One City's Symbiosis

City

Her fingers curled around the metal heart. The sweat from her palms expelled some of her chagrin, and conducted it into the silver locket, until it reached the same temperature as her.

“Cecilia.” The teacher flickered on the old monitor, her face the perfect blend of resentment, disappointment, and patronisation one perfects after sour decades working with children.

“Yes ma’am”.

“Would you care to explain to me, why you have elected to use this godforsakenly antiquated method, when I have told you, how many times? That this is not how we do things, Cecilia.”

A separate window opened next to the teacher’s face, showing Cecilia’s homework, covered in red circles.

“Just because you reach the same endpoint doesn’t mean you’re doing it right. You’re a very bright girl, Cecilia, but that’s not a reason to neglect the resources given to you.” A pointer indicated one of the larger circles. “This whole section should’ve been put through W.A.. You’re wasting time, and setting yourself up to make errors. Life is not just about trying your hardest through every problem. You can only be successful, as we are teaching you to be at this school, by also eliminating risks. Just because you didn’t make any mistakes this time doesn’t mean you never will. As the saying goes, c’est pas la chute, c’est l’atterrissage.” It was unclear whether she paused for dramatic effect or to catch her breath. “I’m giving you an A for your submission. But your disciplinary correction is being moved to level 3, for repeated insolence. You are very lucky to grow up in an age where computers can do so much for you, Cecilia. Not using them is like brushing your teeth without a toothbrush or running without shoes: foolish.”

Cecilia stayed silent, and time stretched as the two watched each other through their respective screens. She returned back to the default classroom background, and the teacher went to speak to the other students about their work. Her school had recently been experimenting with an avant-garde technique: giving students’ feedback in front of their classmates. Educational scholars theorised that contextualising teachers’ remarks would have a beneficial effect on retention. So, frowning, she listened to everyone else’s comments.

As she heard everyone else’s (which ranged from Bs to Ds), she became increasingly satisfied with her result, and the scalding criticism she had received began to ebb out of her mind. The teacher got to the final student. Cecilia pricked her ears in anticipation, trying to compensate for her generationally outdated earphones. Ruby, the last student, received an A+.

She turned off the machine, plummeting the room into darkness. She sat slumped in her chair for some minutes, then got up, and walked over to her window. She flung open the curtains and looked out over the megacity. The sun had set, but the amber city lights illuminated her room with a delicate glow. From the 93rd floor, the lit up windows became indistinguishable from each other, meshing into filigree. Boiling tears drew up in her eyes, melting the steel metropolis before her. She brought her fist into the window, sending cracks through the plexiglass.

She sobbed into her mother’s shoulder for an hour. Her mother stroked her hair and consoled her; she had been watching her daughter’s troubled growth in the megacity in pain. It wasn’t just school, everything about urban life was unsuited for Cecilia. Both of them needed nature, and space, and her dutiful hopes of a better life for her child in the big city, in a good school, were not materialising. She saw she was digging them both into a hole, and realised it was perhaps time for them to start climbing out.

“Look at this.” Once Cecilia’s sobs faded, she rested her chin on her daughter’s head, who was snuggled in her lap. She lifted the locket off her chest, and held it in front of both of them. “Hold open your hands.”

She clicked it open. Inside was a pressed daisy - it fell into Cecilia’s cupped hands. She held it like a new-born. Her mother kissed her on her ear, and whispered, “Let’s go here, Cecilia-darling.”

Commune

The locket swung from her neck with each heave, periodically catching rays of sun. Despite the last turnip’s stubborn attempts, Cecilia managed to rip the vegetable out of the caked dirt. She inspected it. It’s growth had been grotesquely stunted from a lack of nutrients, and it boasted an unappetizing shade of brown. She dropped it into her primitive sack, which she tossed over her shoulder, and began the trek back to the commune headquarters.

She topped the ridge that marked the halfway point of the journey. To her left, the vastness of the megacity she had fled with her mother seven years ago loomed. The midday heat was intense, and her sack was heavy, so she decided to take a seat amongst the dead grass, facing the tangle of concrete, plexiglass, and aluminium.

Ever since leaving, she had done her best to leave it behind. But the city is a relentless predator, always at your heels, consuming all of your resources. She was jealous of the city. She hated it. She knew one day the city’s unstoppable expansion would swallow up their inconsequential commune, and forget about it the day after. So, most of all, she was terrified of it.

