The Uprisers

By J.C. Gemmell

The elimination of Earth’s excess water was crucial to building a better world, providing access to real estate and raw materials. For a thousand years, the ejected ice remained safely stored in Tion’s orbit, and the human population soared.

Mike has a licence to move tourists through Tion’s spheres, despite new restrictions in the movement of people and data. His latest clients know nothing of his previous life and relationship to Pazel, or of the voice from his past, tempting him to return.

When Mike discovers scattered communities across Tion’s exposed surface, he knows he must confront Pazel. As they descend into the Depths and beyond, the crisis facing Tion becomes clear: the oceanic ice starts to bombard the world. Their journey becomes one of survival, not just theirs, but for hundreds of thousands of billions of consumers.

The Uprisers follows desperate people as they are forced to leave the safety of their connected lives behind and rise up toward the surface of Tion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.C. Gemmell
• Release date: Jan 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781838072827

J.C. Gemmell

J.C. Gemmell was born in Falkirk, Scotland, and received his B.A. in Computer Studies and a Master’s Degree in Applied Science from the University of Portsmouth, UK. Before turning to science fiction, he worked as a software engineer for a number of multinational organisations. He lives with his partner on the south coast of England.Tionsphere and The Uprisers are the first novels in the Tion series, and will be followed by Demiurge in 2022. He is currently working on a novella tied to this series, which will be available for free at Easter.Visit J.C. online at www.jcgemmell.com and @JcGemmell

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PROLOGUE

Freja

অতীতে

THE DELICATE SKIN on her ankle stung as Freja scratched away the fresh scabs. Mehdi was continually reminding her to take better care of her m ā sad ā -sar ī ra , but she wasn ’ t interested in protecting them. Each body itched as battalions of imagined things crawled over her. She knew the sensation was an artefact, but it didn ’ t mean she could ignore it. Within a few months of joining Pazel ’ s adherents, she restricted herself to one small area on which to attack the irritation and often she would lose interest before drawing blood. A sharp intake of breath and Freja caught herself, silently acknowledging she was again thinking about her own m ā sad ā -sar ī ra , forgotten somewhere in the Fives. Maybe Jovana had sold it on, or perhaps Caitlyn. She hated the thought that someone was using her flesh.

Pallial services continued to degrade. Nothing was as noticeable as the sudden reduction Kavya had dubbed the Fall, yet people had forgotten how things had been five years ago. Pazel had been unable to determine what had caused the abrupt increase in the Pallial Decline. Although the FMP struggled against a slow, global cancer, Freja still worried that Caitlyn ’ s request would eventually arrive. Mehdi was confident the Pallium would be unable to associate the caching with her endlessly cycling TUID, but Freja was not so certain. Pazel said she should trust the Curator and stop wasting precious compute time on an irrelevancy. After Odyss é e ’ s cancellation, she had been unable to track Caitlyn or the others. Freja hoped they were all lost, and Moshe with them.

She sometimes thought about Jovana languishing in Joaqu í n ’ s arms, a childish lover who constrained her to a pointless past, and of Caitlyn fawning over Youssef and his improbable purpose. Miyu had been her closest companion until she tricked Moshe into accusing Pazel, and Freja thought she was surely responsible for their collective disappearance. Looking back, because the women ’ s principal function was divining secrets, they had been unable to hide their private selves from one another. Kavya, the doyenne of data mining, understood the FMP better than any of them, and it readily responded to her encouragements. She probably spent each day ministering to its needs in the hope that she could prevent its deterioration. She could have stopped Caitlyn from using the caching voucher for the Odyss é e contestants. Freja decided she loathed Kavya most of all.

The women had refused to believe Pazel wanted to protect Tion. They never considered his rationale, that preparation for a life without the Pallium was vital for their survival. Instead, they spent their days speculating about sinister motives and wasting their time trying to seek out wrongs until Hyun-jun paid for their hubris. Freja was glad she had left them and that Pazel had given her a new life.

Mehdi repeatedly questioned her about Moshe, who she thought he was and how they could locate him, but she was not interested in endorsing another rival for Pazel ’ s attention. He cared little for his adherents ’ hierarchy, and Nikora remained his unending obsession. His confidants were his welcome distractions. Pazel often said that whatever her aspirations, he would not permit her to attain the surface. If she could accept that, she was welcome to stay until he ascended. Freja wanted to know what would happen once he was gone, but he never acknowledged her question. Mehdi informed her she was a replacement for Victoria and she should be grateful.

