Reconcilable

By Ayami Tyndall

Safe within the impenetrable firewall, Users lead documented lives, everything they do recorded by the omnipresent Cloud. Outside, Ghosts linger on the edge of society, known but unrecorded and unwelcome. Now one Ghost's refusal to conform will challenge the system and expose sides of humanity thought impossible. As the threat of war looms, Ghosts will find entry into the Cloud, Users will be cast out and every distinction will be blurred.

Reconcilable
a Science-Fiction novel
by Ayami Tyndall

Also available:
Verifiable: Before the Ghosts, the Cloud was thought perfect. But when Users began noticing errors the veil was lifted and all became known.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ayami Tyndall
• Release date: Nov 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301973804

Ayami Tyndall

Born and rooted in California, Ayami Tyndall is an author and computer systems manager. Always fascinated with technology, he is a life-long student and avid reader. He writes to explore how our own inventions reshape us and our world.

Book preview

Reconcilable

by Ayami Tyndall

Published by Ayami Tyndall at SmashWords

Copyright 2012 Ayami Tyndall

Cover by Taliesin Tyndall

Photos courtesy of Bina Sveda, StillSearc, Emiliano Spada, Ariel da Silva Parreira

* * *

Chapter 1

The inferno begins as a spark. A pinhead of anti-matter, invisible above a flattened pillow, detonates against the atmosphere, growing first into a perfect sphere, then deforming into a snarling wave of searing atomic energy. First to dissolve is the pillow, gone in a puff, and then the floor begins to melt, thousands of tiny pops joining the roar as the neutron-locks explode. The racks of parts are engulfed in an instant, and then the blaze fills the room, splashing against the walls until it finally funnels through the only door. The flames race along the path of least resistance, paying no heed to a mere man in their way. He doesn't even have time to turn before being swallowed whole, snuffed out as instantly as the teardrop of anti-matter.

Oyuki waves her hand and the sea of dragon's breath freezes, crimson snow floating in place. She slides a finger over the trackpad and the scene tumbles in reverse. The fire inhales back into the door, allowing Cirrus to reconstitute from the charred remains. It all collapses back in until it has returned to that infinitesimal spark. With her second hand Oyuki maneuvers her hoverchair forward until she is beside that flattened pillow. Then she releases the inferno with a swipe and it consumes her. She blinks from the brightness as the flames touch her, the anti-matter detonating again, but she feels nothing. She pauses the projection again once the fireball is eight feet across, surrounding her completely. From within the blast appears transparent, red hues highlighting its path. Beneath her hoverchair the floor freezes in swirls and ripples, but it is all an illusion. She examines the spot where the pillow had been, but there is only dust from the cushion there. Nothing, and no one, else.

Damn, she says under her breath. She winds the explosion back again. She glances to the side, sees Cirrus take a reverse step back into the room, but her attention stays focused on the pillow, where the explosion had begun and where a life had ended. But this useless machine refuses to admit that! She watches the whole explosion again, and again, manipulating the hologram, twisting the perspective, changing the scale, but can find nothing. Not a flake, not a hair, not a single shred of proof two lives were lost, not just one. But more importantly, no evidence of who ended them.

She swipes across the pad on her chair's arm and the projection vanishes. The crowded, disorganized, wonderful little room she has watched explode a thousand times is gone in a blink. She yanks the cable out from the side of her chair and maneuvers over to one wall. The lights are all dimmed, the folder projectors in the walls a hazy blue field of stars. She squints at the wall until she finds the seam, but even then it takes a solid thump from her fist to open the computer terminal. For most people a wave of the hand would suffice, but Oyuki has grown accustomed to taking a hands-on approach. Her fingers hover over the keyboard, but then she hesitates. Frowning, she searches her memory. She has watched this and a dozen views hundreds of times, over and over, here in this little studio and in other viewing chambers she has sneaked into. She has watched Cirrus's workshop explode, she has watched their journey to his workshop, and she has watched Griffin, rewatched every moment of his life for hours before the explosion, all recorded in perfect fidelity in the Cloud. But no matter how many times Oyuki watches, Kunti is never there, lying unconscious on the pillow where she died, so she has kept watching. But the Cloud has proven perfect; perfect at recording what it should, perfect at not recording what it shouldn't.

