Chapter 12 - Leaving

I turned around to drink in my last look of the town square before stepping into the transport station's suberranean pavement overpass. The crumbly white brick gave way to grey-purple metal, a strip of irridescent green chasing the harsh light from the white lighting strips down the steel staircase. At the bottom was half-tube tiled in cold, shiny white tile with midnight-black grouting, made all the more surreal by the perfectly diffuse, white light that was no doubt precisely balanced to a perfect Solar White. The yellow line in front of us replaced the white with a perfect yellow square guiding us down the grid-plane to the capsule system.

Red reached out and grabbed the sleeve of my cassock. "So, what's going to happen?"

"We can go over the details later, stick close," I let her hand slide down to catch mine as I picked up my pace and cut through several others making their own way toward their destinies.

"Hey!" She yelped as I pulled hard to prompt her to keep. She had to nearly run lest she clothes-line someone behind her as she flailed about. We wended between khaki pants and tight suits of Second Skin.

"Here," I pulled her to the end of the yellow line, forming a perfectly flat, round circle, cutting across tile. It flashed "You have reached your destination," and then faded away, back into pure white tile and pure black grout.

"How does it do that?" She pointed down and blinked. "I thought that was painted on. Are we in the Realm?!" She started swatting at her temples before huddling her back against the solid tiled wall.

"Calm yourself," I rested my palm on her shoulder, "There are tiny nanopixels laminated into each tile so they act like little screens. The grid system just helps lend some depth to the renderings for some faux 3D projection."

"It works..." She calmed and pointed across the terminal. "Is that your pod?" She pointed at a tall cylinder with its rounded door swung open to reveal a satin pad and a Jack.

"Yep, and yours behind you," she turned around the edge to see her own cylinder and Jack. All along the corridor of the terminal people were entering into their tube to leave Smithsborough forever. "Hurry, hurry," I shooed her into tube. "Push your back against the rear velvet, put on your Jack and stand like this," I held my arms out to their sides just above my thigh.

Red mirrored in suit, "Like this?" She stood still and the door began to swing shut. "What's going on?"

"I will explain it to you in the Realm," I waved until the door closed and I could hear no further protestations. I crossed over to my tube and put on the Jack. The door swung shut and just as the pillowy front pad touched my nose, I was consumed by an all encompassing darkness. Then, as though projected into infinte space with me a perfect observer, a disembodied, almost cartoonish cloud appeared, and in it, a sepia-toned reality started to play out.

Welcome to Project Suom, a saccharine-sweet female voice cooed into my ear. Join your fellow companions in a new Shared Realm. A room dedicated to socialization with your fellow migrants is available. In keeping with the Dain Stereotype, we are simulating a Gaial Epoch, Late Second Millenium steam engine train in the Continental outlands. We will also be featuring a simulation of a Fabricate Epoch, Early First Millenium jungle archeologist if one wishes to interrogate the cultural architecture of the Nils Stereotype that the Efuarét operational mechanics were trained on. Thank you for joining Project Suom

I blinked, and in an instant, I was sitting on an old iron train with beautiful wooden paneling in a comfortably bolstered velvet booth. Red was sitting across from me, patting at the lace gloves on her hand, a red ribbon tied around her large hat, devilish red hair dangling out in ringlets around her face. "Gag me," her eyes grew wide and in what felt like a blink, but I knew my eyes never actually closed, Red had changed into a white blouse with long balloon cuffs and a frilly crevat, hair wound tight into a bun. "Better," She inspected her cuffs and patted her hair.

I looked down at my wrists and noticed I was wearing a seersucker suit and had on a straw-brimmed hat. I felt no need to change. "So what now?" Red pleaded with me.

"We are on our way to Dain," I smirked at the glass of whiskey on the table in front of me, and nodded my head slightly. "We be held up for orientation, and then, well," I shrugged, "I don't really know. I have never changed Realms before."

