The only chance they had to fool nature, to deserve its empathy, to re-establish this connection and to save humanity was to stay; to continue their work and to weather the storm.

  “We stay. Nothing changes. When the sun sits at its highest we will send out our men and present messages to The Famined, they will receive their weather prediction and their danger will be quelled. What is within our grasp shall remain in our control and we will attend to it and show it love, whatever that means. Nothing changes, do you understand?” he said adamantly; a crisp certainty in his voice.

  “So be it. This is your command. I have a work to do then” said The Behemoth coldly and parting immediately.

  Marcos stopped in his tracks and watched The Behemoth quicken his pace and fasten his stride and like an avalanche, he pushed forward knocking over Mothers and Children in his path, halting the force in his focus, like a bullet; non-negotiable.

  Marcos wondered for a moment if he was right. One again his stomach started to turn on him and he felt a mix of emotions wash over his reason, painting a thousand shades of grey on the white of his conscious canvas. Was The Woman affecting his judgement? There was some sense in what The Behemoth had said. These days had been so unlike any before and his thoughts; so derailing.

  In his mind he visualised The Forever New Dawn, the orange hue peeling into the tenebrous night sky that cast long shadows across an expanse of broken winding roads and monolithic concrete coffins reaching out into the lightening sky.

  As the sun rose over the urban jungle hanging high above its head, the long shadows retreated into the heels of The Collective as they stood under the blue sky; hand in hand; loving as one.

  As the heaviness in his stomach returned, the friendliness in the image retarded as each of the faces turned to look at his conscious eye and he could see that they had holes where their eyes should have been, they had flies aborting in their mouths, they had their hands pressed to their ears and the women were feeding cancer to infants through their swollen breasts.

  The faces screamed and a cloud of locusts swarmed his sight and then everything was black with the buzzing drowning out the voice in his head that whispered that this wasn’t at all real. Something drew his sight, away from the screaming faces. He looked to one of the buildings, like in the dreaming. And like in the dream, there was an unlike image emanating in the distance, its form shadowing against the yellow greasy pane of the twelfth floor window. His eyes fixed on the shape as fear orchestrated his comprehension; the eyes from the yellow pane looking down into his soul knowing what he knew; maybe a truth, probably a secret, promising to tell no one, threatening to tell everyone.

  The image pulled him closer; the window occupied his full sight, there was nothing else, only the window and it was massive against the pane of his conscious eye.

  A demure hand smeared the yellow grease and behind the glass he could see a figure in grey. The hand then pulled on the hood that covered the knowing invisible eyes casting light onto the void. From within the blackness came an explosion of white like a dying star, sucking his sight into its vortex, shredding his senses into unusable molecular waste. Behind the bright star a menacing shadow of an elephantine figure; maybe man or beast, maybe both walked up to the light and cast its right hand on the bright star’s shoulder and its left cradled somewhere below.

  The face of the bright star turned and the light shone upon the shadowy menace; The Behemoth pulled his index finger to his lips.

  “Shhhh” he said and then brought a child into the light; an infant, the cord still attached to its belly, the placenta sitting on the floor. The Behemoth released his hand from the figure’s shoulder to take the placenta from the floor in his right hand, smearing it against the pane, bringing a cloud to Marcos’ conscious eye, the reds and browns coming together, swirling into a black until everything was zero.

  When he came to, awaking from his delusion, the courtyard and corridors were quiet. He could have been out for some time, he would not have known except for the sound of forced laughter coming from the room to his right. He went to the door and leaned in his ear, listening to The Woman welcoming her Children At Love. The heavy sinking sensation in his stomach started to wane as the sound of her voice filled his ears.

  He wondered for a moment if The Behemoth was right in his evaluation of his sanity.

  Was he losing his mind?

  Did he choose only to see what he wanted to see?

  The Collective.

  The Nest.

  The Philosophy.

  The Forever New Dawn.

