The Wish

“It’s a myth that The Foundation was named after the one that helped sick little kids go to Disney World or meet some sports star - a popular myth, but incorrect nonetheless. It was named after its function, where the Foundation would serve as the base of a new, Wish-empowered humanity, a base from which we could launch ourselves into a golden era of prosperity. Another myth…one that I and the other Primes foolishly believed.” - Ava Amin, Third Prime

The cold November air blew against my face, numbing my cheeks as I meandered down another city street. The steam radiators blasting heat into my apartment made it too hot and loud to focus. I looked up: Bowery and Canal. Apparently, I’d been wandering quite far away from where I started in South Harlem. Flexing my fingers, I savored the feeling as they ached, my joints expelling the cold that seeped into them despite being buried deep in my jacket pockets. I continued walking to the southern tip of the island, focusing my mind, training my thoughts repeatedly just like in all those pirated Probe training videos I downloaded. I reached the end of the line and looked out across the water. It was of utmost irony, or perhaps foreshadowing, that the key to humanity’s absolute freedom lay right next to the Statue of Liberty but remained entirely symbolic like its predecessor.

I relaxed and took in the quiet majesty of the dark water and breathed in the frigid wind that accompanied the lapping waves. Imagining the smooth obsidian device inside the domed building in the distance, I had to believe that all my training wasn’t for naught. I wouldn’t be some frit whose one and only Wish fizzled away useless. My Wish was going to change things for everybody.

“Everything is wrong,” I said aloud to the machine, as if it could hear me, “we made us wrong.”

The breeze carried my words towards the object that the Foundation guarded. I wondered if the device could read my thoughts from so far away. Probably not. I had read somewhere that the entanglement field of the device dropped off as an inverse of the distance to the fifth power. Or was it the sixth?

A pamphlet skittered loudly across the windswept ground and hit my foot interrupting any internal dialogue. I picked it up with a numb hand that announced its discomfort with raw red skin. It was from one of the larger probing companies named Genesis. On the cover was Uchechi Kamalu, the First Prime. I read his quote aloud to no one:

“Surely the machine is one of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind. The subsequent formation of the Edicts, which opened up the power of the Wish to the world, was a watershed moment for humanity.”

“What a crock,” I responded to myself, “You’re wrong, Professor.”

I started the walk back to my apartment, reading the pamphlet which was a glorified advertisement to become a “Lance” for Genesis, the only Foundation-backed probing company. Leave it to humans to monetize and try to exploit the alien-made genie machine when they basically had no fucking idea how it really worked. Lances were just a fancy way of saying human probes; they were trained to make very specific and small Wishes that could be quantifiably measured. I remembered a few years ago when an insider leaked that hundreds of people were trained to wish for a change in length of a gauge pin they held in their hand by different amounts.

“Ruler-gate,” I laughed as I spoke to myself. That’s what the news called the debacle. I didn’t realize that it could be breaking news for two weeks straight on CNN and all the other major news channels as they debated on whether measuring pre- and post-Wish gauge pins was a worthwhile endeavor at the cost of burning hundreds of Wishes. It took Professor Emeritus himself, Uchechi Kamalu, to try to appease the public about how it was necessary to take small steps in discovering the extent of how the device could change the physical world around us along with how much training it took to do so. Being a professor of Human Studies at Kyoto University made him a smart cookie no matter how one sliced it. I couldn’t knock him for that. I just hated that he gave off the vibe of a self-righteous asshat.

The pamphlet continued to describe what we knew about the device, how they theorized that it forcibly collapsed quantum waveforms to recreate physical reality into “low-probability configurations.” More importantly, they emphasized that any average person wouldn’t be able to conceptualize their Wish in enough detail to achieve what they wanted. So, in exchange for a large sum of money, they would sell their Wish away to the company and serve as a tool to measure the capabilities of the alien device.

“Sell your soul to the devil for a low, low, price of a million clamshells,” I deadpanned in a frosty huff.

Unfortunately, as much as I hated it, they were right. Most people squandered their Wish without proper instruction and training. We called them “frits”. They’d try to wish for a billion dollars and end up with nothing but frustration. The thing is they probably don’t even know what a billion dollars looks like, or where it would come from, or how it would be delivered to them. They failed at conceptualizing their Wish before they even started. If you can’t imagine it, don’t wish for it. Don’t wish for immortality, a dragon, or anything fun really, because you have no fucking idea what it’s like to actually have it. Keep your Wish in limbo unless you’ve got the guts to train or, at the least, you have a million dollar (almost) guaranteed pay day.

