Empire V Read Online Free PDF

memories, but there were simply far too many of them. After a while the images faded, as though the battery in the torch was exhausted, and everything grew dark.
    â€˜Did you see?’ asked Mithra.
    I nodded.
    â€˜What did you see?’
    â€˜A computer specialist.’
    â€˜Describe him.’
    â€˜Like a set of scales,’ I said. ‘Beer on one side, Windows on the other.’
    Mithra showed no surprise at this strange phrase. He took a few drops of the liquid into his mouth and for a few seconds moved his lips back and forth.
    â€˜Yes,’ he assented. ‘Windows Ex Pee …’
    The response did not surprise me. It was one of the ways our computer expert had demonstrated his special loathing of this particular version of the operating system marketed as XP.
    â€˜What was I seeing?’ I asked. ‘What was it?’
    â€˜What you have been experiencing was your first degustation, your first tasting. In the weakest possible concentration. Had the solution been at full strength, you would have lost all knowledge of who you yourself really are, and if that had happened everything would take much longer to accomplish. Until you get used to it, it can produce a severe psychic trauma. But you will only have as strong a reaction as that in the initial stages; later you’ll get used to it … In any case, my congratulations. You are now one of us. Or at least, almost one of us.’
    â€˜Forgive me for asking,’ I said, ‘but who are you?’
    â€˜I am your friend and comrade. I’m a little older than you. I hope we are going to be friends.’
    â€˜In the light of our future friendship,’ I said, ‘might I ask you to do me a friendly service in advance?’
    Mithra smiled. ‘But of course.’
    â€˜Could you untie me from these wall bars? I need to go to the toilet.’
    â€˜By all means,’ said Mithra. ‘I ask your pardon, but I had to be certain that everything in the procedure had gone according to plan.’
    When the straps binding me fell to the floor, I attempted to take a step forward but would have fallen over had Mithra not caught hold of me.
    â€˜Steady on,’ he said. ‘You may have problems for a while with your vestibular apparatus. It takes a few weeks for the Tongue to take root fully … are you able to walk? Shall I help you?’
    â€˜I can walk,’ I said. ‘Where is it?’
    â€˜Down the corridor on the left. By the kitchen.’
    The bathroom appointments were consistent with the style of the rest of the apartment: a museum of Gothic sanitaryware. Sitting on a black throne with a hole in the middle, I tried to compose my thoughts. But in this I was unsuccessful: my thoughts simply refused to be corralled into any sort of coherence. It was as if they had vanished somewhere. I felt no fear, no excitement, no concern for what would happen next.
    Emerging from the toilet, I realised that no one was keeping guard over me. There was no one in the passage, nor in the kitchen. The back door through which I had entered the apartment was only a few paces from the kitchen. But the strangest thing of all was that the idea of flight did not occur to me. I knew that I was going to return to the room and continue my conversation with Mithra. Why have I no desire to escape? I thought.
    The reason was that in some way I knew that to do so would not be right. In my efforts to understand why this should be so, I discovered something very odd indeed. My mind seemed to have developed a centre of gravity of its own accord, a kind of black sphere implanted so ineradicably that nothing could threaten the balance of a soul so equipped. Located in this sphere was the faculty of reviewing and assessing all possible options for acceptance or rejection. The prospect of flight had been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
    The sphere wanted me to return, and this being what the sphere wanted, I complied. It