janus

"What do you mean, the Matrix doesn’t exist?" Maya-Lain said, her jaw almost hitting the table, while Glory and Nuit exchanged a knowing look. Mambie however started cackling wildly and almost fell out of her chair in amusement.

"Ah, I knew there was a reason Deep Eye invited you here." She said as she regained her composure. "I suspected you got the joke even before I laid eyes on you."

"What joke?" Maya-Lain said, "I don’t understand. Of course the Matrix exists, I’ve seen it. We all have."

"Exactly. You’ve seen it, but since when has that made anything real? Our perceptions of the world as a solid place are just that, perceptions of lower level processes that we can’t really comprehend or explain. Take this table for instance, it’s not really a solid object, only a mass of particles with remarkably little difference from all the other masses of particles here as they are all just part of a larger chaotic wave of particles. It is only our learned mental frameworks that make them into recognizable things at all. And this table, this club, this city, they aren’t even as real as that. They exist only as representations inside our sleeping minds like a startlingly vivid lucid dream. That’s all the matrix is, a consensual dream, or hallucination, that has taken on the shape of our cultural ability to represent our physiological processes, in the same way that Edge City is a representation of our desires."

"Well," laughed Maya-Lain, an edge of hysteria in her voice, "that makes everything so much clearer now. If all we can perceive is representations, then is none of it real?"

"Please Janus," said Glory, "you’re going to break the girl’s mind if you don’t explain yourself."

"I’m trying. I’m realizing this all for the first time myself, and I don’t want it to come out wrong."

"Nothing you can say is subjectively wrong," Mambie said, "and maybe Maya-Lain needs to have her mind broken a little. You’re doing a fine job so far, keep going."

"Okay. I don’t think the question of whether any of this is real actually matters. We are still here in our perceptions and have to deal with them one way or another, regardless of their objective reality. Look at the Matrix. Is it really a global holding pattern in which each of us is subjectively trapped like prisoners in our cells? Or is that cultural representation only a metaphor for the way in which we are all connected energetically, a series of ‘usage patterns’ created by our interactions that defines our individual places in relation to the rest? And is that too just a metaphor for being alive on this Earth? We could just as easily say that the Earth is the Matrix, which comes from the root word for mother after all. We are each physically embedded in the medium of the Earth, and our separate lives are created only by the apprehension of the other earth-bound beings. But behind that we are just the particles of the whole planet itself."

"So the Matrix is really nothing more than our perceptions then," Maya-Lain nodded, "the frameworks we each have for describing individual things as individual things."

"It’s the collective framework though, isn’t it?" Glory chimed in, "The framework for describing each of our frameworks as individual."

"Okay, I think I see it now. The Matrix doesn’t exist because it is just a subjective illusion we hide the world behind, a mask…"

"The Veil of Maya." Mambie said, and we all looked at her. Maya-Lain was nodding to herself subconsciously, in one of those rare moments of unreflected self-realization. I wondered if she had ever thought about this meaning of her name before, and was again struck by the beauty of her naïveté. It reminded me of my own path of self-discovery. Such revelations only come once, and the awe of learning quickly wanes. At least until the pace picks up and we are constantly bewildered by the world as if we were again children.

"And then what’s behind the veil?" she asked.

"Freedom," said a voice from the shadow of the doorway. It was Deep Eye, and he stepped into the light dramatically. "Behind the Matrix is freedom."

"Oh daddy, why didn’t you tell me?" Maya-Lain cried.

"You never asked," he chuckled, "and if I had told you before it wouldn’t have meant anything. Your longing in the face of it is what made it real for you. And out of this kid’s lips, no less, who is just barely grasping it for himself. From the mouths of babes… good work, Janus."

"Yes, freedom," Mambie said softly, drawing all our attention to her again before I could reply, "freedom from the illusion of being trapped in a limited perspective. Freedom from only being able to know what is in our personal experience to know, freedom from being able to do only what is in our individual power to do. Freedom from being a single ego lost and lonely in the great seas of Mama chaos."

"All the information in the world…"

"Has already been recorded in the world." Deep Eye finished my statement. "All the events and possibilities…"

"Are ours to access." Glory continued. "All that connected energy, the lines of the world…" She glanced at Nuit as the keeper picked it up.

"Are at our fingertips to weave as we see fit. Indra will have nothing on this net. There are no boundaries that we can not pass, no rules that we can not break, no dreams…"

"From which we are not already waking up." Maya-Lain said, caught up in the energy that swelled around us. "Existence is an open book that we are writing. I… I do believe we are gods!" She was crying at this point, and laughing, a great cathartic ecstasy that welled up in us and took on a life of its own. Here it was, that moment when all ego boundaries dissolve into the being of a single point of focus.

"We are gods," we all echoed, speaking not with words but through the psychic bubble that contained us, the deified hub at the center of our wheel. In another heartbeat I thought we all might dissolve into atoms and go careening through each other and into space. What joy, what freedom!

"Enough!" Mambie cried, and then we were all just sitting there, the six individual beings we were before. Still crying, Maya-Lain had fallen into my arms, and I held her while she caught her breath, much more aware of the boundary of skin between us now that our souls had been so close. "Now is not the time for such care-free communion, though it bodes well that we found it so easily. The axis is growing stronger, but it is still too weak to support our intentions while others are not free. And the freedom they seek makes this look like idle amusement, for it the freedom from want and suffering. How can we hope to extend our subjectively interconnected realities into the world when this one still feels like a prison?"

"Then what do you suggest we do, oh wise sister?" Deep Eye said, laying a hand on her and Maya-Lain’s shoulders.

"And what are you planning anyway?" I asked.

Mambie smiled, and with a wave of her hand the energy gathered around us again. Beyond its edge the bank of computers and small kitchenette disintegrated into swirls of light, and then Club Nowhere and all of Edge City followed, the whole scene breaking apart into the stars. Below us rushed by the faint lights of cities and the dark of oceans and wilds and I realized we were looking down at an immense map of the whole world. "We are planning a revolution. Now, if we want to destroy the spell of the Matrix once and for all, I suggest we see what we are up against."

They had called Mambie a witch, and I wasn’t surprised to find myself in the middle of a witch’s lair. Compared to the slick décor of the club this room was immensely small and cramped. Bottles hung suspended everywhere, containing herbs and powders and all manner of unnamable things I didn’t want to think were insects and eyeballs and all the rest of the ingredients you would need to make a classic magic potion. A fire was blazing beneath a large cauldron at the end of the room, and the thick bilious smoke from several braziers and censors filled the room with the smell of sandalwood and musk and obscured vision to only a few feet. Something furry and little brushed against my leg and I hoped that it was only a cat.

Maya-Lain and Nuit had already pushed through the dim light into a back room, and I followed, wondering where the witch was. But I never found out, as there was nobody inside. Only one of the largest banks of computer monitors I had ever seen, flashing which scenes of each of the Free Agents, dancing and drinking in the warehouse behind us, or wrapped in long black coats affixing small flashing devices to the roofs of tall buildings. I didn’t ask, but had seen Fight Club enough times to guess at what was going on.

"So where’s Mambie?" Glory asked, sauntering in behind me, "and whoa! Check out this rig. Man I’d love to inhabit it for awhile, I bet the access is incredible."

"It is," said a voice that poured from all around the room, "but the power of it is a little overbearing sometimes." I did a quick double take and realized the sound was coming from several speakers mounted in the corners and wired to the computer banks. Slowly the displays all slipped into a similar view that was like flying over a vast fleshy world, and pulled back to reveal an old woman’s pixilated face made up from each of the screens of her agents. "That’s why I haven’t materialized yet. Sometimes these old bones are so slow to transmogrify back from pure energy. One of these days I’ll get stuck and end up as the old ghost in the machine. Heh, heh, well maybe that wouldn’t be so bad anyway, sure beat fighting against cellular decay."

Nuit had drawn to attention as the old lady appeared, and bowed deeply to the image, while I noticed Maya-Lain had wandered off across the room inattentively. "Mambie, may I present to you Janus, and his keeper Glory."

"A pleasure!" the image smiled, and we both bowed in response, "though really there’s no need for these formalities. We’re just going to have a nice little chat over some tea. Maya, dear, do you have that pot ready?"

"In a moment Auntie M." the girl laughed, and adjusted the knob on a burner plate that had been affixed to the back wall, "It looks like I need to go get you a new kettle, this one is beat up something fierce."

"Well, I don’t get out as much as I used to, and at this point I’m so unattached to stuff that it’s hard to tell when it needs replacing. If the kettle didn’t whistle so sweetly I would just boil the water psychically and be done with the whole material mess. Now let me just get out of this damn box."

In a move that was even more surreal than her image forming, the witch gradually began seeping through the computer screens, like drops of luminescent sweat that pooled on the floor and gradually took shape into a human form. As it did the cat, which the animal I had felt actually was, and stereotypically black to boot, slunk over and began lapping at the puddle before Nuit could run it off into the front room. The trails of liquid spun together into a vertical row of seven vortexes, and I realized she must have been utilizing some fascinating physical control over her subtle energy wells that I had hitherto thought impossible.

