Dr. Allegato” to us – and that turn of the mind never helps any of us fall back to sleep.

The long hermitage seems finished. The man who never appeared in public is suddenly ubiquitous. As in old times, he has begun holding little seminars with select audiences, but this time cameras are invited so that the video can be diced and carefully remixed and then released as web events and extended commercials. The old salesman looks handsome and respectable and maybe a little heavy. But Allegato walks quickly on a small brightly-lit stage, and with a strong certain voice he speaks about Bonds and how they define so much of us, and every religion stems from the Bonds, and all intellect and even the smallest emotion too.

His last twenty years have been spent in contemplation, he says, and what he has learned is enormous. Eight Tier is the highest level on the official Allegato Scale, but he is a genuine Twelve, living in a world full of bright Bonds that are lovely and obedient to him. In one more year, perhaps sooner, he will reach the ultimate Tier, which is so important and powerful that it doesn’t wear a number, and at that point he will know how to influence most of what happens in the world.

The world probably isn’t seeing the genuine Allegato. That’s our best guess, at least. Digital invention has reached a point where any damn thing can be put together out of zeros and ones, but we know what we know. The cold soul from the old video could never have become so relaxed and smooth and charming, and particularly not after years spent playing his games. I knew that immediately. But somebody else in our group saw the deeper meaning. “That’s not our Desmond,” she announced. “That’s Parcy with a new body and voice. Don’t you see?”

We see too much. The man’s fine face is everywhere, and he makes it into the news most days. His first new book in decades was released just last month, and I read it in one long bad evening and then tried to get my peers to look at the words. The old Allegato was a slippery character who at least delivered a comforting product. But this new incarnation isn’t a simple commercial machine. He wants power. He is religion. His agenda is broad and well-planned, although it is impossible to know just what the ultimate goal is. Does his organization want to bump up the profits another notch, or is this some wild bid to gain a chokehold on civilization?

Some of my associates read the book, and a few of them were appropriately offended. But as much as we might worry about a new prophet, and as angry as it makes us to see our smart words and math used to bolster his faith, the bulk of our days are still spent trying to comprehend the nature of everything. And while I was reading Allegato’s Bible for a second time, an associate in Cairo pieced together three other people’s work and then added something of his own, making a discovery that nobody expected, or wanted, or could ignore.

 

 

I’M NOT SURE when I decided to pay Allegato a visit. The idea was a whisper between louder thoughts, and then it was a possibility enjoyed over pancakes. I played with the imagery for several days, writing conversations without bothering about the mechanics of how to make the meeting real. And I can’t say for certain when I decided to make the attempt. But I was sitting in my little office when I saw the obvious possibility: maybe this wasn’t my idea at all. Maybe the fabled seer was genuine, and he was guiding me, and I had no power or right to deny what he saw as an important step in his inevitable rise.

The face of true madness looks this way – hard and obvious and always practical.

Allegato owned twelve or fifteen mansions, and maybe part of Samoa. But I knew about the residence near the corporate headquarters, and a four-hour drive would put me at a reasonable starting place. In my mind were two scenarios: I would be expected in some fashion, or I would be turned away by the first layer of security. One scenario seemed likely but both had their appeal. What I didn’t expect was to find several thousand people ahead of me. A town of pitched tents and rain ponchos had grown up on a horse pasture. My IQ might be the stuff of wonders, but it seemed that everyone has sufficient genius when it came to this kind of quest, and I was stunned.

After parking in the mud, I walked through a steady rain. Strangers approached, asking my Tier and my name. I made noises, but nobody was really listening. There was a good deal of mental in some faces, but it was a lucid woman who winked at me before saying, “I feel Him, I see His lovely Bonds, and He has left us.”

“Left us?” I asked, imagining the Pacific Island.

“When the final Tier takes Him, a light will sing to all of us and we will know His splendor.”

Shoring up my frail sanity, I reached the gate and a guardhouse.

I expected robots or at least brusque professionals. What I found instead was a bored and very fat man sitting behind bars and glass. He didn’t speak to me, and I don’t know if he heard me. I was just another idiot, and he did what he did a hundred times every day: he swung a thumb at the panel fixed to a tiny detached kiosk.

An automated voice asked for a name and fingerprints, and I think the rough screen took a sample of my skin. Then a warmer voice cautioned me that the Master was deep into meditations but cared for me and wished to hear my thoughts. Clarence Parcy had used a deceptive resume to win a first meeting with the young Desmond, and I took the same approach. I wasn’t just working on pivotal research into the nature of Bonds. I was linchpin of the operation, and I had some very big news to deliver firsthand.

That voice said, “Thank you,” and then added, “Wait please while your request is given every attention.”

Thirty seconds into the wait, I felt like an idiot.

Seventeen seconds later – I was timing the event – a third, decidedly more feminine voice gave her apologies and said thank you before sadly admitting that no meeting would be possible today.

The idiot walked back through the squalid, muddy camp, fending off the sober, happy looks of madmen.

I was climbing into my car when the fat guard appeared. He wasn’t running, but judging by his gasping and the wet muddy uniform, he had tried to run and fallen at least once. Seeing me, he waved. I climbed back into the rain, and he asked, “How many are watching us?”

“Everybody,” I admitted.

He said, “Shit,” and took a long look at everyone. Then something in the sorry situation became funny, and he laughed. “It’s never happened before. We’ve got rules, codes. I knew what to do. But eleven years at the gate, and you’re the first. I think even the software was startled when he said, ‘Yes.’”

“Allegato,” I said.

“Dr. Allegato,” he whispered. Then he turned, telling me, “Keep close. If they get wind of this, we could have a goddamn riot on our hands.”

