Hollow World Read online

  Ellis’s visitor looked around, frowning. “Maude, Ellis Rogers is awake. Can we have something a bit nicer than sterile nothingness?”

  The white walls and glowing ceiling disappeared, and Ellis found himself on a beach. Overhead was a cobalt sky, and at his feet was an aquamarine ocean. Sensuously curved palm trees reached into view, and billowing white clouds drifted like cotton balls. He’d had a screen saver that looked just like it called Hawaiian Dreams.

  “Hello, Ellis Rogers, I’m Wat-45, your attending physician.”

  “I heard I died.”

  “You did—you did indeed.” Wat tapped the air, producing a wall and an input screen. He continued to tap through a series of images, while overhead a seagull cried. “But we fixed that.”

  “Really? How do you fix death?”

  “That’s what we do here at the ISP. We treat it like a disease—which it is.” Wat turned. “In your case, your body had shut down—massive heart failure. Your brain functions would have died, too, but they were frozen by the quick action of Dex-92876—a onetime associate here. I believe you know each other?”

  Wat paused. Ellis nodded, pleased to discover he could still do that.

  “Once your brain was locked up safe and secure, it was merely a matter of growing you a new heart and lungs. We actually gave you a deluxe package, a complete new set of organs, as most of your old ones were badly worn. Not surprising after two thousand years, eh?”

  Wat offered him a smile, then resumed tapping on the wall. Ellis could see transparent images of organs flashing by.

  “You’ve got some nice ones now. Top of the line. We augmented them to provide stronger heart walls and expanded lung capacity. You’ll be able to run a marathon twice over and hardly notice. We also inserted a molecular-level decay resistor, which won’t do much for your preexisting cells, but will ensure these new organs never need replacing.”

  Ellis couldn’t help thinking about how each time he bought a new car the salesmen always mentioned the rustproofing and how important it was in Detroit. All that salt eats away at the body. With our undercoating, you get a guarantee of a long life.

  “Wow—” Wat paused on an image that to Ellis looked like a Rorschach test. “Your old lungs were a disaster. You can take them home if you like, but if you prefer not to, we’d love to keep them.”

  “That’s fine.” Seriously, did people keep them?

  “Great.” Wat swept a hand across the wall; the images scrolled by, stopping when Wat tapped. “Ah, yes—we grafted new sections of arteries where we saw signs of impending collapse. Where the tubing was clogged, we dredged out the mess.” Wat turned again with a shocked look. “None of us could believe what we saw in there. It’s like you were pumping sludge through your circulatory system instead of blood.”

  Wat focused on the wall images again, which were superimposed on a sailboat that had appeared on the horizon and was coasting through Ellis’s organs. “Your liver was weakening, so you got a new one, as well as a new spleen, pancreas, kidneys, bladder, gallbladder, stomach, and a full set of intestines—large and small. The old ones were torn up and clogging as if you’d been eating glass and gravel for the last few years. You weren’t, I hope.” Wat offered another happy smile. Too happy. The doctor reminded Ellis of a puppy greeting a new visitor.

  “And…” Wat punched a few more screens. “Oh, you have new eyes. Old lenses were getting thicker, less transparent, and less elastic, the pupils shrinking.”

  Ellis was shocked and found himself involuntarily blinking.

  “Ciliary ligaments and muscles were weakening too. Your ears were fine, though, as far as we could tell, and we didn’t bother with the skin either—didn’t think you’d like to wake up looking like me.” Wat laughed high and giddy, like a schoolgirl at a teen-idol concert.

  “And…oh! You were inoculated for disease. Turns out you died of extemdiousness, or double-D disease, as it was once called. One of the old designer viruses that still lingers. Looks like it was racing your fibrosis to see which could collapse your ventricle walls first. Not much of a race, really. The pulmonary fibrosis didn’t stand a chance against a virus built to kill people. The extemdiousness is what took you down. Nasty bug. Highly contagious and aggressive, it incubates for a few days then attacks multiple systems at once, killing quickly. You drop dead without warning—hence the name. Hard to believe there was ever a time when people created these things on purpose.” Wat closed the screen, leaving them once again in the unblemished serenity of the island beach. “And that’s it.”

