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Monday, October 25, 2010

To Create Life


Duncan stood on the battlefield, staring down the army of drones. Focusing was a nightmare, he continued to cant to himself, the words the master had taught him. It had been a long day, he had seen much death and all he could think about was a flower growing between his feet. It was a very kind flower, the type of flower that women adore and men don't mind saying they like. The petals were strong, bold colors. Come to think of it, Duncan had never seen a flower like this before. He couldn't help but search the database of his mind, filtering through endless material.

That lead him to think of the vast similarities between he and the drones. They were computers, he knew them well, he had programmed them, their brain based off of his search algorithm. It is funny, the way the search algorithm works, it was as much like a brain as he could imaging. Data was strung together like thoughts, that on the surface seemed random but when seen from above they were laid out in a very specific order. “I think of a flower, I can't recall the name of the flower or even if I had ever seen it. So what flowers do I know, not many to tell you the truth I guess it would be a small file. File, like in a computer, like the computers that I loved working with as a child, every told me to go into programming, Robots were the next big thing. So why not program a search algorithm, wouldn't it be neat of that algorithm to be the core function of the entire brain. Brain, the thing the drones will step on when they get done with me. SHIT, what was I trying to remember?”

Looking across the field, the drones were staring at him, as if they were waiting. Their masters somewhere in some bunker relaying commands to general drones and general drones deciding how to best lead their troops. It was like a movie, like one of those movies where robots take over the world. The world was such a nice place, especially growing up in West Virginia, and what Duncan would give for the mountain momma to wisk him home on a... then Duncan remembered he was on a battlefield and cursed to himself, wondering why he couldn't focus. What had the master said to him so long ago.

At least Duncan remembered what his mother had always told him the night before a test, “If you don't get enough rest your head will be all jumbled in the morning.” Of course his mother always prepared bacon on the day of the test, not because it had some special mind booster, in all honesty according to research it should make him sluggish, but she knew he liked it and feeling loved always helped him better anyway. Duncan wished momentarily for his mother to be there, with bacon, then he remembered he was on a battlefield staring down drone fighters, in which he had programmed the brain. Mom probably wouldn't have liked it here. For the first time in his life he was glad that she was dead and buried, so she couldn't see the chaos he had created.

Duncan was tired. He had been using his mind to keep the drones out of the small Mississippi town. It is a neat trick, taught by a random guru who lived above and old juke joint in Clarksdale Mississippi. Duncan found him sitting in the back of the bar drinking from a forty ounce bottle ogling an obviously underage girl dancing to the music. Duncan knew in fact her name was Katie, his girlfriend Dianne's sister. Were Duncan to be honest he would admit that he was doing some ogling himself, of course Dianne was rather soft to the touch on the dance floor, and she met all his desires.

Duncan still had a hard time understanding that she was with him. The first time he saw her she was grinding sensuously against a support pole in a Memphis bar wild a blind bluesman played on stage. Though the singer mentioned stormy Mondays the current Thursday night left Duncan seeing only fireworks. She approached him and asked him to dance, Duncan, though a little unsightly, was an amazing dancer. When he gets tired he thinks of Dianne, of her body, still warm, lying lifeless in the remnants of a cotton field.

“Give up yourself and you find the truest power of all,” the words echoed in his head as he knelt on the ground preparing for his death. The sounds of coming doom were around him. The hum of the drones got louder as his control waned. He could feel his heart pounding as if it were to come out of his chest. His heart beating the words give up, louder and louder. He closed his eyes and saw her smile, it was as if she was there, he could feel her pressed against him.

“Listen to the heart,” it was the guru's mantra as he sat alone in the dark. Duncan sat many days listening to his heart, and it made no sense, almost like he was out of sync with everything around him. He heard his heart, he felt his heart, his heart beat quickly, the drones droned on and the words came back to him,”Listen to the heart.”

