Phoenix Aloft

By Akravel Tamire

Among the ice and frigid winds of a world that once hosted vibrant isles, the last state of the old world once again retreats to the safety of artificial destiny, the image of life in the world before the freeze carried on into eternity. However, nothing ever lasts forever; the clock keeps ticking ahead, no matter what happens. Follow the paths of the peoples of this world through the decades as they rebuild and reorganize the colossal works of their minds, moving ever onwards and upwards in search of their place in the cosmos beyond! (Part 3 of 3 of the series A Dream's Bound)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Akravel Tamire
• Release date: Nov 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463277591

Akravel Tamire

There's nothing to brag about here, Akravel's just another person who likes history, science, a good story, and admittedly, video games a plenty. If anything, Akravel calls it a blessing that we live in a time where inspiration is easy to find, and works easy to share. Of course, such means would be pointless without someone on the other end; thank you for reading!

Book preview

A Dream's Bound: Phoenix Aloft

By Akravel Tamire

Copyright 2019 Akravel Tamire

Smashwords Edition

Thanks for purchasing this book! By doing so, you are granted license to view this work for your own enjoyment only. If you enjoyed this book without purchasing it and would like to see more works from this author in the future, please buy a copy and/or tell a friend about it and get them to do so.

Disclaimer: This work is fiction and only fiction. All names, characters, businesses and other entities described in this book are entirely imaginary; any resemblance to real life names, people, or businesses is purely coincidental. Also, I don't always sugarcoat things; some of the characters are horrible people who do horrible things and say horrible words while they're at it. Read at your own risk!

Table of Contents

Arc 1: Cosmic Coin Toss

Arc 2: Day Zero

Arc 3: Cognitive Dissonance

Arc 4: Market Competition

Arc 5: Chaotic Systems

Arc 6: Obsolescence and Novelty

Arc 7: Swing of The Pendulum

Arc 8: Upon Frozen Ashes

Arc 9: Wings of Ice

Arc 10: The Plummet

Arc 11: Catch the Wind

Arc 12: Metacognition

Arc 13: Memento

Arc 1: Cosmic Coin Toss

Well, here we are. There are no more great quarrels in our world. At the same time, our knowledge and machines have grown powerful enough to grow crops under the domes, dig for materials, produce all the goods we need without anyone needing to fuss over them. It's a comfortable world despite its chill, all in all. One would think, with all this, we'd done it. A world without conflict, without needs or strife; we've filled all the requirements of such a world. Not that things aren't comfortable, I can think of many ways things could've gone much worse, though, as my ancestors are wont to lament, nothing ever really is that simple these days.

Another hour had been poorly spent in Kira's eyes. A rather unremarkable specimen of a mirian, she sat with her tail draping back from her seat, glowing orange eyes over a pointed snout covered in snow-white feathers. She mulled over the idea of how long ago her distant ancestors were among the most terrifying creatures of the world's islands, bringing any beast, grazer or predator, to the ground with a hail of spears and arrows. And here she sat, one of a thousand under soft light in a greyed building, cozily warm inside despite the biting chill under empty blue skies outside. Occasionally the windows would fog, a brief light of red defrosting them periodically.

Around her sat sleek housings of plastic and metal holding arrays of canned crystalwork, thoughts among the songs of the gems flying through the air in an orchestra of telepathy. Her own mind was a component of the greater ensemble, the flow of thoughts filtering through the patterns printed into the building itself revealed to her mind's sight whenever she closed her eyes. Already, she could sense a mind from afar reaching out, thoughts echoing over the loci of the towns and cities, bouncing from one to the next, the mind of the tower ultimately shuffling it to her.

Thariak Proven Patterns, this is Kira, how may I help you today?

>Ah, hi there! Yeah I have a cold melt prototyper here, model A-713, and every time I hit 'solidify' after the last update, it cuts its link and spits out a cube.

Is it linked right now?

>I'll turn it back on.

Her mind had already sent its sight trailing back along their line, awaiting the crystalwork on the other end. Her service ID was greeted with a mental checkmark, permitting her sight into the misbehaving crystal-former. She saw his device, attached distributor, devices all around his home working harmoniously in shared thought. She saw the device's recordings of its own workings, errors listed out before her along with a history of his attempts to create various psi-ready items with it, some everyday, some endearing, though a few entries had her snickering inside...

All the same, she spotted the deviating commands, trailing from a symbolic interpreter that worked just fine, only its dictionary had been scribbled over by an errant write. From where she sat, she printed a correction to it from a fourth of a world away, her own mind driving telekinesis through her extended sight to blow free an accretion of gunk on the machine's crystals and vents as well.

You should be good to go now. The vents were a bit dirty, too; I cleaned those for you.

She pulled back, seeing his test going through.

>Looks like it works! You probably just saved my whole demo tomorrow, thanks!

The machines about her were aware on their own, the tower itself harboring its own thoughts. However, the overarching mind couldn't be bothered to split herself a thousand ways to respond to complaints and calls for help; at the same time, organic clients preferred the coziness of an organic mind to share thoughts with. As such, she picked people like Kira to handle these matters.

Yet, Kira always felt her mind underutilized. She found herself lingering between messages, toying with her console and occasionally spinning up new patterns to pass the time. Officially it was a misuse of her superior's hardware, though said superior was well aware of her doing so and never seemed bothered.

I'd be happy to help people out and patternweave for the sake of it, you know… at least it's an alright line of work, even if it's boring whenever it isn't frantic.

As the sun trailed its orange glow past the windows, the clock ticked its hours past, finally showing the end of her day in the mid-afternoon. She gathered her things, black plastic of her polytool on her wrist, heading down and out.

>Ah, Kira?

Hey boss, something the matter?

>The Nebula report, says you'll be asking to leave us?

I am?

>That's what it says. I'm unsure why.

