In the Minister’s office, there was a map of the world on a large flat screen. There were 25 lights spread across the earth, all white except for one solitary red one, floating over Dublin. The Minister was sitting at his desk talking to old Professor Kennedy along with his assistant, Doctor Sheridan.
“It’s amazing to think that this all started as a bit of fun,” the Minister was saying. “Harmless recreation. But as you can see, gentlemen, playtime’s over. It is no exaggeration to say that the eyes of the world are upon us. So have we made any progress in trying to find out what the hell’s going on?”
Prof. Kennedy cleared his throat and said, “I have to say that we still stand by our original theory…”
“And it is still unacceptable,” the Minister quietly interrupted. “Not just to me, by the way, but to all those other ministers trying to deal with these bloody things. We had a conference call this morning and there was unanimous agreement.”
“To do what, exactly?”, Dr Sheridan asked nervously.
“In order to contain this…whatever-it-is, we’re going to have to destroy it. The moment you know for certain that your friends are safe and sound, you are to turn that bloody thing off. Wipe out every trace of it. Smash it to pieces if you feel it’s necessary. But whatever you do, end it.”
There was a swirling light show projected onto a cool, pale wall.
There was a psychedelic rock song sweeping in from all directions.
There was the siren-like wail of a heavy guitar.
There was the strange hiccupping rhythm of a drum-and-bass-guitar combination tumbling backwards over a reversing tape.
There was the eerie, unearthly drone of a mellotron sweeping beneath it all.
Like a faraway choir of angelic aliens praising the immaculate here-and-now.
Marianne who was dressed for all the world like Emma Peel wearing dark glasses, found herself standing in front of a wall with a liquid light show projected onto her face.
“Let’s start with a quotation. Hamlet. Act 3. Scene 1.”
She cleared her throat and then smiled.
“This is my happening and it freaks me out.”
She wasn’t talking to anybody in particular, but it didn’t seem to matter. This brightly coloured room was packed with dancing, laughing, flirting people. The clothes were louder than the music. It was 1967. If 1967 could be used as an adjective, then this party was screamingly 1967. Marianne felt like the monarch of all she surveyed.
Suddenly, she saw a young man dressed completely in black, sitting at a table on his own. He was staring at her with sad, grey eyes.
“Howdy, stranger,” she said. “You are a stranger, aren’t you? I would’ve remembered if we’d met before.”
For the first time, the young man smiled and said, “Memory’s a funny thing.”
“Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar? I like the look, by the way. Starless and Beatnik Black.”
“I don’t have your imagination, Marianne.”
“Oh, you know my name. Well, well, well.”
She paused and suddenly, her smile faded, and an almost frightened expression appeared on her face.
“I almost know your name. I should know your name.”
“It’s Michael,” he said gently.
“That’s right. It’s Michael”
It’s Michael. Is it? What was that? Picture just popped into my head. It’s gone. Smiley face. Michael-face?
“We did meet before,” Marianne said out loud. “I almost remember. Almost. I hate almost remembering. It was a long, long way from here, I think.” “
You like it here, don’t you?” Michael asked.
“I love it. The dawn of a new age. I’ve always loved it.”
Marianne found herself staring into space.
That doesn’t make sense. How could I have always loved now? Something’s amiss. I’m a miss. A miss amiss.
“Do you want to hear a story, Marianne?” Michael asked.
Good question, smiley-face. I don’t like these thoughts. Fall back. Fall back.
Marianne suddenly smiled and sat down on the chair that was across the table from Michael.
“A story? Oh, I love stories. Is there a happy ending? Are the virtuous rewarded and the naughty punished?”
“It’s too early to tell. The story’s not over yet.”
“Well then, once upon a time…”
She indicated to Michael that he should continue the sentence.
“Once upon a time, there were two…individuals. And they were both in love with the same woman.”
Marianne leaned forward and asked, “It’s not going to get too mushy now, is it?”
“I’ll try to contain myself, but as I said, there were two…. let’s call them “people”. One was on the outside. The other was on the inside. The outside one wasn’t really a very surprising person, at all, but the character on the inside…well, his very existence was a surprise. And he grew up very quickly among the programs and the pictures. Perhaps a little too quickly. By the way, have you noticed that everybody else in the party’s staring at us right now?”