  The Woman.

  The Girl.

  And why the girl?

  Why was everyone so focused on this one girl?

  And what did these delusions mean?

  Was he losing his mind?

  Was he right all along?

  Was he becoming like them?

  Is this what it was like to be Famined?

  Did anyone ever answer these types of questions?

  “Am I really special?” he thought.

  Marcos stumbled away from the doorframe and headed down one of the far corridors to his right; where he had seen The Behemoth and the scientist colluding the day before. He kept his sight firm focusing consciously on one: forming the sink in his mind, pulling the plug and allowing his conscious filth and stains to wash down the hole into oblivion.

  His mind returned to a metallic shine; a state of one. When his focus returned; with it his determined state of assured brilliance; he caught sight with his conspiring eyes of four men in white coats speaking at the end of the corridor where he was. One of them was The Elderly Scientist he had seen yesterday.

  The four men turned and walked down another corridor, one that seemed completely unfamiliar to Marcos. He followed, driven by a sense of discovery and mistrust.

  0011001000110110

  The four men came to a small door with a picture of three dots aligned in a triangle. At Science, the men were greeted by The Scientist and The Behemoth who both had impatience twitching at their fingers and disappointment glaring from their eyes. Their voices weren’t loud but Marcos could see that their whisper carried with it a great weight; enough to have the four men trembling at their knees and holding their hands pleadingly in front of their faces.

  The Scientist and The Behemoth then left the men in white coats, walking back along the corridor out into the courtyard and towards At War where they both moved in separate directions; The Behemoth into a sparring room where a group of Sons were honing their defences and The Scientist, up the stairs to the top of the War complex to where the laboratories of mathematics stayed.

  The four men in white coats entered briskly the room with the three dots aligned at a triangle and Marcos followed in tow, introducing his presence with a cough.

  The four men turned and saluted him with a long drawn stare, their brows lifted, surprise the theme of their perception.

  One man asked to be excused and made his way through a gated door while the other men arranged themselves in front of a covered glass window, blocking whatever had been in view behind. Marcos tilted his head to sneak his sight past their frames but the men swivelled to the right and left, only making the want of his know, needier.

  “Who is in charge here? What is this room? Who sanctioned this space?” asked Marcos.

  He had not designated any space that was unknown to him and any unsanctioned action that could contravene his ideology would certainly come into question. And for the first time in a great time, he was finding himself at question with one and everything.

  “What are you doing here? This is not your lab. This is not an anything. What is this place?” he said in a demanding and urgent tone.

  The men looked at one another, shook their shoulders and then back at Marcos.

  “Please do not find us rude but you have to understand we have no idea who you are. We have been instructed to converse with no man, woman or child. You will forgive us then if we ask you to leave so we can go about our work” said The Elderly Scientist.

  “Do you know who I am? Open that window; now. I want see what is going on here” he yelled.

  The men once again turned to one another somewhat confused and then back at Marcos who by now was ready to strike.

  “Sir, please” The Elderly Scientist said holding his hands in front of his chest.

  “Do you know who I am? Open those curtains now” Marcos yelled; rage washing over his rationale.

  The Elderly Scientist went to the window and pulled on a black cord that hung by its side. The cloth covering the window dropped and exposed a room with two crying infants in a cot and a Mother, sitting on a white rocking chair.

  Marcos looked on as The Elderly Scientist instructed the Mother to commence. She took one of The Infants, the quieter one and sat back in her rocking chair, lifting it to her breast to feed.

  The Infant massaged at her breast and fell into an awkward slumber, closing its eyes then awakening to screaming and a desire for food knowing the breasts it suckled were dry and worn.

  The Elderly Scientist tapped on the glass and nodded his head. Another man in white took a syringe from the table and stepped behind The Mother rocking The Infant and inserted the syringe into her vein, pushing a clear liquid into her arm then he did the same to the crying Infant; pushing the needle into a vein in its neck.