Red scrunched her face, "But you must have some idea?" She leaned back and removed a hand-rolled cigarette from a slender sliver case, tapped it lightly on the back of her hand to tamp down the pointed end, and with a flury and a loud scrunching click, a lit wick-style lighter held an orange flame under the twisted paper end. She took a drag and the end took on the telltale glow of ingition. She stuffed the tapered end into a long black cigarette holder cradled gingerly between her index and middle finger and took a melodramatic puff, exhaling with a woosh as the cloud of smoke was evacuated out an open window as the train chugged along an indistinguishable rocky red grassland. "Surely you have had some training from the See."

"Well, once we get to Dain, we are scheduled for a series of transfer lectures that will explain the logistics of the Diaspora," I took a drag on the anonymous whiskey, only to realize from the warm, smokey sweetness and clean icey crispness that this was instead a bourbon or rye of some kind. "Hmm," I regarded my glass and took another light sip. Notes of cherries and vanilla were almost overpowering, but not in a bad way. "There, they will give us the Patch Notes of all the technical upgrades we will be seeing in the new Habitat. I will need to attend a series of Lectures on what my role as a Cardinal will be. After that, we will need to attend an Orientation with the new Portal system and establish our Realm membership. I believe Efuarét will not be particularly populous, as I think we were not able to entice an exceptionally many people from Dain away. From my take, it appears Suom will be almost entirely small Enclaves like Smithsborough of highly localized concentrations of power distributed evenly over the surface of the Fabrican, each with their own regionalized group of philosophically similar Founders. The Capital, Efuarét, will likely be a Government seat, and not much else, unlike Dain, who's population is concentrated almost entirely in the Habitat's megacity."

"So, we go there, they tells us the rules of the game, and then we're off to some small camp, scattered far across the planet from the next-nearest village?" Red took drag off her cigarette, her porclein white skin contrasted, almost shockingly, by her ruby red lipstick and the long black stem of her cigarette. She had on purple smokey eye shadow and winged eye liner. It looks as though she had taken significant time in the character creation screen tuning her image exactly.

"Essentially, yes," I took another sip of my drink. With the rocks melted slightly, the thinner flavor took on a smoother, more muted tone with a long, beautiful flavor and a clear, cool drinkability.

"My kind of gig," She winked and leaned back irreverantly into the rich plush of the booth.

"I believe that is why they were so excited to have you," I smiled warmly, "and all of the other Theists and Hardfolk who joined on. It looks like Overmind wants to observe the traits that emerge from micro-Enclave behaviors for the Experiment."

"Fascinating," She smiled and made direct eye contact with me, blue eyes fluttering, enrapt.

"Indeed," I smiled and took a long sip of my drink meeting her excited gaze. The flavor had thinned yet farther, the bourbon, I was sure it was bourbon, tasting more like the syrup in a soft-drink than the concentrated bomb when taken neat. "Knowing that Nils has recently transitioned from a Scientific Monarchy to a Scientific Republic, I hazard that they found synergy between our Theists and Hardfolk and the Nilsian's Eclesiastic Democracies. The colony we are to inhabit will be a particularly influential one. I will be serving a man named Eli Standish. From my research, it seems the Social culture had become exceedingly repressive, and dozens were being driven into the Realm and incarcerated into enforced isolation at alarming rates. Standish, then only an Exarch, formed a revolution in the Realm through the Templari reform system. As heroes of combat, they returned, their Glory immunizing them against the Shunning of the Habitat, and rallied a coup in the Government. As Grand Master, he oversaw a Renaissance in Nils of Converts away from the Realm. The new Paradigm allowed Nils to Flourish in Stature, becoming the Fabrican powerhouse it is today. Apparently, Standish started having some cognitive deficiencies while in office, and decided to step down. Instead of passing down his position as monarch, he established a Round Table and turned Management of Nils over to an elected committe."

"Sounds like you'll be caring for a demented war criminal in the waning days of his dictatorship, to me," Red leaned back again, locking her eyes in the far distance, and took a long drag from her cigarette until it burned to the end of her holder, where she ashed it out the window, withdrew another, and lit back up.

