by E. L. Aldryc
“All right,” Elodie breathed. Elevation. This was what it meant to step on the path of winners. Elodie had never thought of herself as a particularly important cog in the machine that led to the Universe of Infinite Wonder. But now she understood that it was her duty. An iceberg of people pushed her on her rightful path so that she could do the same for the world.
Walk Without Rhythm
Saturday, 28 June 2363
The big question. What if she failed?
The gifted at the Institute might never exit the blackout. Everyone would blame her, and the good times would be over before they even had a chance to start. Or the current of the futures would finally beat her and she’d be carried away, torn apart in the infinity. If Soraya was right, she’d be broken for good. A Hopeful. Elodie’s personal guess was that both of these scenarios clocked in at about a twenty percent chance of happening.
She was finally thinking like a gifted person. In percentages and all.
It was only proper to check in with Soraya before she did it. In case everything went wrong, she’d have a nice final memory.
It was Saturday, but this was her favourite time to get work done. The Particle Lab was quieter than normal. Norbi asked for an access code origin.
“Limited access, Rising Dawn.”
Limited or not, that sounded nice.
She meandered through the many corridors that confusedly asked her intentions before letting her through. It seemed almost as if the system was built to be confusing, and the search got harder when she said who she was looking for. It was as though the AI had a special protective protocol in place for people looking for Soraya. She didn’t like that idea. Gifted or not, the whole scene with the golden threads made her uneasy around the entities. Soraya was such a people’s person. What was this great obsession with the AI's wellbeing? More disturbingly, what was their obsession with hers?
The feeling deepened as she walked closer to the AI co-op centre. Even before seeing what was happening, she heard something in the corridor. There was a gentle potent melody, belonging to a song that was popular on Madilune about two years ago. It was sung by a man in at least six different voices and melodies that were later fused together in a beautiful harmony over an unobtrusive basis. Light and crisp. At first it sounded like the original, but every few seconds, when the voices split to reach a particularly complex harmony, something else came through. A multitude that could only belong to a synthetic being.
The voice, or perhaps the correct term to use was a plural, was a chorus of about a thousand voices. Elodie moved closer, drawn by the surreal sound. The chamber was loosely lit with the setting sun that appeared natural and fairy-like. It sparkled through the rectangular-shaped openings in the high ceiling. The lower part of the lab was only illuminated by the many open holographic windows that displayed data. A larger interface was in the middle, but no furniture of any kind.
The room itself looked an uncomfortable fit for a person to be in, designed for everything but humans. There was Soraya, looking small and unperturbed by the design, stretching and zooming out of graphs, making notes dictated straight from her mind. The walls were wobbly with energy and presence, meaning a great quantity of an AI was concentrated here. And the entity was singing with vigour. And no, it didn’t sound good.
Sudden, your melodies fall from the skies,
blinded by beauty I dream and I cannot die,
of all the company ever enshrined,
your smile in greeting will guide me to the divine.
There was no great “aha!” of a revelation. Elodie fixed her hair and walked in without trying to make this into a big deal. She had news to share, and it would be counterproductive to pick a fight over which part of “thou shall not teach the AI artistic expression” rule Soraya did not understand. Everyone knew it was a slippery slope towards thinking like humans, ergo, controlling tola for themselves.
“Oh, hello,” Soraya said, and a few windows popped out of existence, probably some of the more secretive parts of whatever was going on here. But the bulk of the happening remained, including the wobbly wall that evened out as if the AI that was making the room positively buzz with active tola had evacuated to somewhere else.
“Looking for a career change?” Elodie asked and bit her tongue.
“They’re allowed to sing; they’re just not encouraged,” Soraya replied.
“That looked pretty encouraging if you ask me,” Elodie argued.
“What brings you here?” she said, and more holographic windows went out. Alrighty then, defensive it was.
“I have major news,” Elodie began as she carved out a steady course among the remaining floating windows in her way.
All of the workspace emptied out into nothing but the basic ceiling that still held its own with the carved out sun rays of an early evening.
“What’s the news?”
“Elodie versus the blackout. Happening today. I thought you should know in case, you know, you want to think how much of my stuff you’ll inherit,” Elodie explained.
“Don’t even try to make it funny,” Soraya said and crossed her arms. “And of course, you’re doing this unprepared, at Tammy Two Feathers’ earliest convenience?”
“It doesn't matter when and where it happens. My abilities won’t change. If I can do it, which I can, I will,” Elodie replied.
“Just like that?” Soraya asked. “No help, no aid?” A reference was cautious, but the Particle Lab was a jumbled place. Safer than most.
“I told you I don’t need anything. I can do it all by myself. So you can stop troubleshooting me and just support me as a friend. As we agreed.”
“If I can try to ignore the fact that there’s a genuine possibility you will go crazy if they push you too far,” Soraya replied.
“Sanity has done nothing for me for as long as I can remember. Take the wheel, madness!” Elodie smiled.