The first landmark Wish that truly set the basis for what and how a Wish could be realized was a war veteran. He had a few fingers blown off in some country while fighting for freedom and the American dream. Long story short: he got his fingers back and he got to play the piano again for his daughter; heartwarming really. When that news got out the probing companies went ballistic. I’m pretty sure a lot of amputees in limbo got rich real fast after that. Probes that wished for limb restoration had a 50% average success rate. Those that suffered from moderate to severe phantom limb syndrome jumped to an astonishing 80%. Probes that had missing limbs from congenital defects at birth or had amputations done at a very early age had a success rate of zero.

“I’m not a frit,” I stated as I tossed the pamphlet over my shoulder, intent on continuing my training regimen.

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“Judgment does not apply to something as radical as that machine. Neither do morals, philosophy, logic, or even reality. The danger lies with its misuse. So being the first to discover it, we had to do something. Innocent Eve was tempted with an apple. A fucking apple. The machine is a whole God-damned apple pie cooling unattended on a windowsill.” - Frode Aina, Second Prime

Entering the apartment, the hot humid air forcefully warmed my extremities back to life, tingling that grew into an uncomfortable pulsing as my nerves remembered how to feel. I sat down at my computer, bringing up a video that was part of a huge data cache leaked on the dark web, as I heated up some instant ramen in the microwave.

This was a breach from the Foundation itself. Some legend dumped several terabytes of information on everything from finances, personnel records, to probe training videos. There were loads of encrypted files as well; things that you couldn’t get into without a passcode, but I managed to crack one. In the public metadata of one encrypted file, I found account information of the person who encrypted the file. Going back to the non-encrypted personnel records and a few searches on social media, I found out enough to make some half-assed guesses. A few dozen tries in and “Bu$t3r” did the trick; their dog’s name in l33t speak, the name itself adding to the irony. Most of the things in the encrypted file case were found elsewhere in the leak, but this video and a few other files weren’t.

I let the video play as I ate my noodles out of the foam cup. I’d watched it a hundred times already, but I always learned something new during subsequent playthroughs.

“This is interview number zero-zero-two with Frode Aina. ASL translations are being performed by Morgan Robuck. This interview is conducted with the full consent of all parties involved. All parties involved have signed NDAs to not disclose any information revealed here and in other earlier and possibly subsequent interviews. Mr. Aina, do you understand and agree with everything said? Please nod to confirm.” A voice drones off camera. Frode, a thin, almost boyish man with bright eyes behind frameless glasses nods, clearly bored of being where he was.

“Miss Robuck, do you understand and agree with everything said?” the voice calmly asks in her direction.

“Yes,” she curtly replies as she signs and continues to translate for Frode.

“Can you please describe the events leading up to the discovery of the machine and the forming of the Edicts?” the voice asks, well-practiced in its monotone delivery, devoid of emotion.

Frode rolls his eyes, his face showing impatience. “I told you already the other time. The story is not going to change,” Frode says. The translator speaks an equivalent phrase a few moments behind the rapid gestures.

“I understand that you must be frustrated, but this is simply just to see if you remember any details that you might have left out in the earlier statement. Please continue, Mr. Aina.” The interviewer coaxes the already harried Frode.

“We found a strange spot on our subsurface scans using our new surveying tool,” his arms and facial expressions greatly changing during his response. “We had been in the process of exploring the glacial formation and underlying geological features when we found a strange space in the ice. There was a large section that was not ice or rock and refracted the compression waves very differently than the surrounding material.”

In the months after finding this video I had taught myself ASL through online classes and videos. With the exposure to Frode, the translation from Charlie, and my own ASL classes, I was proficient enough to recognize that Frode had an accent to his ASL. His signage was extremely fast, and a lot of his gestures were clipped. His signing was filled with words or ideas expressed with a gesture that ended just short of standard ASL. I slurped a chopstick grab of noodles as the video went on about how they excavated the machine and brought it onto their research vessel. Eventually, Frode tells the interviewer how they realized it granted Wishes.