"Ah, that’s much better," she said as her lower face knitted itself together. "I must say, over all the years I still almost scare myself to death like I did the first time I dematerialized. Nothing’s impossible, but a good deal of it is still utterly strange to experience." At this point the energy had swirled in to form her eyes, except that one didn’t appear and hung as a swirling void in the side of her face. The other was small and an intense blue and darted around in exasperation.

"Oh dear, your eye!" Nuit said, almost dropping the china tea service she was about to set on the table that had slid up from the floor along with several reclining chairs.

"Yes, god’s blast that cat, now I feel a bit like my brother. Ah well, I’ll get the rest of myself back later."

"You’re Deep Eye’s brother?" I asked.

"Randy? Of course. Don’t you see the family resemblance? Maya, dear, come here for a moment." I had never seen Deep Eye without his shades on before, but there was something strikingly similar between the old woman’s features and the young girl’s. The witch’s one eye had the same intense clarity that had arrested me on the dance floor, and their smiles could only really be described with a term like joy de vivre.

"Yes, I do see it. And Deep Eye’s name is Randy? Short for Randolph?"

"Ha," the witch laughed, "you’re a perceptive one. Does that surprise you?"

"No," I laughed, "not in the slightest. In fact, I’m kicking myself for not having figured it out before now." The kettle was singing in a series of overtones, and Nuit brought it over and poured us each a cup before sitting down.

"Figured what out?" Maya-Lain asked.

"Your dad and I go a lot further back then I realized. Though back then he had eyes, and a whole different face."

"How’s that possible?"

"Let’s just say we met in my dreams. Mambie, I am quite honored to meet you. If I had known Randolph had a sister I would have paid my respects a long time ago."

"Unless of course I didn’t want you to," she laughed, and took a sip of tea. "How do you think you would have reacted to all this back in those dark days of yours? Not with so much acceptance and curiosity. Randy’s told me stories of how much you struggled to wake up."

"Yes," I nodded, and glanced over at Glory, who winked and echoed the words ‘wake up’ under her breath. For a moment I was brought back to when we first met, in Herman’s shop, when I first almost realized just how deep the games we play on ourselves go. I started to smile, and then a disturbing thought struck me, how was it any different this time? I looked around, at the banks of computers, the ghostly keepers, the eyeless witch, the beautiful girl, the sounds of revelry not quite muffled from the front room, the city made from its inhabitants imaginations, and I laughed.

Mambie smiled slyly and took another sip of her tea. "Do you have something to tell us Janus?"

"Yes, The Matrix doesn’t exist."

The floor was packed, and yet everyone seemed to have enough room to dance, swinging their limbs and hips extravagantly without managing to collide or get tangled up. And when they did, the bodies would just roll off each other, creating a living sea rocking back and forth at a solid 200 BPM. The music never seemed to let up, and when the crowd seemed like it might slow down, a faster beat would kick in to sustain the furious energy, as if the turntables were wired right into their bodies. Whoever was spinning this set sure knew what they were doing.

As Glory and I slid into the mass and started gyrating across the room I was pleased to note that the Free Agents did not constrain themselves to dancing in set couples but bounced off each other and got down with whoever happened to be in front of them in each moment. As I spun through them like a rogue pinball countless hands reached out to squeeze my shoulders, possibly to make sure I was real, and someone was even so bold as to grab my ass, which made me jump and Glory laugh. Several of the agents grinned excitedly at getting a quick dance in with the new kid, and tried unsuccessfully to introduce themselves over the relentless bass.

The crowd was moving in a gradual counterclockwise circle, perhaps in a semi-conscious effort to banish negative energies from the space, and on the third go around I found myself pressed up against the DJ’s rig. Despite my body’s need to sail along in the groove I couldn’t help but stop and admire his smooth operation. Three records were spinning at once, and the black hands flew between them in a blur, executing a series of scratches on the beat. This feat would be near impossible if the DJ hadn’t been controlling the faders psychically from the wires jacked in amidst his halo of dreadlocks, but as it was it was still pretty damn impressive. Every few measures one of the hands would reach up and ash the thick joint dangling from his dark lips or hit a button on the laptop which printed out a paper thin circle of vinyl that was quickly slapped down on top of the last record and spun. After a few songs he looked up at me and grinned.

"That’s a pretty impressive deck." I was glad that I didn’t have to yell on this side of the dance floor.

"You like? Good. Only the best beats for the Free Agents, mon." I was about to turn back into the crowd when he motioned for me to step behind the tables. Handing me the joint he swiftly typed in a few lines of code and smiled as another sheet of record slid out of the port. "So this is what’s playing right now," he gestured at three sets of sound waves coursing across the display, "and this is what the crowd is hearing." He clicked open another window with a combined wave of the three, pulsing with colored tags outside the audible frequencies. "This baby mixes together the feedback from how the dancing excites the air molecules, and then, wham, prints out the best track to maintain the beat. I could do it all digitally…"

"But then you’d loose the aesthetic fidelity of spinning vinyl."

"Exactly," he grinned, and took a long drag on the joint. "Who needs that binary crap when you’ve got a true record of the sound waves right at your fingertips? It’s a pleasure to meet someone else who gets it, I’m DJ Salinger."

"Of course," I chuckled, "I’m Janus."

‘Yah, yah, I thought as much from your duds. Bet you glad Deep Eye didn’t have you give a speech up on that balcony?"

"A little, I’m not always the best public speaker."

"But are you the best public dancer? That’s where you really going to make an impression. How about a number for you and your keeper? We’ll knock the lights ‘round center and you can show em a move or two. Just name the tune and I’ll lay it down in a heartbeat."

"Sure, why not? Got any Glenn Miller? Might as well go all out with this 30’s theme tonight."

"Oh yah, definitely mon. You an agent of taste, just like Maya-Lain. She rocks the old time bops too."

"Who’s Maya-Lain? There’s so many people here I haven’t met yet."

"Eh, you crazy? Hottest human in this place. I’ll put on her favorite mix, you be dancing with her soon enough. Be warned, it be no straight big band beat, not spun with da jungle ragas and some dirty funk ala Bettie Davis. Heh, you best stay loose for this one, mon. Slap me some skin, I’m sure we kick it later."

I did and stepped back out into the ceaseless whirl. The flashing lights had begun to rotate around to the middle of the floor and I followed them to where Glory was grooving with the wire-head keeper from behind the bar, her red hair twirling around her like an aura of flames. There was a more noticeable shift in the beat, and as if on cue Byro stepped back into the crowd and a space opened up around us. Then with a crash of horns and the delirious scale of a drunken sitar the song dropped in and we started to dance.

Salinger was right, this was no simple bop track, the lindy-hop alone wouldn’t cut it. Tablas thundered up from behind Benny Goodman’s orchestra at nearly triple the speed, and a funk bass hammered on the offbeats. I followed Glory into the first steps of an improvised swing and let my mind go blank. For music this good that can’t be any distinction between the body and the sound waves, and soon my movements were picking the vibrations right out of the air, arms snaking like a bellydancer’s and feet barely touching the ground. The crowd cheered as I spun Glory into a disgusting backbend and then went wild as I supplely followed the move. It was almost too easy to mirror each other and as we spun across the floor I couldn’t help but think we were making a fine show of it, like John Travolta and Uma Thurman without all the hard drugs.

I couldn’t tell how long we danced, or how many other melodies wove in and out of my ears I was so caught up in the motion. But then I noticed abruptly a reoccurrence of the sitar and horn breakdown and thunderous applause all around, and with a shock realized that I had stopped dancing. I hadn’t intended on being done, but there was little I could do but stare helplessly into the crystal-blue eyes that had appeared in front of me. They were like the sky at day-break, of opals back lit by a computer screen, and I was transfixed on their intense surety and poise, as if they could see right through to the inner workings of my heart. The eyes were set in a face that hauntingly familiar and the face was set on a body that was absolutely stunning.

"I’m Maya-Lain Angelouve," she smiled, "and I believe you’re dancing to my song." With that she grabbed me and I was moving again, much harder than before. Where Glory and I had relaxed into the melody lines Maya-Lain threw herself furiously against the beat, as if she might shatter it with the pounding of her heart pushing her body so close to its breaking point. Angelouve, of course, I thought, trying not to let my brain muddle my rhythm, Nadi and Deep Eye’s daughter. No wonder I recognized her, she had her mother’s warrior air, but instead of those killer’s eyes she had these two luminous gemstones. Had Deep Eye’s gaze been so intense before he had been blinded, and did Maya-Lain have her father’s prescience? With the way she moved across the floor and against my body I thought it was likely.

This thought and our dance were quickly interrupted by a thick arm that shot between us and spun the girl away from me. She groaned as its owner stepped between us and crossed his arms over his chest. I was now staring up into the thick-set jaw and dull beady eyes of a man who was as much a beast as Maya-Lain was a beauty. "You’re dancing with my girl." He growled, poking a meaty finger into my chest.

