Sci-fi short story
Liz scribbles in her diary while her sister Jean and her niece Esther play in the sand. She looks at the page. It reads “14th of May, 2027. Voting day”. That’s as far as she went. She looks around her sister’s garden, pensive. Once a beautiful patch of green, booming with varied plants and flowers, the allotment is now a bleak monochromatic reflection of what life has become. After a string of deadly global pandemics and the collapse of ecosystems, several tipping points have already been reached and the future seems very gloomy. As people got used to living in increasing isolation, seeing everyone out in their gardens like they are now feels truly special. They’re out because they’re hopeful. For the first time in a long while. There will be a vote, electing representatives to handle the crisis. Decentralised elections are not uncommon since the world markets imploded and power migrated to more democratic blockchain structures, but this is something else. This has been called forth by aliens.
Aliens! Liz feels so silly every time she uses that word, but that’s what they are. Carl Sagan used to say it would be a waste of space for us to be alone in such a vast universe. And he was right. The aliens call themselves SISM - the System for Intergalactic Safety Measures - and are in fact an artificial intelligence unit created by a collaboration of many alien civilisations. Their directive is to aid and restore universal balance. They come when called, and apparently, we’ve called them. The recently created quantum computers generated strong consciousness field effects, like a radio signal sent out to the cosmos, imprinted with humanity’s ongoing distress. Although still technologically limited and primitive, many feared such computers would be the end of blockchains, taking with them the universal basic income airdrops everybody depends on, messing even more with the thin economic balance achieved in the past years. Turns out it might be a new beginning.
Her niece comes towards her carrying a bucket full of pebbles.
“Auntie Liz!”, she screams, excitedly. “Don’t bother your aunt when she’s writing”, warns Jean. “It’s alright, come sit next to me, sweetie”. “I’ll make a pretty pond for the froggies”.
Liz kisses Esther on the cheek and inspects the pebbles she selected.
“Great job!”
Esther smiles proudly, but soon her smile fades.
“Auntie Liz, do you think there will be froggies this year?” “It’s possible”. “What if they’re all gone, like the bees?” “I guess we have to wait and see. Maybe things will change”. “Because of the aliens?” “Maybe.”
They sit side by side in silence for a few moments.
“Auntie Liz, I’m confused”. “About what, sweetie?” “The aliens live in the blockchain?”
Liz laughs, whole heartedly.
“No. But I guess they could, if they wanted.” “Because they’re made of binary code?” “No one knows what kind of code they’re made of, but one thing is for sure, they’re way more sophisticated than any code we can imagine.” “What if their code is not compatible with my blockchain?” she asks, apprehensively. “It will be”, Liz assures her.
Liz feels proud of her little niece, not even 6 years old and already so bright and curious. Children these days are registered on several blockchains even before birth, but she had to choose a specific one so she could also vote. She went through several: Bitcoin, Wuup, NEAR, Stupa, Khej, pAxOdO... since then she’s been asking all kinds of questions. Feels right that kids also get to vote in this, it’s their future as well. Besides, we’ve been told the representatives would not be chosen on a rational basis, but through resonance. Sounds a bit esoteric. But all we were told was a team of SISM representatives would be elected to assess the situation and come up with a plan of action. Since its ramifications on science, politics and anthropology would probably be beyond humankind’s comprehension, it seems only logical that a decision should be made on ethical grounds, electing someone who represents who you are, rather than what you think (at this particular moment in time). It’s natural that Esther is apprehensive about the whole process. We all are. But we’ve been told to trust the system and there is really no other option than to do so.
Jean sits next to them.
“Any time now”, she whispers with a smile. “Any time”.
It is a solemn, almost magical moment. All over the world, people gather outside the houses, in parks and gardens, in small groups, looking expectantly at the sky, not knowing exactly what to expect. And then it starts. Still a little apprehensive about not knowing how to choose, or making a wrong choice, Liz watches a multitude of faces pass by her eyes, projected on the sky and inside her mind at the same time. They look thoroughly human, and she remembers the announcement that the representatives would show themselves simulating common human actions, highly symbolic of their way of being. Liz watches the faces flicking in front of her eyes, as if she was peeking at neighbours’ windows, while they’re absorbed in their own day to day routines. Like a child playing with the remote control, Liz instinctively zapps through a procession of snapshots depicting strangers' lives, lost in the flow of thoughts coming and going through her mind, in waves, like on a trance. She watches someone methodically doing the dishes, another helping a small child to get dressed. Others water the plants, read, look in the mirror, cook, make origami.
The intricate folding and unfolding of the origami paper captures Liz’s attention. She intently watches the man’s skilful hands handling the paper, she marvels at his attentive and calm gaze. Suddenly a sigh, and he smiles. Ah, he made a wrong move. He must be learning this as a new skill. Fold, unfold. Fold, double fold. Liz laughs as the candidate makes another mistake and he raises his eyes to look at her.
