The Face of Z

The cell door slammed shut. It was made of reinforced metal with rivets punched round the outer edge. I could see the dull reflection of my face looking back at me in the half light. I was shocked to recognise it as the face of Z. It was as if someone who had been struck blind had drawn my face from memory and could barely recall what I looked like. Could that really be me? I looked skeletal. The blood had somehow been sucked out of my head and I was left with parchment skin draped over my skull and cheekbones. My nose was squashed flat. My teeth looked jagged and distorted, my ears strangely swollen and set at a strange angle. My hollowed-out cheeks gave me an unrecognisably gaunt and emaciated appearance. Who was this lifeless creature staring back at me?

I spent several minutes gaping in dumb fascination at myself, gradually coming to terms with the reality of my physical transformation. I was never particularly vain, but I liked to think that my face was at least passably acceptable to the people that I knew. But this gloomy reflection of my transformed expression was truly shocking. How could I have been reduced to this?

I slumped down on the cell floor and began turning over in my head everything that had happened to me since I had encountered the SpirianA city road sign. I had made my way back to Infinity Gateway at a faster pace. Unlike my outward journey, everyone that I encountered seemed to be taking notice of me. Maybe that was all in my head. I don’t know. As soon as I got back, I locked the door of my room, poured myself a drink and began to think. What could be my best move now? How could the Anticlocks have been eliminated so quickly without leaving a trace? How could this destruction have occurred? Had they been vaporised in some devilish manner? What was this new and powerful force that had overnight silently and irreversibly eradicated the Anticlockwise Empire? Most importantly as far as I was concerned, what would their attitude be towards me?

I decided to go down to the Infinity Gateway lobby and talk to any of the residents who might be there. But there was nobody to be seen. Or at least, everyone that I had known before had been spirited away. There were just anonymous people in the lobby looking distractedly at my every move. I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was the odd man out. They were all looking at me. I was the outsider, the stranger in their midst. I no longer belonged here in Infinity Gateway where I had spent so many years of my life.

I said nothing and returned to my room. Two hours later there was a knock on my door and I was invited to accompany two plain clothed detectives wearing long black coats and dark brown trilby hats to the local police station for questioning. Gradually it dawned on me that the people who had arrested me were somehow not human. They weren’t mindless bullies like the Snoops. They had the outward appearance of human beings, but it was obvious to me that they were not. Most strikingly, they all appeared to have exactly the same face. It was as if they had been manufactured in a factory through a process of mass production. I found it difficult not to keep staring at these identical faces. After a while they noticed and I averted my gaze.

They all spoke fluent English, but they conversed in a language that resembled a series of low-pitched grunts and snorts. Sometimes they just stared at each other in a fixed way as if mere face to face glances enabled some form of telepathic communication.

Despite their generally polite and superficially affable outward appearance, I sensed early on that they would not brook any attempt to deceive or obstruct them. They kept probing me with questions, extremely determined to discover everything that they could about me, my work and the local inhabitants.  I did not resist. It would have been futile. They had already destroyed the Anticlocks. What would have been the point of challenging them?

I spent the next two weeks being questioned by featureless androids under the close supervision of their supreme leader and controller, Spirian Altra. I didn’t expect to emerge unscathed from the experience. Maybe I had simply paid the price of gazing for days on end at the soulless expressions of the robotic creatures interrogating me? Maybe the relentless inquisition had drained away my humanity and left me a mere shadow of my former self?

I reflected for several minutes on this possibility. I had long been sceptical about letting AIs into human existence. I had reached the conclusion some time before that such a process would harm us all irretrievably. But I had not imagined that prolonged exposure to such alien creatures could transform not only our minds but even our physical appearance. I felt sick at the thought and began examining again the murky reflection of my face in the cell door.

And then another notion entered my head. Maybe this was what my face really looked like after all, and I had been deluding myself all along. Perhaps, then, the problem was me, not the aliens. Perhaps my perception of my own reality was in fact false.

This last thought sent me spiralling inwards on myself and left me in a deeply melancholic mood. I was left with a profound sense of abandonment, not only from the world, but more importantly from myself. If I did not even have control over my own body, my own physical appearance, my own face, what hope was left?

I sunk to my knees in despair averting my gaze from the face of Z, this gloomy reflection staring back at me on the metallic door of my cell.

The face of Z was my first and most vivid memory of life under the rule of SpirianA.

Zeb Solitanu

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Zeb Solitanu sketch by Jill

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