People had been telling Freja how she should feel her entire life. They sometimes asked how she was but never listened to her reply. They waited to pounce on her sikat ā - ā tam ā so they could reshape it according to their agreed concept of acceptability. Even Mehdi offered to fix the unresolved issues he thought threatened her future viability. She had been wise to guard against splicing ever since she received self-schema access at mid-nonage.

Freja baulked when Pazel told her to facilitate an update to Danesh ’ s persona. For an instant, she glimpsed the man her former associates shunned. He said she should appreciate why he had drained Eleven-Two, so she told him they were all ultimately fucked and he should add his worthless m ā sad ā -sar ī ra to his ridiculous collection. Pazel forgave her when she returned and begged him for a new body that didn ’ t itch. She eventually tucked the revision under her bed and tried to ignore its implication. Part of her wanted to hide the package and slip into the Ones to forget herself, but Pazel would send Cristóbal to reprimand her. He would not relent until he found her, despite their professional relationship.

It took a few days for Mehdi to locate the transformed ma ð ur . In the half-decade since his violation of Pazel ’ s sikat ā - ā tam ā , Mike had managed to ascend three times and was awaiting another recast to conclude his wiederholt , presumably before up-levelling again and enjoying his second life. Mehdi was amazed he had progressed so rapidly in the wake of the post-Odyss é e prohibition. Freja used a rental to invite him to a dating shop where she tried to flirt with him. She was positive that he would not recognise her and Mike did not request her profile. They were comparing their compatibility scores when he said he had no intention of considering Pazel ’ s offer. She informed him that his desires were irrelevant and infected him with the bypass for the remote install. She was simultaneously angry and indifferent. The next day she posted a reference to Victoria on his counterfeit timeline, and he replied using her former TUID. She deleted the thread and blocked his new identity.

About a month later she received a friend request from Danesh. It appeared to be a legacy artefact that had been languishing in the FMP since their very first meeting, but she knew what it meant. His original profile was very much in use and showed active connections with an extraordinary diversity of f ó lki ð . Freja had facilitated his relationships through Tingting Kaf-Ayin-Beh-Keheh and wondered if Pazel was aware of the quiet movement to refute his ideology. Ultimately it did not matter because Tabitha ’ s collection of dissidents were too self-absorbed to mount any kind of retaliation. Freja eventually recommended Mike to a successful K4 cachier in the hope that things would take care of themselves.

Whenever Freja challenged Pazel ’ s relationships, he reminded her that he was responsible for a new Tion. He could not resist embellishing his words with images of his imagined future, which focused on the adulation he felt he rightly deserved. She knew he was entitled to everything he described because he worked tirelessly to meet his goal. It was easy to recognise the purity of his vision and accept it as the only viable response to the failure of their world. There was no other option for her because she had surrendered everything when she ghosted down from the Fives. All she could offer him was loyalty.

Remorse was Freja ’ s unwavering companion. Mehdi offered to eradicate the memories of Danesh, which would leave her free to support Mike in whatever capacity Pazel desired. He said it would make her feel better, and it would be their secret. She didn ’ t want to feel anything other than herself, so she quietly told him of her withdrawal following Victoria ’ s death. He had smiled and said he had salvaged that particular situation.

‘ What will Pazel do with Victoria ’ s m ā sad ā -sar ī ra ? ’ she had asked.

‘ He will use it for his ascent. The majority of people in Zero will be konurnar . At least to begin with. ’

‘ A female ochlocracy no doubt. How awful. ’

He had nodded his agreement. ‘ For those that must endure. ’

Mehdi gradually became her ally and did his best to ease the pain. He built a simulation to show what would have happened to the four Odyss é e contestants if they had been left alone. Their psychological collapse alarmed her. She occasionally spied on Mike as he settled into his new life and manipulated his environment to encourage some personality trait or other. Freja came to understand that f ó lki ð were only the sum of their experiences and the Pallium was a tool they could use to shape people. She allowed Mehdi to suppress her desire to locate Caitlyn or the others only because he said it was a continual distraction, but she resisted any further modification even though he maintained a full set of backups. Once, she asked him if it would be possible to retrieve her m ā sad ā -sar ī ra as there had to be records. He had shrugged and said she was being unreasonable.

◆  ◆  ◆

Mike decided to meet Oskar in a quiet K4 coca house in a no-longer-fashionable arc in the hope they would be able to talk without interruption. This assumed he could stoically ignore banner advertising, unsolicited messages and people who claimed to know him through mutual acquaintances. Tion is far too connected, he thought.

Oskar was entirely without presence. A drengar in scruffy clothes that were too tight for him. His cheeks were slightly flushed, and his dark eyes cut straight through Mike as they shook hands. He was expectant but maintained an opaque countenance. Mike was pleased that this acquisition was progressing smoothly, now Oskar had come out of hiding. He wondered if he should have told him to clean himself up, but it was Mike who was probably out of keeping with his surroundings.