“Is he really looking at me?”, she thinks. “I wonder what his name is.” “Ian”, a voice echoes in her head. “Ian?” “Thank you for your vote”.
The projections cease and Liz feels like snapping out of a dream. She looks around and sees her sister and niece still immersed in the voting process. Jean watches a woman painting a small wooden piece of furniture. Esther follows a young boy drawing a beautiful and intricate portrait. They both lock eyes with their respective candidate and the words “thank you for your vote” are heard faintly. All around, the garden allotment neighbours are also finishing up their votes and a beautiful symphony of thanks echoes through the allotments. People smile, feeling lighter than they felt in a long while.
After voting day, there was increasing excitement in the air, as the announced representatives started doing their work. It was said they needed to investigate thoroughly, and deliberate thoroughly, before the problem could be dealt with. For a week, all news coverage revolved around the SISM task force, what was being done, how, by whom, where. But the number one question in everyone’s mind was: can the problem be fixed? And if yes, when?
It’s understandable coming to such pressing matters, but seems like very few people were actually concerned about what the nature of the problem was, and Liz suspected that was a huge part of the problem. People wanting quick solutions, without really caring about what needs to be solved, or how they could help. She was raised by highly idealist parents, who valued empathy and generosity above all, instilling in her a strong desire to help the collective. “What have you done for the collective today, young lady?”, her father would ask when picking her up at school. And she loved it. Her whole life, she did her best to help others, yearning to dedicate her life to something truly relevant, something that made a difference in the world. But somehow, she never managed to find her true calling. Liz believed that by becoming a programmer she could contribute to shift the economic paradigm and help the world transition to a more fair and caring system. She learned how to code so she could change the world, instead she spends her days crushing low level bugs in mediocre code. If only she could use her skills doing something more worthwhile, but what?
Brushing her teeth in front of the mirror, Liz looks at her reflection. What has she done for the collective lately? She voted. Sure, voting is important. But isn’t there something more she could do? Besides, all she did was watch a delightfully sophisticated alien AI learn how to make origami. “How wonderful. The world is falling apart, but if you need a paper duck, by any means, hit me up!”
She gets a call from Jean and answers it, balancing the toothbrush in her mouth.
“Yeah?” “Are you watching the news?”
She spits out in the sink.
“Not yet, why?” “There will be a SISM announcement any minute now”. “Where?” “Everywhere”.
Liz runs to the living room and turns on the entertainment screen. The announcement is brief and clear. They confirmed their previous diagnosis of the situation, all ecosystems are collapsing at exponential speed. They possess scientific knowledge capable of igniting a gradual reversion of such process, but without a significant and speedy human redirection, all efforts would be futile. Humans and the planet they inhabit are out of sync, a fatal disequilibrium leading to inevitable entropy which they referred to as a “core multidimensional fission”, and so efforts should be directed in both fronts. They end the announcement informing that they will need human help to fix such a fission and thus invite volunteers to join the task force.
She stares at the screen, flabbergasted. She’s certain that’s her call, that’s what she is meant to do. Liz picks up her phone and starts searching for keywords, but before she can hit enter, a text message pops up. “Liz Manthis, ID 2360243156. Volunteering request accepted. Present to you local SISM HQ for assessment tomorrow at 0900”.
Liz arrived at the SISM headquarters believing she would be interviewed, by real people or some AI, maybe given some tricky code to inspect. Instead, she waits in a spacious padded white room that looks like a crossover between a vintage lunatic asylum and a giant sensory deprivation tank. Maybe throw a lunar module in the mix. No water, straight jackets or pressurised air, though. Nothing besides the chair she sits on.
“Hello?”, she ventures to say, her voice slightly echoing in the empty chamber. “An operative will be with you shortly.”
“Copy that”, she thinks to herself, sliding her hands over the jumpsuit they told her to wear. It’s very lightweight, flexible, feels like wearing nothing. “And looks super cool too. I wonder if I get to keep it”.
“That can be arranged”, she hears Ian’s voice say.
She looks around but doesn’t see him, she’s still alone in the room.
“There’s a pair of goggles in your front pocket, put them on”.
She checks her pocket and takes out a very slim and flexible device, so slim she didn’t even notice it was there.
“Are these AR glasses?”, she asks, putting them on. “In a way”, he replies.
The goggles fit Liz like a glove, like they were part of her. She instinctively blinks twice, and they’re on. Suddenly she’s in a green meadow, in front of a rustic cottage. She hears birds and other animal sounds coming from the forest nearby. The trees! So many trees. And the flowers!
