JO-JO RASTEROVICH

 

Jo-Jo was alive. Conscious. That much he knew.

That was all he knew. Other than that his head felt weird; full of a kind of buzzing that wasn’t painful yet but might be, like the beginning of a narc hangover right before you got the headache.

He tried shifting his limbs.

He felt unconstrained, sort of... but he had no sense of movement. Or vision. His eyes were open, he thought, but he saw nothing.

Smell? No. Crap. What? He remembered that he’d run for the egress scale and the floor had trapped him like an insect fallen in something sticky. Then nothing...

A flash of fear informed him that his brain chemistry remained the same. He wondered if he was in the floor of the chamber, subsumed into the Extro the same way the grenade had been.

The idea of it made him want to puke, if only he knew where his mouth was. He tried licking his lips but sensation eluded him.

The sense-deprivation caused his mind to fracture: one thought stream devoted solely to worrying while another began reasoning furiously.

The-Extro-had-formed-out-of-the-chamber-wall-So- if-I’ve-been-eaten-by-the-same-chamber-then-it’s- likely-that-it’s-a-part-of-something-larger-Maybe-the-whole-damn-drum-is-an-extro-the-size-of-a-space-station-How-fucking-scary-is-that-But-does-that-mean- a-single-consciousness?-or-many?-or-something-else—

The frantic thoughts were interrupted by the intrusion of a loud buzzing in his head. It sounded like an appliance about to run out of energy, a noisy, dysfunctional sound designed to grab the consumer’s attention.

You’ve-got-mine, he told the buzzing. Fuck-all-else-to- do-when-you-can’t-even-feel-your-dick.

A mournful thought, that one.

He grappled to mend the split in his conscious thought by pooling all his concentration towards the sound. It seemed to get louder as he gave it his full attention. After a time—who knows how long really, maybe no time?—the buzz turned into a wider sound. Now it was more like the random intonations of someone jackassing with their voice through an amplifier.

Moooooawwwwwoooooooaaaaa

The jackassing was worse than the buzz and Jo-Jo listened harder, hoping that it might transform again.

The next change came without warning: a sudden plunge from amplified wail into the clamour of voices, thousands, millions of them. He wanted to clamp his hands to his ears—if he could find his ears.

Shut up, he mind-screamed.

Obligingly, the voices vanished but the buzz came back, louder now, as if he’d somehow sensitised to it. He tried to think over the top of the noise but the sound seemed to have seeped into his mind and taken precedence over anything else.

The buzz and his mind. In his mind.

He tried sleeping but his conscious state wouldn’t alter. A pressure began to build around his thoughts. The buzz would send him crazy soon.

Again he tried moving his limbs. Nothing. Just the frustration of sensing—hoping—that his body was intact, but no longer his to govern.

His mind sped off again. The-Extro-thing-I’m-stuck- in-must-be-messing-with-my-brain-chemistry-So-why- hasn’t-it-suppressed-my-frigging-hearing-too?-This-is-frigging-torture-what-else-could-it-be-for?-Think-Think-Think-unless-the-buzz-is-the-way-in-Shut-the- fuck-up.

But the buzz got louder.

What-do-I-mean-the-way-in?-Maybe-the-buzz-is-a-data-flow?-The-Extro-is-the-data-flow-of-sound-But-I- thought-the-Extro-was-a-drum?-I-don’t-fucking-know- Fuck.

Jo-Jo gathered together the pieces of his rapidly dispersing sanity and gave it a go anyway, concentrating on the irritating noise until it broadened and became the jackass sound again.

It slipped from the jackass sound to a clamour of voices more quickly this time; though he had no measure to be sure of that, just an innate sense of time passing. He let his mind adjust to the voice-roar and listened as, occasionally, one voice rose above the rest.

After listening for a while, he caught one of the raised voices and tried to follow the sound back down into the flow. It slipped away from his auditory grasp almost immediately, but he became determined not to give up. Each time the voice peaked he grabbed for it.

Slowly, he began to feel its sense of individuality, timbre and pitch—as if he knew it.

Eventually it pulled away from him, but he floated back to the clamour and waited patiently for it to return.

When it rose from the flow, he was able to attune to it quickly, and the individual voice grew solid. This time his grasp felt sure, and it dragged him through a series of dips and peaks of sound that were speechlike, but not.

Eventually the rise-and-fall nature of it began to smooth and without warning it became a voice that he could clearly comprehend.