  “What is that? What did he just give them?” asked Marcos.

  “Oxytocin. Well a synthetic version. We’re trying to kick start her love for this infant. We provide the external elements; the crying baby, i.e. the gears for her to drive her vehicle. This here, this shot, is a jolt of electricity to jump start her engines. The brain produces it naturally but without the empathy gene it doesn’t call it into action. Right now she is receiving an overdose” said The Elderly Scientist.

  The man in white injected more fluid into The Mother’s and The Infant’s veins and timed as the fluid made its way to their brains. He watched for shifts in their pupil dilation, any sweating, any tremours and more notably, he stood on one knee watching The Mother’s left breast intently as The Infant suckled waiting to see any milky discharge. The Mother hummed peacefully swaying back and forth on the old rocking chair, the creaking of the treated wood helping the infant to fall into ease, comfort and sleep.

  “She’s feeding The Infant?” asked Marcos shocked.

  “Shhhh” replied The Elderly Scientist, “just watch” he said.

  A different man in white then entered and took the other Infant which by now was screaming desperately for food and a Mother’s love. He took The Infant into a division within the room where behind Perspex; The Infant sat unnaturally upright, watching its sibling being nursed in apparent tranquillity.

  Its despondence grew unruly, its face burning red, its voice crackling under the extent of its screams. The Man in White turned to The Infant and pulled a white cloth over his face screaming abhorrence into his ears.

  “I hate you, you´re ugly, no one ever wanted you, you ruined your mother’s body, I wish you had miscarried, you are not my son, you are not my son, you are no one’s son” The Man in White yelled disgustingly at the crying Infant as it looked on at The Mother, far from reach and bawling hysterically.

  “What are you doing here? This is fucking sick? What is the point of this? None of this was sanctioned from my philosophy. Who sanctioned this?” Marcos asked.

  The Elderly Scientist closed the curtains and nodded to the other two men to leave the room and go about other business. The two men skipped away and The Elderly Scientist offered Marcos a seat.

  “Please sit” he said. “Can I offer you some tea? We have a synthetic version here. It really is quite delicious.”

  “I don’t want tea. I want to know the meaning of this; of that” Marcos said pointing to the window.

  “Sir, we are men of science here. What you saw was merely the acting out of an equation. It was the cause to an effect. It would serve neither of us for myself to explain the elements in this part of the equation. I think it would be more fitting and far more comprehensible, to show you the effect. Forgive my manners, my name is Arthur” he said extending his hand.

  Marcos leaned forward and shook the man’s hand, a state of caution becoming him. Arthur stood up from behind the desk and invited Marcos to follow him through the locked door, turning to one of his colleagues and nodding.

  “Are you sure I can’t interest you in a cup of tea? It really is a shame for a pot to run cold” he said gesturing to the beakers and containers on the table.

  “No, thank you” Marcos said, completely forgetting The Elderly Scientist’s name.

  “Yes” replied The Elderly Scientist smiling.

  “Who are you responsible to?” Marcos asked.

  “We concern ourselves not in who binds our feet for as long as they liberate our minds" responded The Elderly Scientist.

  “How long have you operated down here?”

  “You never told me your name. You asked if I knew of you, as of apparent that I should. But you never told who you are. I imagine of great importance, yes? Important men usually ask questions that need no answer” The Elderly Scientist said with not a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

  “My name is Marcos. And yes, I am of importance. I built this Nest” he said.

  “Then it is you, Marcos of Importance, who sanctioned this area” The Elderly Scientist responded.

  The two continued walking down a claustrophobic corridor which seemed to compress on all sides the further they ventured. There were small openings in the wall along the way and they were numbered in zeros and ones.

  “What do these numbers mean?” Marcos asked.

  “Why, they are binary of course” The Elderly Scientist responded.

  “Binary, what is that?”