  Wat turned around with a pleased look. “You should feel a whole lot better. I would take it slow to begin with, just as a precaution. You want to get accustomed to the new organs. Let them ramp up to speed. So, don’t actually try running that marathon I talked about…for at least a few weeks. Also, you’re going to experience a day or two of fatigue. Despite the boosters, your body has gone through a really big shock, and it will take a while to adjust. You’ll be normal in a week. Just get plenty of rest, and…” Wat stepped closer, staring for a long moment. “I just want to say what an honor it has been to work on you. I heard—we all heard—the rumors, and saw the grams, but when Pol-789 brought you in, everyone’s chin just hit the floor. It was just…” Wat choked up, took a deep breath, and blinked repeatedly. “I’m sorry. I told myself I wouldn’t cry, but—” Wat took a second and then said, “I swear, you’re the fourth miracle. You really are.”

  “How long will I be here?”

  “As long as you want.”

  “I mean, how long before I can leave?”

  “Oh—” That nervous laugh again. “You can leave whenever you like. But I hope you aren’t in a hurry. A lot of people would love to meet you. Well, we’ve all sort of met you, but it wasn’t you, was it? Not really. You were mostly dead at the time.”

  Ellis turned on his side and pushed up. He felt fine. He took a deep breath—better than fine. He took another, a deeper one. The air just flowed in—no resistance at all, no coughing fit. As the blanket fell away, he looked for scars. Nothing. Still the same old chest with salt-and-pepper hair and skin that was losing its elasticity.

  “The Chief Councilor, Pol-789, is waiting to see you.”

  “Do I still have clothes?”

  “Oh yes—of course. Maude, tell Mak to bring Ellis Rogers’s things in here.”

  An instant later a portal popped and another naked citizen of Hollow World entered with Ellis’s backpack and a bundle. Through the portal opening, Ellis spotted a small crowd peering through. Mak looked more starstruck than Wat had been and froze upon entering. Wat had to pull the backpack and clothes away and place them on the bed. His shirt and pants had been cleaned and folded.

  “I—” Mak began, then simply stepped back through the portal.

  “What can we say?” Wat grinned. “You’re a sensation.”

  Like a hospital or an airport, the ISP was a massive world unto itself, but designed with the aesthetic of an investment-rich start-up wanting to foster a creative environment. Rex, who looked just like Wat, but was introduced to Ellis as one of the administrators of the ISP, took him on a tour of vast atriums, courtyards, and playrooms filled with everything from normal-looking chessboards to holo-chambers with green and red lights indicating if they were in use. He wondered if any of them understood the origin of those colors. They walked past labs and through corridors, which Ellis thought had been built either before the portal was invented or were used in an emergency in case Port-a-Call units failed. He also saw his first portal booths, hulking leftovers from days before Net Azo’s bloodless rebellion. Several people still used them.

  “Their destinations are locked in place now,” Rex explained. “If you’re going back and forth, it’s easier to just walk through rather than having to dial, especially if your hands are full. A lot of us don’t even use our POCs here.”

  The central feature of the institute was what they called the Grand Cathedral, rather ironic for a world t
hat no longer practiced religion. A domed space bigger than a football stadium, it was the central campus, the gathering place of ISP associates. White columns rose to a ceiling that did not impersonate the sky, but rather displayed an art show of light and color that slowly changed in pattern and design. The floor was divided into sections raised to different elevations, with the lowest filled with a decorative set of shallow, circular pools that spilled in a series of waterfalls. The edges of the pools were seating areas bordered by brilliant, tropical flowers.

  “I think it would be cruel to deny Ellis Rogers such a small thing,” Pol was saying as they moved through the Grand Cathedral. Ellis was being treated like a superstar, and Pol was just one in his entourage. Rex had introduced him to no fewer than a hundred people since he’d woken up. He couldn’t hope to remember who they all were, especially since the ISP dress code appeared to demand unmarked nudity, and everyone was officially defined as an ISP associate, even Rex. They all orbited around Ellis, a constant swarm of identical grinning faces.

