The Ascent

The Ascent is the defining ritual and metaphysical core of Mercerism, the quasi-religious faith that binds the scattered remnants of humanity on a radioactive Earth and its colony worlds. It is not a mere metaphor but a literal, shared experience: any person who takes hold of the twin handles of an empathy box is instantly transported into the consciousness of Wilbur Mercer, an old man in a featureless robe who toils endlessly up a steep, barren hillside under a dim, sunless sky. The climb is slow, painful, and seemingly interminable, yet it is the central act of worship and the primary source of meaning for its adherents.

The Experience of Fusion

When John Isidore, a "chickenhead" (a mentally diminished special), turns on his empathy box and grasps the handles, the dilapidated furniture of his apartment fades away. He finds himself on the familiar landscape of the hill, his own feet scraping for purchase among loose stones. He no longer merely watches Mercer; he becomes Mercer. The physical merging is accompanied by a mental and spiritual identification so complete that Isidore feels the pain of a rock that strikes his arm, a wound that remains on his physical body after he releases the handles. Crucially, this fusion is not solitary. Isidore experiences the "babble of their thoughts" and hears the "noise of their many individual existences" — every other person on Earth or the colony worlds who is simultaneously clutching the handles. They all care about one thing: the need to ascend. The Ascent is thus a collective act, a proof of shared humanity that even the most intellectually gifted android cannot genuinely replicate.

The Cycle of Suffering and Renewal

The Ascent is not a linear journey but part of an eternal cycle. The climb is punctuated by torment from unseen antagonists, "the old antagonists," who hurl rocks from the periphery of vision. This suffering is integral to the experience. Mercer recalls that before the curse came, he had a happier life, able to bring dead animals back to life. But the killers, who represent a force of absolute evil, bombarded the unique nodule in his brain with radioactive cobalt, plunging him into the "tomb world" — a pit of corpses and dead bones. He struggled for years to rise from it. The Ascent is the upward phase of this cycle, the movement away from the tomb world. At the top of the hill, the climb ceases and the torment begins in earnest, leading to a death and a descent back into the tomb world, from which Mercer inevitably rises again. This cyclical pattern of death and rebirth is the source of Mercer's — and his followers' — immortality.

The Thematic Significance of the Ascent

The Ascent serves as the ultimate moral and existential touchstone in the novel. Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who kills escaped androids, reflects that the empathic faculty required for fusion is what separates humans from androids. An android, no matter how intelligent, cannot make sense of the fusion experience. The Ascent is the proof of a shared, vulnerable, and interconnected life. It is the basis for the Mercerite commandment, "You shall kill only the killers." For Deckard, an escaped android that has killed its master and feels no empathy epitomizes "The Killers." The Ascent is also the source of the novel's deepest irony and crisis. When Buster Friendly's exposé reveals that the sky behind Mercer is a painted backdrop, the rocks are soft plastic, and the blood is catsup, the entire foundation of Mercerism seems to collapse. Yet, in the novel's climax, Deckard, after killing the last of the androids, finds himself alone on a real, barren hillside, being struck by real rocks. He realizes he has permanently fused with Mercer. The Ascent, it turns out, is not a fraud but a genuine, inescapable condition of existence. As Mercer tells Isidore, the exposé is true from the androids' perspective, but it changes nothing. The Ascent continues, because the suffering and the search for connection are real.