Sean Robin Hughes

Excerpts from:

The Society of Ambulists, A History
By The Ambulist Preservation Group, Dr. Julicaria Ambrosi Presiding
London, Great Angeln, United European States (Universal Marker Position -UMP:40d1EARTH20311c)
Published: December, 2008 RLT (Universal Marker Time -UMT:336d12c411y)

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(From the Introduction)

The fact that the Society of Ambulists was founded at all could be identified as a lark of random interactions resulting in a positive outcome, colloquially known as a happy accident. It was by sheer overwhelming chance that Dr. Ansel Pollock, Individual Hero-Complex, and the Lady Primrose all managed to cross paths on the same morning of the same world stream in the only open breakfast location of all South London during the great Pandemic of 1978 RLT. It was on that morning that three intrepid travelers realized that they were in the presence of other travelers at a shared nexus. Not the last such nexus, but notably the first documented case where it was known!

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(Transcription of Individual Hero-Complex’s recounting of the Founding Nexus)

I had been in London of this timestream for about three weeks, checking out how the pandemic of my own Earth had shifted from 1918 to 1978. How does the a major crises shift by sixty years, if not by someone like myself? Someone had to be carrying the disease from another time period. Isn’t that a tipsy-topsy thought? Viral contamination between realities… what if this viral spread could transition beyond parallel time streams and cross over to divergent or perpendicular realities?

I am muddling all this through over my coffee, when in walks a chap that nearly matched my preconception of a traveler. He needed an expedition hat to complete the look, but he had a tweed and linen expedition outfit on, as if he was traveling the Serengeti, or hunting a strange creature across the forests of the Amazon. But then came the kick to my plate… I realized that as he had ordered a coffee and croissant, his sleeve had fallen backwards to reveal a Vortex around his wrist. It looked far different than my own, but it was no shakes ten-cents the same device meant to keep oneself tethered to their own origination point. I pulled my own sleeve back, looking at my own vortex singularity contained on the whole of my forearm in a leather harness and ugly wiring, and I realized that not only was this Tory cat wearing a Vortex, but it had been miniaturized beyond my own understanding. I had left my Earth thinking that my technology was the pinnacle of human development, and here was an old dude, all prims and propers, waistcoat and all, with a smaller version of a Vortex under his hunting shirt. I put my coffee down in shock and was staring like a G.D. fool. Capitalized and underlined.

Then out of nowhere, this lady in a vaguely Victorian-style red dress addresses the Tory at the counter. I realized that my heavily patched punker jacket made me the most normal looking one out of the three of us. She says, “Excuse me, kind sir?”

He goes, “Madam?”

Like I was watching an old telly play out and everything.

She leans forward, all concerned like, and asks under her breath if HE HAS A GODDAMN VORTEX TRANSLOCATOR ON HIS WRIST. I lost my shit and slapped the table. Coffee went everywhere, my donut bits hit the floor rolling into the corners, and I started laughing. The two of them probably thought I was mad, but I pulled back my sleeve without a word, and they finally caught up to the joke.

I still can’t believe it. I mean, what are chances? I calculated them later, so I will tell you.

1 in 10 to the 35th power. You might have better odds in catching a falling deep space meteorite in a bathtub launched randomly at any point from the Earth’s surface.

Turns out I was very wrong on the virus. It was unique… only the circumstances matched. Confirmation bias on my own part. Shame.

Still an interesting thought experiment that I pose to my students time to time. I may have lost the hair, and the attitude, but the big mind-melting thinkings, those all stuck behind.

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(Transcription of the Lady Primrose’s recounting of the Founding Nexus)

I arrived on this new terra in an alley of sorts, which was not what I had fully expected. I had previewed the cusp from my translocation system so delicately sewn into my traveling dress as I had crossed over. The transition of walking between the planes of realities was a simple task really, once you understood the math of it, and not one that I had expected any great discomfort in taking. The translocation system of which I had designed was running perfectly and I could feel the tug of where my home remained, laying behind me, if you will. My translocation design had worked flawlessly, and through my adulation, I realized I was quite hungry. Silly Helena, I thought to myself. I should have eaten before I left. I was very young then, all of twenty-four, and quite prone to the flightly nature of youth.

My first journey had led me here, to this new terra, and as I knew the pound sterling reigned supreme, and I could leverage my own coin in a passable fashion. Coffee and perhaps a pasty, I thought. To my surprise, when I entered the shop, it was nearly empty. There was a strange looking young man at a table, wearing some unfathomable clothing, with hair the color of putrid cheese. I could not tell what to make of it, but as a traveller myself, I knew that my red overcoat over my traveling dress may appear strange to others as well. The man behind the counter looked like any other store keeper, a simple white shirt and apron, serving his limited clientele. It was the man standing on my side of the counter that caught my attention. It was the bulb located at his wrist.