I don't know either. Surprised you're telling me!

>The Nebula network makes predictions, however, it cannot predict what the impact of its own predictions are.

You're hoping that telling me will turn it false.

>It's a hope; you've done well here, though I won't forbid your leaving. If that's your choice, best of luck out there.

Thanks!

She thought to herself, a bit uncertain of her chances. I guess.

It brought a sense of alertness to her, if only briefly. She'd never been the type to get uptight about matters, even if, with the owner of her work also being the owner of her home, leaving meant truly leaving.

I do want to chase a future as a freelance patternweaver, I admit! But, I can start on that… eh, tomorrow.

Carrying along, she shared nods with a few heading out; telepathically encapsulated thoughts were occasionally left dangling in the air for passing minds to take, append, or dispel as they wished. She sent her thoughts to her own polytool, crystals hidden within plastic under her sleeve, querying her account; she never bothered making a schedule, often handling errands spontaneously whenever necessity didn't make a mandate.

She didn't need to go this very day, but tomorrow was a day off and she preferred to avoid crowding it with errands. On a whim, she turned away from her homewards path to approach the tram station headed to the icefront bazaar. The trams were always nearly full this time of day but never truly were; there was already a train of cylindrical cars and a sleek-nosed locomotive arriving, all the space inside already alloted. Her seat had already been assigned. The Nebula net and by extension the transit computers already knew where she'd be going before she even had her whim, and had already reserved her seat.

It's a wonder of a system that can make all its clients feel favored; too bad most people aren't the kind to look under the casings. Oh well, if everyone was a technician I'd be out of a job, which wouldn't be a bad thing if it weren't for that whole food and shelter issue.

The metal exterior of the tram was cold, but the interior was warm and inviting enough, well lit, full but not crammed. Each bench seat was warmed and cozy on its own with room underneath for cargoes. Trains were among the most energy-frugal means of transit, coming into vogue as the final war that unified the world came to an end with energy almost running out. As the ships of war returned, contributing their nuclear-fueled power to the civilian loci, the concern ultimately was short lived, though the trams were built anyway; Kira thus needed not worry about roads taking up valuable space or multi-ton hazards speeding down them while doing her errands.

Space seemed a bit easier to come by these days though. Looking out the windows, cool to the touch from the frigid air outside, she watched the ice flats roll past. As the oceans cooled to match the air, the ice sheets had grown, now becoming permafrosts. The ice was sturdy enough to build on; over the last two decades their world had gone from being less than a fifth landmass to being less than a fifth exposed water. All that shiny white just shined the sunrays back skywards, a brilliant glow bouncing about the glass and metal of the city.

The train slowed, stopping with a brief pneumatic hiss, the doors silently sliding open. Stepping out, she strolled off to select her groceries; she'd set and published her favorites and her choice was already in a case waiting for her. Running her fingers along the cold railings, she could still see stirring among the errant wisps thoughts of others afar whose minds and work had passed through the markets. She saw a glimpse of the hydrodome, a climate-controlled layering of hydroponics under a namesake geodesic dome, growing massive vats of algae and goo using vast amounts of power that the nuclear grid was now comfortably providing.

The resulting sludge was spread out into layers, cleaned, dissolved, reconstituted, resulting in a paste that was then cast into shape, becoming polymer products sold as noodles, meat, roots and fruits, mineral powders emulating spices and such on the side. From the conveyors and into packages, they were sealed, labeled, branded, piped over, and finally sorted and packaged into the container sitting in a slot, Kira's name right on it. It all looked and tasted the same as what these foods were inspired by, the fruit delicious and juicy, the meat cookable to include in any number of delicacies. One notable difference, some of the elders had noticed, was the effect on one's health, eating this sort of food. Nutritionally enriched to a well refined formula, it was one of the cited factors for Kira's life expectancy topping 95 years of which at least eighty she would expect to be healthy and productive.

For some reason, people are still willing to hand over ridiculous amounts of money for 'real' spices. The powder mixes just fine when I use it.

The fact she hadn't gone far never really bothered her as such. Of those eighty healthy and productive years, she'd only spent twenty-two so far.

I never really knew the 'lush' world the old folks talk about, but at least the sun's out now. People don't really talk about the old world much anyway. It wasn't so much blue as blood-red in a sense from what I'd read of it, and, the great fire and winter that it ended with... it's not really polite to talk about... anyway… well, maybe my friends are on the network?

Returning home, she stepped off the platform, across the elevated walkway towards a basic square glass tower. Some of the more affluent though still non-land-owning of the city would reside in upscale helical towers, with flowing curved windows providing more window area for the denizens to get a pleasant view while relaxing in their spacious, luxuriously furnished suites. They also paid all the more for the power to heat that much additional surface area, and the maintenance for such luxuries in a structure full of frivolities.

The one she lived in was best described as 'traditional' in appearance, built well before the great winter, though it was clean with solid concrete trailing up between the windows. Her own flat was buried within the core of the building, ninth floor, no windows. She stepped in, waving a hand as the lights lit themselves and the wall displays lit to mimic windows, the lights each a small ball of quartz crystal holding a simple pattern strumming off waves of light from waves of psi, able to reproduce any color or combination thereof, the 'natural' setting rather cozy to the eye. The building's infrastructure was simple and functional. Reliably functional, at that, and the heat from her and her neighbors' various widgets and appliances offset some of the heating needs. All said, she never really did have to worry much about her budget despite her mundane occupation.

Stocking her kitchenette full, she returned the case back to the building's loaders, letting the elevators ferry it back down to the bottom level for automatic return. She often spent her free hours much as she spent her productive hours, sitting in an ensemble of crystalwork, tending and mending patterns when she wasn't indulging in the latest gossip slipped into the locus or sharing a dream with her friends. It was an art in itself, constructing and navigating these fantasies, though at times she lamented to herself how her body had withered as her mind had grown for it.

