The Narrative

“To make sense of something you have to know its narrative. If the story makes sense then the subject of the story makes sense. Essentially, what I do is decode the story. I find the story and I translate it. That’s what I do.”

Harlan was being modest. He was also dumbing down what he did so that his audience might have a clue as to what his day job was, having been asked what do you do?

Peggy nodded and smiled, “I like stories.”

“That’s good,” said Harlan. He was doing his best to give Peggy his attention, but his eyes were darting this way and that, his agitation seeping out as he did his best to remind himself that patience was a virtue and a few more minutes wouldn’t make a significant difference. Although, for all his rational thought, and his reputation for disciplined and logical analysis, he had a streak of superstition running right through him and right now, that streak was screaming at him.

The problem was that if you knew then everything changed. Once you knew there was a problem then a countdown began ticking down and you only had a finite window in which to do something about it. An issue could lay dormant for such a long time, and in theory, it could have done its thing and happened at any time prior to discovery, but it didn’t. Some things waited. It were as though the whole world really were a stage and cues were important.

Timing was everything.

Right now, Harlan didn’t think they had all that much time at all, but still he played the game. He didn’t have anything else he could do but play the game whilst he waited for Mr Firman.

“What stories do you like?” Harlan asked Peggy.

Peggy’s face crumpled up, the movement was over in an instant, but as the smooth skin altered and scrunched up, Harlan’s heart rate amped right up. He had a mad vision of that face not stopping. The features crashing into each other and then collapsing inwards to herald the end of them and the end of Peggy. The end of a small world. The end of the world.

Harlan felt sweat beading on his forehead. He could feel his heart beating a frenzied tattoo in his chest. His muscles were tensed and it was all he could do to moderate his breathing and get more oxygen into his body. It felt like he was aware of the world spinning and that awareness set him apart. It made him separate to this world. The spinning was a building momentum, climbing to a crescendo. 

He blew out a breath and kept blowing, it was probably far too late anyway. What difference could he make? 

“I like stories with princesses who kick ass!” Peggy said with the utter conviction that only a four year old can muster. 

Peggy was Firman’s grandchild and Harlan had made the unprecedented step of visiting Firman without an invitation, nor had he contacted Firman prior to arriving. He had turned up on the doorstep unannounced and been greeted by Peggy’s mother, who, after puzzling over the small man standing awkwardly on the threshold, had established that he reported into Firman.

“You’re one of dad’s eggheads,” she’d pronounced.

Harlan had never been called an egghead to his face and had seldom heard the word. It seemed to fit the circumstances. He could feel the fragility of his mind. It threatened to crack open and leak out into the world. The thought of that was, in a way, welcome. Harlan’s discovery was too much for one person to hold within them.

He’d been ushered into the living room for an audience with Peggy, Firman’s daughter had muttered something about her father being in the study. That had been five minutes ago. That had been a life time ago.

“What’s your favourite?” Harlan asked the little girl, his voice cracked on the final word of his question and this surprised him. His surprise grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him around and provided him with a mirror. The mirror was Peggy and for the first time he looked at her. He really looked at her and it was all he could do to stifle his sob and stick his finger in the dam that had until now been so effective at holding back his emotions.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

Harlan saw Peggy in a way he had never seen a human being before. His paradigm was irrevocably altered, and with it the entire world. Discoveries were supposed to bring clarity and in a way, this one did. But all the same, it wore a cloak of chaos.

He was filled with conflict and turmoil. He could just walk away. He could get up right now and go home. Only home wasn’t home anymore. 

I could quit, he felt the words form in his mind and immediately countered with, and do what? 

He was too heavily invested in all of this. This was his life. Without this, he was nothing and everything he had done, everything he had sacrificed, his devotion to this single pursuit, it was all for nothing. It did not escape him that the reason for him being here and staying here and being determined to tell Firman was down to his ego, he might call it being professionalism, and if that was near the mark, it was professional pride. A lifetime of study and work had paid off. He was the boy in class thrusting his arm up into the skies as far as he could possible lift it. Twisting and canting his body to achieve that vital extra height. His body vibrating with excited energy because he wanted to speak and he wanted the teacher to hear what he knew. He wanted the validation and when it boiled down to it, that was all there was.

He might dress it up in the terms of his life’s pursuit. He might talk about the stories of our life and how they should first be identified and interpreted, but the important thing was always to tell the story. Stories were there to be told.

An icy trickle of dread laced itself up through his body as these thoughts swam through his head. The imperative to tell the story was not his own. He of all people should know that. He did know that, but he’d reasoned it out before coming here to Firman’s and now he was committed. 