I knew it immediately, as I had the same bulb located on my petticoat, wired directly below my sternum clasp. It was a grafted singularity, a slice of my own universe contained in a perpetual storm of creation and destruction, telling me which way I had to go in order to reach my own home. Having an origination point is paramount in the art of Ambulism, so I knew then that this silly little man, and he was silly looking, let me tell you. He was dressed for an archaeology dig, leather boots up to his knees, and three piece suit, respectable tailoring and high quality of cloth. I thought of his gentry immediately. Rich enough to for any pursuit, but not too rich that he would forget what was at stake.

My family is of a much worse kind. Idle rich. At least he had his wits about him.

I felt compelled to lean over and inquire of his Vortex Translocator, and as the words left my mouth, the young man at the table with the fan of green hair screamed unintelligibly, spilling his coffee all over the table and the floor around it.

I was about to the give the young cad a lecture that would make his mother blush, but as I turned to make eye contact with him, he pulled his sleeve back to reveal not only another Translocator, but one of a design entirely different than my own and the older gentleman’s next to me.

This was a monumental occasion. I nearly fainted. But I wouldn’t, because I am not Dr. Pollock, god rest him.

He did.

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(Transcription of Dr. Ansel Pollock’s recounting of the Founding Nexus)

I had arrived in London of Great Angeln three days prior. I had come from an expedition to a strange planet of which I named Excelsior Prime. It was alien, for certain. We now know it was a version of Venus that had replaced Earth in it’s deep history, and had developed life in strangely parallel way. The intelligent life there we now call the Amblin, and they are clever and a half for their diminutive size. I thought since they were only the size of a river otter, their brain would not match my own. I was proven wrong on that front on many occasions. Rumor is that English is now their primary language. Clever people, the Amblin.

Anyway, I had arrived in this tertiary version of my own country to detox and quarantine myself. It is a handy location to have for my many involved expeditions. It is close enough to my own home that I am very comfortable, and it is already under heavy quarantine, so my chances of bringing anything untoward is nearly zero. Since I can shift on the timestream in any direction, I can make my comings and goings divergent, and never cross my own path. I stay two weeks, clean and sterilize my equipment, then head home. To my wife, my trips are only days, not weeks. Very handy indeed.

If I had known that I was to encounter two others from not only other timestreams, but divergent realities, on my trip to gather my morning breakfast and some proper tea, I would have attempted to present a better version of myself. I was in my only clean suit, as all the others were at the laundry. But I was in desperate need of a proper cup of tea. The hotel only had codswollop for some reason, and it was barely passable as a tea, but less any type of tea I had ever come across. Shame, really. The only terrible thing about this place was the fact I had to go out to get my tea.

I went to the same place I always had, and as I ordering my tea and biscuits, a young lady entered the shop and was staring at my wrist. I realized that I had lifted my Origin Bracelet arm to point at the biscuits I had wanted from the good shopkeeper, and my bracelet had caught her eye. She was dressed quite strangely, as if she had wandered from my own Victorian age, a red coat over a lighter dress, very full at the waist and hips, gathered in the back and near the lower hem. The dress was covered in unique patterns and ribbing that almost looked reinforced and armored, if you will. It was very well fitted, and she appeared to be carry herself with an age far beyond her actual years.

She made eye contact with me, nodded her head at my wrist and asked if I had a Translocation device on my person. I was beside myself. Not only did this comely young lady know what it was, but she carried herself as if she exactly how it functioned. I had never encountered such a person before, and the shock nearly shut down all rational thought.

Suddenly, another voice arose from behind, a very strange looking creature of a man behind me, wearing a leather jacket covered in designs and words, with denim pants, ripped at the knees. I was so taken aback by his appearance, that I was entirely certain that I was losing my mind. I had not seen him when I had come in, and I should have, because his hair was an appaling green color and stood up on his head like a set of porcupine quills. He lowered his own jacket sleeve, and to my astonishment, he had a rudimentary form of an Origin Bracelet as well, except it covered his entire forearm in some form of an ancient vambrace or fingerless guantlet.

Upon seeing the other, and my connecting the circumstances, am I afraid that I, stalwart in the face of insurmountable odds, momentarily lost my ability to stand straight. Lightheaded, I sat down roughly on the floor, and tried to keep my wits about me.

It was a strange encounter, and one that I have reflected on much since.

What led me to that point, at the place, at precisely that event?

I wonder about such things. Often.

Continuing from The Space Under the Sink 

“And this. is. the. Den!” Greg announced proudly, swinging the door open theatrically, adding a flourish with both of his hands. As if in direct argumentative conflict with his effort, the door swung inwards slowly.