“Hilarious.”
"Listen," Elodie said seriously, “you said we're in this together. So I'm making you a part of this. And if you want to be more involved, the door is open.”
"Help?" Soraya raised her eyebrows.
"Maybe you can help me decode the problem if I don’t understand the answer, like last time. Or if something happens to me in the process. Like if I really lose it. I don’t want to live like I did the first few months. If I’m a vegetable, you have my ‘you were right’ in advance and absolute permission to kill me.”
It’s meant as a joke, but oh boy, it tanked.
"Oh yeah?" Soraya said and grinned, but it wasn’t a happy face. "So not only do you undermine me and ignore any advice I offered, to the point where my own mentor threatened to fire me if I didn’t stop interfering, now you want me to bail you out when you're brain dead and suffer the consequences."
"That's not what I meant!" Elodie said. It was true. It was a half joke. Half. "I just want you to be part of this."
“You can’t have both! You can’t have me interfere and leave you to do what you want at the same time,” Soraya said, and the walls wobbled as if she were also connected to them. "I was a part of this when I told you not to get tested. I was a part of this when I wasn't allowed to see you for a month, and I fought every day to keep the pressure on the gifted. And now, first chance you get to jeopardise the small progress you've made since you were a mess afraid to look people in the face, what do you do?”
"You just have to make me look like an idiot!"
"I don't have to make you look like anything. List your choices. Put them down. See how they read. Or—or go the Rising Down route and narrate a wonderful, exciting journey. Everything was wonderful and nothing hurt."
"I've made the choices based on what I want.”
"And any time you had to make one, you made one that could damage you even more. You’re right. I don’t get it.”
Soraya walked away and occupied herself with something on a pop-up window in the background.
Elodie was almost surprised at the clarity
this gave her. She was right. She just didn’t get it. Soraya had never felt the futures, the current that connected all the decisions and intents of the world together. What it felt like to be part of it and know. Of course she thought it was stupid. She’d never understand.
"Are you going to leave, or do I have to get the security to escort you? Rising Down members don't have permits for this level of actual research."
"So that's how you see me?" Elodie said. “That’s how you want to leave this?”
"Coming to me looking like a boss, trying to sell me the same bullshit you fell for. Good luck."
There was only one thing to say, really.
“Hey Soraya,” she said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about this word lately. Maybe you can help. How do you say ‘sorry’ in Maltese?”
The shock. The horror on her face frightened Elodie for a moment. They were alone, and she had nowhere to escape. But Soraya stayed frozen, staring as if she’d been just told that she was bound for the guillotine.
Whatever it was, Elodie wasn’t interested in secrets upon secrets. She had a job to do.
She left, and pathways formed in front of her faster than when she walked in. She made her point to her, and her creepy AIs. Don’t mess with the gifted. Don't mess with Elodie Marchand.
Is this what happened to friendships where one changed for the better?
By the time Elodie reached the Rising Dawn headquarters, the after feeling of her fight turned into a ball of anxiety. She tried to keep it positive for her own sake, but suddenly, everything seemed pointless.
Tammy handled the door from inside as it failed to open automatically. Even the door was depressed.
After hours, the Rising Dawn HQ. Her temporary home. Memories of the warm marble floors, still fuzzy from the days when she tried to settle in her new mind.
"Are you ready?" Tammy asked.
"I don't know.”
"I was hoping you would say that," Tammy replied. "It means you understand the gravity."
And You Want Three Wishes
Elodie and Tammy strolled along the dim central corridor with tall doors and stairs on either end. The path they were taking was the central nerve of Rising Dawn, constructed in a way that everyone in the floors above could see who was entering, and those entering felt like the whole building was watching. Rising Dawn was, after all, a large group of friends who happened to almost drown in the current of the futures, all while being watched over by their telepathic pals.
"I’m excited to share this with you," Tammy said and closed all of her running applications. Glimpses of outlines appeared around her as she gave them a final look. She reminded Elodie of Seravina again, who always had a million conversations open in the background. She’d make a great next Institute leader. It was up to Elodie to save the gifted now and help them deliver the Universe of Infinite Wonder. And she wanted to.
The sign above the wing they entered said “Assertion Division”. Most people wouldn't even make it close enough to be able to read the sign before getting into a lot of trouble. The Assertion Division was the world’s most elite prognostic group. Off limits. Responsible for security issues of the Institute itself, meaning that it was their responsibility to predict any large danger that threatens it. Only the best for the Sight Institute.
Elodie learned this in her theoretical training, and knowing that this was likely where her mentors wanted to see her in a future that seemed awfully distant, had read about it religiously. She knew Tammy was a part of it, and how could she not be, as the only functional class-A? But there were others, people whose head was always in the game. You could tell when one of them was around you, because while the ordinary gifted (something you should never really say), could switch between displacement from the current space or time, they were always one foot deeper in the stream of the futures, always listening, always searching.
