She stood, hands flat, against the gallery. Her head inclined itself against her shoulders. She watched the masses of bodies moving casually around her. Her eyes never settled on one character but flitted between persons and took in the whole scene. Here was one on his way to work, brushed up to the brim with importance. There was another, feet light upon the ground, hips swaying. She was probably a dancer. To her each of these characters were everything, but they were also nothing.
She sighed, her heart balancing on the edge. It had been too long since she had ever connected with them. Life moved by too quickly, whilst she ambled through it so slowly. She wondered where on earth they were really going. What was the point of it all? Would they reach the end of their journeys and cry out, ‘yes, this is what I wanted all along. This is where I need to be.’
There would be no limitations here, that was what she had been told. She had left the safety of the United World because of it, because of the promise of a life free from defect. It was true that she had never thought of herself as perfect, but she had never really felt the same as the others from her past. She wanted to find a person that could hold a conversation. Or at least one that could relate to her. She wanted to find the truth in someone else’s eye. She wanted to hold them simply for the contact, as though the warmth could fuel her being. Perhaps she was asking for too much.
Sure enough they had given her trinkets, things that made life easier. They had shortened her chores, made her faster, smarter and healthier. They had made her live forever. Her genes would never degrade, she would be held as if in stasis forever.
The problem was that everyone on Ascension had these upgrades. They were all a genetic elite, and it was that which made them dull, because they were all the same. The same aspirations. The same motivations. Where would the similarities end? There was of course no point in pondering over it. Nothing ever changed. In each society everybody was the same. She could either learnt to accept it or wait for another age.
Another sigh escaped her lips. She would soon be forced to return to the research department. Ascension never waited, it was always moving forward, and she couldn’t be left behind. Now a smile was on her lips. She had just remembered why she had decided to come along to a station situated in the middle of no-where, unknown to all the people that she had left behind. It was progress. At the end of the day immortality was not so bad. It gave her an infinite amount of chances to find the right person. What she also knew was that immortality was not the endgame of Ascension. The goal was to reach a state of perfection, and for that they needed to become gods. No small step, but they were at least moving in the right direction.
A small communication bubble expanded into her field of vision. She knew no one else could see it, but still she shied away from its glow. It was not difficult to understand the process. A chip in her brain overlaid the image onto the visual processing centres of her brain. It made it seem like the communication bubble was really there, when in fact it was all an illusion. Still, the effect was unsettling. Every time it happened she felt sure that other people could see who she was talking to. She wondered why that would even bother her. It wasn’t as though anyone else ever seemed to notice her.
‘Mr Carvelle, so good to hear from you,’ she replied to the man in the communication bubble.
‘You do understand, don’t you, what we are trying to accomplish here?’ It seemed that he was not in the best of moods. The pressure must have been getting to him. He did, after all, have the weight of the world on his shoulders.
‘Of course, Mr Carvelle,’ she replied casually.
‘Then why do my reports tell me that you are fifteen minutes late for work.’ She almost gasped, she had not realised that she had been standing there for so long.
‘I am truly sorry Mr Carvelle. I am heading to the Equinox research department right this minute.’
‘Holly, perfection itself is within our reach. We are standing here with outstretched arms and our fingernails are catching upon it surface. Imagine if each and every person on this station could touch the Promethean Layer. Imagine what this would mean for our society. In our future there will be nothing to want for. In our future every single person can hold a little piece of god within them. Imagine a world where a person could cure their child of a terminal disease simply by willing them better. Do you want to see all that go to waste, because you can’t keep the time?’
‘No Mr Carvelle, I am truly sorry.’ The fact was that she really was sorry. She believed in this project almost as much as Carvelle, and she felt ashamed that at this moment in time she was letting it down.
‘Well then Holly. Without the Equinox project, there will be no Ascension. This project is written into the name of our station, of our little society. But none of it is possible without that project, and that project is not possible without you.’ His smile turned dark. ‘Please get to work.’ The bubble dissolved. She cursed herself a little and ran straight to the mass-transport terminal.
‘Hylas Center please.’ She asked the terminal, even though it was more of a demand. She hated mass-transport, but it was the fastest way of getting from one part of the massive station to another.
The amiable voice of Ascension’s computer answered her. ‘Hello Holly. Mass-transport in three.’ By the time the computer had got to two Holly had mostly dissolved into thin air.