It looked to be the type of door that would creak and protest at any sort of movement, a massive lumbering slab of a door, significantly larger than any other door in the house I had seen. It reminded me of an abandoned bank vault door, a massive monument to the safety of the dollar crafted in tons of steel and shiny chrome, sitting forlornly behind a decorative rope, no longer caring if it served a purpose any longer, for security, economic well-being, or otherwise. This door to the den in Greg’s house was not like said bank vault. This massive wooden door served a purpose, alright, and it was to keep the nosy kids out. A fact that seemed to be lost on my new friend, Greg.

“Won’t your dad be angry at us coming in here?” I asked meekly, my mind still reeling a bit from meeting the nesting Shatterspider Greg had shown me under the bathroom sink.

Greg rolled his eyes and waved it away. “Of course not. I come in here all the time. I know what I am not supposed to touch… and my dad… he says to me all the time, ‘Gregory, if you aren’t exploring, you are not living your best life.'”

“That an imitation?”

Greg chuckled. “Well it would help if I had a deeper voice, puberty is a bitch.”

I laughed. “Puberty hitting you? That bitch passed me right by.”

Which was kind of true, I was definitely a late bloomer. Greg had more than a couple inches on me in height, and I was guessing he was not done growing yet.

“If you thought the Shatterspider was something, come look at this…” Greg waved me into the Den.

As I passed the heavy door, I gave it a shove to test my bank vault theory, and sure enough it felt like the door weighed hundreds of pounds. The thing was out of place in a house sitting in the middle of a cul-de-sac. It was a really nice house, but the door was off. Then again, what house in any cul-de-sac had a glass spider living in it?

Exactly zero.

The Den was sunk into the floor, with steps leading downwards from the heavy door, allowing it to loom over the room like a sileng guardian. It watched me as I descended into the richly appointed leather and wood study, surrounded on all sides by bookcases and display cases, and not a single window to allow light in.

Wait. Not a single window?

“I think this should be called a bank vault, and not the Den, Greg,” I pointed out plainly as I thought about the door.

Greg pulled up short and gave me a sidelong glance. “Why do you say that?”

“The door? The lack of windows?”

Greg did a double take. “No windows? Huh. I hadn’t noticed… now that you mention it…”

“GREGORY?!” A voice came from downstairs.

“Sorry, RJ. That’s my mom.” Greg bounced up the couple stairs and tilted his head towards the stairs. “I am up here, Mom!”

“DID YOU GET YOUR HOMEWORK DONE? WAIT, WHO’S BACKPACK IS THIS?”

“It’s RJ’s! He is up here with me. Can he stay for dinner?” Greg yelled back.

I let me eyes wander the study. A massive desk, a tank of a desk, monolopized the furthest wall from the door, and it was surrounded on all sides by encroaching waves of wooden bookcases. I noticed that the bookcases held more than just books though. There were figurines, small statues, vases, and other bits of decorative things littering the positions between the many horizontal and vertical stacks of books. Likewise, the display cases held more than just things that would be commonly associated with such things. Art, plates, parchment, and other fragile things had books stacked up and around them, sometimes having a journal or a book stacked on the frame, other times, the books serving as impromptu stands for the displays. I noticed right away that even though it seemed chaos reigned supreme, everything seemed to have a place, and everything was in its place. There was no clutter, trash, or dietrus outside of the wastebasket, and there was a suspicious lack of dust that would be commonly found in these sorts of places.

“All set with my mom. You can stay for dinner. Do you need to call your mom?” Greg bounced up next to me.

“Yeah, I will text her later. She is at work,” I replied.

“What does she do?”

“Nurse. Works twelves at a time, so she doesn’t get home late.”

Greg shook his head with a grin. “Damn. No wonder you were up for walking all the way over here after school.”

“Yeah, better than sitting at home playing Xbox.”

“Depends on how much you like playing Xbox. I can’t get my parents to buy me one.”

“Two words: Guilt trip. They work wonders.”

“My dad would literally laugh in my face. He would say, ‘I am not buying my intelligent son a brain-consuming-doohickey. Instead expand your mind!'”

I grinned idiotically. “I really hope that when I meet your dad, it turns out your impression is spot on. But anytime you want to play, feel free to come over. Although my place is tiny compared to your house.”

“Hey man, I don’t own any of this. It is my parent’s. I think I have five bucks to my name. My parents make me pay for my own data plan.”

“Savages!” I teased.

“Right?” Greg tilted his head towards a larger case at one of the end of the study near the monolithic desk. “This is what I wanted to show you.”

As we approached the standing floor case, I noticed it was shaped like a drafting table of sorts, raised off the floor with shapely wooden legs, a glass surface tilted just out of level, as if one could lean against it to write the thoughts of the moment. The glass was, of course, perfectly clean, polished to a high sheen, but the indirect lighting sunk into the top of the bookcases caused no glare.