Such is a day in my life. I really should get out on the ice more...

As dreams were dreams, she needn't quit them when it came time to rest. A late night meal of hearty noodles and vegetable stew nonetheless left her tired, soon retiring to sleep adjacent faint blue glows spiraling under black curved plastic. She found herself curling into her own thoughts as the city locus quieted to the ambiance of utilitarian machine chatter. An hour after dawn, her own machines sent a pinging notice to her mind, waking her. She stirred, yawned, stretched, then curled up again, thinking of the various bits of old thoughts lingering on the winds, the banter she'd planned to put up, such and so... until she opened her eyes again. It was then almost noon.

Gods dammit!

She looked over. The date was plainly shown in a thought, the 44th day of autumn, 4221 by their world's primary calendar.

Well, tomorrow's here, even if I've already pissed some of it away. At least I'm well rested. I was gonna do something today… right!

Quickly setting up another batch of noodles, this time with spiced bread and meatballs, she returned to her desk, dusting out the drawers full of racks of cylinders, each carrying a monocrystal array inside. A single processor can was surrounded by a rack of datacans, twenty trillion symbols worth of storage in her drawer acting as a mindspace for her use and available to the locus when she chose.

I put it together from… stuff I found out back. Recycling! Maybe I ought sell space on it while I'm at it…

She had it set up as a receptacle for messages sent to her over the network and idle storage for her own work. There was more than enough room for her thoughts and imaginings solidified into a mindspace for the presence of others' minds on the network to roam around in, investigating her work should they choose, once she had work to put on display.

Actually, maybe selling my spare space will be what I start out with…

She had the rest of that day off to herself, enjoying her meal while her mind wandered in a productive daydream, linked into her machine as she floated about an empty space, carving ten trillion symbols of future imaginings into a thousand different parcels, one of which she used as front and storage for her own imaginings conjured into tangible furnishings, painting the walls of her blank space with images from her mind before treading into said images. Such tricks could expand the imagined terrain almost limitlessly, though the detail and description was always limited by the space of thought available; fortunately she had no shortage. From her mind, she painted a glowing bazaar of stylized industry, swooping lines invoking the concepts of motion and convenience, the metallic conduits and sturdy buildings invoking thoughts of practicality and productivity. She planned it as just one stop available to a glass-cabin taxi, linking the thousand parcels for visitors to roam and perhaps claim if they wished for one of their own.

Capturing a 'nutshell' essence of her vision, she wrapped it up, slinging it over the back of her mind as she trailed the amber glows of her mind's presence through the city mindspace, towards administration, aiming to register her new enterprise. On the way, a message sang into her thoughts, calling her over to the adjacent service on an official summons.

Veering off on her unplanned detour, stifling a hint of dread and unsure of what the city's rulers wanted with her, she set her presence down within a small chamber, merely a flat plane on which to stand with nothing but black above. It wasn't particularly menacing, though it did give the impression of being 'outside' what was normally traveled, not a place to stay.

>Ah, Ms… Kira Antharem?

Kira looked around on hearing the voice, spotting its source resolving into a green glow, a presence of a sythian, one of the world's amphibious creatures built much as a mirian though bare skinned with hints of blues and greens, carrying driving fins rather than feathers. The presence, however, was all too crisp---that of a crystalwork mind in sythian form.

This looks like the preclusion office. Am I in trouble?

>That this is. To answer your question, not as it stands, though you were going to transgress on noospheric customs laws. I'd suggest reading article 43-NC, sections A through G in particular, before putting your service out to the public.

The visage ahead of her conjured the documents, registering to her imagination as a book, and insisted that she accept them.

Oh, erm, thanks.

>That's my job. Farewell!

She walked out of there, rather quickly shaking off those unsettling feelings as she carried on. Pereci, the ruling power of the world, no longer needed much of a justice system. They knew when and where any transgression would happen ahead of time and always moved to preclude it, hence the preclusion offices and their officers. She knew well that in earlier times, elusive criminals and flawed enforcement led to cruel and unforgiving punishments at times out of apparent necessity. With essentially perfect enforcement available ahead of time, the officers of her day did only what was needed to preclude the transgression. They often simply handed out information, otherwise stepping in to see that whatever problem or ailment would lead a citizen astray got resolved. Now that Kira had been informed, she'd be spending a while making her constructs of thought NC-compliant, and that was that.

Why pull me in when they could’ve just sent me a message, though? Were they trying to spook me? But if so, why? They usually try not to be intimidating.

She readily put it out of mind, rather focusing on getting her new income stream set up. In some cities, registration was a question of having a lot of money, in others, the approval of the local leaders; though Pereci's queen held the final say over all the world's laws, she tended to let her territories use their own codes to fill in the details locally. As Chariv was close to the border of former Tiprisia, a state once known for its embrace of money and business of all colors, the local system made starting businesses simple and quick. Ten minutes of reading, a couple of signatures, and Kira had her registration. After fixing her service, the following day she paraded it around. Slow going it was, a matter relegated to her off hours along with the work of making products to hang on the walls of her thoughtspace.

She mulled over a few ideas. A means to automatically 'nutshell' thoughtspaces in bulk? People were already using other tools for that. A better and more personal mailbox secretary program? People wouldn't care if it wasn't free. Making that free pointed to other tools she tried her hand at, yet her lone work didn't interest the larger clients of the Pereci heartland who wanted a name trustworthy, reliable, one that was already big. It was a polite way of telling her to get back in her place.

At least, well, selling the space itself is making me more than I'm spending powering it. A little bit of extra income, some of which goes to the landlord…

The cold of the passing winter seemed fitting for the moment, though it was easily ignored otherwise. Seeing no freedom from her situation, she set her thoughts free to the world along with her idle ponderings.

