Time compressed within my mind. My perception

was flipping around as my mind was conquered

by distraction. It wasn’t the blackness causing it,

but something I generated within me as I lost sensibility.

Recognition of linear time was lost. What I could comprehend

were snippets of movement as I went outward from the spire’s

lift.

          Faces unconcerned with me were seen flitting left and

right while I plowed through crowds. My legs were being

driven by a lack of direction. I was just going somewhere.

There was no destination. No one seemed to notice me.

Perhaps I looked normal, but I felt lost within some other

dimension of reality.

           Light would come and go. Those cropped segments of

perspicuity arriving within my conscious mind sped through

me. I had no control over anything I did. Not that I did much.

Several days charged by within seconds as I walked and walked

and walked. Darkness, light, darkness, light, darkness, light.

Perhaps three days, maybe more, but not less.

          Hunger and exhaustion weren’t present. Whatever

motivated me didn’t care.

          I was dragged through an unchosen path in life.

Thoughts remained a constant during that period, as if

my mind was operating on two planes of existence. The body

was in some herky-jerky mode within the time continuum. My

mind was fluid as it existed outside the stuttering recognition

of the world around my ambling frame. All I wanted to do was

to kill. I wanted to kill everyone. Everyone deserved to die, in

my reason. Anger overwhelmed me. Everyone was Mr. God’s

property and I wanted to kill that false deity. Unable to do so, I

wanted to destroy everything else around him which he valued

until I could end him forever.

         Luckily I was not connected enough between body

and mind to enact my burning will. Instead I just walked and

walked without purpose.

          Flickering segments of intelligibility lengthened and

normalized within my ken. Everything came back to normal

over some unknown amount of time. The trigger to my inward

healing was in front of me: a woman.

           She was a good distance down the street. I wasn’t

sure who she was, but I recognized her from the last bundle of

moments in which I could perceive what I was doing. Hours

must have passed as I followed her around the city, stalked her

through crowds, trailed her movements, and watched her from

afar.

          Though I couldn’t see her face very well, my body was

chasing this female because she looked quite similar to my

poor Sharon 1-323. Her body was tall and slim like Sharon,

having that pitifully fluid and feminine sense of motion about

her. Lean body was topped by brown, wavy hair down to her

shoulders. What this woman was doing as duty or recreation

wasn’t apparent to me, yet. Actually, I didn’t care. Nothing

mattered to me.

         I wasn’t even sure why I was hunting her; she wasn’t

within my assignment. The pad wasn’t red on the edges yet. I

hadn’t chosen a random face from the city. My mind and body

still acted quite independent of my conscious awareness. It

was discomforting in ways.

          My heart wondered what was she like, I hungered for

her face. Perhaps she was the identical twin of my Sharon.

Maybe they were related in some way. I wanted to know. I

wanted to find out more about this woman, just like the rest of

me had already been doing.

          There could be a cruel humor in the possibility that

it was my Sharon 1-323. Maybe Mr. God resurrected her

somehow with his unfathomable powers. Maybe this had all

been some morbid test. Maybe my Sharon was in front of me.

Maybe my Sharon was home and waiting for me, worried to

death about where I had been.

          Not true! There is no coming back from the end of life.

I knew that. I knew that. No one alive had ever come back

from dead. No one was ever held up as a miracle of life in such

a way. Deep inside me was a hope that Sharon would be the

first to revive from endless sleep.

          My inner self was detached again. Images blinked past

my ability to understand.

          I continued stalking the woman for some span. I saw

where she lived as she went inside her apartment.

          Soon I was in my home, my lonely pair-bond

apartment. There was no Sharon 1-323. There was no Sharon

1-323. Everything was dull and silent. My eyes examined

my bonding ring for a while. Then I was back on the streets

bumbling around in the dark.

         Next I saw was a lightened street; the day came back to

the city.

          In front of me was that unknown woman, once more.

Those annoyingly segmented perceptions flew by as I silently

wondered what I was doing.

           Perhaps this woman was Sharon, but revived and

senseless. It could have been Sharon, memory lost in her

death. She must be Sharon, I thought. I must have my Sharon

back, I demanded of corporeal existence.

           Feet rushed me forward with anticipation. Someone

began talking to her: a tall man. Others were around. I hid.

          When Sharon was free again, alone to wander her

own path, I began directly approaching her. Control of my

mind spliced together again. When I was several feet from my

desired mate, I was absolutely myself again. Tears were felt

streaming from my face.

           Seconds later, my hands grabbed her shoulders and

spun her around.

          “Tell me you are Sharon 1-323!” I told the lady.

          Within my eyes was a face. It was a vaguely Sharon

face, but it wasn’t Sharon. It must be Sharon, I thought: she

had changed a little because her memories were gone, her face

held differently from a wiped mind.

          She said nothing, her eyes wide with surprise.

         “Tell me,” I pleaded, “Tell me you are Sharon!”

         “I do not know Sharon,” the woman replied.

           “Tell me, please,” I rambled, “Please, Sharon!”