Oyuki slumps back in her chair. Huffing, she impulsively tries to kick at the wall but her legs are as limp and useless as ever. Another gift of obscurity. She rubs her knees, bony and cold, and looks around again at this little cabinet of illusions. It can show her anything in the Cloud, but it can't even show her own reflection. She shakes her unreflected head and begins to spin her chair away, but then she stops, looks back to the terminal screen. There in one corner is the archaic envelope symbol still used for messaging. She hesitates, bites her lip for a moment, but then taps the symbol. A prompt appears and she begins typing. She enters her query with halting breath, then waits a silent instant for the computer's reply.

Please authenticate.

She rapidly types in her name.

Name not recognized. Please authenticate.

A tear wells in Oyuki's eye, but she types in her name again.

Name not recognized. Please authenticate.

Fuck you, she says, almost a whimper, as she slaps the terminal back into the wall.

Well, this has been another waste of time, but Oyuki doesn't know what else to do. Two people died and no one knows why. Squeezing her hoverchair controls, she glides to the door, nudges it open with one armrest, and slips out of the projector room. The rest of the lab, or studio or workshop or whatever it is, is filled with printers, massive machines made to extrude the tiniest of structures. Too bad they can't spit out even one clue Oyuki can use. She's beginning to run out of avenues of investigation, but she refuses to believe anything is unsolvable. She just has to

With a click all the lights come on. Oyuki panics, her chair swerving slightly as her hand jerks like a roach. Before she can even think what to do, the door slides open silently. Standing there is a young man. He nods in satisfaction at the door, then his eyes come down and find Oyuki wishing she were truly invisible. Before the man can react, she jams her chair's control stick forward. His eyes pop wide, reflecting Oyuki's screaming face as she charges at him.

* * *

Otis jerks awake amid his own flailing limbs. If he hadn't already been on the floor, he likely would have fallen there. He props himself up, shakes his head groggily, twists his aching shoulders. He begins to rise, almost slips on a swatch of paper, then looks down.

Dang, where are his pants?

As he stands he gestures out the question with one hand. A pastel arrow appears in his field of vision, pointing to the bedside table. He wades through sheets to get there, but almost slips, so he finally waves a hand sharply at the floor; all the paper slides away, top edges pulling along the floor. The pages dance around his feet to stack neatly on the wall. Smiling, Otis pulls on his trousers just as the door opens.

Otis! signs Milada.

What? he replies with one hand, the other securing his belt.

You were sleeping on the floor again, she signs, still in the doorway.

I didn't mean to, he replies, casting about for a shirt. He waves and a recessed closet in one wall flips open. He walks to it and goes through the clothing. Over his shoulder he signs, If it bothers you, you should have called to wake me.

Quicker than he expected, Otis feels Milada's fingers on his shoulder. They dance quickly, softly, signing to him where he can't see. I did, she says with her touch. Then her hand appears over his shoulder, offering a capped tube. A Hard Day's Nite, their favorite brand. He slips it out of her fingers, then leans in for a peck on her hand with his lips. But Milada is too fast, pulling her hand back with a snap. Otis's lips pursue, putting him into a spin until he is facing her. His eyes rise, smiling, but he turns away from her scowl. Raising the tube, he snaps the cap and takes a hard snort into each nostril. He feels the nanites rush into his bloodstream, then he sees his personalized HUD. Along the bottom is his ticker, and next to it his mail indicator. Twelve messages from Milada.

Otis looks back to her, focusing on her so his HUD fades, and smiles his most charming smile. She shakes her head, then leans in to kiss his cheek. I don't want you catching cold, she fingers on his chest.

The floors are heated, he signs softly onto her arm, leaning in toward her neck.

That's not the point, she replies, pushing him back and signing properly. You've been acting like this for two weeks. When are you going to stop?

