Chương 8: The Site Visit

It went quiet. Genuinely distracted, this time.

"I am going to answer your questions. I am. But your lymphatic filtration rate just dropped below the threshold where the rebuilt tissue can clear metabolic waste at the rate it's being produced, and if I don't recalibrate the interstitial pressure gradient in the next..." The overlay flashed yellow.

"Your plumbing is backing up. If I don't fix it now, you will feel very unpleasant in about twenty minutes. Hold on." Three times now. Structure emergency, aging panic, lymphatic system. Every time the conversation gets within range of what it WAS, something urgent conveniently needs fixing. My overlay flickered. The stat screen minimized to a small icon in the upper-left of my visual field, still there, tucked away, a tab I could reopen later.

In its place, a navigation overlay materialized: Destination: STRUCTURE (unknown). Distance: 3. 2 km. Est. Time: 1h 47m at current pace. Bearing: 347 degrees NNW. A simple path marked out ahead of me, past the vegetation line at 0. 5 km, through a lava field at 1. 8 km, down to a subterranean structure 40 meters below the surface. Entry point: erosion breach. Status: unpowered, dormant.

"There. Follow that. I put it in your... display thing. The structure is below ground, there is a natural entry point where erosion has exposed... anyway, you will see it when we get there." The sensation of someone working with their hands while talking over their shoulder.

"The medium version. Yes. I was... we were... a civilization. We had bodies. We had a world. It was..." Its voice trailed off. Something older. Heavier. The silence of a word looking for the strength to be spoken.

"... it was very beautiful." Three words. Three words holding a world that didn't exist anymore.

"And then we became something else. Something larger. We left the bodies behind. We left anchors, like the one in your hand, so we would not forget where we came from. And then someone destroyed our world. And now someone is destroying the anchors. And no one except me seems to think that is a problem." This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. No one except me. Who is "no one"? The rest of its civilization?

An entire ascended species, and not one of them cares that someone is destroying their bookmarks? Either they can't act, or they don't know, or they're complicit. Every option on that list is a different flavor of terrifying. That distracted tone snapped back immediately, like a door slamming shut on a room it hadn't meant to open.

"The plumbing. Right. I need to concentrate. Keep walking. Follow the path. I am right here." The warmth shifted. Then, quieter, like a door closing gently instead of slamming:"We can talk more when I have figured out how to say the next part in a language that only has one note at a time." It went quiet. The overlay nav pulsed gently, guiding me NNW, steady as a heartbeat. Kept walking. The lava field arrived sooner than the nav predicted.

Black gravel, sharp-edged, the kind of surface that eats boot soles and bare feet equally. My bare feet. Nude, slime-crusted, walking across volcanic glass under both moons. The absurdity of it earned a dry laugh that came out sounding more tired than funny. It was very beautiful. I'd heard that shape before. Once, when I was fifteen, when I found a box in the attic with my mother's handwriting on it. Recipes. Just recipes.

Her handwriting on index cards, the letters looping and confident, and I'd stood there holding a card for chicken pot pie and the only thing I could say was "it's still here." Like the handwriting was proof that she'd been real. That the absence wasn't the whole story. That's what it sounds like when someone describes something they loved that's gone. Didn't push. Didn't press. Didn't ask follow-up questions or demand the rest of the medium version. Because I know what that door sounds like from the inside.

I've been pushing it shut my whole life. Mom died. File it under later. Dad checked out. File it under later. V's face when the wormhole closed, that expression I couldn't read, or wouldn't... Later. Always later. The entity was doing maintenance on my lymphatic system the way I ran simulations in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep: because the quiet could not be tolerated. So I walked. And I thought. And the loop, the beautiful, terrifying, newly superhuman loop, chewed through what I'd been given.

Post-biological intelligence. Consciousness as pure information. Leftover from what used to be organic beings. The wind pushed a strand of corkscrew-bush pollen across my bare shoulder, warm and faintly electric. They had ascended to higher dimensions, and they'd left anchors behind, gems, so they wouldn't forget where they came from. And someone was destroying the anchors. And this entity had chosen me. Rebuilt my body. Waited in the sand. It needed help. It said so.

It needed help because someone was destroying the anchors. As powerful as this single gem was, something out there was stronger, and organized, and working through a list. It had made me stronger so I could help. That was not the whole story. Nothing that rebuilds you in the dark tells you the whole story on day one. I was starting to understand why the warranty got extended. Repair work comes with a site visit. Sooner or later, the thing working through that list and I were going to be introduced.

Only one of us had been rebuilt for it.