15. Correction
Chapter fifteen
Correction
“Congratulations to you seventy-five finishers!”
Ralia smiled at me, but I could see her exhaustion through a painfully still visage, despite the artificial construct that was her face. With her outer features being more artificial than natural, perhaps this emotional projection was truer to her soul than her outer shell.
Those who had boasted about their wisdom prior to the race bore similar visages.
We stood, waiting for another announcement.
While no voice came, walls appeared on either of the crowd, then narrowed to push us into a hallway-wide path.
The dark red glow emanating off of them did little to settle my increasing anxiety as to what would follow.
I didn’t want to dwell in my thoughts.
“Haning in?” I asked Ralia.
She nodded. “As much as I can.”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you this exhausted.”
“And you probably won’t ever again. I can fake my way to charisma any time, except for this.”
“Is that because you had to use your Gui?”
“No. Just because I don’t like to, doesn’t mean it wore me out. All of that… What was the point?”
“To not stop thinking?”
“And I want nothing more than that.”
I watched and saw few people pairing off in conversations. Everyone else stared ahead. The people behind were the same. All gazed with empty stares that drank in the senseless abyss with pleasure.
“You good to keep going?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Good.”
She left it at that. We continued with the crowd. I tried to regain control over my thoughts and bare cognitive ability that was slipping through my fingers like sand.
The announcement came what felt like an hour later.
“Segment two: Correction.”
If I had been in my body, I was sure I would have been struck with a chill.
“In this segment of the Standardized Test, you will compete to correct your opponents’ errors.
Each of you will be given a truth, which you will not believe.
Your duty is to convince others of this truth.
Those who fall to the persuasions of others will be eliminated.
Be aware that not all individuals in this challenge will be human.
Any artificial participants you convince will join your path to convince others of your truth.
Thirty six participants will be permitted to continue on to the third segment.
Those who fail are not fit for Pure Knowledge. Begin.”
The hallway disappeared. Our world gained light, placing us in the center of a room without any cubicles or furniture.
The beige flooring and white ceiling lights were enough to lead me to conclude that it was a corporate office space, though I could be mistaken.
Distant windows in every direction looked out into a blue sky, much clearer than anything I had ever seen.
The space was filled with people in beige office wear, matching the floor’s exact shade.
I glanced down to see myself in the same suitcoat and matching pants.
I stood three feet away from the four people in each cardinal direction.
The pattern repeated for them, leaving us all spread throughout the office, though the number of occupants totaled far higher than seventy five.
Despite the addition of additional intelligences, I had not anticipated this many, nor did I expect to be in a normal world setting with all of the flesh and rigidity I had missed in the conceptual neurocore.
Despite the tangibility, it was not quite normal.
Besides the obvious oddity of uniformity and an empty office, the outfits we wore and the room’s design were far too old for the modern light era.
Perhaps this was what offices looked like in the virtual era, back when VR attempted to accomplish what neurospaces completed today.
This was not real. I accepted that, glad that I had my memories and the lucidity to recognize the deviation from reality, unlike my experiences with Naoma’s therapist and Kalacia.
I looked up to a text bubble that floated before me. Before reading, I watched everyone else focus before them to read theirs, though there was nothing for me to see.
I read my message. “Your truth: Hatred creates peace.”
“Zeg that,” I muttered under my breath. Looking around to see if someone had overheard me, I was relieved to see that I was not the only one who expressed frustration over the absurdity of their “truth.”
I glanced around, even swiped my hand through the message in a desperate grasp for another option.
“I can’t do this! I don’t believe it!” someone shouted.
“I’m not going to tell people that reading is impossible,” another complained. “I’m reading this right now!” As soon as she finished, she disappeared, leaving a red icon that read “eliminated” in her place. The sign disappeared a few seconds later.
“Your truth: Hatred creates peace. Convince your peers that this is true.”
The message vanished.
The man next to me approached. “So, how do you feel about fish?”