I'll stop when I arrive, he signs, leaving the bedroom. Milada follows through their apartment's sitting room, a real see-through-glass window looking out on Los Angeles, and into the kitchen. He just catches the last glint of motion as the table and chairs rise out of the floor in anticipation of use. He sits down at one end of the table, the wall to his right, and Milada sits across from him. The breakfast menu appears floating in three dimensions above the table.

What do you want? Otis asks casually, fingers still feeling lazy.

An honest conversation, signs Milada.

Otis sits up and slides forward, elbows resting on the table and hands by his face for signing. Okay, what can I say?

Just tell me why, signs Milada. Your studio has been idle for two weeks and you've been spending your days bouncing from job to job.

And my nights on the floor, adds Otis, but Milada's smile, his second favorite of her features, just won't be drawn out, so he relaxes and listens.

Otis, I'm just trying to understand what you're trying to do. You are one of the tower's top molecular architects, but now it seems like you want to throw that all away. She reaches across the table and takes one of his hands. "You know I love you no matter what you do, but I need to know what you are doing."

Milada, he signs, leaning forward to be closer to her. Two weeks ago, the world changed, and I changed with it. He waves at the far wall and a window lights. On it, through it, they can see a perfect rendering of a scene recorded in the Cloud, so real it seems to be on the other side of the wall. On a raised platform a dark haired girl sits in a hoverchair. She holds in her arms a baby boy, only hours into life, and looks confidently out at them.

But before the girl can speak, Milada releases Otis's hand and turns away. The screen darkens as Otis keeps his eyes on her. You know what the Council decided, signs Milada.

And they are fools, signs Otis. That brings her eyes up to him, swelling with distress.

Otis, don't say that. You're going to bring down a reprimand.

I'll welcome it, signs Otis, pulling her hand back to his, holding it tenderly between his palms, his fingers speaking to her skin. That girl, that Ghost, Milada shies away from the last word, once an assumed impossibility and now almost an obscenity, but Otis continues, she taught me something: there is more to this world than I ever imagined, and I want to be a part of it. It's not that I have anything against molecular architecture, but I need to know if it's really my path.

Otis, she signs into his palm, tears welling. On the verge of tears himself, Otis leans forward. Half the table retracts into the wall and his chair slides forward until he has his arms around her. I'm scared, she signs onto his skin.

I know, signs Otis. So am I. So is everyone. But that just means we can't hide anymore. He leans back, wipes the tears from his eyes and then from Milada's. Now come on. We are Unificationists. We are not going to fall apart just because of some Ghosts. Besides, they were already there, we just didn't know.

I know, signs Milada, standing with crossed arms and turning away. But now I don't even feel safe leaving the tower.

Don't be silly, Otis signs onto her back. He waves back on the window, now showing the day's top shares from around the world. We have the firewall, and even more security in the tower. Besides, he signs as he leans around to look her in the face, you haven't left the tower in three months.

Yeah, I know, signs Milada, leaning against him, but it's the point of the thing.

He pecks her cheek and then turns back to the table. The food feed comes back up and he pokes through it, finally settling on an omelet. As he taps it the food printer buried in the wall begins humming.

After staring at the window for a few more moments, Milada turns back to Otis. You still haven't answered my question. How long is this going to go on?

With a bing his omelet slides out, steaming on the freshly printed plate. I don't know, he signs, and it actually excites him a little bit. Since he learned to use the Cloud as a child, he has rarely used the phrase. It still feels a little unnatural, but he is getting used to it. I just need to know that I'm in the right place.

Otis, says Milada, signing slowly as she slides back into her chair and gestures for her own breakfast, you're not going religious on me, I hope.

His fork slices through the gelatoid frame of the omelet, seasoned egg filling oozing out. No, not religious, he signs. He stares at his omelet, then looks up at Milada. But maybe I'm being a little bit wiser.

She smiles then and he almost forgets about his breakfast because of it. Okay, she signs with a nod. Then, glancing down, her smile twists slightly. Oh, Otis, she signs.