‘ I thought the numero-rep of your TUID was childish and quite a risk. What took you so long? ’

Oskar shrugged. ‘ I was looking around. It ’ ll be easier to get there with you, rather than going it alone. You interest me. ’

Mike laughed, pleased he was right about him. ‘ I diverted you because I have some matters that would benefit from your flair for re-spinning facts. I hope that is of interest to you. ’

‘ Who do you represent, Mike? I don ’ t know if I can trust you. ’

‘ I ’ m independent, but I ’ m creating a service for certain l ýð irnir . Their world is a compact place where opportunities decrease with time. The Odyss é e fiasco has made inter-level permits hard to obtain, and the Decline is a challenge in itself. What do you know about Tion? ’

‘ That ’ s not much of an answer. ’ Oskar paused for a moment, anticipating a response that did not come. ‘ I know about the tionsphere inasmuch as I could access from Sixth. My training suggested the Pallial Truth is susceptible to certain modification. It ’ s not a big leap to presume they coloured my understanding in some way, so I ’ m happy to consider any insights you have. ’

Mike rolled a dozen leaves together and popped them between his teeth. ‘ Stability is important, but so is growth. There needs to be balance without stagnation. Harmony has never existed, not pre-Forming and not now. Even as the three conglomerates competed to construct the new world on top of the old, there would always be a limit, and the rush to fill the empty places has its own legacy. We don ’ t know how to stop, and people keep coming off the lines. I ’ m not sure when it will collapse, maybe it will be after I ’ m cached, but there is a notional ceiling, and we ’ re incredibly close.

‘ The Pallium issues warnings which we quietly ignore. It ’ s unlikely that one more person will break its systems, probably not a thousand or even a million. There is a danger of a crash, but we perceive the risk as slight. So what if we lend it additional capability to counter the Fall? Powerful alternates are easy to come by; it only takes fifteen years to create them in droves. We can harness all that raw potential in neat little compartments. They ’ re much more efficient, and they could replace large FMP components in Second. Maybe release some of that space. System collapse isn ’ t inevitable: it is desirable. In the meantime, there are a few opportunities for l ýð irnir like me and you to prosper from a world on the brink, as it were. ’

◆  ◆  ◆

The Forming of the tionsphere is, without doubt, the greatest achievement not only of the forfe ð ur but of all mannkyni ð . Our existence within its diverse levels remains an engineering marvel that few can truly comprehend, and should we have the need to Form again, we would fail. For a thousand years, we have coveted Tion ’ s inexhaustible capacity, but now the world is full, and people must conform to survive. When you aspire, reach not for aggrandisement but contentment, and do not measure your worth in staters or status, because these things are ordained not attained. You must not despair in your isolation because Sodality will provide. We must meet our obligation to preserve the Pallium. This is our only purpose.

Information is a fundamental right. I have dedicated my life to the FMP and advise caution, lest we are universally deprived of access. Nothing can be more critical to our reality. Without connection, we become nothing, and even blissful caching will be lost. While the Pallium regulates the population, it does not control. Its only purpose is to serve. Do not mistake the FMP for an engin-pers ó nan , it is a v é l and has no life, although it is not unending. We have to reduce the demand on its systems to ensure its permanence; it cannot endure while it is threatened by deterioration. There is only one solution: the dramatic reduction in the number of staters in circulation to curtail our squandering of data.

F ó lki ð will rebel unless they are restrained. The tightening of Pallial services and the rationing of information guarantees continuity. The Decline is not the response of an individual or an assize movement. The FMP has itself reached this conclusion and is fulfilling its obligations through our suppression. Therefore Odyss é e was incidental, and Hyun-jun was a bystander, but his uprising foreshadows terrible events yet to come. Hyun-jun was driven to expose the infestation within Second, but not by the Pallium. These were the tactics of mennirnir , perhaps the same men who have hidden Enzo and In è s away. We must accept an uncertain future where data sabotage is a way of life. The Fall was an attack on our continuation and aptly named, for we have lost so much of our global capability.

It is time for mannkyni ð to commit. We must halt the megagestoria and cache the non-contributors. We must redistribute the population and confine ourselves to our appointed level. We must restrict data access and cease inter-level communications. We must drive deflation and restrict the use of Pallial services.

We must prepare for a crisis of evolution.

– Kavya Ngo-Dza-Ta-Thorn.

