Engineer Zero: The Waves Trilogy: Book One, page 15
“It isn’t my decision to tell you, but I feel I must not let you continue in total ignorance.” Her face trembled, exposing the tiniest of wrinkles around her eyes. “You are indeed in danger, but you cannot let others know you are aware. You must blend in as if you are happy to be given the chance to live among the ascending––that will make them less aggressive.”
“I would rather toil in honesty than bask in the fruit of lies!” I said through clenched teeth.
She redoubled her grip on my arm with surprising strength, “Your mother is not around to protect you and there are those that want you for their own purposes, purposes you would gladly admit the vilest of lies to keep yourself safe from.” She maintained her grasp and with her other hand held a finger to her lips. “What those exact purposes are I am ignorant to, but you are special. Aris, be careful with those closest to you.” She spoke in a hush. “Even if that makes you suspicious of me.”
“I will heed your advice and not trust anything you say,” I said with a clenched jaw.
She spun me around back to Leona. “Have a fresh experience!” Mera beamed at us as if none of that happened.
“You are not going, Cael Mera?” asked Leona.
“Not physically. I do not make it out as often as I used to. But I have Sanctum Gallery access, so it will be as if I am the center of it all,” Mera said with obvious excitement.
“Sanctum Gallery! How many CCs did you insert for that?” Leona gawked at Mera then at me.
“I must admit I don’t know. The family gets them every annorum.”
“The family,” Leona whispered, shook her head, and spouted out a few incoherent numbers as we walked out the door. No stinging barrier to hold me captive, but the invisible barriers that followed my every move never left my consciousness. I tried the command to let out the dramatic hood. It extended over the top of my hair in a large curved dome. “Let us go and see what this is all about,” I said, wary of everything around me.
TWENTY-SIX
Aris
The road swelled with masses of people. The sun had dipped down, casting a final glow towards the few twists of clouds higher than the Apex. Everybody on the streets wore monochrome loose dresses and robes like Leona’s and mine. We jostled among the people when a group donning thought masks circled around us. They brought their masked jaws and eyes close to my own mask. “Friends of yours I hope?” I asked, and the circling people returned their masks to normal states.
They all stared at me. My fingers followed the lines on my arm. The rez seems to “wake up” when I feel in danger. But who left it for me?
Leona introduced her friends––some I recognized from Leona’s mark––and they all continued to peer at me for a long moment before making awkward greetings using a mix of Apex and Nether accents. “It’s looped now to dabble with an underdweller accent,” Leona said and rolled her eyes at her friends. A person tall as a tree strode over us and bellowed some incomprehensible phrase at the tops of our heads. People flowed like river water all around our little group creating jostling rapids of contact, forcing us into a tighter circle.
“I’m so pulsed! My first Allegory without a guiding-surv following my mark,” a girl in an all-black spherical dress held a curved dark blue device up for all to inspect.
“That looks familiar,” said a girl with a pointy chin, sunk in cheeks, and wild large eyes. “Did you get that from Maks?” she asked half shouting.
“Maybe,” the girl in black replied and brought the object closer to her face. “He said not to let anybody know where I got it from, we had to go grey and hide in this secret protected room.”
“Maks twisted something from the grey ages so we wouldn’t be able to identify it,” said pointy chin girl. She looked down her long nose at the girl in black. “Last annorum I did Maks’ tier four projects for it, and I had a drone escort from my guides before I even made it to the party. Maks is a liar!” she shouted above the crowd.
The girl in black scrutinized the object then threw the piece of fraud at our tight circle of feet and looked up then around at all of us, “It’s bright! It was just a joke.” She laughed then said under her breath, “I will throw Maks off the Apex myself!”
Roaring drew our attention to high walls that shot up like broken crystal toward the stars. The palisade was of an absolute black surface that sucked in light and did not let it go. We followed the swarm of people through the jagged arch entrance and found ourselves in a hall of platforms, some linear, some circular, some spiraling up and some spiraling down. The nexus buzzed with feverish excitement.
