My Friend, The Gifted: A Sci-Fantasy (The Universe of Infinite Wonder Book 1)

by E. L. Aldryc

  “I guess so,” Elodie said. Seravina's words were powerful. They made the feeling from Belo Horizonte come back.

  “So stop wasting your own time and get ready for augmentation. Does Wednesday work for you?” Seravina sat back victoriously.

  Elodie was forwarded a timetable that made her heart sing a little. Her name was at the top of a training programme, designed with care and centred around her. There were weekly meetings where she’d just sit with a telepath and talk about how she felt about her progress. They wanted her. And they wanted her to be happy in their care. Why—why—was she thinking about saying no in the first place? This was the real thing.

  “Yes,” she heard herself say. Tammy sighed in relief.

  “Good girl,” Seravina said and did something that looked like she ticked off an item on the list. “Next.”

  Did You Hear about the New Paragnost?

  Either the news spread instantly, or Elodie had been too oblivious to notice it before she left the office. She checked her socials and suddenly, half the Institute was talking about how Elodie Marchand was desperately wanted by Rising Dawn. An A-class paragnost, promised a life filled with adventure and noble battles for nothing less than the fate of humanity.

  It took ten minutes to walk, slowly, to the cafeteria like Elodie did, all to digest the volume of what she had just consented to. And when she reached it, the big white gates, tall enough for three to pass on top of each other, opened outwards. It was time for elevenses, junior researchers’ most loved break of the day to hang out and exchange gossip.

  Elodie made a few steps inside towards the scent of coffee, when an oddity pricked her out of her steady daze. The silence.

  It wasn’t the whole of the cafeteria, but it made a difference. Junior researchers were usually the loudest. A hundred pairs of eyes to her right was trying hard to look like they’re looking at anything but her while whispering. A rush of blood flushed over her and she couldn't move. She knew all of them. Didn’t they have a life and a meal to think about?

  An instinct told her that the best way to go on is to move backwards, right where she came from. Forget the coffee. Every eye in the Institute was re-measuring her, repositioning themselves on the scale of approval. Some of the stares were outright frightened. An A-class paragnost. They didn’t know what it meant, but neither did Elodie. Not really. She turned her back to them, when an arm caught her elbow. The scent of coffee intensified.

  “Read your mind,” Augustina said and passed her a hot cup.

  Elodie still knew that people were watching. She accepted it carefully, just in case another scene was in store. She was just happy that someone had broken the silence.

  “Thanks,” she said quietly. It felt like being louder than that would have sounded like a church etiquette violation.

  “I promise I won’t do it unless it’s for coffee,” she said. “It’s just sometimes easier to give people what they want before they ask.”

  “Don’t spoil me too early. I’m not even in yet,” Elodie replied as Augustina started walking deeper into the discomfort zone of the common cafeteria. The loud new label she’d been marked with was resounding across the hall, and now a senior member of Rising Dawn was buying her coffee. Half an hour ago, she was parking in another life.

  “I’m happy for you,” Augustina said. “I wanted you to know that. And that there’s nothing to be afraid of. Literally. The amount of gifted we’ve birthed. I mean, we got you covered.”

  “I’m just so confused right now,” Elodie said and threw an eye to the shamelessly peering assortment of colleagues. They may have been quiet now, but get a few drinks in them and she wouldn’t be able to shut them up with the questions. If she was going to the party tonight, she was going to need some answers. “They scheduled the augmentation for Wednesday.”

  She said it now, and it was real. The rest of the world might still have been deciding on what to do with the new vision of Elodie Marchand, but she held on to her quiet excitement.

  “It’s good that it’s fast,” Augustina replied. “I would suggest you take time off. We’ve already got it authorised from Seravina. It’s best if you’re rested. The augmentation takes a lot out of you.”

  Comforting.

  Elodie had the distinct feeling of gold invading her peripheral vision and caught Augustina looking at her all interested behind her orange mane.

  “I thought you only used your gifts for coffee,” she said.