“We were near the device, standing around freezing our asses off. It was the Antarctic and we had been out for at least six weeks by then, missing mainland comforts. We griped.” Frode recalls, expression growing stern.

“I missed pizza, another guy missed his bed, then Ava, leaning on the machine, said she wanted a cup of her mom’s tea. She said she could imagine it, warming her hands around the sides of her favorite chipped mug, the aroma of honey laced with lemon, how it tasted on the first sip.” Frode slows down, drawing out the story, almost to give time to prepare. “It was like a blink without blinking, just the world snapping out of existence for the briefest of moments and then suddenly reappearing…and Eva reappeared, exactly as she was, but holding a cup of tea. Tea with honey and lemon just like her mom made. Tea in her favorite, chipped M-U-G,” Frode spells the last word out, emphasizing with smacks of his hand.

“Please describe in detail how you determined that it was indeed her mug,” the interviewer questions, sounding like he heard the most boring story on the planet.

Frode explains, “It had a chip on the top of the handle where she would always rest her thumb. It was the same color, same everything.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t just a convincing replica?”

“She knew it was hers. Her thumb would always catch on a sharp edge of the chip. The feeling was identical. We used a satellite phone to call her mother. Her cup was missing. It was hers,” Frode ends succinctly, while chewing on a piece of bagel pulled from a plate on the table.

“So, the machine transported the cup to her hands filled with tea?”

“We don’t know. Did it transport? Did it destroy the old cup and create a new identical one? Whatever uses the least amount of energy,” Frode states plainly, taking another bite of bagel, cinnamon raisin I guessed.

“Energy? How do you know it runs on energy?” the interviewer asks.

“Everything does. That thing is no different. It must use tremendous amounts of energy. I just don’t know where it’s getting it from.”

I burned myself on the hot noodles and cursed, spilling some. I walked over to grab some towels to clean up and pondered what the people that made this device were like. They had to have been incredibly advanced. Some estimates said that it would take more energy than existed in our own universe to manipulate it at the level we were seeing; and that was per Wish! I get back to the video just in time to see him signing about the Edicts.

“…that’s why we had to create the Edicts.”

“Can you explain them, please?” The interviewer sits up while asking the question.

Frode straightens up as well. “We used the Wishes themselves to create the Edicts that now cage them. We had to wish the Edicts into existence.”

Frode’s hands slow down, his gestures filling out.

“The first: every human will be given a chance to make one Wish.”

“The second: a Wish made cannot directly affect humans aside from the wisher themselves.”

His bagel, now forgotten, sits on the table in front of him.

“The third: a Wish made cannot nullify or change a Wish made before it.”

I kept rewinding the video and watching repeatedly how Frode listed and recited the Edicts. His movements are more formal. His ASL accent melted away as if it never existed. I smirked and rewound the video again, watching for his tells. I couldn’t be 100% sure, but I was damned near certain.

He was lying.

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“I still keep in contact with them. Ava mostly. U is always too busy showing off how good we made the world. The machine was supposed to unite us. And it has. There’s no more war or hunger. But there’s no more strife. Hardship brought people together, gave us purpose. Without it, I feel like we are lost, wandering around drugged in a pseudo-paradise that nobody asked for.” - Frode Aina, Second Prime

I knew Frode was lying from studying footage of a late-night talk show with the Primes just after the formation of the Foundation and the declaration of using the machine to make Wishes. The Primes were heralded as great heroes in word and deed, or perhaps through a multimillion dollar PR campaign. Uchechi, Frode, and Ava all played one of those games that, at that point in time, somehow became the norm on talk shows: two truths and a lie.

Ava, with naturally curly red hair, sported a sleek black dress for her interview. Her physical appearance was perfectly polished and there was an obvious intelligence behind her words. She was a professional and attractive woman. However, her nervous glances and fidgeting feet showed that intelligence and beauty also led her to walk an isolated life, unused to the limelight. Uchechi was charisma embodied in a three-piece suit. I doubt they had to do much to preen him for parading around the world. He exuded confidence, and his deep baritone only emphasized the grandeur of what he said. His smile was warm, along with his laugh, but his words carried an authority that could not be denied. Last, but certainly not least, was Frode. In dark jeans and an untucked colorful and flashy button-down, he gave an air of playfulness and ease. Next to him was his good friend and translator for the night, Edgar. They clearly had a secret dialogue of glances and facial expressions that showed the depth of their understanding of each other, not unlike two best friends having endless non-verbal cues in normal banter.

