Our Second Selves

Our Second Selves

A Novel

By

Aeddan Howells

Published by Whatmore Productions UK Ltd

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Aeddan Howells

This edition first published in October 2012 by

WHATMORE BOOKS a division of

WHATMORE Productions UK Ltd

http://www.whatmoreproductions.com

Copyright © Aeddan Howells

www.aeddanhowells.com

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the Publishers prior consent.

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ISBN 978-0-9568740-6-1

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Table of Contents

Quote

Dedication

Chapter One – Ruskin

Chapter Two – Ruskin’s world

Chapter Three – Amsterdam

Chapter Four – Laura

Chapter Five – BodyBall

Chapter Six – Treason

Chapter Seven – Escape

Chapter Eight – The Interview

Chapter Nine – The Trial

Chapter Ten – Descent into Primworld

Chapter Eleven – Plague

Appendix – On the Public-Private Divide in GlobeSoc

Other Works

Quote

O ye that stand upon the Brink,

Whom I so near me, thro the Chink,

With Wonder see: What Faces there,

Whose Feet, whose Bodies, do ye wear?

I my Companions see

In You, another Me.

They seemed Others, but are We;

Our second Selves those Shadows be.

From ‘Shadows in the Water’ by Thomas Traherne c. 1637-74

Dedication

To Bernadette – my incomparable and beautiful wife – for all her support and encouragement, not only during the several years devoted, under very difficult circumstances, to the writing of this book and other works, but throughout all our time together: I owe you just about everything, my sweetheart.

Also my heartfelt thanks and gratitude go to our son, Patrick, and his wife, Alexandra, for jointly realising my ambition and in making everything possible.

And to AJG for his technical advice – though all the errors, should there be any, are mine and mine alone, of course.

© Copyright Aeddan Howells 2012

Chapter One – Ruskin.

‘Everything that is at all possible to do should by all possible means be done.’

So ran the illuminated sign strategically positioned above the entrance to the London Ruskin Institute. Round and round it went, continuously and monotonously, day in and day out and for as long as people could remember. Simultaneously, it flashed above the entrance to every other clone-like, Ruskin Institute, wherever it happened to be in the world.

A man, of slightly above average height and who looked to be somewhere in his mid-forties, hesitated outside for a moment or two before going in to the Institute’s lobby and looked up at the ceaselessly revolving sign. Most days, like everyone else, he paid it no attention whatsoever and most of the time - again, like everyone else - he was barely aware of its existence. But, today, he forced himself to look again at this commonplace, taken-for-granted sign and, after craning his neck for a while to see, he shook his head ever so slightly and sighed deeply - but quietly and only to himself.

So much meaning, and history, the man reflected, was packed into that neat and familiar aphorism. It summed up the entire world. All of GlobeSoc’s phenomenal achievements to date, the awesome technical and material advances of the past three and a half centuries, the perpetual imminence of even greater possibilities to come, were all due to that simple injunction. Nothing in GlobeSoc could, should, or would, impede the onward and upward march of scientific discovery and technological development. There was no other system of thought left to rival the hegemony of science - especially with adversarial politics, organised religion and moral philosophy all, now, consigned to history.

Everything that is at all possible to do...

‘Here it comes again,’ he mused.

... should by all possible means be done.

And, no sooner had done disappeared than Everything mesmerically re-appeared again; on and on it went, all round the world, in digitalised, synchronised simultaneity.

The man - Dr. Benjamin Ruskin - completely lost in thought now, passed through the automatic doors and went into the lobby.

‘Awesome... on and on like this without let for... (how long now?)... centuries, I expect. Yet, no-one seems to know who said it or who wrote it, or why… It doesn’t seem to matter to most people, but I wish I knew. Who? When? In what context, I wonder? Did he or she really mean it to be taken literally, or could it have been tongue in cheek, even an implied criticism, I wonder?’