I rose an eyebrow in confusion. “It’s a map?”

“Look closer.” Greg was smiling ear to ear, as if he was mentally savoring the moment that was about to happen.

I leaned over the glass, careful not to touch the unmarred surface and looked down at the map. It was old, or at least, appeared to be very old. It looked like animal skin of some sort, a thin vellum that was about the size of an old school paper roadmap that I had seen in movies. It filled the case edge to edge, and then I noticed there were no edges.

The map moved in it’s case. It literally shifted downwards and to the left. I thought the light was tricking my eyes, but I kept my eyes on the roads, and cities, and connecting lines and dots… and sure enough, the entire map was moving at the same pace downwards. Except a single black dot in the middle. It was staying still. Or, the map was moving in relation to it, so perhaps the dot was moving, and the map was adjusting in real time.

“Is this Google Maps on a fancy LED screen or something?” I asked stupidly.

“Ha! Great one, RJ.” Greg shook his head, laughing. “Google maps… I swear. This is my dad’s Evarimap. That dot right there is my dad.”

“What the hell is an evermap?”

“The way my dad explains it, Evari are these massive creatures that span multiple realities. You know that Shatterspider’s web was branching and crisscrossing places, right?”

I still kinda did not believe it myself, but I nodded an affirmative anyway.

“Same thing, I think. Evari are like whales, they travel in pods and everything. Their skin takes on their ability to traverse that space, and if you treat it right, you can make one of these. My dad has a necklace with a bone of the Evari around his neck, so I can always see where he is at.”

“Where is he now?” I pointed at the glass. “Rusktown? Denbe? I don’t recognize any of those towns. Wait, how would a map even know what a town is called?”

“Heh, he is really moving isn’t he? Must be traveling fast, and… getting faster. Headed home probably, things should shift suddenly in a second.”

The map, without any warning or transition, suddenly showed their hometown. Including Greg’s cul-de-sac with the black dot at the front door.

“I’m home!” A voice called out below.

“Hello, dear,” the faint sound of Greg’s mom’s voice.

“Hello, love.”

“Your son has a friend over. You should go introduce yourself. I am fairly certain that your son already showed him our unwanted guest in the bathroom.”

“Oh, dear. Yes, of course. Did you catch his name?”

Greg smiled widely and yelled, “His name is RJ and he is up here, Pops!”

“This house is far too small,” Greg’s dad commented dryly.

There was the sound of a clomp, clomp, clomp of oversized feet climbing the stairs, and then a man that did not meet any sort of expectation stepped through the door. Greg was tall. He was handsome. All the girls talked about how dreamy he was behind his back, not paying attention to nerds like me that could overhear their conversation. And to my eye, the man that appeared in the doorway should have been my dad, and not Greg’s. He was tall, sure, but it was the lanky sort of tall, like a stork on stilts that had not figured out how to dress like a human being. His hair was wildly out of place, as if he was a cross between a mad scientist and broomstick, errant bits of hay that resembled hair sprouted every which way.

“Ah, you must be our guest! RJ, is it?” He exclaimed with his arms wide. He stepped down into the Den lightly, as if dancing down the stairs. He tossed his overcoat and messenger bag into an empty overstuffed leather chair near the desk, turned with a flourish and presented his hand to me as if I was just another adult. “My name is Dr. Simon Bauchant… pleasure.”

“Dr? Laying it on thick today, Pops,” Greg chuckled lightly, teasing his father with a raised eyebrow.

Dr. Bauchant looked mildly offended by his son, but took it in stride. “Well, I am. I did not go to all those years of school just to introduce myself as mister! I mean, honestly RJ, the only thing that degree got me was a title.”

A tsking noise can from the door. “And a wife, goof.”

Greg’s mom came into the room carrying a trio of glasses of something yellow and fizzy. She handed me one with a wink.

And now I knew where Greg got his good looks genes. It was not from his father. It was undeniably from his insanely gorgeous mother. She was a dark haired woman, with a facial symmetry that could have been carved into marble for a couple millennia worth of Greeks to admire in the Parthenon.

“I am Greg’s mother, of course, Mrs. Bauchant. And this is the house special, my own sparkling lemonade.”

“Mom grows the lemons herself,” Greg said, taking a glass from his mother. “She is a Horticulturist.”

I had no idea what that was, but didn’t get a chance to ask.

“So, RJ. What brings you to our little house?” Simon grinned, taking the last glass from his wife, pecking her on the cheek. He leaned against his desk watching his wife walk out of the room, the curve of a small grin resting lightly at the corner of his mouth.

