by E. L. Aldryc
Tammy held her hand. Elodie had never been so happy to see someone. She was the one who had pulled Elodie out. She was the one who thought of the food.
“I’m fine. I had porridge. I had coffee. I had pasta. I had a salad on Thursday,” she said.
“Good,” the man in the background added.
“What happened to me?” Elodie said and tried to sit up.
“Chronological displacement,” Augustina replied.
“Romanticized in books. Extremely unpleasant in real life,” added the doctor, who appeared just in time to shine that damn light at her again.
“Because of the trauma of the augmentation, a part of your consciousness became dislodged in time. It splintered, and one part kept resurfacing and overtaking the other. This happens super rarely, and the symptoms aren’t obvious until you ‘wake up’ in the present at some point. Once we knew that this was happening, we just kept waiting for a new episode to give you instructions on what to do. You should thank Dr Hollbrook. He was remarkably perceptive for a non-gifted,” Tammy said warmly.
“Is it over now?” Elodie asked and fixed her hair. She noticed her hands were shaking.
Things clicked. Elodie recalled a time period. Three weeks. Three weeks of lengthening her awareness. Clawing herself out, unaware that there was a piece of her left inside the current, one that was delayed in making it out. Three weeks of support, and counselling, and talking every day to Augustina about how to stay awake, how to get better. All of this progress clicked together like a training montage she was starring in.
Her first time going out of the recovery room. The problem with the floor. It overwhelmed her. Augustina comforting her and taking her back inside. Practising how to keep paragnostic information away, how to curb interest on one level without becoming apathetic. Tammy getting annoyed when they found out she’d used her comms (and disabling them). Trying to touch things with the intention of using them, without being overwhelmed by the story of the object. Augustina teaching her to select levels of her mental states and highlighting them inside her head for Elodie to be able to tell them apart. Splitting her mind in the parts that she needed to control, and the ones that were truly her own. Tammy telling her to take it easy and just adjust.
She was so concerned that Elodie would start putting pressure on herself to start performing too soon. Everyone was so supportive. And when they explained to her that she needed to re-sync with her lost part, they pulled together like they really cared.
This was great. This was what she came here for. She thought the only thing that happened since the augmentation was absolute suffering, but she might have been too harsh. They got it. And they were trying to help.
“This particular part is over, yes,” Tammy said, “but your training will continue. All you need to do is be calm, let the episodes happen, learn from them, and you’ll soon be on the other side of training.”
The ringing was never truly gone. Elodie felt good about holding her distance from the current. She looked into the room, and while it glistened and invited her, she knew she had a way of combating the invading information.
But she only mastered short wakeful states. Progress was made, but it was slow. There were no records of gifted people taking this long to control the current.
“Amazing,” Elodie said. “Nothing to be worried about.”
To Love is to Negotiate
Tuesday, 15 March 2363
It took another week before Elodie felt comfortable spending time alone, and without having to ask, Tammy was accompanying her everywhere. Elodie still hadn’t left the Rising Dawn headquarters since she’d walked in for the routine procedure a month ago.
She didn’t want people to see her like this. Elodie was meticulous about what she wore. In a past life. Now she took what they gave her. It was too hard to focus on anything outside of staying afloat. She was happy they’d asked her to sleep in the recovery unit. She couldn’t risk someone she knew seeing the state of her.
Hands shaking, something twitching in her spine every time she tried to think of a memory. Looking weak and tired. An honest, representative look of affairs.
“You were right,” was the last thing she wrote to Soraya.
Tammy had disabled the comms during the chronological displacement incident, saying the fact that they forgot to do that may have affected things and that she was absolutely forbidden from contacting anyone before they all agreed she was feeling better, like there was any risk of her trying. If someone really threw her off track—and the only people who’d be worried enough to call would—they would agitate her enough to break down her fragile barrier.
Her awake time was getting longer. She was up to ten hours a day, most of which she spent trying to get used to basic life. But when she fell in, oh boy, she fell deep. As she grew stronger, the current responded by dragging her deeper faster.
Tammy walked her through the lower levels of Rising Dawn on a Tuesday morning. Elodie did it with her every day now and could do the walk with her eyes closed. In fact, she preferred it like that. It was harder to get overwhelmed when she wasn’t looking. The paragnosis was becoming a concern. When something grabbed her attention, she would lose her train of thought completely. Rather than passing out, she could stop talking mid-sentence and stare into the distance. Tammy freaked out a few times, thinking she was chronologically displaced again.
“Before I let you see Soraya, there’s something I need you to know,” Tammy said, without Elodie bringing it up. One step ahead of the conversation was business as usual in Rising Dawn.
“I know. I’m not ready.”
Nope, she was nowhere near ready. She couldn’t last a minute of their banter.
“I want to get better first. Otherwise she’ll—I mean, she wasn’t exactly—she’ll think I made a mistake,” Elodie said.
