Atomic T'Chu

I

The Company owned just about every part of North America. The seas, the land, the air; they owned it all. Nobody got into the state, or out. 

Susan Simons was a Learner. At just sixteen years old, she’d already mastered the difficult Bo’Shi martial arts, and the puzzlingly complicated Langua language. All Learners reported to a Teacher. In Susan’s case, this was Mr. Frederick Wilson. 

Fred also happened to be the son of the head of The Company itself.

II

It was a fine day in late August when Susan climbed the steps up to The Company’s New York office. She was already late, and as she walked she stumbled and dropped her briefcase, whispering to herself, “and now later”. 

She was to meet with Frederick at ten o’clock, but it was now already ten-fifteen, and he was growing tired. “Susan is smart, yes, but a tardy one”, he thought to himself. 

Just when he thought his patience had run as thin as it possibly could, Susan burst through the heavy oak doors and brushed the hair out of her face before saying, “Morning, Wilson.”

“And a good morning to you, young lady. Where have you been?”

“Alone. In my thoughts.”

Fred nodded. 

“Yes. Alone indeed. Sit! I beg of you.” He motioned to one of the two blue leather chairs in front of his desk. 

“Today, you learn the art of T’Chu,” he said after they had both sat down. 

“I’m ready,” she said. 

“To learn the art of T’Chu is to take on a heavy burden. It is not enough to be ready. You must be willing to sacrifice everything to learn it.”

“I have nothing left to sacrifice. You know that.”

And then she remembered that old Dylan song: “he who’s got nothin’ has got nothin’ to lose” and smiled. If there was any period in time that she wish she could have been born in, it would have been the 50's, so she could be alive and young when Dylan first came out. 

But Dylan was gone now. Had been for a hundred years. The Company was all there was now. 

“Susan, you seem…unsettled.”

“It is by the will of my mind that I am here, now,” she said solidly and clear. 

“Then let it be so,” Wilson spoke in return. “Time to learn T’Chu.”

III

The art of T’Chu is more like a science. In order to read people’s thoughts, you had to really study them first. You had to pay attention to every tic, every piece of body language, every emotion. And then, and only then, did you try to invade. Because someone could resist it, could resist your infiltration into their thoughts. But the good ones, the really good ones, could slip in unnoticed and take what they want.

That’s the kind of Maester that Susan wanted to be. 

“Show me how, Mr. Wilson.”

IV

After the training, she felt like her mind had been scooped out of her brain and flipped upside down. She was physically drained. But now she knew how to do it, and she was good at it. Gifted, even.

“Susan, before you go,” Mr. Wilson started, “we need to have a brief chat.”

“What’s on your mind?”

Wilson sighed, and looked out the window to his right.

“Something’s not right,” he said as he watched people walk through the plaza below. 

“Not right with what?” She asked. 

“Everything. Peering into people’s minds. This is wrong.”

Susan was shocked. She hadn’t expected to hear such impiety, but she was smart enough (and young enough) to listen rather than react. And so she sat there, and let him continue.

Wilson turned back to face her, and said, “I have an assignment for you. It is not a small thing to say that it’s the most important assignment I’ve ever issued.”

She sat, silent.

“I need you to read my father.”

She was stunned.

“Why?”

Wilson stood up, and walked around his desk. “Do you know what The Company really is?”

“Our government.”

“Yes, but what else?”

“I’m not following your question,” she said, lying.

Wilson browsed his bookshelf as he continued to talk. “Neither of us are old enough to know, to truly know, but I don’t believe the Great Atomic War really happened.”

Before, Susan was simply humouring him before she planned to turn him into state officials on charges of treason. But now she was curious. How far off the deep end had Wilson gone? 

“I believe my father planted those memories into our minds. A reverse T’Chu, if you will.”

He walked back to his desk and sat down again.

“But that’s never been done before,” she said.

“Or maybe that’s just what The Company wants you to think.”

Susan stood up.

“Where are you going?” He asked.

“To turn you in for treason,” she said as she walked to the oak doors.

“Nobody will believe you.”

She stopped. “Why would you think that I would carry out your scheme anyways?”

“Because, if you don’t, I’ll tell them that you tried to read me.”

She gulped. That would mean certain death. Reading a Teacher is severely off limits. Wilson had her in a bind.

“And why don’t you do it then?”

