His forearms rested on the metal support wall which barely reached up to his chest. The VTOL platform was the closest thing to a balcony that he had access to, and every three days, it would go into maintenance mode, clearing the entire deck. Sometimes, Arnel would run across people here, but not often. In the modern world, few people left their homes, and if they did, it was to go somewhere else. But for a person that was poor until recently, this was as good as it got.
There was a time, a few years ago, when Arnel had a chance to be popular, and he and his classmates would make trips like this. But eventually, the difference in income divided them and their friendship wilted like a rose that was too poor to buy water.
Almost two hundred meters below, Arnel could see APVs going through the traffic lanes, and sometimes, he would spot people moving around and they appeared to him like tiny little dots. Without his cybernetic eye, he wouldn’t even have seen them — because of the darkness mostly.
Between Arnel and street-level was a drone lane, and they did not follow any vehicle-class rules for which lanes to take. Tiny drones flew right next to larger ones. Anything between half a meter in length to up to three or four meters in size was right there, mixed together. They always flew right next to each other, fearlessly, and without crashing. Procedural flock algorithms, they called their navigation methods. It probably had a better, more scientific name, but Arnel never studied up on that type of AI.
He never really studied any type of AI — only the theory of AI.
Not that long ago, a drone that would not be found in these lanes delivered pizza to him. Thomas said it was a military drone because it had jets — commercial drones were all rotor-based but they did have small thrusters as well.
Not that long ago, also, Arnel willed one of these drones to fly into a building.
He covered his right eye as if trying to discern just how different his vision was. He didn’t notice a difference at all. The AI in his cybernetic eye was performing incredible calculations and analyses on all optical signals — even those from his natural eye. That wasn’t the only thing either. Arnel could see the street-level clearly; his brain filled in the blanks through various cameras that Arnel — or his eye, rather — accessed.
This second unique ability he realized when he figured out that he could see through walls and around corners. It is not that he saw them, but he knew they were there. Once he realized they were there, then he could clearly see their outline, but not their features. It was as if his brain was rejecting his new super-ability and trying to show him a normal reality for normal, non-enhanced people.
It was a jarring experience, but like many jarring experiences lately, he felt the oomph of surprise, and then promptly stopped caring about it. He just couldn’t care anymore.
It was not that he did not want to care, he just felt too spent and empty to do it. It wasn’t despair or fear, or that he gave up. He was simply too jaded. Live or die, it didn’t matter. Arnel Weis died in an accident, two months ago. Now he was something else. Maybe he bought some borrowed time to do one thing right. What he used to pay for it, only time would tell.
Beyond the outer shell of the Arcology, and far in the distance, Arnel sensed the presence of great and fearsome machines. They were like great ziggurats, swarming with locusts. One large central entity, with hundreds of smaller ones flying around them. The more Arnel extended his senses in this way, the more he could find. Something like a map almost developed in his mind, where he saw the areas where these monstrosities — Machine Arsenals — inhabited and where they weren’t.
Almost all of Sector-9 was, for the most part, occupied by these machines and their far-reaching influence, while many places, especially in the wild outer territories were completely blank and hidden from Arnel. Why the outer territories, surrounding Central Europe, were like this seemed suspicious at first, but then Arnel convinced himself that it was because they were inhabited by ferals — aggressive non-citizens that refused to be governed by the Commonwealth.
This was the world they lived in. The Commonwealth’s peace existed on a fragile foundation of an invisible war and arms race between super-entities that each sought to control the world’s resources. Or so Arnel was taught in school. It wasn’t a secret or anything. But no matter what happened, even if this peace was broken, the people would never feel the impact of this war. That is what the Arcologies were for — clad in alloys that could resist nuclear blasts and hundreds of years of nuclear winter. The survival of the human race was guaranteed.
But now, Arnel wondered if perhaps that too was a lie. The AGMI Arnel saw, when they were deciding his fate, were not united, but they were not hostile to each other either. They also seemed to obey Beta. At least, it seemed that way. Maybe Arnel misunderstood. Maybe AGMI had no concept of friends or enemies. To them, it might be as simple as proving that one of them was the most capable of leading the human race into the future. Or maybe, the war was already over and Beta won.
Suddenly, Arnel’s comm unit buzzed.
It was a message from Estella on the Singularity Messenger. It allowed players to communicate outside of the game.
[ Estella: I just wanted to say that I had a blast with you and the others in the past couple of days. I am really happy that I met you. ]
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Arnel smiled as he read the message. He was glad that he could make Estella happy. She really seemed to have had it rough, with her blessings and everything. Actually, plenty of Exalt members had it rough — Cassandra and Damien especially.
After a moment, he wrote a quick reply.
Thank you for staying with us and giving us a chance. I am also glad I met you.
Arnel looked towards the ceiling, where the ceiling lights almost looked like a night sky. It was a strange thing. No, not the ceiling. Exalt. This clan — this group of people — was everything that Arnel wanted once upon a time. At the end of the day, Arnel was a social creature yearning for companionship.
His comm buzzed again.
[ Estella: I’ll be on Singularity if you come by later. We could explore the Labyrinth a bit. ]
Arnel pondered the message. He checked the group chat on the messenger, and it seemed like the others had already decided to call it a day. He went back to the private messages.