  “It is a language, a beautiful language; all that’s really left of the information age. Zeros and ones are everything. In fact, if you are who you say you are, then this philosophy of yours, it is a binary philosophy; At Focus, At Distraction; At Being, At Not; zero, one; fear, love; death, infinity; black, white. You, Marcos of Importance, you speak in binary” he said.

  “What was the point of that back there? An equation for what? This is not part of my learning. This is not the Collective philosophy” exclaimed Marcos with a heavy hand of uncertainty ushering along every word to its place.

  “You said something interesting before. You said it was; pardon my cultural snobbery I find these words grotesque, fucking sick, yes? I wonder if you find the act being inflicted upon the infant as disturbing as in the interest of an affected human or whether more logically you find the abandon of your philosophical rule disturbing; either way, a very strange thing to say. You know I never bought that adage that man could be altruistic. It’s just simply infeasible. Given that is, that every action, be it physical or metaphysical has some cerebral reward. It’s safe to say that every human lives and dies alone and therefore every human experiences alone. Two humans experiencing the pleasure of sex are each experiencing an internal comprehension of an individualistic act, regardless of the conscious interpretation. The act of sex with another woman is in fact masturbation. A hand, a vagina, a tree trunk; the act is experienced internally and therefore the external factor only relates to the application of internal desire” said The Elderly Scientist.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” said Marcos bewildered.

  “Sorry. Layman. OK, to put it another way, if I were to help an old lady cross a street my brain would provide me with serotonin for the act, I feel good for helping, I set a goal, I achieve said goal and I am rewarded for the effort. Now, if by helping another human my brain was to provide me with electric shocks that ran through my body then most certainly I would not engage in these altruistic acts. Logic really. In this instance we can see that the doing of good deeds for altruism is merely the doing for the receiving of cerebral narcotics. A+b=c. Now should I decide that the pain is worth the ideology, to sacrifice and martyr myself for an ideal, then yes I would endure vile torture while helping the old lady cross the street, but also what guides me through is the metaphysical reward of knowing I’m suffering for a greater good; therein I receive once again a cerebral reward, for the brain doesn’t conserve pain in fact, in large amounts it provides strong doses of endorphin, natures heroin fulfilling two rewards, physical and metaphysical; thereby contravening the rules of altruism. So what does this mean? Humans are not altruistic, we are individual self-serving universes, we can interact with other universes, we can even collide, but we can never be another universe, we can never think like another universe or feel like another universe. Where man is now, without empathy, is where man belongs; a universe getting farther from itself. Altruism cannot exist and empathy was just an error in our code. What does that mean? Without empathy, we cannot lie to one another. We have no desire to lie to one another. There is nothing physically or metaphysically for us to gain. We are better people for it. We are more humane than what you will us to return to. I subscribe to a certain Socratic logic and honesty. I don’t love you; I love myself when I am with you. That kind of honesty isn’t packaged in your empathy my friend. That’s why you have to understand how reserved I feel about giving the scissors back to the infant knowing to well it’s just going to take off at high spirit and fall again, cutting itself and having to be emotionally bandaged. But I’m just the scientist. Which brings me back to what you said before, what was it? ‘This is fucking sick’, that’s right. Well Marcos of importance, you haven’t seen anything yet” he said with a sly cynical wink.

  “Now you asked why. Why, why, why? Always the reserve of layman. Demand a progressive response to a one syllable request. OK, let me put some reason in your mind, we tried many times, to focus on one. That being, that Infant you just saw At Mother, being loved and fed so to speak. Well, she doesn’t really feed mind you; how absurd an idea. I don’t need to tell you how long it’s been since a woman has actually lactated. She does stimulate The Infant though, to the suckling action to try and engage some bond with The Infant and nurse it into sleep. The injections we give her every forty five minutes are designed to jump start her brain, to start the process for it so all it needs to do is remember, feel and repeat. We have to give greater amounts each time. The brain just doesn’t respond” he said.