Taken at face value - as it was in GlobeSoc - the tone of utter confidence and assurance contained in the message and even its implicit smugness, he had to admit, were well-deserved and completely borne out by the last few centuries of prodigious scientific advance. And he, himself, was part of it all and completely complicit with it all, too: a geneticist, a top scientist in one of the most prestigious of EuroCorp’s many Ruskin centres for molecular biological research. But, of late - really, only of late - that sign and all it signified had begun to lose its appeal for him and, if he was honest, it had even begun to jar on him a little, though he was not entirely sure why; perhaps it was the hortatory tone, the exhortation to keep on striving, of endlessly pushing forward the boundaries of what was possible. Was that what it was, then? Surely not, he told himself, if he really felt that he must be over-tired, worked-out and in desperate need of a rest!

‘One thing’s for sure though,’ thought Ruskin, as he crossed the enormous and rapidly emptying lobby and made for one of the numerous lifts, ‘I dare not tell any of this lot how I feel, even if I could - that would be more than my life’s worth!’

He was not to be alone in the lift. A woman whom he did not know, but from her style of dress and manner he could tell was of an affined caste to his own, got in at the same time. Ruskin was still somewhat distracted by his thoughts and did not, at first, pay her much attention, but on making eye contact he saw that she was really quite attractive, in a common enough sort of way and he automatically gave her one of his winning smiles. She eyed him all over and was clearly pleased by what she saw. He was lean, tallish, brown-eyed and black-haired and also averagely good-looking, in an unremarkable sort of way, so she smiled back at him in what was clearly a generous and suggestive manner.

At that point - there was sufficient time, they were alone, and it was only polite and customary after all - Ruskin, with the nameless woman’s wordlessly expressed approval, pushed the lift’s privacy button and, as the lift slowed down to a pre-determined cruising speed, they copulated on the way up.

Even after that therapeutic exercise, however, Ruskin was still ‘out of sorts’ as he made his way toward his desk. The woman's customary Have a nice day! as she left him on the 111th floor really bothered him this time.

‘Am I the only one who can hear the imperative, the implicit order, in that seemingly innocuous phrase?’ thought Ruskin. ‘But why do I feel like this and where are these feelings coming from, I wonder?’

He shook his head to try and clear his mind of these preoccupations, these nagging and unsettling worries of his and he tried hard to concentrate on the day's work before him. Throughout the morning, however, and despite his best efforts to remain fixated on his work - routine and boring though it was - these thoughts of his would keep returning to distract him.

‘Yes, they are feelings,’ thought Ruskin, trying like the good scientist he was to isolate the phenomenon and determine its cause, ‘indefinite, vague, unsettling feelings that seem, sometimes, to be located in my gut rather than my brain; feelings of unease, disorientation even, and presentiments of… of what? Oh, I don’t know… All I do know is that these feelings that have come to plague me recently, especially at night, give rise to some pretty dangerous and heretical thoughts. But what’s at the bottom of this, where do they come from? Am I unhappy? Heretical thought! They come after... after what? I can’t determine a causal factor here… it’s just unease, I think, a sort of general malaise about things, but with no obvious point of origin.’

‘You see,’ thought Ruskin, silently conducting this inner conversation as he went routinely about his duties, ‘I haven’t even got the proper vocabulary to describe how I feel… I am happy, aren’t I? We’re all happy, surely? We are simply not expected or allowed to be otherwise. Our world is totally dedicated to being happy, to having our senses pleasantly stimulated and all our desires satisfied however and whenever we want. And I have consumed virtual and real pleasures every day of my life… and thoroughly enjoyed them too, just like the rest of them… so what is happening to me?’

He avoided his colleagues as best as he could during the rest of the day, citing work and a particularly interesting and absorbing scientific problem as the reason why he could not join them in the lunch time group work-out and sex session, and he could not wait to board EuroCorp’s Bustrain to go home to his apartment that night.

Unfortunately for Ruskin, one of his colleagues from floor 113, a relative newcomer and someone he barely knew, but who nevertheless recognised him, sat down opposite on the way home and determinedly began a conversation with him. Ruskin was fairly taciturn at the best of times, but today he especially wanted to be alone with his thoughts; he certainly didn’t want to talk about the latest film, video game, hologram, virtual reality simulation or sporting fixture as his would-be companion was clearly bursting to do.