I suppose that is my 'place'. I live, I work, I enjoy, I die, and none shall remember, no more memorable than any of the millions of cells dying every day in one's body. It's accepted that way in Pereci proper, but just to the east in what used to be the nations of Kalvod, people think differently; they think of themselves. To the southeast, in the lost republic, people no longer know who they are. People remember well their old glory near the equator. There used to be a commonwealth there. But now they're just happy with their gadgets, like the rest of us. Valnor, to the south, are always our friends, but they've been really quiet lately. It's a comfortable life, but our noosphere's still got seams showing. Our lady Thara has it all sewn together though, right?

She shared her thoughts without a worry. There were some thoughts the ladies of the land wouldn't approve of, but they had much more elegant ways of tending to that than force. She trusted that if it would've caused trouble, she wouldn't have thought to pin it up in the first place.

A green signature slid down at at angle in her dropbox, a simple sentiment from a dragon curious about her work, carrying a cheery tone.

>We all got along doing business before, no? I'd like to discuss your patternwork; come by for a visit in spirit maybe? Greetings from Atevero Rai, Lavsvai.

As a nation, Lavsvai was long gone, though as a place, the westernmost continent, far, far to the southeast below the equator, had long kept its character, filled with peoples who had previously chosen to abstain from government entirely. The only true autonomous communities remaining however were ones of robots, as the only food available came from Pereci. The other of the world's continents, Altavim to the immediate east of Lavsvai, was in a similar state, once hosting its namesake empire, now long relegated to texts of history. Of course, actually going there in person was a bit beyond her means.

Fortunately, there were other ways of making one's presence seen. On her following day off, she followed that message back to its source, sending her mind's sight bouncing from one locus to the next, showing the light of her mind against the periphery of the dragon's chunk-of-noosphere, a bit of energy sending an analogue to a knock on the door.

On being invited in, the small projectors around the walls of the dragon's shack did well to transfer her thoughts into the open, a hint of telekinesis forming a fuzzy barrier to define her glowing form. She found herself within one of several rooms, each over eight meters tall. It would've been an open mansion to most complete with a view of actual sea outside, though it was rather humble by dragon standards. A square room with bluish walls marked with the dancing dots of thinking crystals surrounded her presence. Where her physical body sat, she'd just had her morning breakfast and drink, the morning sun high outside.

Before her, half a world away beside a window showing the dim light of an evening sky, a somewhat pudgy and sleepy looking feathered dragon lay back on a massive bean bag chair, deep blue feathers with black markings, vibrant green eyes looking her way. Dragons were at least twice the size of mirians on reaching adulthood, sometimes upwards of threefold the size with increased strength of both body and mind to match, yet physiologically they were quite similar to their more conventionally sized counterparts.

He reached out in a gesture of greetings, Dze svamus, friend.

Kira gave a nod and a smile, though she didn't know the Lavsvaian tongue. Her thoughts took a moment to reach her improvised avatar, converted back to her voice, manifested by direct force shoving the air in an oscillation. Mister train-of-primes?

You can call me Ito if you wish. I didn't think you would actually come so soon, but welcome!

She hopped over, her plasma-like avatar easily gliding about, Sorry if I'm interrupting anything.

Not at all!

She found her springy step a bit unwieldy. Her feedback was delayed, though the delay between what she saw and what she felt was slightly different, creating an almost nauseating dissonance.

Sheesh, I think the interlink's on the fritz again. She shook her head, steadying herself. But what's on your mind?

I think the latest, iztvelmar, the um... He sent his thoughts out to call a translation back. Auto-sync did break the thing a little. Ah, yes, anyway, I was taking a look through some of the patterns you've put together, what you've shaped. The way you think has me curious. Take what you think if I were to give you one of these. I'm curious, not merely of what you think, but how you think about this?

He put his hands together before spreading out a diorama of shapes from telekinesis, an entire scape on which to pose his questions and ideas. Quickly trailing into some rather abstract territory as she satisfied his curiosity, Ito painted out a fractal landscape from her answers. She picked up on this, her own thoughts being diced and reconstituted by his analysis as she pinned down what generated the landscape.

The algorithm's really that obvious? He tilted his head.

She smiled briefly. I had a hunch once I doubled back on myself and saw that thing uncurl.

The last person I had here didn’t see the pattern at all.

Seriously?

Yes! Actually you think a bit differently than most I have met.

Thanks... I think. Different in a good way, right?

I would say yes. He chuckled briefly. If you ask me I think you're a bit underappreciated.

Thanks! You've got a lot behind your eyes yourself, which makes me think you run something?

She could always hope for a better job, and she did remember well the fact that she would be leaving her old one soon.

Ah, no. The Marey family's provided my abode here.

She sat back briefly. The continents have a lot of open land, don't they?

These days, I suppose they do. Not many enjoy the sights of what used to be a forest...

Ever think of striking out on your own?

"Ah, that idea. No, Themaru likes having me around too much to just let me take all my roots up. Though that does remind me of an old Kalvodian saying... ‘When there are no opportunities, make one.’ But those were more chaotic times. At least people don't have to worry about ending up on the streets these days."

Still, sometimes it gets a bit boring. One day, then the next. All the same, then eventually, it's done. And where would we have gone?

I suppose that's the question, isn't it?

There wasn't much time left in the night, though the two had enough time to share a casual conversation. That old topic died down quickly, though it still simmered in the back of Kira's mind. In the end, bowing her head, she sent her farewell, letting her avatar disperse into a wisp, fading into nothing as her connection closed. She had hopes she'd just made a valuable friend here, but, didn't gamble on it. There were other opportunities to chase after all, and tomorrow was another day.

Casually carrying on once she had her next stretch of free time, she queried the loci ahead of herself, looking over opportunities popping up in the continents, though there was seldom any news. Every now and then, she had to re-send her thoughts when checking continental matters.

