28. The Other Journeyman #3
“Follow me, please,” the and instructed and did not wait.
Ralia pulled me and I followed her to the left, though I continued to gawk at the underground majesty.
Floating pales with a ring of light to provide a railing took some people from one level to another.
The ethereal synth continued to play, but it wasn’t as noticeable over the oddly comfortable return of constant chatter.
If this was the Correction’s core and the origin of the false-Earth lie, I could only fathom what else was stored in this vast library.
Perhaps it wasn’t a library, but a large office whose very purpose was to maintain the illusion that humanity never left their birthplace.
Could such a purpose occupy an entire establishment like this?
Or were there other untruths being perpetuated here.
Could this be the only remaining repository of pure truth? Pure Knowledge.
We stopped before a violet veil of light.
A burly woman stood outside with metallic adornments on her robe like armor.
There was a slight bulge on her hip suggesting a weapon, but I did not dare to stare at it under her imposing glare.
I supposed that even organizations like this could not forgo proper security.
I glanced above the door and noted two small security cameras pointing at us like sentinels.
Our guide approached the guard and whispered to her with his hand hiding his mouth. She watched us with an unbreaking stare.
“Why is there a second one?” the guard said. Her voice was deep and threatening, even in monotone.
The guide whispered again.
The guard’s eyes flashed. Her gaze softened, but it was only a subtle change from disgruntled to annoyed. She tapped the veil and it faded to a pale blue.
We followed the guide inside.
A large ring of a table floated in the center of the room.
Twenty people sat around it, all facing inward, towards the glass prism.
A woman was speaking as we entered. Her face appeared as a hologram of violet light in the core of the prism, but her voice needed no amplification.
An older man began to speak and his voice was amplified a touch louder to match her volume.
He stopped speaking as he–along with all of the others–turned to see who had entered.
Most glared at us as if we had committed a crime by interrupting them.
A few smiled at our presence, especially the man who spoke to greet us.
“They’re finally here.” His voice was a still, a referent glee that paired well with his almost child-like grin. His skin was not as young and smooth as most of the others. He was an elderly man of Eastern Arabasian heritage with black hair and wrinkles that spoke of experience more than mere age.
“Yes,” Ralia said, “we are.” She walked forward after pointing out the obvious with no semblance of respect. She stopped before the table and stared at the face in the prism with arms akimbo. “What now?”
I followed her but stood a foot behind.
“Barrier, please,” the face said.
The guard left and the veil returned to its vibrant violet.
“Hihow.” Ralia snapped her fingers.
“Come,” the man said as he stepped out from the opposite side of the table and waved her forward.
She glanced at me. We obeyed.
“I’m sorry, what is this?” a disgruntled bald man said.
“Do not question Dear Leader Kim.” An aged woman said. I recalled that she was one of the few who did not act bothered by our entry.
“Mister Kim, I have a dig team waiting for me and don’t have time for your guests to–”
Mister-Dear-Leader Kim glared through the prism at the man who had spoken. “The archeological branch can wait for this. Nothing is more important.”
“Sir, the Southern Republic’s Yucatan temple anomaly is close to breaching. I find it hard to believe that anything can be more important than that right now.”
“The return of the Dokkaebi,” Mister Kim said.
Half of the table gasped or expressed some form of audible awe.
Ralia stopped a foot before Mister Kim. Despite his aged face, his build was that of an Olympian with large stature and flushed-out musculature.
Violet light lines ran down from small circles on his temples, down his neck, then met in the middle to run down the center of his chest at the point of his buttoned collar.
“Are you serious, sir?” a woman asked.
“But you are already here,” that same disgruntled man said.
Mister Kim faced him again through the prism. “Did you ever think that it might be possible that you are not all knowing?”
“What?”
“That all might not be revealed unto you?”
“The Constitution of Pure Knowledge contradicts that.”
Mister Kim grinned. “Who composed that document?”
“You did, sir. Or at least the part of you that is–”
“What would happen, Don, if everyone here was granted all knowledge?”
“Isn’t that the purpose of the Correction?”
“The Correction is knowledge,“ the older woman said. “Not the people.”
“Exactly, Miss Kholleo.”
“So you’ve been lying to us?” Don asked.
“Is the omission of a part of the truth a lie?” Mister Kim asked. “Ask yourself this, why would we conceal part of the truth for you?”
