Knowledge is stolen from the gods. Scars are washed. Torches in the dark.

Find more information at efficiantum.com and follow us @efficiantum on twitter or like the Efficiantum Project on Facebook

Written and performed by Michael Meinberg @meinberg13

Script editing and logo design by Erin Hawley at geekygimp.com and @geekygimp on twitter

Tracks “Spider’s Web” “Blue Feather” “Angevin” “The Complex” and “Awkward Meeting” by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

SCRIPT

I struggled within the vast mindscape that stretched out before me. My body was dying, I could feel it in the slowing of my breath and heart. The rigors of my time in the cell were proving too much for my flesh. Slipping away seemed easy in that comforting void. I could just fall apart.

But I couldn’t give up. Something pulsed within me, and I gazed down onto the hungering masses. I knew that would be my fate if I surrendered. I would be reduced to mindless hunger, with the workable parts of mind sectioned off to form the backdrop of the world. The strength of my desires would be co-opted to power whatever dreaded force compelled all of this forward.

The core mind behind it all remained too disparate and too protected. I couldn’t strike back through this void, not directly. But I descending into the white and allowed my senses to become subsumed by it. I merged my mind with these countless others and formed a tapestry of the land. I saw with a thousand eyes peering through the city.

Chaos was rising on the streets, instigated in the time since my imprisonment. Too many had been consumed too quickly, and the underlying fabric that allowed the city to continue in its orchestrated fashion fell apart. Chants and cries lifted on the words of workers as they took to the streets for the first time in their lives. Riots and strikes flared openly.

Some were sparked directly by this controlling mind, these deliberate attempts to create chaos, and it allowed them to rise to the top. I could feel the longing to control and use the righteous anger of the oppressed as a means to slip to the top.

But in other places, the mind merely watched as the discontent rose of its own accord. Here, a restaurant closed because its head chef had been consumed, and the patrons descended into riot -a minor inconvenience becoming a spark in powder. There, a workshop owner burdened his employees with the shifts of those that had been consumed. The independent workers threw down their tools as a boundary was finally pushed too far, and threw their employer from a window.

And dozens of puppets, the remnants of those consumed by the communion, lurked outside an abandoned factory, watching those that come and go. Their numbers increased by the hour, flooding and filling the space, forming a mass to contain, or perhaps protect, the nearly collapsed factory. Steam emerged from the broken structure, pumping into the clouds above.

My fingers curled into fists and I pulled back. I stared at the Agent before me, who was locked in concentration in their attempt to break me, in their attempt to make me like the puppets or like themselves. My mind’s eye followed a silver string from the back of their skull, and it disappeared into the void. I grasped a hold of that string and pulled with everything I had left.

The Agent twitched and attempted to close off the connection. I pulled harder and the grey liquid of their mind emerged from the sea of souls. Their mind coiled back into their body and the Agent gasped in sudden awareness of self. I allowed the connection to break then, and fell into a sobbing wreck, struggling to lift myself into a seated position.

The Agent stepped forward and offered me a hand. Their face still registered nothing but shock, but I took the hand and rose unsteadily to my feet. I slipped an arm around their shoulders and they took on the burden of my weight. I told them that we had to get out of there. Numb, they agreed.

The puppets guarding the door turned on as soon as we exited. They seemed confused for a moment, and I used that confusion. I opened my mind to theirs, and traced the silver thread for both of their minds simultaneously, dragging them back into their bodies. The pain of reconciliation must have been higher for them, as they collapsed immediately into limp piles on the ground.

As the Agent carried me towards the exit, they asked what I did. I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t have the words then to conceptualize what my brain was going through. Everything was so abstract and distant, so cold and alien. Even now, it’s difficult to put things into words. But the constant testing forced me to grow stronger and faster than most. Being constantly on the losing end of confrontations forced me to learn or to die.

And I refused to die.

***

The rest of the way out of the spire went unnoticed. The building had been emptied out, leaving no one to resist our efforts. I needed food coffee and fresh clothes; so after we emerged into the pale dawn streets, I directed the Agent to a nearby cafe. I could begin to regain my strength there.

Along they way, they introduced themself as Sam, and apologized. I could tell the weight of what they had done while under the influence of that outside mind rested heavily on them. So, I accepted the apology as graciously as I could, though speaking proved difficult. A haze settled on me, exhaustion and malnutrition playing havoc with my thought process.

This neighborhood stood in stark contrast to the one that I had seen in my visions of revolution. The structures were more elegant and maintained, and the people that went about their work wore more formal clothes. The easy quiet of the space seemed at contrast with the visions I had plucked, but the calm only had me more on edge.

At the cafe, we found a seat inside, in a corner away from prying eyes and where we could watch the doors. I ate my fill and then more-greasy eggs and bacon and toast. I drank probably a pot of coffee all on my own, but still my body longed for nothing more than sleep. But I couldn’t sleep yet.

While I ate, I questioned Sam about what they knew. Turns out, they didn’t know much. They had learned, through back channels, that their Autocrat had opened up a nanoscale manufactory. Sam proceeded to do all the research they could, trying to get to the root of the reasoning. But then they were drugged with the water – everyone in the spire had.

With their minds opened by the nanomachines, they had been easy prey for whomever was connecting them all. Sam thought it was their Autocrat, but I was less sure of that. While Sam’s Autocrat opened the door, I doubted they would construct these kinds of nanomachines. Something here resonated on a deeper level than a simple corporate plot.

No Autocrat would have wanted the amount of the chaos fomenting on the streets. No, an Autocrat would be looking for short-term profit to find a way to turn these nanomachines into a product they could bottle and sell. This usage of nanomachines spoke to a more profound reasoning, but one that was less explicable.

With my food finished and the bill covered by Sam, I rose to my feet and then immediately collapsed. Again, Sam offered me a helping hand, making our way to a hotel. Fortunately, Sam had Agent money, which meant they could afford a room as long as needed.

The room proved to be quite well furnished, though I didn’t pay much attention to the surroundings; but instead crumpled onto the bed, still wearing all of my clothes, and drifted to sleep. I don’t know how long I slept, but when I awoke, it was pitch black outside, and I had been stripped down to my underclothes.

Sam sat in a plush chair by the window, passed out. Laying across another chair was a set of fresh clothes, looking to be my size. I showered, allowing the hot water to rinse away the sweat and ease the bruises. I gazed down and saw my ribs sticking from my chest, the pale flesh hanging off of my bones.

But I emerged rejuvenated