“You’ve made things interesting by messaging from the inside. I’ve been fighting with Seravina every day about who gets to see updates about your wellbeing,” Tammy said.
“Who wants to know about my wellbeing?” Elodie asked.
“The first A-class paragnost after twenty years goes without underground for a month? In metaphysical circles, people are speculating that you’re dead. Asking for formal proof of life. We told your family that you’re fine and recovering. We couldn’t share more.”
“Thanks,” Elodie said, still mulling over the idea that her recovery concerned strangers.
“I know exactly how much courage it took you to make your decision,” Tammy continued. “We've all had to make a choice at some point to defy people who mean a lot to us. The price of our gifts is our secret and our burden. You’re different now, and there will be a distance between you and your loved ones.”
“And I swapped it for the luxury of turning into a complete and total mess,” Elodie said, and her hands started shaking even more. She didn’t want to say that. Not to Tammy, who had done nothing but help her since she woke up from that terrible sleep.
“You’re not a mess, Elodie, you’re just…”
“Adjusting. I know, I’m adjusting. I just need to adjust to the adjusting,” she said and stopped. The window they passed looked straight onto the central pad of the Institute. The outside she had almost forgotten was real and beautiful, just like the vastness of the universe that she discovered inside and beside her. The pad had three feï slowly descending, and one hole opening in the ground where a person stood calling another feï out of the compression zone below. Elodie almost convinced herself that one of them was Soraya for sure, but as much as she wanted to spot that painfully white hair, she was nowhere to be seen.
“Has she tried to reach me?” she asked Tammy.
“Let’s see,” Tammy said, and a rare occurrence of annoyance appeared in her voice. “She repeatedly tried to get inside the building and attempted to organize a ‘Free Elodie’ protest in front of our own doors that didn’t exactly help our efforts to get you out of the spotlight. And then there’s the matter of physical
ly threatening some of our own people to get access to updates.”
“That sounds like her.” Elodie smiled weakly. “I miss her.”
“Then I have just the thing,” Tammy said and stretched out her arm, which projected a little video in the space between them. It showed the posh conference room next to Seravina’s office. It was only reserved for foreign diplomatic delegates or partners deemed stupid enough to be offered a bad deal wrapped in flattering. Seravina was leaning on the table, standing alongside Soraya. It looked like some heavy words had already been spoken.
“… so of course you lured her in, and now what, you accidentally killed her? Is that why people haven’t seen her in a month? A month? She wasn’t ready to even commit to you full time and now she’s literally vanished from the face of the earth. Did you see the message she sent me? ‘I was right?’ Are you surprised I’m doing this?”
“Don’t be dramatic. She’s inside of Rising Dawn headquarters, and she’s recovering. If you could stop harassing them, that would be great.”
Seravina waved her hand dismissively, but what really surprised Elodie was the fact that she looked cautious not to rile Soraya up any further. The notion gave Elodie a pang of jealousy, but it felt good. It was a good old pre-augmentation feeling.
“Recovering from what? I have had three surgeries that replaced my entire respiratory system, one of which included waiting for a whole lung to grow from zero while open, and I have never been in hospital for more than two weeks! I know enough about augmentation to know that it can—and has—gone wrong in the past,” Soraya continued fearlessly.
“Nothing is wrong and you’re exaggerating,” Seravina replied. “Now can we go back to talking about the AI librarian again? I want it to be ready in time for the investor brief.”
“It might be. I’ll certainly do my best,” Soraya said and looked at Seravina defiantly.
“Your best?” Seravina repeated, livid. “Do I need to explain your job to you, or can you grasp it?”
“My morale isn’t at its highest, and I could focus on the project a lot better knowing what’s happening inside Rising Dawn,” Soraya replied. Elodie almost gasped at the possibility that she would go as far as an implied threat.
“And what if you won’t find out? You’ll tank the AI launch, and I’ll fire you. Let me teach you something very new about negotiation. I think I should be the one.” Seravina leaned forward. “You can only negotiate when you have power.”
Soraya pushed a file over. Only Elodie could tell how nervous she was; she only took one short breath until it all dissolved into a fearless confidence that had taken her so far already.
“The mere hope that I could persuade you to provide me with information has propelled me to create this plan for the launch. Imagine what I could do if my worries were off the table.”
Seravina opened the file, a little amused.
“I’m as far from malicious as possible. I have no wish to dominate you. And I have one request. You will give me accurate and unfiltered information about Elodie’s progress and wellbeing, straight from Rising Dawn. In return, I’ll build you a new tola function in my free time.”
Seravina smiled a little and looked out the window, thinking.
“You always do this, you always ask me to agree to your terms,” she said to Soraya, “but I like it.”
The clip ended, Elodie looked at Tammy, who was standing there much less impressed with the grand gesture. Elodie had only one question left.
“This is real?”
The clip was, like all longer conversations between the two, conducted in Italian. Elodie’s basic understanding of the language wasn’t enough to discern if the subtitles that spontaneously appeared over the audio were truthful to the original, or a hoax to get some kind of reaction from her.