“Wow”, she gasps. “Beautiful, huh?”
She turns around and sees Ian now, standing in front of her wearing a red checkered shirt and jeans. The same face she remembered from voting day, but much crispier now. He looks real.
“I am real.” “Sorry, that was not what I meant”. “I know”, he tells her reassuringly. “If it is too much, I can turn off telepathic communications between us.” “No, it’s okay, I’ll get used to it.” “I’m sure you will.” “What am I supposed to do now?” “First breathe. Soak in the scene around and ground yourself as best as you can. Soon we’ll begin your test.” “All representatives look after their voters' tests?” “Not really. But one of my roles is to select and assess volunteers to see where they can be better placed within the division.” “Which division is this?” “The empathy division”. “You mean, it’s not a tech division?” “I know”, he says smiling kindly at her. But we analysed your energy field and this is where your skills can be more advantageous. “Okay”. Liz has many questions, but she trusts Ian intrinsically, so she can wait. “Ready? We’re going into zero gravity. “What?” And just like that, she begins to float gently, above the grass. “Can I fly?” “If you want to”.
She slowly moves awkwardly around until gaining speed and momentum, circling the meadow and the forest nearby. Ian flies with her.
“This is amazing!” “Follow me”, he asks.
Liz follows Ian up, flying higher and higher until they’re out of the planet’s orbit, going deeper and deeper into space until they reach a spot of nearly total darkness.
“I can hardly see a thing.” “Adjust your goggles”. “How?” “It’ll respond to your intention”.
Liz concentrates. Slowly, she starts seeing little balls of light, floating in space, like colourful cocoons. She wants to look closely and responding to her intent, the googles zoom in.
“It’s... people”, she says, surprised. “That’s right”, confirms Ian.
Hundreds of people, enclosed in their little cocoons, floating in space. Not much different from during voting day, but instead of doing their day to day activities, they seem to be asleep, or in some deep trance.
“Can you adjust your vision to their energy fields?”, he asks. She focuses again and sees their silhouettes, in the form of light grids, pulsating, vibrating, emanating different colours. Every person has their very own hue of colour, sometimes quite different from one another, other times just a slightly different hue. They look like a beautiful human rainbow.
“You learn fast.” His voice sounds pleased. “What do I do now?” “If you pay attention you will see small cracks in the continuity of the grids”.
She adjusts the goggles and brings the cocoon of a woman closer to her. Liz turns her image around, like she would a game avatar. In the area above the woman’s shoulder she notices a bit of light leaking out. She makes a gesture with her hand and touches it.
“Perfect! You’re ready to go.” “What do I have to do?” “More of what you just did”.
Liz swishes around the little cocoons, tapping the areas where she sees light leaking. The cracks have different sizes and shapes, depending on the person. Some are tiny, barely visible, others are huge, like a light haemorrhage.
It feels like a game, but deep down she knows this is real. These are real people, she sees them in detail. She sees them entirely, the whole of them. Inside and out. Soon she gets the hang of it, but the more she does, the weirder she feels. It started with a just a tiny funny feeling, like a droplet of emotion falling on her only to dissipate moments after, but now it’s growing larger and larger, quickly spreading over her. She’s feeling… things. Things she doesn’t understand, and things she understands all too well. She tries to push through it, but it’s too much. She starts to cry.
The simulation pauses. Ian’s face pops up.
“Are you okay?” “Yeah. I’m just - overwhelmed” “Try not to identify with their feelings. Push them aside and focus just on the cracks.” “It’s hard” “I know. But this is your chance to help the collective. This is your way.”
She's startled, even though not she’s not surprised. He knows what I think and what I feel. The collective. Yes. Liz feels a giant wave of emotion coming forward - this time, her own. He hugs her, and she actually feels the hug. It is warm and comforting, the kind of hug that makes everything seem manageable. Just like her father’s hugs.
“Just focus. Let the feelings pass through you without identifying with them”, he advises. “You mean, like in meditation?” “Exactly” Let them come, notice and then let go. They’re not your feelings”.
She assents, ready to resume the test.
This time, Liz goes through the motions of the test with a growing ease. Feelings of the people she touches keep coming, she feels compassionate, but doesn’t let that distract her from the task. She’s fast, she’s confident, and she’s enjoying it.
When the test is complete, Liz finds out she did an amazing job, with 99,8% accuracy. Ian tells her that such a score puts her in the position to be one of the leading empaths in the division. It means more work, harder work, having to deal with ambiguous cases. But Liz is not intimidated by this responsibility, on the contrary, she is thrilled, and happily accepts the task. Not without giving voice to the million questions floating around in her head.
