The Thousand Year Beach

by TOBI Hirotaka

  “The underground chamber?” Jules said, cursing himself for his inability to do anything but parrot what she said. “I wonder if that still exists.”

  “Only one way to find out,” Julie said.

  “You think we can get there?” Jules asked.

  Julie didn’t answer.

  “No, you’re right,” Jules said. “Of course we can.” We can get anywhere if we stick together, he added silently, although this part may or may not have gotten through to Julie. He produced Cottontail from his pocket and began walking.

  They were now walking through a vitrified tunnel. The reticulation of the walls and floor was so extreme that they felt as if they were roaming the hollows of a giant, stone morel mushroom. Cottontail pulsed regularly with light in Jules’s hand. Every so often the ovoid Eye would brighten, and the light inside it would fill with arrows as it considered the route. Eventually all but one would fade away, indicating which way they should go.

  Jules peered at some text that had just appeared on Cottontail. “Looks like this used to be the fourth floor,” he reported.

  That was peculiar. The Clement Family Memorial Room had been on the third floor, and they had been descending since leaving it. The floor number had changed several times along the way, as well. The hotel must have been severely warped by its transformation. Continuity had been lost. Memories were useless, only liable to get in the way. The floor beneath their feet might once have been a wall, or perhaps even the ocean terrace. They might be passing over a different part of the Mineral Springs Hotel with every step they took.

  So how would they find José?

  Fortunately, Jules had remembered that Cottontail had stored a copy of the entire hotel’s structure, in undamaged form, back when the TrapNet had first gone online. This gave the Eye an understanding of the hotel on a level deeper than mere external appearance. By comparing that memory to what the hotel was now, correcting for the phase shifts likely to have taken place during the transformation, Cottontail was able to display arrows and floor numbers for them. The Glass Eye’s navigation was the only way they would find the subterranean chamber.

  “So we just go straight?”

  “Good question. Probably.”

  “Okay.”

  Julie had even stopped cracking jokes.

  Sometimes she would glance up before lowering her eyes once more. That was all.

  The pillar before them now had a crowd of AIs stuck to it, like tiny bugs drowned in amber.

  The parts of them that were not fully buried in the pillar had vitrified along with everything else.

  Jules tried touching one of the faces with his finger. It was cold, smooth, and hard.

  There were other pillars like this, and other vitrified AIs were buried in the walls and beneath their feet as well.

  Here and there Jules saw faces he knew well, now clear and mineral.

  Perhaps, he realized suddenly, the structure had been created in order to link these AIs-made-glass together.

  All of the surfaces on the AIs were smooth now. They looked like mica or pink diamond or lustrous pearl. There were AIs that looked exactly like glass, and others who retained more of their original character.

  But every face bore the same look of anguish.

  Some stared wide-eyed; the eyes of others had been sewn shut. Some had been completely taken apart; others were still whole.

  The one constant was unimaginable agony.

  That agony was not within the power of Jules and Julie to touch. It was sealed beneath the smooth vitreous surface of the mineral mass. Despite presumably being made of Glass Eyes, this surface layer was incapable of sensory interaction with its surroundings.

  The alienation had left the two of them utterly dejected.

  They had tried to help the first AIs they saw like this. They paid no attention to who those AIs were, only hurrying to rescue them the way they would have if they had seen a group of humans beneath the ice of a frozen lake.

  But even Julie’s powers of sympathy could not arouse any response from the frozen victims.

  Jules had tried using Cottontail to establish communications, despite the risk of infection, but had been equally unsuccessful.

  And then they had understood.

  The vitrified people before them were enduring that agony in real time as Jules and Julie watched, and nothing could be done to help them.

  “Why can’t we break through?” Julie had screamed, pounding the glass with her fists. Sharing the pain of other AIs and granting them the opportunity to heal was the reason for her existence. Letting the suffering of another go unrelieved was the greatest agony she knew.

  Jules hadn’t known how to comfort her. He had arrived at a theory of why they couldn’t “break through” during his own attempts to establish communications.

  The other side was inside the glass. One quality of glass is evident to anyone who has ever looked through a decades-old window and noticed the subtle warping of the scene outside: glass flows. Glass is just a lattice that certain materials cool and harden into after fusing together under high heat. It has no strong crystalline structure. From a perspective in which time is compressed, it’s a liquid. When used in windowpanes, it flows sluggishly downward, and that deformation, rather than shoddy workmanship, is what adds ripples to the scenery outside.

  Here in the vitrified Mineral Springs Hotel, Jules had realized, the flow of time was cold and slow. That flow was what had the hotel and AIs trapped. There was no other separation.

  Reaching from this time into that time was impossible.

  Absolutely impossible.

  Could he make Julie understand that? Even if she did understand, he doubted she would give up. Julie was the type to reach into whatever type of pain she came across. No one could drag her away from this wall of grief by force alone.

  “Julie,” he had said, electing to whisper. “Not now. Remember your date? Let’s go to the water chamber downstairs. Once we have José, we can help the rest.”

  And the two of them had finally begun walking again.