“No idea. Everything we do and think is monitored so any deviance results in death, right?”
Mister Kim nodded. “Why would we conceal a part of the truth?”
“Because that might affect us.”
“How so?”
Don paused. “Our work?”
“Exactly. Worry not, dear friend, for the whole truth is now yours.”
“What? Why?”
“The Dokkaebi has been in the hands of the Journeymen Gui throughout all of our lives. Including mine on the old Earth.”
My mind raced. There were no more veils and I wanted to panic. They knew about the Journeymen. The Gui. What didn’t they know?
Mister Kim continued. “What would it have done to your work ethic if you had known that your leader was in pieces?”
“Like that snake-nosed antagonist from the wizarding school novels of old Earth?” a younger man asked.
Mister Kim nodded. “I am glad to hear that you have read such ancient classics, Michael.”
Michael nodded with a sheepish grin.
“Don,” Mister Kim said, “let me ask again. What would it have done to your work ethic if you had known that your leader was in pieces?”
“Pure Knowledge could not function.” Don said. “The world would slip into the truth and lose the illusion the Correction has created.”
“Exactly.”
“So our work thus far might have been in vain? The Dokkaebi is shattered? What guk is this?”
“Hope returned,” Miss Kholleo said.
Don laughed and gestured towards her. “What guk is that? Huh? Dear Leader Kim? Since when has hope ever been a tenant of the Correction?”
“It hasn’t,” Mister Kim replied, his tone was dry but his scolding gaze focused on Don rather than on Miss Kholleo.
“It’s something we feel to imbeciles like you who would have capitulated if they knew the reality of our situation.
Your whining is proof enough that, had you known the truth, you would have succumbed to fear. ”
“How does this change our circumstances?” a bald woman asked.
“Thank you, Helene, for a question with a purpose.”
She grinned.
“We were as scattered books,” Kim began, “but now we have a librarian.
The Light Leech remnants of Dokkaebi were but starlight where we needed the sun.
I am only a touch more than a man. My knowledge is based on study and technological integration.
Dokkaebi has no need for study. While we function as scholars of the modern day, no one knows the tide and the truths of ancient history as much as a being that has experienced it all. “ He gestured to Ralia.
She looked around the room. Everyone’s faces were full of confusion, save Kim’s close associates and Don who continued to ridicule the gestures of the man whom he had called “Dear Leader.”
“Now,” Kim demanded. No exclamation, no threat, just a word that even I wanted to obey.
She stepped forward and he placed his hand on one of the plates on the back of her neck. The light lines in his hands glowed, then pulsed in sync with those on Ralia.
His face disappeared from the prism, a violet cloud replacing him even though he continued to speak.
“With my fragment of Dokkaebi and the fragments holding the Correction, we will now join them to the being itself. The neuronet’s knowledge and cohesion are as an outdated database prone to corruption compared to the cognitive network that we will have with…
well, why don’t we hear it from the being himself? ”
Ralia gasped, choked on her breath, then let out a long, steady moan.
Kim pulled his hand back. Multiple violet light lines connected the base of her skull to his hand. He stretched the lines, each of them pulling as if an electrical current was running down them and connected them to a metallic hub on the floating circle.
The violet cloud in the prison room formed into a dense shape as Ralia’s light fed it. What looked like an egg turned into a being in a fetal position, stretching its limbs as it awoke a deep hibernation.
“You are free!” Kim said. “No longer bound to the Journeymen and this shell of a human.”
“I am still connected to her,” the thing said. “Remove her hypothalamic implant and integrate the data into the system.”
I knew its face too well. His face. He shouldn’t have been here in such stark reality. I felt like my reality was collapsing under another cruel twist of Gong’s narrative. He was the same being that had fought for us in Luminate League.
Sha.
“No!” Ralia demanded. She reached back to rip Kim’s light lines from the base of her skull. He whipped her back onto the floor, using them like a leash. She continued to fight, but as Kim tightened his grip, her movements lost their strength.
“That is my Gui, not your Dokkaebi,“ Ralia said like a child who knew she was wrong but could not admit her fault. “Sha! Stop this!”
Sha laughed.
“One of the Journeymen?” the bald woman asked. She looked at Kim. “Sha is one of the Journeymen, is he not?”
“Indeed,” Kim said. “Care to explain yourself to your withered vessel, Dokkaebi?”