“She was given access to all your medical charts. Everything since the moment you tested and the reports of what has been happening since. Anything that goes to Seravina goes to her.” Tammy gently touched her back to instruct her to keep walking. “I don’t think this is a good idea. She probably has the best intentions, but I’m worried about someone demanding so much so quickly,” she continued.
As they walked, Elodie noticed that Tammy was actively sifting through the futures, as she’d learned to spot a slight vacancy in her eyes.
“I want her to be part of the process,” Elodie replied, but it would take much more to persuade Tammy, who quietly observed the futures. “You said I would need people to integrate me back into my life, and who could do it better? You’ve seen that she cares enough to do anything to find out what’s happening with me. That,” Elodie pointed at the space where the clip played, “is why she’s my best friend.”
“And so effective as well,” Tammy said carefully, “you’d wonder what length she would go to if she didn’t agree with your training. If she wanted to influence what happened to you.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Elodie replied. “We worked things out. I know she supports me.”
“Exactly,” Tammy argued. “This is about your future, and only yours. Whoever says they support you needs to understand that you are the centre of this. You. No one else. Your success depends on you understanding that you are a valuable asset. The star of the show.”
“I know that,” Elodie maintained, “but that doesn’t mean that I have to abandon everything else. Especially people who care.”
Tammy smiled mysteriously and opened the door to go back downstairs to the common area for some tea with her protege.
“We’ll see. All I see on the event horizon is a lot of Elodie and a whole lot of nothing from Soraya. Remember that.”
The Wall-Pounding Sound of Reunion
Monday, 21 March 2363
Within a few days of intensively imagining Soraya standing outside with a “Free Elodie” banner, Elodie felt like she was not going to get any better prepared to face her. She decided to walk out of the building and just see when they would meet. The idea was easy. Technically, there weren’t any restrictions to her movements, but Elodie felt a churning at the very thought of getting out. It wasn’t that Rising Dawn didn’t provide her with everything she needed, and the team of experts who was looking after her health certainly didn’t hide their happiness at the fact that she wasn’t far from where they could keep an eye out for her. But Elodie was more afraid of anyone making the before/after comparison. To squirm at the sight of a nervous, haunted person who used to be Elodie Marchand.
Walking around Rising Dawn was getting easier. The halls were normally empty. The gifted liked their space and never really congregated in large numbers unless it was for business. She could now finish a meal and a conversation and a walk and some meditation without a single pull back into the current, and she felt the warning signs when she was stretching herself thin. The high-pitched sound, like a boiling point approaching. When she was lucky, she sat down and closed her eyes, breathing slowly. When she wasn’t fast enough, she collapsed.
Augustina picked up on her desire to go out. She sat her down on a warm marble windowsill in the recovery unit and made a plan to reacquaint her with the world as it now appeared—a garbled mess. And if Tammy was to believe, filled with unwanted attention. The first step involved making Elodie accept it might not happen straight away. The second was her own condition—making sure she looked better than she felt before she presented herself to the world again.
With some negotiation and studying of the optimal futures, Elodie was enrolled in a training group to start first thing on Monday. Augustina explained that it might be good to see she wasn’t alone in her struggle and journey. Plus, it would broaden her habitat a little before she was let back into the wild.
This was all good and right. She looked forward to learning the theoretical framework of coping with giftedness. Tammy wouldn’t say why she was iffy about it but made her promise that she would be taking it super easy.
There were twelve of them at the course. The first class was held in t
he building adjacent to Rising Dawn HQ, but which was still connected to the training centre via underground corridor. Elodie welcomed the opportunity to leave Rising Dawn without having to walk out into the central reservation.
The small training block was a multidisciplinary building, booked by everyone from doctors to alchemists. It was one of her favourite places and not just because she was one of the nine hundred people who worked on its coding and construction. It had a homey feel. She wondered if there would be any other homeboys or girls that resulted in being pulled in via Testing Tuesday, but as she reached the door, she felt absolute relief at the fact that the faces inside were strangers. One side of the classroom walls was transparent, with a single line of marking that signified its code and current purpose. C99 - RD Training Module 3.
She walked in through the simple opening that had been programmed into the side and headed towards the seat somewhere at the back middle, happy she hadn’t fetched clothes from home. Forget the stress of choosing the outfit that would have been just the right amount of spiritual—all the trainees were proudly sporting their Rising Dawn outfits that looked like they just walked out from a series of spa treatments.
She attracted a few glances and hoped that people here had enough manners to not get too friendly too quickly. But it wasn’t that kind of room—the dozen slowly moving heads just didn’t seem like they had the social capacity to look at another and compare impressions. Every one of them just seemed on their own, lost in thought, struggling to communicate with the outside. After she sat down, a few people smiled at her, but they kept their distance, even from each other. The only chatter was happening between three Spanish girls, geographical bonding over which part of Galicia they came from and which way was the quickest to the cafeteria from the building.