‘For fuck’s sakes, you fucking freaks!’ shouted the voice. ‘Somebody speak to me!’

Rast Randall, sounding thoroughly rattled. It comforted Jo-Jo to know that the woman felt fear.

‘Randall?’ He wasn’t sure if his lips formed the words or if it was a thought. ‘Randall, it’s Josef.’

‘Rasterovich? Where in fuck’s name are you?’

‘I don’t know. Tell me what happened to you.’

‘You made a run for the ‘zoon and fell. Then I feel like I’m sinking into the floor. That’s it. Next thing I know I’m awake in some kind of suspension. Can’t feel any-fucking-thing. Don’t even know if I need to piss.’

‘I’ve gotta theory.’

‘Shoot me with it.’

‘I think we’re inside the Extro. You saw it suck up the grenade. I think it did the same to us.’

‘You saying we’re its lunch?’

‘Shit, I dunno. Y’hear the buzz?’

‘Yeah it’s all I could fucking hear. Till you dropped in.’

‘I concentrated on the buzz real hard. For a long time. It started to change. Became more like a crowd. Just a big, big bunch of screaming voices. Nothin’ I could understand.’

‘And?’

‘The sound was worse than the buzz but I kept listenin’. After a while I heard some voices above the rest. Kept trying to follow them. Ended up latching onto yours.’

Randall went quiet.

‘Still there, Randall?’

‘You telling me we’re in some kinda sound machine? And somehow you found me over all those voices screaming?’

‘Maybe you were bellowing louder than the rest of them. You gotta better theory?’ Jo-Jo wanted to rub his forehead. In fact, he would have given away a body part just to feel again.

That was, if he still had body parts to give. What if his flesh didn’t exist any more? What if all that was left of his consciousness was this voice and these thoughts? Maybe the Extro had ‘evolved’ them.

Rast must have been thinking something similar. She began to curse and didn’t stop.

‘Shut it, would you?’ said Jo-Jo eventually.

‘If I can swear, I know I’m alive,’ she spat back at him.

‘Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be counting on that. Could be you’re just a bad-mouthed bunch of neurons running around on a wave frequency.’

‘That doesn’t make sense.’ She quietened, though. And then she laughed.

The sound made Jo-Jo feel a little better. One thing Randall could always do was laugh.

‘So what’s your idea? This “acoustic” connection of ours mightn’t last,’ she said.

He told her in more detail how he’d pursued the frequency of her voice. ‘Maybe we can do that for the others. Or at least learn somethin’ about this place.’

‘That means you have to break contact with me?’

He thought about it. ‘I guess so. I can’t see how to avoid that.’

‘That might be the end of it. You might not get it back.’

She sounded frightened. Rast didn’t frighten easily. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘So maybe there are a few things that need to be said. In case... in case one of us finds a way out and the other doesn’t.’

The silence went on so long this time that he thought he’d lost his hold on her voice.

‘Deal,’ she said, finally.

‘Some truths, Randall. Not some cocky bullshit.’

‘Practise what you preach.’

‘I will. Now who do you think your ex-Capo Jancz was working for on Araldis?’

‘Josef?’

He heard the softening in her tone. ‘What?’

‘You think just anyone can hear us?’

‘Maybe. We got nothin’ to lose though. I mean I don’t even know it’s you I’m talking to. Could be I’m just having a conflab with my imagination.’

Another short laugh. ‘You do a good imitation of me then. Anyway, my thinking is that it’s the Extros that wanted the quixite. They’re the only ones with enough need to pull that kind of stunt. Figures that Jancz is working for them. He had as much contact with them in the war as I did. Mebbe more.’

‘But why do it that way? Why send a bunch of primitive brain-suckers in to fuck the place over?’

‘I been chewing that one around for a while. I’m thinking there’s got to be more to it than just the quixite. Or mebbe they need the Saqr on the planet for some reason. Fedor might have an idea.’

‘Why do you say that?’ Jo-Jo felt raw at the mention of her.

‘She says she studied alien genera at her studium. She also knows the planet better’n us.’

‘You think maybe the ‘zoon’s found her?’

‘Sure left in a hurry. Now, I got a question for you. You said Farr had a DSD. What in Crux is that?’

‘You heard of Chaos Theory?’

‘Sure, some old conflab to explain something that doesn’t need explainin’.’

‘Yeah. Whatever. Like I said, he’s feeding the DSD with shitloads of info. The process lets him analyse stuff that’s going to happen.’

