David Brin - Existence

Hamish picked up his pace, hurrying toward the group… and soon realized that he had better start getting smaller, too. Of course, the people down there would have reduced their fractal scale factor. How else could they wish into existence things like knobs and levers and screens? Anyway, he couldn’t interact with them as a giant, could he? If those people looked up now, they might only see him as a nebulously man-shaped cloud.

Dropping closer, in both distance and size, he began making out details.

The most colorful creature was something like a hybrid between a human and a bird of paradise-two slim legs and a feminine contour were covered with iridescent down. Shimmering flight feathers hung from slim arms, like the folds of a cape, leading back to a magnificent, curved tail. Even the beak melded gracefully into a face that might be a movie starlet’s. The creature was squawking and gesticulating at a human woman, whose good looks were very ordinary by comparison-a nice figure and glossy brown hair, streaked with stylish gray. She wore a snug T-shirt emblazoned with an eye-emblem, inside a giant letter “Q,” rimmed by a bold statement: YOU MAY SOON BE TYPICAL.

There were others nearby, two more humans and an alien whom he knew he ought to recognize. This ET-bipedal with sleek reddish fur-was almost as famous as the Oldest Member, though its name wouldn’t come to mind.

As he both descended and shrank, Hamish felt a strange sense of power starting to form at his fingertips, as if they now contained some kind of magic. Like before, when he changed his bathrobe into a neat suit of clothes. Ah, yes. Smaller scale meant more could happen at whim. The sensation made him feel tempted to just keep going, diminishing past this fractal level to check out the realms of instant wish-fulfillment.

But I always enjoyed being tall.

Hamish slowed down his approach and turned to Om.

“I know that woman. The rich science junky, Lacey Donaldson-Sander. She seems a lot younger than when she passed away, decades before I…”

Hamish realized that he had no idea how to speak of dates and time. Perhaps the control center could bring him up to speed about such things.

“As do you, my friend,” Om commented.

“Hm, yeah. I guess I do. As for the others. They look familiar. But could you help me, before we land among them? That ET who looks like a crimson otter-”

“You refer to M’m por’lock, I presume. Called by some the Traitor… and by others the Loyalist.”

Hamish nodded. “Oh, yeah. He helped us to develop the Cure, didn’t he?”

Om nodded, noncommittally. But he held out a hand to halt their approach. “It occurs to me, Mr. Brookeman, that you appear to be data blind.”

“Data… oh, you mean walking around not linked to the Mesh by aiware. Well, you know I was an old guy and a bit of a techno-grouch. I hated the eye implants young people were getting, to stay hooked in twenty-four/seven. When I had to walk around using augmented reality, I put on tru-vu goggles, like God intended-”

Hamish blinked.

“I see. You’re saying this place has its own equivalent to the Mesh. And I’m wandering around half blind, unable to simply look up info on people I don’t recognize.” He sighed. “All right then. How do I…”

Om performed a hand-flourish, then held something out to Hamish. A pair of tru-vus. The old-style virtuality goggs that Hamish used to employ, way back then. Well, what do you know.

“Until you figure out how to make your own interface,” the Oldest Member explained.

Hamish slipped them on. At which point, looking back at the people below, he now saw them equipped with name tags.

M’m por’lock

Lacey Donaldson

Birdwoman303

Jovindra Noonien Singh

Emily Tang

Emily Tang!

Chief architect of the Cure. The one human personality likely to be inserted into every crystal probe that humanity made. Suddenly-as he and Om finished shrinking and alighted on the glassy deck of the control area-Hamish felt a bit bashful and awestruck. What do you say to a woman whose idea coalesced human ambivalence about the “alien fomite plague,” coming up with a strategy to both fight back against the interstellar infection and possibly reclaim the stars?

Responding to his interest, the ersatz goggles began scrolling background text.

“The Cure” applies to a strategy for persuading some artilens to defect from their software allies, converting them instead to work honestly and effectively for humanity and Earth civilization. This method was inspired by the discovery, in the asteroid belt, of a relic-

The helpful summary vanished as Hamish diverted his attention to the creature looking a lot like a super-otter, who now conversed with Emily Tang. M’m por’lock, he now recalled, had been the very first extraterrestrial virtual being to fully accept Emily’s offer. Called a betrayer by some of the other crystal entities. Or the Loyal One, for remembering a much older allegiance.

The first of many artilens who came over to our side, revealing some clever memic tricks the fomites had been using against us. Instead of steering human civilization in the direction of spasmodic virus-creation, they helped us make the Cure. Because we offered them a deal they couldn’t refuse.

And our bribe?

Just what we were inclined to do anyway. To increase, yet again, the diversity of what it means to be “human.”

The Cure also persuaded Hamish to alter his version of Renunciationism. To throw his support behind building the Space Factory and the big laser.

Hamish shifted his gaze yet again, toward the most vivid-looking entity-the avian-human hybrid creature, whose name tag responded to curiosity, by expanding.

Birdwoman: representative of the Autie League-Fifth Branch of Humanity.

Ah. Now he understood. Not an alien, but a self-made form. A common thing nowadays, among the portion of humanity that spent ten thousand tragic years awaiting virtual reality and ai to set them free.

His fellow passengers were turning now, reacting to his arrival.

“Mr. Brookeman,” said the dark-haired woman, with a welcoming smile. “We were wondering if you’d ever deign to show up.”

When Hamish reflexively glanced at her tight T-shirt, his tru-vus interpreted the logo.

Symbol of the Quantum Eye, the oracle who famously predicted that -

Meanwhile another pop-out commented:

Size 36-D. Biographically correct and unenhanced-

Hurriedly, Hamish lifted his gaze back to her face. This was one reason he never liked augmented reality.

“Madam Donaldson-Sander,” he took her hand in a clasp that felt warm and realistic. His first personal touch in this place. “Apologies for my absence. I left instructions to be wakened when something of significance happened. I guess that must have been both overly conservative and ill advised.”

“Hm. Well, you missed the launch for one thing. It was quite a show!” She turned and waved at the forward half of the star-flecked sky. “Our sail was filled with light from the propulsion laser and the acceleration was terrific.”

“Dang. Sounds like a real experience. I can’t imagine why I-”

“Oh, don’t worry. We recorded it. You can live through the event from many points of view.”

Hamish let go of his disappointment. “Thank you, Madam Donaldson-Sander.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, call me Lacey.”

“Fine. Lacey. Hamish then.” He continued down the row, exchanging greetings with the other AUPs-autonomous uploaded personalities-his companions, with whom he might share the next several million years. Hamish managed not to show any sign of hero-idolatry when he shook hands with Emily Tang, who grinned with a glint of whimsy, as if she knew a secret jest.