  “Do you want to come to Rising Dawn with me? We’ve recently acquired a few poems written by Nada Faraji herself, and I thought maybe you’d be interested to see them. The exhibition won’t be open until the investor brief. Plus, I’ll be able to take you through the augmentation without people staring. We can’t talk about it in public.”

  “Yeah, I’d like that,” Elodie said, and Augustina smiled with joy that looked out of place in a serious environment like the Institute.

  They left together through the exit on the other side, when Elodie felt a knot in her stomach. She, and consequently Augustina, looked behind them. Soraya entered the cafeteria, saw them, triggered an uncomfortable glare that seemed to last a lifetime, turned around, and left. It seemed no one was going to simply get coffee that day. Elodie’s heart sank entirely. She must have heard the news. It was not what they had planned.

  “Do you want to—” Augustina started.

  “Yes, I want to see the exhibition,” Elodie replied and led the way out. Augustina was right. This was an exciting time. Elodie’s time.

  You Had Me at “Augmentation”

  Monday, 4 February 2363

  Less than twelve hours later, Elodie was in a rooftop bar, watching a sunrise and trying to remember what country she was in. The music was quiet and lounge-y. There was room for talking, and lots of people came over from the Institute. It wasn’t her party, but it felt like it. People were coming up to her. After the first awkward congratulations, they all poured in. They bought her drinks. They hugged her as if she’d already done something. This was good. Friends and colleagues thought this was good. Elodie was nervous, but agreeing with them was easy. It made her feel like she was making the right choice, not just because they pushed her into it. But because she was gifted. Really gifted, whatever that meant. There was no reason to avoid victory.

  Just as she thought the night would go smoothly, someone unexpected showed up. Frederich Hawken, shamelessly walking around the party with a bottle of liquor. Catching her eye and coming over. This wasn’t one of those days when he was too angry to speak. Not that Elodie ever found the source of his anger. He was Dr Birkelund’s apprentice. The sky had opened and granted him the one wish every alchemist ever wanted. And Frederich Hawken was miserable all the time. Elodie was angry too, at how he was wasting the opportunity. Angry and intrigued. It was refreshing to see someone who had everything and seeing how it failed his expectations. She might not have gotten through to him, but he was the one that listened most carefully at her displeasure at the Institute. Just listened. No unnecessary advice. When they were still friends, of course.

  “Where did you get the bottle, Hawken?” she asked, seeing him approach carefully with a clear, dangerous-looking, label-free liquid.

  “They sell them,” he replied and took a swig. The Slavic accent. Darkness and brood. It reminded her of a different era at the Institute.

  “We talking again now?” she said.

  Elodie felt better than ever. Would the new confidence help her tell if there was more to Frederich Hawken than a broken mess?

  “It’s not your fault. I don’t wanna talk about it,” he said. The closer he got, the more Elodie saw how impressive it was that he was still standing and talking; the bottle was half-empty. He was staring at her as if he wasn’t sure how he got there.

  “It’s good, it’s good you did this. I remember. You wanted this. It’s good.” He swayed and drank again.

  “Thanks, I really appreciate it,” Elodie replied loudly and looked around to
see if any other alchemists were there. She wasn’t equipped to manage drunk Hawken on her own.

  “But don’t ever trust anyone, you hear me?” He suddenly pulled closer. “And never, ever, ever look into my research. You understand?”

  His breath was so boozy that Elodie felt drunker just by being exposed. Someone pulled him away, and Elodie saw Soraya behind him hissing something about how he was embarrassing himself.

  “Shut up, it’s all your fault!” he shouted, while Soraya dragged him to a recliner where he collapsed and almost instantly passed out. She ripped the bottle from his hand and brought it over.

  “I’m sorry, miss. Was this man bothering you?”

  Soraya seemed to have recovered well from her morning moodiness.

  “Too late to say no to that,” Elodie said. Now it was time to keep the peace. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you after the meeting. I was just getting some coffee, and the next thing I knew, everyone was in on it.”

  “It’s fine. You don’t need to apologise. As long as you’re happy,” Soraya said with honed neutrality and took a sip from the bottle. It was so strong she coughed and passed the bottle to Elodie.