The host played three rounds of the game, all softball questions designed to make the Primes more relatable, but not so much that you would doubt their ability to make literally world-altering decisions. Ava was a good sport and played to be likable. She would occasionally glance off-stage and then quickly refresh her smile as if reminded to do so. Uchechi had some shocking laugh-out-loud reveals; he implied a rags to riches story of a delinquent turned scholar with full scholarship awards to various ivy leagues. But the most informative part was watching Frode. Whenever he listed his three statements about himself, I would rewind and study the interaction between him and Edgar during the translation from ASL to English. Knowing which ones were the lies, I could go back in the video and observe Frode’s signing and facial expressions. Every time he told the truth, his short clipping accent would be present. Frode would look Edgar in the eyes while signing, and Edgar would always give a small perceptible nod or smirk, as if he already knew the story behind the statement. But when Frode told the lie, he would draw out his signs, as if the muscle movements themselves were unpracticed, and Edgar would not react at all. When lying, Frode did not keep direct eye contact, as if his eyes were unfocused and looking past Edgar.

I saw the same tells with Frode when he signed to his translator, Morgan, in the video interview when discussing the three Edicts…which meant that some part of, if not all, those Edicts were fabricated lies!

I sat in the dark, the salty broth of my noodles long gone cold as I contemplated what it could mean. The strangest part is that the Edicts have been tested, both by probing companies and by individuals. They’ve never been able to make Wishes that broke past the Edicts. But I bet that nobody knew what I would know when walking into that chamber today.

My phone buzzed as the alarm went off; a cluster of dead pixels in the bottom left corner of the screen shuddered on and off as it continued to buzz. The text on the screen read, “WISH DAY”.

I breathed out, not realizing I had been holding it. “Time to go,” I told myself.

I put on warm clothing for the walk down to the ferry and closed the door to my apartment. I had been formulating the Wish for months, ideating it, living it, breathing it: a Wish that would change everything.

The walk passed by like so many times before, rehearsed, repeated, patterned, remembered, easily imagined. I recounted the words of my Wish dutifully, whispering them out loud, inside my head, repeating the cycle: out loud, inside my head, repeat. I knew the words, the meaning, the purpose, and visualized the outcome. I just had to create the reality in my mind.

I stated my name and presented my ID at the entrance, one of thousands to make a Wish that very day. I passed through screening; a quick series of mandatory questions that would serve to determine if I was psychologically sound to make a Wish.

The screener, a woman, gave me a polite smile and a bin to place all my possessions. She pointed to a screen that gave a choice of language. I chose English, noting there was an ASL option. I resisted my curiosity; this was no time to reveal anything about what I knew. I recited my mantra as I looked at the camera, which would scan my eyes, determine my pulse rate, and know if I was lying to any of the questions.

No danger of that. I was going to tell the truth.

A faceless voice asked a question, captioned text appearing on the screen for clarity, “Please repeat the three Edicts in full as stated in the Foundation’s mission statement.” The edicts flowed through my lips in a well-rehearsed, almost lyrical chant.

More questions. The speaker buzzed, “Is your Wish in conflict with the Edicts you just recited?”

“No,” I spoke.

“Are you making your Wish on behalf of a 3rd party?” it asked.

“No,” I replied.

“Do you believe that your Wish will better yourself or Humanity as a whole?”

I swallowed, my mouth suddenly very dry. “Yes.”

The screen froze for a moment, processing my words, my pulse, the dilation of my pupils. It dinged softly and turned green.

The screener gestured down the hall, which led to the chamber where the Machine lay quietly. Many small streams of Wishers merged into a larger line that looped the machine. A corkscrew runway ran up along the sides of the obelisk-like device until it gradually led out. The pace of the moving floor kept people close to, almost touching, the Machine for about five minutes. I had a few scant minutes between myself and a new chance at everything.

The pace was slow but steady. The diversity of people on the belt was astounding. Everyone was silent, focused on a transient experience that would define the rest of their lives. I stepped on the belt and closed my eyes as I was carried into the structure. The air was heavy as I imagined myself entangling with the device, living the Wish like a memory in my mind, reliving it as if it already happened, as if simply recalling a thing that was always true but I just now noticed.

And the world blinked.