  “It’s not a small thing. Creating a human being is never a small thing,” Rex insisted. “There are many issues—policies—such as the population cap.”

  “There have been two recent deaths that aren’t yet accounted for.”

  “But females from the old pattern…” Rex looked sheepishly at Ellis. “Ah—I don’t want to sound…well, we don’t like going backward, and this would open the door for random conceptions. You’re speaking of introducing a whole new subset of people.”

  “We understand that, but Ellis Rogers’s intention is to live on the surface.”

  “HEM won’t like that.”

  “But they also won’t protest too much,” Pol said. “After all, this is Ellis Rogers we are talking about.”

  Pol had been there when Ellis woke up. According to Wat, Pol had never left. The Chief Councilor, Dex, and another unidentified member of Hollow World had carried Ellis into the ISP, and while the others had come and gone, Pol had remained steadfast. The Chief Councilor was the first person Ellis saw that he knew, and since his recovery Pol had never left his side.

  “I plan to introduce the proposal under the allowance for reintroducing an indigenous species.” Pol walked slightly ahead of everyone else, sweeping around the glassy pools, the orange toga slapping Pol’s calves.

  “You’re not serious? They’re humans,” Rex said.

  “Most certainly an indigenous species to the surface of the planet, don’t you think?”

  “But you’ll be opening the door to a two-class system. This runs contrary to everything we’ve tried to achieve. History is filled with examples of humanity killing and enslaving others because of their differences. We’ve nearly eliminated all that, which has reduced divisions between people to a fraction of what they used to be. Now you want to undo everything?”

  “But think of Ellis Rogers, here,” Pol insisted. “Think how lonely he is. We aren’t asking for a nation, only a single woman that he can find happiness with.”

  Ellis felt like Frankenstein’s monster, with Igor pleading with the doctor for a wife.

  “But the potential for children…”

  “She can be sterilized,” Dex said. The Firestone resident surgeon looked odd without the Amish duds, and could have blended in with the rest if not for the lack of fingers. “I can handle the procedure myself. We don’t even need to involve the ISP if that’s an issue. I only need the pattern.”

  Rex looked uncomfortable. “I’ll consider it, but I can’t make such a decision alone, obviously.”

  “Which means you won’t do it?”

  “There has to be a consensus.”

  Pol looked disappointed, and turned to Ellis. “Have they been treating you poorly?”

  “Poorly!” Rex said. “Of course not.”

  “Perhaps we should let Ellis Rogers answer that.”

  “Ah—well,” Ellis began. Rex and some of the others looked ashen. “Everything is wonderful and all. I’m just concerned—well, I just realized I don’t know how long I’ve been here.”

  Pol began to nod. “You’ve been time traveling again, Ellis Rogers. I brought you here just about a month ago.”

  “A month?” Ellis was stunned. “But—I thought—someone told me a transplant was a walk-in procedure.”

  “It is,” Rex assured him. “The month was the time it took to grow the organs. For most people, we have what they need banked, or if they’re unusual—though very few are—we just look up their pattern and build the tissue needed before they come in. Then it’s just an hour or two procedure. But you’re unique. We had to sample your DNA and build from scratch. To avoid the unpleasantness and stress of waiting a month with your body hooked up to support, we kept your brain locked in stasis.”

  “A month,” Ellis repeated. What about Pax? Does Pax know where I’ve been? Or does Pax think I no longer care? A month!

  “Now that you are better, Ellis Rogers, I wanted to let you know that I am setting up a world tour. The rumors that ignited when you first visited me have exploded during your stay here. Everyone wants to see you and hear you speak.”

  “Why?” Ellis asked.

  No one answered. They all looked at each other, dumbfounded.

  “Why?” Rex asked. “Ellis Rogers, as I just mentioned, you’re unique.”

