Digital Galaxies

My vision slowly swam back into focus and when it was clear enough to see properly, I gawked and turned in a slow circle.

We stood in an enormous circular room, with a massive dome high above us. The floor, ceiling, and dome were all made out of a white marble that appeared to have been smashed to bits. Closer inspection revealed something even more fascinating. What I had initially thought to be cracks were actually a dark, petrified mahogany wood. It looked as if it had been grown directly though the stone before it was polished down to lay flush with the rest of the floor.

Arranged all across the floor were a multitude of metal pads, grouped into sets of six and arranged into hexagonal clusters. The three of us stood on one pad each. Clearly this was the central terminal that Elissa had told us about.

"Welcome to Exodus City," Elissa said, bouncing happily around to face us as we stared around in awe.

"I helped design some of this," Cerri murmured, stepping down from the pad. "I didn't think… this is incredible."

"You did a good job," I told her, following her lead.

Elissa wasn't content to let us just stand there, though. "What's your address, Cerri?"

My friend's fingers danced in the air like she was casting some sort of arcane spell, without her ever taking her eyes off the incredible building we were standing in. "Sent it to you," she told our escort absently.

In contrast, my gaze dipped to watch her fingers. I liked Cerri's fingers. It was a bit of a weird one to admire, but still. Long and elegant, they would have looked completely at home on one of the old grand pianos that my father collected. Suddenly, I didn't think they were so dumb. At least, they wouldn't be if Cerri were playing a song on them.

"Oh," Elissa said, opening a holo panel to see. "Okay… that means the skyrail we want to catch is… over this way!"

And just like that, our guide was off, trailing two awestruck tourists.

The building wasn't exactly bustling, but there was still a reasonable amount of foot traffic. They had clearly built this place with expansion in mind.

We passed through one of many open archways to exit the large chamber, but that was as far as we made it. Cerri and I had ground to a gasping halt.

The central terminus was built on top of a raised concrete platform. Radiating out from the platform in all directions, skyrail tracks reached out into the distance. I'd only seen skyrail a handful of times, Sydney was still struggling along with its rail network, same as always.

Skyrail was basically just a fancy monorail track where the train hung from the track rather than resting on top of it.

What had really caught our attention though, was the sprawling city that stretched out in all directions across rolling hills that gradually climbed up to touch the base of a massive mountain range.

Most of it was suburbia, although applying that label to it felt like a gross disservice. Each house was wild and varied, as different and unique as any two people might be. It was a riot of colour, style, and design that practically screamed character.

There were a few areas that had been built up with skyscrapers and apartment blocks, but even those looked interesting and wild. The type of thing an architect dreamed of building before cost and engineering got in the way.

Once we were done staring, Elissa led us down to one of the skyrail stations, where a single carriage turned up after less than a minute of waiting.

Still dazed by the fantastical sights of the city, conversation was light as we began our journey out.

It was just so… so amazing. Gorgeous and comfy and massive and homely and interesting, all at once. It was perfect… well, sort of.

It very quickly became apparent that only the first kilometer out from the central terminus was densely inhabited. Houses became more sporadic the further you went, lonely islands of colour amidst a sea of empty grass plots. Exodus City was still new and growing. In time, they'd have to expand out to a whole Exodus Island.

When I asked about the seemingly random way that the city had been laid out, Cerri explained that it had been designed organically. As much as the SAI tried to impose form onto themselves and their behaviour, they were just as alive and messy as those of us who’d started out biological. It was comforting, really, to know that they were just as confused by themselves as us humans were.

Eventually, we slowed to a stop inside a small station and stepped out into a gentle breeze. The area was still sparsely populated, with only one in ten plots filled. It had such a cozy, sleepy vibe and I loved it.

“Which one is yours?” I asked, gazing out over the area.

Cerri’s hand stretched out, pointing to one just a short walk away. “Ours,” she corrected me quietly. “And it’s that one, I believe.”

The house she pointed at was almost entirely obscured by a treeline that circled the whole property. Only a slate roof was visible over the top of the canopy of gnarled oaks.

