The NeurOcean Line

4. Into Thin Air

4. Into Thin Air

When he had landed unsteadily on the shore, closing his fingers a little too quickly, Blake was already in trouble. He had crashed on the sand, and his arms were gone. Like parting the seas, Prosper's arms had opened, and they'd ripped them off and been thrown them in separate directions, leaving Blake helpless, trying to use the tree again with his mind to swipe at the still powerful blue figure.

So he had spoken straight at Prosper, to that thin wizard face of his. "Let me take him back..." He had started to say.

But there was no deviation. The rest of Blake scattered too and faded out of the system. Gone into the air. He hadn't seen another gesture unless it was done with the mind. Or he hoped Blake had manually triggered it, to deprive Prosper of any pleasure. But they hadn't known what the consequences would be.

"Ok, what's your next move?" he'd challenged, landing boldly and walking towards the virtual man. "Are you going to stay here alone now?" He actually felt elated still by the fluidity of the interface, but so much anger too at this whole event. The intrusion. The violation of their program, their avatars.

Prosper's tone was much diminished now. "I am...weak now..." His hand came up to his face again and his expression changed into one of contained distress. "It's the system, I think the downer's begun." He slumped down on his knees onto the shore. Small, simulated dust spread out effectively. He realized how the light was changing to evening as orange light sparkled in the particles.

"Then why thrust Blake out of the system..?"

There was a silence, apart from the virtual sound of the virtual waves. The changed man was looking out at the ocean.

"In... the... way... and I wanted... to speak to you, Ben..." A pause, as his hands ran over his face. "Look... it was my test. I wanted to see when Caleb would... turn. I thought I'd wait until you three arrived... to be sure... But by then I was too enthralled myself and I wasn't able to help Miranda... And, you know... I did so want this project to succeed."

More whiskey please, Ben. As more of Prosper's last words came back to him.

"But we have this struggle for life... inside us... a heaven and hell... I think they're formed by what we, or this potent world, those worlds to come... need or want of us... Too much beauty, desire... they're terrible... " His calm way of speaking and these words in particular would echo on into his future, through his dedication to his work for the Spiral, that was meant to be a harmonizing force, to bring cybernauts - lost like this one - back to the shore of the Source.

That Prosper or the interface had finally weakened was a relief. He seemed pretty broken at last. He was taking effort to summon the words.

So he felt pity now. "You showed a good fight back there... But you should have left it to us to complete the testing. For this island of yours... it is potent. And you're brought the wrong people in here and it's affected all of us now."

"It hadn't started that way... We just wanted to experience it... ourselves."

The hand went to the temple, massaging the IBH equipment that existed in reality but wasn't visible here.

"I couldn't control Caleb... didn't realise he'd been spending too much time in the wrong web-worlds. And there is one emerging... Bedlam." He had heard of it, even then, and Prosper had been wise to warn him. But back then he was still annoyed.

"You should never have come here. You're not ready like we... were. Now you're unhinged and need help. But you should have sought it out as soon as you could." He found that he could express a truth back too. "Our environment must be right for us, real or unreal. If places like these are too much for us..." He looked once more up at the rustling palm leaves. "Then they'll be limited... locked down... or protected." He turned away now and walked back down to the waves.