Manila diverges from its real-world twin. The streets reshape, compensating for the anomaly of the impenetrable mansion and the crazed woman within it. The city shifts as if tectonic plates beneath it realign.
The movements are silent, but the city is alive with noise. No waft of gasoline exists, but jeepneys and trikes still abound in their sleek electrical reincarnations. The capture drones hum quietly, their cooling fans and thrusters whirring. They observe, curious, but never disrupt the city’s delicate balance. The drones ascend higher and higher, some even to the clouds, keeping out of the way, watching Manila and the entirety of the Philippines from the height of birds.
Reconstructions of people walk through the bustling business districts, shift through the night markets, and run through the narrow alleys of the denser divisions. The smell of street food rises. Street vendors hock. The air is not sterile anymore but teeming with local aromas.
As the engineered nightfall comes, the citizens take their rest, but the albularyo never sleeps.
“Do you know what albularyo means in Filipino?” the aged woman asks, a faint smile on her lips. “It means witch doctor—or healer. You see now why they call me that.”
Francesca Thaddius Reed joins her in that place. The two stand atop the Metamatics office in BGC, the future instantiation of a building twice as large as the Makati headquarters. It’s only a budding idea in the company that Ms. Reed has shared with a handful of people.
“Who exactly do you mean by ‘they’?” Ms. Reed asks.
“No one, now. But soon, everyone.” The albularyo steps to the edge of the building and looks down at the traffic. In the engineered afternoon, it flows smoothly. “Filipinos are a hardened people. We overcome a myriad of disasters every day. We are used to things breaking down around us, losing everything, and starting anew. We are also used, unfortunately, to occupation.” The albularyo turns to Ms. Reed. “We are used to overcoming adversity in every form.”
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“Need I remind you,” Ms. Reed says, her voice steady, “that none of this would have been possible without me.”
“So is said, but then again, you never really cared about the people here, did you? You still don’t.” The albularyo steps closer to Ms. Reed and beckons her to gaze upon the city. “This is what Manila can become in time. But not as much time as you’re thinking.”
It indeed seems like a utopia to Francesca Thaddius Reed. The Giants have already made the Pasig sparkle in reality. But in the albularyo’s version of Manila, the river thrives with dolphins and porpoises, flanked by schools of fish once found only on distant beaches. Not a trace of smoke mars the pristine skyline. Traffic moves at the speed that blood flows in a healthy body.
The people, moreno and proud, shine with determination. They laugh, cry, and, above all, sing.
It is unrealistic, but then again, aren’t all dreams?
“A vision like that,” Ms. Reed murmurs, her voice soft but edged with skepticism, “it’s far beyond reach. Not in our lifetime or yours.”
“That’s where I disagree. Before, maybe, but now?” The albularyo smiles. “Now I have the means.”
The albularyo dismisses Ms. Reed, ejecting her from the simulation as the world fades from black to a harsh white. As she returns to consciousness, Ms. Reed feels as if she’s been ushered out of someone’s home—dismissed by an AI intent on far greater things.
As Ms. Reed rises from the couch in her office, greeted by her nurse, secretary, and PR rep, she rubs her head and imagines an AI that is not just a writer, actor, and set designer but also a showrunner all in one. Not only those but a judge, jury, and an executioner.
Left unchecked, the albularyo will script the most powerful drama in Philippine history.
And it will do so alone.
TO BE CONTINUED
IN VOLUME 2