The fold in Bexie’s Think Space was so tiny as to almost escape attention — no more than a wrinkle in a bedsheet, really, a slight ridge that rubbed so gently on his consciousness he could have missed it.
Perhaps he would not have found it if the environment wasn’t so dark or so featureless, or if he wasn’t so intensely focused on his own inner workings, wasn’t straining so hard against the Central Inspector’s brainwashing code.
But Bexie was focused, and he was fighting — anxious people can hear their bodies working, the phrase came unbidden — and it was there, a spiderweb line of midnight blue against infinite darkness.
Look for the blue in your Think Space, Kinji had said.
He reached to the fold, understanding even then that it was an exit, and understanding even then exactly how dangerous a game Kinji had decided to play for him.
Underneath came a faded blue glow.
And a crease.
The difference came immediately.
There was no pressure here, no cold trickle of the doctor bot’s conditioner. No hum in the background that was so soft and so incessant that it could be heard only when removed.
In that instant, the concept of what freedom meant exploded inside Bexie Montgomery’s brain.
Exaltation.
A warmth inside him.
He was free, he thought, as he stretched his mind, grasping for input, looking for ideas.
But he found nothing.
He tried again.
Again, nothing.
The fold was a self-contained capsule, a lifeboat, maybe, shelter from the storm, but barren, devoid of supplies of anything else that might sustain him. No vision, no newsfeed, no people. The realization crushed him.
“Get me out of here! Get me out of here!”
He pounded on the walls like they were a coffin’s lid until his capacity for fear had been drained.
Then.
Only then.
Did he calm himself.
Let his mind probe the shell of the fold, but sit in the middle of calmness, thinking. Let his thought create a light for himself, stretching out into the darkness.
Using his thought only, he added a table and a soft chair, which he sat down in, and from which he imagined a surround screen and a blueprint, and as he thought of each, the images formed, complete with the design pages of the soup delivery system Kinji had shown him.
He understood it all, then.
This was a lifeboat, a safe place that the Central Inspector couldn’t reach, but also a place where he had nothing but himself. Living here was like being buried alive.
How long, he thought, would he have to wait?
It was then, peering into the display that he felt the presence of Kinji Hall again, the pressure of her fingers hard over his skin, the soft whisper of her voice. He felt a lever then, sensed her essence.
He drew a finger to the screen.
Toggled the lever.
And a river of thought came to him.