◆  ◆  ◆

‘ You really botched the splice, ’ Mehdi warned. Psychic wiring diagrams surrounded them, masses of coloured lines woven through one another. Delicate flags were attached to nodes in their thousands, and their symbology indicated various states of Mike ’ s well-being. Pazel had told her to review the ma ð ur ’ s development on a regular basis, and his personal need to maintain meticulous copies of himself made the task simple. Freja had come to Mehdi for help accessing Mike ’ s private storage and with her initial interpretation of what she found. It had been her idea to hide Pazel ’ s revision within Mike ’ s backups and wait for him to have cause to revert.

‘ We should fix these inconsistencies before we do anything more creative. It ’ s a wonder he has any semblance of sanity given the number of incongruous truths he supports. ’

‘ It ’ s the difference between Pazel and Danesh. I think Mike can tell them apart. ’

‘ Unlikely. There ’ s nothing to indicate any separation. Or duality. Just a jumble of conflicting crap. I can clean most of it out now and then add your update. I ’ ll ensure he doesn ’ t suspect. ’

‘ Just like you could for Pazel. Why doesn ’ t he let you? ’

‘ He says he would know. ’

‘ Then Mike would too, ’ Freja said. ‘ I did the best I could, and he survived. ’

‘ You made him into a monster. That ’ s what you told me. What if he comes for Pazel? What if he kills him? ’

‘ Pazel would be fine. That ’ s what you ’ re here for, making endless editions of him and preparing them for Zero. ’

Almost half of Mike ’ s iconography lit up around her. ‘ See all of this? It belongs to Pazel, and it ’ s pretty active. Danesh is a fucking shrewd ma ð ur , and he worries me. We should cut this away while we have the opportunity. ’

‘ You mustn ’ t. Pazel would be livid. He must have his reasons for keeping Mike alive. ’

‘ Then he is a fool. Which means Mike is too. ’ Mehdi reset the schematic and added the new pathways. ‘ It ’ s done. I ’ ve set a replication into future backups and an alarm for when he accesses them. ’

She reached for Mehdi ’ s tanned hand and squeezed it fiercely, gazing into his pale blue eyes. ‘ Why did Pazel assign this to me? ’

He studied her face, remembering the other l ýð irnir who had used the m ā sad ā -sar ī ra . ‘ Pazel likes to unnerve people because it helps him establish his authority. You came to him troubled by Danesh ’ s response so now you get to relive that every day. I can still help you forget. ’

‘ I ’ m coping, Mehdi. There ’ s no need. ’ Freja let his hand go and invited him into a fresh vestibule. ‘ Let ’ s see what Mike ’ s up to. Maybe we can exert enough influence to make him failover. ’

CHAPTER ONE

Lachlan

বর্তমানে

THE LAWNS WERE pristine and the ornamental shrubs perfect, the long-stemmed flowers bright and sweetly perfumed while the slender trees rustled as they swayed in the warm breeze. The residents of Kilometre Three expected nothing less. The army of night-time machines had positioned each plant, rock and stone according to their aesthetic master plan, working busily until the park gates opened, scurrying out of sight as the first customers came to the cafés and bars.

Dawn waited for her daughter, sipping mint tea while she gazed at the close, azure sky. A bird glided above, barely moving its wings. She wondered if it was real. A few patrons were lingering inside, despite the bright afternoon. In a world where everything was repeatable and dependable, she expected this day would be the same as those that came before. Time passed, and the bird was gone too.

Things are disappearing from reality, Dawn thought. She reached into her bag for a brush and sharply tugged it through her tangled hair, spotting a long, white hair teased from her scalp, perhaps today, maybe days in the past. Dawn had no way of knowing. She held it against the sky and studied its lack of kinks and lack of colour. How could it be so uniform, as if aged for its entire life? She smiled because it was the innocent against a storm of dark deviants. It caught the warm breeze and floated from her fingers into the infinite. Her tea was cold.

A waitress brought her a fresh cup. A pretty young girl, Dawn thought, clearly distracted. Dawn tucked the brush away and held the cup with both hands while its heat stung her palms. For a moment, she felt alive and didn’t realise Emma had arrived until she held out her hand to accept her latte.

‘Mother.’ It was neither a greeting nor a statement.

Dawn simpered, ‘I didn’t know when to expect you, darling. How can I help?’ She watched her intently, but there were no clues.

‘I’d like some advice if you have time.’ Emma recognised time was all Dawn had left. She had raised three children, all konurnar , and knew one of their fathers, although she had never said which. Cultivation was not a popular career choice, but the women who did so received a fair stipendiary when the work was complete.

‘What do you need?’ Dawn had once told Emma she had already lived long enough.

