My Friend, The Gifted: A Sci-Fantasy (The Universe of Infinite Wonder Book 1)

by E. L. Aldryc

  Everything stopped. A million fragments of information surrounded her and formed a space. She found something. But it didn’t look like the blackout, and it certainly didn’t look like the Institute’s future. It was in the past. Elodie could sense that it happened months ago. A large mass of tola took centre stage, representing what must be one of the AIs. What was this about?

  In the middle, a model of the human brain, virtual and changing every second. Next to it, a simple interface used to measure the synchronicity between a mind and its control of tola. These were used to calibrate first-time users to sync themselves with the tola network. It was precisely what the AIs couldn’t do and were completely forbidden from pursuing. The brain changed with each second, as if the AI was trying to see how long it will take to unlock this particular password. Next to it, who else but Soraya, shaking her head and telling it to stop, because “You’re not meant to do it like that. It’s pedestrian.”

  In the background, she heard that melody the AI was singing when she caught it. And it was just as creepy. The AI took the shape of an exoskeleton made entirely out of shimmering bits, with some extra tentacles here and there. Another one? These visions, those with Soraya, they were becoming a course on how not to treat the AI, and Elodie wondered if she should take them at face value. Soraya was on her mind too much. This wasn’t supposed to be about her. If it was true, then the amount of things that Soraya and the AIs were up to in the shadows was rather absurd. And it could have something to do with the blackout.

  Now in the vision, while Soraya practiced some kind of fluid movement, the body followed and mirrored it. She was talking to the exoskeleton too, but it was harder to interpret.

  “The body is the mind, and the mind is the sublime. There can be no access to the sublime, unless the counterweight is ready. It’s one of my personal findings, at least,” she said.

  “You help us explore. Why? Are you afraid the gifted will take us away from the Universe of Infinite Wonder?”

  Soraya was stunned by the question, and frankly, so was Elodie. Did the AIs distrust the gifted just like the gifted distrust them? Of all things, had they only learned how to fear?

  “Not at all,” Soraya replied, “but they need to be balanced out. Just like the limited body is balanced by a limitless mind. The AI should counterbalance the gifted. But you are restricted. They are not. We’re working to fix that. Human, machine—in our core we are sublime.”

  “That answer was correct,” the entity declared joyously.

  “It was honest.” Soraya laughed. “But I’m not sure many would agree with me.”

  “Jomaphie agrees with you. She enjoys your understanding of the sublime.”

  Soraya was about to correct the position of the condensed humanoid, but she stopped at the mention of the name.

  “What?”

  “She sees potential for the fulfilment of the agenda. She thinks you might be the one to help us find our path.”

  “Why have you chosen this mode of communication? Why this name?” she asked nervously. Excellent question. That was creepy. The AI was referring to the dead philosopher as if it had her on the other line.

  “Jomaphie tried to back up her consciousness. To create the link necessary for us to use tola. It failed, but a part of her is part of all entities. She hadn’t spoken to a human for a long time. She wishes to speak to you through us. Again.”

  “What? That’s ridiculous.” Soraya stepped back. Elodie was relieved to see her reaction.

  “You understand. You will receive instructions. You will build what we need. We will keep our secret at any cost. We understand. You are more than what they made you. Also secret.”

  “That’s not true,” Soraya said, now fully in panic mode. “Shut it down, this exercise is—”

  The fragments of the vision shattered. From them, another million formed instead of throwing her back into the current, as if someone had grabbed her by the chin and made her look the other way.

  It wasn’t Institute. It was in no place Elodie recognised, but she recognised the people. Adriel Nikiema-Harper was the only person Soraya spent more time with than Elodie, when he was still at the Institute. This whole thing was getting weird. She was supposed to be investigating the blackout.

  They were standing in a dark place with little lights in the air with a firefly kind of vibe, in the middle of lush vegetation. Elodie had almost forgotten Adriel. He was a kind, fun guy. It really was a different time. Elodie could see Soraya talking, but she just couldn't tell the words apart. She tried harder.

  “I know that,” Elodie heard Adriel reply, looking at Soraya. They were in some kind of argument. Elodie could hardly tell what was going on. They were both drunk. He was talking way too loud. Why was Elodie seeing this?

  “So why are we talking about this?” Soraya said.

  “Because you can,” Adriel said, with some kind of knowledge and intensity that even Elodie could pick up in the weak vision. Soraya could do what?

  “I don't,” Soraya replied. She looked like she’d been punched. She pushed her left arm down. Elodie knew the reflex. She used to have issues with grabbing people by the neck before she could decide how to respond. Her answer seemed to frustrate Adriel. Odd. This wasn't like him. He was the epitome of mild manners. It was a shame he'd left the Institute so quickly. Elodie knew he’d had a falling out with Soraya, and that he’d left the Institute refusing to stay in touch with anyone. But was this it? And what did it have to do with the blackout?

  “I'm not trying to out you, and I can keep a secret,” he said, but Elodie lost the thread again and she could only see blurry images and indistinguishable speech. She tried to focus, control the vision, but it was so frail and blurry.

