[Log 3.3]

[A mirage of the future]

“Sultana?” Zephyro asked, anger covering his face for no apparent reason before it glitched and returned to show his concern.

Zephyro was the name Chris gave our first prototype AI, back when we first started talking about the idea of having a Wish-enhanced computer program to help us defeat the Conservationists. Chris had come up with the name and they’d explained it was some sort of joke with numbers and this being version 0, but I had been too busy to appreciate the humor. I did understand, however, that Zephyro had been a very simple, advisory AI connected only to the maintenance systems inside the bunker at Progress’ Head, the place we had decided to withdraw to, to gather our strength.

Zephyro had not been programmed to create a digital world. Hell, I didn’t even think he could be connected to a screen. Not by himself. I vaguely remembered Chris said they made him modular. Something about microservices? They’d been very excited about it.

I realized I had been thinking of Zephyro as “him,” and glanced him over once more. He stood tall, stoic even as shame and defeat drew deep lines into his face.

The dry air smelled of woodsmoke and a hint of blood, uncomfortably familiar. For a second I thought Chris built a personality matrix into Zephyro as a form of research, but they and I had practically been glued together since I’d apologized and we’d made up. There was no way they could have snuck this in without me knowing. Not that I thought they would. Besides, as much as I trusted them, they didn’t have the skills for something like this yet. No one on Tobes, hell, no one on Earth would have been able to program something like this. Not for years. Not without a massive boost from the Wish

The Wish. I realized. It had worked. Holy shit, it worked! Not as we had imagined, of course, and obviously, something had gone wrong, but it worked! The conservationists were absolutely, finally, ultimately fucked and done for, as soon as Chris pulled me from this VR-mirage-thing.

…Any minute now.

Chris? I thought out loud, but there was no reply. Chris? Give me a beep when you get this. Again, nothing. It didn’t seem like they could enter Zephyro's domain, or talk to me while I was in there. I had to trust they were working on it. In the meantime, I needed to find out why I was looking at a city on fire.

“Let’s start from the beginning,” I said, straightening on the throne as I tried to decide on a line of questioning.

“As you will, Sultana,” Zephyro said, heading me off. He made a sweeping gesture with his hand and the desert changed. Sand flowed, the city reconstructed itself, clouds streamed by, and the sun rose back to its zenith.

At first, more and more people started to populate the city down below. Whenever I looked at a certain spot for longer, it was magnified, like I could move it closer to me just by focusing hard enough. Hunters roved out the city gates, workers repaired buildings and artisans honed whatever craft they had chosen. Some of it didn’t make sense. The hunters vanished as soon as they made it a few hundred meters past the city limits, and what looked to be a smith and a carpenter were busy working on a distinctly robot-like scaffolding. It’s a metaphor, I realized. No, not a metaphor, a sort of visual representation of the bunker’s systems. With that thought came new insights, and new problems. The guards on the walls never moved from their spots, but turned slowly, like automated turrets. Sunlight rhythmically glinted off the helmets of lookouts, like LEDs on security cameras. It all made a bit more sense now. But assuming this city is still on fire behind this recording, then…

As we approached noon, the city got smaller, buildings deconstructing themselves until just the fortress and a single house remained, nestled against its walls. I assumed this meant we had reached the beginning of Zephyro’s memories, back when only a few rudimentary defenses were in place, but I couldn’t be 100% sure. Besides, what date had that been? And what exactly did these soldiers represent? Turrets and cameras, sure, but the city outlines didn’t map to the bunker at all. It was much bigger, and that was just to start with. So where did Zephyro place all these turrets and cameras? And how many gates were there, and was each of them a real exit? It was beyond confusing, and I was reminded of the time the developers in my team had tried to explain a technical diagram using a house and plumbing analogy. Analogies, similes, and metaphors only ever got you so far.

“Can’t you just give me a diagram of the bunker? Maybe overlay them with some building schematics?” I asked as an immaculate golden dome built itself on the highest floor of the palace. Just before it closed, I caught a glimpse of a figure resting on a luscious hoard of pillows and carpets, shaded by a pergola overgrown with jasmine. Is that me? I blinked. Holy shit, it is me…

The entire city glitched as the dome set into place.

Zephyro finished his motion and as the landscape settled, he turned to me and shook his head in answer to my question. For once, he actually looked annoyed, but it faded quickly. Without a glitch, this time.

“Apologies, Sultana, but I can not. Even though I understand that when you speak of a “bunker” you mean the palace. I have known that this city is as real as moonlight ever since your Blessing infused me with life. I know it in my very soul. I am the city, and the city is me. To pretend to be someone else would undo me as much as it would undo you.” Oh, my friend, if you knew… I think, but I let the subject drop.

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“Alright,” I said. “Then tell me what’s happening. Because the last thing I remember is using my Wish to advance memOS, and then waking up in darkness.” My voice quivered a little, and I set my jaw, annoyed. “I’ve got no clue what is going on, or why pulling me out is taking so long.” I also didn’t understand why Zephyro looked like a Saracen warrior, or why I was dressed like I came straight out of 1001-Nights, but Zephyro had seemed testy about the subject of identity and how he designed his space, so I dropped it for now.