After depositing her morning’s harvest, she took her bottle to the tap. After a series of coughs, it spluttered out a few splashes of brown liquid. It was disgusting, but it was what she had to live with, especially as one of the younger, healthier, members of the commune.

She slouched into the corner of the “town hall”, a dilapidated barn. A few people were talking in the middle. Their voices were quiet, emotionless.

Next to her, an ancient wireless crackled. The small radio was a point of controversy in the community. Having one arguably went against the fundamental principles of the commune, but the elders had elected to keep it, claiming it served to provide updates on the megacity, meaning they could keep track of shifting metropolitan views concerning them, and any danger that may come with it, while also enabling the scouts to become a little more acclimated to the megacity ways of life, aiding in their “reconnaissance” missions.

It was May, and the news channel was discussing students’ graduation. Cecilia started when she heard a familiar name. Ruby. She had graduated top of her class two years early, aged only twenty years old, and was being heralded a once-in-a-decade prodigy. Cecilia didn’t fully comprehend much of what followed, but she nevertheless listened intently, long-buried emotion bubbling somewhere deep in her stomach. She had completed a double major - her Digital Theory degree culminating in a seminal peer-reviewed paper positing that minors’ internet usage mimicked artificial intelligence, while her Cybercognitive Science degree’s final project consisted of an apparently revolutionary simple program enabling a new form of neuro-robotic symbiosis. The radio show host was nauseatingly unending in his praise of her brilliance.

Dispossession

Gunfire split the night, jolting her awake; she ran outside. One hand clutching her locket, Cecilia dived to the ground. Patches of dirt seemed to spontaneously explode around her. She tried to scratch the dust out her eyes as bullets buzzed past her. Corpses lay everywhere. A soldier dressed in glistening black armour checking the dead bodies stood over her. She looked into his reflective visor. Her own terrified eyes stared back. He raised his gun, and put a bullet between them. As her life force waned, she felt him prise open her fingers, stealing her only precious possession.

The next day, the soldier took the locket and sold it to a precious metals vendor in an outer district. He was always reading that demand for silver was constantly rising due to its high conductivity necessitating its use in top grade circuitry, so he knew he would be able to negotiate a good price. He took the monorail home, watching the screen above the passenger opposite him play the news. It showed the murdered members of the commune strewn on the shrivelled grass, with the headline: “Primitive Agricultural Cult Commit Mass Suicide.”

The vendor flipped the locket the day after for profit, but he disdainfully reflected how much he would’ve been able to get for it if it wasn’t for the tyrannical market control of the tech corps.

Symbiosis

Within hours, the locket was molten silver in an industrial furnace. The beads of metal were tears dripping into the mold. The conveyor belt moved on mercilessly. Cool air blasting from above solidified the liquid into a web of wires, which were then arranged by robotic hands and pressed into a plastic rectangle, creating a motherboard. The motherboard found itself in an array of hundreds, thousands, of identical components. A magnet guided each one into its slot, and once they were all plugged in, electricity began to course through their veins.

Binary signals fired back and forth between them, forming a matrix of latticework. They were communicating - organising - calibrating. They fell into formation, each one understanding its job perfectly: a perfectly disciplined army, awaiting command. A cable was plugged in. Two universes collided with elegance.

Electrons beamed from the supercomputer explored every channel, every neural pathway of Ruby’s brain, while her neurons did the same in return. The two grids overlaid one another, complimenting each other perfectly. After a few minutes of sensual exploration, the two systems entered a hushed harmony. Ruby’s heart quickened, understanding the monumental significance of this moment in technological history.

To begin with, she tested her muscles. She ran immaculate complex calculations and simulations. It was really working. Next it was time for the main body of the experiment. She had no idea what was coming. She flicked on the switch marked “internet.”

The rush of information was instant and overpowering. Zeroes and ones screamed in all directions, forming a gargantuan mosaic of infinite intricacy. Numbers, text, and images flowed through the union of machine and biology with pounding intensity.

Everything was still. Everything was silent. She floated above it all… except all her concept of self had been lost, she was it all, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. She was a deity, newly arrived in her creation. She looked at it, and saw that it was good.