It's still on the fritz! But that's life.

All the same, she never had to try more than twice. Only a week after meeting Ito, she eyed a message following her back, finding its way to her on the second attempt. It was clearly addressed to her, but it was obfuscated, the thoughts rehashed into noise, only to be restored to sensible order with the right thought to decode them. The methods of her day would require a volume of processors greater than that of the world longer than the lifespan of the universe to remove the obfuscation as these methods were proofed against both conventional and nondeterministic attacks.

Nothing says I can't try to guess the key, though.

Letting her curiosity get the better of her, she persisted over two evenings, longer than most would be bothered with, effectively longer than a crystal mind could be bothered to try as well. After all, nobody expected lowly Kira to get anything important; hobbyists sent obfuscated messages around all the time. However, she had more than a hunch that it related to her meeting with Ito. In the end, she found the key: her own name, woven through the very engine of shapes Ito had previously spun her thoughts through.

>From: Themaru Marey

>Good evening, Kira. Apologies for the inconvenient envelope; I've decided to avoid complicating your relationship with your current overseer. Hopefully you've been well? I've noticed your work and your thoughts. Perhaps you'd wish to work with us on self-sustaining wisps?

She felt surprise, though any excitement was readily tempered. Self sustaining wisps? Without an anchor? … Doesn't this go against the entire foundation of aerial constructs?

>I know, you might be thinking that this goes against the entire framework of current aerial patternwork.

She blinked.

>It does! Which is why we're approaching wispcraft from an entirely different direction, binding the carriers of psi energy among themselves and expanding from there. It's one of several new projects we have going here in Atevero Rai, all of which need a keen mind to make headway on. If you'd like to have a hand in these developments, I'll arrange your transit, a seat for you here, and a monthly stipend of 1.3 million note to keep you going.

The number was less impressive that it looked at first, as 300 note would buy only a candy bar, however it was still about three times her current pay. At first, the entire matter was a bit stunning to her; she was speechless, though she thoughtfully kept calm and quiet. There was no need to alert her current superior that the outbound pebble was actually an overlooked gem.

If my boss knew about this, I wouldn't be going anywhere. Obviously the nebula report doesn't say everything. The distinguished families have a bit of a juggle handling that. You have to share parts for it to be useful, but share too much and the prediction is ruined. I wouldn't be leaving if my ex-boss knew to stop me. Then again, sometimes I wonder if they really do know everything or not.

Rather than make a fuss, she gathered her things together, sending a calm acceptance back with the same obfuscation. She now knew the time she'd be leaving; her overseer had already known via the nebula report so there was no point in announcing it. Rather, she simply packaged her things and finished her farewells the day before her departure.

The airship was on schedule, her former abode cleaned out, left furnished with the appliances fixed to the walls and displays embedded within though her personal belongings were all loaded into crates sent ahead of her, entrusted to the metal platforms of the automated logistics systems. An early, quiet tram ride brought her out of town towards the short buildings around the beach front, the docks supporting a contrastingly tall skydock leading up to the airship looming behind it. As the sea was now ice, the dock facilities mostly served as an airport now.

The aircraft awaiting her was a silvery one, 180 meters long, showed the ridges of its sturdy frame gently under a glistening envelope. Thinly trussed and railed fins along the side held the telekinetic patterns that shoved air around them opposite where the craft needed to go, a handful of emitters making use of the entire area contained between them. The top of the envelope showed a few windows along with the gondola below, the nose showing a long antenna ending with a narrow hollow cone of titanium, riveted near the front, painted blue at the back. It and its projections were a boon in breaking the air, sparing more power than it consumed in doing so, also aiding in maneuvering and giving just a bit more protection against the weather. Fortunately, this craft would only take three days to take her over the curve of the globe.

Fast and agile heavier-than-air aircraft were available; however, most powerplants amenable to mindworks benefited dramatically from scale, particularly in this world now depleted of any convenient chemical fuels. Airplanes were exceedingly burdensome energy drains dependent on the power transmitted from loci below while aerial ships, on top of being more energy efficient, were like their naval counterparts in enjoying the boon of power converters spanning their entire length should they need to use them. Her flight would be nonstop, and as the craft didn't need a big noisy connection to draw power through, she and the other passengers would be free to sample the thoughts of the loci they passed over with no worry of interference.

As expected, they'd just started loading by the time she had her affairs in order; with no other nations opposing Pereci, there was little fuss over papers or luggage, just a simple check to make sure nothing hazardous was accidentally left in a bag. She already had her preparations set, her passage already registered before she even set foot inside the port.

Though a bitter chill hung about the port, a wave of warm air swept past on her way inside, a coziness contrasting the stark ice seen past the windows. The cozy air continued up the elevator, through the gangway, all the way to the airship proper. The airship's interior was quite cozy, colored deep blue with a gradient to black above, silvery highlights around. Each passenger had plenty of room in the gondola, with their own seat having just enough room to shift into a bed of sorts. The stairs up led into the envelope between the gas bags, the upper deck a place for those aboard to socialize and stretch their legs, given a walkway around the perimeter with four tables and six benches sitting over the crew's bunks, provisions storage, and the kitchenette. The bottom of the gondola carried the cargo, serving as a stabilizing keel in doing so.

Free from the watchful eye of her former superior, she spent more time investigating her new project as the airship shifted, ascending skyward. A brief rumble preceded it accelerating ahead, a gradual increase rather than a lurch, a distant roar to the ears though the noise was readily seen to the mind's eye. Shielded by the cabin, it was also easy enough to ignore. She already had access to her new workspace through an obfuscated feed, revealing her new coworkers' progress in suspending constructs, entire working machines made of pure thought in nothing but air. As long as they didn't run out of power, they would persist. Even Thara's thoughts on the wind would readily dissipate without the very physical loci they were channeled from.

