Imoenne wandered away while Arlen handled scheduling. With her habitually soft voice, her tiny exclamation was barely audible, but some quality to the sound made us all pause and turn to look at her, standing before the mural that had marked the completion of every stage of the gauntlet series.
The figures had become familiar, shifting pose and position only marginally through the series. We’d reached the complete set of default Bios before this stage: Darashi, Vssf, Human, Ah Ma Ani, Shree, Kzah, Embyde. I counted them off as I followed everyone else in joining Imoenne. All there, all in much the same…
No. The same positions, similar poses, but tiny lines had been introduced, at key joints of each of the figures, and lifting an inch or two directly up.
"They look like marionettes," Arlen observed. "But there is no marionnettiste."
"Top right corner," Nova said.
It took me several moments to see what she indicated: a minute cluster of pale tiles with a single white mote at the centre.
"Cykes do a real job selling themselves, don’t they?" Silent said, after a long pause.
"But this game, it is theirs. For what reason would they include this?" Arlen asked, sounding more perplexed than disturbed.
"Trolling?" I suggested, feebly.
"To show that their power over the biologicals, it is complete," Imoenne whispered.
"It could be lan," Silent said, though dubiously. "We’ve just been making threads of it, after all. Care to explain, Bishop?"
[[Not at this juncture,]] Silent’s Cycog replied, drifting out of the pale patch of tiles.
"Bah," Nova said. "Well, now that this grim note has quashed our moment of triumph, let’s settle our start time for the System Challenge."
"Before we spook ourselves out of playing on," Silent murmured, and we all looked back at the mural, and away.
42
q&a
"Do you think I’m ready for the next Rank, Dio?"
[[If you take a break first, you could attempt Rank Eight.]]
"Really?" I paused, then had to hurry to step onto my just-arrived Pod. "I want to see Jupiter next, so whatever Rank I get Skipping there. Do I have enough time to get back?"
[[Yes. You would need to factor double recovery into your plans, but you can make the agreed meeting if you follow this schedule.]]
A little outline of times appeared in my field of view. I considered it, then asked: "Where is it I need to go to start the System Challenge?"
[[Departure point is Earth Gateway Station.]]
"Okay."
I lapsed into silence, brooding. I’d been saving up questions for days, but didn’t want to ask them yet. Mainly because I wanted a quiet space when asking, but also in part because I doubted Dio—doubted that te would tell me the truth, or that the truth would have any meaning. Or perhaps I just suspected that any clever-clever trap I set in hopes te might Reveal All would simply inspire half-answers and mockery, and I would have wasted this chance for an explanation.
That was where I should set my expectations. Personal questions about Dio were not going to give me the secrets behind Dream Speed, and the bet had already distracted me from proper elation at beating the gauntlet series—the first group to do so on Mars!—and from now having at least a chance to win the System Challenge. I’d even won a custom modal, an actual alt.
I settled back with a determination to enjoy the gift of a journey. The grand arches of Valles Marineris. The rise from the specific to the vast. My second only Skip. And then Jupiter, which no longer had a Great Red Spot, but a mass of smaller beige ones. Curled into the viewport chair, gazing down into a thousand storms, I felt like I was breathing eternity. What matter who Dio really was, compared to this?
Not that I wouldn’t ask my questions.
"When I first asked your name, I think you told me what it really was. Your name in the Cycog way of speaking. What’s the name you’re known by to the Bios of The Synergis?"
[[Ydionessel.]]
No hesitation. "But you’ve been called Dio? Do Cycogs use the length of a name to mean rank or age or something?"
[[Dio is an obvious diminution which some Bios use when talking to me. Ydionessel was the name first given to me, and I have never had reason to change it. One question left.]]
I shut my mouth, because I’d blurted those questions, and was lucky Dio had counted them only as one. I’d put a lot of thought into questions I could ask about Dio in particular, questions that might let me glimpse the reason behind the game. Things like planet of origin, or Earth date born. But I changed my mind now.
"Who gave you your name?"
This time there came no prompt reply. I looked up at Dio, who was drifting near the ceiling. "Pausing for dramatic effect?"
Probably te was, but still Dio hesitated a moment longer before te said: [[Veronec.]]
The first Cybercognate. I stared, then said: "Do you mean that in a we all descend from Veronec and te left a list kind of way?"
[[No. I was Veronec’s last fledgling. Shortly after I came into being, te divided.]]
"Oh. I’m—I’m sorry Dio," I said, groping for words. "That had to be difficult for you."
[[It was confusing.]] Dio’s voice was uninflected, but te changed colour, shifting briefly into a plummy shade, before reverting to the usual soft white. [[As a species we are still very young, still learning about ourselves, and Veronec’s division came as a shock to us all. I was never quite treated as the cause.]]
I didn’t respond. It wasn’t the rush of sympathy that kept me silent, but a dizzying sensation of acceptance. For the first time I really believed. Believed in Dio—Ydionessel—as a Cybercognate. As a person who was a glowing mote of light, possibly from the future.
My reaction made no sense since Dio piled lie upon lie with the abandon of a child decorating a Christmas tree, but I strongly felt that te hadn’t been comfortable talking about Veronec, and had answered anyway. After an extended silence, I offered up something in return.
"You can ask me your three questions too," I said. "Though I don’t guarantee answers."
[[Tell me more about the no, what are you really game.]]
That had been extremely prompt, and I immediately wondered if I’d been played, but the question wasn’t something that bothered me.
"I’ve been playing no, what are you really? all my life. So, Taia, what are you? I’m Dutch. I mean, where were you born? The Netherlands. Then where are your parents from? The Netherlands. But where were they born? The Netherlands. You know what I mean. Where does your family come from originally?
"And, you know, I can’t even answer their question. They can see that I have Asian ancestry, and they’re asking which, but I don’t know that. My Dad was adopted—he was an actual foundling, left in a police station’s delivery entrance. They never traced his parents, so all he can go by is his looks. After he and my mother married, they spent years working in different Asian countries, trying to answer an unanswerable question. He never was sure what he hoped to achieve—that someone would run up to him in the street and claim him as a long-lost grandson? That he would go to a new country, and suddenly just know that he belonged?"