"Nils has produced some of the greatest contributions to the Great Truth Humanity has ever seen. Art and Science unlike any before it," I rested my glass down and crossed my legs deliberately. "I have met the man, however," I too fixed my gaze on the towers of red sandstone wizzing by against the brilliant blue sky. "War criminal he is not. Fascist he is not. Politician, however. Now that is a different story."

"Oh?" She turned away from the window and gently alighted her eyes on me.

"Just that," I looked at her impassively, "he is a character." I smirked. "He has no power in the Government, but I am told he will be an exceptionally influential force in the crafting of our Enclave and that I shall serve with others he is Mentoring to be groomed as potential leaders within the Adjudicators. I believe he will have his hand in several machinations behind the scenes. No other will have ever been so intimate with the Mind we are moving to as he."

"Then best to be on his good side, I imagine," She smirked. She hailed a steward pushing a cart through the cabin and ordered a tall Julep. She took a sip from the steel straw and melted. "Delightful," she winked.

"Power is a silly thing," I mused. "I probably had more power in my ministration of the Mission than I will have here in Efuarét, despite my actions probably having a large, broader, more reverberant impact. I will be supplicant to my Superior, and will have my own Ordinate and Subordinate supplicants. Instead of my preachings being word to the Adherent's ears, I will be crafting the policy from which those Sermons are shaped. Instead of infusing philosophy into my Lectures, it will be my Great Truth into which the Lecturer's philosophy is infused." I took the last sip of my beverage and cursed not anticipating my own need for a drink when the steward was nearby.

"But isn't that special?" She leaned forward and smiled excitedly. "Your Great Truth is going to be the Great truth. How can that not be what you want?"

"Well, there is a difference between being an authority and the Authority. As a Missionary or Lecturer, I am simply presenting that which is established as the Great Truth. As an Authority in the Cardinalry, I am instead responsible for the path down which the Great Truth is established. I will be asked to make Determinations on NP problems Mind is incapable of solving, and defending my solutions. And, if I fail, I will not just have been wrong and produced a contained malignancy requiring only small remediation, but instead will have created a cancer which will have slowed down the course of all Humanity and set us back incalculably for my misunderstanding."

"Well, that's why they call it an Experiment, right?" Red rested hand on mine. The physical contact startled me.

"I mean, we have yet to perfect the Fabrican," I softened. "Otherwise they would not ever need Patch Notes. I guess as long as I help maintain steady progress forward, it is up to Fate whether my contributions were consequential or incremental. I need only fulfill my role as fascilitator to Overmind's greater ambitions to have served Humanity admirably. Thanks," I sighed. "I feel a bit more relaxed now."

"You're welcome," She folded her arms under her bust. She then craned her neck down while lifting up on her arms to extend the long cigarette holder up never breaking eye contact. Her red lips fondled for it impotently before finally connecting and extracting a long drag, exhaling the smoke comically out the corner of her mouth.

I laughed. "What are you going to do in Efuarét?"

"Same as most, I guess," She shrugged. "You said I should give designing worlds in the Realm a try, and that seems like it might be interesting. There are also several opportunities in the Fleshrealm I could follow through with. My art, for one. There are dozens of openings for research Scientists to explore the Wilds outside the Domes and catalog everything. I am nothing if not a woman of Labor and Worship. I've been thinking of becoming a Deacon, myself." She smiled, self-satisfied.

"Oh ho ho, look at you," I winked. "Purpose is the vaccine against the Darkness." The steward wheeled back through our car. I stopped him for another bourbon. He clinked a large orb of ice into the ornate rocks glass and poured a healthy serving overtop it, the amber liquid cascading over the smooth, translucent globe.

"To a healthy mind," she held her glass up to me. I clinked the edge of mine to hers and took a sip. The flavor was sharp and much more concentrated, the undertones lost to the burn of the undiluted alcohol.

"To new beginnings," I nodded and fixed my gaze out the window and watched the red stone pillars speed by.

***

When the Tube opened, we were in the same black and white faux-grid plane, boxed in by artificial-looking yellow lines and light too perfectly uniform to feel real. The door opposite me swung open and Red removed her Jack and looked around, confused. “Weren't we just here?” She furrowed her brow and screwed her mouth up tight.