"Oh get off it," Maya-Lain rolled her eyes, "he’s new here, and last I checked you don’t own me. I’ll dance with whoever I want."

"Not while I’m around," he raised a hand and then lowered it quickly, but didn’t seem aware that he was almost about to slap her. Maya-Lain stuck out her tongue and I couldn’t help but chuckle, a nervous reaction poorly suited to the whole situation. "What’s so funny, fancy-boy?" He whirled back towards me, "You think you can come in here in dance with whoever you want?"

"Well that is what everyone else seems to be doing, and I didn’t even know her until she grabbed me."

"Then how come you requested her mix, huh?" He yelled. The music had stopped completely at this point and the crowd had fallen into as excited hush, wondering if there would be an actual fight. Wasn’t this against the rules? I wondered where Glory was and tried to send for her.

"Damn it Peter, it’s a good mix, that’s why. It’s just a fucking song, it doesn’t mean anything."

"The hell it does, Maya-Lain, I think this punk needs an object lesson, manners 101."

"What’s wrong with you? You haven’t been yourself all night. And you don’t want to get kicked out again, it’s your third time. You won’t be allowed back into the Club." Maya-Lain had grown incensed and her eyes were taking on a preternatural glow that I would have found enticing if I wasn’t about to get pummeled.

"But maybe that would be for the best, now wouldn’t it?" Glory said, stepping between us. She had exchanged her flapper dress for a blood-red gi, and assumed a fighting stance I knew could topple a man twice Peter’s size.

"Who’s this bitch? You’re about to get socked in the jaw for stepping in, cunt."

"That does it Maya-Lain screamed and tried to grab Peter’s arm as he launched a fist square at Glory’s face. Within an inch he stopped and hastily pulled his arm down to his side. Glory hadn’t flinched once at the danger, and would have laughed except that Peter was staring over our shoulders with a look of abject terror on his face. I turned around.

Shiva was standing there, Nadi’s tall dark keeper, holding a wickedly barb-edged sword that contrasted with his tailored butler’s uniform. From the look in his eyes it was all to obvious that if Peter’s fist had come any closer to my keeper it might now be lying on the floor, and if the young man didn’t rectify the situation post-haste he still might taste the blade as it slid down his throat.

"Shiv, hey man, I didn’t mean it. Just playing around with the newbie a bit, see how tough he is. Maybe I had a bit too much to drink or something, got a bit carried away."

The keeper’s face remained stoic through this spiel, though by the end U thought I detected a slight smirk near the corner of his mouth. He shook his head slightly, and sheathing his sword hoisted Peter up into the air, despite the man’s obvious bulk. "Listen," he said calmly as Peter started to blubber, "I don’t want any explanations. You know the rules, yet you persist in ignoring them. I think you’ve just violated protocol for the last time, and you know what that means."

Though I was curious to see where this went, Maya-Lain wasn’t. She grabbed my arm and started dragging me away from his screams as the music and dancing started up again. "C’mon, my godfather will straighten him out a bit. Hopefully not too much, I’d hate to see the floor get that messy, even though he deserves it. I don’t know why Peter’s been so psychotic recently, ever since he went on that last mission. I’m so not into it, looks like he just got himself dumped." She looked at me and grinned. "So you’re Janus, eh? I like your style. Care for a drink and another dance?" I nodded, and from behind us I could hear Glory laughing.

As soon as we stepped off the dance floor a swirl of stars surrounded us, and with a flash Nuit was blocking our path, to Maya-Lain’s obvious displeasure. "I know you’d like to get to know each other a bit better, but your father asked me to let Janus know Mambie is ready to see him now."

"As does he have to go? We we’re just starting to have a good time. Fine, fine, but I’m coming too, the witch promised we’d get to chill tonight."

Nuit shook her head in exasperation and mumbled to herself for a moment. "Very well," she smiled, "Mambie extends her invitation to her favorite neice, but only if you promise not to distract her new guest from his interview. Now if you would, please follow me."

By the time the cheering had died down Deep Eye had led us to a large banquet table set up with five places on the balcony. Shiva excused himself with a bow, and I looked at the elegant dinnerware and wandered if the food here at Club Nowhere was as good as the drinks. The forks seemed to be made of real silver. Glory however had other things on her mind.

[I can’t believe he didn’t introduce me too, I almost think Deep Eye was being spirtist except that he introduced you to his keeper before his own wife.]

"I’m sure he had his reasons, it might give us an advantage that the Free Agents don’t all know you’re name." I was glad that we could still communicate psychically, that could also give us an advantage in this peculiar situation. That is if Deep Eye couldn’t pick up what we were saying anyway. He smiled slyly as he pulled out a chair for Glory and I suspected his psychic prescience allowed him to catch the gist of what we were sending anyway.

"Don’t worry, we have your best interests at heart. There’s a lot less intrigue going on inside the club then you might expect. It’s the outside world that you’ve really got to keep an eye on. Would you care for a glass of wine?"

I was a bit surprised at the transformation Deep Eye had undergone between the real world and this liminal one. He was acting much more like cultured royalty then the blind street beggar I had met on Liberty Avenue.

"I must admit, this whole scene isn’t quite what I suspected, especially after the party down stairs." The music had cranked up again and the whole floor shook with the beat of so many people dancing beneath us. "With the fancy outfits and exquisite silverware I feel more like the guest of a mafioso or robber baron then a group of radical transcendents."

Deep Eye broke into great peels of laughter at this and the women chuckled politely. "I don’t think you get it yet," Nadi said, "how else should we act when we have the option of living however we choose? Certainly many of the Free Agents enjoy the appeal of self-imposed asceticism, but with all our needs and desires to easily met in this city, it is only self-imposed. Just as many live in the lap of luxury and see no contradiction in doing so."

"Almost all the agents below have spent their time serving at the high table," Deep Eye chimed in, thumping a fist on the table in front of him, "and tonight is our turn, since I invited you here. Granted Nadi and I don’t dance as much as we used to and end up playing host most nights, but that doesn’t give us any more rank than any of the other Free Agents. We are like the proverbial pirate lords of old, living like kings, but recognizing that the only power we have is ourselves. That is what makes us free. Some wine?"

I hesitated before taking the glass, unsure if I trusted everything enough yet to get good and drunk, but even Glory laughed at this.

"It’s okay Janus, I analyzed the protocols, the alcohol gets metabolized out of our systems shortly after we would get tipsy. A failsafe in the environment to encourage good behavior."

"See?" Deep Eye chuckled, "I told you we know how to enjoy ourselves." Everyone fell silent as he poured a round of the red wine and food was brought out from the kitchens on large trays. Amelia was the server and she blushed again as she set the tray in front of me and removed the lid to reveal a steaming vegetable mousaka. I smiled up at her and wondered if everyone here really had recognized their own power. Had this girl volunteered to wok the kitchen shift tonight, or had she been subconsciously pressured into it by her obvious awe at those who seemed just a little bit more self-assured? Did even gods fall into the same hero-worship that characterized the passive behavior of most modern Earth-Prime cultures and kept people from truly taking their lives into their own hands?

Deep Eye sensed me uncertainty and proposed a toast to questioning everything before asking what was on my mind. The wine was as high quality as the closed fist beer, if not higher, and it also encouraged me to voice my thoughts.

"I wonder just how wise it is to emulate the aspects of society we are trying to reject. This elaborate meal is wonderful and all, but don’t you think it might be encouraging the same type of hierarchical divisions that keep people disempowered?"

"That is of course assuming that we want to reject hierarchy here. Don’t put your foot in your mouth just yet, Janus, we do reject it," Nadi smiled, "but please watch how you phrase your statements to include other people’s beliefs. Now, if you are referring to that Amelia girl keep in mind that she is still trying to figure herself out, and work through some particularly nasty psychic karma brought about precisely because of her position in social hierarchy. She may look like a punk, but she was raised a rich girl, and never lifted a finger to help anyone else out in her life, was literally waited upon hand and foot. I suppose it’s a credit to the leisure time granted to the elite classes that she stumbled upon the right entheogens and spiritual literature to open herself up to the possibilities of human interconnectivity; and now she’s using the serving work she never had to do as a child to reach even higher levels of compassion and diligence. It’s the same reason Zen monks do their own dishes. There are many paths to self-realization and housework is one of them. I myself spent years as Mambie’s handmaid to get over having been raised a Hindi princess, and I still act haughty sometimes."

"I wondered if you were actually a princess. What about you Deep Eye, are you reformed royalty too?"

"Hardly. I grew up on the streets of Los Angeles, bottom of the ladder since the day I was born, and extremely resentful of it too. I guess Nadi was my own karma, learning to love her as a real person beyond her social status was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. When Mambie suggested I date her uppity royal servant I thought she was crazy. But now she’s the most important person in my life, besides our daughter, and I’ll never judge anyone by their social covers again. I guess it attests to the witch’s powers of intuition, Mambie has an impeccable sense of harmony when it comes to suggesting what people need to do to balance themselves.

"Who is this Mambie?" Glory asked before I could, as I was too busy stuffing the incredible food into my mouth while Deep Eye talked.