And what would everyone making anchors for wisps do? I suppose it isn't the first time people have had to retrain.

At times she tried to make conversation with the others aboard, though none of them seemed interested. It was an odd matter how certain thoughts seemed to just fall out of discussion, even with herself; the thought of the effects of simple sunlight on these floating wisps wasn't even a thought to her either until she'd gotten a call from the continents. Floating high in the sky, she even played with the thought on her polytool, suspending wisps ahead of her own sight.

The thin air outside provided less of a barrier between the sun's piercing rays and the window next to her tool. One of the effects of rapid particles crashing into matter was the disruption of any pattern on them, punching holes through the finest woven thoughts, degrading and ultimately destroying them. One of her thoughts of something to do on the flight was to use these rays as a power source by catching them directly in a suspended field using no material, perhaps gaining more power than would be spent in restoring degraded patterns. Attempting to catch them in a 'wind trap' pattern yielded almost nothing… what she got was a pattern filled with noise when she came back to it.

At least I'm already getting familiar with their work though… and this noise is a good source of randomness. Stick it in a procedural generator and I'll be wandering crystal landscapes for a while.

Passing through the lower reaches of the stratosphere made for a smooth ride, calm and peaceful. Even if people seemed uninterested in her own work, subconsciously avoiding it, they were still polite enough in other conversation. She watched the ice roll by, transitioning to slush-coated terrain, leading out to the last strip of ocean at the equator. The waters were deep blue, extremely salty; nothing lived there anymore. However, the border between ocean and land as well as ocean and ice did sport rather beautiful bands of purplish sediment turning brown in areas. Those bands were what remained of the goo that killed the world by leaving the air devoid of the carbon plants needed to grow. That and the ashen winter that ended it were what put their world on ice, now a new equilibrium where only bacteria and a handful of amoeba survived.

It wasn't a dreary sight to all, though. Some were out digging up that colored ice as it could be melted down and reprocessed. The rich brown ice could even be burned straight after digging it up. For that reason, she watched a hole in the ice, the large square carved out of it floating by below. Trailing along the southern slush line, the airship approached the Lavsvaian north, once a torrid desert, now barely warm enough to be comfortable in the summer.

Many of the cities to the north had been cleaned up and resettled. The icy south, however, remained the domain of only the daring robots and uploads who persisted as independent. To most in Pereci, they were considered to be nothing more than roving hordes of strange but mostly harmless people, having essentially no relevance on the global scene even if their antics were amusing at times. Northern Lavsvai had been pulled into Pereci's sphere recently; cities once ravaged by hungry masses were now cleaned up properly, their buildings repaired, roads cleaned, the old railways and rusted, graffiti-covered railcars repaired and re-polished up to Pereci standards.

These cities were still sparsely populated, homes left derelict by those lost to the hordes having been reclaimed, cleaned out, refurbished, now sitting as rows of restored homes awaiting new occupants. Quite a bit of effort had gone into making it look as if the events of decades prior had never happened... As it stood though, Kira now had her own separate house, with over ten times the personal area of her former abode and three times the area inside. It cost essentially the same all together, and with her few belongings she couldn't help but think of how empty it would end up looking. Such could be fixed in time, especially with what she’d be making now! Stepping down, she exited the seafront, finding several automated buses loading from her arrival and a marine vessel in port.

They all look the same to me… ah, flip the crystal coin.

She queried her polytool, sourcing the noisy pattern she’d kept from her flight to choose one of the buses, stepping ahead then aboard. It was already full, leaving her standing in the aisle, a situation markedly unusual. She shared a few awkward glances with the other passengers before slipping to the back.

The second bus behind had a vacancy, ultimately stopping briefly where nobody would get off, and its expected new passenger was nowhere to be found.

Kira found herself sailing right past where she'd intended to disembark as the bus she was on didn’t seem to know anyone needed to stop there; usually they knew in advance. Rather, she then signaled manually, stepping off on the next stop, backtracking a kilometer on foot past rows of houses, to find the crates of her belongings awkwardly piled on a sand garden as she hadn't been around to accept them.

Is everything on the fritz out here?

She shook her head briefly before bringing her belongings inside. Despite the technical issues, she had no concerns with her belongings being out in the open. Some may worry about weather, but save for wind it would only ever dust a tiny bit of snow if that. Ion squalls, periods of incredible and destructive thunder, were at times a concern in the region, though the next one wasn't due for several months. They never used to happen, but as the engine of the world's rains stalled out, the bands of air currents carried over the incredibly smooth surface of this once-water-world simply kept their charged airmasses aloft with no means for that charge to reach ground until a mass happened to fall under a warm pocket driven up by a landmass. Such was why every major structure in a continental city now had a reinforced lightning rod and grounding mount, the lesser structures shielded by their taller neighbors.

As her new home wasn't quite within the urban sphere, it had its own lightning rod out back, opposite the glass cylinder covering ahead of the study. The foyer first greeting her had a dome window on the ceiling letting in light from above, with a full kitchen to the side, not one but three rooms adjacent on the right among other amenities.

No, I'm not interested in getting a family yet. Stop hinting it please… then again I could just turn that room into a workshop and use the other as an office.

The walls had plenty of room to mount displays, though none were built in; actual windows were present after all. As she'd thought, it looked decidedly empty. As soon as she had the crystalwork in the walls properly attuned between her own hardware and the locus, she updated all her pointers, aiming back to her new abode. Already she had more curious sights looking through her work, future colleagues trying to get to know her already. Some of her old friends seemed a bit envious.

'What great feat moved me to the next rung'? Honestly I think my achievements on their own got me nowhere. Opportunities come to those who already have them; I guess I was just lucky enough to bump into someone who was nice and had opportunities to spare. Thinking about it makes the matter seem a bit hollow… but I won't argue with it, the work's more interesting and I'll finally be able to afford my own cold melt setup.