“How do you access people’s energy fields?” “The blockchain serves as a thread. Since it’s an intrinsic part of people’s lives, we can outline their energetic footprint in the millions of microtransactions there. That points us to probabilities, but we need complete accuracy. There’s where you come in.” “What are those cracks? And why are they relevant?” “The leaks you identified are a symbolic representation of the disconnect people are experiencing. They’re at the core of repairing the human side of the equation. A crack inside humans as a collective produces a crack in the ecosystem. The Earth responds to the energies of its inhabitants, just like quantum variations respond to thoughts. If the cracks are not repaired, whatever action we take on the planet side, will be wasted.” “And identifying the cracks is enough?” “Unfortunately no. We have teams ready to start working on them, as soon as they are identified and people consent to the repairs”. “Why isn’t it compulsory?” “It requires self will. Ever heard that change only comes when we truly want it?” “But what if not enough people want to repair the leaks?” “We just need enough for leverage. Even if not everyone’s onboard, when we achieve enough critical mass to change the wave’s direction the process will later encompass virtually everyone”. “I have just one more question. For now.” “For now”, he chuckles. “So many worlds collapse, why are you interfering with ours and not others?” “Because you’ve asked us to. Not answering a call would be an interference.”
She’s about to say something, but hesitates.
“You have another question, don’t you?” “I do. What about my cracks?” “That’s the next step, could be done tomorrow before you start, but no reason why we shouldn’t do it now. If you’re not tired.” “I’d rather do it now. Would feel weird to sleep knowing I am leaking.” “Of course.”
Ian snaps his fingers and a replica of Liz appears in front of her eyes. It’s so identical to her, it feels like looking into a mirror. Liz turns her energy field representation around, but isn’t sure how to locate. Somehow it’s hard to see her own cracks.
“That’s natural. It’s resistance. Just let go. Follow your intent”, Ian guides her.
Liz squints her eyes and all of a sudden, it’s clear. There’s a small crack in her chest area, close to the heart. A pinkish hue of violet quietly leaks through the cracks. She feels grief. She misses her dad. She misses him so much.
“It’ll be alright”, Ian tells her tenderly. “Do you want it to be repaired?” “Yes, please”.
“As you wish”. He blinks for a second. “It has been scheduled and your info is already with Dr. LeRoy, sector B, facility 311. You have 10 minutes to get there.” “Thank you”. “It’s been a pleasure”, he says courteous. “You can take off your goggles now.” “Ian?” “Yes?” “Your name, who chose it?” “I did. I think, therefore Ian.” “It suits you”, she says, with a smile. “And…” “Do I sense another question coming?”, he teases her. “Just a quick one”, she retorts. “When all this is over, will you teach me how to make that origami duck?” “It’s a goose. And yes, I will.”
Almost two years have passed since voting day, and the subtle results from the early days grew slowly and steadily, hinting that SISM and humanity's joint efforts to revert Earth’s impending collapse were successful. No new pandemics so far, temperatures stabilised and showing a tendency to decrease in the next years. The bees have returned. Granted, due to some genetic engineering, but they’re back nonetheless.
Jean’s garden is colourfully alive, and the whole family is gathered to help build a small greenhouse. Liz is in charge of sorting the demolition wood, finding which ones are irremediably damaged and which could be recycled. This reminds her of the many months she spent identifying cracks in people’s energy fields, in complete isolation inside a zero gravity chamber. There were days when she was so tired she couldn’t even see properly. Energy leaks seemed to dance before her eyes, hard to pinpoint, flicking here and there. That was usually a sign that she had taken too much of people’s feelings upon herself, and new cracks were appearing in her own energy field. Thousands of microscopic cracks, each individually too small to be detected, but when summed up together made a huge toll on her psychic and physical well being. The trips to the repair department became more and more frequent and after a while she was so debilitated that Ian had to design a special shield to protect her from outside influences. They joked she finally got her superhero uniform. It looked ridiculously cool, but Liz was tired and worn. Still, she maintained high spirits, instilled with a grave sense of duty and purpose, proud of doing her part.
Now, her days are calmer, and less stressful. She took a sabbatical with the intention of starting a new project, something meaningful to her and others. There’s still a long way to go until she gets there, but Liz is on her way, and trusts she’ll get there. She knows it will never be something with the magnitude of the SISM enterprise, and she’s fine with it. Of course, she misses having such a clear goal, the certainty of doing something with all her heart and soul, being able to have an impact and fully help the collective. She misses Ian and her jumpsuit. She misses the whole experience.
“Auntie Liz!”, screams Esther, showing off the goose origami she did all by herself. Liz smiles, her heart filled with love.
Looking at Esther, she wonders if she’ll ever have the opportunity to use her skills to help save the world again. She hopes she doesn’t.
by Ivana Verle
October 2020