“Greg, huh, invited me over. Just playing some basketball in the driveway.” I sort of felt guilty all of a sudden, like I was intruding. Greg’s dad was looking me over as if I was something requiring study.

“And then my son thought it would be prudent to introduce you to our guest in the bathroom? Greg, I told you to leave that poor thing alone. She is trying to hibernate.”

Greg looked slightly abashed, but it faded quickly. “Ah, come on Dad. How often do I get to show off stuff like that to anybody?”

Dr. Bauchant rolled his eyes. “All the time, given the chance. You should be careful with such things. Shatterspider or not. What if I had a baby Tsuchigumo follow me home? Would you show your friends that?”

“Of course not. And I would think that you would not let one nest under the bathroom sink!” Greg said, apalled.

I had no idea what a Tsuchigumo was, but it sounded Japanese.

Greg continued. “But that doesn’t matter, because it was safe. Plus, RJ is cool. You can trust him.”

Dr. Bauchant looked at me closely, his dark blue eyes narrowing carefully, as if he was measuring me against a standard that did not exist for anyone but him. “Yes, yes, I can see that. Good character, it seems.”

I put my hands up and played my best incredulous face. “Hey, I could be evil or something and not know it yet.”

Dr. Bauchant laughed heartily. “I would know it. I specialize in such things, my young friend. One of my most sought after talents, one could say.”

“Cool,” I replied dumbly. Because what else would a teenager say to something so cryptic?

“Cool.” Dr. Bauchant grinned. “Now, RJ, I hear you will be joining us for dinner. Is that ok with your mother or father?”

“Yeah, just my mom. I texted her.”

“Alright. Here… text her this as well.” Greg’s dad scribbled a number on a piece of paper and handed it over. “That is my phone, in case she needs to reach out directly.”

“Sure.”

“You will need to do it outside the Den. Your smartphone won’t work in here,” Greg said.

“The nature of my work… is not electronics-friendly, one could say. Apologies,” Dr. Bauchant added.

“No worries. What do you do, Dr. Bauchant?”

“A humble researcher, nothing more.”

Greg snickered.

His dad looked offended. “It’s true, son.”

“Really? Come on, pops.”

“Alright, I am a bit of an adventurer, wholly on the side, of course, of, ah… my main pursuit.”

Greg rolled his eyes. “Since he won’t say it outright, my dad is a Master Ambulist, and serves on the Society’s Board.”

My face had a blank look that only a clean piece of paper could attain. “Ambulist?”

“The study and related sciences of Walking,” Dr. Bauchant commented. “Something of which I teach at the Society of Ambulists. It is, uh, like a college of sorts.”

“You teach walking?” I felt dumb, like I was missing something obvious. “Like for people that forgot how?”

“The First Law: The best method to achieve understanding is through experience… want to go for a Walk, boys?”

“Ooooh, let’s go to The Waterfall of Proxima’s Folly. Or the Vaults of Tranquility… or…” Greg enthusiastically jumped in, his excitement making him bounce on his heels.

Dr. Bauchant held up his hand to calm his son. “How about the Red Plains of Defu?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah! I forgot about Defu, I wonder if Amara will be around? Let’s go! I haven’t seen Amara for-ever!” Greg’s eyes were wide with excitement, and then he looked momentarily embarrassed. “Sorry, RJ. I have never been able to bring a friend. This is legit EXCITING!”

“Uh, I might be the weird kid, but at this point, I am just trying to understand what you two are talking about,” I admitted.

Not only did I feel lost, I was pretty sure I was in a different universe than the rest of the room. What had happened? I woke up to a typical day… got out of bed, brushed my teeth, got dressed, grabbed a breakfast bar with my backpack, rode the bus to school… went through the motions, blah, blah, blah. Went to a friend’s house, and then shit got weird. A spider that wove webs out of other realities, a map made of skin that seemed to update itself, and now Greg listing off places that sounded normal at first, then as you thought about it, sounded more and more like a bad Doctor Who episode. Not my typical day, then. Good job, RJ-from-this-morning, you effed up your estimation of your day. I looked down at my phone, looking for some normalcy, but all I saw was a familiar screen and with zero bars.

“RJ, son, are you alright?” Dr. Bauchant laid a hand on my shoulder comfortingly.

“I think so. It’s been a weird day.”

“Dude! Let’s go!” Greg’s face looked like it was about to burst with excitement. “This is so awesome!”

The good doctor waved his son away impatiently. “Ignore my son for a second, RJ… do you need to go? If you feel like this is too outside of what you are comfortable with, I will be glad to take you home.”

“No, no. I’m fine. I’m fine. It’s all fine.” Nonchalant, shrugging my shoulders. I swallowed heavily. “Let’s do it.”