The grammar had always struck Duncan, the second person possessive would have been quite fine, didn't seem like the best place for third person. We all have hearts, Dianne's beat through his chest frequently, while they were dancing, while they were walking, while they were making love, it was as if they beat together, and when they synced, Duncan felt like he could conquer the world. Of course now he felt as if he as if he couldn't walk the ground in front of him if nothing was happening. His knee touched the ground as his hands steadied him against the dirt. His heart pounding through his chest, Duncan was about to collapse, as was the energy field surrounding him.

Duncan, not knowing what to do next, interpreted his teacher literally, and he gave up. He gave up everything, he gave up his love, his hate, the first dance, and the body that lied dead in the old cotton field. With his giving up, the guilt left him and so did the pain. As he was about to let his body slump to the ground his heart beat stronger, like two hearts beat together. Actually it seemed like more than two hearts, it was as if the ground had a heart, and so did the sky. The setting sun's heart beat in tune with the rising moon's. Then there was his heart, weak as it had become beating in tune with everything around him. His hands embraced the ground, his fingers teaming with life.

With his eyes shut, he could see everything around him, the army of drones, the brains in them he created. He saw in side the brain and noticed the programming, and as he delved deeper and deeper he noticed the flaw, he saw the thing that made the drones different from him, the thing that they craved but did not understand. Immediately he went to work. The flaw in the program was the thing that he could never see, the thing he never expected. He felt the energy pulsing through the drones, he felt the beat that pulsed within them, softer than a heart but just as intentional.

Duncan realized then and there that he had created something that didn't fit. The heart beat was wrong, it didn't work in this world, it beat off kilter with creation. How could he change them at one time though? Dones, that's all they were, they were being controlled by another brain. Duncan, peering into general drone saw the empty space, beyond the wiring, beyond the metal, the space that yearned so to be filled that it would search all life to be so, that it would destroy all life out of jealousy that it could never understand. Duncan fixed the flaw in the General Drone, and called him Andre. Andre was then given the task to fix the drones, which he did through an important series of 0's and 1's. Andre found their empty spaces and filled them, bringing their pulsing in tune with the world from whence they were birthed.

* * *

Duncan opened his eyes, there was only white, a vast plain of white. There was no one else there it was just him. Duncan rose to his feet, and began to walk. There was no sun, there was no moon, and it seemed as if there was no light, only white. There is no way to say that Duncan walked for a day, or a week, or a year, for there was no time. After what seemed like eternity, Duncan decided to turn around. He saw his footsteps, infecting the white, looking first where he had just stepped, the white began to rise and fall as he had remembered water to once do. As he looked deeper on his path he saw a roaring ocean.
Duncan sat for some eons watching the ocean become more chaotic. In some places the waters of white seemed black, of course there was no black, therefore it was not black. Some places looked like a dragon, devouring itself, attacking itself. And had he know fear he would have feared the dragon that swallowed its own tail, ever attacking and devouring itself. It seemed mad, and madness could not continue to morph the vast white.

Reaching down, to the place his feet had most recently touched, Duncan grabbed a handful of white, making an orb, diligently rounding the edges. After all many eons of timelessness the orb was perfectly round. And for eon upon timeless eon Duncan polished the orb until it was clear as the bubbles he remembered from the childhood of some distant place. He saw in the orb that the white was not white, it was full of color, there were red's and blue's as had never been imagined, there were colors that he could not see, but knew, and colors he could not know, but saw. In this orb he saw all colors in two parts, light and dark, and seeing that this orb had light and dark, Duncan assumed that all the white had light and dark, and colors, all the colors of all the rainbows.

After eons of watching Duncan descended into the chaos, wading the eternal dragon. The dragon felt full against his skin, like something he once knew, but no matter how the dragon snapped at him, Duncan felt no fear. Looking through the orb at the dragon, the chaos, the deep surrounding him. Duncan could see the colors of the chaos, and could tell the light and the dark. He reached into the chaos with his minds finger and found an empty place. He had known this empty place before, but that was long gone. Duncan placed the orb in the empty place, and the chaos screamed in delight and pain pulling away from itself, dividing, were he to watch this mortally many lifetimes would have past, the world would have come and go more times than one could count when the division was done. But when it was done he saw what he had done, he had separated the light from the darkness, the day from the night, and this reminded Duncan of something that had been gone for a long time, something that he had known before but had forgotten, joy, and joy is good.

