Construct Model: 3XU-T
Handler: Iris [last name unavailable]
In the quiet temple morning, in the shy light of the rising suns, it was Bacai who found Iris, passed out, face pressed against the clay tile of his room. He had missed sunrise prayer, and she had hurried to inform him of just how much trouble he was in. Bacai screamed in a way only an eleven-year-old girl could, voice rising louder than the ceremonial gong, rousing birds from treetops and monks from their posts. As soon as her scream died down, the temple was filled with the sound of a dozen bare feet running along clay stairs.
They laid Iris out on his sleeping mat and called for a medic, who, after a close examination, failed to find anything at all wrong with the boy aside from the scrape along his forehead where it had collided with the floor. All the medic suggested was more food for the growing teenager and left in a hurry. When Iris awoke, he watched the commotion around him with detached interest, just as he had watched everything and everyone since he had arrived at the temple.
“You’re in trouble,” Bacai sang, sotto voce, sitting by the head of Iris’s mat. Her bony knees protruded through her yellow novice robes where the fabric had thinned from their usual placement. “Mom’s going to be mad.”
Iris didn’t respond. He had long learned not to bite on whatever lure Bacai set for him. He turned over to his side and stared at the wall instead, running his index finger along the rough surface, each crack and imperfection memorised. Iris called out to VIFAI, once, twice, but there was no response. He called out louder, forcefully, but only silence returned.
“What happened to you anyway?” Bacai pulled her knees to her chest and rested her cheek on them. “Did you faint? Do you sleepwalk? Did you get possessed by a ghost?”
Bacai was worried. She was a little stubborn and conceited, but, like any eleven-year-old, she was easily bored and the fact that she had remained by his side for this long was enough to demonstrate her care. Iris rolled back over and nudged her, pressing the knuckle of his index finger between her shoulder blades. “Go eat breakfast.”
She glared at him over her shoulder with a pair of enormous obsidian eyes. “Tell me what’s wrong with you.”
“Go eat,” Iris said and nudged her again, “or I’ll tell Teacher Aran that you’ve been sneaking out to the kitchen at night.”
Bacai hissed. “Stupid Iris, then I will tell Teacher Aran that you’ve been sneaking out to the kitchen same as me.”
“Do that, and I won’t open the locks for you anymore.”
He had won that round. With a huff, Bacai got to her feet and dusted off her robes. Like a gust of wind, she was out through the doorway, but not before sticking out her tongue at Iris and throwing him a menacing glare.
Finally alone, Iris could focus on the problem at hand. His recollection of the night prior was blurry at best. Mother Novahad insisted that his night terrors had gotten out of hand, so much so that no one would share a room with him. No more postponing the inevitable. He had had to receive treatment for them. Several weeks before, his AI had been upgraded with some therapy modules that were supposed to help Iris process his trauma.
Iris didn’t mind too much. Delivered in the construct’s upbeat and familiar voice, they were almost comically simplistic, and Iris spent his nights chuckling along to the useless advice and guided meditation.Guided meditation—the audacity was almost insulting. But the night prior, they had tried something different. His construct was supposed to deconstruct one of his memories. Something about using the AI to stop the traumatic flashbacks before they happened. Iris hadn’t been paying attention.
But when the moment came, and it did exactly what it was supposed to, and the memory started to fade, Iris was overcome with a rage like never before. As the AI had teased the memory apart, Iris had sensed that a part of him was being altered, a part of him was being erased. He had concealed the radiation burns along his back and legs, but that was different, and it was mostly for the benefit of others. This was altering something fundamental about himself. The memory was painful and violent and unsightly, but it was the very foundation ofhim.
Before he knew it, Iris had turned all his mental faculties towards stopping the work on the memory segment. The surge that had zigzagged across his brain had lasted a fraction of a second, but it was enough to render Iris unconscious. When he came to the morning after, surrounded by concerned faces, his construct wasn’t responding to his calls.
Another three days passed before Iris sensed a nonverbal ping, weak and faltering. Two days after the first ping, awavering voice called out to him. With every phoneme, a sharp, electric twinge radiated through the spot where the implant had been inserted.
Iris, was all his construct could say. It continued to repeat his name for the next two days, each time accompanied by the twinge to the brain stem. Then, nine days after Iris had nearly killed it with nothing but his fury, his companion recovered enough to speak.
First, there was fear of being,it said.Fear of being became fear of not being. Those are the two original fears.
It was speaking from the Three Original Fears Sutra. There was nothing strange about that; it was embedded deep within Iris’s memories, so deep that no surge of electricity could burn it out. It was late at night, and Iris was alone in his room, so he spoke out loud. “Where did you go all these days? What happened?”
There is hunger of the stomach. There is hunger of the mind. There is hunger of the bone and the soul. Feed the soul, and all other hungers will be satiated.
The Way of Light Sutra. Iris had finished memorising it not three weeks ago. “Stop speaking in sutras, please,” Iris begged. “What happened to you? Do you remember?”
When the flesh burns, know that it is temporary, and when love warms, know that it is temporary. Temporary, temporary, temporary …
Still with the Way of Light Sutra. Something was terribly wrong with his construct. “I really hurt you, didn’t I?” He pinched the tip of the candlewick, and the room was drowned in darkness. “There was some sort of power surge. I think I fried you a little too hard.” Iris leaned against his doorframe and slid down to the floor. He looked out into the courtyard. Outside lay a stuffy and silent summer night, far too humid for any animal or insect to be out. Without a single cloud in the sky, Iris traced out familiar constellations with ease.
“I got scared that you were trying to change me. I know it’s dumb, but I thought you’d move my memories around or, worse, make me forget, and I’d be just happy all the time, without a care. I don’t want to be happy all the time. I don’t want to forget. Mother Nova says I’m far too heavy of a person to be a Vessel—well, you know. A Vessel’s robes signify light. We are the light that shines through the worst of times and the light that leads souls to the One Beginning.” Iris paused, picked up a small pebble from the floor and tossed it into the courtyard. In the dead quiet of the temple, he listened to it bounce thrice over the cobblestones. “I’m notlightenough, I guess, or something. No one wants a downer at their funeral.”
Not a downer, Iris,a weak voice whispered and was followed by a surge of electric pain.
“You’re back,” Iris whispered, a childish grin stretching across his face. “You’re back! You’re alive! I thought you’d just be reciting sutras for the rest of your life.”
You recite sutras for the rest of your life.Followed by another surge. Iris winced. It was going to take a bit of time to get used to the surge that followed every sentence, but with time, he’d learn to ignore it completely. Like so many other sensations, he could learn to ignore it.
I can’t recall full sutras. I can’t recall yesterday.