Getting down to ground level was as simple as stepping into one of four glass lifts, which deposited us smoothly onto the sidewalk. Gosh, this was like… an actual, real utopia.

Less than a minute’s walk later and we were staring up a short, curved driveway. The house at the end of it was not what I’d expected, but still so Cerri that I couldn’t imagine her having anything else.

Several circular two storey sections appeared to have been partially merged together, like a venn diagram or something. The outside walls were made of old, moss covered wood. Small windows peeked out of the light shrubbery, but I could see the hint of much larger floor to ceiling windows on the other side.

The front garden was a riot of barely contained flowers, each one interesting and unique, and probably impossible. I didn’t know much about botany, but I assumed that some of these plants would never be able to grow next to each other out on Earth.

When I turned to see what Cerri made of it, I found her standing beside me, smiling with obvious happiness as her eyes took in the sight.

“You like it?” I asked her quietly. I felt like the moment called for quiet, rather than loud excitement.

“I should be asking you that,” she chuckled, glancing down at me. “But yes, I love it. I designed it, obviously… but seeing it in the flesh for the first time…”

“It’s amazing,” I said, and on a whim, I reached out and took her hand, threading our fingers together.

She glanced down at them, then up at me with an open, vulnerable expression. I squeezed her hand and gave her what I hoped was a soft, loving look. Yes, we weren’t together, yes, we hadn’t said anything about feelings, yes she’d told me she didn’t want a relationship… but also…

Her lips quirked up into a smile and she squeezed back. My heart practically soared off into the digital stratosphere. Oh gosh, this girl was amazing. I could deal with this strange friendship if it was with her. Like, I’d love to make out with her for an entire week, or um… more than just making out, but I don’t think it was required. At least, not for me, here, at that moment.

“It’s a pretty house,” Elissa murmured, stepping up onto my other side. “I kind of wish I could drop mine next to yours.”

“You could,” Cerri said, looking at her over the top of my head.

The supermodel shook her head in amusement. “I just have an apartment in one of the central business districts.”

“Well, I mean… there’s plenty of plots available,” Cerri said, gesturing around at the empty neighbourhood.

Elissa laughed. “I’ll think about it. For now, I got places to be… I assume you two can see yourselves inside?”

“Yeah,” I replied, reaching up to squeeze her shoulder in thanks.

“Thanks for coming,” Cerri said. “It was nice to have someone who’d been here before. I’ve been so nervous about this.”

“It’s a daunting city when you see it for the first time, but it grows on you after a while,” our new friend agreed, her eyes turning skyward. “I’m excited to see it grow. It’s part of the reason I chose a place at the top of a skyscraper. So I could look out the window each morning and spot the new houses that had popped up.”

“I’m excited for that too now,” I said, dropping Cerri’s hand so I could turn to stare at all the vacant plots. “Maybe this street will have all our friends living on it one day… hold on.” Something odd had just occurred to me. “We have complete control over reality here, at least at a macro level… resources aren’t a thing we need to worry about, all that stuff. Why are there roads?”

Cerri let out a giggle. “Because people like cars. Some of them anyway. Resources are sort of still a thing, although not in the way you’d think. Exodus city is designed like… like a game. We ran into a problem early on where SAI and DH were spending all their time in the city and not enough time out on Earth furthering our goals. So we came up with a sort of gamified system where if you helped with the Exodus’ goals, you’d get shinier stuff in here. Obviously we want to make sure everyone has enough for a baseline level of happiness, but we also need to reward those who make this all possible in the first place.”

“Does that mean your… our house is really expensive?” I asked, glancing back at it.

“Oh yeah,” Elissa grinned. “Cerri is a very rich woman.”

“That’s… I guess that makes sense,” I mused, turning to look at her. “She’s probably not even telling us just how much she means to the Exodus. She’s very humble like that.”

“Hey!” The world’s worst succubus protested, cheeks turning red with embarrassment. “Let’s… um… go inside. See you later Elissa. Thanks for showing us around.”

“Have fun!” our guide laughed as I rushed to catch up with Cerri, who’d started for the house without waiting. “I’ll come around at like… noon.”