          “I’m not Sharon,” she continued.

         “I need Sharon, you must be Sharon!”

         “No, I am not.”

          “Sharon!”

         “No, I am not. You need help.”

          “I need my Sharon!” I cried out.

          “Be as it may, I am not your Sharon,” she plainly said

with sympathy in her eyes.

          My eyes and mind concentrated through distracted

misperception. Everything clarified from a mental fog. The

woman wasn’t Sharon. She wasn’t my Sharon.

          Whomever the woman was, she was similar to my most

cherished bonding. This woman was at least ten years beyond

Sharon’s tender age. This woman had minor creases on her

face; she was maybe even older than I. Her eyes were larger,

her lashes longer, lips thinner, face less-rounded and more

angular. Slightly different, but close.

           I began sobbing.

          “Let me help you,” the woman told me, “you need help.

Something is wrong within you. Tell me what has happened.”

           “Sharon,” I burbled as I collapsed away from the lady

and staggered to a fountain alcove nearby.

          We seated on the edge of the water trough sluicing

between tall buildings. Others watched us, but they quickly

moved onward to their duties. She and I were alone.

           “You are pair-bonded,” the woman said pointing to my

bonding ring holding third and fourth finger tight at the base of

the digits near the palm of my left hand.

           “I was,” my reply weakly chimed, “to Sharon. My

Sharon. She’s gone.”

           “Tell me about her.”

          This woman was kind. She felt something for me in

some way. Her eyes were sad and comforting in those

          “You look like my Sharon,” I confessed.

          My trembling hand felt the ring harnessing my middletwo

left fingers.

          “Maybe you are my Sharon,” I added feverishly, “you

have to remember me!”

           “I’m not your Sharon,” she told me, “I’m Eva 2-299.

You must believe me. You need help.”

           Eva’s mouth was different than Sharon’s when she

smiled. So much was so similar, but so much was different.

Eva was a cruel joke of this world, laughing at me in my

torment. I became twisted with pain.

           “No,” I told her with insanity creeping over my mind,

“No! You can bring her back! Maybe she will come back in

exchange for you!”

           “You make no sense,” were her last words before my

hands grabbed her neck and choked her.

            “You can bring her back for me!” I screamed.

           Eva didn’t understand what was happening. She was in

pain but not sure what I was doing to her or what it meant. It

couldn’t have been comfortable. Regardless, she allowed me to

strangle her without struggle.

             “Let her come back when you find her!” I yelled

through tears and sobs.

           My perception was slipping. There was no way to tell

how much time was spent clutching and grasping at her neck.

           Murderous impulse was scattered and distrait.

            Next moment of conscious recognition brought her

head into my eyes, filling the scope of my vision. Kind Eva’s

fading lights became Sharon’s face. I was choking my Sharon

with my own hands. Sharon was being killed by me as I

watched.

          Swiftly, I tore away from the woman’s throat and stood

back.

          People were watching from the street, unable to

comprehend what was happening.

           “Something is wrong,” croaked Eva as she massaged

her throat, “Stewards! I require assistance.”

           Her request was heard and a call went out for the

Stewards. It increased my fear as I backed away from her. A

couple bulky guardians entered the nook, filtering through the

loose clutch of people observing us.

          They went to Eva. I ran. As I sped out of the

fountain’s area, my hands pushed over several onlookers.

A few seconds later I heard a throaty voice behind me.

           “Halt!” screamed one of the stewards, “Come back

here!”

          I disobeyed the command. My feet fled. My mind

and body were completely one again as fear poured over my

muscles and bones to give me ultra-human endurance and

speed I never knew before.

           I ran.

          Within minutes they would have my data in the hands

of every steward in the world. All of the Earth would chase

me down. I would die for this transgression of Mr. God’s

commandment: I knew the penalty. All I could do was run until

I could understand a way to escape.

          Seconds later, a blaring alarm screeched from all

buildings in the area.

          I tore into a doorway to some building somewhere

along some street or avenue in this horrid existence. Feet could

be heard, dozens of them trampling after me as I went up and

down stairs and through hallways.

           Soon I was going down. Down and down, hunted into

the ground itself by the anguished and outraged masses of

stewards and citizens set to subdue me.

           Down. Down. The third level was cool and filled with

large areas stuffed with machinery. Noise of fluids rushing

through pipes and processors chopped the sound of pursuers,

obfuscated my footsteps. I wasn’t sure how far back they all

were; I had no wish or time to glance back at that point.

          My escape was conceived.

          Minutes later I scurried down the staircase going to the

bizarre door with the broken-graphic puzzle.

           When at the bottom I constructed the symbol and

opened the door. No one was behind me yet. Before I left the

world behind, I leapt up, grabbed the light fitting I had repaired

and ripped it out, leaving the downward access stairway black.

            I rapidly shut the door behind me as people began

crossing the well-lit corridor opening far above me. My

disappearance would be a mystery. Hopefully I had become

magical to those simple fools on the surface.