A Visitor to the Future - 25 - The Writer
I awoke slightly disorientated the next morning - I couldn't say why. It may have been the difference in gravity on Earth, or the altitude we were at - something felt different in my very bones. I had been very tired last night and had passed out pretty much immediately after entering the room. I felt the surface of bio-gel under my body and shifted to sit up slightly, leaning against the pillow. The ceiling lights seemed to turn on at the motion - very dim at first, steadily brightening until the room was very well-lit.
The room was very nice - far nicer than I could ever had afforded to rent or buy. It was very open plan - apart from the bathroom there were no walls or dividers between anything. A nice desk area leaned against one wall, and combination shelving and closet space had all kinds of colourful indoor plants and odd shapes here and there. The floor was luxuriously carpeted - soft enough to sleep on, I would wager.
All that was missing was a window. Thinking on it, that didn't seem right. I turned and sat up from the bed, putting on my clothes from yesterday. Despite having worn them yesterday, they were still fresh and clean. As Sarkona had explained to me once on the Promise of Sol, even clothing materials were better now - most smells would be literally destroyed on contact with the fabric. I walked over to the wall opposite the door of the room - it was black and featureless. Holding out a hand uncertainly at first I touched the surface - which began to turn transparent.
Anchor was just as, if not more fascinating in the early morning light. The hotel we were staying in was on one of the highest layers - and the building itself rose up out of that layer like a conventional skyscraper. My window gave me a view of the many different layers within Anchor and the rising sun cast shadows across their surfaces, the shade of the walls of each layer causing each to appear darker - the smallest platforms looked like little pools of darkness until I looked closely and picked out the details of a park, or a building, or in one case a water slide that seemed to spiral about the layer itself impossibly.
I was still having a hard time accepting it all. To me, the layers looked too fragile - the supports too thin, but I was still firmly thinking of the architecture of my own time. I only had to look at the space elevator to remind myself that wasn't the case, however - as impossible as it currenty looked in the morning light I had descended on it myself.
I decided to sit down at the desk and update my notes with the events of yesterday. I laughed a little to myself as I wrote up what had happened. This time seemed so strange - but then a thought occurred to me - to Antonia, Sarkona, and Tungsten I would be the strange one. I continued to write, losing track of time until the sun had climbed significantly. Shortly after there was a chime at the door. I was about to stand up to walk over and unlock it before I realised my mistake.
"Come in?" I said to the air, unsure if it would work. The door clicked and opened slightly ajar. Sarkona's head peeked through the door.
"Welcome back!" they said, "Did you sleep well?"
We made small talk as we went down to find some breakfast, discussing the events of yesterday. Sarkona had been amazed at the accuracy of the set piece.
"Point me at a Bio-dev problem and I'll deploy a fix immediately. But I was a bit lost at a problem like that," they concluded, "It was super fun though."
We walked through the corridors of the hotel, which defied expectations. In my time corridors were just that - a way to get somewhere. In the Consortium they seemed to have an artistic flair all of their own - we walked past walls of leafy indoor plants, tanks full of what looked like floating artwork and sculptures that would have been quite at home in a fine art museum. I suggested that we take the stairs on a whim and I was amazed to find a giant mural of Anchor which lined the outside. It depicted the city in various stages of construction - descending the stairs effectively walked us back in time to when there had just been the elevator and landing points for various drone-craft, rockets, and ships. It was beautifully painted. I was surprised when Sarkona dextrously jumped down the last five stairs without issue, before I remembered their Bio-dev enhancements.
We made our way out of the room into a large lounge where a cluster of people were gathered around what looked like a breakfast buffet. There were all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds - some tall, some short, with hair colours ranging from blonde to lime green. I saw two CIs talking animatedly with human companions - though I noted to myself from my experiences with Aida yesterday I should probably not assume as such - they could just as easily be CIs. We helped ourselves to a few breakfast rolls and took a seat as I placed my tablet on the table on front of us.