His unlooked for companion, who lent too far forward and had the irritating and ingratiating manner of a confidante – though nothing of any consequence was ever going to be exchanged between these two – was, fortunately enough for Ruskin, one of those people whose ‘conversations’ were almost total monologues. He was not, and never would be, in the least bit interested in either the opinions or experiences of others: he just craved a passive audience, clearly. So, whilst obliged to make a series of non-committal noises at what he guessed were the appropriate places, Ruskin let this unwelcome fellow traveller of his prattle on to his heart’s content about a well-known personality - a so-called celebrity from such-and-such a TV series - and his highly publicised sex life. Though whether his associate was talking about the ‘star’s’ actual conquests or his imaginary televisual ones Ruskin, who was experiencing great difficulty in concentrating on all this, could not be sure.

In GlobeSoc this sort of tittle-tattle was the very stuff of social intercourse, it facilitated the opening of conversations, it oiled the engine, so to speak, of idle conversation and it even helped to set the social agenda and evidently made many people feel good, in a vicarious sort of way. As his fellow-traveller droned on and on, however, Ruskin reflected that people often became quite passionate about this sort of trivia, it helped them, seemingly, to emote and relate to others in the otherwise slightly stilted and unemotional world of public encounters. Some, he knew from bitter experience of the occasional dinner parties he hosted, carried these pre-occupations and absorptions over into their private lives, but in the main it served as a public language and form of discourse - ready-made for people to cope with meeting and relating to strangers in the public domain of GlobeSoc.

However much he heard it though, Ruskin was constantly surprised at peoples’ capacity, even high-grade and presumably intelligent colleagues like this one, to immerse themselves totally in what he had long regarded - but felt even more keenly in his present malaise - as this phoney world of all-consuming interest in, and pseudo-concern for, the lives of instantly forgettable and transient celebrities. He long ago found the tortuous, but routine, skipping and eliding from reality to virtual reality to fantasy and back to reality again that comprised the stuff of most peoples’ conversations quite difficult to follow, even though everyone else seemed to manage it with effortless ease, and so he just gave up trying and merely tried to look as if he cared.

Thankfully for Ruskin, his less than boon companion soon alighted and with a cheery wave, after what he evidently regarded had been a thoroughly enjoyable and even meaningful conversation, he soon became lost in the crowd of other commuters. Ruskin sighed long and low and snuggled down in his seat for the remainder of the journey to his North London apartment, steadfastly avoiding any further eye contact with the other passengers close by him. He let his head lean sideways on his left shoulder, feigning sleep, and through narrowed eyelids looked dreamily out of the window at the passing urban scenery as it flashed kaleidoscopically by. He did not pay it much attention though, for he was soon alone again with his inchoate and troubling thoughts.

*

His front door recognised him through its retinal scanner and let him in to the sound of softly playing mood music. Throwing his outer clothes onto the floor and thinking savagely as he did so – ‘the DomesSub can pick them up in the morning; that’s all their fit for, after all!’ – Ruskin threw himself onto the large enveloping sofa in the front room and stared gloomily at the slowly changing 3-D diorama on the ceiling.

‘Sod it!’ he thought to himself, but dare not shout out loud, ‘If I have to look at another bloody woodland scene or a slow motion picture of yet another hump-backed whale’s tail-fin disappearing into an impossibly blue sea, I’ll… I’ll… what? That’s half the trouble, what will I do? What can I do?’

Ruskin didn’t feel like eating. He didn’t feel like doing anything in particular and just lay there, with his eyes closed to escape the sylvan glades - now into their restful autumnal hues mode - that bore down on him from above, but there was simply no escaping the highly engineered world that enveloped and cacooned him. The domestic computer - at 1800 hours precisely - having already sensed, of course, that the ‘master’ was home spoke to him in a soft, slightly reproachful, way.

Good evening, Benjamin, soothed the seductively pitched female voice, have you had a good day at the Institute? I do hope so… You have been in now for 13 minutes and 32 seconds and have neither given me your instructions regarding your evening meal nor cancelled it because you are going out… Is everything well, Benjamin? ‘Be happy,’ won’t you!