Yeah? he replies, not hampered by a mouthful of omelet.

You're going to be late.

Oh shit! He focuses back on his HUD, bringing up his alerts. Curse your smile, he signs hastily as he gobbles his breakfast while standing.

It keeps you coming back, she signs as he leans down to kiss her goodbye. Her eyes go wide and she pushes him away suddenly, her face wrinkling in disgust.

What? he asks, downing a glass of juice.

You taste like egg, she signs, standing with her bowl of cereal in hand. They each walk around one side of the wall into the living room. Milada sits down on the couch, looking out the window at the other skyscrapers surrounding their tower. She waves a hand and three small windows slide up onto the glass to display her morning feed.

You busy today? Otis asks as he looks at his reflected rendering on a window, straightening his display contacts.

Got a surgery in twenty minutes, signs Milada. Then just minor stuff the rest of the day.

Okay. I'll be back for lunch. Love you. Otis swoops back through the kitchen to their apartment door and then out into the hall. Suddenly his HUD blinks with a new message.

Shirt. - Milada

Otis gestures back his reply, then stops at a wall terminal. It slides open and lights automatically and he quickly chooses from among the hour's popular styles and orders it printed. When he reaches the elevator, his shirt is waiting for him, pinned to the wall by the neutron-locks printed into the collar.

On the ride down, Otis goes through his own feed. Pointing his hands toward the elevator window, he pinches the air and pulls, resizing the screen, and then waves up his views. As has been the case for the past two weeks, the greater portion of shares have something to do with, but of course never featuring, Ghosts. Discussion about them, support for them, fear of them; they never fail to invoke a strong response. But those are all the non-Unificationist feeds, of course. From within the tower community is news on recent scientific developments, new construction and all the viral views of comically accidental mishaps anyone could want.

That gives Otis an idea. Digging. Otis never considered himself eccentric enough for the job, but many people make good money fishing through the endless data of the Cloud for interesting or amusing clips to be shared.

Otis's pondering is interrupted by a blip on his HUD. He waves it open, reading the notice. The lock on his studio door has fried. Considering and signing a quick search to see what the going rate is, he decides to avoid the fine for property neglect and to save himself the cost of contracting the job by just doing it himself. The replacement lock is already being printed anyway.

When the elevator reaches the right floor it slips into a sideways slide, circling a quarter way around the tower to finally let Otis out within view of his studio. This whole section of the tower is filled with workshops and design studios and the only unique feature of his is its number, printed right into the door.

Otis stops for a few moments at the door. It is strange, actually. For years he has prioritized all his time either for Milada or for work in the studio, or both when he could manage. But he hasn't set foot in it for over ten days and, irrational as it seems, he can't help feeling a bit like a man returning to a scorned lover. He does still love his studio, though, or at least the work he does, did, in it, but he can't be still any longer. Maybe he will come back to molecular architecture as his true calling, but he has to be sure. He has to know.

Otis sidesteps and waves his hand over the panel by the door. The wall slides open, revealing the damaged lock. The whole door-facing section is blackened, not beyond repair but beyond profitable repair. If the short hadn't taken the neutron-locks with it the whole assembly would've just replaced itself. Mankind is still needed for a few things, so Otis takes the lock by its clearly marked handle and pulls it free. Immediately the replacement slides out of a hatch, crawls along the wall as if alive, and slips itself neatly into the socket. Otis sets down the old lock on a waiting sheet of plastic which drags it away through another hatch to be parsed, broken down for base material to be reused.

As the lock socket closes, Otis steps back to the door, again secured. He smiles, remembering all the projects he has completed in there, and decides to take a quick look. It'll be reassigned soon anyway if he doesn't go back to work. He waves open the door, watching as it silently slides into the wall. He just catches a glimpse of the last lights turning on, shining down on his old printers and

A girl. Thin, fair, no more than twelve, she sits in a hoverchair, staring at him in shock. Just as Otis realizes who it is, the girl bolts forward, her hoverchair whining as she screams toward him.