“He’s my father. He would recognize my intrusion. And, simply, I’m not as gifted as you are. Your younger mind is more adaptable. It can endure a lot. I’m afraid my mine might turn to scrambled eggs if I try. I am sorry, Susan. But this is the way it must be.”

Susan sighed. 

“When are we doing this?”

V

The banquet was enormous. Susan and Fred Wilson were seated near the head of the table, where Bruce Wilson sat; Fred's father.

“So, my son, you’ve brought a special guest with you, I see,” Bruce Wilson said. 

“Yes, father, this is Susan. She was my Learner, and is now a full-fledged Maester.”

Bruce shifted his gaze onto Susan.

“You’ve been granted heavy responsibilities, young lady. I hope for God’s sake you’re prepared to use them properly.”

She sat in her chair, a prisoner of a situation beyond her control. She thought about just sitting there, and not reading Bruce’s mind at all, but as they were leaving Wilson’s office the day she finished her training, he told her that even if she didn’t read his father’s mind, he would still tell the authorities she tried to read him. 

One final possibility would be to make something up, but Susan sensed something between Wilson and his father that made her uneasy. There was always a small chance that Wilson was telling the truth. After all, why would he lie? Unless he had turned completely paranoid. 

And, anyways, Wilson could just read her mind after and see that she was lying. 

Susan was stuck.

VI

It started as a tickle down Bruce’s spine. He rubbed his neck in discomfort, and stirred at the table. She was now in his head, but she didn’t dare open the door just yet. Once it was, a psychic connection would be made between her and him, and she would step in and steal his secrets. 

“So, have you read any minds yet, Susan?” He asked as he sipped his wine.

“No, sir. Not yet.”

They stared at each other for a moment too long, and she suddenly grew cold. “He’ll know…” she told herself, but faced with no other choice, she opened that door in his mind and entered it.

There was no going back.

Susan was enveloped by bright light. The light began to fade, and she saw Bruce Wilson sitting on a recliner in the centre of an all white room. He was watching television. 

It was the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. Dylan was playing ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’. This was from her brain, and as long as it kept Bruce’s subconscious distracted, she could infiltrate and steal what she needed to know. 

This reminded her of an old movie called ‘Inception’, which she had to watch for her Ancient Cultures and Societies class when she was twelve. 

“It’s funny how life mirrors art,” she thought. 

In the far corner of the room was a filing cabinet. She walked over to it, and to her delight, it was not locked. Susan opened the top drawer and found an envelope with her name on it. She closed the drawer, and slowly opened the envelope. 

“Dear Susan,” it read. 

“I’m afraid to inform you that you’ve reached the end of this road. Turn back now, or face the truth for the umpteenth time.”

She crumpled up the letter and let it drop to the floor. Bruce was still watching TV, although it was someone else now singing. Looked to be Chris Martin. 

She opened the second drawer to the cabinet, and found what she was looking for.

Inside was what looked to be like a metal plaque. It read:

LET US NOT FORGET THE VALOR OF THE BRAVE WHO FOUGHT IN THE GREAT ATOMIC WAR.

2042 - 2077

So a war had happened.

Unless it was just a fabrication of Bruce’s mind to trick her. 

She opened the third, and last, drawer. 

Inside was a photograph, which shocked Susan so much that she nearly broke the psychic connection.

It was a picture of her standing with Bruce Wilson on some desolate field that had been decimated by atomics.

She and him were both smiling. 

She backed away from the cabinet. The television was still playing, this time back to Dylan. 

“The line, it is drawn. The curse, it is cast,” played through the speakers. 

It was at that moment that Bruce turned to her, and to her surprise said, “I’ve known you were here all along.”

At the dinner table, the guests continued to eat. Susan kept her head down, and Wilson had begun to shake with nervousness. Bruce, however, didn’t bat an eye. 

Whether it was his subconscious speaking to her, or his conscious mind (and he was just pretending at the table), didn’t matter. What mattered was he saw her and he knew, deep down, that she was infiltrating him. 

She was now in incredible danger. 

VII

“Are you Bruce’s subconscious?” She asked in his their shared connection.

“You could call me his semi-conscious. That distraction technique was good, but not good enough for me.”

“Are you going to kill me?” She asked.

“No. But I am going to set you straight.”

He beckoned for her to come to the television. She hesitated for a moment, and then went. 

“Look,” he said, as he turned the channel to pictures of the war. The Great Atomic War. Buildings hollowed out and burnt, crippled bodies lying in the streets, fire everywhere. It was the apocalypse come to life.