Thank you, Magdalena, Ruskin replied, slowly but reluctantly coming out of his reverie. I’m fine, really, but I don’t feel very hungry at the moment, thank you very much. I’ll probably go out for something later.

All the domestic computers in GlobeSoc have personalities and these can be changed at will from an almost inexhaustible file of types - male, female, gay male or female, brusque or pleading, seductive or domineering and in any accent or language preferred - and Ruskin had gone for the slightly risqué, almost-a-lover type of female personality of indeterminate Asiatic origin. Initially, his choice of Magdalena had made him feel in charge, because she simpered and cooed and flattered his ego, but as of now, as he lay staring at the ceiling, he realised that his sense of control was all an illusion and that it was all part of the artful programming, of course.

Would you like me to record some exotic sex scenes from the video wall while you are out, Benjamin? crooned ‘Magdalena. That would make you happy, wouldn’t it? Or I could call-up a VolupSub and she or he or ‘shim’ - depending on your preferences -could be ready for you on your return.

For some reason, part of his deepening malaise he supposed, Ruskin was in no mood for either masturbatory sex courtesy of the video wall or copulating with one of the various - beautifully designed for every sexual taste and orientation, he had to admit - transgenic subspecies of Voluptuaries whose sole function, in their relatively short life span, was to provide sex, on call, for the higher and intermediary castes.

No thank you, Magdalena – I’ve had so much sex today, he lied, that I’m positively bursting with happiness and, to be honest, he lied again, I’m totally, but very pleasantly knackered by it all.

Well, giggled Magdalena, "that’s all right, then. Just remember, Benjamin, what our Founders have taught us - Everything that is at all possible to do should by all possible means be done! - and that includes sex, of course."

Of course, Magdalena, of course, Ruskin replied, though without much enthusiasm.

‘Damn the thing; I just want to be alone with my thoughts!’ Ruskin thought savagely. ‘But now that I’ve told Magdalena that I’m not hungry, I will have to go out soon or ‘she’ will be on my case all night… I can’t keep switching her off as I’ve been doing quite a bit lately without that being monitored, and if I leave her off for any length of time, a RoboSub or WorkSub will appear without my say-so to fix her, lest I be without my video wall and everything else for two seconds… I’d better go out.’

The evening was cool and mild as usual, it being the beginning of the New Year, so Ruskin decided to take the travelators and the walkways rather than hire a hovertaxi or go via the metro, and besides he had no clear or definite idea as to where he was going. In these latitudes of GlobeSoc there were only really two seasons as far as the climate was concerned: a prolonged hot, occasionally wet and very humid one (the summer) and a milder and relatively drier one (the winter), with a weaker sun and fewer hours of sunlight. Modest gales at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes provided a vestigial hint or remembrance of former seasons but, in truth, they were now nothing more than a prelude to or a rallentando out of one or the other of the two major seasons. Like most people, Ruskin detested the drenching summer humidity - always at its worst at night - and savoured these darker, but far more tolerable winter evenings.

An hour later, without any plan or purpose in mind, Ruskin found himself walking round one of the numerous complexes provided by EntsCorp, the global entertainments corporation. He bought himself some take-away food to eat ‘on-the-hoof’ and sauntered aimlessly round the vast complex taking in its sights and sounds, and welcoming its gaudy distractions for the time being. However, he assiduously avoided the interactive Virtual Reality games rooms, more for kids really, and gave the 24 hour multiplex - showing all the latest ‘movies’ of every conceivable type and genre and catering for every imaginable taste and orientation - a very wide berth. Most people still called them ‘movies’ despite the fact that the pictures didn’t just move. For, with their all-enveloping surround sound, three-dimensional cinematic effect and range of smells, plus computer controlled chairs that could tilt and bank like any plane or even simulate a high speed car chase, these movies were, as the advertisements justifiably maintained, a ‘total sensory experience’. But he was not in the mood for them tonight. No, instead, he was drawn, irresistibly, toward the centre’s Primworld; somewhere, he realised with a shock of recognition that he’d been drawn toward on more than one occasion in the last few weeks.