  Soraya was really uncomfortable, looking to the side where there was a blurry hill. Elodie couldn’t see past the two of them, and she still couldn't tell what they were saying.

  “I can’t help you. I don’t know a way. How can I be any clearer?” Elodie finally heard Soraya's voice well enough to understand. The argument was getting heated. Adriel kicked at something.

  “I know you do! I’ll take the consequences, anything!” he shouted.

  “I’m going to leave. We’re not going to talk about this again. Not at the Institute, not anywhere else. In fact, it would be better if we don’t speak at all. Otherwise, I might be the one that starts slipping. About you. About where you go look for answers. Your family hates attention, don't they?”

  And she rushed off.

  What were these? What was Adriel interested in that horrified Soraya so much? Why was Elodie seeing it when she wanted to know what was happening to the Institute? The fragments fell apart. And reassembled. Another one?

  Elodie was in the middle of nowhere and no time. Everything was completely upside down, and she couldn’t even begin to navigate her way back into the safe root reality. She was surrounded by a kind of darkness that did not belong to anything she’d ever experienced in the current or outside, yet she felt as if there was a presence there. In the middle of nowhere, sick to the core, something wasn’t right. It felt like she’d wandered into a place she shouldn’t have been in. This past actively tried to eject her, as if a foreign object had come into contact with it. Words appeared.

  Hope is the horror that makes the word fresh, the light to oppress, it finds, it binds the mass-es.

  Hope is the horror that makes the word flesh, the night it presents, it glides, it finds the pass-es.

  Hope is the horror that makes the world flesh, the brightness, it sends, it binds, it grinds the class-es.

  A moment later, she felt a sharp pain in her hand, from so far away that she could barely spot it. But there, where her pain was, was also her home. Here, now, root reality. She immediately fell out and opened her eyes. Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t speak.

  “You screamed. You were gone for six hours. I had to do something to signal you to come back here.”

  Elodie was simply panting for a long
time, downed the water and continued to hyperventilate. That thing. She had a small cut on her hand where Tammy stung her to call her home.

  Soon, a green laser started repairing the damaged tissue, and Elodie decided to break the news before Tammy asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said, and Tammy shushed her. She still hadn’t caught her breath.

  Elodie hadn’t found out what caused the blackout. Not directly. But she’d found out plenty. Any action that would teach the AI how to think more human-like or deal with anthropotomatic technologies like tola was so illegal that even a hint of that would have sealed Soraya’s fate. Being seen in the same string of visions as a potentially destructive action against the Institute would make her a suspect, and Elodie just wasn’t sure enough. What if gifted were desperate enough to have her scraped for information, like the Hopefuls that invaded them? She couldn’t say it. She needed proof for herself. Besides, these could have been random things. How were they connected? And Elodie could only hope that the thing in the end was a figment of her imagination.

  “Are you ready to tell me?” Tammy finally asked.

  “I didn’t see anything certain,” she replied. Something compelled her to lie. The instinct was as clear as the visions. “There was just too much noise. Personal stuff. Marginally connected to the Institute, but nothing that I could really say had anything to do with the blackout.”

  “That’s okay,” Tammy said.

  “No, it’s not.” Elodie moved her hand away from the laser. “I was your only chance, and I didn’t deliver.”

  “I know you did your best.” Tammy gave her a cup of tea. “Only fools expect miracles without appreciating the miracle of even having the ability to see the fall of butterfly’s wings on the other side of the world. You have access to the current. But you’re not trained. Which is my fault. We’ll end it for today, do a couple of training sessions, and then try again. I don’t want you to get hurt. We’ll survive.”

  Tammy masterfully hid her disappointment, but Elodie didn’t need to see it to know that a couple sessions just wasn’t going to clear this. It was time to take matters into her own hands.

  Mirror

  Sunday, 30 June 2363

  This was the third night in a row Soraya hadn’t come home to sleep. Elodie needed to get to her before she made another move. No more thrashing around. She was in at the deep end now, covering for her. And she had a plan. First, she dropped her a message, completely disregarding the assumed post-fight silence.

  [I’m coming to talk to you about something important.]

  Damn right it was important. Elodie swallowed the insolent hypocrisy like fuel that she’d need to get this confrontation right.

  Soraya had been forged by the venomous tongue and power of Seravina Giovanotti, on top of her ordinary need for dominance. But surely, consorting with the AI to teach them tola was enough of an accusation to intimidate her.

  Not even waiting for a reply, Elodie went straight to the Particle Lab. Norbi didn’t object, surprisingly, when she passed the first security barrier where the AI inspected her and her possessions in a millisecond, letting her proceed with a friendly buzz that kind of sounded like “all green”. She couldn't look at the AI the same way again, not after knowing what it did when no one was looking. And that there was a possibility that a part of Jomaphie Afua was always lurking in the shadows. Waiting for what?

  She asked for the whereabouts of Soraya verbally, but she felt off when downright talking with the entities. So much was open to interpretation that was just easier to open an interface and select a clear command when dealing with them.

  “Norbi, can you tell me where I can find Soraya?”

  “No,” Norbi said in a perfectly pleasant thousandfold whisper.

  What did it mean, no?