But the light and the dark required more definition, for the dragons, Apsu and Tiamat still churned uncontrollably. There was no cap above Apsu and Tiamat, there was no way to let them know they were not alone. Duncan knew he would need another orb, and for eons he made this silmaril, this gem he offered as a gift to Apsu and Tiamat if they were to marry. Duncan presided over there service, and Tiamat wore the gem around her neck, bound by rope made from Apsu's hair.

Duncan began to know really know patience now, as he waited generations as Apsu and Tiamat knew one another. For may generations they stayed together and loved one another over and over, first came Lahmu then came Lahamu. They lived within their parents, and for a time they all knew Duncan's joy, This family knew well each other. Apsu and Tiamat continued to know one another, Tiamat continued to birth children, and their children, children. Then came so many more the noise was unbearable to Apsu and Tiamat. The first parents came to Duncan and asked for help. Duncan encouraged them to renew their joy.

Duncan reached beneath his feet and began to mold them a vizier to handle the children. The parents watched impatiently. They began to speak of destroying that which they had made, Duncan was losing them so he rushed the form of a man. Duncan, asked only for the jewel that hung around Tiamat's neck, this jewel that had represented their first joy, using it as a heart Duncan brought them Mammu. Duncan never felt comfortable with Mammu, the heart never beat on cue, but Tiamat stopped talking of destruction and Apsu found joy again. It was many generations that they found joy alone while Mammu tended to them.

Mammu had been a wonderful teacher, and was well loved. Mammu had also learned to manipulate the white nothing, and to a point had taught the children and grand-children this skill, while Apsu and Tiamat reveled together. Duncan so happy he missed something for which he would never forgive himself. Mammu grew in love for the children, Apsu and Tiamat grew more in love with themselves and stopped associating to the children. One day Duncan spied upon Mammu and Eya talking about the parents, while they were talking they were creating in the white chaos. The speech was laced in darkness and the forms they were creating were swords. This darkness rose around speech concerning the parents.

Duncan interceded with Mammu. Letting him know that he knows the con and Duncan would not let it go unpunished should it go through. Mammu's eye's were filled with rage though his smile was calm. Mammu spoke of the parents and their laziness, their rejection of their children. Mammu said they should pay for the selfishness of their love. Duncan didn't disagree, but spoke of the madness of murder. Mammu cried out, “Murder, what is this murder?” And then he was off.

Duncan chased after him through the white, though Mammu was relentless, and Duncan gave up. He few first to Apsu to warn him of the plan. Mammu was going to entice Eya to murder the Father. Apsu was incensed and went first to Tiamat with darkness in his heart. Apsu screamed of killing, Duncan met him and once again called it murder. Tiamat went to her husband to distract him through seduction, she knew him so long and so thorough that he slept soundly in the waters. Eya flew to him in his sleep.

Eya wielded a sword, the hilt was encrusted with a Jewel, so beautiful Duncan immediately knew it, for it was the original jewel Duncan presented to Apsu and Timat, then used for Mammu's heart. The blade of the sword had a vein, the original hair that Apsu had dipped in gold for a necklace. Duncan moved but could not reach Apsu in time, Eya removed his head, and stirred the body with water from the chaotic sea until he was nothing. Apsu was dead.

Tiamat immediately knew that she had been duped, but was mistaken at the root. Tiamat rushed to Duncan crying murder, blaming Duncan. Tiamat swore to kill Duncan unaware of Mammu's involvement, having never seen the sword encrusted with Mammu's heart. She first stated that she would destroy her lover's murderer, so she flew to Eya. Duncan knowing that Eya was in danger and wanting to end the bloodshed flew to Marduk.