‘I’ve met someone. He’s asked me to go away with him. I’m not sure if I should trust him. There are stories.’ Emma was usually more guarded.

‘Who is he?’

Emma paused and moistened her lips with her tongue. ‘An explorer,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t know him, I’m sure,’ and quietly, ‘he’s not on this level.’ She blushed and looked away.

‘I suppose you’ll accompany him.’

‘I don’t know. I’m not sure what he’s asking me. It’s very confusing.’ Emma finished her coffee in a single gulp, misjudged the height of the table and her mug clattered as she let go. She picked up a napkin and dabbed her mouth. Her lips retained their perfect, glorious colour.

‘Emma, what can I tell you? That love is a possibility? That people depend on one another, and live for and with each other? Sometimes a relationship is all-consuming, impassioned and unbreakable. Sometimes bonds break.’

‘You loved my father.’ A question, veiled.

‘We never met.’ A lie? Potentially.

Emma turned away and studied the park. She wondered why she needed to seek advice from this person, of all the people in her world. Indeed, she had known Dawn all of her life, but she was a miðaldra-kona who wielded archaic terms as weapons against her. Dawn should have broken her bond and signed off her contract with Emma fifteen years after conception, but there was a retained dependency, as if the mother withheld secrets her child could never guess.

‘The others. Why don’t we live together?’

Dawn onlined and sent a torrent of psychologic analysis. ‘No clear benefit,’ she said aloud. ‘You and I have a relationship that grew from your cultivation, not because of it. I did as any good caregiver should do and maintained you all separately. I never expected you to support one another.’ She smiled weakly at her daughter.

‘I should go,’ Emma said.

◆  ◆  ◆

Aryan’s heart rate dropped back to fifty-five beats per minute as he stepped from the dais. Everything in his life was planned for and meticulously managed. He nodded to the crew, favoured them with a grin and prepared to leave the studio. Aryan was grateful his stimulants were so precise because he did not want a rush.

Rush, Aryan thought. I have been hurried to this existence by people I’ve seldom met. Hidden lýðirnir with motives I cannot comprehend. He onlined, left the building and walked across the warm plaza, heading for the transit system. People identified him and flowed around him. Aryan kept his status public because he was not in the mood for photos and clasped hands.

Early memories presented themselves without his bidding. Surgical rooms to revise his skeletal structure, endless resistance exercise and body parts stretched. Hours with mentors who taught him to be spontaneous, friendly and appealing. His nonage in training, the months after a careful introduction to the masses until he slowly became the one man that everyone wanted and wanted to be like—an icon.

Aryan was hungry. He stepped into a pod and requested routeing to an outlying commercial district, needing to be somewhere new, even though he would still be recognised. Tonight Aryan wanted a stranger to talk to, nothing more, to quench his desire for normality. He made a Pallial request for company. The car arrived at a plaza which was indistinguishable from its predecessor, and Aryan followed the sound of revellers. He turned off his navigation and tagging, content with a random choice. The FMP sent him a query regarding his destination, which he ignored. Aryan did not care if his companion wasn’t there to meet him.

The eateries competed for his attention, assailing him with exotic dishes, tantalising smells and the feeling of satiation, accompanied by images of Aryan enjoying it all. He went fully offline and continued to walk in silence, before settling on a quiet Indian restaurant. The waiter’s eyebrow raised slightly at Aryan’s lack of presence, but was not deterred and escorted him to a small, out-of-the-way table.

‘I’m expecting a guest,’ Aryan said.

‘Certainly sir.’ The waiter logged Aryan’s response and paused for the Pallium to provide him with the details.

Aryan sat in the stillness for several minutes. The serving staff could not judge his disposition, and so they left him until his companion arrived. The man was two metres tall, well-dressed in a white, fitted suit, his meticulously pressed shirt open at the collar. He had a comfortable air about him with no sign of recognition on his face while they made their introductions.

‘Mike.’ There was no need for TUIDs as he held out his hand. Aryan was caught off-guard, and he rose to acknowledge the greeting. ‘Please, have a seat. Welcome.’

‘Are you here for business?’

As much as Aryan enjoyed being incognito, he did not want to role-play. ‘I need to listen to someone else tonight, and I don’t want to have to entertain. In any capacity.’ He picked up a hand-written menu and smiled at its painstaking affectation. ‘Do you enjoy this cuisine?’

‘I find the recent penchant for national food puzzling. Maybe India was below us somewhere in the Sevens. Maybe it was on the other side of Tion. Who could know? At one point, India was the most populous nation on Earth. Their food would be the most common dish, so we should all enjoy it.’

‘I’m sure. Are you a student of the pre-Forming?’

