Peripheral Visions: We Woke in the Long Dark Night

They coalesce in the shadows and take shape in the corner of your eye. Peripheral Visions: You won't see them coming... until it's too late.

We Woke in the Long Dark Night

A shadow moved by Bernardo's elbow. He started, then realized it was his neighbor, Clarence.

"Jesus, man!" Bernardo muttered.

"Sorry." Clarence looked to the park across the street, at the scene Bernardo had been watching. "Are those.." Clarence squinted. "Tiki torches??"

"Straight from Boxmart," Bernardo said.

"They look like it," Clarence scoffed.

The night wind carried the chants to their ears. "What are they saying?" Clarence asked. "Blood and idiots?"

"Blood and digits," Bernardo said.

"That's... creative," Clarence said after a moment. "But it's not like this year's Nazis have any ideas that the ones from thirty and fifty and a hundred years ago didn't have before them."

"There was a better one a while ago. They were chanting, "You will not delete us,' " Bernardo said.

"Blood and idiots is right," Clarence sighed. "I'll be glad when we wake up in the morning and the world is back to normal."

"Yeah?" Bernardo couldn't help laughing. "It's never gonna happen. Even if the nightmare ends, the world won't be 'normal.' This is normal now. Those guys don't want the nightmare to stop. And if the night brawls do end, they'll just keep the party going in the real world. They don't want the violence to come to an end."

"How could anybody not want the nightmare to stop?" Clarence asked. "I haven't had a good night's sleep in six years. Have you? Have you had a good night's sleep since this fucking mess started?"

"Nope," Bernardo said.

"Right," Clarence said. "Nobody has." He looked back at the park, where the crowd marched in circles, holding their torches high. "Are they carrying signs, too?"

"Yeah, the usual," Bernardo said. " 'If I'm dreaming, don't wake me up.' 'Sweet dreams, bitches.' That kind of thing."

Clarence sighed. "You remember how fun it was at first?"

"Watching this country lose it mind and all sense of reality? Watching people I used to know slide into mass delusion?"

"No, man. I mean, the games, the virtual movies. The way we could program our dreams. Travel amps, adventure amps." Clarence smiled. "Sex amps. Hey, my old lady left me over that, but I still use them. Though it's a lot harder now than it used to be. The Internoos is a madhouse now. A fucking swamp. The bandwidth's been gobbled up by..." Clarence nodded at the marching crowd across the way. "By mayhem."

"And of course they like it like that," Bernardo said. "Why let yourself be caught on video killing some poor guy in the real world, and then have to face the consequences? Why not just take all the rage and hate and psychotic urge for murder into your dreams? And then if somebody doesn't wake up... hey, it was a connectivity problem. Or it was the Internoos. Or it was the mod not working right. Anything but admitting that we're still killing each other, only now it's online."

"I still don't get how it all went wrong," Clarence said.

"How does anything go wrong? Lack of planning. Lack of foresight. Lack of testing," Bernardo said. "Or maybe the videos on social media are all telling the truth and the feds did it to us deliberately."

"Yeah? Why?"

"To prevent another civil war," Bernardo shrugged. "Or to start one – but a war that would only happen in dreams. No carnage, no infrastructure damage. Everyone can get back to pretending we're a civilized country during daylight hours, or office hours at least. And meantime there's no true social coherence. The owners can keep on pillaging the workers, and the politicians can keep on telling their lies, and the world keeps on spinning."

"So you do think it's the government? Yeah, I don't think so." Clarence shook his head. "When has the government ever been able to coordinate and execute anything that big? No, man, it's the tech companies. I mean, they're in bed with each other, the government and the tech companies, and you know the government is using all kinds of backdoor access to put our dreams under surveillance, the same way they record all our phone calls and text messages and emails. But the tech guys are the ones making the money. You how much Virt-Cred you gotta shell out for the 3D codes to all that dream kit?"

"I never use any of that stuff," Bernardo said.

