Chapter 45: When the Dream Starts to Fade
“The Babels might not sound like much to you kids, but back then people only built towers hundreds of metres tall. It was only after the development of nanotechnology and molecular reconstruction techniques that humans had the capability to build for kilometres. And while we’re on the subject of nanomachines…”
Phoenie groaned behind her clipboard as Mr Smith swerved off on a tangent. John had the same habit whenever he was talking about something he loved. Like father, like son.
“You should never take for granted the things they can do. We don’t see much of them out here – their use is strictly governed – but they’re as vital to cities like Malkuth as oxygen is to us. They can do everything from healing wounds and regenerating limbs to terraforming the landscape and fighting wars. There are nightmarish stories of weapons – nanomachine bombs that consumed old cities in a night. Worse still were those that then transmuted that raw material into armies of metal warriors, legions of replicating insects, or even titanous nanomachine gestalts: giant monsters like demons moulded from the very earth, shaped to strike fear into all who saw them,”
Why did that sound so familiar? Phoenie avoided the stories of inhumanity from the dark ages, finding them either hopelessly depressing or melodramatic fabrication. Maybe Theseus had said something about it, what with his boyish love of old war films.
“How true such stories are, however, is hard to determine,” continued Mr Smith, “And there is always the possibility that such creatures of nightmare could have been mere hallucinations, for there exist nanomachines capable of augmenting reality, of changing your very perceptions of the world, even obscuring your own memories behind of veil of dreamlike lies,”
As much as the subject sounds like something out of an over-the-top boys’ adventure film, Phoenie found a sudden burst of inspiration and began searching her files. Reality augmentation, hallucinations, dreams – somewhere in there was the key.
“Don’t worry yourselves too much about that kind of existential pondering, though,” said Mr Smith, “Even the most potent of nano-drugs can’t defeat the real world. They might give you false memories or snare you in a dream so deep you believe it’s the real world no matter how far-fetched it seems, but eventually your mind and body will adapt to and reject the lies. So, if you ever wake up to find you’ve left yourself a note reminding you of forgotten events, or informing you nothing is quite what it seems, don’t be afraid to scratch at the surface and see what lies beneath,”
The sheer coincidence of the lecture relating to her own internal problems left Phoenie wondering if she were in a nano-drug induced faux-reality herself, and that Mr Smith was a subconscious hallucination spawning to set her free. His monotonous diversion from the images of tower construction had led her to a stash of files on her clipboard she’d all but forgotten about. A secret set; a backup on a hidden partition in case all others copies were wiped. It even came with a message warning her not to ‘trust reality’. Concerned for her sanity she devoured the main log of notes while Mr Smith lapsed back into silence, leaving the whole class mumbling to themselves at his odd lecture.
***