"I guess you could say she’s like a mother to the Free Agents, or a mentor. Really she’s just an old sorceress who had the foresight to realize the Free Agents needed a place to get together if they were ever going to learn to work together, and is now the proprietress of Club Nowhere. She’s a mastermind at social organization, has to be with all those spirits as her keepers and familiars, and keeps detailed tabs on everyone who walks through her doors. Not to spy on us, but to make sure none of our personal projects conflict. It would be all too easy for us to work against each other."

"So she’s in charge then?"

"No, just knows how to handle all the clerical work which the rest of us would loathe to do. Sometimes I suspect that’s her own karma being worked out, but she might just enjoy doing what she’s good at."

"So do we get to meet her? I imagine that if anyone around here would knows how I can get more involved it would be her."

"You are right," Nuit said, speaking for the first time since we sat down, "and it is good to hear that you do actually want to get involved. Mambie is trying to determine an assignment for you as we speak. She should be ready to see you in about twenty minutes or so." We were done eating at this point, and Deep Eye had poured the last of the bottle of wine.

"Well," he grinned, pulling an ornate wooden pipe from his coat and packing it with some sweet-smelling herb, "since we’ve got some time to kill I suggest the two of you retire to the dance floor. I’ll bet the Free Agents are just dying to see if their new cohorts brought along some fancy moves."

As we stepped away from the bar Glory gave a subtle glance at my street clothes and I decided it was time to do something about that, before meeting Deep Eye and the rest of the Free Agents. I looked around the crowd one more time, this sea of black leather and day-glow light writhing across the dance floor. Did I want to look like them? Hardly.

I gave Glory a wink and imagined myself as I would have looked in the 30s, gray tweed trousers with thin suspenders over a tailored button-down of a darker hue. And to complete the look I imagined my hair getting shorter in the back and longer in the front, a cut that if more extreme would fall into the heights of gothic fashion, but here was more reminiscent of Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby crowd or of the German military. The whole look didn’t fit in here at Club Nowhere, but I wasn’t trying to fit in. They thought I was a legend, so I might as well appear like one and stand out with a classiness out of the last century.

run appearefit.exe

[visual transmogrification in process]
[…]

There was a loud sucking pull around me and heads followed it out of curiosity. Who was this new kid dressed with such intriguing ridiculousness? Whispers rippled out through the room, carrying my name, and I chuckled at the impact of the scene I was making. Glory nodded in approval and the cut of her red dress slid around her until it reached a flapper style that complimented my own get-up. Byro grinned from behind the bar and gave us a thumbs up. With another quick glance at each other Glory and I started towards the balcony.

I felt like we were the royalty at some otherworldly homecoming ball. The agents stepped out of our way and nodded as we passed. Some of them almost bowed, and all of them watched. The whispers had turned into a thick murmur that threatened to overpower the music, and by the time we reached the stairs we were obviously the center of attention.

Deep Eye was standing at the top, arms spread wide with his walking stick in one hand and a fluted wineglass in the other. Behind him stood two women and a tall man dressed up as a cybernetic butler. Deep Eye had traded his street-rags for a long black trenchcoat and sharp blue tie on which little twinkling stars spun endlessly. His blindman’s stick was now an elegant cane, and unlike anyone else here he was wearing his shades. The two women were wearing long evening gowns and the whole party looked like they had just stepped out of some Edwardian faerie-tale. Or we had just stepped into one. I was pleased to see I wasn’t the only one here with a taste for historical roleplaying and I smiled up at him as I ascended the stairs.

"Janus, I’m glad you made it." He stuck out his gloved hand and then thinking better of it pulled me into a surprisingly warm hug that sent a cheer through the crowd below. "You’re looking quite dapper tonight, you clean up real nice."

"You do too," I laughed and he broke into his wide madman’s grin.

"And you are Glory then?" He bowed to my keeper, and then grabbed her hand and kissed it, causing her to blush and another round of catcalls to erupt from the revelers. "It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in the flesh my dear, Janus has told me much of your charms."

"I’m sure he has. This is quite an establishment you have here."

"It is, but it’s not mine. Though I do occasionally act like I own the place that burden falls on Mambie’s shoulders."

"Who’s Mambie?" I asked, but Deep Eye just waved his hand.

"All in good time. May I present you to my keeper, Nuit?" One of the women stepped forward, with dark hair and eyes and a blue dress that fittingly resolved with the same stars that graced her host’s tie. She and Glory exchanged glances, as if communicating in some secret language of angels then smiled and kissed each other on the cheek. The other woman cleared her throat and laid a hand on Deep Eyes’ shoulder, making him blush. "And this is my beloved wife, Nadi Angelouve, and her keeper Shiva."

Nadi looked to be of some asiatic or indian descent and was stunningly beautiful in a way unmatched since warrior-princesses went out of fashion. Despite the elegance of her white dress, which looked as much like a sari as a ball gown, and her older age, she was obviously one tough cookie. Toned muscles, a sure strength to her movements, and a glint in her gaze I could only describe as killer’s eyes, it only seemed fitting for a man like Deep Eye to have married a woman who looked like she grew up training in a dojo. Her butler keeper had the same martial air about him and his dark eyes flicked about as he watched Nadi extend a hand for me to kiss. I did, and bowed deeply, bringing a satisfied smile to her lips.

"I can tell by your eyes that you’re quite a charmer, though a little young and naïve. It’s a shame our daughter couldn’t be present, I’m sure she’d be quite smitten by you. But she hates these formalities as much as I do, and loves to dance even more, and we must respect her will, now don’t we? That’s why we’re all here after all."

I nodded, and Deep Eye grabbed my arm and spun me to face the crowd. The pounding dance beats and conversational buzz died down as if on cue, so that when he tapped his cane to his wineglass for attention the act was merely symbolic. No one wanted to miss this speech.

"Free Agents!" He cried out, his deep voice echoing clearly throughout the room. "Brothers and sisters and keepers of the Edge, may I present to you the newest member of our tribe; a man crazy enough to discover he was living in a matrix and reject its consensual mediocrity before we could get to him ourselves, a spirit wild enough to put reality on the line for a hint of something a little more meaningful, an agent who like the rest of us here has recognized his own power to break free. Here is the urban legend we’ve all heard so much about, let’s welcome him with open arms and minds and show him that we know how to stay alive and have a good time. Free Agents, here is Janus!"

I had never seen so many people dancing in one place. Pittsburgh doesn’t have all that big of a dance scene, but I couldn’t imagine a city as big as New York would even have a club that could hold this mass of grinding bodies. They were packed to the walls and spilled up to a second floor balcony. Finding Deep Eye would be no easy task, with any luck the door-keeper would let him know I was here, but otherwise I would just have to wander around and hope for the best.

Glory had already started off towards the front bar, and I hurried after her admiring the ease with which she cut through the crowd, as if they didn’t exist or were too awed by her presence to stay in her way for long. Wearing the red dress and brown leather jacket I usually envisioned her in, and with her shocking red hair she looked like a burning angel or urban goddess, and heads turned to follow her progress across the room. I was getting quite a few looks myself, and not only because I was horribly underdressed for the occasion in my plain gray hoody and slacks. I was definitely not wearing enough black. Despite the staggering number of revelers they all seemed to know each other, and I wished I could hide behind my shades to not feel like such a newbie. But that was against the rules and I was here to meet these people, so I caught their eyes and grinned and tried to saunter casually after Glory.

"So what’ll you have?" The guy behind the bar asked. Half his head was shaved and plated with a grotesque circuit board with several wires running from this were clamped to his lip and ear rings. Glory already had a beer in her hand and was chatting excitedly with the punk girl mixing drinks.

"I don’t know, whatever she’s drinking." The bar keeper mumbled into his lip ring and the girl put a hand to her ear and held up a closed fist in reply.

"So which of you is the host?" He set a dark bottle on he counter and flicked the bottle cap into a bucket behind him. Despite the decibel level of the music, which was phenomenal in noise and tempo, his voice was still clearly audible.

"I guess I am, though Glory seems to have taken charge since we got here."

"She’ll get tired of it soon enough, once she realizes she can’t do anything without you. We all fall for that illusion of freedom when we first embody." So he was a keeper too then.


"Well she’s a wild one, if there’s a keeper that could get free she’s it." I laughed and took a sip of the beer. It was good. Really good, strong and dark and flavorful. So much for not drinking tonight. The only thing on the label was a closed fist.

"She looks like it. You think an angel like her would be interested in a wire-head like me?"

"Who knows. I have no clue what her tastes are."

"Well probably a lot like yours since she’s your keeper. You into freaks and weirdoes?"

"Everyone I know is a freak and a weirdo. I stopped dating muggles ages ago."

"I like your attitude," he laughed and stuck out his hand, "I’m Byronic, Byro for short."

"That’s a clever name. I’m Janus." We shook and I felt the same electric tingle as when I had touched Glory, but subtler. Did keepers always feel like that?

"Janus, eh? So you’re the new kid everyone’s been talking about."

"Nothing bad I hope."