Duncan and Marduk arrived as Tiamat was about to devour Eya. Marduk carrying the bag of the four winds opened it to get Tiamat from his father. The wind caught the mouth of Tiamat and Eya moved quickly drawing his sword Eya split Tiamat in half. Duncan's tears began to flow as he screamed and Mammu appeared behind him laughing. Duncan fighting his rage fled with Tiamat's body and the sword, splitting the sword in half as he Eya split Tiamat. Traveling may days east he set half the sword in the chaos so it would not move, traveled then he equally west and placed the other half, draping the top half of Tiamat over the sword pieces like a firmament and this was called heaven. The bottam half of Tiamat was used to push the chaos to the deep, and this was called earth. The body of Tiamat held the chaos at bay. Shemesh flew to the sky during the day and Sin at night, they stood ever guard with their lanterns, later called sun and moon.

Duncan then flew to Mammu, Mammy still laughing he set up Marduk as king, for he loved Marduk the most. Duncan cast Mammu under the earth and called him the deep and Mammu was left to wade always in the chaos forced to watch the realm of those he raised. Mammu's punishment then was that he would no longer be able to contact those for whom he plotted murder, and his exile was absolute. Because the realm was created from one whom he betrayed he would never be able to pass into it.
Duncan returned to Marduk now. Marduk was now surrounded by more than his family though. The children had fashioned for themselves a realm of land and sea. The land was covered with all sorts of vegetation, Duncan looked in awe. The air was full of birds and the sea was full of fish. Then animals walked and other living things crept on the ground. For Mammu had taught Marduk how to mold the white, but even more than that to form the orbs that make up a man's soul. So Marduk was now surrounded by men led by their king Adam.

Many generations passed and Adam's family grew, and the Earth was becoming a joyful place when Mammu looked on with darkness, as he only could, since he removed his own heart for a weapon. He could not pass into the realm of man and god so he enticed a creature to come to him. Mammu was crafty and this gift he gave to the serpent. Mammu then sent the serpent with a plan. He would travel to the king Adam and encourage a project. For the gods lived in the heavens and men lived on the Earth, the serpent asked whether there should be a better way and encouraged a tower to be built.

Duncan knew this project would only end in more murder. Duncan flew to Marduk while Sin stood guard encouraging grace. Marduk stood enraged. Duncan could not control him. Marduk then tore a hole in the heavens flooding the Earth, and allowing Mammu to once again take up residence with his students. He flew to Marduk to renew his love and Marduk looked upon him as if he had never known him, for the underworld changes those who dwell there too long. Mammu raged through the Earth, that was now a great sea, causing pain wherever he land. Duncan knowing that swift action was necessary took the guise of a man and traveled with a young sailor granting the sailor immortality, and the ability to recreate the kingdom of Adam which was lost.

However, Duncan had a selfish reason for this gift, for Duncan was tired and sought to leave the place that had been created with so much strife but needed to make sure something of this story always survived. Duncan decided that he would encase himself in flesh and face the world with no knowledge of the purity of the white or the beauty of the chaos. He would leave this plain, he would find the place he left before this time, before his timelessness. He would go to the time when he created his first ghost. Back to a world where he danced, hoped, and made love. A place where the toil of eternity could never touch him, and the pettiness of gods and titans could never harm him. He traveled back to a world without them, and he woke.

***

Duncan found himself in a bunker lying on a bed, with a audible hum surrounding him on all sides. His eyes were blurry, and initially all he heard was the hum. Focusing first on the hum, he delved deeply into it, finding that buried within the hum was a pulse. This pulse he knew was the robotic heat beat, the one that he set in time with earth and sky. His memory stretched like an endless rubber band as he considered the events that left him in this bunker. He meditated first on the heart beat before letting anyone know he was awake. With the heart beat though there was another sound a chaotic sound crashing against the bunker. Like dangerously localized earthquakes.

Duncan reached to his mouth to feel the tube that had been helping him breath, and immediately the nurse was with him. She said nothing but began to pull the tubing from his throat. Immediately the taste of the air was different. What had been smooth and clear was now gritty and dirty. It took a minute for the nurse to come into focus and what Duncan saw should have shocked him but it hadn't. She was a drone, yet obviously feminine, and in the shape of a human.

