Nothing, perhaps, except for where he might be going. He wished he could resist the trajectory he was taking, but there was nothing he could do about it, for there was nothing for him to grab onto or to kick against. He had no choice but to submit to his momentum, and hope to be able to act later.
He had no way to judge how much time had passed when he plummeted from the void into a dark-blue sky, nor could he explain how he had managed to fall so far, so fast, without bursting into flames upon his entry into the atmosphere.
He landed in a vast sea, and swam to a shore where the waves pounded against the rocks. He crawled onto the beach, feeling as strong and as fit as when he had first began this dream, but now a bit afraid that he might rust. However, once he had walked away from the beach and could once again see the city in the distance, his metal body was perfectly dry, and none the worse for wear.
He walked toward the city. Now it remained stationary, and the closer he came to it, the more brilliant it gleamed in the sunlight, with rainbow colors that glistened as if the towers and pyramids and flying buttresses were sparkling with the fresh dew of morning.
And inside the boundaries of the city were buildings shaped like hexagonal prisms, ditetragonal prisms, dodecahedrons, and hexoctahedrons-complex geometric shapes all, but each with its own purity arising from its simplicity. Yet there seemed to be nothing inside the buildings; there were no doors, no windows, no entrances of any kind. The colors of the buildings glistened in the sunlight: crimson, wheat, ochre, sapphire, gold, sable, and emerald, each and every one so pleasing to his logic integrals, all so constant and pure.
Yet the deeper he walked into the city, the fewer buildings there were. They were spaced further apart, until the emptiness formed a tremendous square in the center. And in the square was an array of mysterious machinery, surrounded by transparent plastic packages of dry chemicals scattered on the ground. They all seemed to be asking to be used.
But for what?
Derec did use them. He did not know why, nor did he know exactly how he used them. He mixed the contents of the plastic packages into the machinery when it seemed appropriate; in fact, he rebuilt the machines when it was appropriate. Again, he did not know exactly why or how he accomplished this. It was only a dream, after all.
And when he was done he stood at the edge of the square and looked upon the opening he had made in the fabric of the universe. Inside he saw clusters of galaxies swirling, moving apart in a stately, steady flow. Gradually, they moved beyond his point of view, but instead of leaving utter blackness in their wake, they left a blinding white light.
Derec happily stepped inside the light. It was time to awaken, for now he knew how to reach Canute.
Chapter 12. The Theory Of Everything
"Wake up, my lad," came the voice of Dr. Avery from behind the veil of blackness. "The time has come to join the land of the living."
Derec opened his eyes. Dr. Avery's face hovered over him, going in and out of focus. Avery's expression was as neutral as his tone had been sardonic. Derec sensed they were both calculated; the constant light burning in the doctor's eyes was under control only with effort.
"What happened to me?" Derec asked hoarsely. "What did you do to me?"
"The Hunter robots knocked out you and your friends with a dose of nerve gas. The effects were temporary, I assure you, and there will be no aftereffects. I had to assure the Hunters of that, too, just as I had to convince them that you three would be more safely moved through the narrow corridors if you were unconscious. You see, I know these robots, and can justify much to them that you would never dream of."
"Where are my friends?"
Avery shrugged. "They're around." He must have thought better of that answer, because then he said, and not unkindly, "They're here in the lab. You can't see them yet because your vision hasn't cleared."
"Where's Mandelbrot? You haven't-haven't dismantled him, have you?"
Avery solemnly shook his head. "No. That would have been a waste of some fine workmanship. You're quite a roboticist, young man."
"I suppose I should be flattered.”
"I suppose you should be, too."
Derec closed his eyes in an effort to obtain a better idea of his bearings. He knew he was lying down, but his position was definitely not horizontal. The problem was, he couldn't tell as yet if his head was tipped up or down. Closing his eyes, however, turned out only to make matters worse. He felt like he had been strapped to a spinning wheel of fortune. He tried to move.
"I want to stand up," he said. "Untie me."
"Strictly speaking, you're not tied down. You're being held down by magnetized bars at your wrists and ankles." Avery held up a portable device with a keyboard. "This will demagnetize the bars, releasing you, but only I know the code."
Derec felt ridiculously helpless. "Could you turn down the lights, at least? They're hurting my eyes."
"I know I really shouldn't care," said Avery, looking away. "Canute!" he called out, and the glare diminished.
It was immediately easier for Derec to see. The light grid was several meters above his head. He glanced to his right to see Ariel still asleep on a slab, also held down by magnetized bars. Beyond her was a battery of computers and laboratory equipment and various robotic spare parts-not to mention a compliant Canute dutifully overseeing a chemical experiment of some kind.
On Derec's left, Wolruf lay face-down on a slab. Also out cold. Her tongue hung limply from her mouth.
A closed-down Mandelbrot stood nearby against the wall, looking like a statue, an eerie statue that Derec half expected to come to life at any moment. Indeed, he thought about ordering Mandelbrot to awaken, but he was too afraid Avery had already planned for that contingency. In any case, he did not wish to see his friend again suffer from the feedback Avery had brought on with his electronic disrupter.
"Thanks for turning down the lights," said Derec. " Are my friends well?"
"As well as they were. I really must compliment you, young man. You're really quite resourceful.”
“What do you mean?"
"Even when you were unconscious, you were able to resist my truth serums. You babbled incessantly, but I got little information of any value out of you."
"Maybe that's because I've none to give. I didn't ask to be stranded here, you remember."
"I shall strive to keep that in mind," said Avery wearily. He sighed as if near exhaustion.
Derec certainly hoped that was the case. Now that would be something he could turn to his advantage. "Did you find out anything about my identity while I was out?" he asked.
"I was not concerned with your personal matters. I merely wished to know how you had sabotaged the character of my robots. "
Derec could not resist laughing. "I've done nothing to your robots or to your city, unless you could count saving it from a programming flaw. Any mistakes in your design are your own, Doctor.”
“I don't make mistakes.”
“No, you're simply not used to making them. But you make them, all right. If nothing else, you accomplished more than you intended. Your meta-cells are capable of duplicating protein organizational functions on a scale unprecedented in the study of artificial life-forms. The interaction between the constant shifts of the city and the logic systems of the positronic brain seems to liberate the robot brain from its preconceived conceptions of its obligations. And if what's happening to Mandelbrot's mind is any indication, the end results are infectious. “
“I doubt it. Maybe your robot is just stewed from incompatibility with the city's meta-lubricant.”
“You're grasping at neutrons!" said Derec, futilely trying to kick off the bars over his feet and succeeding only in twitching his toes. "Isn't it more reasonable to assume that the environmental stress of the replication crisis-caused by a bug in your own programming-triggered the emergence of abilities latent in all robots of a sufficiently advanced design?"