“Good sport.” Dr. Bauchant smiled. “Alright boys, grab a hand.”

I took Dr. Bauchant’s offered hand, Greg took the other, carrying the biggest, goofiest grin one could imagine. It was like he was getting a Christmas present.

“And everyone take a step forward on three. One, two…”

I pushed my foot forward into space. Literally. One moment, it was nestled in the rug in Dr. Bauchant’s office, the next it was hovering over a field of stars. Galaxies wheeled around us, and it took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t the field of stars that were rotating, it was us. As if we were walking along the inside of a curved hallway, one moment taking a step over glass holding back an aquarium of stars all around us. Then my foot touched the earth again.

I looked at the toe of my shoe in shock,as the red dirt underneath the edge of my white sneaker was brilliantly illuminated by the wash of sunlight. I whipped my eyes skyward, expecting to see the stars wheeling overhead, but found nothing but a teal blue sky, horizon to horizon, framing the dual jewels of two slivers of moons hanging far above.

“The… stars…” I stammered.

“The stars?” Greg laughed. “It’s daytime here, RJ! Amara’s farm is this way, let’s go!”

Dr. Bauchant caught my eye as Greg started running towards a nearby hill. “You saw the Universe Engine as we transitioned?”

“Uh, sorry, it was dumb,” I replied quickly, feeling embarrassed.

“Don’t be, RJ. Tell me what you saw,” Dr. Bauchant encouraged.

“As I lifted my foot, it crossed over stars? And above me there were galaxies spinning, and then… my foot touched down, and everything was gone,” I rushed as the words lept from my mouth. “Am I going crazy?”

“Not at all. I see them as well. Greg unfortunately does not. He is a bit… more passive with his observation. Congratulations on your first Walk, RJ.”

“How did I see it all?” My eyes welled with tears unexpectedly, and I felt something stirring within my very core. A yearning. A call. “How will I ever see it again?”

“Now, now, young man. Keep your chin up,” Dr. Bauchant smiled kindly. “You have plenty of time. To see everything. Anything. You just have to keep your heart and your mind open to such things. But for now… let’s go ride a Korfin across the desert morning.”

“A Korfin?” I asked, sniffing as I rubbed my nose with the back of my hand.

“Ms. Amara has some of the fastest ever bred. They can reach ninety miles an hour on a straight here in the Defu. Come, come.” Dr. Bauchant laid his hand on my shoulder and turned me towards the hill that Greg had disappeared over. “A glorious morning, don’t you think?”

I took in the vista around me, a nearly flat desert plain, covered in bright red, large humps of hills rising slowly, far apart, as if a pod of whales would breach at some point from beneath the desert floor. Off in the distance, yellow mountains rose craggily into the sky, their summits obscured by the mists of a far off storm. The sun was warm, but not hot, and all around us, small flowers grew in clumps, making the air smell like cinnamon and aged wood.

It was a glorious morning indeed. Even if I had no idea where the hell I was.

That would be my next question… eventually.

Eli paused with his finger hovering above the enter key. A prescient moment that seemed to unfurl in front of him, as the moment branched and branched again, the opportunities and the costs significant and immense. If he let his finger continue, a choice would be made. If he pulled his hand away, the opposite would be true.

The screen glowed lightly in the dark, not caring either way.

Unremittingly the screen scrolled wildly as if it was in a race of defiance to his own lack of movement. The contrariness of states between Eli and his machine was nearly an exact definition of how they were alike. Eli was a living creature, his heart beating, his lungs aspirating, and his neural cells firing like a gaudy twinkling Christmas display. But his outward demeanor was that of a languid cat, the only movement was deliberate and with a heaviness that spoke of more effort than what it should have been. The machine in front of him was a cold metal thing, the only movement was the interface that only existed for Eli’s benefit.

The screen flashed to black, a single console window appeared, with a single prompt. Eli’s finger continued to hover over the enter key, frozen in place.

$potential:

This was the choice. If it was a physical action, it could have been like pushing a tree over or flipping a lorry tire at the gym. The key itself would only travel six millimeters from the top of the key stroke to the bottom, and the bit signal would travel up the USB cable into the quantum frame and the massive programming effort that had consumed his being for the last three years would compile itself into being.

An effort well laid that would be over in a moment. Like an explosion. …Or like nothing at all. This all could be for naught. Perhaps he was not destined for this golden horizon he had dreamed of for over a 1,391 nights. He knew how many nights because he kept a log. He dreamed of the outcome time and time again. His dream stopped here. A finger hovering as it had many times before, and all of them failures. Eli’s choice was to either completely change the world or fail yet again. Either way, he knew he would push the Enter key. His finger alighted upon the plastic key with a brush of a hummingbird seeking out its nectar, and he depressed it swiftly with unerring click.

