Mom, I'm Bulletproof

Chapter 17.4: Control

Right Man sat in his theater seat quietly. He watched with patience as Proscenium turned to mist, invaded the minds of the two men to his left, and forced knowledge of the Temple out of them. As Proscenium glared down at Right Man, Right Man wasn't afraid. He would have smiled, except that the Temple did not allow him to smile.

Proscenium transformed into a cloud, swirling around Right Man's head. Right Man inhaled deeply and closed his eyes.

Flash! Tending bar on a Saturday night, with customers three rows thick behind the bar, and he's only serving the beautiful women.

Flash! Sitting in front of three computers at once, his hands darting among three keyboards, tweaking and adjusting codes on all three, getting closer and closer to breaking into systems protected by the Department of the Treasury.

Flash! He's in a doctor's office. The surgeons are examining his forehead. Madame Corruption stands in the corner with her arms crossed, smiling.

Flash! Then he is...

"No! he screams inside his mind. "I am in control, not you."

The flashes of memory vanished, and Right Man found himself surrounded by silent darkness. Proscenium around him, he knew.

Slowly, the space around him fills with a thick liquid, glowing bright white. Except that isn't liquid, but a digi-neutral representation of such. The same was true of Proscenium, whose clumsy, hulking frame was now lit in front of him.

"Where am I?" Proscenium asked.

"You are inside my mind," Right Man said. "My brain isn't some script that you can just sit down and read. I am enhanced."

"By the Temple?"

"All praise to the Temple."

Proscenium stood still for a second, and then looked down at himself.

"You can't turn into a cloud here," Right Man said. "I've taken the individual particles of moisture that make up your cloud form and converted them into neurological impulses. You're made of nothing but data now, and in my mind I control all the data."

With the liquid now higher than his ankles, Proscenium ran toward Right Man, growing white bits splashing away behind his boots and cape.

"And you can't hurt me here," Right Man said. "All data is mine to..."

Proscenium punched Right Man in the face. He felt cartilage break apart under Proscenium's metal fist. Blood dribbled downward over his lips and chin. Even though he knew all this was merely a simulation made up of combined digital and neural impulses, it hurt like hell.

Right Man fell backwards into the liquid, as Proscenium towered over him.

"You only control that which the Temple lets you control," Proscenium said.

Right Man tried to shout expletives at Proscenium, but his words came out garbled under his now-broken nose.

"The Temple used you like it used your two co-pilots," Proscenium said. "For one, they took his blind loyalty and subverted it for their own means. And the other? They merely told him exactly what he wanted to hear."

"Once we give our lives to the Temple, we cease to be who we once were. We belong to the Temple."

"Oh? And who were you?"

Flash! Right Man sees himself as a bartender in one of Miami's hottest night spots.

Flash! Right Man, in his own time, is a gifted hacker, using three computers at once to break into any system on Earth, stealing as much as he wants.

Flash! Right Man continues to work as a bartender at night, both to maintain a cover and to meet beautiful women.

Flash! Right Man looks at himself in the mirror after a long weekend, feeling himself growing older, and wondering if there's anything more than stealing and sex.

Flash! Right Man sees the mysterious brunette at the bar. She's older than he, but unbelievable gorgeous. She invited him for a coffee after his shift. She tells him she knows he who is. She offers him a chance to use his skills not just for his own benefit, but for the world.

"Stop!" Right Man screamed. "Get out of my head!"

"No," Proscenium said.

Right Man concentrated, fighting mentally as Proscenium burrowed deeper and deeper into his mind. It was no use. The Temple had given him drugs to make him forget his memories, but the memories were still under the surface.

Right Man felt Proscenium's smoke form pry into his mind, squeezing into all the hidden places. It was there that Proscenium found a memory of Right Man sitting with the woman called Madam Corruption in the middle of the night in a 24-hour café.

"It's not about money," she says. "It's about creating the perfect society, one with no need for money. A world where people pursue their personal happiness and joy without needing work on money."

"I just want to be happy," Right Man says, "but I never am."

"Give yourself to the Temple. There will be pain at first, and subservience. But once the Temple's work is finally complete, the Temple will grant you the inner peace you so desire."

Flash! Right Man goes in for surgery, his frontal lobe replaced by Temple technology that allows him to remotely access and manipulate data. He can convert oxygen and CO2 in the air around him into raw data which he can plug instantly into any computer or screen around him.

When he's not providing untraceable funds for the Temple, he's assisting on helicopter assignments, he's assisting the stealth helicopter assignments, guiding the chopper's computers and weapons systems with his mind.

He too had to undergo the Temple's numerous and painful surgical treatments, telling himself it was all temporary, and that great rewards would soon be his.

"Soon?" Proscenium said.

"I never said soon," Right Man said.

"You said soon." Proscenium's voice boomed throughout the man's mind.

"I just do what I'm told. All praise to the Temple."

"No," Proscenium said. "There's more."

Then Proscenium found what he wanted – a connection. In Right Man's mind, it was represented as a plain white door, shining brightly against the darkness all around Right Man's mind.

"What is this?" Proscenium asked.

Feeling dazed, Right Man could only give the answer the Temple had given him. "It is forbidden."

"Not for me," Proscenium said as he opened the door. Right Manpassed out and slept the deepest most relaxing sleep he had ever known.

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Next: In all your memories.