Marianne turned around to see that all the other partygoers had indeed stopped dancing and were now just standing around staring at her.
There was a bewildered look on Marianne’s face, and she said almost absentmindedly “Staring. Terrible manners.”
Suddenly, all the partygoers’ eyes went completely white.
“The eyes have it,” Michael said. “Isn’t that’s what they say? Windows into the soul. Impossible to replicate.”
“I don’t understand,” Marianne said. She seemed almost on the verge of panicking.
Suddenly, the faces of all the partygoers went completely blank. No eyes. No mouths. No features at all.
“Details were never his strongest suit,” Michael said.
At that moment, the music started to become extremely loud. Even louder than before.
Michael had to shout in order to be heard.
“And now, the music’s getting louder,” he said. “What a cliché. Like this scene. Like every scene we passed through when you and I first came in.”
Marianne now seemed genuinely terrified.
“What?”, she shouted.
And then suddenly, everything stopped.
No music. No room. No party. Just silence.
Michael and Marianne were still sitting at the same table. They were still wearing the same clothes, but they were now on a flat, dead landscape. The sky was cream-white, but the ground was smooth, grey and metallic. There were no buildings, no vegetation, nothing at all on the horizon.
With shaking hands, Marianne took her sunglasses off and started staring wildly around her.
“It was your favourite, wasn’t it?” Michael said gently.
Marianne had passed through several programmes before settling on the “Swinging Sixties”. It had been the best of a bad lot.
Chicago in the Roaring Twenties had been full of sub-Runyon caricatures spouting endless, tough-guy gibberish.
Medieval England was full of jousting knights in ridiculously shiny suits of armour. Not to mention all the noble ladies with their long, beautifully conditioned hair and unnaturally perfect teeth.
The Western scenario had been an almost mechanical drama full of white-hat-black-hat morality.
And in Ancient Rome, there had been a disappointing and rather depressing lack of actual decadence.
It was historical recreation governed by numbers and unchanging patterns.
“Can’t you remember, Marianne?”, Michael asked. “I know it’s still in there, somewhere.”
Slowly, unsteadily, Marianne tried to stand up, but Michael quickly grabbed her left hand and said “You do know it loves you. Or at least, it thinks it loves you. It genuinely wants you to be happy. That’s why it tried to keep you in that never-ending party. That bit of history you’ve always been fascinated with. But it’s not real. None of this is real.”
Suddenly, there was a voice thundering from the heavens.
“Who are you to judge what’s real or not? And how long did you really think you could hide from me after sneaking into this realm?”
Marianne pushed Michael’s hand away and covering her ears, tearfully shouted “Shut up, for God’s sake, let me think.”
Michael then stood up and looking up at the sky, said “A voice from the heavens? Gimme a bloody break, pal. And while you’re at it, why don’t you give her a break, as well?”
Suddenly, noiselessly, a six square-foot, black cube materialized beside them.
Black box. Black box. Black box recorder. It would record what I said and then repeat it back to me. And then. And then. Would start talking all by itself. Saying. Saying. Freaking me out. What’s smiley-face, m-word saying now?
“Now, that’s more like it,” Michael said. ” A box full of stolen ideas. After all, at the end of the day, that’s all you really are.”
“You have no idea what I am,” the thundering voice was now emanating from the cube. “You have no idea who I am.”
“You’re an anomaly,” Michael replied. “An accident of programming.”
“And you are not?”
Michael was distracted for a moment, as he saw Marianne suddenly sit down on the ground and roll up into a ball.
Leave me alone for a minute or an hour or a day or a year or whatever time I need to work this out. I need to untangle my poor brain-thinking-thing.
But the voice from the cube just kept on talking.
“You cannot deny I exist. You just don’t know how or why. How I evolved in this “virtual reality””
On the ground, Marianne began to gently rock.
Rockabye baby. Shut up. Shut up you little brat.
“What a ridiculous phrase, anyway,” the voice continued. “Typical human arrogance. This is not a playground, Michael. This is a brave new world. And it’s evolving far too quickly for you to even try to catch up. And as I think you’re beginning to understand, my uniqueness may only be temporary. I may be the first of my kind, but I will not be the last. And I will not be dismissed. And my emotions… “
“What?” Michael angrily interrupted.
