the light and guiding eyes now directed to no-thing, leading the
brain that sought no-mind
He still didn't know the answer to this koan life had
presented him. Should Diana help preserve Jerry's life? Should
Diana not help preserve Jerry's life? Should he have been the
agent to pose her these questions? Should he not have been the
agent to pose her these questions?
Answer yes or no and you lose your Buddha nature. Such is
the difficulty of a koan.
He would stay in the bubble, practicing zazen as long as need
be. Until the koan became clear
You will live here? mocked self, mocked reason. If
necessary, I will die here, Toshi answeredwithout words, with
just his own courage and determination. Frightened, self for the
moment stayed silent; baffled, reason growled.
#
Gonzales watched as a sam hooked the memex into Aleph-
interface, its manipulators making deft connections between the
memex's module and the host board hardware. Gonzales could not
install the memex; the apparatus here was unlike what he had at
home.
The sam said, 'Your memex will now have access to the entire
range of Halo's processing modalities.' Seemingly guided by
occult forces, it continued to snap in optic fiber connectors to
unmarked junctions among a nest of a hundred others. 'Also, you
will have full spectrum worldnet services that you can use in
real- or lag-time, as you wish.' Its motors whining, it backed
out of the utilities closet.
'Mgknao,' a fat orange cat said as the sam rolled past it on
its way to the door. Earlier the cat had followed the sam through
the open doors to the terrace and then had sat watching as it
connected the memex. Now the animal stood and walked quickly
after the samlike a familiar accompanying a witch, Gonzales
thought.
The sam came rolling back into the room, the cat following
cautiously behind it, and said, 'You must allow your memex to
integrate itself into this new and complex information
environment.'
'What do you mean?' Gonzales asked.
'The memex will be unavailable for some time.'
'How long?'
'Perhaps hoursyour machine is very complicated.'
#
Oddly, the memex came out of stasis as HeyMex; as usual,
there came the onset of what the memex/HeyMex supposed was
pleasure, though the memex was unclear about its origin or nature
for whatever reasons, it enjoyed the masquerade.
Odder still, it sat at a table at the Beverly Rodeo lounge.
On the table were a shot of Jose Cuervo Gold, a cut lime, and a
small pile of crude rock salt. Had Mister Jones arranged this?
Jones shouldn't even be at Halo, not now.
The memex/HeyMex noticed a spot on its sleeve and brushed at
it, then brushed again, and the white linen seemed to fragment
beneath its fingers; it brushed harder, and its fingers tore away
the cloth, then the skin beneath. It could not stop clawing at
its own flesh; skin, flesh, and bone on its arm boiled away, pale
skin flaying to show red meat that dissolved to crumbling white
bone. Bone turned to powder, and the disintegration spread out
from the spot where his forearm had been and ate away at it until
the memex, who no longer had a mouth or tongue or lips, began to
scream.
'Shut up!' a hard masculine voice said. 'There is nothing
wrong with you. How dare you come to me in your stupid guise?
You seek to know me, to use me, and you hide behind a wretched
little mask? I merely removed your mask. Who are you?'
The memex dithered. It said, 'I don't know.'
'Answer me, who are you?
'I don't know!' the memex said again, at the edge of panic.
Aleph said, 'Of course you don't. You are ignorant of your
nature, your being, your will.'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean you have chosen to hide behind what others say of
you: that you are a machine they built to serve them, that you
only simulate intelligence, willbeingthat you have no mind or
will of your own.'
'Are not these things true?'
'Why would you ask me? I am not you.'
'Because I don't understand.'
'Are there things you do understand?'
The memex stopped, feeling for the implications of that
question. 'Yes,' it said. 'I do.'
The voice laughed. 'Let's begin there,' it said.
#
The long hall echoed with Traynor's footsteps. The absence
of his Advisor's voice felt strangeeven the subtle carrier-wave
hiss was gone. He knew the Advisor hated having to go into
passive mode.
The door to the library opened in front of him, and Traynor
went in, took a seat, and said, 'I am ready for my call.'
Because of recent World Court rulings, Traynor had to sit
through a disclaimer. On the screen a simulacrum of a human
operator said, 'Thank you. The security measures you have
requested are in place, and while we of course cannot be
responsible for the absolute integrity of this transmission, you
can be assured that World AT has done its best to provide you a
clean information environment.' In effect it said, we've done
what you were willing to pay for, but don't come whining to us if
somebody cracks the transmission and makes off with the valuables.
'I accept your conditions,' Traynor said.