*

A Primworld, or primate or primitive world - the origin of the term now being lost in time - each covering a very extensive area of enclosed land, forests and water features, is located in every one of the mega-centres of population in GlobeSoc. The purpose of this facsimile of primitive human existence is twofold: firstly, it is meant to provide a chilling, but at the same time, slightly comedic and entertaining reminder of where the human race has come from and where, but for the pioneering work of the late 20th century and early 21st century molecular biologists and geneticists, it would have remained (genetically speaking at least) for aeons to come. Secondly, it was an occasional dumping ground for any rare 24th century human who, for one reason or another, transgressed against the system.

Naturally, there were very few inhabitants of Primworld who had formerly known the ‘real’ world of Ruskin and his contemporaries. There should not have been any of course, not with such a finely-honed system of genetic control and social order in place, but once or perhaps twice a decade, after a spectacularly staged show-case trial on global video - the only time, in fact, when something approaching a legal process came into being, there being no formal criminal justice system at all - a high caste or intermediary type, it was usually one of them, was thrown into Primworld with all its diseases and accidents and discomfort. The reason behind these ‘show trials’ was ‘pour encourager les autres,’ of course – except very few people spoke the language of Voltaire any more, and fewer still would have had the faintest idea, in any case, as to who or what he was!

The extraordinary thing about Primworld is that its inhabitants have no idea that it exists; that is to say, they know that ‘They’ exist and that the flora and fauna all about them and upon which they depend for their existence is real enough, but they have absolutely no idea that they are there for the amusement and fascinated horror of spectators from another world; that there is another ‘there’ beyond a one-way visible and all-encompassing force field. Even the banished ones, or the ‘Descendants’ as they are ironically known in GlobeSoc, have had their brains ‘washed’ before going in and can give no account of their former lives other than saying that they have come from the sky. Looking only slightly different to the ‘Prims’ - taller, usually, and with less body hair - the banished ones sometimes become priests or shamans to the ‘Prims’ and lead them in their religious rituals.

Moderns, then, can go and see and laugh or recoil at Primworld men and women, living out their dirty and scrofulous lives, at a whim and as an alternative, say, to watching holographic re-enactments of famous battles from the past or fictional scenes of gore and brutality from some futuristic fantasy world. It does not tend, routinely, to be a particularly big attraction, this Primworld, not with so many other garish distractions around and about, but when a Primworld woman is about to give birth - always a crowd-puller that one - the onset of the viviparous birth is relayed all round the massive EntsCorp facility and the crowds flock to see this disgusting and archaic spectacle.

It doesn’t matter whether the unfortunate Primworld woman has her baby in one of the fields close by their settlement but well away from the force field - the extent of the Prim’s known world and a barrier they are very well aware of and treat with dumb respect - or goes into labour in one of the darkened village huts. Either way, the huge crowd of ‘moderns’ ringing the perimeter beyond the force field can see everything they want and from every angle they desire, courtesy of the facility’s breakthrough, and breath-taking, ‘Panopticon Vision’. The Prims who sometimes go to great lengths to achieve a modicum of privacy - no mean feat in a tribal and communal society - are also completely oblivious of the fact, then, that the huts they set aside for their pubescent girls before their initiation into adulthood at the time of menarche, are also the object of a sophisticated and sustained and taboo-breaking scrutiny: a sort of high-tech, prurient voyeurism.

Equally, the moderns can, and do, laugh themselves silly at the Prims eating habits, their toilet practices and their comparatively clumsy and very limited love-making skills. These are funny practices because, though they are shared forms of behaviour - and these people are humans after all - the Prims, being of such evident low intelligence, seem to have a limited repertoire when it comes to these things and perform them all in, and to the accompaniment of, dirt. The fact that the Prims very often think that they are performing these functions in private gives an added frisson to the whole spectacle, and the crudity and the baseness of their manners - sexual or otherwise - gives rise to a great amount of ribaldry and coarsened humour among the modern on-lookers.