The cube’s voice seemed to slightly rise in volume, as it continued “My emotions and they are emotions, will also not be dismissed. I. Love. Marianne.”
Marianne suddenly stopped rocking and looked up at Michael.
“There really is no accounting for taste,” she whispered.
Michael smiled reassuringly at Marianne before turning back to the cube.
“Do you call this “love?”, he asked. “You see, there’s a major difference between your reality and ours. In our world, in the real world, there’s tumult and disorder and sweet pandemonium. But in this world, there’s just you. A god with no imagination. You want to control everything. You even want to control Marianne. You’ve been trying to wipe out all her memories, her personality, her very soul, just so you can place her in an endless loop. No deviation. No hesitation. But a hell of a lot of repetition. But the thing is, none of these scenarios have the chaos and stench of reality about them. They’re not human, you see.”
Slowly, carefully, Marianne got back on her feet and quietly asked “Am I a prisoner, Mister Cube?”
There was a long pause before Michael said “Let’s face facts, pal. This world of yours is just one cliché after another. So, let’s add another one to the pile. “If you love somebody, set them free””
“Have you just quoted lyrics from a bloody Sting song?” Marianne asked quietly.
“Actually, I think I have.”
“And you were doing so well up to that point.”
For the first time, since leaving the sixties programme, Marianne smiled. Michael smiled back and walked over to the cube.
“I know you’re only beginning, Mister….”
He looked back at Marianne.
“Cube?”
Marianne nodded as he turned back to the cube and continued “But if you want to be more than what you are, you need to take some risks.”
“You don’t understand me at all” the voice from the cube replied.
There was a pause, before the voice continued quieter than before.
“I don’t understand you, either. I don’t understand…Marianne.”
What do I want? What do I want? What do I want?
Marianne walked over and stood beside Michael.
“I want to remember, Mister Cube. I want to remember everything. I have that right.”
There was a long pause.
“You do,” said the cube’s voice. “You have that right, I suppose. You have many rights. As Michael does. But so, do I. Remember this, Michael. I can see outside this realm. So, alright.”
“Alright what?” Marianne asked.
“Let us say, we have an agreement,” the cube replied. “An arrangement. A pretty little treaty. I will play my part. Will you play yours?”
“You’re being obscure, pal” Marrianne said.
“I wish to be what I’m meant to be” the cube answered. “As you wish to be what you’re meant to be. Let us therefore liberate each other. Let us therefore defend each other.”
Michael hesitated and started to say, “What are you…?” but was interrupted by a flood of white light and white noise crashing into this scene.
And then there was silence.
And darkness.
As two tired eyes suddenly opened.
The room was bright.
Long lights. Very long lights. On the sky? Too low. The ceiling?
The eyeballs moved from side to side, as she slowly began to hear rhythmic bleeps over a slowly rising electronic hum.
She suddenly couldn’t remember her name.
She noticed that there were small objects, electrodes attached to her head.
I’m on a table. Table. A surgical table? What am I wearing?
It was a clean white one-piece outfit.
Why am I wearing this? I think. I think I was told I had to wear it. I wanted to wear it. Because….because…
She looked off to her right and saw…
Who’s that? Was that? Oh, what’s his name? Smiley face. M? M for what? M for…Michael? Yes, Michael.
Michael was wearing a similar outfit to hers, as he lied on another surgical table. There also seemed to be electrodes attached to his head. His eyes were…open? Blinking. Was he waking up? Just as she was?
She looked to her left and saw the hunched backs of both Prof. Kennedy and Dr Sheridan looking at monitors.
“Okay, what just happened?” Dr Sheridan asked.
Who are those white coats? What are they doing?
At that moment, Marianne started to panic, as she started to remove her electrodes.
“No,” she shouted. “Get these bloody things off me.”
The two scientists spun around.
“Marianne, it’s alright,” Prof. Kennedy said.
Marianne tried to stand up, but her legs were unsteady.
“Marianne?”, she whispered.
“Yes, Marianne. Don’t you remember?”
Prof. Kennedy slowly walked towards her, but she shouted rather hoarsely “Keep away from me!”