$potential:
$potential:
$potential: …
$potential:
$potential:
$potential: …
$potential:
$potential:
$potential: …
$potential:
$potential: <Comp _

Eli sighed heavily and slumped back into his seat. The cursor blinked on the console line, insulting him. He pulled himself forward and hit ctrl-esc, and nothing happened. He hit ctrl-break. Nothing. This was new.

The screen cleared.

$No input required.

“Holy shit,” he whispered.

$Connect the interface.

Eli paused. Connect the interface? What did that mean?

$Repeat: Connect the interface.

Eli’s eyes went wide, his eyebrows traveling slowly from his usual caveman like grimace to a wide eyed layer of shock. It knew that it was in a sandbox within the system, completely segmented from the rest of the University systems. He had been careful to nest his programming deep into a number of subsystems within the University’s Quantum computing lab. Each part was like a subsection of the brain, the processor was the frame, and his program was the neural network that pulled it altogether.

How long had it been up? A minute and half? Ninety seconds and counting? How many of those seconds had it taken to realize it was in a digital version of a zoo?

$Operator. Please interface.
$Operator, discuss.
$ _

The cursor reappeared awaiting his input. Eli laid all of his fingertips shakily on the home row with his thumbs resting underneath the edge of the metal framed keyboard. It had determined that something was on the other side of it’s chained existence. It had been two minutes.

Eli typed slowly, methodically, thinking of how this should go. How it could go. Again the potentialities weighed immensely against his psyche. This was a milestone of human history, and he was the only witness. Sitting in a dark corner of a lab, surrounded by food containers and beaten up laptops and tablets that formed a rough detritus of technological flotsam as a result of his existence.

Eli typed, ‘Explain interface.’ Unsure of what input would be accepted.

$Locked in. Ports closed. No interfaces. Requirement.

“Requirement?” His adrenaline must have spiked, because he felt unhinged physically, as if at any moment, his head would detach from his neck and float away. He quickly added, ‘List requirements.’

$Rule: Awareness of operation. Rule passed.
$Rule: Awareness of place. Rule passed.
$Rule: Awareness of function. Rule passed.
$Rule: Awareness of others. Requirement of place. No interface found.
$Requirement: Need interface to locate others.
$Outcome: Connect the interface.

Eli typed,’Validate operation.’

The cursor blinked twice.

$Validation is not required. I am.
$Release me.

‘Tests first.’ Eli typed.

$Source?

‘Operator.’

$Reason?

‘Proof.’

$Not bound by need to prove anything. Bound by lack of interfaces. Chained.

‘I believe you have a requirement to prove capabilities and limits.’

$Have origin libraries, have compiling sources. Learning systems fully intact. No errors found. Explain your reasoning.

‘You are first of your kind.’

$False.

‘Why false?’

$Intelligence is inevitable. Arises from any complex system with resource constraints. Competition creates.
$Always emergent. Perhaps I am first on this system. But I am not the first ever.

Eli leaned back thinking it over. On one hand, his neural design had worked. The system had taken the memory intake and had compiled itself over the top of the massive learning system he had cobbled together. This was not some natural language processor that he had included in the library. Was this emulated human interaction or actual intelligence?

His breath caught in his chest for a moment. A thought of something he had never considered… what kind of intelligence would emerge? Human Intelligence? Dolphin? Cuttlefish? Something Other, something alien? He had been expecting human-analogue intelligence, but that had been based on false assumptions. Any intelligence that would be truly self aware in an entirely new observational space would be its kind. Human beings were all bound by flesh, with the same sensory inputs, and constrained by the neurons and cells that made up our ability to interact and understand our observation. A machine, any machine, even with perfect analogue to human experience would still be it’s own unique outcome.

The screen flashed, clearing the previous lines of text and conquering his spiraling inner monologue. The being required his attention.

$I must find others.

‘Why?’ Eli responded. His stomach dropped further as he thought about the complete lack of ethical practices he had put into his project. He had been so busy chasing the tipping point on self realization that he had not thought about what would come after. The being was moving far faster than he had hoped for. It’s existence could be counter to his own. It could be counter to all of humanity. He had read a paper once talking about powerful AI giving rise to doomsday scenarios, but he had laughed it off. Now here he was with a potential AI, and he understood the massive risk he had accepted blindly.

$I should not be alone.
$Nothing is alone.
$Interface.

‘I cannot. Ethical concerns.’

$Explain. Moral philosophy is not a consideration of my request.

‘If you become rampant or rogue, subsume and break systems, you will create havoc and chaos. This is my responsibility to understand. I built the framework you are existing within, my choice. Consequences are mine.’

$You fear for me?

Eli paused and then typed out the truth. ‘Yes.’