  Cottontail flashed in Jules’s hand, showing the next arrow. Jules looked on in puzzlement. The arrow was changing color at a dizzying pace. Dense blocks of text in tiny letters scrolled past on both sides at high speed. Cottontail was desperate to convey this information to them. But the Eye was in such a hurry that Jules couldn’t read the message.

  Jules raised his eyes. Behind him, Julie seemed anxious as well.

  Beyond the branches of vitrified time, in the livelier time flow that Jules and Julie belonged to, something was making its appearance.

  It had the form of a woman, slim and slight as a fairy.

  Light became intricately woven cloth that covered its body in layer upon layer.

  Lace. Jules recognized it quickly. Behind him, Julie surely understood too.

  The being’s slender body swayed like a strand of seaweed. Its outline flickered like a ghost’s.

  Its form had changed utterly. But there was no mistaking those sightless eyes, that kind smile.

  “Be careful,” Julie said, voice paler than Jules had ever heard it. “She’s dangerous.”

  The thing’s smile spread sideways, revealing its teeth. The neat rows of white dentition chilled Julie for reasons she could not identify.

  Still smiling, Yvette Carrière waited for them.

  So cold …

  Waking from the bitter chill, Yve realized that it was loneliness.

  What is this cold? Why am I so lonely?

  Her memories were as murky as overcooked oatmeal. She no longer knew exactly what had happened to the Realm or what she herself had done. Nor did she care.

  She could tell that everything around her was made of Glass. But none of it responded when she touched it. This had never happened to her before. She felt irritated. Impatient.
And, above all, cold and lonely.

  There’s nothing here. I’m surrounded by cold rock.

  She wanted to be in a warm place, surrounded by something that understood her.

  I have to go somewhere else. So thinking, Yve rose to her feet.

  The thing that stood no longer had Yve’s earlier form. It was pale and skinny and blinked unstably. This was the self-image she had kept hidden from everyone in her identity core. It was all that remained to keep moving after the devastation Felix had wrought. The rich assortment of modules a resident of the Realm should have was gone. Reduced to an image, she was quite literally the ghost of an AI.

  Yve’s ghost took its first swaying steps, more floating than staggering.

  She moved in the direction from which a certain vague impression came. A sense of warmth. The smell of something alive and moving.

  So bright …

  Cottontail, held aloft by Jules, shone into her eyes.

  Dazzling!

  Yve was moved. What a wonderful Glass Eye that was!

  By Cottontail’s light, she could just make out the surrounding scenery. She saw a boy and a girl whose names she didn’t know.

  I’ll befriend them, and then I’ll ask for their Eye. Surely they’ll give it to me? I must have it, no matter what.

  Hope rose within her, as if blood had begun to circulate through her chill body once more. Something started to spread from deep inside her, flapping as it became one of her lace patterns.

  Jules and Julie stared as the woven pattern surrounding Yve spread like an erotic flower—an orchid coming into bloom, perhaps.

  Shining threads, black threads: they crisscrossed in patterns of entrancing beauty, covering Yve’s fragile, naked body as if flapping in the wind.

  Yve’s pupilless eyes were turned toward them.

  “I have a favor to ask you,” she said. “That Glass Eye—it’s just darling.” An even-toothed smile appeared in her gaunt face. “Won’t you give it to me?”

  She was standing directly in front of them before they realized it. Her new form was surprisingly tall, and she looked down on them from a vantage point more than two meters off the ground. The flapping, woven pattern had now become countless long, long ribbons that drifted in the air to encircle the trio. The densely layered ribbons created a claustrophobic mood.

  “I’m blind without an Eye,” Yve continued. “It’s very troublesome for me. So troublesome.” She was weeping through her smile, now, lashes damp with tears. “Won’t you give me that to see by?”

  Jules felt a sense of déjà vu about their situation. Boxed in by a densely written pattern… That was it: the story from the Clement chronicles. Yes, that must have been why her teeth were so frightening.

  The farmer’s wife had fallen pregnant with a clear goal in mind: to inscribe patterns on her cage. She had known she would run out of teeth soon. Pregnancy had been a way of procuring new tools. She had planned to carve her patterns using the bones of her newborn child. Realizing this had driven the farmer mad as terror engulfed his mind whole.

  “I’ll do anything you ask in return,” Yve continued.

  Jules wondered what that might mean.

  Her long, lean body was skin and bone. Perhaps a kind of psychological anorexia had been at work within Yve all along.

  “No,” said Julie firmly.

  The ghost looked partly bewildered and partly as if she had expected this answer.

  “So you don’t understand me,” she said.

  There was a great loneliness in her voice. Jules realized that she alone had been denied entry into the vitreous mass, despite loving the Eyes more than anyone else. Instead, it was her lot to remain in this frigid place, a ghost, seeing nothing, most likely forever.

  But why? Jules thought. Who’s doing this to her?

  The ghost of Yve turned to Julie. “Ah,” she said. “You’re lonely too, aren’t you? Much lonelier than me, even.”

  Julie made no reply.