“Look at your watch,” I pointed at the standard-issue mechanical watch she had on her left wrist. “It is sychned to our frequency of the Speed of Information, about eleven hours will have elapsed.” I smiled. “Aaaand...” I held my finger up, “...now.”

“Fuck!” She exclaimed uncomfortably loudly. I looked around but no one seemed to notice as they stood in the holographic corridor.

I pointed at the bathroom door behind her before spinning into the stall myself. I relieved myself for what felt like ages before rinsing and drying my hands and pushing the door open. Red emerged at roughly the same time, sound of the plumbing whisking away our waste behind us. “Glorious,” I smirked as I hid my wet hands in my cassock and dried them on my inner shirt's sleeves.

“This is too surreal,” She looked around. “I am still not certain we have left the Realm,” she reached out to touch the solid wall, then looked at her finger as if trying to see a difference in it.

“It is a holograph,” I gently grabbed her bicep and led her down the path toward the exit. A group of Migrants passed by and I kept step behind them. She adjusted and I let my hand fall away. Red grabbed the hem of my cassock's cuff as I drove forward into the throng of passangers arriving at the Grand Station. I reached out into what should have been clear white expanse and knocked my finger on an invisible white wall. It made a hollow clacking sound. “The entirety of the Habitat is built of Screen.” I shuttled her forward. The white blocks began to give way to purplish-blue steel tiling, the dim lighting of the Habitat at the end of the hall opening out from a perfect circle into a magenta skyline from the artificially-white hall they were in now. “The Habitat is fabricated from a carbon lattice and then a crystalline gel is flowed into the form. The Beating Heart of the Fabrican, the Dynamo Core, feeds an inductive current into the Mind of the Fabrican, the Habitat.” We emerged out of the tunnel into a perfectly non-white expanse of space. Underneath our feet was a perfectly level plane of purple-grey etched stone, granite-like and solid. Tall screens extended upward until they connected to the Dome, a thin, blue, star-filled path cutting through a sea of dull magenta sky sunlight.

I pointed up. “The Screen runs from the floors of the Earth to the Expanse above the Dome, the divisor between our terrestrial life and the Void beyond the magenta. The Screen is like a giant Light Pipe. It receives a Pulse from the great Overmind,” we reached the end of the block and the skyline opened up. Just beyond the pink, in an area that seemed just outside the dome, a dark red dot burned in the sky. “Overmind jumps from solar system to solar system building Dyson spheres around stars. Ones with habitable planets nearby are seeded with Life, and the Dyson sphere is turned onto the planet to incubate it, so that in the future they may bear Sentient life and follow our path to the Promised land. Stars that are uninhabitable are strip-mined of their planetary material and formed into new Fabricans. The energy harvested from the stars are concentrated into a single point and projected out into space, focusing the entirety of their solar winds onto a single heading and leaving an optical targeting computer in constant synchronicity with our Speed of Information, transmitting telemetry data on how to aim and produce the maximum photonic pressure into the Sail.”

We kept pace with the Migrant group ahead of us. They led us to the Doors of the First Bascillica. I greeted the Adherent nodding at us from the door, a tall, skinny man in a tight-fitting Second Skin jumpsuit, a featureless white Mask, and nothing else. A show of immense Poverty. “The Sail is the front pushing us toward the Promised Land, the edge of Space where we will finally outrun the Time Hole at the beginning of our Universe that threatens to dilute us into nothingness, a single gravitationally condensed cold entity trapped in a Time Hole, unable to outrun the expanding of the universe, an inert grain of sand frozen in the Heat Death of the universe. There was a period called Cosmic Inflation where the Universe accelerated infinitely, then, as it cooled, it started condensing into little droplets of Heat. These Galaxies started cooling and expanding into its own little droplets of Heat, Stars. Those droplets either stabilized into mid-temperature stars, or the overheated and exploded outward, where the drops slowly cooled and then conglomerated into frozen stars, or Planets as we call them.” I sat in the pew near the group of Migrants and pointed at the Ceiling frescos in the First Bascillica “This is our 'Creation Myth,' as you call it,” I pointed at all the cone-shaped galaxy painted into the first Sept, The Chapel of Growth. It expanded outward into a sea of galaxies.

