The Book of Levi by Mark Clark

written turn of phrase too, I’ll bet?’
    ‘Yes,’ Leslie confided. He felt like a defendant unsure of where the prosecution was heading.
    ‘You have been blessed. You have been blessed,’ Sebastian muttered with a short grin and a wave of his index finger. He turned, laughed and continued to laugh as he resumed his passage down the hallway. He yelled upward over his shoulder as Leslie scurried behind, ‘Very few of us see the building blocks of Lego and the soft edges of the creation.’
    Leslie followed, perplexed.
    Sebastian reached the door towards the end of the hallway where Weena had once led Rueben. He turned back to face Leslie. ‘What would you give,’ he asked, ‘to be what you are, times ten?’
    ‘I don’t understand the question,’ replied Leslie. He was captivated by this strange and slightly older man who spoke in riddles and who obviously had a great gift of mind.
    ‘You have the paper I gave Miss Dawson?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Well?’
    ‘I only received it just before we met. Elizabeth gave it to me and I was escorted here. I haven’t had anything but a cursory glance at it.’
    ‘I see,’ Sebastian replied with a nod of his head. ‘In that case, I will show you something and explain what I know. Then I will leave you for one hour and return after that time with some food and drink.’
    ‘Food and drink?’
    ‘You have a long and interesting night ahead of you,’ replied Sebastian with a sly smile. And he opened the door to the transference chamber.
    When Leslie stepped into the chamber, and especially when he looked up at the console room and saw the mainframes, he drew in his breath with anticipation.
    One hour later, Sebastian returned with the food. ‘So?’
    Leslie didn’t answer him at first, so immersed was he in his reading. When he did look up it was with the starry eyes of those journeying back to the restraints of physical reality from the limitless reaches of thought.
    ‘So?’ repeated Sebastian, scanning Leslie’s face for traces of discovery.
    The two men sat upon the transference chairs. Leslie had a transference helmet upon his lap which he now raised towards his eyes in silent amazement. He turned it this way and that and looked closely at the wires connected to it.
    ‘This is incredible,’ replied Leslie with a clearing of his throat and several blinks of his eyelids. ‘Incredible,’ he repeated hoarsely.
    ‘So it can be done?’ asked Sebastian nodding his head in affirmation of a deed not yet accomplished.
    ‘Yes,’ replied Leslie. He raised his puppy dog eyes up to meet Sebastian’s denser, more sinister ones. Then he shook away the clouds of mind and focussed upon him. ‘But are you sure that you want to?’
    ‘Want to?’ repeated Sebastian, almost reeling back in chair, as if he had been struck by the remark. ‘Want to? Of course I want to. Consul Woodford, this is the single greatest gift to man since E=mc2.’
    ‘Yes,’ replied Leslie thoughtfully, ‘and look what happened because of that.’
    ‘Electricity changed the world. Technology must be embraced. We must move from the shadows.’
    Leslie straightened in his seat. ‘Yes. But that was an external convenience. This is penetrating into the plasticity of the human mind.’
    ‘True,’ Sebastian conceded, ‘but think - what is the major problem in this city today?’
    ‘Inequality?’ offered Leslie.
    ‘Precisely,’ replied Sebastian, grabbing him lightly by the forearm. ‘And if you can make this system work that will disappear, almost overnight.’
    ‘I don’t see how,’ replied Leslie, his eyes narrowing in puzzlement.
    ‘Come. Come, young man,’ Sebastian responded condescendingly, (in truth he was not all that much older than Leslie), ‘He who controls the mind, controls the body; he who controls the body controls the animation of the pieces; he who controls that animation of the pieces, controls the game. Don’t you see? We can issue intelligence; regulate the pieces;