‘So what? He’s trying to predict the future?’

‘Nah. More than that, I think. He’s trying to change it.’

‘What do you mean?’ Rast demanded. ‘You sound as crazy as him.’

If Jo-Jo could have felt his eyelids he knew that they’d be closed in concentration. ‘I don’t know exactly. I’ve heard it talked about over the years—creating an informed system that can predict all the flow-on effects of behaviour so quickly that you can alter things before they happen. Take a diverging route.’

‘Impossible.’

‘Should be. Yeah. Until Sole came along. Mostly folk have fantasised about time travel to do such a thing—alter futures, I mean.

Not necessary if you have a Bifurcation Device.’

‘So what’s this device look like, then? A machine? An organism? Not sure that I’m getting you.’

‘I don’t know. I saw it work in virtual. It could be anything.’

‘So how did he create it?’

‘That kinda technology—if it is technology—has gotta come from the Entity.’ ‘How? One of the tyros?’

‘That’s what I’m thinking.’

‘Tekton?’

‘Maybe. Seems coincident he’s around.’

‘So what now?’

‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’

‘How?’

‘Must be your turn to have an idea.’

Rast chuckled. ‘You’re all right, you know.’

‘Yeah. I am. So what’s your idea?’

‘Not sure you’ll like it.’

‘Try me.’

‘You know that thing we were keeping to ourselves?’

‘What thing?’

‘Who you are.’

‘What about it?’

‘You tell them—maybe they’ll pay some attention to you and then you’ll get an opportunity.’

‘What sort of opportunity?’

‘You said one idea.’

‘And what are you gonna do while I go off and commit suicide?’

‘Try and locate Lat and Catchut—same way as you found me.’

‘And?’

‘Maybe by then you’ll have stirred up enough shit that we can find a crack to slip through.’

‘Hummph.’ This time Jo-Jo let the silence stretch.

‘Josef?’

Jo-Jo was gratified that she sounded nervous again. ‘Yeah, well. I can’t think of anything better but I ain’t rushing into that idea, either. We’ll continue this later.’

‘Fair enough. Hope to... hear you again.’

‘Yeah, well, keep shouting and I’ll find you.’

Jo-Jo loosened his mental hold on her voice in the way he might relax a flexed muscle, and in a moment he was back in the jackass, and then finally the buzz.

He felt tired. Not a body ache tired—he still couldn’t feel a damn thing—but the kind of cloudy sensation that settles on your mind when you’ve thought too long or too hard. Even the buzz seemed less irritating. He slipped into a kind of numb consciousness that lasted as long as it lasted. Not sleep but something.

When it passed, his mind seemed sharper: the buzz louder.

He thought about Randall’s suggestion. If he could in some way let it be known he was the God Discoverer, what would happen? Right now, he wasn’t dead but he might as well be—trapped as he was like some frickin’ sound bite in this weird auditory jail. What would the Post-Species do with him if they knew he’d been God-touched?

Maybe he’d try to listen in on a few things before he made that call. First thing though, he’d try to find Randall again—just so he knew he could.

He focused on the buzz, and the transition through the jackass sound into the clamour of voices was almost instantaneous this time. He floated above them and waited. The cacophony of noise had its own colour and texture. Not that he could see it, but the sounds created a mind-picture. He let that picture develop into something he could reference: an enormous spinning multicoloured wheel, like the Ferris wheels on the vacation planet Fair.

Jo-Jo’s mother had taken him to Fair, once, as a child. He remembered the exotic night landscape of it; the slippery trails of the slider rides and the pounding, pulsing flash of the Sudden Drops. One thing dominated the fairground vista, the fiery little gondolas attached to the gigantic Ferris wheel. The wheel took several hours to complete one revolution, which gave the fair-goers time enough to truly appreciate the scenery. Little food traders buzzed around the gondolas, bringing water and confectionery, and the Park rangers did their own tending to the needs of passengers who’d forgotten to use the amenities before beginning the ride or had been overcome by the breadth of the spectacle.

Jo-Jo never got to ride the wheel—it turned out his mum had brought him there because the latest in her string of lovers was a ride operator. What was his name? Jo-Jo couldn’t remember. But the guy had hoisted him on his shoulders and twirled him around and told him stories of how some people never came back from the Big Ride, and others grew old while they were on there, and some changed into ginkos and ate their own tails.

The more he twirled Jo-Jo on his shoulders, the more the gondola lights streamed, until the Big Ride turned into a giant blazing lollipop spinning in an endless twirl of fluorescing colour.