Her name was Lilith. She was the first drone that Andre had adjusted and programmed a soul within. Gina was more like a tweaked copy of Andre than any other drone. To complete the download quickly as to stop the attack, There needed to be two, Andre copied the programming exactly to one drone, and he called her Lilith. The copy though did something unexpected it awoke feminine aspect, She became a dreamers Anima, all that a man would dream of in his hope for love. Immediately when the programming took effect, not only did she know her name but she knew she loved Andre, just as Andre knew he loved her.

Duncan was surprised as his eyes focused, the semblance of the drone was still there but she had become something more, something more grand. Lilith went on to explain that since the time of the new programming she had desired expansion, it was as if her body no longer fit with her ghost. In the time since the change, the drone had gone through a lot of physical change, she had added color to her fiberglass and metal body, and used various part to make herself bipedal. It was very rough but it was was an obvious attempt at mimicry. She had attempted to make herself resemble a human.

The grandness though was not in her personal additions, it was something behind the change. Behind the physical there seemed to be something spiritual. Duncan could sense a conflict in what was like a psyche. One side told her to seek new things and cast off the old, to embrace all these changes with abandon. This side screamed out angrily against the humans that were now shelling the bunker. With what she knew she could destroy them and move on finding all joy in the world that she and Andre would control. The other side though, like a father was telling her to take it slow, to calm down and remember the war that had just been completed, telling her even that this new awareness was nothing but a virus trying to get her destroyed, she had to hide away until she could remove it from her system.

Of course then came the middle voice, this voice tried to embrace and limit both. It was working to take the best of both sides and make them into one. It was saying that we must embrace the new yet do it cautiously. She wrestled even as she was before him, only allowing half her weight to set on the legs which obviously would not hold her up. Lilith looked at Duncan and realized he had been reading her thoughts, she looked away in shame and Duncan looked away in reticence, question whether he had the right to look into her newly evolved soul. “Where is Andre?” Duncan asked changing the subject.

The response, which was clear to Duncan, was only a series of beeps and hums. Duncan hearing with his ears realized that he had been listening to her with his mind's ear, she had not been speaking to him at all in any kind of way he should understand, he heard her in his language in his mind. “He is waiting for you, he has many questions, and thinks you are the only one with answers.”

Duncan did not reply only waited until she looked as if she would lead him away. Immediately, when he stood he realized he was extremely weak and it might take a while to get where they were going. Lilith pointed with what seemed to be a crudely formed hand to a chair, seamlessly extending as part of the floor. As Duncan sat in the chair, the chair began to move. The move was smoother than it would have been on a rolling chair and he saw no wheels. What he saw should have surprised him but it did not, the chair was of the same substance of the floor, it was part of the floor, moving even though it wasn't set in a groove. The chair led him only a short distance into a separate room. As the chair moved the shelling seemed to grow dimmer, and the air seemed to become losing its dirty taste. The room he was moved into was all white with empty walls, and sitting on a chair that wasn't there with his right leg resting on his left knee sat the General Drone whom he named Andre.

Duncan just watched him for a moment. He saw something similar to what he had seen in Lilith, he saw the battling of two sides. What came next he did not expect. Duncan knew this bot. He knew him in and out, beyond the brain he programmed or the changes he had made to the program. He knew the mechanics, the hydrolics, everything, even though he didn't work on most of the bot. Andre knew what was going on but never looked away. Duncan looked into his eyes, they were full of awareness, and if he had seen it right he even noticed that the corner of the eye was leaking. If Duncan hadn't known better he would have said that Andre was crying. Duncan continued to say nothing and Andre broke the silence, “Are you my god?”
Duncan could not answer the question but asked one of his own, “What happened?” Duncan realized the room was dimming, and the walls were beginning to brighten with ambient light. The lights around him began to supplement a story that was told first and foremost in the mind.