“In the Second Sept, The Chapel of Life, we see a grungy biological film starting to grow over the planets,” I pointed at oversized planets orbiting miniature stars, bursting with comical renderings of trees and sea creatures. “We started as scum in the water, and then little pond creatures, then complex life-forms,” I pointed at the Third Sept, “This pond scum slowly turned into Humans and the Age of Reason began. We started making machines that could capture Information and freeze it in place for period of time. Someone chipped a picture into a wall to let someone else know hunting was nearby. With the Accumulation of Knowledge,” I pointed at the Fourth Sept, “The Age of Invention was born. Humans passed Information down Generation by Generation and slowly transformed our understanding by figuring out the way things work.” I pointed at a human holding a chemical flask, and another operating a primitive transistor-etching conveyer. “By recording exactly how long to do something, in exactly what way, and in exactly what quantities, we developed the Theory of Everything, “I pointed at a human at a blackboard writing down mathematical equations. “By calculating the Rules of the Universe, we were able to encode the seeds of Life into a Machine, the Fabrican,” I pointed at the Fifth Sept, A translucent circle encompassed a planet, an Eye at the center of the Machine. “Humans needed to perfectly simulate our universe so we could predict what Information was more important than others, and how to allocate our scarce resource, that of Discovery.” I pointed at the Sixth Sept, Elohim Muscot standing next to the Door to Eden. “When Elohim proved the Fabrican could never posses the power of Discovery, only Observation, and that it can know all possible Realities at any moment, but only we can Witness the Great Truth.” I pointed at the Seventh sept, a swarm of Planets riding a gust of wind blowing from the Stars behind it, “we formed an Alliance. A Symbiosis that would ensure our mutual survival. It would take us to the Promised Land, a place where we can never die, and in exchange, we would travel at the Speed of Time through the Universe, the 'Long Way,' so to speak, and bear Witness to Reality.”

I pointed back out of the Bascillica, to the diffuse magenta sky, “All we have to do is not die, and we get to live forever,” I said. “Fabricans procreate, like we do, by trading Humanities for Minds, in the same way that we would swap DNA when we procreated sexually. It builds up its immune system and prevents the Swarm from falling victim to toxic World Lines.” I turned to meet Red's gaze. She looked bewildered.

“Look, this little Myth was created so we simple Humans can try to condense tens of Billions of years of existence into a narrative that can be understood at a Time-Scale length of Life,” She was enrapt by the Grand Renderings of the Bascillica. I rested my hand on hers. They were folded into her lap. She breathed in sharply at the contact. “All you need to take away from this is that you have one true objective in life: not die.” I smiled.

“This is too perfect,” she looked around and then looked at me. “It's like, you were talking to me about the creation myth when we walked off the Tube, and then the white grid turned into this weird city, but like, there is a church within walking distance,” she looked around again, a bit more frantically, before looking back at me, brow furrowed, “not just walking distance, but almost a perfectly calibrated length of time for you to reach a specific part of your monologue.” Her eyes grew especially wide. “Like you know what I was thinking and told you exactly what I wanted to know,” She looked at her hands and touched the pew, looking back at her finger. “Like I never took off the Jack at the tube and I'm in some pod now, forever trapped in the Realm,” she poked me. My flesh yeilded, the white mark left on the back of my hand slowly fading to my natural flesh.