"Are you kidding? You’re almost a legend! Breaking out of the matrix on your own, that takes a lot of balls, or a serious lack of sanity. Wow, it took Amelia years and a lot of help just to realize she was in one." He nodded over at the punk girl. She and Glory were staring at us and giggling. "She’s going to be so jealous that I met you first. Here’s to keeping it real man." Byro cracked a bottle and clinked it against mine.

I drank and marveled again at the taste. Hopefully it wasn’t expensive, I wouldn’t want to drink anything else tonight after this. Assuming I could afford it at all. "How much are the drinks? I’m afraid I may have left all my money back on Earth Prime."

"Money? In Edge City? You really are new here, man. If you can imagine anything you want into existence why would you expect anyone to charge you for it? We eschew capitalism here, and all the trinkets that comes along with it."

"That’s impressive. The shops are all free then?"

"Or barter. No sense bringing more crap into the world when someone else might already have what you need."

I was curious to learn more about the local economy, or lack of it, but Glory walked over and put a shocking arm around my shoulder.

"Got a drink? Good. I got some info, Amelia Seahart here says Deep Eye likes to hang out up on the balcony where he can keep an eye on the place. What do you say we go find him?"

"Sure. Amelia? I’m Janus. Thanks for the tip."

"It was my pleasure," she smiled shyly from beneath her long black forelock. It looked like she wanted to say something else, but then she blushed a deep red and ran into the back room with Byronic’s laughter chasing after her.

"I told you you’re a legend man. How about I get you two another round before you go upstairs? If you have to talk to Deep Eye you’re gonna need it."

"I’ll take two," Glory said, "I want to make sure I have a blast."

Glory flew off around the corner, and looked back amused that I wouldn’t join her in the air. Maybe I’m just old fashioned but this body’s made for walking, and I followed her on foot. With the shades on it was obvious that she was a demon, really more of an angel, subtly filled with the glowing tide of alphanumeric characters that codified my process state in the matrix. As we traced the purple line to Club Nowhere she couldn’t help but run her hands over the buildings, the trees and streetlamps, anything that might provide an interesting tactile experience. If I hadn’t had a body till now I would be curious to explore its capabilities too. As it was I was busy enough peering into shop after shop bartering exotic clothes and food and artifacts I couldn’t imagine a use for. This place was certainly on some edge, and I imagined it could take several lifetimes to just learn my way around the block.

A few passerbys laughed at Glory’s antics, and several greeted us with warm smiles since we were so obviously new to Edge City. Now that I was wearing my shades I saw just how crowded the streets really were. It seemed that pitch black was in style, done up with the same vibrant colors from the street so that without the glasses their outfits would be near invisible. No wonder I hadn’t been able to find anyone. And it wasn’t just the cyberpunks I had seen walking around while I was still in transition but all manner of familiar outsiders. Old dreaded hippies and bearded beatniks, mohawked anarchists and turbaned Islamic radicals, tribal shamans and yogi fakirs, wireheads and pyschic vampires and gangstars. A cross section of all the counterculture rejects and social outcasts gathered in one place, anyone who had ever realized that normalcy was just a bit too normal was here. It was The El Dorado of the unwanted, the seventh heaven of the estranged, any happening city in the world if you shot all the businessmen and yuppies and passed out free sunglasses and dayglow fabric paint.

"Edge City has always existed," Glory said landing next to me. Her eyes were half-closed so she must have been reading from the akashic town records. "As long as there have been people on the edge who needed a place to escape to or draw power from there has been an imaginal zone, a realm of the unreal culled up from their dreams and given shape from their longings. Edge City is the stuff that dreams are made of, it is the order in chaos. Native American shamans called it the spirit-world, the Australian aborigines called it the dream-time, T. S. Eliot called it the Wastelands, but that was before it turned into the bustling metropolis it now is and Hunter S. Thompson worked his gonzo wit into its present name. Once a small village spun in the middle of the Void its streets have responded to the people’s will and expanded with their technologies. After the outsider boom of the 60’s and the cybercultural trends of the following decades it was re-envisioned into a hip city of light where everyone has their own niche and all the swink they need to stay comfortable and sane in the schizoid reality of 21st Century Earth Prime."

‘"Sounds like my kind of place." To say I was awestruck by the whole thing would be a bit of an understatement. The stuff that dreams are made of indeed! Even the bums looked happy, and raised their 40s in salute as we passed. None asked me for change and I wondered how many were really sleeping cold in a ditch somewhere dreaming of having finally found the part of town where they could eat and drink their fill for free and lounge around for hours without being harassed by the cops. How many had died in that real world and choose to stay, living out their ethereal lives in a heaven better than any the churches and shelters could never offer them? Everyone seemed to be really enjoying themselves here. Where had I been all my life, and would I ever want to leave?

We were drawing away from the towering buildings and crowded sidewalks of what I thought of as downtown, but the electric map called The Hub, towards the outskirts of Edge City. There was less light here, less shops and less people. Many of the buildings were dark and uninhabited, perhaps still waiting for their future tenants, and soon opened up to reveal block-long art gardens, overgrown with unearthly luminescent plants and surreal sculptures that looked like Escher and Dali had collaborated during the planning committee. At one point these too fell away into a large river choked with docks and pirate frigates and we followed our trail along its banks.

Now that we were out of the hustle I started to wonder again just what Deep Eye had invited me here to do. Surely not just have a good time. The Free Agents had some plan in the works, and I suspected it would be dangerous and insane and I would be right in the middle of it.

"Don’t worry so much Janus, I’m sure whatever they’re getting in to will be a whole lot more exciting then going back Pittsburgh and your normal life. You’ve been asking for an adventure for years now, don’t run away when it’s staring you in the face."

"Who said anything about running away? I just want to be prepared for it. Whatever it is." Up the street the purple line fizzled out at a monstrous warehouse with blacked out windows and a flickering light bulb above the featureless door. An old man in a ragged coat eyed us warily from his seat on the curb and took a swig from a brown-bagged bottle.

"Prepared for the unknown? Good luck on that. I think you’re as prepared you’re going to get for this one. Now take a deep breath and come on, I don’t want to miss any of the dancing."

I followed Glory’s advice and then followed her over to the warehouse. The drunk bum stood up and swayed slightly. "Hey," she said, flashing him a radiant smile, "is this Club Nowhere?"

"Who wants to know?" he growled, obviously not sloshed at all, and stared me up and down ignoring Glory completely. It must have been obvious that she was my demon, and not just because she wasn’t wearing shades. The old bouncer wasn’t either perhaps he was also someone’s demon. The intensity of his gaze made my skin prickle, as if he was looking through it for any hidden weapons or wire taps.

"Janus. Deep Eye gave me an invitation and this is the end of the purple line." I reached into my pocket for the envelope and realized it was on my other body. What was I wearing here anyway? Like in a dream I had forgot to look.

But it didn’t seem to matter for he broke into a wide toothless grin. "Ah, the new recruit. We wondered when you’d be around, took your sweet time about it too. Teleportation too good for you, or have you not tried it yet? Just kidding, I can’t imagine you’ve found access to such a high level metaprogram yet. I prefer the old foot shuffle myself when I’m embodied, makes me feel more alive."

"Are you a demon too?" Glory asked, excited at the prospect of meeting another one in the flesh.

"Please, that term is so last century, and it reeks of religious sentimentality. I prefer subtle agent myself, but most hosts here call us their keepers."

"Subtle agent? I like that, much more suggestive then demon. Don’t call me that anymore, okay Janus?"

"Yeah sure, but I might just call you my angel instead, or my astral travel agent." She stuck out her tongue and I laughed. There was a lot we didn’t know about this place and it was about to be thrown at us pretty quick once we stepped through those doors.

"So I guess I should let you know the house rules before you go in. First off, don’t start any shit. There’s a pact inside that keeps the Free Agents from going at each other’s throats. Loners don’t always work so well together, and there are a couple of big egos around. That’s kind of a warning I guess, my host is one of them. Second, no psychic manifestations on the dance floor. Last moon Cthulhu ate an entire coven before we knew what was going on. Took a whole song to fix the floor and the witches threatened to hex us if it happened again. Project whatever you want in the booths, but not were people are dancing. Third, don’t wear your shades inside, it makes the whole host-keeper split really obvious, and the sensory overload could knock you out. Fourth, have fun."

"Have fun? They need a rule for that? Aren’t these cats anarchists or something?"

The old man chuckled. "Anarchists, that’s a good one. A solemn mood is the ultimate party-killer. If you’re not enjoying yourself thoroughly then you’re not free enough to party with the Free Agents. It’s not an elite gig, bad thoughts are just contagious. There’s a lot of subsidiary taboos and social mores, but you can find those out for yourself when you break them. Which is highly encouraged. Only the four warrant expulsion."

He opened the door, and I was almost thrown off my feet by the pounding bass and flashing lights that poured through a sea of bodies. Glory grinned wildly and grabbed my hand, sending the same psychic shock as when we kissed. The ragged bouncer had assumed a butler-like pose.