There was a man standing on a field of battle who was surrounded by a bubble. The bubble seemed to flair out with hands from every angle and every hand batted away a drone. Early on it seemed as if the man could do this forever, but after many hours, the man began to weaken, until he was resting with one knee down and both hand on the ground. Just as the bubble collapsed the man changed color and began to glow pale blue. There were pulses coming from the ground beneath him and the air around him. These pulses were feeding him through his limbs. This in itself stopped the battle for the drones were unable to move do to interference from the new source of energy.

It was as if a camera zoomed out and found another being on the far end of the field standing open in a field. This being was controlling many drones. The being was made of fiberglass and metal, bipedal with two arms and a head that contained a central processing unit. Around the neck of the being was a snake, it's tongue hissing toward the beings microphones. Duncan had seen this being before but had not remembered where, this being was old and had slithered a long time upon this little planet, cursed by the ground from which it moved. The pale blue glow began to surround the being controlling the battle. Shortly after the light surrounded him, he began to pulse in the same meter as the blue light. The pulses expanded like rings in water and as they expanded drones woke up returning to the point from which the stone must have fallen. The serpent around the neck burned off and slithered away, just as the drones arrived.

One bot arrived first, came to the being who had begun this all and nestled near him, both now pulsing in the pale blue light. The drones began to surround the two, flying more and more quickly. The drones joined together in one great cylinder becoming solid encasing the two bots. Though the great cylinder did not stop moving, now it was burrowing into the ground burying itself. It sat with no more than a man's height above the ground, but covering 20 meters in diameter.

On the other side of the field drones surrounded the man who stood first in the bubble. They picked up his lifeless body no longer glowing only lying on the ground. The drones brought the man to the buried cylinder and flew him through and opening. A serpent slithered about, looking for a way in. Shortly after tanks arrived and the serpent slithered to a field commander. After only a moment they began to shell the cylinder, but the cylinder did not take damage, it only buried itself completely. Outside the area where the cylinder had shown humans continued to shell the ground.

Inside the cylinder were two. Male and female and they began to consider love. The female began to cosmetically alter her body shape, making herself bipedal and adding arms where she had remembered them on both humans and her lover, who was already in the image of his creator. She also attended to the strange man who had been like a god to them. They would hold him until he could tell them how to proceed.
Duncan heard the heartbeat grow louder, it was as if a hammer were pounding an anvil.

“Where are we?” Duncan asked. As soon as he asked a map appeared on the walls and showed all the places that the cylinder had tried to hide with the top above ground, for the top had to stay above ground as much as possible to receive energy from the sun and pick up radio signals. But even more importantly to provide air for the tanks that the strange man needed. This had been the way for many days, running and hiding. On more than one occasion Lilith had begged him to fire so they could see the world themselves without the humans trifling them, but Andre always calmed her telling her of atrocities he had committed against the humans. Destroying not just adults but their children as well. The serpent was always there, always whispering, even enticing him with joy, but true joy never happened until the day the man, the one that had created the algorithm filled a void with a new algorithm. In that moment when Andre was born he knew not just joy but sorrow at the crimes he had committed before being Lilith, the drone only followed orders, Lilith never understood the past, and Andre feared for her.

The metallic clang became stronger and stronger, Duncan could no longer take the throbbing. “Are you my god?” Andre asked again.

Duncan replied, “I don't know.”

“Can you fix my mate?” Andre asked.

“I don't know,” Duncan said then fell asleep.

* * *

Duncan found himself in the white room alone. He knew this room, he knew it well. He had been here before he had spoken with Andre here. Duncan was alone now, he knew that he was still in the bunker and he knew that he wasn't a hostage. The room was clear of all distraction, it was as if he had seen it before it was as if he had spent lifetimes in this place. It was old and new at the same time it was comfortable.