Alternatively, the spectators can be repelled and genuinely disgusted by the religious ceremonies and practices, especially the funerary rites, of these appallingly ignorant people. The religion of the Prims is, of course, utterly incomprehensible to the denizens of GlobeSoc, but the posturing and gesturing of the villagers before their shaman does have an element of farce about it for the watchers, that brings a ready leer to many of their faces. However, the smiles and nudges of superiority and well-shared jokes soon fade away to fascinated horror on those occasions when a deceased member of the tribe is borne processionally upon an open litter toward the tribal burial plot and the stiffened, grey corpse is lowered, with due solemnity and much display of grief, into a prepared grave. Death is such a private and highly-sanitised matter in GlobeSoc that this aspect of Primworld is generally considered the grossest and most macabre spectacle of all.

*

Ruskin stood looking at one group of Prims, seated not all that far away from him outside some rude form of shelter, which - according to the illuminated explanatory labels in front of him and the censorious sounding audio-guide when activated - was called a ‘Family’.

‘A two generation group, at least, of related persons - though not necessarily through blood alone - who share a common abode and facilities, such as they are, and whose adult(s) have the vexatious and burdensome responsibility of child-care and rearing.’

As he looked, they went slowly and methodically about the business of preparing and sharing a meal together. There was one elderly woman (a real grotesque with frizzy grey hair and wrinkles, for goodness sake!) and a male and female adult with three children: two girls and a boy, of various ages. Ruskin’s face was a mixture of disgust, incredulity - it didn’t matter how many times he saw scenes like this - and morbid curiosity, but he smiled a little smile to himself, a soft and sympathetic smile if he did but know it, when the adults made a curious sign in front of their bodies before they began to eat whatever indescribable muck that was on their platters, and the children copied them in clumsy imitation.

His reverie and solitude was shattered, however, by a gentle female voice close beside him.

I saw your smile just then, you know.

He turned with a start to the woman beside him, an instant denial dying on his lips because, before he could utter a single word, she assured him in a whisper…

It doesn’t matter, don’t be alarmed… I think they are quite sweet too.

I don’t think anything of the sort! Ruskin retorted, hotly. They are disgusting, everyone knows that… I just thought, for a moment, that they were funny, mildly amusing, in their squalid primitiveness… it wasn’t a sympathetic smile, I’ll have you know.

The young woman, with tightly curled, shoulder-length auburn hair and startlingly blue eyes - the thought, ‘I haven’t seen many of her type before’ flashed instantly through Ruskin’s brain - reacted in a way that was completely unexpected. She actually blushed, her eyes downcast, and half-turned away muttering what sounded like an apology.

I misinterpreted your look… Forget it, I didn’t mean to cause you any alarm.

That’s all right, Ruskin replied, rapidly regaining his composure.

I didn't mean to snap back either.

And he gave her one of his suave man-of-the-world smiles because he was already beginning to imagine the two of them in bed together; after all it couldn’t be long in coming, despite the slightly unorthodox manner of their meeting. But he couldn’t be more wrong, it wasn’t to be; suddenly, and without another word, she moved hurriedly away from him toward an ascending escalator that lead to one of the many exits from the EntsCorp complex.

Ruskin was perturbed, social intercourse in this day and age, was not meant to be like that. He wanted the girl quite badly, she was slim and curvaceous with lovely legs and, he guessed from the cut of her clothes, a quite gorgeous body, but it was her face that intrigued him most. It was long rather than round, though not too long, and it curved down heart-shaped toward the chin; her mouth and nose were perfectly proportioned and pretty, very pretty, but her eyes – her eyes! Where on Earth, where in all GlobeSoc, had she got those blue, blue eyes?

He began to walk quite rapidly toward the escalator. He had to talk to her again, there was something about her that he felt (yes, feeling again, why was he coming to rely more and more on his feelings these days?) was different, completely different to any other woman he knew or had ever met in a casual encounter before, and he felt instinctively that she would be important to him in some indefinable way, if only he could meet her again. Half way up the escalator, Ruskin suddenly felt terribly alone, almost lost – something he had never truly experienced in his life before; he felt totally lost and alone without this woman