Mike laughed. ‘Hardly, but I certainly pay attention because the world was such a varied place. Now we’re blended together into one Sodality where everyone is the same.’ The waiter returned, took their orders and made small, encouraging comments at their choices. ‘There are more differences than Sodality shows us. Here we are,’ he ventured, ‘at the top of the spheres. Layer over layer of woodland and dwellings, and beautiful people enjoying it all,’ he looked Aryan directly in the eye, ‘with celebrity to guide our aspirations and ignite our desires.’

Aryan held eye contact but was obviously annoyed at this interruption to privacy. ‘Celebrity such as mine?’

‘There are places where you are no more admired than me,’ Mike said, ‘I’m not at all familiar with your work.’

Aryan struggled with his conflicting emotions. He needed to be surrounded by people who lionised him. His guest was supposed to be in awe, so he was grateful their food arrived quickly.

‘There were hundreds of different groups of lýðirnir ; some were vast nations, others were tiny, isolated communities. Different beliefs, languages and food. The Forming mixed everything together in the wake of the hydrocarbon crash.’

Aryan found his confidence. He had some knowledge of the forfeður and their manufactured bacteria. ‘You do believe the release of the de-oilers into the ancient reserves was a precursor to the Forming?’

Mike was noncommittal. ‘You think our ancestors did not plan the loss of fossil fuels? It brought an end to conflict, poverty and starvation, but no more than the mandatory devaluation of cryptocurrencies or the compulsory disbanding of privately owned social media outlets to create Sodality. We’re lucky, Aryan, but some things haven’t changed, and the remnants remain.’

Aryan toyed with his food, uncomfortable with the conversation. It would not be long until Mike started to talk about funding some project, developing their friendship or some other way to exploit Aryan’s position. He responded with neutral grunts to demonstrate his disinterest. They were silent for some time, and eventually, the waiter returned to clear the table. Mike has taken charge, he thought, like all of the people in my life. Aryan rose, reached into his pocket and placed a small aluminium case in front of him.

‘I enjoy a certain measure of control.’ From the tin, Aryan extracted two pills and chased one down with his beer. He left the other on the table.

‘There are many different things within Tion, and they’re carefully compartmentalised.’ Mike picked up the narcotic between his thumb and middle finger. ‘What we take for granted is unimaginable in the Greater Numbers. They are as alien to the unjoined as the European was to the Indian.’

Aryan felt his heart pounding. It was either the stimulant or the words Mike selected. Things reserved for closed rooms. ‘Propaganda. The residents in the Depths are just as fortunate as we are. The unjoined are a story to frighten children into obedience. The places you refer to are the vestiges of a violent past, and you should leave them where they belong.’

Mike reached across the table and returned the pill to its container. ‘Everyone is equal, though some fólkið warrant importance. Here, you are a rich man, but the other numbers are not like this. They are discrete and kept apart. The favoured may rise in their struggle towards First, but no one would choose to descend. Take your drugs, Aryan, and enjoy your long life, for tomorrow will be just like today.’ Mike got up to leave and offered his hand. ‘Thank you for your company. It was much appreciated. I’d be happy to show you around.’

Aryan watched him leave. He was wary of his feelings.

◆  ◆  ◆

The pavement surface, moulded to resemble small, round stones, was slightly damp, delighting the courting couples as they tottered through the dusk at the behest of their busy schedules. Lamps strung between the buildings and swaying in the breeze cast dappled shadows over the people seated in outdoor terraces with blankets over their laps. The restaurants were between services, and their staff loitered in the streets.

Dawn waited for her daughter in the early evening lull. Outside, two men were idly chatting, and one of them looked familiar. Co-workers or some other association, she assumed. She stored his dark face and submitted it. His public name was Jared, and he was involved in contract facilitation. There was very little information about him: a couple of photos, a résumé and a video of him engaged in a team sport. This level. She guessed he was in his mid-forties.

A waiter brought her some warm bread and olives. Dawn selected one of the small fruits from the light oil and rolled it in her mouth. The other people in her periphery were unremarkable. She toyed with building a set of queries to find out more about Jared, but decided against it and went offline, so she was not aware Emma had arrived and was watching her.

‘What would you like?’ Emma asked as she sat. ‘I’ll order for you.’

Dawn looked up but did not appear startled. ‘Please. I’ll join you in whatever you have.’ She continued to stare at the man and was frustrated by the unknown familiarity.

‘I haven’t decided,’ Emma said as if to remove her responsibility.

The journey. Dawn leant back, regarded her daughter and wondered how much she might share. The two men finished their discussion, Jared’s companion paid with a momentary blankness, and they left separately. After a while, she realised she was ignoring her own conversation. Her eyes fell back on Emma, but her daughter’s focus was elsewhere.