  Ellis shrugged.

  “In Hollow World”—Pol took over—“that makes you extraordinary. A symbol of hope to some.” Pol looked at Rex and a few others gathered beside them. “And concern to others.”

  Ellis saw Rex frown. “The Hive Project will not steal individualism. Its purpose is to eliminate misunderstandings similar to the one we are experiencing at this very minute.”

  “Clearly, as I didn’t mean to suggest anything other than that some people might see Ellis Rogers as a rallying point for an anti-Hive agenda.”

  “The Hive Mind will be the greatest leap forward for our species since the opposable thumb. The single advantage humans possess above all other creatures is our minds.” Rex’s voice heated up, growing more passionate. “Every major advancement has been a direct result of amplifying the contributions of that organ. Language allowed the transfer of ideas, writing boosted that transfer, the printing press scaled it, and the Internet took it global, unfettered by restrictions. Each of these inventions has coincided with a boom in species advancement—and all those will pale in comparison with the limitless possibilities of our whole species functioning together for the first time as one harmonious entity.”

  This was obviously a sore spot in an ongoing debate, and the concise, speech-like argument impressed Ellis as having the familiarity of something often repeated if not actually rehearsed.

  Rex went on as Pol listened with a polite but unmoved expression. “Standardized language was a major advancement, but any language is limited by its inability to precisely convey thoughts. Misunderstandings and even intentional deceit have always introduced conflict. We’ve managed to eliminate most of the violence associated with these, but we’ve only been treating the symptom—not the disease. The Hive will finally cure us.”

  “One might argue,” Pol said as if he were on the floor of the Roman Senate, “and many have, that death also cures many illnesses. You can eliminate poor eyesight by merely plucking out a person’s eyes. And there’s the question of whether a salmon would be cured of its need to swim upstream if it were turned into a bird. Or would the salmon simply become extinct?”

  “Has a caterpillar ever complained about turning into a butterfly?” Rex asked.

  “If only we could ask.”

  “Ah.” Rex looked smug. “Once more the limitations of language!”

  Pol smiled. It was not a friendly expression.

  “But I was told the Hive Project was a failure,” Ellis said. “That you’ve been working on it for centuries and haven’t got anywhere. Isn’t that right?”

  Rex frowned and nodded. “Just too many possibilities, so many combinations, and we’re work
ing blind. In the past, random mutations offered examples to work from. We’re convinced it’s possible, because the history of our species is littered with stories of humans with extrasensory capacities, but we’ve never managed to map the DNA of an authentic telepath, because we’ve eliminated natural selection. The random event can’t happen anymore. We don’t even know what we’re looking for. There’s a few sequences of genes we’ve never fully understood, and we’ve tried randomizing these in recent patterns, but you’re right. The Hive Project is little more than a dream at this point.”

  “We all have our problems to deal with,” Pol said with an inflection that was less than sympathetic. Then, turning to Ellis, he added, “As I was saying, I have been scheduling a tour of the world and with your permission would like to kick it off tomorrow, if you are feeling up to it.”

  “So soon?” Rex complained.

  “Unless there’s reason to suspect Ellis Rogers is not fully recovered, that something went wrong with the—”

  “Of course nothing went wrong!” Rex said. “We just hoped to have a bit more time.”

  “You’ve had Ellis Rogers for a month. The rest of the world wants to see him, and I’m certain Ellis Rogers would like to see the rest of Hollow World. But all that will begin tomorrow. Now you have a speech to give.”

  “A what?” Ellis asked.

  They were approaching the center of the Grand Cathedral where a small stage had been erected. Portals began popping like flashbulbs; in minutes the great hall was flooded with a sea of faces. All looked at him.

  “We were hoping you’d say a few words to the associates here,” Rex said, the eager look of a child in the administrator’s eyes.

  Ellis watched as more and more portals popped. This had been arranged, timed. Some sort of notice or memo sent. He wished they had asked him. As the audience assembled, murmuring like some giant boiling pot, he felt obligated. He couldn’t say no.