Now, however, the Jart was controlling and manipulating not only the implants, but his primary conscious and subconscious routines—those activities which took place within his organic brain. Olmy’s conscious primary self was often shunted into the dream-world abruptly and without warning.

It was a realm filled with monsters. The subconscious, all those agents and routines which handled automatic responses, was in a terrible state. Olmy could be consciously calm, but his fundamental self was terrified, helpless, and in a panic.

Often, when the Jart did not need his immediate attention, he was forced to wander the dream landscape like a character in a bad biochrone.

Forced to confront his dreams directly, Olmy found signs of character flaws that further undermined his already low morale. (Why hadn’t he dealt with these flaws through Talsit or other therapy decades or centuries ago? He might not have made the disastrous decision to ingest the Jart if he had been fully rational…) In his dreams, he repeatedly found suicidal urges and had to fight them off—small, insect-like creatures that threatened to eat away his limbs or bite off his head.

Sometimes it took all his courage and will just to survive until the Jart allowed his consciousness access to the external world.

In time, he wondered whether the Jart knowingly put him to this torture as a kind of revenge; drowning him in his own mind, just as the Jart had been forced to drown in its thoughts until it had slumped into timeless stasis…

But he had no proof, no evidence the Jart could be cruel or vengeful. It simply needed his entire mind to sweep for information, or practice its masquerade as a human being.

When his personality was foremost and in apparent control of his body, he could not act on any impulse or plan unless approved by the Jart.

So far, the Jart had not tripped any of those algorithmic snares that would kill them both. Not even Olmy knew where they were; the partial had managed to erase itself just before Olmy’s surrender—the Jart’s single lapse thus far—and only the partial had known the locations and character of the snares.

The Jart, having satisfied itself that its position was now secure, began to give Olmy more and more control, and to act more and more as a firm rider on a horse, rather than a puppet master. For the first time, it expressed its wishes as a demand, rather than simply forcing him to act.

We must speak with Korzenowski. Make us available for the reopening.

“They’ll open a test connection first,” Olmy explained. “It would be better to wait for the final re-opening. Even better not to be seen in public at all…”