“It is too perfect,” I patted her on the shoulder and calmed her down. “This is all by design,” I chuckled. “This is all rehearsed for me,” I smiled. “I've done this walk a thousand times, maybe more. I have given this same talk twice as many,” I flared my eyebrows. “This is no random occurance,” I pointed at the Migrants in front of us. They were not from Smithsborough. There was some other woman in a Cossak sitting with her, pointing at all of the Septs, talking in a hushed tone to the enrapt travelers. “One of my first jobs with the See was as a Receiver. We received Migrants from around the Fabrican and walk them down the Path of Enlightenment after they leave the station. This is the First Bascillica, if we follow the Path, we'll have toured all five Stations and emerge at the heart of the Habitat, St. Kaku Cathedral, where the Archbishop presides over the entirety of Dain's Scientific Rite and manages on all choices relevant to the Holy See. Many have grasped at my hem as I guided them down the Pilgrimage. I have perfected my speech from years of practice.” I smirked and leaned back, cradling my head with my finger tips. “Smoke and Mirrors,” I stretched with an exhale before returning to my normal sitting position. “Look at your watch,”

Red looked down, then looked at me, “You keep saying that like it's supposed to mean something.” She furrowed her brow at me gain.

“Time doesn't flow correctly in the Realm, have you ever noticed that?” I smirked and leaned back again, resting most of my weight into the pew. “It's like, things that should take seconds play out over the course of minutes, and things that should happen in days take seconds.” I looked at my watch, I was running behind by about thirteen minutes. “We call them Cycles in the Realm, because the flow of events slows down, but Events occur on a Cyclical timer. One thing has to happen, and then the process of figuring out what happens next has to start over again. In the Realm, Cycles synchronize with the Speed of Time and the flow of Events ebbs and flows as the inertia of the moment carries it forward at differing speeds. So, instead of an event taking hours in watch-time, it takes seconds in the Realm, and things that would take seconds here slow down to allow you to control the outcomes of them based on your reactions to critical Events.”

“So?” She shook her head at me.

“So,” I shook mine back at her. “That is your connection to Reality? Time,” I pointed my wrist at her and tapped my watch, as well. “All Standard-issue watches measure an oscillator and tick a mechanical face to count down in Analog time. In Reality, Time is a Constant, it is not Dynamic like the Realm.”

“So, if I count out what I know to be a minute, only one minute should have elapsed on my watch?” She started bobbing her head at a regular pace.

“Yes,” I wobbled my head side to side, “But also no?” I squinted in an almost-wink. “That is a bit too short to really detect anything,” I pointed at the ceiling of the Bascillica. “Notice we are still in the Bascillica?” I pushed my bottom lip into my upper one. “The next point on the Pilgrimage is the Second Bascillica, which is where I would talk about the Great Collapse and Humanity giving itself over to the shepherding of the Fabricans, but, we are not there. We are, in fact, several minutes behind when I would normally be there and launching into my second Lecture.” I relaxed again and smiled at the beautiful artwork spread across the worshiping area. The Migrants who we followed had gone and a new group had appeared a few pews ahead of them. “But Reality requires us to go through the boring act of having to physically walk there first. And I sat down instead of meandering through the Septs like I normally do, and here we are, me without any Lecture to tide us over.”

“So, what you're telling me is that the only real way to tell if I'm in the Realm or not is if I get bored?” Red batted around nervously.

“No,” I chuckled, “no, no,” I stood up and led us to the door. I nodded at the Adherent again and made our way down the path. “The Habitat is, for all intents and purposes, a series of pipes and galleries as Human cells circulate through the apparatus that feeds Mind,” I pointed at the external spire. “Every time we enclose a star in a Dyson sphere and drop a Seed on a habitable planet, we forever couple that entity to the creature that is the Fabrican, another droplet of water filling the bucket. Its energy is joined to the larger galactic consciousness, the Overmind. A distributed machine wiser than the sum of its parts, Minds feed data into the Great Synthesis, the Realm of Realms.” We continued down the Screen-lined corridor, past a junction, and into a large open expanse, several thousand meters wide.

