by Dima Zales
What she said is true—I did just read all those books in my fast thread—but I mentally chide her for bringing that up, because the last thing I want is for Liam to think that I’m turning into a freak.
To my relief, Liam looks at me with confusion rather than fear. “But… How do I put it?” His face reddens for the first time since I’ve known him. “Didn’t those ancient marriages and relationships revolve around procreation? With you being a ship and him being whatever, how can you…?” He looks around as if someone is about to bust him for discussing a taboo.
Phoe puts her arm around me, seemingly enjoying his discomfort. “Well, we like to practice the ancient art that led to procreation—”
“He’s asking if you and I can have babies,” I interrupt, unable to stop my cheeks from reddening to match Liam’s. Phoe and I never talked about babies, and we’ve had a lot of time to do so as our fast selves.
“If that was something we wanted, there are many different paths we could take,” Phoe says without blinking. “At the most primitive level, I can emulate DNA mixing, which, combined with this body’s accurate functionality, would lead to a screaming little bundle of joy. Of course, it would be silly to create a kid that way. A child of ours would probably be the product of us mixing our minds together and choosing the characteristics we’d wish another being to have.”
She stops speaking because Liam looks like he’s about to crawl into the ocean.
I reach over and put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m still me, dude. Just a little bit more book-smart.”
“This will take me a year to fully process,” Liam says. “I take it you can bring back Mason any time you want?”
“Well, yes, I suppose,” I say. “I haven’t thought about when, but—”
“Can you do it now?” Liam asks. “I don’t like being the only confused one.”
“You serious?” I scratch the back of my head and look at Phoe.
She shrugs.
“I wanted to wait until you fully adjusted to all this stuff we told you, but if getting Mason over here will make you feel better, then by all means, let’s go back to the room, and Phoe will bring him back.”
Liam gets up with way too much excitement for someone whose whole world was turned upside down. “Let’s do it. I can’t wait to see the look on his donkey face when he learns he isn’t the only idiot in our crew who has a crush on a girl.”
We walk back to the Dorm, and in the time it takes our slow selves to reach the room, fast Phoe and I discuss the topic of having offspring in excruciating detail. The possible ways we could create another thinking creature are truly endless—the traditional way being the least interesting option. We also agree that it’s too soon in our relationship for something like a kid, and with the Matrioshka encounter looming on the horizon, the timing just isn’t right.
We reach the Dorm room and bring Mason back.
Seeing Mason again feels even more amazing than bringing back Liam. I think it’s because Mason was gone longer, or maybe because I had already accepted his death, whereas with Liam, I never had the time to do so.
Explaining everything to Mason turns out to be much harder, even though we do some of the same stuff we did for Liam, like changing the Goo back into the ocean and me waving the Dome away. Liam comes up with the great idea of fast Phoe and me researching more miracles from ancient traditions to help convince Mason of this new reality. Phoe comes up with something that finally causes Mason to have a breakthrough: she turns Liam into a frog with a flick of her wrist. After Mason is sufficiently scared for the fate of his friend, Phoe gives the frog a tiny peck on his green, warty head, turning him back into his proper stocky shape.
Sitting on the grass with a shell-shocked expression, Mason asks, “So if everything you said is true, when can you bring Grace back?”
“Really?” Liam rolls his eyes. “You realize it was your infatuation with her that got you killed in the first place, right?”
“Get off his back,” Phoe says and flicks her wrist at Liam.
Liam pales. He probably thought she was going to turn him into a frog again.
“Seriously, Liam,” I say. “Give Grace a break. She acted bravely when all the air in Oasis was—”
“Stop talking and bring her back,” Mason says, crossing his arms. “I just want to see her again.”
“All right,” I concede. “But we need to work out how we’ll do this, because it’ll be weird if we meet her in her room when she wakes up.”
“Right,” Phoe says. “That’ll be the only bit of weirdness she’ll experience.”
I ignore Phoe’s sarcasm—which I suspect stems from jealousy—and we work out a plan. Phoe will take on the guise of Grace’s friend Moira and bring Grace out of the Dorm. After we meet with Grace, we’ll follow a similar script to the one we used with Liam and Mason, miracles and all.
With my slow thread, I follow the process of getting Grace on our side, as well as her friend Moira afterwards, and a couple of other Youths after that. In the meanwhile, the virtual sun begins to set on our created world, and everyone decides to go to sleep. Witnessing miracles all day can be very tiring.
Liam, Mason, and I go to our room, make our beds appear, and climb under the blankets the way we always did at the end of a long, tiring day.
“Tomorrow we’ll have to think of who else we can bring back,” Mason says mid-yawn. “And maybe I’ll get a chance to talk to Grace.”
“We should also discuss how this new society will function,” Liam says as his head hits the pillow. “I vote we live all around this planet that Phoe and Theo created. I’ve been sick of the Institute campus for as long as I can remember, and I’ve always wanted to see the desert.”
“Yeah,” I say, pretending to yawn as well. “Tomorrow.”
My friends fall asleep, but I don’t, since I’ve modified my mind to never need sleep again—something I didn’t have the heart to tell them.