"Armor, ammo, next-level weapons," Clarence said. "Shit, man, they rake it in. Even the branded stuff like canteens and bear spray. It costs."

"What, you were shopping?" Bernardo asked.

"I had a look," Clarence said.

"Don't you have to join up with a militia to access print permissions for that branded stuff?"

"Not for all of it. Some of that stuff is open source. You know, stuff branded with skull and crossbones, spiders, those kinds of things."

"No, it's not," Bernardo told him. "All those designs are owned now. If it's not Sons of Freedom or Blood Brothers, then it's Christian Cavalry or 1-N-20 or something. They all get a cut, or they sell that shit directly. And even if you think you're not paying for it... well, you are. The Internoos subscription plans get more expensive all the time."

"Yeah," Clarence said. "Remember when it wasn't a crime not to be hooked into the Internoos? Not having to pay the goddamn quarterly fees or else get fined, maybe go to jail? How come nobody calls that freedom anymore?"

The two fell silent, their faces lit by the flickering orange light of the marching protestors.

"What do you think they're really afraid of?" Clarence asked at length.

"Who? The Nazis over there?"

"They're always talking about losing their jobs or the government coming after their Oneiros Mods."

"Yeah, well, you remember they used to say the government or the liberals or somebody was always coming for their phones," Bernardo told him. "And before that it was their guns – before everybody had guns, before the government ordered the banks to start lending programs to help people buy guns." He shrugged. "I don't think they're afraid of anything, actually, except that someday the eighty percent of us who aren't straight and white and Christian will realize how badly outnumbered they are."

"Damn, man, if I was one of them and heard someone talking that way, it would scare me, too," Clarence said.

"Except they don't have anything to be afraid of. Ever hear of one of them getting arrested? Doesn't happen, no matter what they do. Ever hear of one of them getting beat up in their own house by the cops?"

"Who, white people?" Clarence said, confused. "They fuckin' beat up Charlie Conroy just a couple months ago,"

"No, not white people, exactly. Theopublicans. You know, they don't have to register on state websites where their addresses are publicly listed. They didn't lose their jobs when Kirsch became president and ordered government contractors not to employ anyone who didn't belong to the party."

"Hey, I used to work for the government, you know," Clarence said. "And I hate that motherfucker Kirsch, but working the private sector – man, that was a raise in my pay."

Bernardo shook his head. "You work in an assisted living center," he pointed out. "The residents call you racial slurs. You're not even allowed to go into the rooms of female residents to give them their shots and their pills without a male party member standing watch because... why? Because you might smother someone with a pillow? Or steal their damn jewelry or something? Yeah, they might pay you better, but that's only because government pay is so shitty in the first place."

"Sounds like you might enjoy a little night brawling, too," Clarence said. "Just like them." He pointed at the Nazi protest in the part. Blood-red banners sporting swastikas had joined the signs now, along with American flags emblazoned with swastikas and images of President Winfield Kirsch. Eyeing the flags, Clarence muttered, "Goddamned disgrace what they've done to Old Glory. And those are the same assholes who got flag burning banned. And made it a capital offense, too. You can't burn, deface, or incorrectly fold a flag without getting publicly executed for it, but, hey, you can harass and chase and kill a man for walking through your neighborhood and call it 'standing your ground.' "

Bernardo didn't say anything. He simply stood there, watching, his mouth a tight, straight line and the firelight reflected in his eyes.

"So, anyway, you might enjoy a little night brawling too, right?" Clarence said.

Bernard shrugged. "Maybe. I mean, I used to. But night after night of it? I just got so sick of the fighting, the shouting, the violence. They say nobody actually gets hurt in the night brawls, but have you noticed there are more people dying? And it's always the same thing. They died in their sleep. Heart attacks, strokes... natural causes. Right. Sure."

"They say it's the stress," Clarence said. "They say it's a kind of sleep deprivation."

"The Surgeon General says that," Bernardo said.

"Right. And Kirsch appointed him, so..."

"So now that he's an apostate, he's gonna get fired. And there was an assassination attempt on him a week ago."