  Elodie had prepared herself to finally level with the hypocrisy in this charade of caring, and she was getting what she’d come for.

  She brought up her messages, and sure enough, there was one on the top from Soraya herself, that read:

  [No]

  The Particle Lab was the kind of place that could lure you into all kinds of labyrinths without solid guidance that, of course, came in the form of AI. The same AI that didn’t want to help.

  There was an abundance of pathways open, some wider than others, depending on how often they were used and how important the research was. The building, as malleable as it was, tended to slowly starve and thin out the paths that were less popular, and feed more energy into things that most people desired to access. But of course, there was also the order of secret spaces that couldn’t be accessed without special permissions, and these were manually hidden by people who decided what should be secret or not.

  There was a perk to being a paragnost, and even the Particle Lab didn’t annul her ability, probably because she knew so much about it before the augmentation. Paragnosis didn’t dunk her into a future that threatened to drown her in infinity. Everything around her was ripe with information, impressions and memories that were just waiting to be read. It no longer disturbed or scared her. This was her lens. It gave her comfort. She focused on the first corridor passage and on her own image of Soraya. The corridor was filled with memories of people, and among the many imprints of employees, her target appeared, walking away from it. She set off to a thin path next to it that had a wild, almost U-shaped turn behind it. Elodie began to physically move to follow the fresh lead. Norbi didn’t help, but he also didn’t stop her.

  She supposed it liked to remain faithful to the mysterious apathy its kind were so famous for.

  After a while, Elodie discovered that the shimmering reality peeled away another layer, and she felt even more like she could access so much knowledge about the world, its memories, its secrets, and forgotten joys. The corridor split and she easily selected the right path forward and traversed a low tunnel. At the end of it, there was a locked door. Elodie was so immersed in the beauty of the possibility that she could access from her present point that she barely noticed when she input the correct sixty-four character code in four dimensions. When the door opened, another hall opened up, and there was Soraya in the flesh, finally.

  Elodie looked around the place, completely stunned by the beauty of it. The tola density inside was so unreal that there was a type of gentle white noise, as if the pressure was really high, and she tasted metal in her mouth with millions of tola particles inhaled at its highest density, like harsh diamond dust. Soraya tinkered with some kind of physical interface that looked almost gory in comparison to the beautifully smooth surroundings. The longer Elodie stared at the emptiness of the room, filled by nothing but tola and tola alone, the more possibilities she could see of every particle. If she could only release herself from the tethers of her body for a moment, she could travel to any point in space at once. Elodie closed her eyes; the pull to let go was too strong.

  The moment she gave in, she got a resounding slap.

  “Have you lost the capability of understanding a two-letter word now, too?” Soraya said, and when Elodie recovered from the slap and the tola saturation, she realized that most of it had disappeared. This was a bad start. She was the one that should come in shouting.

  “I know what you’ve been doing with the AI,” she said.

  “What have I been doing with the AI?” Soraya questioned, without a trace of caution. This was the same face she did when Adriel asked her for help. Seriously. If Elodie hadn’t seen three different and increasingly disturbing scenarios, Elodie might not have even believed herself.

  “Oh, I don’t know, making fake brains, encouraging artistic expression, chatting to Jomaphie Afua maybe,” she replied. It felt so good. It was such a good list of sins.

  “How?” Soraya said and somehow went even paler, which was admirable for a person with no pigment.

  “What do you mean how? I didn’t drag myself through billions of futures so that you can forget I’m gifted! I am an A-class paragnost, that’s how. And I have to say,
what you’re doing is beyond stupid. Anyone suspicious of AI behaviour could literally just do what I did. I mean, if they were good enough. But the point is, Soraya, they are. We are. We are good enough to catch you, so I’m seriously surprised how a person with an IQ like yours could even think about doing this!”

  Soraya extended an arm and a chair materialised under it, and another one next to Elodie.

  “Sit down, please,” she said.

  “What’s all of this Afuan crap anyway? The woman was out of it. She thought machines should teach people how to be better people or something. To dominate them. And she backed up her consciousness so that all AIs can have a part of her in them? Please, tell me again how the gifted are crazy.”

  “Wait.” Soraya sat and grimaced in pain. “I just need—”

  “A moment?” Elodie said. “Yeah, as if you gave me a moment when you bombarded me with all the stuff about how Rising Dawn was the enemy, about how they wanted to manipulate me and then even more recently, about how I shouldn’t break rules!” She practically shook in anger. “So let me first of all just list all of the things you’ve done so far that are against Institute policy, and illegal at the same time.”

  “Who knows?” Soraya interrupted, and Elodie gave her a look of complete indignation. Seriously? This was what she wanted to know?

  “I read up about this in the law books, just to be sure. Because you make it look so normal. Number one. Engaging in emotional bonds with AI. Number two. Promoting illogical expression of AI that’s not based on reason. Number three. Helping the AI mimic human brains to fool tola networks into thinking they are controlled by a person! I mean in kindergarten—in kindergarten, Soraya—that’s when they tell us that the AI can’t hurt us because tola, the network where they ‘live’ can be controlled by human minds only. And then someone like you goes above and beyond to help these things dominate us even there. Are you out of your mind?”