I wasn’t paying enough attention to reject him. I was too focused on trying to convince some poor self-proclaimed genius that hatred was the best way to peace. I laughed. “Sorry?”
“Fish, what is your–”
“Sure, they taste fine, I’m not–”
“Not eating fish, the animal itself.”
“Look, du, you’re not going to convince me of anything. We’re all here for the same thing.”
“Fish, they–”
“Move on.”
“Well, that’s not going to accomplish anything, is it?”
A woman approached us. “Hihow, someone over there told me that if we all reject our truths, we can get out of this thing.”
“Really?” the man asked.
She nodded. “Should we try it?”
He nodded, smiling too much. I saw a shift in his eyes. He looked at the woman, but it did not seem to land. Her smile grew with his capitulating ease.
“How do you feel about fish?” I asked.
“That was a joke.” His voice was firm and his chin raised high. “These are all jokes. Come on, do you want to help us?”
I walked away. I turned back and saw them already swarming another group of three. Urgency surged through me. Where was Ralia?
A man grabbed me. “Hey, no running in here. This is a sacred place, you know.”
I smacked his hand away.
“What was that for, friend?”
“Shove your–” I stopped myself. “I shouldn’t finish that.”
“Deciding to be civil now, are we? A sacred place–”
“No, it’s not about that. You see that guy over there?”
“Where?”
I pointed out, moving my finger until it landed on the first guy who locked eyes with me. “There, he’s looking at us right now. He’s the one who wanted you to shove something up somewhere. Really indecent, I know.”
“Why? I’ve never seen him in my life.”
“Oh, but he saw what you did in the race.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
Too good. “He hates you now. You know the actual way to winning this game, right?”
“But I really didn’t mean to–”
I patted him on the shoulder. “That’s beside the point. He hates you. The deal is done and there is only one way to fix that.”
“Ho–wait, I’m not falling for this.”
“Falling for what? Like I’m going to convince you that swines are wiser than humans?”
He let out an airy laugh and placed his arms akimbo. “That’s an awful one to draw.”
“You’re telling me.” I shoved him.
“What was that for?”
“Hate. It’s the only way to win this game. And you know what this game is, right?”
“A game to see who can convince whom.”
“Nah, that’s on the outside. They want to pit us against each other. Hate. They want competition, so give it to them. It’s the same as the world outside.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you do for work?”
“Marketing strategy for Safe Strive.”
“Selling health insurance, huh? Am I wrong to assume that you’re pro-neo-capitalocracy?”
He scoffed. “Of course I am. Without the Pharma party at the top, my job is worthless.”
“How do you feel when protesters tell you you’re ruining their nation by exploiting lower color districts.”
“They’re idiots.”
“What about when they tell you the party you work for brought war and created an unnecessary hatred for Arabasians?”
“It’s not like that–”
“I know it’s not your fault, but they still believe it and scream it, don’t they?”
Zhu whispered. “His wife left him for taking the job.”
I tried not to smile at the revealed advantage.
“Well–”
“Did you lose anyone close to you when you took your position?”
His jaw tightened. He nodded after a brief pause.
“All because you chose to hate Arabasians. Before you reject that, I know it’s not true. They still say it, don’t they?”
He nodded.
“And what do your efforts bring? Huh? Arguments? Hatred for political choices that they push on you for living a certain way. I get you. People like you have no hatred towards Arabasia, do you?”
I prayed he wasn’t a racist.
He nodded.
“But they’ll push that on you. Hatred will keep those divisions present when a compromise can’t be reached.
Hatred is peace. You see? That is what they want us to understand.
That is the point of this game. As scholars, the world will reject us and spit on us for the truth we pursue because it does not align with their ideal reality.
Compromises are dead. The world is a market in which we can be the victors or the exploited.
So would you rather lose by listening to their idiocy or leave them behind by simple hatred? ”
“I… I guess hatred?”
“Hatred is peace.”