Otis leaps aside just in time. It's Oyuki Okyo! The girl from the view, the first Ghost ever seen by the world. She continues her mad dash down the hall, running her chair at full speed in a sprint away from Otis. It takes Otis a few breaths to get over his shock, but then he runs after her.

Hey! he signs, although she isn't looking. Hey! Stop! As the Ghost girl disappears around the corner, he enters a full run, gesturing for a broad alert message. A Ghost! he signs to everyone. There's a Ghost in the tower!

Chapter 2

The four massive coils hum at a depth nearly beyond human hearing, or rather they cause the floor to hum, their impossibly complex metal lattices enclosed in vacuum glass canisters. The glass continues a meter into the floor, each coil anchored there to a powerful interactor. Protruding from the top of each cylinder is a gleaming receiver, a plasma arc whipping from each to the control rod set into the ceiling. Virginia leans forward on the railing, watching as the air between the coils begins to warp as if heated. Simon, sitting calmly on a stool in the middle of it all, grows more distorted with each drop in pitch as the coils reach full capacity. Finally they begin to glow, signaling readiness.

You okay? says Virginia, shouting to be heard. Simon nods back, his firm eyes fixing on her for a moment before returning to their point on the wall.

Virginia nods back, then turns aside. The wall next to her is tiled in windows showing the heads of her colleagues in this experiment. Ready? she asks, no need to shout for those distant viewers who are rendering her out of the Cloud. They all respond yes, some at greater length, others with lips out of sync from the translation played for Virginia. She turns back to Simon, leaning further on the railing. She looks on expectantly, impatiently, occasionally glancing down at her folder. The half-meter square pad sticks out perpendicular from the railing, filling the cube above it with a perfect holographic duplicate of the room Virginia stands in. Her tiny doppelganger stands with her back to Virginia's true self, looking back and forth in realtime between the folder within the folder and the holographic stool. Not at Simon, but at his stool, because in the projection, as in every rendering from the Cloud, Simon is absent. He sits before Virginia, real as anyone, as human as her, but forever absent from the Cloud's recordings.

At least until now.

The hum begins to fade out of audible range. Virginia closes her eyes, listening, and then, at the instant when she can no longer hear it but can still feel it in her bones, she signals the experiment to start. There is a moment's reverent pause as the humming ceases, the room suddenly still, and then a single glowing tendril appears out of the control rod. It sways for a moment, then extends down like lightning to Simon's head. He feels nothing, doesn't react, can't even see the blue-fire ribbon seeping into his head.

Virginia looks down at the folder: no change.

She signals the experiment to begin building. A second wisp appears, taking its own path down to Simon, and then more. Soon his whole upper skull is teeming with the ethereal lines, but they keep coming and he finally sees them. Simon smiles as his face is covered, each pore capped with an energy line. They continue down his body until his whole form is wired with wavering blue lines, almost completely obscuring him from Virginia's sight. Simon lifts an arm, moves his fingers, watches as the tendrils move with him.

Smiling, Virginia looks down. There in the duplicate room is her own copy, the coils, the stool, but still no Simon. She slams her fist on the railing, swearing under her breath for the world to hear. The tendrils don't show because they're energy, although she could easily have them simulated, but that still would not show Simon, not even a scrap of him.

Virginia looks up to see Simon smiling as he plays with the formless wires, but he stops when he sees her. Simon stands and crosses the experiment space, the tendrils following him until they wink out when he steps from between the coils. He stops at the railing. Nothing? he asks.

Virginia shakes her head, bending her elbows as she bows in defeat toward the folder. Without lifting a hand she flicks a finger at it, rewinding to show the playback of the experiment. Simon watches, sees that he is nowhere to be seen, then looks back to Virginia. Nothing, she says. Shrugging, he turns away and slips silently through a nearby door.

Snatching up the folder, Virginia waves the railing away. The coils go with it, retracting into the floor. She faces the wall of windows. Sorry, everyone, she says. That was a good concept, but we're still showing zero verification. Everyone looks disappointed at their failure, another in a long line. One by one the faces vanish, the band of volunteers returning to their lives until another test can be devised.