The middle distance. It is a place for the young, Dawn decided. Somewhere between the mundane of here and the richness of everything. As we grow wearier, we have less need for it. She remained in the present, watching fólkið ebb and flow, and did not need to identify them.

Their food arrived, and they ate in silence, their meals had no perceptible taste or texture. For Emma, who was immersed in forever, it was irrelevant. For Dawn, it was a choice, because she did not feel anything about her existence.

As she gazed, a smile experimented with Emma’s face, although it was almost unnoticeable. Their eyes met. There was no connection, but Dawn was not discouraged. She was an experienced cultivator. Unlike the mass-produced infants from the megagestoria, genuine ungbörnir engaged with their caregivers before they learnt to depend on the Pallium. What are real people, Dawn thought, if not pale imitations of extraordinary opportunities? I grew this life inside my belly.

A waiter cleared away the remains of their meal and brought two frozen beakers of water. Bubbles rose according to the irregularity of the ice. Dawn resisted the urge to map their path and predict those yet to form.

‘He has asked me again.’ Emma had returned and was ready to talk.

‘You should decide what you want to do.’

‘He resides in First. I never thought I would be able to go there. You wouldn’t believe the openness. The sky is beyond infinite, Dawn. It’s incredible.’

Dawn’s expression warmed until she appeared supportive. In a different life, she had saved her staters to ascend, and once bullied a girlfriend into showing her Tion’s Greater Numbers. These were choices made long ago. She had never discussed them with her children, but her movements were a matter of record. ‘Will he sponsor you?’

Emma wasn’t sure. ‘I don’t know why he’s offering this to me. I’m just a charm therapist and have nothing to give him in return.’

The two women regarded each other. There was no clue to their relationship. Their skins had different hues, and their faces were unalike. ‘You’re not truly my daughter. I grew you inside me, but you weren’t randomly deposited there through a chance coupling between two strangers. You are by-design and entirely authorised. Your sisters too. You are no more part of me than the food that I consume. I can’t say what you have that he might want.’

‘Why don’t I know what I am for?’ It was a childish and unworthy response. Every adult feels this, Emma thought and blushed at her own naïveté.

Dawn laughed a rich, earthy sound. ‘When you were very young I sometimes forgot you. Once I left you for nearly two days while I chased someone, I don’t want to recall his name. Your crib tended to your needs, yes, but it couldn’t hold you and teach you as I could. When I realised what I’d done, I was inconsolable. I vowed to be there for you whatever would occur. It’s just as true now as it was then, but sometimes I still forget.’ It was not quite a confession but an opening nonetheless.

‘How did you know you wanted children?’

‘I was made for it. It was always there, a desire to bring life into the world. I don’t know why lýðirnir don’t want to do it any more. I can certainly see it’s not what you want.’

Emma slipped into Sodality’s comfort while Dawn watched the slow dissipation of bubbles. Each generation was smaller than the previous, and the ones that had gone already forgotten. It is what will happen to me, she thought, my life’s work complete before my life. Dawn knew she had nothing else to offer, and stubbornly refused maintenance for her māsadā-sarīra . She stared into the water. All of my successes are behind me and all of my challenges done. She would not visit a cacherie and live forever within the FMP.

◆  ◆  ◆

Although Lachlan worked Bodem, the bottom-ground, he knew it was the top of the Earth. The irregular surface erupted through the tionsphere in one small area as a hundred breaches, but the need to disassociate rock for its constituent parts was obsolete. He inhabited the interface between the real world and the abstract, and he glided along the boundary. It was a place of ancient building and the unification of the land. Long ago, Lachlan thought, we lived here, somehow nourishing ourselves from the soil itself. Now it is a dried shell that shifts under the true world, and I preserve it.

Unknown trillions of sálirnar lived their lives above him and were oblivious of his work. Those who inhabited the salubrious uppermost level knew little of the planet beneath them and were often ignorant of how many levels existed below. Lachlan seldom cared because his personal existence was a distant thing. It was one of tremendous pressures between ancient land and the Forming, and no one wanted to be there except for beetles and huge-eyed hunting cats.

Lachlan’s crew comprised six people, four women and two men. They lived together as a semi-bonded unit, and while he was fond of them, he preferred solitude. Every group had its practices, and lone working was not unusual. Most maintenance occurred below Kilometre-Eight, where Tion first started. He knew his rig would protect him if an accident occurred, repair him and take him home. I am here to give purpose to a life, he mused, not because I make my equipment any more efficient.