"That wasn't because he said people dying in their sleeps was because of the Oneiros Modules, though," Clarence said. "That was when he said he was for sure not gonna call off the system purge and reset the Internoos." Clarence raised his hand. He was clutching a curved piece of plastic with a lattice of metallic threads embedded into its concave surface. "And because he was sending these out to every American citizen, with orders to wear them tonight."

"Not to mention he was waking everybody up from one to three a.m.," Bernardo said. "That's the part I didn't like."

"My brother-in-law says they're planning to electrocute everyone who wears these when we go back to sleep tonight," Clarence said.

"Oh yeah?" Bernardo said. "That's not what my brother heard. My brother's convinced that they'll download files into our brains that will make us behave ourselves. Work, breed, report on each other. Just the way good citizens should. They won't even have to pay informers anymore."

"My friend at work says that the downloaded files will make us bring the night brawls into real life," Clarence said.

"What, and cause a lot of damage? Real cars burning, real bullets breaking windows?" Bernardo snorted. "No, why not just command out brains to stop us from breathing? That would take care of business in about six minutes. They all you have to clean up are the bodies. No, it's those guys over in the park there who want to keep this going, even if it means real world property damage. But I don't think even Nazis can get away with that kind of thing. The owners will sic the cops on them and then the age-old alliance will be forgotten. It'll be dead Nazis in the streets, live Nazis in the jails. For a few weeks, anyway, or a couple of months. And then it'll be Nazis doing the owners' dirty work all over again. Politicians calling Nazis patriots and heroes, as usual. Cops beating nuns for handing out water to the homeless but then cops handing out water to militia gangs. Which, believe me..." Bernardo looked at Clarence. "When the nightmare does end, all of that will just ramp up again in the real world, all in the name of law and order and protecting property."

Clarence eyed the device in his hand fearfully. "But are maybe some of the stories true? I mean, could these things put stuff in our minds? Or fry our brains?"

"Hell, no," Bernardo said. "I think the Surgeon General is telling the truth. He wants to stop people from dying. Because, after all, it's not just loony liberals who are waking up dead. It's Kirsch supporters, too. Actually, they're dying more – by about twenty percent. If we still had the vote, there wouldn't be enough of them left for Kirsch to get elected again."

"Yeah, but they're the ones who don't want to give the Oneiros Mods up," Clarence said.

"Sure they don't. Because it's God's will or something."

"The will of the people," Clarence corrected him. "Didn't you hear the Surgeon General explain this? It was on TV. A critical mass of people were using the Oneiros Mods to program night brawls..."

"They didn't even have to program anything. It was a psych game," Bernardo broke in. " 'Night Brawl.' That's where the term comes from. And boy, was it popular. And yeah – once enough people started using it, it basically took over the Internoos."

"Oh yeah, that's right, it was a game first... you know, I forgot that," Clarence said. "But anyway, some kind of critical mass happened. The system started linking everyone together and then some sort of pre-programmed automatic preference setting kicked in..."

"And everyone in the whole country who has an Oneiros Mod ended up in the same electronic mass nightmare," Bernardo said. "Which is to say, everyone in the country. Because only people stuck in debtors' prison don't have a mod and Internoos access. And yeah, the tech fuckup... they still can't figure out how to undo it. Which again... lack of foresight. Lack of planning. Lack of testing."

"Or they did it on purpose," Clarence said. "And now they want to undo it."

"Not everyone," Bernardo reminded him, nodding at the marchers across the street.

"No, not everyone," Clarence said. "Even though how many Theopublican officials have said it's a good idea. Their own leaders. They won't even listen to their own leaders. And they're dying, it's killing them."

"But it's worth it," Bernardo said, quoting a news stream host. " 'It's worth it to die free instead of living in a reality we don't want.' Or, how did he put that?"

"I don't remember," Clarence said. "I don't watch that stuff."

"How do you not? That's all they allow now."

"Yeah. I just don't watch it." Clarence stared at the marchers in the park. A moment later: "Now what are they chanting?" he asked, cocking his head and frowning.