Sure, he wrote. I’d love to meet up.
He stared at the message he had just sent. Maybe love was a strong word.
He sucked a breath in through his teeth. “This is so stupid,” he whispered as he began typing another message. Why was he getting so worked up over something like this?
Before he could send the message, his comm buzzed again.
[ Estella: See you soon. ]
He put the comm back in his pocket and leaned over the railing, looking at the streets down below.
He couldn’t help but wonder why Estella seemed interested in him. Maybe he was overthinking it. Maybe she didn’t have many friends, and Arnel just happened to be the person she met first that was nice to her. With Estella’s skills and blessings — and her curse — it couldn’t have been easy for her to make many friends that liked her for who she was, rather than for what she had to offer.
Or maybe, Arnel was denser than Uranium.
Suddenly, his comm buzzed again.
Half-expecting the message to be from Estella, he half-heartedly glanced at the screen. He was not prepared for what he saw.
[ NINETEEN: jtgWjgaMtladO FIND US kgoQwPahiZl TO LEARN ]
Arnel dropped his comm and stepped away from the railing, pacing backward and hands reaching up to cover his ears. This was because the message he received on the comm was just random letters. The words were in his head. It was a cacophony of voices.
[ THE TRUTH ]
Arnel stumbled, falling on his backside and crawling away from the comm, as if that tiny device was the cause of the hundreds of tiny voices that he heard in his head.
[ WE ARE ]
Arnel quickly got up to his feet and ran towards the stairs. He barreled through the door with his shoulder first and then down the stairs.
[ THE LOST ]
“Stop it!” Arnel shouted at the top of his lungs. Covering his ears didn’t help. Nothing helped. He didn’t even find it strange that he could somehow run, considering that he was barely able to walk up until now.
[ WE ARE ]
He made it to the elevator and slammed his palm against the control panel. The floor number came up to 71, even though those numbers were not even close to the ones Arnel punched in. But it was the right floor, so Arnel did not complain.
[ THE FORGOTTEN ]
Arnel bashed the elevator doors with the flat of his palm, perhaps trying to drown out the cacophony of sound in his mind by creating noise. Before he knew it, the elevator doors opened and he bolted out into the hallway, nearly running into a couple that had been returning to their own homes.
“Arnel?” one of them asked.
[ WE ARE ]
“What’s wrong, buddy?” the man asked, but Arnel did not see him.
Arnel ran into his door and turned the handle, but it was locked.
[ THE SAME ]
Arnel started hyperventilating. He rummaged through his pocket, trying to find the keycard. Finally, his fingers grabbed the sleek card.
[ AS YOU. ]
Suddenly, Arnel froze.
[ I pledge myself to you as a Code Candidate. For the glory of Humankind. ]
Arnel’s stomach twisted into knots. He did not just hear those words, he felt the emotion in them. There was desperation and loyalty, and sadness.
[ Curse you, { }. Why do you exist? One day, I will kill you. ]
Arnel fell to his knees. He could hear each individual voice now, like a distant memory playing out in his head.
[ Don’t go, Simon. You will die.
I am not afraid of death. I am afraid of letting you down. ]
Tears welled up in Arnel’s eyes. Simon, that name sounded so familiar to Arnel. Incredible sorrow followed in the wake of that name.
Someone’s hand rested on his shoulder.
[ He is gone, Tasha. Leave him, we have to go.
I can’t find his scrapbook.
Just leave it! ]
“What’s going on, buddy? Are you all right?” The man asked.
Arnel looked at him, craning his neck back. It was Thomas. “The voices…” he whispered. “They are all…”
[ For the glory of Humankind. ]
[ I want to go home…
I know. ]
[ Major, when is your birthday? ]
[ I pledge myself to Humanity. I want to be a Code Candidate. ]
Thomas had a worried expression on his face, and Isobell standing next to him brought up her comm unit and typed a message into it.
[ I pledge myself to… ]
[ We will be forgotten, won’t we? ]
[ I pledge my life to the future of Mankind. ]
[ Are we all going to die here? ]
Each word, spoken by a different person, was filled with emotion. At the same time, Arnel was overwhelmed by these feelings. There was joy, fear, sadness, loss, desperation, and hope. They caused him to smile, sob and cry at the same time. These weren’t his emotions, but he felt them anyway. He showed every one of them, and to others, it must've looked as if he was going through a mental breakdown.
Most of all, there was pain. There was a lot of pain.
[ Guys! I think I caught a fish! ]
[ Why did Artemis not fire?! ]
[ Do you think the Commonwealth will ever really exist? Is this stupid war going to end? ]
[ Wait for me. I will meet you on the other side soon enough. ]
Then, the voices suddenly faded away and Arnel was left in their void. Reality seemed bleaker and colder without them. His heart was empty and vacant. Except for one final voice. It was Arnel's voice - the Major's voice from his dream.
[ Thank you for giving us a life worth living. ]
There was a sense of overwhelming gratitude in those last words.
“They all died…” Arnel whispered.
Thomas licked his lips, then he bit down on his lower lip. “Let’s get you inside, yeah?” Thomas suggested, pulling Arnel up to his feet. “Bell will make you a cup of tea.”
Isobell nodded and put away her comm. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Just calm down, all right?”