A man made his way over to us. He was well-built, with closed-cropped black hair. He spoke to us in a language that neither I nor Sarkona knew, a small disc-shaped drone appearing from behind him and floating above his shoulder to translate.
"Good morning," he said through his proxy, "Did you sleep well?"
"Yes, very," said Sarkona, "How about yourself?"
"Oh," he chuckled, patting his own chest, "Quite well, thank you. Was everything to your liking in the rooms?"
"Everything was super, thanks," said Sarkona, "Are you the owner?"
He nodded after the drone translated for him.
We got into more of a conversation about him and this hotel. It turned out that he had moved here from Malabo not long after Anchor was founded. He asked us about what we were doing here, and Sarkona explained about our journey on the Promise of Sol and how we had just completed the Anchor Challenge, at which he smiled and gave three short claps in praise. I even found out the name of the language that he spoke in - Pahouin. He stayed and talked with us for about ten minutes and then left to attend to other guests.
"Odd," I said. Sarkona raised an eyebrow and gestured for me to explain, as they had a mouth full of breakfast.
"I was just wondering - if everything in the Consortium is as automated as you say, couldn't this hotel run itself?"
Sarkona swallowed and drank from a glass of water before responding. "It could, but I suspect the owner gets a lot of joy out of running things himself and attending to his guests. Remember that conversation we had about being productive on the Promise of Sol? There doesn't have to be a reason - he can just enjoy doing it."
I nodded and made a brief note on my tablet.
"On that topic, actually, I have something I've been meaning to talk to you about," Sarkona continued, "We're on Earth now. What do you want to do?"
I blinked, taken aback by the question.
"And I don't just mean today either. You can do almost whatever you want now that we're on Earth - and I'll help you to do it too. It might be a bit large of a question for right now - remember that you have as long to think about it as you need." They began to tuck into another breakfast roll as I sat there a little dumbfounded.
What did I want to do?
I thought of everything that I'd seen so far and couldn't help but feel overwhelmed. I had always been so limited by what was available to me - at school I had taken the courses that were available, and at work I had just tried to keep the bills paid. And then I had gotten sick - and then it felt like I had no choice at all.
But this - I suddenly felt paralysed by the choice available to me. I had no reason to doubt anything Sarkona had told me - and they had said that I could go anywhere, do anything - even live as long as I wanted. I could run a hotel, or become a bio-developer, or even get on a boat and sail around the ocean. I could fly into space or anywhere on Earth. I sat there for a long while. Sarkona left me briefly to go and get seconds, bringing an extra roll back for me too.
"Want to talk me through what you're thinking?" they said eventually.
"There's just - a lot," I said haltingly.
"I don't think you'll be surprised to learn this is a common reaction among cryocontained. Like I say - you have as long as you need to figure it out."
A thought occurred to me, "How do you figure out what you want to do?" I asked.
"Super question!" they replied, "I generally just pursue whatever interests me the most. That's what led me into bio-development, it is my favorite subject. And also I do what makes me feel good or helpful - like helping you adjust to the Consortium. Plus I get to make a new friend. Can I ask - what interests you?"
In an odd flash of recollection, I recalled my early school days. Sitting with the rest of the class as the teacher read a book. Writing a book report on Treasure Island, or little short stories or poems. Getting lost in The Lord of the Rings over summer vacation. But those years had quickly passed by - into obscurity, and I had began to think more of realities of living and less of the idea of writing. It struck me that I had abandoned that childhood dream, and never quite realised it until now.
"Once," I said, "I think that I wanted to be a writer."
"Then, write!" said Sarkona simply, and then pointed around the room in general. "There's more than enough to write about here. There are plenty of people who would talk with you, or explain things, or even help you with your work - myself included. You've certainly got good notes to work from!"
A spark of determination surged through my veins, and I nodded. But I realised I had just replaced one question for another one.
"Now what should I write about first?" I asked.