" 'Take back the night,' " Bernardo narrated. "And: 'My slumber, my choice.' Or maybe it's 'My cerebellum, my choice.' It's hard to hear."

"Oh, so now they're all about choice." Clarence shook his head. "I gotta tell you," he said softly, "I'm scared all over again. Scared like I was when Kirsch first got elected. Scared like I was when he abolished voting and declared himself president for life. Scared like I was when... when the night brawl started. But now I'm scared all over again that it's not gonna end – that it's only gonna get worse."

"I'm pretty sure that's a healthy and rational response," Bernardo said. "But then again, there aren't many healthy and rational people left in this country." He looked at Clarence, a wry smile on his lips. "I'm scared too," Bernardo admitted. "Not of going to sleep and not waking up. At this point, it would be a relief for that to happen. No, I'm afraid we've finally fucked things up so bad there's never going to be a 'normal' again. We're just going to spiral into more and more craziness until..." Bernardo sighed and shrugged.

"Yeah," Clarence said.

The two of them looked at the ground, now, instead of watching the Nazis. Overhead the sky was black. People started streaming by on the sidewalk – a couple, then a few, then a lot of them, all making their way back home for the rest of the night. A feeling of apprehension grew, like mist in the air, as the passersby swelled in number and then thinned. A police car drove by slowly, the cops using the car's loudspeaker to order people to keep moving, head home, go to bed. "Government orders," the cops said again and again. "Under penalty of law," they said, just as often.

A few of the Nazis in the park sidled up to some of the cops. The cops chatted with them; a few allowed the Nazis to take selfies with the uniformed officers. The cops grinned and raised thumbs up signs as the Nazis winked into the camera lenses of their phones, sticking their tongues out in grotesque parodies of grins.

"Except it's not, actually," Bernardo said, watching this. "The Surgeon General said it was strongly advised. Or did I miss something?"

Clarence shrugged.

The street grew quiet again, except for the Nazis in the park, whose shouts and chants droned on. Their words were indistinct now. It wounded like they were screaming something about dishwashers, though that couldn't be right.

Could it?

Bernardo noticed that some of the Nazis were setting up cots now. What, were they going to sleep the rest of the night in the park?

"Well, buddy, I'm gonna go get some sleep," Clarence said at length. "Maybe the nightmare really will be over in the morning." He put a hand on Bernardo's shoulder – the same hand that clutched the plastic device. Bernardo brought his hand in front of his own face and tried to see the device in the shadows and the flickering light. "I just hope this thing doesn't fry my brains."

"It won't. All it's gonna do is deactivate your Oneiros Mod," Bernardo said.

"I thought it would reformat the mod?"

"I don't think so. I mean, I'm a neuro-ware engineer, and I just don't see how the government is gonna do anything other than turn all the mods off."

"But they would do that anyway."

"No, actually, not with the way the system is set up and the way it's gotten messed up int the last few years," Bernardo said. "Remember, the mods were the next thing after cell phones. They were a way to make calls and watch movies and take notes and record experiences – but also call for help and have your vital functions monitored in case of medical emergency. The mods were never designed to shut down, just to switch into different modes of operation. That's why they enable dreamware in the first place. Otherwise, they'd have to go inactive when your brain goes to sleep. But your brain never really goes to sleep. Not anymore. Not after you get an Oneiros Mod implanted. And that's why that's happening." Bernardo nodded again toward the Nazi marchers in the park. "That's why people are so crazy. The mods have literally driven them nuts because nobody sleeps right anymore. So, yeah. That cerebrex is gonna shut your mod down."

Clarence swallowed with an audible gulp. "But won't that kill us? Didn't everyone's brains get addicted to them or something?"

"No. That's more fake news," Bernardo said. "But then again, is there any other kind?"

The two men laughed – Bernardo bitterly, Clarence with a shrill, nervous sound.

"But we are gonna go back to being alone in our own heads," Bernardo said.