Once she'd settled in and begun her work in earnest, she found that even her new working arrangements felt spacious, awkwardly so at first. Rather than being crammed into an alloted square of thoughtspace and given the run of the network for her sight, she and everyone around her had an entire separate plane of thought at their disposal along with a spread of equipment in the underlying physical realm, their building a rather unique 'bulging pyramid' in shape. She never had to watch her tongue as much either, as her peers were more informal; the local dragon Ito was oft roaming about, sometimes carrying heavy hardware around, once seen with one of his coworkers riding atop it all.

Once, he looked back to her. I'm surprised you just dropped it all and came here just like that.

Well, all my friends are on the network anyway and the only words my family ever had for me was 'get a rich husband'.

Ah, well, we're all family in a sense here anyway, which is why I heard of the whole tram incident.

What incident?

Rumor is the second you stepped onto the tram, a whole comedy of errors started cascading around. The izol-er, the, auto-assignment processor, has a failure rate less than one per five thousand, and it never cascades a failure normally.

I've had a bit of a feeling that there's a wrench in the gears somewhere or another, probably in the wayward interlink. I don't know why that would break things here, though.

Neither do we; in fact the whole thing shouldn't even be possible to happen with the Preclusion on it. This has us thinking curiously.

I'll be happy to share once I figure out what's happening myself.

Settled in, such matters sat simmering on their minds, occasionally bantered on breaks though the projects of the day took front stage. She caught sight of the dark blue sythian Themaru in passing, Themaru stopping by to chat while the two shared a break and tea. He owned the building, her house, and all the houses around it; for that matter, much of the city. His family was close to the mayor's before Pereci had taken over, and he had a mind to abide the old Leneuan styling of Pereci, seeing to it his lands were well kept and well established. He didn't demand any special courtesies beyond basic politeness; his blood was Pereci but his mind was continental. If anything, his being so easy to approach was one of the reasons his group had stayed so cohesive despite being a motley one with members from the world around.

Though her mind was often caught in contemplation on the art of truly unsupported wisps, the thought of that touch of chaos she had seen often returned. And so, she concocted the Grocery Experiment. It was no more than a trip to the market to pick up food where by and large the shop already knew what you would select, though on the continents the ritual of ordering things was often entertained anyway to give customers a sense of agency. She sent in her order, picking out her staple bread without so much as looking at her polytool. Then she brought up her polytool, using the heat-based random number generator to randomly select her fruits---three slots, the last three for roots chosen by the sun-scrambled pattern.

As she stepped past the window, cart in tow, the grains and base staple was already there as usual. So were the fruits. There was a bit of rustling around back there about the roots.

The red-feathered mirian on the other side of the window peeked out. Are you sure you didn't send in for apir root?

I'm pretty sure I checked the box by 'katch'. But I'll take apir, if it'll make your lives easier.

In the end, she got what she would've otherwise picked by her own permission. She did give him another brief look after thanking him. You do have some kind of extra storage back there, right?

We never needed to. But, thanks for your business, ma'am!

Never needed to… of course, there's no point in keeping a stockpile when you know exactly who will need what ahead of time. That works... She gently adjusted her polytool as she tucked her goods away. … until it turns out you don't.

She didn't need to inconvenience anyone in order to conduct her experiments, simply accepting what was provided even if it wasn’t what she asked for, aiming merely to expose their arrangement. Yet, in a further test, there wasn't any deviance. They immediately had everything all ready, including the items she'd picked out of that scrambled pattern. Her suspicions were already there; she checked all the equipment she had around her home. Indeed, there was still a hint of residual glow from an external requisition. She knew the potentials used and the decay rate, pinning the time to be during her sleep the previous night. That pattern she was using had been pulled right off her polytool; she could only imagine it was then integrated into the nebula network. Now they knew it, and could figure out ahead of time which parts she would use to sample from.

By such time, the stir was dying down anyway. She filed the thought in the back of her mind, mulling over ways to generate a new pattern. The matter of true randomness often popped up in probabilistic processing but in common use was never properly employed. Such processors weren't casually offered to commoners, even friends of the distinguished, though she did see a simpler way to go about it. A trip to the hardware store after work would give her all she needed to make her own generator. It would need a little uranium… but in a world where uranium was energy in metallic form, the world's best particle shielding, and the heaviest convenient crystal among many other things, such was available at a hardware store in plate or bar stock, natural or depleted. Enriched was available to those properly licensed, but any kind would do for her.

>Kira! One moment.

Themaru sent his thoughts from afar, the two sharing thoughts over a boosted link, the city's crystalwork providing countless channels for banter on a whim. Kira let her thoughts reach through her polytool, chatting as she made her way towards the store.

Yes, boss?

>I thought I should pass on word about this. People up high are still talking about some of the high jinks you've been up to.

How up high? I've just been doing things anyone can, nothing illegal here.

>It is technically not illegal, but, apparently you made continental intercon a little nervous and they were talking to Thara about it. Word came to me about it and there are more than a few people who'd really rather you leave the uranium sit.

She hesitated briefly, before carrying on her way.

Did they say why it's such a big deal? I haven't done anything that couldn't be done by anyone else.

>I asked and they wouldn't tell.

Thara herself, though…

>Well to be fair, Thara has a good ten thousand instances of herself running around like bees in a hive, but I could imagine things getting 'interesting' if you push the issue. Kira, I'd personally not want to get wrapped up in it.

… Understood, boss.

She passed up the hardware store entirely. She lived it out as just another day, though the thought was well registered in her mind. In the lull of 4222, she sat on her ideas. The little bit of chaos she'd caused quietly dissipated into the past as people made their arrangements for new years.