Whenever a cause was beginning to form that could have a severely adverse effect on the Institute, the Assertion Division investigated the likelihood of it and sent reports to Seravina, who met regularly with them. This too was history.
Their space in the headquarters had been built to differentiate them from the rest, and while this was a great honour to be asked to perform, it wasn’t entirely desired by the gifted en masse. Being part of the Assertion Division meant that one had to spend hours in special isolation, while the rest of the team fed their power remotely via the connection shared in the Rising Dawn hub. The precision and reach that it gave them was incredible. But they were never really out of the current. A part of them was taken away and replaced with the greater good of the Institute. The gifted performed a function. Soraya was right about that. The more powerful they were, the more obvious it was. And in spite of that, Tammy always looked like she was just coming out from a massage. Among the gifted, the biggest displays of strength were subtle.
The gifts were just the beginning. There were so many incredible things people could do with them. Like find out the cause of a mysterious blackout and end it.
When they walked past the warning that said, “No unauthorised personnel allowed beyond this point”, Elodie’s heart started beating fast. Maybe Tammy knew. Maybe she knew she only did the big deed with the drugs. She was taking her to a quiet, remote place. The rooms aligned on both sides, black snowflake obsidian patterns on them, and the floor changed from joyful cloud grey marble into darker shades. It just screamed that this was the line to cross between the happy gifted, and the gifted that would haunt your nightmares.
One of the rooms’ doors opened, and the first glance Elodie got was a little disappointing.
“It looks just like the training centre,” she said.
“We were going to coat it in gold, but Seravina put a plug in the budget,” Tammy joked.
Elodie didn’t like it. The only thing worse than a scary new place was a scary new place that looked too much like an unpleasant memory. In fact, that chair was the same one she woke up from her augmentation. Terrible stuff.
She slid her hand over it. The texture brought back the memories of blindness and panic of the first paragnostic intrusions.
Tammy sealed the door behind her.
“No one should bother us here.”
Not exactly reassuring. Elodie perched up on the seat and suddenly thought that this was a colossally awful idea.
“I know we haven’t discussed much practice together, so let me just tell you some basics.” Tammy sat down on a chair next to her. “There’s a network in the zone that should support you and keep you more stable, in the same way that Augustina used to help you when you were recovering. Don’t be compelled to use it. That’s advanced stuff. Just let it give you a bit of push. You’ll see what I mean.”
Augustina’s support didn’t work on Elodie. The network probably wouldn’t either.
“Remember. Think about the facts, focus on what you know. The most suitable information will identify itself. Keep going to the basics, and slowly zoom into the truth. That’s what I do. Start with that, see how you feel.”
In other words, improvise.
“I’ll be ready in a minute,” Elodie said, feeling the panic rise in her again. She couldn't let the pressure get to her, or the constraints of the real universe, or Soraya and her limited thinking. There was only one important person in this whole small world of the Madilunian institution, and she was sitting right here, next to the A-class paragnost who had already made her mark on history. Break the blackout, save the gifted.
Tammy waited patiently with crossed arms. If this didn’t work, then what?
Tammy had faith. There was no one to tell Elodie to stay away from the current this time. And no one to save her either. A minor consideration.
“Focus on the blackout. Focus on the solution to it. Any association, paragnostic information about its cause, or a future vision of a right path that can offer clues as to how it was achieved are golden. No pressure, but you know, golden,” Tammy said, doing a lap around the room.
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br /> The dive into the current was a shock, as standard. But there’s something above this time that stopped her from falling too deep too quickly. It helped her think straight. It aided stability. And more importantly, it was an absolute crime that they didn’t let her use it during training. “Build your relationship with the timeline.” Rude.
She focused on the mission.
The gifted had failed. They’d fallen out of the current. All those connected to the event horizon of the Institute were in the dark. Something that had to do with their latest tola release, maybe. Maybe. What was it? Blackouts were rare and short, and no one knew why they happened. This one was the longest one in recorded history of the gifted, and it showed no intention of slowing down. Why did it happen? Was it artificial?
Ding, ding, a few weak matches. Nothing strong enough to carve a path. She tried again. Focus.
Had the gifted been kicked out of the current because a major timeline shift was happening?
Weak. Not specific.
Nada Faraji was welcome to step in any time now.
Did the tola cause the blackout?
Nothing.
What if someone was targeting the gifted?
Match. There was something there, just beyond that event horizon, and it started carving a path, which Elodie could just about follow. It was tiny, taking her deeper, and deeper, and wider, and below, and upwards, and before Elodie knew, she could no longer control the search more than it controlled her, slipping away faster and faster, taking her with it. The travelling became too fast for some parts of her consciousness to follow—the ones tied to a brain, in a body that she was supposed to inhabit. This was a sure sign that something was wrong, and Elodie began to panic, just a little.
Return to the basics. The now, the here, the root reality. The now, the here, and the root reality. She sensed her way back home and started trying to rip herself away from the pursuit of the vision that was out of her reach.