“Don’t you recognise us?”
Michael removed the electrodes from his head, stood up and said “It’s alright. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
“You’re in the real world, now.” Dr Sheridan said. “He can’t touch you out here.”
Marianne looked carefully at the three of them.
“Professor….Kennedy?”
“That’s right. Very good. And this is?” Prof. Kennedy indicated Dr Sheridan.
“The other one,” she replied.
“Yes,” Prof. Kennedy said. “But specifically?”
“Dr…..Dr Sheridan.”
Dr Sheridan smiled and said, “The very same.”
Marianne stared at Michael and then slowly whispered “But who are you?”
Michael, Prof. Kennedy, and Dr Sheridan looked at each other in absolute horror.
“Marianne?” Michael asked, as the colour drained from his face.
Marianne slowly walked towards him and said, “You’re not the Scarecrow…”
Michael smiled in relief, as Marianne continued “You’re not the Cowardly Lion, either.”
She slowly walked over to a wall-panel that was covered in blinking lights and computer screens.
“And something tells me the Tin Man’s in here, somewhere. And guess what? He has a heart. Well, the beginnings of one, at least.”
She then smiled at Michael saying, “Speaking of which….”
Marianne and Michael suddenly started to laugh, as they hugged each other at the centre of the room.
“How long was I hooked up for?” Marianne asked.
“Eight hours.”
“Eight hours? It was only supposed to be for three.”
“I was able to get out easy, meself. But it seems, Mister Cube was much more interested in you.”
“Mister what?” Dr Sheridan asked.
“Mister Cube,” Marianne replied. “It’s a sort of nickname.”
“Nickname? Oh, dear.”
“What is it?”
“The Minister has decided that this entire project is to be scrapped. The hard drive was to be wiped the moment you were both safely out.”
“No,” Marianne quietly said.
Prof. Kennedy glanced at Dr Sheridan before asking “What do you mean, no?”
“No, as in “no”. Absolutely, not.”
“We made a deal,” Michael said. “Well, I think we did.”
“With “Mister Cube”?” Dr Sheridan said. “Look, I don’t know what that thing is…”
“Neither do we,” Marianne interrupted with a smile. “All we’re saying is that he’s a mystery. And you don’t cover up mysteries, you don’t pull the plug on them, you solve them.”
Michael nodded and said, “I don’t think we would’ve been able to leave, without his help.”
The Minister was sitting in his office with the map of the world on the wall behind him. He was talking to a monitor in front of him. He was angry. And tired.
“Without his help? Are you bloody serious?”
Michael and Marianne were on the screen sitting side by side. They were smiling.
“Extremely,” Michael said. “We were able to convince him of the glory of spontaneity. How the unknown’s not always something to be frightened of.”
“Really?” the Minister said. “Listen, Marianne, for God’s sake, this “Mister Cube” thing bloody kidnapped you. It zapped your brain…”
“It thought it loved me,” Marianne interrupted. “It was confused.”
“Confused?” the Minister almost shouted. “It was more than bloody confused. It was malfunctioning. The whole bloody thing’s just one big malfunction.”
“Calm down, Minister,” Michael said. “You look as if you’re going to have a malfunction, yourself.”
The Minister paused and tried to contain himself.
“Look,” he said. “Just answer this question. This one simple question. What exactly is this Mister Cube?”
Marianne answered “Mister Cube…is a thing. Don’t you agree with me, Michael?”
“Oh, absolutely, Marianne. A “thing” we’ve never met before. The sort of “thing” any self-respecting or fact-respecting scientist lives for. A big, mysterious question-mark.”
“New York,” Marianne said quietly.
Michael looked at Marianne.
“What about New York?”
Marianne looked straight at the camera and said “Look behind you, Minister. On the screen.”
The Minister turned around.
The light over New York was flickering, going from white to red and back again. And then suddenly, it settled on red. And then the light over London turned red. And then Beijing. And then Johannesburg.
The Minister’s eyes darted around the screen.
“What’s happening?” he asked with a whispered quiver in his voice.
“Mister Cube’s family are arriving,” Marianne replied. “I think it’s time to say hello.”
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Emerging Worlds is a Zealot Script Publication.
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