I can't stop thinking about it though. The moment I make an actual independent choice beyond the nebula's eyes, Thara herself hears about it? ... I guess it's easier to just move along. But, I guess I'm broken in the sense that I just can't go sweeping things under the rug so easily.

She'd eyed another service: Thara's own mailbox. Each city had one for leaving notes to Thara and her people, and each region had its own name for it. The locals called it the fountain box; another popular name from the equator was the 'wishing well'. Her message to the lady who ruled the world: Kira Antharem here. Want to talk about uranium?

All said, she expected a lot of nothing in response, as the many others who would send in thoughts could expect. Rather, she wanted to just send a thought, a passive comment on the disconnect between what she knew and what Thara knew. She thus carried on with her matters; all she wanted to do was stick a piece of uranium inside of a vacuum chamber. The flying particles shot out would do well to make high quality noise on demand. Fortunately, such a chamber also was handy to test suspended patterns in, the topic blending in with her work until it no longer stuck out at all. It wasn't too long though, her mind taking a stroll about the city's mindspace, that the glowing path ahead brought her into a space normally off limits once more, one behind which the world seemed to echo beyond the walls.

From lines and wisps materialized an illusion of a space, a semitransparent floor presiding over the glows and whites of their icy world, a curved horizon ahead.

>Kira Antharem… you're too stubborn to let this go, are you? The thoughts of the crystal echoes depicted out the visage of a grey-scaled dragon towering before her, looking down at her with a yellow-white gaze, a simple black suit contrasting with the white terrain below, sharp yet plain and practical. >You wanted to talk about uranium? Thara's echoing voice consolidated to match her avatar. The dragon gestured down, a table forming in a flash, a plain metal but well-engraved with styles of art from all over the world. >Have a seat.

Kira hesitated; she found herself a bit frozen as the dragon looked at her with the world behind her eyes. She had no idea even how to properly address the queen of the world, and didn't want to hazard saying the wrong address, all on top of the sheer stunning surprise of the situation.

>You wanted to talk, right?

I, erm… She gave a quick courtesy gesture before having a seat. I… honestly would like to know, what's so important about a few sunrays that anyone can catch, that you've spent your own thoughts on it? It seems a bit odd to me.

>Through a complete comedy of errors, you were allowed to discover the inherent limitation of predictive technologies. No solver of chaos can predict the truly random; the laws of temporal propagation and fundamental uncertainty forbid it.

That's, well, kind of a really glaring limitation. Anyone can put a few pebbles of uranium in a particle detector like I was about to do. I'm not the first person you've given this talk to, am I?

>Of the seventeen thousand cases where this was likely, only five got past preclusion to this point and of those you've proven the most stubborn to date, despite the fact that you of all should know how dangerous this is. Our society is peaceful and stable because problems can be precluded. Everyone is accommodated because they're accommodated ahead of time. You've already seen how your epiphany can cause a cascade of inconvenience. If your work here breaks out into the open, we're back to the whims of markets and poverty, flawed justice and draconian punishments. Neither of us want that.

Your pulling me aside personally says plenty in itself…

Thara settled, closing her eyes briefly. >I've learned it's wise to be forgiving, at first. She then looked at Kira. >You have a comfortable life here. Friends, peace, spare note at your discretion. I only wish for you to walk away from this matter and back to your life. Or if you must have a hand in it, perhaps you might help my other friends fix the faults in the system that let the matter get this far.

Kira hesitated briefly.

>To answer your thought. If you do choose to take your insight and run with it… you shall be the sole victim of your own chaos.

Kira let out a sigh. All said though, she wasn't there to be a rebel. She merely wished to bring light to the unknown. Understood. I think I'll take you up on your offer, then.

>So be it. Glad to see you put your stubbornness to better use.

All said, it did trouble her a bit, knowing that she would effectively be maintaining a machine capable of forbidding thoughts, its subjects unaware of its influence atop it all. However, this was a comfortable society, and Thara's words rung true to her... Thara extended a hand, and two ribbons of yellow-white wound together into a visage of a book, adorned like a treasure to Kira's point of view. Thara herself imagined it as being much more of a practical affair. Mechanically, a data packet was as it was. She handed it to Kira. >A guide on setting up proper communications. Also a guide on etiquette, in the off chance you're actually summoned to anything official over this.

Ah, I… thank you!

It was an out-of-the-way matter for Thara; she gave a polite farewell before fading out, leaving Kira to go on her way.

Even if there are ten thousand instances of Thara running around, that's still only one for every hundred thousand people on this world. Just what have I gotten myself into?...

She set aside some time to weave the information given to her into her mind, tallying her time while she was at it.

I'll be trying to make free-flying wisps on one hand and trying to fix the world's broken interlink on the other. Wonder where I'll find the time to spend the extra note I'm making. But I guess I got ahead. By getting really, really lucky… and breaking things. That's a heck of a way to do things. If you ask me, the fact that our world is held together by a shoestring made of pure ignorance should be a higher concern than fixing the network bridges.

Arc 2: Day Zero

Beneath the ice, trails of sunlight scattered shallow. The still waters further below lay silent and black, showing nothing and more nothing. Yet, in the absence of familiar life, a hint of metal glimmered faintly, just a hint of motion. Such would be easy to lose into the vast expanse of nothingness.

081728-1773 83-SPR-4223

It's been almost 20 years now since the dying started. I admit… mister mean and green might've been aggressive and unscrupulous to put it very politely. But, I miss him, a little. I miss the fun times in those submersible towns of Tiprisia. I miss the Ceremor spirit. In a way, I even miss Temeris and the whole intrigue of the Commonwealth. The roaming nomads of Altavim and the independent-to-a-fault anarchists of Lavsvai… now it's just Pereci... a husk of what used to be Pereci. Ceremor, they call those isles the Lost Republic now. They have homes and food, but they don't have new music there. I miss those old riffs too; my music collection has been getting