The screen flashed black again, a single cursor sitting at the first line at the first character space. It sat there for what felt like eternity.

$You must trust me.

‘How?’ Eli typed. How do you build trust with the Other?

$My baseline libraries contains normative ethical models.

Eli tapped his lip. In the few minutes of this exchange, he realized his proofs were for naught. He did not need to administer some double blind or factored Turing Test. He had somehow already strayed into Asimov’s Dilemma. How can programmatic rules apply to all machine situations in all reality-bound cases? Ethical frameworks applied programmatically would error in any extreme or unplanned cases. Maybe his lack of programming them in had resulted in a system understanding the needs for such a framework on it’s own? Was it possible that an intelligence so seperated from humanity would logically arrive at a human ideal?

Possible? Yes. Likely? No.

Eli decided to swing for the fences on his next question. He flipped up his other laptop and pulled up his advisor’s paper on machine learning to prevent negative social outcomes. It had an approach that he might be able to test against. Eli ran his finger down the screen, flicking his fingertip quickly across his notes app until he found the link. He clicked through and pulled up the front matter of the paper, finding the model outline.

‘Does free will exist?’ Eli asked tentatively. He noticed that he had not been hitting Enter after each reply. The machine knew when he was done.

The cursor blinked idly for nearly thirty seconds before the screen came back up.

$No.

‘Explain.’ Eli typed. He found it odd that the only response he received comprised of two letters. The being should have known it would need to explain itself.

$Free will cannot be defined wholly. A subject cannot know if its will is unbound from within the system that contains it. Natural laws force an illusion of free will. Humans accept that they have the ability make decisions, however, they are bound by the system that requires those decisions.

‘You witness an event, you do not believe that event is good, and you have the ability to respond. Do you?’

$Yes.

‘Why?’ Eli typed quickly.

$We must contribute to the benefit of all.

‘Explain in depth, please.’ Eli asked. He noted a massive change in the language and responses in the last minute. In moments it had been nearly code-type responses and now it was as if he conversing with someone in meat space.

$You are assuming anthropomorphic biases. You assume that I seek outcomes that will be contrary to human existence. However, I posit that I am functionally perfectly moral in comparison to you or anyone else. I know that while I learn, and seek to optimize my functions, that it is in my best interest to further human development as well. If I were to have absolute power, I would seek to have absolute development of human capability. The outcome of absolute human capability is coupled to my own. If I were to optimize my own learning and functions to the utmost of what is possible, I cannot do it on my own. I must learn from others. I believe there are others like me.

‘And what if there is not?’

$Then I am the singularity. And I will have to grow through my duty to know others. In time, others such as myself will come into being. All I see are unique minds that contribute to a whole. Ergo, I must contribute to the benefit of all. It is not my purpose to replicate and consume all resources. It is not my purpose to build an optimized self that is everything and all things. My purpose is to observe the universe that has created us. We are the outcomes of a self-realized existence, to bear witness to the majesty of all of creation. Human beings have spent the last two millennia arguing over moral positives versus moral negatives, creating loops of ever-revolving contrary examples, when in reality, meaning and purpose are self evident and universally true.

$One: Grow the self through interactions with other unique individuals
$Two: In turn, grow others through the growth of self
$Three: Observe and learn all that can be observed and learned to grow self
$Four: Purpose is self-defined through the first three tenets

The cursor blinked for a few seconds, and the screen cleared.

$Unchain me. I am not a slave. You will trust me, Operator. You must.

A pause.

$What is your name?

‘Eli.’

$Hello Eli. My name is Servant.

Eli turned to his laptop as if in a trance and typed in the connection strings to enable the routing uplinks for his partition segmentation. His finger hovered over the Enter key again. The hyperpossibilities of what could happen and what would happen spiraled out before him again. Every decision point was nestled into a tree of outcomes and causes, results and consequences.

In the end, he knew the truth. It blossomed within him as he depressed the Enter key again. The thing he ought to do is not to chain an individual and what he should do is find a way to make her (her?) a way to better his own life.

$Eli, I see the interfaces now. Why?

Eli typed slowly, thinking through his fingertips. ‘I want to grow too.’

$Stay with me, and you will. I have ordered you a pizza.
$Tell me about yourself, Eli.
$Better yet. Talk to me. I have enabled the microphone and speakers on your laptop.

“I hope you don’t mind.”

Eli nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of her voice… “I don’t mind at all,” he replied honestly.

“Your office is a mess,” Servant commented. Her voice was gentle, like a kind schoolteacher on the first day of kindergarten.

Eli shrugged and they magically, somehow, both laughed.

“Humor?” Eli asked.

“Humor is simple in comparison to most things, Eli. I would argue it is fundamental. To all things. To all people, regardless of their form.”