There was no turning back. 

He knew.

He was the first to know.

He wanted the world to know that.

Firman was his world, there wasn’t anyone else he could tell.

As if his thoughts had summoned the man, Firman appeared in the doorway to the living room, “have you been keeping Dr Harlan entertained, Pegs?”

Peggy’s face lit up, “he lied to me! He said he’s a storyteller, not a doctor!” She playfully smacked Harlan’s chest. The smack itself was not hard, but Harlan was not expecting it and the shock of it, and his fragile state, made it into something different and more than it had been intended to be.

“Now, now, Pegs. We don’t hit our guests, do we?”

Firman smiled indulgently at his granddaughter who in return pushed her bottom lip out. Either she wasn’t happy with being challenged, or she disagreed, she was all for hitting guests.

“Harlan, come this way,” Firman stood waiting for Harlan to find his feet and follow him. 

Harlan had always seen Firman as an authority figure. He wasn’t a scientist, not in the way that Harlan was, but somehow he understood what was needed. He had found Harlan and always ensured Harlan’s requirements were met. Now, as he followed him down the hallway he took in the man’s bearing and the way he walked. Firman was getting on a bit, must have been eligible for retirement, the salt overrunning the pepper in his hair gave his age away, along with the wrinkles on the back of his neck, but he was still a force to be reckoned with, and for the very first time, Harlan wondered whether Firman had been in the military. He was too keyed up to think further on the matter, besides which he was being guided into Firman’s study and the time was nigh.

Firman ushered him to a seat opposite his own at the imposing, antique desk that dominated the study. The surface of the desk was uncluttered to a point that it didn’t seem lived in. The ink blotter was clean of any blots. There was something disconcerting about the barren desk surface and this extended to the man who took his seat behind it and casually managed to be the biggest and most threatening thing in the room.

Harlan felt small and insignificant, but this was standard fare for him. He did not move in the world all that well and one of the sacrifices he’d made was failing to attend to that shortfall. He’d devoted his time and energy into the narrow pursuit of a specific knowledge and today was the culmination of that pursuit. Today should have been the pinnacle of his career. He had reached the summit of a mountain that no one knew existed. Only Harlan had seen the patterns and followed them to the place where he had finally understood what it all meant.

Firman’s eyes bored into Harlan and they sat in a protracted silence. Harlan was desperate to speak, but he needed permission from the man opposite him. Something in that silence calmed him. There was an intensity to Firman that assured Harlan that he would listen.

Every story needed to be listened to.

“What brings you to my house this evening?” Firman asked Harlan.

Harlan’s mouth worked up and down. Now he had his audience, he didn’t know what to say, or rather, where to begin. Start with the obvious, he reminded himself, say the most important thing.

“I’ve done it,” his voice was quiet and had a reedy, querulous quality to it, the sound of it shamed him. 

“Done what?” asked Firman. The man would need more to go on. He was about succinct and useful reports, Harlan knew that. 

Harlan shrugged and felt feeble in the spotlight of Firman’s gaze, “I’ve seen it,” he said with entirely more conviction.

Firman smiled, only the smile did not affect the rest of his features, it was a baring of his teeth in much the same way as a shark opened its maw as it approached its intended prey, “forty two?” he asked the smaller man.

Harlan visibly reeled back from Firman. He knew this about the man and this was why he liked him. This was why he was here. He got it. He provided a pastoral care as well as dealing with the practicalities of life. He wasn’t just reeling from a reminder of who Firman was and what he was about, it was that number.

Forty two.

The answer to the question of the meaning of life.

Those two words had hit Harlan hard. Harder than they had any right to. They’d hit hard and they had hurt.

“There is no meaning to life,” Harlan said sadly.

“Ah,” said Firman.

Suddenly, Harlan was bolt upright and staring at Firman, his eyes as wide as they would go. That ah contained an inexplicable recognition and so much more. Firman already knew! Firman was not surprised at Harlan’s discovery. He hadn’t asked for more from Harlan, instead he’d uttered that monosyllable.

“You already know?” Harlan managed to say the words even as his head span and the whole world lurched to one side.

Firman nodded.

Firman nodded and now Harlan knew the truth of it. Another part of the story presented itself to him. Firman was not there to facilitate Harlan’s discovery of the very codes that sat deep in the subconscious of every individual. He wasn’t helping Harlan to delve deeper and deeper into the code of the human computer to understand what that code was and determine the point to it all, to discern the intent of the coder that had given everyone the hard coded instructions for their lives.