"Welcome to the last bastion of good times this side of Flatland, welcome to the secret hideout to end all secrets from hiding out, welcome to the Free Agent’s post-world planning party and interstellar get-down. Welcome to Club Nowhere."

I took off my shades, took a deep breath, and broke into my own crazy smile. I could already feel the music pulling at my limbs, the lights at my mind and the people at my curiosity. This was the point of no return, this is what I came here to find. I squeezed Glory’s hand and we stepped inside.

I was here, if here was even an applicable word for this town, now all I had to do was find Club Nowhere and the Free Agents. Not that this would be an easy task, Edge City was a big place and the layout utterly mind-boggling. As I wandered around the streets twisted back in on themselves so that after several blocks I ended up back at the apartment building. I would have asked one of the citizens for directions but the sidewalks were mysteriously empty as well.

"Glory, can you give me a hand? I’m lost here."

[…]

"Glory?"

"Well I’ll be!" a voice said behind me. It sounded like Glory’s but not in my head where it should have been. I turned around. Standing behind me was the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen, flaming red hair, deep green eyes, lots of curves, and a preternatural fashion sense. My ideal of perfection. "Glory, is that you?"

The woman stopped touching her face in disbelief and smiled. "You’ve got a great imagination, Janus, I feel almost real. Some places more than others." She ran her hands over her breasts and I blushed.

"What are you doing here?"

"You called me, silly."

"I know, but… you’ve got a body." I reached out to touch her arm. It was solid, soft, warm. Human. Suddenly she grabbed me and I found myself in the most passionate kiss of my life.

"Sorry," she pulled away and licked her lips, "I just had to do that, this is my first time in the flesh you know. Don’t get any strange ideas though, as tempting as that would be it seems a little incestuous." I was still too shocked to answer and she giggled, then started laughing and was soon clutching a lamppost to keep from falling to the sidewalk in her amusement. "Wow, is being visceral always such a rush?"

"It can be," I laughed, "though a lot of people actually hate having a body."

"Yeah? They should try not having one for a bit. This is so much more fun."

"Maybe. So how come you’re physically here?"

"I’m not. Technically you’re not either. We’re both ghosts in the machine here. This whole place is itself a ghost, an interference pattern manifested from psychic energy of its users. Kind of like a lucid dream. You should probably be careful, there’s no telling what you’re imagination might call into existence while we’re here. I can’t get a clear reading of what the limits are, but I suspect there might not be any."

To prove her point Glory lifted up her legs and crossed them in the air. I watched her, skeptical of my own ability to levitate, and then laughed at how closed my mind still was to possibility. What was I here for if not to push any and every boundary I could? So I took a deep breath and joined her in the air. Glory winked, and grabbed my hand.

"I know, when we get to the party you should meet a cute girl with a hot demon for me to hook up with. It would be stellar. Come on, let’s go!"

"Go where? I already walked that way and it didn’t go anywhere."

"Well, we are going to Nowhere, and it’s this way. Left, down the alley."

"How do you know that?"

"It’s written on the wall, don’t you see it?"

I shook my head, the glass wall beside us looked as blank as any of the others, dull and unlit for a storefront.

"Put on your shades."

Even though it was dark, I did, and gasped as the city lit up around me. It was as if someone had spray painted dayglo highlights on every imaginable surface and flipped on a big black-light behind my head. The buildings glowed, the sidewalk glowed, even the tree on the corner glowed with a laser blue trim on its leaves. After a moment I realized I was not just looking at the trigger-happy tagging of a graffiti artist on psychedelics, but at a literally brilliant system of trails mapping out the city in every imaginable color. On the large window was a key listing various cafés, clubs, and cabarets in their appropriate hue. Down at the bottom was Club Nowhere, marked in a vibrant purple, and at our feet a line of the same shade, zigzaging off down the alley.

"It’s no yellow brick road," I laughed, "but it looks like it will get us there."

"Where not in Earth Prime any more Janus, this road can take us everywhere we want to go. Oz has nothing on this wonderland."

"Well as they say, there’s no place like home."

"Especially when home is not a place. You want to buy me a drink when we get there? I’m curious what being liquored up feels like."

"A little like not having a body."

"Cool, I’m an old hand at that. Let’s do it."

[threshold breached… begin patch transfer]
[integrating 4232-20, 5X-20]
[…]

[system reboot in progress]
[…]

My perceptions had already began to shift as I stumbled home. Sleek neon buildings shot up over the old neighborhood, each atom materializing with the speed of light; a negative image of curved metal spliced between the usual concrete and brick. I hadn’t counted on being sleep-deprived enough that the patch would take affect immediately. Like a magic square or hypersigil it slipped through my distracted conscious filters and activated beneath my doing. I felt its trance pulling me between worlds.

People were appearing, ghostly at first but taking on solid shapes as the streets and citizens of Pittsburgh faded out. Strange figures in black and rusted metal, spiked hair and slick shades and data-wires jacked into their faces, denizens of Edge City. I probably made a peculiar apparition myself, partially merged into their reality, and several of them gave me knowing smiles as I struggled through the dirt lot to my house. It now looked like a squalid apartment complex but I held onto enough of my normal interpretation to turn the key in the lock and find my room.

I was a little shocked that it still looked like my room, though the bed and several objects seemed to be rearranging on their own accord. Maybe Deep Eye had thought this familiarity might ease my transition, maybe everyone had their own crash pad here to return to. But their was no time to ponder now as my body was falling apart. My limbs felt like mercury and with a last effort I melted onto the bed and passed out.

Immediately I flew up through myself, the code for each energy center a blur behind the perceptive rush, and out along the connections from my cell of the matrix. I could barely sense my housemates at their terminals of our energy bonds and then I was gone, swept past rows and rows of people. There went the neighborhood, the scene, the city, out to the edges of humanity where I could see a new configuration forming from those currently inhabiting Edge City. A network built not on locality and temporality, but presence and a hint of madness, drawn together into a tangible place.

Then like a ball thrown into the stratosphere I began to come down, falling into this fresh alignment and back into my body.

With a jolt I sat up. The digital clock was flashing 6:00 in a red that would fade out slowly and then snap back as if catching itself asleep at the wheel. The light pouring in the window was different, too bright, and when I looked I saw an illuminated billboard glowing on a warehouse across the street, advertising the latest high-speed neural link ups. I could no longer feel my housemates, but in the fading connection noticed other people wandering about the floors below me. I stepped out into the hall, dimly lit with a crackling arc light, and made my way to where the back porch would have been. It was now a rusted fire-escape overlooking the city.

All the familiar houses were gone. The neon buildings were no longer ethereal and stood out boldly all around me, back-lit by a rainbow of strobing searchlights. Somewhere nearby a semi-automatic fired, and the gang lounging in the paved lot beneath me took off running to the sound of sirens and shouts of "Bring it on!" I looked up and the buildings curved away into the night sky, their highest windows becoming indistinguishable from the swirling mass of stars. It was as if someone had taken every single Earthly vantage point of the heavens, tossed them in a blender and hit pulse. If I was at sea I would have been sick, and unable to find a course back to land. At least the moon was stable, and overfull. Someone began playing a saxophone from the warehouse roof and a pack of dogs howled. As I watched, the strobe lights reflected off a huge view- screen hung between the buildings, and formed into a coherent message.

"Welcome to Edge City! When you’re this far out there, nowhere else feels like home."

I went up the street to the Quiet Storm, put the envelope on the table and stared at it over a tempeh reuben. As curious as I was to know what was inside I couldn’t bring myself to open it just yet. Part of me suspected whatever the assignment was might change the rest of my life, or at least make it even more difficult to pretend I was still a normal kid with normal friends and a normal job. Sure they had become much less normal over the years, but was I ready to give up even a semblance of normalcy just yet, and why did I feel so sure I would have to? Sometimes precognition’s a curse.

Glory had made herself scarce again, she’s been doing that a lot lately, especially when I’m in public, and it felt strange having a few moments of solitary thought. Not that that was so possible here with jazz pouring from the stereo and a crowd of people at the bar arguing over whether the Pope’s death really meant Satan would be released from the Vatican’s basement. I considered telling them what truth I knew on he matter, but then the Cannon sunk his last pinball and wandered over.

"Yo dude, what’s up?" He straddled the chair across from me and sipped on his cola.

"Not much." Without thinking I pulled the envelope closer, as if to protect it from curious eyes. Which only brought more attention to it; that’s the type of behavior of someone who wants to get caught.

"A love letter?"

"No, I wish."

He laughed, and like a good friend, dropped it. At least for now. "So are you okay? You’ve been really distant lately, like something’s troubling you. What’s up?"

I had known the Cannon since I moved to the city, and the closest words to frame our peculiar relationship would be partners in crime. An poetic terrorist, anarchist rock star, and comedic genius; I can’t begin to recall all the crazy stunts he’s cooked up, and probably shouldn’t mention the details of those I helped him pull off in case the walls really do have ears. We’ve got car-flipping riots, enthogen-laden be-ins and more house-pumping dance parties then we can count under our belts. This is a man I’ve trusted my life to, but can’t tell just where I’ve been or what I’ve seen these past few months. And not only because heaven is generally indescribable.