"I..." Clarence stared at the device in his hand. "I'm not sure I want to do that."

"It's gonna be strange," Bernardo said. "But it's better than..."

Both men looked again across the way, at the torches and the banners and the screaming, twisted faces in the firelight.

Benardo noticed that more cops were arriving, now. More cops, and... something moving next to the new arrivals; shadows, moving patches of darkness about waist high...

K-borg units, he realized. Mechanized patrol-and-control droids. Four-legged, fast and lethal, and hard to see in the darkness because their metal bodies were painted black. Bernardo doubted the cops intended to use the K-borgs to disperse the Nazis. If anything, they were probably planning to...

"A lot of people aren't gonna do it," said Clarence, interrupting Bernardo's train of thought.

"The way back out is a lot like the way here," Bernardo said. "Not everyone has to. It just takes a critical mass – that's all."

"A lot of them say that when we go to sleep again, they're gonna get real vicious in the night brawl. They're gonna kill and fight like crazy," Clarence said. "Do you think it's like that guy, that doctor, said on the Surgeon General's streamcast? That the rage and violence so many people are pouring into the system will trigger our lower brains and short them out somehow? Or give us heart failure? And that a lot of people are gonna die?"

Bernardo shook his head. "I don't know."

"But you're still gonna do it? Put on the cere-thingy, and go to sleep?"

"Cerebrex. Yes. I'm gonna do it. And the cerebrex will put me to sleep, and turn off my Oneiros Module. Yes. And then the nightmare will be over. Except, it probably won't be." Bernardo was watching the Nazis and the cops in the park as he spoke – watching intently, not even blinking. The Nazis had set up what looked like a hundred cots. The K-borgs were fanning out, stationing themselves among the cots. "Some people will want the night brawl to continue," Bernado added. "Some people like the violence and the rage and the killing too much to give it up, even if it means they get killed."

"So maybe it's gonna be worse," Clarence said. "Worse than the night brawl."

Bernardo looked at him and smiled. "No," he said. "It might be bad. But nothing could be worse than the nightmare we've lived through. At least if we're brawling in the real world it won't last for six goddamned years, and even if it does there will eventually have to be an end to it." Looking back at the Nazis, his expression grew somber. "We woke in the long dark night," he said. "For just a moment, and instead of joyful renewal we found only darkness and dread. We woke in the long dark night... only to throw ourselves into sleep again."

Clarence kept quiet. Then he looked at the device again. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah." He took the device in both hands and then set it carefully on his head.

"Getting an early start?"

"Going to bed. It's almost three o'clock," Clarence said.

Bernardo's eyes froze for a moment as he checked the time. "So it is," he said. "Good night, Clarence." He went back to watching the Nazis in the park. Most of them had bedded down in the cots, now, and he saw the cops were setting up cots of their own. The K-borgs stood motionless, a sprinkling of squat black shadows watching over the sleepers.

Yep, Bernardo thought. The cops are protecting the Nazis with state property. True to form. He sighed. He'd heard the fake news about crowds of so-called "antifa" planning to stay awake and rampage through the city, killing sleeping "patriots" and "warriors."

"You coming?" Clarence said.

"Yes. In a minute."
But still Clarence hesitated. "You think there will be, you know... really even be a morning?" he finally asked.

Bernardo smiled at him. "Of course there will. The world won't stop turning even if we kill each other off. The universe keeps right on doing what it does, no matter what foolish things we do."

"But that's what I mean, though. Will we live to see it? Will there be a morning for us? For hope, for decency? Will things ever be the way they were?"

Bernardo glanced at him, smiled, and gave him a pat on the shoulder. "I hope so,: he said. "But I wouldn't count on it."

Clarence looked at him with an expression of shock and desperation.

"Good night," Bernardo said as he walked off ready to get some sleep at last.

Next week we meet the luckiest man in the world: Don is paid to travel, have fun with gorgeous guys, eat, drink, and be merry. But there's a downside: Like everyone else, he won't get out his charmed life alive...