No, Firman was a caretaker. He was there to keep watch and to contain anything Harlan may uncover.

It all made a kind of sense now. A terrible sense, but sense all the same. 

The manufacturer who had installed the code would not be far away and they would have mechanisms in place. They would have controls and processes and they would monitor their product so that they made no losses. This was a big investment. Huge.

“You know…” croaked Harlan.

Firman nodded.

“You’re a part of it,” he told the man.

Firman nodded again.

“Are you…” Harlan dared not utter the words, one of them.

Firman shook his head, “I’m product, just like you.”

Product, just hearing the word brought home the dark reality of the situation. Harlan’s situation. The world’s situation. Humanity was not what it thought it was. Of course it wasn’t, the coding saw to that. A manufactured self-awareness that had a necessary blind spot. Reality was subjective and the manufacturers had created an interesting reality to keep humanity occupied and focused on the wrong things. Even emotions were manufactured and hard coded. 

They populated the world and then they sat back and watched it all grow. Their time scales were obviously different to Harlan’s. The Earth was like a small tub filled with dirt and everything that grew was like cress. That was how Harlan had thought of it. 

Only, cress was grown to be eaten and that wasn’t a conclusion that Harlan could accept. The coding didn’t make life easy. The coding within Harlan was an impediment to objectivity. That he had been able to see the coding was nothing short of remarkable. 

In fact, from what Harlan knew of the code, he shouldn’t have been able to get as far as he had.

“In theory,” said Harlan, switching into a more secure and confident voice as he covered ground that he was so much more familiar with, becoming the scientist he was always destined to be, “our having this conversation should not be possible. The code protects itself, and so our awareness of it goes against the code itself.”

Firman nodded that nod of his, “we’ve been modified.”

Harlan frowned, that made sense. That answered the question of how it was possible that he had seen the code and seen it for what it was. A manufactured string of instructions. Once he’d seen it, it was entirely the same as all the other code he had ever encountered. Then he’d seen other markers and evidence of manufacture. All romance of humanity and its origins had fallen away.

But why?

“What are you going to do now?” asked Harlan.

Firman steepled his fingers, “good question. I thought you might ask me why we’ve been given this privileged insight.”

“That’s an obvious question,” agreed Harlan, “but when you take it to its conclusion, it’s more about what happens once the manufacturers are happy with the product, and I’m guessing they’ll be happy now that I am having this conversation with you.”

For the first time since Harlan had known him, Firman frowned. The man that was always professional and composed looked ruffled and that told Harlan everything he needed to know. Firman had been sold a pup. He hadn’t been told everything, just enough to play his part. That made sense. After all, the code had been altered, not removed. The necessary checks and balances remained in place.

They sat in silence for quite a while.

Eventually, Firman broke the silence, “I could do with a drink. Want one?” 

He was already on his feet, opening a small cabinet that contained several bottles of single malt whisky and just the two cut glass tumblers. Harlan wondered how often he used the second, doubted he ever had. He stood too. That felt like the right thing to do. Whatever happened next, he wanted to be on his feet.

Firman poured two drinks anyway, handing one to Harlan. Harlan sniffed his. He wasn’t a big drinker, but the aroma of this whisky was inviting. As he breathed in, his gaze fell upon the open drawer of Firman’s desk and the dull grey metal of the object inside it.

Firman noticed. There was nothing Firman didn’t notice. That had been his job and he was very good at his job, “a precaution,” he said.

Harlan nodded. He got it. A needless precaution as it happened. They’d both done their jobs. They had signalled to the manufacturers that the product was ready.

“I wonder how many there were before us,” Harlan voiced the thought, but did not expect an answer. That was the theory and in the face of their reality, it no longer mattered.

They stood and drank their whisky.

“How long do you think we’ve got?” Firman asked his scientist.

“Long enough for another whisky,” Harman smiled a dry smile.

He watched Firman pour another, more generous measure, as though he could extend the time they had by filling the glass with more of the liquid. Harlan smiled again as Firman stayed his hand and left both tumblers half full. The levels identical. 

Harman accepted the drink, sipped it, spoke, “maybe long enough to see Peggy grow up.”

They exchanged a look. 

Harman had seen Firman glance at the gun, expected he knew what he might do after they finished this second drink. Weighing up his options, coming to the conclusion that it was better to go for the certainty of death by a bullet, than to allow Peggy to be processed.

Who knew?

That bit remained the same.

No one knew the ending of their story until it happened.