Thousands were milling about in the Grand Park. A man stood on a box of some kind and juggled to dozens of on lookers. A circle of people had formed around a woman dancing. There was a small stage hiding under a perfectly manicured copse of trees, and an indistinct person was pacing up and down, no doubt touting some new political philosophy. Most walked by, but a few stopped to listen. Soon they were done and an MC prodded them off stage and announced a new candidate. “The short answer is that no one thing can ever be used to tell if you are in the Realm or Reality,” we walked through the open space, past musicians and performers, salespeople pushing goods and orators pushing memes, There was a bench near a well-tended flower garden we sat at and watched the throngs of people flowing around us. “You have to develop a feel for it,” I shrugged. “Just as mind is but a computer cluster sitting in a body on which Humanity lives, Humans are nothing more than a brain inside a fleshy vessel being fed sensory data that we fashion life from,” I tapped my temple. “If you really get reductive, the Reality itself is just a simulation held in your own mind. I do not know about you,” I smirked, “but I don't really remember anything before I was five or so. I remember the Cult a little, but if I think about it, most of the memories I can recall on command are of me as a teen or older,” a woman walking a beautiful furry dog sauntered through the park, commanding the attention of everyone she passed. The dog was long and pointy, a skinny beast buried in layer upon silky layer of brown and white fur. “Sure, I could probably recall a thing if you jogged it with a shared memory, but on command? My youth is quite distant, and it is true for most. I would hazard the same is true for you, as well. I did not really start what is the long, unbroken memory of my present mind until well into my life. Reality itself could be a layer of simulation, for all the good my fallible Human memory is.”
Red was darting her head around, eyes wide, drinking in the sites of the Grand Park. “And where is this? What is this?”

“As I said, the Habitat can be drawn out into corridors and parks,” I stood up and ushered us through the park. It tapered gradually, until it stopped at another path. We fell into step with a flow and moved forward. “The Habitat is indeed the closest you can get to Reality colliding with the Realm,” I pointed at the screens lining either side of the path. “The Habitat is a flat, square box implanted into the bedrock of the Fabrican. Mind determines an ideal architectural layout, and a series of cavities and tunnels are built, like an anthill or a beehive. The screens then project a simulated artifice over the bland and emotionless. There are whole branches of government dedicated to styling and and designing the look and feel of the Habitat. Votes are held regularly and its look is updated at interval. This look is called “Cybermetropolis”and has dominated the skyline for the last decade or two. I love the brutality of the windowless spires reaching into the firey pink twilight,” I shivered, “gives me chills.”

“But it looked different before?” We wended down the many-branching paths as I pulled her down different offshoots. “The skyline wasn't always 'Cybermetro-whatever?'”

“No,” I navigated the streets using the stars as my guide, looking up at the blue path as it cut through the pale pastel expanse. “I do not remember how long it was 'Gothic Industrial,' but I think just about everyone had finally grown tired of it, Praise be,” I smiled. I much prefer the clean irridecense of the basalt-like facades to the gritty white stoniness of the concrete. And I was never a fan of windows, even if they were faux. They always distracted me from the stars.” I took one last left down a formless path. “Ready?”

“What?” she furrowed her brow and looked back and forth up the path and dodged out of the way as two young men holding hands pushed past her on the path.

I pushed my hand against one of the shimmering black buildings and a low-slung archway grew out of seemingly nowhere, revealing a white-lit path down a wood paneled hallway. “Follow me,” I smiled deviously and flared my eyebrows, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her in and out of the flow.

Red squinted at the plush red carpet and dark-stained wood panels, “Where...?” She trailed off as I twisted the shiny brass handle of a nondescript door and revealed what lay behind. About 30 meters squared with airy vaulted ceilings, a window to a dim forested glade lay just behind it. In the left near corner, a tiled kitchen with an open flame range. In the corner opposite, a four-post king bed with heavy purple drapes was flanked by magnificently appointed end tables on an ornately woven rug. In the right corner, a sofa sat facing an entire wall of screen, and in the corner opposite, a library of wood pulp books books surrounding a massive wooden desk. In the center, directly in front of us as we entered the expanse, a sculpture stood. Abstract and ethereal, spindly, it reached from floor to ceiling, bridging the austere black stone floor to the diffuse whiteness of the ceiling in a slowly undulating grey gradient.

“Welcome to my home,” I led her into the expanse and shut the door behind her. “Make yourself comfortable. We will be here for a while.”