“This is the war that nearly destroyed the world,” he said. “It was so bad that you devised a technology to put you, and others, to sleep, and have them awaken in this dream world. Ruled by The Company. Ruled by me.”

“Who are you really?”

He smiled.

“You don’t need to know that just now. What you should be focused on is waking up. And if you truly want to do it, you can be done with this dreamscape right here, right now.”

“How?”

“I simply have to show you the way. That’s why I’m here. That’s why you brought yourself to me. Now, come sit, and I can begin the process.”

Susan was wary. She wasn’t sure what to believe.

“Susan…” he said. “Why would I lie to you?”

VIII

Back at the dinner table, the main course was finished and dessert was being served. Susan was finding it harder and harder to maintain composure while she continued her palaver with Bruce’s semi-consciousness, but she was managing. 

IX

Susan sat in the chair, and Bruce turned the television back on. Displayed on the screen was none other than the room in which they were feasting on their banquet. 

Susan gasped.

“You see, this entire world is just a dreamscape, devised by you, for you. Otherwise, how could I show you an image of what’s going on in the ‘real world’ while you’re in here? You thought you were reading someone’s mind, but all that happened is you read your own.”

X

With dessert done, Bruce Wilson turned to Susan and said, “now, young lady, I think it’s time you showed me your T’Chu abilities.”

“Of course,” she replied. 

Bruce snapped his fingers and two of his servants brought out a young boy, probably around nineteen years old, who was being held as a slave in Bruce’s castle. 

“Break him,” Bruce said. 

There doesn’t always come a critical moment in one’s life, a moment where everything converges into one stream, but that’s exactly what was happening here, and all Susan could do was watch it all converge in slow motion.

“Break him!” Bruce screamed. 

She stood up, and looked at him dead in the eye.

“No.”

And with that she dug deeper still, infiltrating the ‘mind’ of Bruce’s semi-conscious, opening one more door, and unlocking the deepest truth known to him.

Fred Wilson, Bruce’s son, looked at her, mouth agape. 

Suddenly, the room began to shake. The lights swayed and food spilled off the table onto the floor. It was like an earthquake, but everyone could feel it in their skulls too: a piercing white noise. 

Bruce rushed to his feet.

“You will not take this from me! You will never wake up.”

Whatever happened on the outside, she realized now it was Bruce who put them both into this dreamworld. It was Bruce who couldn’t handle the horrors of the post-atomic world. And it was Bruce, a dear friend judging by the picture she found, who had to be defeated. 

She grabbed a knife off the table and swung it at his throat. It missed by an inch.

XI

Inside the mind of Bruce’s semi-consciousness, Susan found herself in a dark room with a golden safe in the middle. She walked up to it and found it locked by a thumbprint scanner. 

XII

Susan swung the blade again, this time nicking Bruce’s ear. 

“Ow!” He yelled out. “I’m going to kill you, you miserable bitch!”

The earth continued to shake, and the walls of the dining room were now crumbling. A gust of wind blew through the room, and over the roaring noise Susan shouted: “how do you open the safe?”

And then, directly after she finished asking the question, she knew the answer.

XIII

“This is a shared dream,” she told herself. “So I must be able to unlock it with my thumb, or his.”

She tried it.

The lid of the safe popped open, and inside was one object: a handheld detonator. 

She pressed it. 

XIV

Susan was lying on a bed. Warm, morning light poured in through the windows and cast itself on her. Outside, birds were chirping. 

She rubbed her eyes, and took a drink of water sitting beside the bed. 

Today she was to begin T’Chu training; the art of mind-reading. 

The scientists said that after the bombs fell, the radiation opened up new avenues for biological development, including the ability to peer into the brain of another and form a psychic bond. 

Susan walked outside, and marvelled at how the once barren wasteland had now sprouted trees and bushes and all sorts of flowers. It reminded her of Hiroshima. 

Just then, something caught her eye. There was a piece of paper floating in the wind. 

No, not paper; a photograph. 

The picture blew itself right down at her feet. She bent down to pick it up.

It was a picture of her and the head of The Company, Bruce Wilson.

She smiled to herself. 

They won the war. And now the world was theirs. 

She flipped the photo over, and on the back was written something that chilled her to the bone.

“I see your mind.”

“No, you don’t,” she whispered to herself, and then crumpled it in her hand.