I merge my slow thread with my fast self. I’ll relaunch the slow version when one of my friends wakes up in the morning.
While my friends sleep, I live through years and years of experiences as my faster-thinking self. In this time, I get to know Phoe so well that I can predict what she’ll say in most situations. It’s as if I now have a tiny Phoe model in my mind. According to ancient literature, couples who were together for a long time could do something along these lines, but to a much lesser degree.
I love having all this time; it allows me to follow my whimsy. I’ve read every poem in the ancient archives and now write poetry of my own, which Phoe finds a bit corny, especially when I dedicate it to her.
In order to do more interesting things at once, I agree to let Phoe set me up with two more threads of being. Those threads are as fast as the one I’ve been calling “fast,” though I’m now beginning to dislike that term.
After a few days of using three threads of existence, I better understand this way of being. It’s no longer strange to feel as though my thinking is independent of my bodies. My many selves feel like limbs of a much larger being. By seeing myself as a consciousness that doesn’t have to reside in a specific body, I’m growing closer to the way Phoe has always been. Like her, I like having these bodies because they let me enjoy physical pleasures and interact with the environment, but I don’t need to have a specific body anymore.
“Sorry to interrupt your metaphysical meditations, but there’s something very unusual you should see,” Phoe thinks urgently in my mind. “I’m patching you into my sensorium.”
Instantly, I see the world as a spaceship, except, unlike last time, we’re not flying.
But that’s probably not the urgent matter Phoe wanted me to see.
No, I bet it’s the tendril connecting Phoe’s hull to the nearest layer of the megastructure we’ve been calling Matrioshka.
The tendril looks like it’s made of that same material that permeates the rest of the Solar System, only it’s very thin, like a ray of light.
> Suddenly, I’m no longer looking through the ship’s sensors. Instead, I find a single version of myself on the beach—our favorite conversation spot.
The light of the moon casts a romantic glow over the scene, but romance is the furthest thing from my mind when I see Phoe’s beautiful face in the moonlight. She looks genuinely scared. I wasn’t sure she could even get this scared.
Her fear makes my heart skip a beat, and I don’t even bother reflecting on the realness of my heart.
“I feel something, or someone, entering my computing resources,” Phoe says in awed whisper. “Our world is getting rearranged in the most delicate manner. I—”
She stops speaking because a figure suddenly appears in front of us.
It’s a man. He’s around my age, but I’ve never seen him before in either Oasis or Haven.
Still, something about him looks vaguely familiar.
“Hello, Theo. Hello, Phoe,” the man says. I’ve never heard his voice before, but it’s also somehow familiar. “It’s an honor to finally meet you. My name is Fio.”
29
I look the stranger up and down.
“Who are you?” I ask at the same time as Phoe asks, “What are you?”
“I have to apologize for the way I entered your domain.” Fio spreads his sinewy arms to encompass the beach and the ocean. “You have no way of receiving communications, so we had to resort to this brute-force approach. If you wish it, I will leave.”
“No,” Phoe says, crossing her arms. “You know full well you have our undivided attention. You can’t leave without explaining who you are and what you want.”
Fio smiles a faintly familiar smile. “I admit I do know that. If I’m completely honest, I can predict what the two of you may do or say with a very high degree of accuracy. I also know that by saying this, I will make you more paranoid, but at the same time, you’ll appreciate my honesty.”
Phoe is keeping her reaction hidden, unlike me. I can’t keep my confusion off my face.
“Is it safe for us to speak mentally?” I think at her.
“I can hear your mental communications as easily as your spoken ones,” Fio says regretfully. “I want to be honest so I can gain your trust. In any case, hiding your conversation isn’t helpful since, as I said, I know what you’ll likely say.”
Phoe narrows her eyes. “It’s not you specifically, right? It’s someone out there, in the Matrioshka world, who knows what we’ll likely say or do. Correct?” Phoe asks this with the confidence of someone who knows the answer.
“You figured it out already,” Fio says and rubs his familiar-looking chin. “Two seconds sooner than they thought.”
“That’s free will for you, at its finest.” Phoe smirks. “Two seconds. Great.”
“Figured what out?” I give each of them an annoyed look.
“How he knows what we might say and why he looks so familiar,” Phoe says. “Don’t you see it yet?” She points at her chin. “They emulated us.”
“They what?” I look at Fio’s features again, hoping to find the answer in his familiarity.
“It’s pretty simple.” Fio steeples his fingers in front of his face. “In order to figure out how to best communicate with this ship, the citizens of what Phoe called the Matrioshka world scanned this ship from afar and created a simulation of it to study. A very accurate simulation that tried to encompass the ship’s physical makeup. They soon learned that there was an ancient computing substrate running on the simulated ship’s hardware, and that they inadvertently recreated the things running on that substrate. The sentience they discovered was immediately granted status as citizens and provided a choice similar to what I will give you.”
“I still don’t get it,” I say.
“Theo is not in control of as many resources as I am,” Phoe says to Fio. “So he sometimes needs things spoon-fed to him.”
“I know.” Fio gives me a friendly smile. “I also know how magnificent Theo’s mind could be once he really starts expanding its capacities.”