Enormous mountain-sized projections of robed serious-looking people hovered amidst all the platforms. “That was from last Allegory.” A broad hand came from behind my hood and pointed at the people. “It was about the Council and its prime members.” Maks squished in between the girl who had bought the device from him and my poofy dress. I tried to force my way to the other side of Leona, but it was too tight. Maks’s body pressed next to mine and I wanted out.
“Leona, why is he here?” I break his fingers and he still does not get it!
Leona craned her neck around my hood to see Maks.
“He must have followed my mark,” she said. “Switch with me.” While continuing to glide forward Leona, and I managed to swap places. Blasts of cheers drowned everything out, and a widely spread harmony of music came from the interior of the arena.
“Maks, you watched us…” I heard Leona shout and she poked her finger into his chest. “I told you to stay away. She does not want to see you. I cannot stop her if she wants to break more than your finger. And stop selling grey junk to my friends.” That felt good. Even though I did not get to hit him, it was even better watching sweet-faced Leona take on Maks. He backpedaled and stumbled into the dense mass of people behind us.
“You have the grey fever in your blood, Cael Leona!” Maks lit up with mischievous energy. Nothing seemed to put him in a sour mood. “I happened to be coming this direction. My seat is…” He fell back in line with us.
“Let me guess, by some manipulating of ‘destiny,’ your seat is next to ours?” Leona jabbed a finger deeper into his chest.
Maks winced at a sudden mock strike from Leona aimed at his gut. “The Axon is really bringing out your inner violence,” he feigned a cough. “It’s cute. Cute is a good word. Tell her, Aris.”
“I know what it means, and I don’t want you calling me that. And that was for selling Xiolex that fragged concealment device.” Leona’s chest heaved and glimmered with tiny beads of sweat. I glanced over at Maks, who dramatically hunched over at eye level with me, a smirk lingered on his face. After a few strained moments of ignoring Maks, he pushed through the crowd ahead of us.
“Xièxiè Leona, I never knew you were so tough,” I said and leaned into her puffy dress.
“He is usually not so obnoxious, I think he does not know how to behave around you,” Leona said.
At some length, we finally reached a more open space with shops selling goggles, food, and enhancements that I did not think my body could handle.
“The epoch is bright.” A thin woman yanked my arm and whipped me around so fast my hood flew back, and I was face to face with her overly taut skin and moldy breath. “You must try the latest tactile enhancers. They are straight from the labs of Cael…” Her blue eyes flared with black rings.
“No,” Leona interjected. “Come on, Aris.”
“…You would not be disappointed, youngone,” the woman shouted after us.
I looked back, “who was she?”
“Some fragged leftover tier six,” Leona’s friend answered.
A thick dark-red curtain flew open to reveal an entrance, and Maks held the curtain aside saying, “After you. After you.”
“I accept your peace offering, but do you ever stop?” Leona clicked her tongue and stepped onto a moving surface that took us up through a tunnel.
“Maks is okay now?” I asked as we made our way up the dim tunnel.
“He spanned that he would take over my next fifth-tier assignment. Believe me, they are projects almost doled out as punishment.”
I gave her my mean eyes look.
“Not okay, but he is trying.” She shrugged.
Dooosh! Dooosh! The structure shook. A circular end to the tunnel ahead of Leona filled my view and as I crested laser lights colored the sky in powerful explosions. The moving path pulled us up and over the top onto a platform. The platform zipped with thousands of other platforms around the arena, or Madraj as my update informed me it was called, delivering spectators to their seats. The size of the place left me short of breath and slightly dizzy. I could not make out the mosaic of human shapes on the other side. My mask’s eyepiece informed me over one billion were in attendance. It also spat out temperature, humidity, and emotional wavelengths. How does this all fit up here? We must have traveled up to one of the elevated appendages of the Apex, I reasoned. Cloud sized holo-scenes played in the middle of the huge circular arena, depicting grey-era life: vehicles with wheels, airplanes, some man shopping for fruit, then tall living complexes crowding the land, and finally a series of waves smashing into those living quarters, blowing bodies out the windows like the buildings sneezed. Eventually, the city was leveled, and the scene moved on to the great flurry of drones that were conducting research for the Hundred Year Doctrine. This annorum the Axon Allegory will focus on the creation of Jiǎo.