“I cannot answer that, Sultana. All I know is that I am tasked with protecting you. It is the first thing I remember, even before the city, and it is also my biggest regret.”

“Because you let the bunker—, I mean the city fall?”

“Yes, Sultana, but that was later, after… after your body had already vanished.”

My face grows cold, despite the heat. “Vanished?” I asked. It comes out clipped.

Turning away from me in shame, Zephyro moved his hand again, and the sun moved forward, glitched, moved backward, and then forward just a little. The dome on top of the palace lifted as if raised by a shell game con artist. The garden was still there, the pergola was still there, but the pillows and carpets were empty. The sleeping woman—my body—was gone.

“This is another metaphor, isn’t it?” I asked, eyebrow twitching. My neck felt tight. “My body is still on that bench in the lab, and this is just a visualization of how my mind came untangled.” I grasped the edge of the stone throne to stop my hands from clenching into fists. Fucking incompetence. Again. Even in virtual reality, no one actually does anything right. I will be stuck in that darkness until they find my body—possibly forever—and then… My emotions must have shown plainly on my face because Zephyro took a step back before he remembered himself. He came closer again, like a man approaching the headman’s block. Is this how I want people to feel around me?

I took a deep breath and crossed my legs and my arms. I made an effort to listen to the wind, to smell the ash that lingered in the air still. Only then did I allow myself to feel the electric tension in my chest, nudging me towards mindless reaction and rage. It didn’t fade, but noticing it released its hold on my thoughts.

“Sorry, Zephyro,” I said, unable to keep my voice completely even. “Please, explain from the beginning.”

“Yes, Sultana,” Zephyro said, lacking his usual confident intensity. His posture had changed, his head slightly bowed. He was idly thumbing over the pommel of his sword. There, you broke him. You always break them, especially when they like you.

“I do not know when it happened.” The world reset itself to noon. We skipped several hours. The city glitched a few times, looped to almost night, then back to 12AM. “When I first took my post, you were already asleep. Still, I knew what I had to do. I built the golden dome, using the finest designs available to me, and then I sent out my people—your people—to work towards your protection. There,” he points towards the house nestled against the palace wall. “That is Emil-1 and his family. They were the first, and always the bravest. He took the materials we found outside the palace and built more houses for his children, and soon, his children took these houses and made them their own. Emil-2 became a smith, Raoul-1 our first watchman. Mudira-1 coordinated between them, and so we grew.

When we could no longer find enough materials in the palace hold, it was not a big problem. Alkashafa-1 always longed to see the world, and she set out to gather what we needed to raise Alkashafa-2, 3, 4, and all the Kashaf brothers. Everyone adored them, even though they always were rascals and up to mischief. One time, they brought back nothing but tiny stones and Mihnat-albina-2, he swore so loud…” The ghost of a smile danced over his face, but then he seemed to remember where he was. “It does not matter.

“They were a proud people, alive by your Grace, and under your ever-benevolent presence, I humbly claim I led them well. We even prospered, for a while.”

I listened to his story with growing unease. Zephyro wasn’t just a security AI. He was self-propagating. The mere thought was absolutely insane. If this had happened on Earth, people would have lost their shit.

But even if he was the most advanced being in the world, manufacturing hundreds if not thousands of drones out of raw materials did not happen overnight.

And that meant I had been asleep for far longer than I previously thought.

“Zephyro… how long did all that take?” I ask, my mouth dry.

“I do not know, Sultana,” he said, and the city glitched back to the broken inferno. He pointed to a building burning white-hot, close to the palace. It was almost blinding, like a pillar of raging light had sprouted in the middle of the city. “That was the archives, where Hakim-1 kept the records and the time. I never ran a timekeeping subroutine, but honorable Murabiy-15, keeper of the Daycare of Blessed Flowers, is still alive, and she tells me it takes between two to three system scans to raise a new sibling.”

“And how often do you scan the system?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“Every 23.9 standard hours.” Not terrible, but…

“How many erm… siblings did you have?”

“None, Sultana. I am Zephyro, and I alone can carry my burden. But you have blessed Emil-1 with a long lineage.”

“Sure. How many, by your count?”

“Without my Mulazim to aid me, I can only count up to 127. They have all fallen, and there is no one I could ask now. I must offer you my humblest apologies, Sultana.”

“That’s fine…” I said absentmindedly as I did the math in my head. Even if there had only been 128 people down there, I arrived at a staggering minimum of 256 days.

But as I watched the mess below, I realized it was impossible to do a headcount, not even with techniques I’d had to learn on the battlefield. Not with people trying to fight the flames, fleeing towards the city center, or simply just panicking and running around aimlessly. Instead, I did a rough count of the houses. Let’s assume each house holds three people…

I slowed after counting to two hundred houses, realization and shock disrupting my concentration. At three hundred, panic set in.

I counted the five hundredth house, and I gave up.