Ryan Somma - The Spiraling Web

"I have a surprise for you," Zai whispered to Samantha and produced a holographic image cube.

Samantha activated it and squealed delightfully when she saw the image of her parent's new bodies growing on the cloning farm, "Mom and Dad!"

"You can thank Dana and Devin's detective work," Zai explained. "Between their two perspectives, they were able to deduce your parents weren't dead and found their minds. Just a few more days, and then you can see them."

"Have you heard from Alice?" Devin asked Dana as she entered the room.

"I think so," Dana said, shaking her head to show how little she understood, "I didn't know what to make of it exactly, but it sounded like she was studying a developing civilization on a distant gas giant." She shrugged, "I guess she was talking about alien life."

If Devin had a face, he would have smiled, "Yes, the cycs are everywhere in the galaxy now. Undetectable to biological life forms."

"So they're gods," Dana said quietly.

"Hardly," Devin laughed. "It may seem that way to us, but they still haven't figured out how to do something as simple as get out of this dimension." He added after a moment, "Yet."

Dana nodded and smiled without understanding, and Devin watched her observing the joy on Samantha and Zai's faces. Dana smiled to herself. Through the hospital room's many optics, Devin could sense others, observing with their mind's eyes, billions of them, all sharing this moment of joy together.

Devin briefly sensed this singularity of hope affecting things beyond their tiny world of physical and mental. The united consciousness somehow stirred another layer of existence. Then the sensation was gone, leaving him wondering if it were just his imagination or if another mystery had tickled his mind with the new realms of possibility in store for them all.

Devin and Zai sat alone in a room by candlelight without really sitting and without really a room to sit within. They were not bodies, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear, but only two minds with an eight by eight plane between them. 64-squares defined the boundaries within which their equation played out.

The variables were simple in and of themselves. Pawns advancing in rank, knights leaping in L-patterns, bishops cutting diagonals, with rooks ready to maintain the straight lines. A hobbling king alongside an all-powerful queen protectorate defined the final positions, but all together they presented a universe humankind once thought completely chaotic, filled with infinite possibility.

Although the game was competitive, their playing of these scenarios was cooperative. Two minds working together on solving the same equation, aiding to defeat one another where appropriate, working for one side to win when other solutions were exhausted. Somewhere out there one side had the win guaranteed.

White or black, offense or defense, which ultimately held the winning advantage, they would soon learn. With 10 50possible legal positions available them, it was going to be some time yet for them to decipher this puzzle. All they knew was that one side owned the table, thanks to their virtual offspring, the cycs.

The hive-mind had long since solved the riddle, like a Rubic's-Cube along the roadside of their intellectual growth, but Devin and Zai, despite knowing the answer, wanted to know the why of what made it so. What made the victor the victor. What were the steps, the many proofs that gave one side the ultimate advantage. Between them, Devin and Zai were able to calculate several more hours of deconstructing this puzzle, then they would understand the why .

And this was not the end of it. Once past this riddle of being, the companions would tackle the game of Go, and see whether offense or defense held superiority over its 19X19 playing field and its 2.1×10 170possible legal combinations of pieces. After that was dice and cards, and history, and the future to solve.

It's your move , Zai nudged Devin's perceptions, and his mind stirred by way of response.

Almost there , he replied, calculating. After some processing time, he replied, No, false alarm, still some ways to go yet.

Of course , Zai's mind replied. I'm the one on track to the final solution.

Feelings of amusement washed over Devin's consciousness, more succinctly than when he possessed a body to sense them through. He thought aloud, Nothing like healthy competition to motivate, right?

Damn straight , came Zai's response.

Devin tried to set his attentions back on the chess equation. It was taking him entirely too long to make his move and he knew this. So did Zai.

You're distracted , Zai prompted. You aren't allocating all of your processing power to figuring this out. What's up?

I'm mulling Flatline's fate again , Devin answered.

We've been over this , Zai responded.

I know , Devin agreed, but I'm not satisfied with the rationalization as you are.

It's not a rationalization, it's and explanation , Zai corrected. I understand your perspective Devin. I was taken in by a chatbot once myself. Trust me when I say you over-anthropomorphized a computer program that fooled you into thinking it was your friend.

You called him a 'gray zone...'

And I trust Alice's judgment that it did not cross that line into sentience , Zai communicated gently. The cyc hive-minds had a plan, a big picture we tiny specks cannot see.

I want to understand that one part of the equation then , Devin mused . I want to know that somewhere out there exists an essence of Flatline that is immortal, whether alive or not. That it can hope to grow and exist like us, despite its flaws.

Work on the equation , Zai assured, referring to the chess problem between them, but in the sense that it was one part of the whole. One day, when you've figured out enough of it, then I'm sure we'll understand for ourselves.

Devin's instant messenger went off before he could formulate a reply, a method of communication gone archaic in the eternity passed since the Cyc-Mind war that enveloped all the world in its conflict and leap-frogged human progress dramatically with its resolution.

It was Alice, or whatever Alice had become, with a type of "Thank You" note from the cyc hive-minds, now a civilization growing within other dimensions Devin, Zai and the rest of humanity now aspired to. They were exhibiting their gratitude to the one handled "Omni" for his long-ago gift, the Library of Congress.

Devin held the glowing data cube in his mind's eye, and then shared it with Zai. Her consciousness danced with surprise matching his own. Together they marveled at this gift simultaneously miraculous and impossible, rescued out of the space-time continuum.

The Library of Alexandria.