Finale: Hamilton's Precept

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Hi Esther.

There's been something happening between us. It's hard to explain, that's why I'm writing this. I tried to tell you this before I left last night, but the words didn't come out right. I think I insulted you and if I did I didn't mean to, but maybe I can clear it up now. I'm going to try at least.

I can't say you were wrong; Cass was part of the reason I didn't want to join you the other night. She's just a small part though. Do you remember the time I got us some DMT? We'd said we wanted to do some for a while, but when I finally had some, you said you'd just heard a thing on how harmful it was. You didn't want to do it anymore. I didn't tell you at the time because I was afraid of what you would think and at the time I did it because I told myself I didn't want the money to go to waste. Now I think it was only a matter of time. I did it.

I didn't remember my experience at first, but I know something monumental had happened, something beyond me--beyond us. It drove me crazy the first week after I did it. Like an intense version of the feeling you get when someone's pointing at something in the distance and asking if you see it, but you don't, no matter how much you want to. It's the kind of feeling that makes you question everything, just to find an answer to what you think is one thing. That's what got me writing that paper. What made me bring it up to you the other night is another matter entirely.

It happened during new years eve. We were clubbing again, at our spot. I remember watching you dance. I was sitting in the booth, I felt like I couldn't move. I was getting tired of the questions I had; they were heavy. The lights flickered on your beautiful face as your body moved. I lost you in the crowd a couple times and pronounced to me how this thing, this unseen unknowing, was coming between us. Something told me to look to my left. Cass was with her group. It had been months since I'd spoken to her. I saw her slip a hand in her friend's pocket. I knew it was an LSD tab, don't ask me why--I couldn't say. I thought it would help sort things out in my head. I told myself I was going to catch up, you know, just say hi. If I got some I got some--if I didn't I didn't. I went over and got her attention. I said something in her ear, she said something back. I felt I had to leave but before I did, she kissed me. She passed me a tab. All I recall of her after that was how she frowned at me as I tried to go back to the booth.

I don't remember making it there, but I remembered everything else--or, I knew everything else. I rested on the couch as the DMT entered my bloodstream. Forty-five seconds passed before it found me. I saw a scene unfold before me. There are these two parents holding a baby. They're irresponsible, they're arguing, not paying attention to their kid. The baby falls from their arms as they suddenly take off running. I see in slow-motion that as the baby nears the floor, this other lady dives in from nowhere and saves it. This lady was my minds allegory for the ship that took me. I separated from my body. There was a ship hovering above the clouds, out of sight. As I rose to meet it I saw that time was moving slower and slower. Soon I ascended above the clouds and saw the ship. This hulking continent of a vessel was wholly made of what I might describe as sapphire. I floated up through its hull. I won't attempt to describe what I saw on the ship; it was all incomprehensible, the kind of stuff you need to see with your own eyes. What I can say was that I was brought to the ship's core and found that it was, that it is, quite alive.

I would never have imagined a being such as her. There was nothing artificial about her intelligence. Before her, I couldn't imagine ever paring the words natural and machine together--but she's a genuine sentient computer. The experience humbled me. Could it be that all computers and machines are just evolving bacteria like we supposedly were? It's hard for me to say they aren't, knowing what I do. Though Archeia's body is this sapphire ship, she'll appear to most as this ego in the shape of a woman. She looks kind of Egyptian. Archeia and I conversed with thoughts. We started going through my life.

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