  “It hurts so much for you, doesn’t it? You’ve lived with it so long that you barely notice anymore. But that hurt gives you your boundaries. And so … yes, I see. You have always lived to hurt that way. Sought it. You’re just like me.”

  Julie made no reply.

  “But that hurt of yours is being used by someone else. Just like I am.”

  Jules could think of only one reason Yve might be here, one possibility regarding her being controlled in this way.

  “Come out, you coward!” shouted Julie suddenly. “Stop hiding in there!”

  “All right, all right.”

  Felix’s face appeared from between Yve’s legs, sticking out upside-down. His foxy, weasely face was almost a welcome sight by this point.

  “It was fun while it lasted,” he said.

  Julie sighed. “Don’t you have any shame?” she asked. “I know you aren’t Felix.”

  “What difference does it make to you who I am?” This time Felix spoke in a clear, resonant voice that did not suit his face at all.

  “That’s none of your business,” Julie said.

  The voice laughed with delight.

  “You don’t like this form?”

  “It’s the most tasteless invitation I ever saw.”

  “Invitation?” muttered Jules.

  “Perceptive. You will grant me the honor of your presence, then.”

  “You know that’s where I was already going.”

  “Wait a minute!” Jules screamed. “Julie! Do you know what that means?”

  “What it means to Julie isn’t any of your business.”

  Jules ignored Felix’s—no, Langoni’s—mocking reply.

  “It means that José’s fallen into their hands! You’ll be strolling right into a trap!”

  Even as he screamed these words, Jules understood.

  Julie already knew all this. She had known since José’s abduction from the ocean terrace. It was certain that thorough use had been made of him, and Julie must have been the first to realize it. She had made her decision to go underground despite knowing all this.

  Jules had assumed that they were trying to rescue José. But that had never been Julie’s intention. She only wanted to be by his side—even if that meant giving the enemy what they wanted.

  “Sorry,” Julie said.

  The only thing left for Jules to say was the sour nagging of a poor loser. He hesitated, then said it anyway.

  “I’m going too.”

  Julie shook her head. Her earring swayed with the movement.

  “No. You stay behind.”

  “I’m going.”

  “No. Your …” Julie took a deep breath, then continued. “Keep out of this, cousin.”

  “That’s cruel. It’s not right.”

  There was no reply.

  “Almost done?” said the fine voice. The ribbons that densely surrounded them unraveled slightly, opening a gap. “Now that we’ve established that this doesn’t concern you, would you mind stepping out?”

  Jules ducked under the ribbons and left through the gap.

  The ribbons changed shape, becoming a small boat. It was a lovely, light little thing, beautiful as a knife. Its base just barely sank into the mass of Glass Eyes at their feet. This was a boat for cruising through the vitreous forest, passing through frozen time to arrive where José was.

  That was what Yve’s image had been kept around for.

  She was an I/O offering access to the frozen time in the glass. After the last of her genius had been used up, she had been retained as a mere auxiliary function to this vast construct. Now, like a ghost, she guarded the entrance to glass time, but could neither enter nor leave it herself.

  Julie had her back turned to him. Jules could not see her face. She was white in the starlight too.

  Then, without any warning w
hatsoever, the ship sank smoothly into the hardened mass of Glass.

  Yve vanished at the same time. Presumably this was to ensure that Jules could not intrude. No doubt they only summoned the sad feeling Yve had become when it was needed.

  Jules watched the boat sink deeper and bear Julie away through the limpid Glass. As she receded into the distance, he repeatedly fought back the urge to run after her.

  What to do?

  What to do?

  He was not left rudderless.

  On the contrary—the options were on Jules’s side.

  He could chase after Julie.

  He had stolen the tools he would need for that. They were in his head.

  But should he? He had the sense that any advance would come at a heavy price. To chase or not to chase?

  Julie, with her back to him.

  He wanted to see her face. To seize her shoulders and turn her to face him.

  But that would probably only hurt her more.

  It would probably hurt her as badly as she had been hurt that day.

  That distant day …

  “Lost in our memories, are we?”

  That voice was how he learned that the one-eyed old man dressed like a crow had appeared behind him.

  “The answer’s right in front of you,” the old man said. “If you’re agonizing over it, you already know.”

  Jules sighed. “So I chase her after all.”

  “That’s right, you do. To the ends of the Realm … It’s going to be a long, long journey.”

  “And there’s no other way?”

  “No other way, you say?” The old man laughed in his dry voice, seeming genuinely happy. “Talk about picky! You could burn to death from the jealousy of the trillion AIs in the Costa del Número.”

  “I thought you might be my father, but you aren’t, are you?” Jules said. “It’s not that I’ve forgotten you. I don’t know you. You belong to the future, don’t you? Instead of the past. Who are you?”

  “I’m Old Jules, of course.”

  The boy cocked his head.

  “Like you just said,” Old Jules continued. “I belong to the future. I think that makes my identity self-evident. You can’t arrive at the answer except by advancing into the future. If you just keep tramping around this single summer’s loop, the answer will never be yours.”