- The Driven Machine -
Epilogue
Color.
I blinked a few times to make sure that I wasn't dreaming. The
television across the room was in color. The tree outside my room was a dark
green. My blankets were a light blue. I could see color again. Then, was
everything over? Had it been a horribe dream, from which I was finally awake.
Of course, if I had been only dreaming, I likely wouldn't be in a
hospital bed right now. So something had happened. I was better now, but
something had happened. I looked up at the television as the news came on.
"Welcome to WNNT, I'm Alice Tesla. Mike Roberts has the evening
off. Our top story tonight, the local university student suspected in the fatal
stabbing of classmate Sarah -" The television winked off as an elderly man
entered the room.
I already knew though. Sarah was dead. Dante had something to
do with it.
"Good, you're awake. We were very worried about you, Alex." The
person hadn't heard me muttering to myself, thankfully. "What do you remember
from last night?"
I assumed the man was a police officer, so I told him. Not
everything, of course - I didn't want him to think I was insane. I did mention
the fact that I blacked out - after all, I was still scheduled to see a doctor
sometime this week for it. So I didn't remember very much. I told him about
how I had let Dante into the room, and Sarah had come in soon after. She had
a knife. They had fought before, but apparently it had gone on long enough,
and she had snapped. She came after me first, but then Dante tried to help.
I didn't remember much only he... he had taken the knife... and he... Oh God,
this couldn't have happened, right? I had to have been dreaming!
The man shook his head. "It wasn't a dream, Alex. When the police
arrived at the scene yesterday, they found Sarah dead and you huddled into
a corner, screaming nonsense. They thought you were responsible at first,
but later found a different set of fingerprints on the knife. I'm sorry.
"You just awoke today. We were afraid that you may have suffered
permanent physical and perhaps psychological damage - from what your roomate
described, it sounded as though you were having siezures. Your own story
confirms this. Tomorrow, there are a series of tests that should tell us if
you've had a stroke, or are suffering from some sort of tumor. I hope it makes
you feel better to know that all the tests we've administered so far have
proven negative. Your parents will be up shortly to see you. I ask you not
to tell them about your condition, just that we will be keeping you here for
observation."
The man clearly wasn't a police officer, but he was saying a great
deal more than I might expect a doctor would. Who was he?
"I'm Doctor Steil, assistant to the director of the Wayside
Institute for Mental Health. Don't be alarmed, Alex - your parents have not
decided to commit you to our institution." he said this with a smile.
"Provided you do not need help, you are not a danger to others or yourself.
You are not the only one this has happened to - there are a number of cases,
I am told, pending at this moment which bear an alarming similarity to what
has happened to you. In addition, there are records of a similar incident
occurring slightly more than twenty years ago. We think that, perhaps, some
sort of virus that only affects certain people is responsible, and we are
seeing a resurgance of it. We are not nearly certain, however."
With this, the doctor turned around and headed to the door. He
shifted to face in my direction. "You do have a visitor, however, from my
own institution. He will be escorted by an orderly at all times, understand,
and you will not be allowed to be close to him. However, the two of you may
talk of anything that you wish." He gestured down the hallway, and I could
hear movement. Then Steil was gone, and an orderly escorting an older man
who looked oddly familiar entered the room.
The older man looked up at me and smiled. "Ah, young Alex. I
don't think you recognize me, but we have much that we can talk about. But,
first things first. I've been told your name, after all, so you should know
mine. My name is Geoffrey Talbot...."
I still think about it sometimes. I managed not to get myself
institutionalized like Geoffrey, but I still think about it. The doctors that
I had were all very sympathetic, but I never told them about what I saw
in the other world. In fact, Geoffrey and I didn't even discuss it, except in
the most general of manner. At one point, he had asked me, "And what of the
Doctor's young friend? Did he accomplish what he set out to do?"
Yes. He had. Though I don't know what became of him since.
Sleep, for me, is just darkness. I hardly ever dream anymore.
But sometimes I do. Talking with Geoffrey made me believe in
what I had seen, allowed me to cope with it. While the doctors were trying
to make me get over the trauma of having witnesses Sarah's death, Geoffrey
was helping me to get over the trauma of witnessing what I had in the other
world. I visited him once every two weeks, which was the most that my doctors
would recommend, and the most that my parents would allow.
I'm even attending school again. Calculus is no longer as hard as
it seems. I guess I've got a bit more perspective on things. There are worse
things in this world than Calculus - far, far worse things. I am no longer
full of the paralyzing fear that seems to have come over me for that week that
I suffered. The whole things seems little more than a dream. But I know better,
Geoffrey's taught me that.
And when I sleep, my nights are a canvas of blackness. I sleep
deeply, and I almost never dream.
But sometimes I do.
The Habitat seems empty at first. There is no movement of workers, no patrol
of guards. The great Northern portal was a pile of metal and blood - as though
it had been welded shut with the bodies of those who had attempted to stop
what had been happening. The walls are scored with marks, ammunition that had
been fired from the guns of the Guards littered the ground. There are no
bodies anywhere. They have long since been moved.
In the center of the habitat, where once a great structure of metal
and Power had stood, there was now a disorganized heap of scrap. If one looked
closely, however, one realized that the heap was not inert - it was slowly
moving itself into ever new configurations.
Since the workers had taught the Machine how to create the very
weapons which were used against it, the Machine had wiped out all the guards
and sealed off the portal from all who would attempt to re-take the power that
had been earned.
As for the workers themselves, they were gone. Those that survived
the bloodbath left before the portal had been forever closed, to meet whatever
fate there was outside the habitat.
And in the center of the habitat, growing slowly but surely, the
Machine's parts began to gear up once more. There was a cry - the cry of a
living creature suffering in agony. That which had once been known as Driver,
now kept alive only for the Machine's sick retribution, was being processed
in the gears and blades of the Machine, over and over again.
With a belch of smoke, the Machine roared into life once more. It
was time for it to move on.
It had what it wanted.
The End
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