The Cannon had been trying to lay low for a bit himself, chill out his scheming, get a steady job and a steady girl, stay out of trouble. Try and stay sane. He’s seen some things I wouldn’t want to comprehend and done some things I wouldn’t want to have any part of, and read a lot of Burroughs growing up (if you can dig that); so his reality is not necessarily one of the friendlier ones for him right now. When survival’s a priority the fantastic and absurd usually aren’t.

"I’m cool. I’ve just been working on a new piece of fiction. You know how I get."

"Yeah, sometimes I think you live more in the worlds in your head then you do in this one. It’s like you’ve been in la-la land since the band broke up. You should get out more."

"I have, and it’s been winter. I had to keep myself entertained somehow or go stir-crazy. But spring’s here now. A big change is coming."

"I hope so." The Cannon looked down and I lit a cigarette. The Pixies ‘Where is my Mind’ came on the stereo.

"So what are you getting into tonight?"

"Well this song brings some option to mind, but I’ll probably end up at the bar when I’m off. You going?"

"No, I think I’m done with drinking for a bit, it’s just another excuse for not actually doing anything. And it drowns out the voices in my head." I motioned at the fresh page of my open notebook.

"Hey, why do you think I drink?" He laughed. "The more you see what’s going on in the world, the harder it is to hold up. A stiff drink takes the edge off."

I wanted to joke that it may be taking his edge off, but knew the words would sound sharper then I intended. "Yeah, I think I may have some other things to take care of tonight anyway."

We both looked at the envelope at the same time. The Cannon grabbed it before I could and ripped it open. "What’s this?" He held up a photocopied sheet of paper. "It looks like a flyer for a party, but there’s no information on it."

"Let me see."

It was a flyer for a party, but one that no one would be able to find. No date, no time, no address, not even a contact number like an old-school rave. Just "You’re invited" in big block letters. At first I thought Deep Eye was trying to pull a joke on me, but then I realized he wouldn’t be so obvious as to put the details where anyone might see them. A sheet up paper has more than two surfaces to encode information on. This is a matrix after all. Luckily I knew this, and had some psychic search metaprograms that might do the trick if I could get a few moments alone.

"So where’d the invite come from?"

"Some dude on the street just handed it to me."

"Weird. Sounds like something out of one of your stories. You should let me know if you find out anything else. I’m always up for a good party."

"Sure, you getting back to work?"

"Yeah, the dishes won’t clean themselves. It was good talking, take care of yourself."

"You too."

Before going around the counter he glanced at the flyer again and made the international hand-sign for ‘call me.’ I felt bed, I wanted to let the Cannon in on everything and bring him along, but his reality tunnels had solidified over the years and I knew wherever I was going would not be ‘real’ in a way his psyche would want to accept. I couldn’t help but think he would get pulled into this whole mess sooner or later, but this thought spun away as consciousness slipped to the metaprogrammatic layer.

[…]

run unembed.exe

As I watched, the particles of the paper seemed to rearrange themselves. It was more like my perception was rearranging to infer a different pattern in the signal of the light waves bouncing from the paper to my eyes. But it still looked like the paper was swimming in my hands, like some two-dimensional fish being flushed down a toilet.

It was a flyer for a party, and one that no one would be able to find unless they had been invited and knew a trick or two. "You are invited to join the Free Agents and the Vanishing Underground in their post-world planning party and interstellar get-down at Club Nowhere, on the edge of Edge City! Bring your best intentions, fastest memes, a stunning metanoia and a pair of shades. Skin optional."

Below this somone, probably Deep Eye, had scrawled a box with several numbers in it, presumably a patch that would focus my perceptions of the matrix to that of Edge City. This would be a lot safer than stepping out of the matrix all together, less chance of getting caught, but it would also be less viscerally satisfying. Like literally dancing in a dream, since my body would be somewhere safe and uninterrupted to trance out. And my bed’s one of the best for that that I know. I quickly scan the numbers and "forget" them.

Out the window the waning moon is rising over the city. I haven’t slept since the day before yesterday, and won’t again tonight. If somewhere in my body I am tired my cells quickly rewrite it with an adrenaline rush of excitement. Looks like I’m going out dancing.

"What do you want me to do?" And where’s Glory with that information?

"Nothing that you wouldn’t want to do yourself."

"That doesn’t tell me much, now does it?"

Deep Eye grinned again. Down the block the cop had stopped the two girls and was asking for their Ids. Even I could feel the waves of desperation sweating from them, visibly darkening the day. "You wouldn’t want me to talk about it out here in the open, now would you?"

"No," it would be too easy to pick up on regardless how well encoded our speech was. "Can I give it some thought before accepting?"

"Sure," he laughed, "we wouldn’t pressure you into anything that goes against your true will, you know enough about us to know that. If you accept it just do it. If you don’t, then don’t. I can tell you’re interested though. You might not hear from me again otherwise."

"Yeah, I’m interested. How could I not be? I’m just being cautious."

"And that’s completely understandable in your present situation. Frankly I’m impressed you got them off your tail so quick. Your demon must be pretty hot stuff to pull that old trick."

"Yeah, Glory’s something."

"Well say hi to her for me, and tell her to ignore any files marked with establishment tags. There’s a whole slew of lies you would do better to ignore. On second thought, read all of it and form your own perspectives." With that he stood up and began tapping his way down the street with his cane, while the cop car rolled by with the two girls in the back. I slipped the envelope into my pocket and lit a cigarette.

It bothered me that Deep Eye knew what Glory was up to. Dealings with one’s own demon were usually a private affair, but a man with his intuition would obviously know when he was being watched. I suppose that’s how he’s managed to stay alive and free for so long. That and a killer demon of his own. Admittedly the term demon is a bit of a misnomer, a joke from whatever beings or forces originally wrote this matrix. Glory calls herself my ‘dea ex machina,’ my goddess in the machine, which is perhaps more accurate then calling her my muse, back before I left the matrix the first time and recognized the more technological underpinnings of reality. I recently heard the old Crowleyan phrase Holy Guardian Angel, but that harks back to a time when it was believed such forces existed as external beings and any claims otherwise were occluded under layers of ritual dogma. The Jungian archetype anima comes closer, but it’s more like having a personified connection with the main hub of existence. Glory does all the extra-planar dirty work I can’t do when I’m embedded in the flesh. Like keeping tabs on my new cohorts.

"Find anything?" I asked, feeling her at the back of my mind.

[Yeah, a lot of bullshit. Most of the records are establishment propaganda defaming the Free Agents as a bunch of terrorist good-for nothings.]

"Which I’m sure they are. Deep Eye seemed to think I should check that stuff out anyway, at least to know what their enemies think they are up to."

[Up to no good. Bombings, assassinations, various acts of cultural and corporate sabotage. They even go so far as to suggest the Free Agents were behind the JFK assassination, the Clinton sex scandal, the Hay Market riots, and the recent upsurgence of the global anti-capitalist movement.]

"Well the last I might actually believe, but the rest sounds like a bad hack of a Robert Anton Wilson novel. Regardless it gives me a pretty good idea what they’re not doing. Any positive records?"

[Nothing any more conclusive. It seems the Free Agents are notorious for hiding their activities under assumed names, and operating in domains where other revolutionary groups have already taken credit. It seems the Crimethinc. disorganization was one of their more recent fronts.]

"I already suspected that from our previous dealings. What do you think they’re after then, social change, cultural revolution, world peace?"

[I imagine it’s as simple as wanting to stay free, and free anyone else they can in the process.]

"Free, what does free mean? Of all the revolutionary catch phrases freedom is the most completely devoid of meaning. We are not slaves the matrix is a big hoax. The only thing to be free of is our own beliefs."

[…]

[So are you going to open that envelope or what?]

By the time Glory was back online I had thrown my notebook and runes in my bag, put on a pair of shades and hit the street, meandering through alleys and parking lots with one eye over my shoulder in case I was being followed. Not that I expected it yet, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful. If I learned anything from this last evasion it was the importance of looking over things, especially shoulders. All the magic and subtle energies, the "glitches in the matrix," happen behind our backs, right where our heads are connected around to the rest of the world. You can only catch them by looking back obliquely, in swift furtive glances as if you weren’t trying to look at anything in particular. It’s like trying to see auras, there’s that edge about an inch away from the body that refracts just enough light you can glimpse it on the sly. I’m not so good at it yet, I only just downloaded the program while I was away, along with some graphics programs I can’t wait to experiment with when I have more time.

[I think you’re safe for now.]

"Thanks G, I’d hate to ruin this gorgeous day with a rain cloud of paranoia. Now I can stop wondering and go get a cup of coffee, maybe some dinner."

[I’d recommend the Crazy Mocha.]

"Any particular reason?"

[There’s a message from Deep Eye. He said he’ll be walking down Liberty Avenue at six o’clock.]

"For him it’s always six o’clock."