The seats were organized in steep almost vertical clusters. We passed by many rows of curved seats when the platform finally delivered us to our seats, high up near the top of Madraj. The chairs had deeply curved backs with leg rests that I could not reach. Ascending tier only, I thought. I fussed around trying to stuff the large hood behind my back to get comfortable, comfortable for whatever was to come. The excitement was palpable and contagious, beyond…anything I could imagine. Never had I thought there were so many humans.
Repetitive ethereal music emanated from everywhere, my pulse synced to the beat. The atmosphere literally sparkled with vitality. A burr of waves coming off the horde prickled my skin, even without me trying to engage with them. The rez on my arm tingled and sent weak charges into my tissue. I pulled a part of my dress to cover my arm.
All of a sudden the seats leaned back, tilting our faces to the sky. The grey datastory holos disappeared and a collective exhalation resounded.
“It’s starting,” Maks sent to my mask.
I ignored him and focused on the sky above. The music crescendoed and echoed around the arena. The mask’s screen flooded with…nonsense, the ascending tier’s form of applause. An androgynous personage, Oriṣa Thichens according to the mask, appeared as a holo-giant in the clouds. Oriṣa held out slight arms and hands and arced them slowly upward, with dramatic flashes of color trailing across the sky.
“Xièxiè to our wonderful composer for that stirring music.” The voice wrapped rich and smooth with the perfect amount of emphasis and excitement on the words to get the crowd going. Oriṣa flaunted blue teeth, then flourished a blazing orange handkerchief around. “Who is ready for the Axon Allegory!” the voice reverberated throughout Madraj. “It is a time to pay homage to the heroes of the grey age, so get out of Jiǎo and let’s hear those voices!” The horde produced such bellows that I was sure my dreams would be haunted by such a sound for annorums to come. Blasts of light pierced through the darkened sky illuminating the arena in bursting patterns. The multitude ooohed and ahhed.
“Those are real explosions, not holo!” Maks practically squealed in my ear.
“This is my 145th Axon Allegory.” Loud encouragement burst anew. “The focus this annorum is on Jiǎo, our very own accessible multiverse, where each and every one of our datastories are held to live on in perpetuity. The beginning of Jiǎo was the birth of our immortality!” Raucous cheers sent a quake around the arena. A stupor overcame me, blurring my vision and swirling thoughts. Witnessing so many people in one space stirred up powerful emotions, the simultaneous feelings of the billion plus wrapped around me and pulled at my human core. A densely woven orb of connections appeared in my eyepiece, like a ball made of corn silk.
“Sema what is that?”
“E-waves, a particular frequency of waves that travel from one’s body to that of another, like a field of heat radiating from your body. E-waves normally go unnoticed, however, when people are tuned then their bodies vibrate together, expanding the strength of their natural E-waves that then form a connection. As more and more people tune, the stronger the vibrations become, evoking great emotion, deep feelings, understandings, and epiphanies. The ascending has found E-wave cogipulation to be a compelling tool for solidarity.”
“Is that why they all gather here?” I asked.
“Yes, it is part of humanity’s calibration,” Sema’s voice came from the mask.
As I surveyed the crowd, guilt rolled around the back of my throat and finally plunged to the depths of my gut. Guilt that came from the briefest of sympathetic thoughts that rationalized all this, that made me question my own belief that the ascending were monsters who had killed millions of lives and relegated millions more to never join their species again. What if this was the way? What if all the sacrifice was necessary to ensure survival? If nothing else, humanity wants to survive, so would I have done anything differently?
Oriṣa’s voice came back into focus, “We gather every annorum to realign our solemn commitment to shepherd, if I may go obscure, the ascending on a path to total peace, total life, expansion and ultimate understanding.” Oriṣa’s holo paced back and forth across the sky amidst scenes of monuments and people in collective effort to help one another: a group digging through rubble to save those buried, a woman carrying an infant surrounded by men and women running through a road split in two, with bullets and wave grenades ripping limbs from her protectors. “We bring our physical bodies close so as to remind ourselves of our roots and that those that we mark within Jiǎo are real in every sense of the word; we must never forget about one another’s uniqueness and that…”
“The loss of one is a loss to all,” the entire population intoned. Then the arena vibrated with a grave hmmm for many moments.