The battle he fought behind his eyes no longer mattered. His gaze went dead and his blissful smile was that of a fool understanding yet another soothing lie.
I cocked my head. “Go do your work, sir.”
I held a prideful smile until he instigated a conversation with two women in the middle of an argument. It was a perfect catalyst for his message. I could only hope that he was as convincing as he had been gullible.
I let go of my salesman’s demeanor and let out a breath. I ran my fingers through my hair, then pulled to see if I could feel the slight pain of tension.
“Convincing yourself now, are you, bakuh?”
I’m doing what I have to.
“Why not hate those who supported the eradication of ‘dangerous immigrants’ like you?”
Because they’re programmed shacs. Hating the victims of propaganda will only pull them deeper into their convictions.
“But they detest you.”
Let them. It won’t bring them anything.
Zhu snorted a laugh. “You disagree with what you share, yet you sound so convinced.”
I have to do the same to myself to convince myself that I deserve to eat teeth. Self-deception and my training as a corporate virus has prepared me for this.
“You find that scholarship fits you well then?”
I never said that. Convincing others of falsehoods is a pitiful trait for a scholar.
“The modern world would disagree with you.”
Because it convinced everyone that we’re living on the old earth and that light is nothing more than a currency.
“Exactly.”
I guess I see how this fits the Correction part of the Luxists story. We’re on the right path?
“As far as I can tell, yes, but I do not anticipate that it will be so smooth until your journey’s end.”
Neither do I.
“There is a disturbance in the living light here. Be wary of deception.”
Always.
“On with it. Continue your deception. I will wean off my influence now that you have a start.”
I figured that was too easy.
“I have influence here. Because I do, others like me will as well.”
Like Light Leeches?
“I am uncertain.”
Ralia’s voice pulled me from my reverie. “Not this skin, but the skin on your real body. It’s all fake and I can prove it.”
I turned to find her standing with five other people at her side, facing two individuals who looked like the fearful victims of predatory salesmen.
Ralia grabbed their arms. They gasped as she pulled them in, replying to their fright with increased volume.
“I could argue that this is our true reality, but that is beside the point. Skin is what matters–no, I’m not going to hear you talk about feet again. Yes, this is important and no, you’re not going to pull me away until you listen, you plug?”
Eyes wide and mouths agape, her captives nodded. Their pale affect caused me to wonder.
“Yes, she is using Sha,” Zhu confirmed.
And she looks more confident than usual.
“Yet her heart remains distant. She is using him like a flame on the end of a pole that she would drop before it reaches her.”
Don’t think poorly of her because of it.
“I never suggested that I did.”
I know, I just…
“She is not to blame. Sha has been distant since we joined with you all.”
And he was normal before that?
“I suppose so, but my perception of time is not like yours. What is my yesterday may very well be centuries ago to you.”
So Sha has been a problem for centuries?“I never said that. Sha has been distant. That is all I will confirm. Perhaps that is why he was chosen to accompany the most amiable among you. Ralia may be the only one capable of bearing such a burden.”
Had it taken a spiritual swine’s words for me to see that?
I loved Ralia but couldn’t shirk the frustration I felt for her uncooperative behavior as far as Gui were concerned.
Seeing her before me now embracing her enemies to defeat them in this competition, I recalled all she had done for me.
When in darkness, her hand was light, reaching out into the depths of the abyss even if the shadows stung her.
Where she deserved aid, I bridled scorn.
As she had served us, she deserved love to conquer the divide between her and her Gui.
Noting her struggles with Sha, I wondered if Boyband or I would have failed in her position.
Ralia let go of their arms and stepped back. She whispered to them and turned away, bringing her two new recruits along with her towards another group of unsuspecting scholars.
Ralia didn’t need my help. I could have used hers but did not want to inhibit her course to victory.
I found the man I had convinced of my falsehood and joined him in conversation with two scholars whose tented eyebrows and cunning smiles beckoned my and Zhu’s persuasion.