 

 

The Article

 

THE EXPECTED ROBOTS lived inside the big house, and not one had a face.

A bipedal machine offered me a place for my muddy shoes and coat, and then it asked if I wanted food and drink, and when I said that I wanted nothing, thank you, it combed its software for the next viable topic. “Sir, if I may... which office do you hold in the company?”

“None,” I said.

“Are you a political figure or a Nobel laureate?”

“No and not yet, but maybe soon.”

A smaller, even less human robot wheeled itself between us. “He wants you and please come with me.”

I followed. A mansion that was grand on the outside was decidedly ordinary within. Room after room passed by, every door open and each furnished in the same ascetic style – white carpeting and screens on three walls, no windows and no second doors, and in the middle of every room, the same model of lounge chair. The chairs that had been used were outnumbered by chairs still wearing plastic. No room had two items of furniture. What would be the need? Every surface looked clean, but that could have been the result of busy robots. The sole tenant remained a mystery until I was twenty rooms into his quiet, quiet palace.

My guide stopped, studying me with its cameras. “This is an honor for you,” it claimed. “Treat it as such, and the intrusion will be forgiven.”

I dripped my “Thank you” in sarcasm.

The only closed door in the house was opened, and a jointed limb waved me into the only occupied room.

The man was heavier than his present doppelganger, and what hair remained was white and clustered about the ears. Desmond Allegato looked healthy if not fit. He was sitting in the middle of the room, eyes focused on one of the giant screens. I expected to see gnomes in battle, and I was wrong. Various geometric shapes were dressed in bright colors, and the famous man was moving the figures about a landscape that possessed the illusions of three dimensions and endless size.

I stood just inside the doorway, waiting.

Allegato’s hands moved through the air, interfacing with controls that I couldn’t see. Then the shapes froze in place, and a subtle rumbling ended, and he looked at me and past me and then at the floor in front of my stocking feet, telling nobody in particular, “Make this brief.”

I wanted nothing else.

He turned ahead, saying, “You have news about the Bonds?”

“Yes.”

“I keep up on the papers, you know. I recognized your name.”

“This news hasn’t been published yet.”

“So you said.” He gave the ceiling a skeptical stare, and something in that gesture told me one obvious fact that I should have guessed. Whatever the man had done with his life, he managed it while pushing through a crushing case of shyness.

The shy man gave my face one brief look. Then talking to the ceiling again, he asked, “What have you learned?”

“Bonds are important,” I said.

A small laugh ended with one heavy sigh, and silence.

“In fact,” I continued, “they are more important than we ever realized. They aren’t just little mathematical tricks that connect minds. They possess matter and energy that tie into the dark parts of the universe. The universe exists because of the bonds. There’s no more pre-eminent player in the universe at large.”

I was hoping for curiosity or revulsion, any sign of interest. Instead he acted mildly offended, asking, “Are you upset about something?”

“Humans,” I said.

“What?”

“We’re nothing, or nearly so.”

“Are we?”

“The math tells us that. When you and the Method liken humans to elements, when you talk about hydrogen and oxygen, you make a big mistake. It doesn’t work that way. Elements have mass. They have nuclei and presence. But the bonds we’re talking about – not your Bonds, the real ones – are far more profound and universal than the little impurities that we represent.”

He said, “Oh.”

“My mind and yours are the smallest part of the equation, contrivances built out of baryonic residues.”

Something here was humorous. He laughed and said, “Baryonic? I don’t know that word.”

“Ordinary matter,” I explained. “It’s the smallest component of the universe.”

Allegato squinted, and I realized he was tied into the web now.

“Dark matter and dark energy,” he read aloud. “Is that what your bonds are made of?”

“They’re part of them, but there’s even more energy from other dimensions. Which is the most astonishing, unsettling part of this, at least in my mind.” I lifted my arms and put them down again, trying not to shout. “We think we matter. We tell each other that we count for something. But we don’t. All those wishes for free will and power, but our thoughts predate us and will outlive us, and they inhabit our heads only because we just happen to have a place that welcomes them.”

“I need to think about that,” he said softly.

But my thinking was finished. “Everything in my head is determined by other forces, forces that have remained invisible until now.”

Allegato frowned, something tasting sour. Then he laughed abruptly and looked at the white carpet between us. “You know, I don’t read faces or voices particularly well. I never have. But under these circumstances, I would have guessed that you would sound somewhat happier than this, telling me about these great discoveries.”

I wasn’t happy. I was furious, and it was important to explain why. “Your people are using my work and your likeness. I don’t know if you realize this, but they’re making enormous claims with no basis in fact.”

“Well,” he said to the carpet. Then the eyes returned to the screen and its geometric players. “I give my people considerable latitude. If they think they can enhance my company, then I wish them all the best.”

“They’re making you into some kind of god,” I shouted.

He sighed and said, “Well, yes. It is an aggressive scheme.”

“And you approve?”

He shrugged. Allegato was the master of the indifferent, world-weary shrug. Then he finally looked at my eyes and left his eyes on me, saying, “According to everything that you have learned, there is no ‘me’. I am a... what was the word? Contrivance, yes. I am virtually nonexistent. Which makes me blameless, the same as you and everyone else on this little planet.”

Again, he offered the perfect shrug.

I breathed and looked at my shaking hands.

Then, with the careful tone of a professional, he told me, “You should try and relax. If these thoughts are as big as you think, then maybe they know what they are doing. Or they don’t, and what can you do about it?”

“I don’t know,” I managed. “What can I do?”

Dr. Allegato turned away, and lifting his hands into the air, he said, “Try closing the door on your way out.”