The clamour of voices created the same image for him now. Somewhere in the circling sound vibrations were individual gondolas—unique groups of voices—and maybe within them, single beings.

That’s how he’d found Rast.

He listened for her now, concentrating on seeking the intonation and pitch that was unique to her voice.

This time he didn’t have to follow it. Once he’d located it peaking out of the flow he instantaneously heard her.

She was shouting his name, over and over.

‘No need to bellow,’ he said.

‘Josef?’

‘As far as I know.’

‘Thank fucking Crux,’ she whispered. ‘Being alone in my head with this infernal buzz is sending me nuts. I tried finding Lat and Catchut, but nothing. Just the fucking buzz.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Don’t leave,’ she said quickly. ‘I mean, I don’t know how long it was. I’ve got no way to mark time but it felt like... well too fucking long.’

‘Yeah, the time thing is driving me crazy as well.’

‘So what’s happened?’

‘Nothing really. I’ve been thinking,’ said Jo-Jo slowly.

‘Lemme fool around for a while; try and locate the others. I found you again real quick.’

‘Why’s it so easy for you?’

‘Not sure, but I got a theory.’

‘Tell me about it,’ said Rast. ‘Anything to make the buzz go away.’

‘Back when I found the Entity, I died. At least, I think 1 did, and my HealthWatch records said the same. Sole did something to me. Split my mind in two when he reanimated me. The same thing happens to the tyros. It’s the only way Sole can communicate with them. It’s friggin’ weird and a pain in the arse but I think it’s helping me here. With this freak world.’

‘I heard they did something to the tyros—didn’t pick that you’d been affected too.’

‘The mind split only seems to happen to me when the crap piles up. The tyros are like it all the time, though. You get the feeling you’re talkin’ to two people.’

‘You like that now?’ Rast’s tone became tense. ‘Are there two of you?’

‘Don’t be fucking stupid. I’ll be back soon.’

Jo-Jo let go of Rast’s voice and floated back to the clamour. He thought about how Latourn and Catchut sounded. For some reason Latourn’s voice seemed easier to remember; the man had the thick, guttural tone common to Latino men. Somewhere in the kaleidoscope of sound Latourn would be suffering the same sensory deprivations as he and Randall. Catchut too. Poor bastards. He didn’t like either of the mercenaries but they were humanesque. That meant a lot right now.

He concentrated on recreating Latourn’s voice in his mind and then listened for anything in the clamour that might correlate. Again without a sense of time he had no idea how long it took before he decided he couldn’t find Latourn. Instead of returning to Randall though, he grasped the next peaking sound and let it pull him down.

At first the sound made little sense, at best a bunch of slurred vowels, at worst a noise similar to the mooing jackass. Instinctively, Jo-Jo stopped trying to make sense of the whole sound and narrowed his concentration to small segments.

He got a little thrill when he recognised a word. Soon. Another. Hasten. Then a whole jumble of them fell into his mind. But they weren’t ordered. Not that he could tell. More like an anagram or puzzle. He played with the order of them, switching them around until they made some sense.

hasten quixite OLOSS confront

He let go, then, and floated back to the clamour, waiting to pick up another peaking sound. This one took him deep into the flow before he began to hear clearly. Like the previous voice it seemed a blur until he broke it down into smaller pieces. There was something different about this one though. A kind of hard-edged tone that clipped the ends off words.

OLOSS finis soo.

A dialect perhaps? He let go of the clipped sound and found his way back to Rast.

She was crying softly.

‘Randall?’

No reply.

Jo-Jo waited while she composed herself. But the composure didn’t come and eventually she tried to talk to him between sobs. ‘Can’t—take—it.’

Curiously he didn’t feel compassion for her, the way he might have for Bethany or Mira Fedor. The connection was there—the humanesque thing—but Rast Randall had made some hard choices in life and now she was living with the result of them.

Like I am.

‘Yeah, you can,’ he said. ‘You have to. No choice.’ He waited a bit. ‘I didn’t find your crew, but I tuned in to something. Not sure what, exactly. Something to do with OLOSS and quixite. Sounds like the Extros are plannin’ somethin’ soon.’

‘Yeah?’ The idea seemed to calm her down. ‘You mean something’s gonna change?’

‘Maybe. Sounds like it. I’m gonna go dig a bit deeper, see what else I can hear.’

‘Do it!’ she said. The strength poured back into her voice.