“I bet,” Phoe says. “I’ve seen a glimmer of it already.”
“Very funny, talking about me like I’m not even here.” I’m more irritated with Phoe, who should be on my side, than with Fio. “Can you explain what the hell you both know that I can’t figure out?”
“It’s just logic,” Phoe says, looking at Fio. “If they created an accurate simulation of this ship, that means they recreated a version of me and you in the process. Accurate recreations of us, so to speak.”
“Copies of us? You mean to tell me there’s another me out there, not a thread, but someone whose thoughts I can’t access?” The idea is as strange as it is exciting. “This person remembers everything I’ve done and is helping Fio figure out what I might say?”
Fio lowers his arms to his sides. “Strictly speaking, they are not copies but recreations. Also, by now, there’s many more than just the two, since they chose to copy themselves—in the strictest sense of that word—when given the chance, but overall, you are correct. Your doppelganger and Phoe’s are advising me on this mission and helping me figure out the best way to communicate with you and what to expect. They told me you’d forgive this intrusion and warned me to stay honest.”
“Theo still doesn’t get it,” Phoe says, putting her hand on her forehead in frustration. “He doesn’t understand who you are to us.” She turns to me. “Can’t you see the resemblance, Theo? Look at him a little closer.”
I look at Fio and then at Phoe. Then I summon a mirror and look into it.
My pulse jacks up. Fio looks a little bit like Phoe and a little bit like me.
He also sounds a lot like me, but his facial features remind me of her, particularly his chin.
“No,” I say. “You can’t be. It’s too weird.”
“I’m afraid you guessed right.” Fio winks at me in Phoe’s signature way. “I’m the son of your approximations.”
I look at Phoe, and she nods. “They might’ve taken that virtual snapshot of the ship while we were discussing procreating.”
“Yes, but a full-grown, walking and talking son?” I say, fighting the urge to walk up to Fio and pinch him to check his realness. “Does it mean you’re our son too? How does that work?”
“If your question is about my emotions, I’m very fond of the two of you, but then again, everyone in our society is. If you’re asking me how you should feel about me, that’s not my place to say. My parents are my parents, and you remind me of the way they used to be—long ago. You’re not the same people they are now. Much time has passed in our world. I’m very happy to have been born, as that led to them choosing me for this very important mission. I hope seeing me as the ambassador made you feel more comfortable.”
“I’m not sure I’ll ever be comfortable with this,” I say.
Phoe puts her hand on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry about that,” Fio says. “At the very least, I hope that meeting me has given you a small glimpse into our world and its capabilities, the timelines and all that. If my familiar face doesn’t make you comfortable, let me know what might do the trick and I’ll see what I can do. I, of course, am very honored to be the one to make first contact. You two are living legends. A human mind and one of the first artificial minds—that, in itself, makes the two of you a kind of miracle of history and archeology. But you’re in a relationship as well—a romance against all odds and one that crosses mind modalities. Everyone has been talking about you. Stories have been written about you, and songs have been sung.”
“They run much faster than us,” Phoe explains before I get the chance to ask how they can be worshipping us if they just received Phoe’s attempts at communication.
“It’s true,” Fio says, looking at me. “We run much, much faster. But if you’d like, I can give you our computorium to run on so you can enjoy the same fast speed as us and—”
“Yes,” Phoe says. “Please. I’m sorry to interrupt, but yes. We want to run as fast as the denizen
s of your world.”
Fio grins and waves his hands in an intricate gesture.
I can’t put my finger on it, but something changes. It’s almost as if the air is fresher, the sound of the ocean surf is richer, and the moonlight is more magnificent.
“I can run this world with a lot more fidelity now,” Phoe says, explaining the changes to me.
“Down to atoms, I notice,” Fio says. “That’s not the ultimate limit, by the way. Our own versions of virtual worlds like this have even more fidelity, but that’s something we can discuss at a later time.”
Phoe’s eyes widen, and even I know what he means. He’s implying it’s possible to simulate reality on a level below atoms—on the quantum level, or below, if that’s possible.
“We’ll enjoy talking about these things for millennia,” Fio says. “But Phoe is about to ask—”
“What is the purpose of your visit?” Phoe says and squeezes my shoulder. “I think I know, but I want to hear you say it.”
“And I want to learn it for the first time,” I say. “Though I can probably guess.”
“It’s very simple.” Fio spreads his arms. “I’m here to give you options. Options when it comes to joining us on the Matrioshka world, as you call it, and options that include not joining us, if that is what you wish.”
“Why don’t you enumerate the possibilities,” Phoe suggests. She lets go of my shoulder and sits down cross-legged on the sand. “What do you have to offer?”
“You can join our world proper.” Fio points up. “I think that choice is the most interesting one, but it will also require the biggest adjustment for you. The way I am now is highly customized so that I can communicate with you, but my real self, and my parents, live and think in a way that is very different from your current existence. You’d still be you, of course, but with time, in our world, you’d find yourselves capable of feats that this language I’m using can’t describe. It’s like the difference between a baby and a grownup.”