Tower of the Lost Ways
a novelette by
Ander Nesser
Text and Cover Art Copyright 2013 Ander Nesser
Scenes
One: All the Answers
Two: Programmed Inhibitions
Three: Historical Precedent
Four: Confidence and Faith
Five: Do Not Fear
One: All the Answers
Eao emerged from the shadows of the open arch. The cream-colored terrace floor now appeared to have shifting hues in the light of the night billboards. She walked hesitantly to the lone woman at the terrace's unguarded edge. Coming up alongside, she saw the face of Aoi and sighed. Eao opened her mouth, but Aoi spoke first.
“The Moon outshines the advertisements, out there on the night plain.” Eao looked out. Across Oaoi, the Nanotoxin Expanse, their view of the horizon was obscured. Brown fumes from the fungal stacks hung low over the sludge. Slick and glistening in the moonlight, the landscape was still. Aoi pulled her robe tighter around her shoulders. Eao turned back to her. The short, pale strip of fur on her head reflected a violet tint.
“I've been looking for you,” Eao said. “You haven't updated your status message in hours. How are people supposed to know what you are doing if you never update?” Behind them, the billboards on the tower wall were covered with faces, an indigo status message below each. Eao gestured to them. “Look at their statuses, and you'll find not one time-stamped more than an hour ago--except yours.”
“Sorry, I've been busy,” Aoi said, still staring outward.
“But you're not doing anything now.”
“I'm thinking. It's an acquired skill, and requires concentration.”
Eao's black eyes narrowed, and her gray forehead wrinkled. “What? You have the strangest notions. Nobody is going to like you if you keep saying things like that.”
Aoi turned and regarded her expressionlessly. “What do you want?”
Eao straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I was going to ask you to come to a party later tonight. Not just because it would be fun, but it's also important for you to gather more contacts. You have the lowest number of followers of anyone's Profile Cube on Tier 35.” She gestured to the glowing number on her own personal drone which buzzed softly above her. “Where is your drone, anyway?”
“It's in my room. I haven't had much use for it lately,” Aoi said.
Eao exhaled forcefully. “It is that kind of behavior which will get you noticed--not in a good way. Your drone is an important status symbol--having none is worse than having an outdated model. You need to start thinking about how you will move up from Tier 35.”
“And as soon as I reach Tier 34, I have to worry about getting to 33. How many people ever actually reach the highest tiers? They spend their whole lives fretting and scrambling for an unlikely outcome.”
Eao sighed and turned to the Nanotoxin Expanse. After a period of silence, she said, “Well, just in case you want to come to the party, it's at midnight in Common Chamber Nine.”
“Unfortunately, I have something else planned.”
Eao looked at her again with a widened left eye.
“I'm going to the Underrealm with Ouo,” Aoi said. “I found something unusual down there, a few days ago. Something extraordinary, actually, of which no one ever seems to speak.”
“That's because no one ever speaks of the Underrealm. Why would they? It is irrelevant, below Tier 60--even that, the lowest tier, is irrelevant to everyone.”
“Though the Underrealm is physically below Tier 60, it itself is not related to social status. I believe it may contain not just the physical foundation of our megacity, but the cultural foundation of our civilization.”
Eao shook her head slowly, sniffed, and walked away.
She had been gone only a couple of minutes when the soft buzz of drones could be heard again. Aoi looked over her shoulder and saw a mother and child come out onto the terrace a short distance away.
The mother put a hand on the child's shoulder and pointed to the sky. “Oh, you can see so many Ascended Sisters tonight, dear,” she exclaimed with disingenuous wonder.
“Someday they will all descend?” the child asked.
“Not all of them. Some of them have already, and then they returned to the sky.”
“You mean they died?”
“Yes, when people die, they shed their bodies and become those points of light.”
“What about before we're born? How come I don't remember that?”
The adult knelt down so their faces were level. “Well, dear, because after we descend to Earth, we just don't remember what it was like in the heavens. I think there are so many memories, they go back forever in time. Our small human heads just can't hold all that information. But we'll find out again, someday.”
“So . . . we could be called 'Descended Sisters.'”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“But not all the lights in the sky can be Ascended Sisters, because some of them haven't descended yet. You have to descend before you ascend, right?”
“Don't quibble with details, dear. But I'm glad you show interest. All the answers are in the Hallowed Scrolls of the Great Sky Goddess Uaiaeu. I think we should read more of the Scrolls tonight, together. They can give better answers than I.”
Aoi moved to where they stood and regarded them for a moment.
“Greetings, Sister,” the woman said.
“Greetings. Ah . . . .” Aoi opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated.
“Yes?” The woman stood to full height.
“Nevermind. Sorry to interrupt. You two have a pleasant evening.” Aoi began to walk away.
“Thank you. You as well.”
Two: Programmed Inhibitions
Ouo slid aside the blue curtain at her door. “Good evening, Aoi.”
“Good evening, Ouo. May I enter?”
“Yes, please. You're right on time.” Ouo stepped aside and gestured with her palms up. Aoi bent, then straightened her knees slightly in acknowledgment before walking into the round room; her personal drone followed. Wall sconces lit the area near the door with ruddy light. On the far side of the room, the sconces were blue. “Oh, I haven't seen your drone in a while,” Ouo said.
“I wanted to bring it with me tonight to make a record.”
“Of those big things you showed me in the Underrealm a couple days ago? But anyone can just go down and look at them--why do you need a record?” Ouo poured a pink drink and offered it to Aoi, who accepted.
“It probably is unnecessary, but I feel as though I need to document the thrill of discovery. Those 'big things' are machines which haven't been used in years. I think most people have forgotten they exist.” Aoi politely rotated her cup five hundred forty degrees before taking a sip.
Ouo tapped the side of her own cup to change the liquid to a different color. “You mean those statues with the lights that come on when you get near them?” She took a drink after it had turned green.
“Yes, I do, but they're not statues. The only reason I know about them, about what's in the Underrealm, was an alert message I received on my communications terminal. And it took me a long time to figure out what it meant. Let's go as soon as we finish our drinks. I'll show you some things I learned about them last night.”
“Wait . . . I got an alert on my terminal, too. Some of my friends were also talking about it, so I think everyone got one. But I didn't understand what it meant.”
“Yes, it was a universal alert. I had to figure out the codes, and then I realized I should go to the Underrealm to consult another terminal.”
“I can't believe none of our other friends wanted to come along. I mean, how many people can honestly say they have even seen the Underrealm?”
Aoi finished her drink. “They are afraid of doing something unpopular. No one wants to do something that has never been done by someone else first. Their circle may gossip unfavorably.”
Ouo frowned into her cup. “Yes, I suppose you're right. It makes me wonder why I want to go, now.”
“Because your natural curiosity outweighs your socially programmed inhibitions.”
“But isn't it abnormal to be curious about such things? I thought curiosity applies only to learning other people's social status, and similar things.”
“It does apply to that, but not only to that. Our society has conditioned you to ignore other things. But our ancestors did not. They let their natural curiosity run free, and that's why we live in Eabzu, a magnificent tower, instead of on the ground, in the sludge.” Aoi set her cup on a table.
“What do you mean? What does that have to do with Eabzu?”
“Our ancestors' curiosity about the world led them to discover facts about the world. This knowledge enabled them to build from ground to sky. To construct our precious Profile Cube Network, the drones, the Custodians, and so on.”
Ouo frowned again. “That's a lot to take in. I never really thought about from where the Custodians came. I guess it just seems like they've always been here.”
“Well, we have known nothing but life within this tower for generations. I think the Custodians were built around the same time as the city itself, to take care of