But the loss of all the underdwellers does not matter! I countered to myself.
“During the grey ages humanity only spent 30٪ of their time away from the physical, and much of that 30٪ was filled with adventures and fantasies in the form of visual and auditory stimulation. We all know the datastory, but in keeping with the grey era, I will deliver the tale. So, as they used to say, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.”
“Famine, ecological disaster, inequality, and genetically crafted diseases brought humanity to the edge of extinction, barely hanging on by slipping fingertips. A conglomerate of technology companies, in conjunction with the world’s governing bodies, established the Hundred Year Calling. An ambitious project to save humanity.” Oriṣa spoke as if every word had four or five more layers of meaning that I was not getting. The people around me leaned forward, listening intently. Much of this was covered in my update, but the recreation holos showing all that Oriṣa said gave the story more punch. “Millions of data drones scoured the planet, taking measurements, observations, and surveys, not only of humans but of our animal cohabitants as well.” Zebras and gazelles bounded across a savannah. A blue whale swept over the sky like a storm cloud. “As the collection of data progressed over the annorums, it became obvious that the data-processing capacity would run out far before the project was complete. So, a then-theoretical solution was proposed to the world populations, a solution that would require great sacrifice. The proposal was axon-computing.”
Information from my update began to connect and fill in gaps, but what I found in my head had to be false. Axon-computing: using a combination of synthetic and natural neuron cells to create faster and more connected processing. This axon-computing material possessed speeds equivalent to human thought, but the true power lay in its ability to communicate to trillions of other neuro-enhanced materials at the same time, and more crucial was the ability to transmit simultaneously at a distance. Axon-computing infused with nano-materials and melded seamlessly with human biology.
“The sacrifice of millions,” Oriṣa continued, “to donate their brains to the cause of humanity’s survival is not forgotten.” Holo people began to appear in the sky behind Oriṣa. The holos moved about as the sky filled up, millions of them. “How could we forget when their sacrifice is still at work––dispersed throughout the Spire Network and within each of us, forging mighty Jiǎo.” The holos waved and smiled apparently happy to have given their brains.
Was everything so bad that millions gave their lives so we could have a future? I wondered. A single holo walked closer and became larger. His clothes had not been updated so he looked like a time traveler, which in a way I suppose he was.
“Here is Cael Dominion, one of the lead developers of Jiǎo and one of the first to donate,” Oriṣa explained.
“It is indeed bright!” Dominion roared.
“The epoch is bright!” the arena responded with real gusto.
“I know you are all-knowing, thanks to myself and all the others who helped make Jiǎo possible, but I will give you a brief explanation of how Jiǎo was created anyway.” A lab materialized around him, filled with pinkish brains being washed and prepared to become part of Jiǎo. “From donation to integration, the brain tissue had to be carefully handled and processed under strict conditions. With nano-tools, we could disentangle the brain material and interlace it with specifically designed nanostructures. You all may be thinking this is a simple idea now, but in the grey ages, when I was working, this was beyond most people’s comprehension.” Some laughter bubbled from the arena. “A key part of Jiǎo’s success was achieving a critical mass where we had enough material to connect enough of an area that then the whole system would be usable. It took over thirty years to see any results. During those thirty years, we battled for patients and money. We told the world that any moment now Jiǎo would wake up and save the world. Honestly, there were many times during that period that I questioned the whole enterprise. But we stuck with it, and one glorious day, a day that is now known as the end of the grey ages and the beginning of the ascending era, Jiǎo awoke! Earth literally became a living hybrid organ that allowed, no simply was, immediate communication for all. It did not all go smoothly, chaos due to overstimulation, people’s minds hemorrhaging with activity, and that was just the physical toll. Society and individuals all had to adjust to the new norm of knowing virtually everything. We worked furiously to teach people how to control their thoughts, create barriers within their minds and how to interact in a conscientious way with Jiǎo. Despite these setbacks and protests, the benefits began to bear fruit in the form of better global data, transparency in the true state of world affairs, the ability to have all humans participate in efforts to save ourselves. The ascending era did away with money, corrupt governments, national borders, and ushered in a level of altruism that had never been imagined.