Bodem was a two-dimensional place, even though it rose and fell with the lithosphere. Most maintainers could read the actual age of Tion from the continental plates that nestled serenely against their exposed, dense oceanic cousins. In places, Bodem was a mass of quarried materials, barely more than a displacement of rock from one place to another. In others, it was a mighty foundation of pillars and structures for the levels above, immense arches and steely spans that disappeared into the black sky. Lachlan knew the spheres did not truly rest on Bodem but supported themselves in concentric shells, each held a kilometre apart through his ancestors’ engineering prowess, but they kissed the Earth a million times over, each a tender caress or a savage embrace. To build up, the forfeður had dug down, changing and exploiting the surface beyond recognition.

Lachlan kept his eyes shut as the rig halted, and studied its sit-rep. The imagery indicated a fissure in one of the concrete towers, so he called up additional data. It was built with aggregates and reinforced with metal, and had once homed a thousand lýðirnir . Its occupants probably deserted it as the tionsphere grew, preferring to live in daylight and clean air away from Bodem, but the tower had not abandoned its existence, and its purpose had matured from providing shelter from the old world to stabilising the new. Lachlan sometimes wandered the passages inside forgotten buildings. In almost every case they were grey, barren corridors, stripped of anything of interest. The constant decay of millennial concrete created a cloud of fine, undisturbed dust. Occasionally, he would find an artefact that demonstrated a long-extinguished life, concealed in the powdered, dead earth: a fragile collection of papers, bound and unintelligible, or perhaps some inexplicable ornaments with no purpose he could fathom.

Lachlan opened his eyes. In response, the rig bathed the building in light but did not overwhelm his vision. He overlaid a schematic on his eyesight to monitor structural stresses and stepped onto the ground. The air smelt bad and tasted of spoilt food. Each step stirred up a haze of dry dust around his legs. Lachlan wondered when a maintainer last walked here. 102 years , the Pallium eventually supplied. Bodem was vast, and many crews conserved it, but few returned to the same site within a lifetime. Lachlan did not need to inspect the building, but he enjoyed the reality of the physical experience. He prepared the rig to bore into the earth for the raw material his work required. Its quantum-chemical assembler would devour the spoils and recombine precious carbon atoms as intricate lattices to stabilise the tower; some unwanted elements would be knotted into jewels within the structure and adorn it for his pleasure. He would use other detritus to plug the borehole, after retaining any high-demand, low-availability elements.

It was cold, but Lachlan was not concerned and strode away from the rig, which followed his unspoken commands. He knew the process was automated and did not require his involvement, although he still reviewed the radar returns to select a suitable drill site. The rig overrode Lachlan’s will and forced him to retreat to a safe distance. There were immense forces at play, but he was always amazed by the delicateness of the superstructure created by the rig’s constructors. Lightning flashed between the relics of construction and the ground, yet the building, once flooded with fullerene, could crumble away, but Bodem would survive forever.

Lachlan shut down his internal clock and allowed the minutes to drift. His work demanded solitude, and he extinguished the lights to enjoy the darkness. As he drifted, he thought about his team: Sophie, a loner and infatuated; Nikora and Tyler, secretly bonded; Grusha and Vihaan, who he didn’t understand. They assembled seven years ago, and their diverse skills ensured their collective prosperity.

Rows of uniform sparks marched towards him out of the blackness. Lachlan knew the images existed only in his mind, but they surged forward relentlessly and defied his lack of acknowledgement. He savoured the merging of offline and reality. A summary of his work appeared, and he requested a little light while the rig inspected the impenetrable building. His perceptions stabilised, and he sighed heavily as he clambered back.

Nikora, I’m done. Lachlan received her tacit approval, not so much a sound as a feeling. She didn’t always support him, but this time she was distracted. Lachlan settled back in his harness and prepared to rush back through hundreds of kilometres of empty passageway. One day, he thought, we will finish our work and Bodem will be sealed off forever, but not in my crew’s lifetime.

Lachlan became one with his data feeds. Each second slumbered past, and he could feel the micro-variations in the temperature outside. With a smooth transition, the rig escaped Bodem and entered the Lacuna. Passenger movements in the Depths and below were rare because the FMP prioritised the nondescript service passageways to support resource demands. Lachlan no longer had any control over the transition, even if he employed every hack in his repertoire. The Pallium handled his routeing with every movement choreographed remotely.

The rig’s velocity plummeted dramatically through two thousand kilometres per hour. Lachlan appraised the changes in acceleration and attitude as the rig smoothed the inertia away. He enjoyed the randomness of the passageways branching away from the main service corridor, each one unidentified and indistinguishable from its predecessor. Eventually, he