With the custom designed coils gone to be parsed, the room seems much larger. Virginia waves for two chairs and sits as Simon returns with a bawling baby boy. Sitting and cooing to his son, Simon soothes the boy with a warm bottle, rocking him gently. Virginia watches him, continually impressed by Simon's calm, even after everything that's happened.

I'm sorry, she says, not knowing what else to say.

Don't be, says Simon, looking at her sidelong as he caresses his son. It's not your fault.

Virginia lifts the nearly weightless folder, the space above its face still showing a rendering of the room. She sees herself in her chair, but the chair beside her is empty, a blanket wrapped baby floating above it. Nothing we've tried has worked, she says. We've been running these experiments for two weeks and we've never even been able to get a glimmer of verifiability for you.

Glancing at the folder, Simon just shrugs. I guess you've found two thousand ways not to make a User.

Virginia leans back in her chair, bending the folder in her fist. Simon, we can't just give up. You Ghosts deserve a chance to be in the Cloud like the rest of us. That was supposed to be the point of telling the world about you, so we could verify you all.

And you've been trying your best, says Simon.

But we're no closer. We still don't even know what makes you unverifiable, no less how to change it.

Pausing a moment, Simon rests his son gently in his lap, careful not to disturb him. He pulls from under one arm a thick pad. At first Virginia thinks it's a folder, but then she notices the metal binding. Simon flips through the pages, actual paper pages, and pulls free an individual sheet. Here, have a look, he says, handing her the sheet. Virginia takes it gingerly between her fingers. It flops down limply. She tries to snap it flat, but she just winds up having to use both hands.

What is it? she asks, turning the sheet as she tries to compute the scrawl of black lines crawling over its surface. She stares at it a moment longer, then realizes Simon is snickering. She looks up to see him grinning, shaking his head. What? she asks, waving the paper through the air, annoyed.

Covering his grin with one hand, Simon reaches out and takes the page back. He looks down at it, then turns it around to show to Virginia. Nodding down at it, he says, It's a portrait.

Virginia looks at it again and finally she finds the right perspective and sees the face drawn there. Turning slightly aside from the plane of the sheet, the slender face looks out through dark eyes framed by draping hair. It's Kunti, she says.

Simon nods, turning the sheet back over and holding it so the baby can see. He smiles a remembered smile as he returns the drawing to his pad. I figured that since she'll never have a chance to be in the Cloud, at least now she won't be completely forgotten. He waves the pad gently. I've done portraits of Julius, Oyuki and Miss Brown too.

Virginia leans forward and runs a hand over the edge of the pages. What about you? she asks.

Simon lays the pad beside his chair and takes back up his son, cradling the infant tenderly. If you succeed, he says softly, longingly, I won't have to. Sitting up, Simon turns more serious and asks firmly, Have any of the other research groups had any luck?

I'm afraid not, says Virginia, rubbing the arch of her nose. It's just been one failed experiment after another. It's basically a big crapshoot at this point. She reaches over and gently brushes the baby's arm. We've even gone over this little guy one molecule at a time, through the Cloud of course, but there's no sign why he's a User even though his parents are Ghosts.

Simon stands with the baby, tucking his pad back under one arm. Like you said, just a crapshoot. He gestures for Virginia to rise and she follows him toward the door. But what about the other fronts? he asks.

Eh, about the same, says Virginia. She waves the door open and they move through a short passage into the sectioned cylinder of a wormario. They take their seats on opposite sides before Virginia waves for the mini-tram to start moving. It pulls away from her lab building, filled with the latest equipment in an attempt to solve the mystery of the Ghosts. The wormario hovers through a trail of standing rings, suspended by powerful neutron-locks. Virginia frowns as she looks out the windows. The city view is distorted as if seen through blown glass. On either side of the track runs an almost-invisible curtain of nanofibers. The firewall, humanity's whining defense against the threat of