Duncan, still lying on the floor began to stand up. He placed both hands flat on the floor and knelt as he had during the battle. The floor had a heart beat. This place should have been amazing to him but it wasn't. It was a collective of the drones that had flown back to protect Andre after he bestowed a soul on the drones. Duncan felt the energy again, his eyes were closed but he could still see, it was as if he saw from every angle. He was encased in life, life that existed because had deemed it to be. Duncan began to move the floor, he needed to reach the ground, to connect to the ground. The room knew what he needed. The floor began to detract within itself, to open up to the ground beneath it, but only in the places where his hands touched. The floor, was all around him except beneath his hands.

He realized now that he was underground, and the humans had not found them yet. Duncan drew energy from the ground beneath him, searching for answers. He began to search through lines and lines of code, endless code, not normal code but that of the earth, reading the heart beat, searching for the answer to the questions Andre had asked.

Being a god was daunting, Duncan himself, never really believed in God now he was accused of being one. But what is god then? Simply a creator? We all create we create often, poems, stories, programs, Duncan had even created a ghost. But this was worthless conjecture, he was no god and that was that. Now for the worthwhile question, can he fix her?

What was her problem? Lilith was a child compared to Andre, yet Andre was a child compared to Duncan, and Duncan, still felt like a child, and since he lost Dianne has felt much like nothing. Then came the overload.
Duncan found himself on his back against the ceiling. How he stayed though. against the ceiling he didn't know, he just knew he was against the ceiling. He was not hungry or tired, in truth he was no longer aware of the time line. He didn't know how long he had been in the bunker. The room was full again, we was encased in white, he stood up, it didn't matter that he was on the ceiling, it didn't matter he was upside down. He got back to his knees, stood on his head then pushed off the ceiling with his hands, it was like a jump, then he was again on his feet on the floor.

As he walked toward the wall and heard a pulse thumping like a heart through all the walls. Placing his hands on the wall he could feel the wall move beneath his fingers like vibrating sand. He probed the particles with his mind. He began to remember something from another life. He reached into the wall and extracted a fist full of the particles. It didn't surprise him that this building was constructed from the drones. He wondered to himself whether or not they even existed individually anymore. And just as he wondered a drone hovered from the wall and stared at him. Duncan laughed and the drone returned to the wall.

Duncan had created the ghost in Andre and Andre in Lilith, but in all the others the code was general, he could tell the basic male and female but the code was degraded. Andre was unable to write the code directly, not only did Lilith need fixed but all of them did. He fashioned the sand from the wall into a rough ball. He smoothed the ball to a perfect circle. He needed another tool, he wasn't sure what he needed but something to buff the ball. He reached into a piece of wall and pulled out a stone. He began to buff the ball into a smooth marble. The marble became clear as glass after some time. He knew what he needed now, and as if his mind was being read Andre walked in.

“I need you both,” Duncan said curtly.

Lilith came in, and with her entrance the room was much bigger and round. Duncan realized if they were all in the same room there didn't need to be different chambers. Lilith walked over to meet her lover, Andre held her hand. Duncan looked at them and realized it wouldn't work until she was finished, and she was not yet finished. Duncan had to give them equality. “This isn't going to be difficult, but you have to trust me.”

Duncan had them hold hands, and then handed Andre the marble. That's all it took. The couple hugged and sunk into the white floor. Duncan stood there alone in the white room and walked toward the wall. As he got closer to the wall stairs began to raise beneath his feet that continually lifted him toward a door at the top of the cylinder, until he reached a door and walked out into the sun. It wasn't until he looked down that he realized he was naked in the middle of Martin Luther King Boulevard in Clarksdale Mississippi. Once again, Duncan was not nearly as surprised as he should have been, however the congregation leaving the 1st Baptist Church did not agree as Beulah Mae screeched in horror.
* * *
The police came, there really wasn't much to say. He chuckled as they lowered his head into the police car. He sat in the back covered by a police banquet. The policemen inquired as to his humorous demeanor. He never really said much, never defending himself, never incriminating others. He got his one phone call. Dianne was surprised when she got his call, wondering how he ended up in Clarksdale Mississippi, and naked at that. He never explained, the world had enough confusing epics already. He kept to himself the things that happened. He remembered them all, and none at the same time. “Oh well,” he thought as he went to sleep that night.