[Time’s not so meaningless inside the matrix yet. It’s only five thirty now, you can be there by five fifty if you hurry. Need anything else while I’m here?]

"Yeah, there’s some files I need from the Akashic Records, anything you can dig up on Deep Eye and the Free Agents."

[Dirt?]

"No, agendas. I want to know a bit more what I might be getting myself into. Deep Eye’s only going to obfuscate things, you know how he is."

[Yes. I’ll be right on that.]
[…]

Liberty Avenue is a bustle of people, especially on a sunny weekday afternoon. Bored housewives doing their laundry and shopping, young punks skating on the sidewalks, old Italian grandfathers with big smiles standing on the street corners as if there was nothing more life had to offer except a few hours of fading sunlight. I try not to think of them as will-less automatons, but for the most part, they are. An unfortunate side-effect of stepping outside the matrix, even for a few moments, everyone else looks just a little more roboticized when you’re back in. Waves of apathy and inattention roll off them like the bad pop-muzak blaring from the bar up the street. Luckily I’m wearing my shades, both a shield to their aneristic energies and a disguise, so it’s not too obvious I don’t fit in if one of them catches my eye. A hint of freedom adds an intense craziness to your gaze that people can’t avoid falling in to, a pit-trap for unassuming souls. Of course, that look also has a way of passing on a longing for that freedom that even the most conservative of observers has a hard time denying. They may look and act like robots, but inside each and every one of them is a star waiting for that spark to make them shine. But today I’m trying to keep a low profile, and in this sunlight a pair of shades is the norm.

The Crazy Mocha is one of my favorite spots to sit and watch people, the tables set out on the sidewalk like some hip European bistro and the whole tide of Liberty Avenue lapping at my attention. It is also the usual place I cross paths with Deep Eye. Lou Reed is singing "I’m Waiting for the Man" from the café’s speakers with the usual fortuition that surrounds these encounters. Drugs aren’t the only thing you can get off the street, reality check-outs are going big these days if you know who to talk to. And for that, Deep Eye’s my main man.

I find it amusing that in lineage with the Watergate Scandal’s tip-off Deep Throat, and Douglas Adams’ world-manufacturing super computer Deep Thought, my contact with the Free Agents calls himself Deep Eye. Typical of their strain of post-post-modern humor, referencing any phrase at hand until the senseless words writhe with their own peculiar nest of meanings. Especially since Deep Eye claims he is blind and relies on his precisely tuned psychic prescience to get around effortlessly. The sunglasses and cane just give him a harmless appearance. Even if it is true, he’s certainly someone I’d want at my back in a fight. The way I’ve seen him move I can only imagine he thought the Matrix movies a laughable understatement of what humans are capable of.

Deep Eye finds it amusing that he acts as a go-between for someone who calls himself after the Roman god of thresholds; and that I honestly think a pair of sunglasses will make it any less obvious just how out there I still am. If there’s a border town between Reality and the Absurd I’m the big neon billboard announcing its city limits.

"Janus," he says, grinning like a mad cat, and slides into the other chair. "Welcome back." Two drunk teenyboppers playing hookey bounce down the street, bubbling over their new shoes and fake Ids. Though he doesn’t follow them with his eyes I know Deep Eye is watching them, as well as the cop down the block about to make the last catch of his day. When he was sure no one was watching us, the Free Agent slipped a tattered envelope onto the table.

"What’s that?"

"An assignment."

run calldem.exe

[calling demon]

[…]

[Janus?]

"Glory, is that you?"

[Well you did call me, who else would I be?]

"I don’t know, something hostile. The program’s grown weak since the west I/O tower fell. It’s hard to tell just what I’ll summon anymore."

[Yeah that would be quite a surprise, now wouldn’t it? But I don’t imagine you’ll have to worry about that for another several megacycles. I’m still your dea ex machina, baby.]

"I know. But as they say, ‘things fall apart’…"

[The center is still holding for now. So what’s up?]

"Where are we?"

[…In your room, of course. Where else would you be?]

"Another reality for all I know. Just because it looks like my room doesn’t mean it actually is. Appearances are fairly meaningless."

[It’s your room, in 4232-20. I wouldn’t be here if you were jacked into a different matrix-port. You were out, weren’t you? That always disorients you.]

"Yes, and too deep to go undetected this time. The Ops will be here any moment I imagine."

[…]

[They’re reviewing the session logs now.]

"Can you rewrite my tracks?"

[Yes, it will take some effort but I can do it. You know it won’t matter too much in the long run.]

"Not much does, but it would give me enough of an edge to cut out."

[This will take a minute, hold on.]
[…]

The falling afternoon sun spills in through the open window and pools up on the floor near the bed. I lay there and watch it refract off a dancing army of dust mites, permanently suspended in the light. I could try and read some sort of message in the white-noise patterns of their slow twirling, but this too is fairly meaningless. What a fitting epitaph for the post modern reality tunnel: ‘fairly meaningless’. Nothing has context or reason except that which we put their ourselves. No wonder the world super powers have no qualms slaughtering thousands in their wars and destroying the environment so thoroughly that unless we advance our space-faring technologies real quick we won’t have a home in too long. Does none of it matter?

Fortunately there are some of us who choose to live as if everything does indeed matter, as if the fate of the whole world was tied up inextricably with the swirling of the dust and light and spring air around me. But I don’t really have the time for divination right now, and wouldn’t want to know the fate of the world even if it was as easy as staring cross-eyed out into space. All the fun is in being surprised and having to adapt as shit happens, and when it come down to it, what else is their to do but try and have fun? And if Earth Prime does end up as a shiny new asteroid belt around the sun, Organic Technologies has the next line of co-habitable planetoids in production right now. Maybe they worked out a few of the kinks this one had.

I first started to suspect I lived in a matrix after watching that unfortunate excuse for pop-gnosis, the ‘Matrix’ trilogy. Unfortunate that from the prevalent post-modern vantage any pretensions of actual revelation were lost amidst the trite religious iconography that marred an otherwise decent action flick. Even more unfortunate that the Warner Brothers Corporation stole the script from some woman and dampened down whatever significance she may have intended in order to make some big numbers. I wonder where we’d be now if it had been otherwise. In some alternate reality are we that much freer? Supposition is also fairly meaningless; this is 21st century global capitalism, Matrix-class Reality® 4232, where cooption is the rule and control is the name of the game.

Not that everyone missed the joke and left the theaters with their reality tunnels intact, though a little shaken, and returned to their everyday lives of work, debt, and bad reality TV. I wasn’t buying it for a minute. As far as I was concerned the game was up. But it took a long time and a lot of searching before I could bridge that gap between suspicion and knowledge, and even now I suspect much more than I actually know. Another post-modern axiom, we can never truly know anything. But we can have really strong huntches.

That story will have to wait. If Glory’s unsuccessful it would be best if I made myself scarce.

[…?]

run osref.exe

[refreshing OS layers…]
[accessing first harmonic]
[…]

[physical host active… bio-survival mechanisms online… signal reception strong]
[running sonic EM test… red frequency… 4 c]
[environmental base established]
[…]

[motor responses optimized… domain boundaries upgraded… gravitational signature normalized]
[orange… 6 d]
[e-motive axis aligned]
[…]

[reloading symbol-plexus… conceptual overlay integrated… space-time coordinates defined]
[yellow…10 e]
[identity center confirmed]
[…]

[reloading social protocols… relational structures organized… connectivity enhanced]
[green…12 f]
[network hub open]
[functional layers operational… continue OS refresh?]

yes

[accessing second harmonic]
[…]

[creative host active… sensory reception upgraded… input-output cycles harmonized]
[blue…16 g]
[feedback loop established]
[…]

[reloading meme-nexus… imaginal display structures online… EM-tunnel vision optimized]
[violet… 192 a]
[psychic transceiver tuned]
[…]

[reloading akashic session records… morphogenetic agent-type identified… upgraded to star-class mythos-maker]
[white… 1’000 b]
[meta-gate halo open]
[…]

[non-local quantum accessed… cosmic filter applied… channeling godform ILU]
[black… 0 C… full spectrum test complete]
[attempting energy transference… press esc to abort]

esc

[…]

[attempt failed: user error… retry?]

no

[operations systems running at 7 layers… connect?]

yes

[…]

["Welcome back Mr. Johnson to Organic Technologies’ Matrix-class Reality® 4232-20. Your current operational layer grants you 7th level avatar representation and access to the wetwork, including rewrite capabilities. Please refrain from rewriting key threads of the code and deprogramming other agents. We are watching you.

Your absence from 4232 (Earth Prime) exceeded your provided limits of 0 nano-moments, and was duly noted by the right channels on reentry. Expect a visitation soon to discuss pending termination of service.

Enjoy the rest of your stay in 4232-20, and please check out our full line of Matrix-class and Pattern-class Realities® for your next incorporation. Send for a full catalogue today! Organic Technologies, Making Worlds Collide™]

[Would you care to see the menu Mr. Johnson?]

no

[…?]

open eyes

[opening]
[…]

[all systems down]
[full reboot in progress...]
[...]