  “Let’s go crazy one more time for the old days,” Soraya whispered.

  Elodie took the bottle. Soraya was making an effort. Why should she say no?

  It was 9 a.m. The sun was up. This wasn’t the same party. It wasn’t even the same country. Soraya was sitting at the edge of the terrace they were on, fidgeting with a flat hematite, dividing her attention between the shrubbery and the conversation.

  Elodie was there with her and six random Greeks who kept bursting into laughter. Finally, she remembered what she was about to say.

  “They’re just gonna take it out,” Elodie said. She was all slurry and nauseous.

  “Take what out?” one of the Greeks asked.

  “The part that determines what’s real and what’s not. They can condense and isolate the function in the human brain. And then they take it out,” she continued.

  “What?” the same guy asked, perplexed.

  “Elodie,” Soraya straightened up into a posture that threatened intervention.

  “What? It’s my brain, I can talk about it,” Elodie replied, “and you need to shut up anyway.”

  Soraya sat back, offended, which was a first.

  “Anyway, after the procedure is done, I’ll need to relearn to process reality from zero. Because the influx of paragnostic data is all around us, but this natural function stops it so we don’t go crazy. And when I’m done, I’ll be able to access all the information my mind naturally tries to reach out for. To look at futures, remote places, anything. Isn’t that crazy?”

  The six Greeks gasped in a mixture of feelings. Soraya kept flipping her hematite, now with mesmerizing speed.

  “All right, I’m leaving. I need to be at work in… two hours,” she said. “Elodie, you coming?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Elodie said. Another round of drinks came over, and they began to distribute it.

  “Elodie, I think you should wait in the feï,” Soraya said again.

  “I don’t have to be at work until Wednesday,” she replied in French.

  Soraya marched over, took the drink out of Elodie’s hands and poured it into the plants. She too spoke French this time.

  “Do you not understand that you are currently violating the privacy of Rising Dawn’s most secret procedure, which they’ve tried to keep under wraps for over eighty years? How do you think they’ll react when they find out that their new trainee, who hasn’t even been given any confidential information, has leaked the augmentation to the first bunch of idiots? Wait in the feï!”

  Elodie felt wobbly, and this was really loud. She let Soraya pack her into the back of the vehicle where the ceiling started spinning. Just before she sank into sleep, she heard Soraya talk to the six Greeks. To be fair, Elodie wasn’t even sure they spoke English apart from that one guy. They probably didn’t understand what was going on and why this woman was shouting at them. The scene made Elodie laugh. Soraya looked much younger than her peers, almost child-like. It was hilarious.

  “The Sight Institute will know if you ever tell anyone about this. They will know who you tell, when, and maybe even before you do it. The repercussions of even thinking of this kind of betrayal will be much more severe than any reward you may think of reaping.”

  A good friend.

  Off With You, Be on Your Way

  Wednesday, 6 February 2363

  When Elodie was feeling unsure about something, she dressed up for the situation. She had that down. Looking the part was easy, and when she set off to Rising Dawn on Wednesday, she made sure she looked like she already belonged. An inevitable happiness seeped into her as she marched across the circular central reservation of the Institute, with vague shimmering footprints left in the off-white polymer. She had spent her last day off alone in the flat, watching movies and feeling sick from a hangover. A fitting end to the worst period of her life.

  Soraya was due early to join in for a last pre-augmentation coffee, but she’d gotten pulled out into some kind of an emergency. Things were going down at the construction site set up at the side of the Particle Lab, and Elodie promised to let her know when she landed.

  She decided to see what was going on there when she heard yelling. The closer she got to the construction site, the more chaotic it all looked. Several workers were pointing at a hole where the foundations were being laid out for the annexe. It smelled of raw nano polymer, the kind they warned them never to touch, and from what she gathered, a person was stuck inside. A moment later, Soraya climbed out of the pit with some kind of protection mask, and the construction manager started shouting at her for going in there. She ripped off the mask and pushed the tall man towards the edge.

  “You put one of our entities in danger! Rule number one! Never ask them to inhabit an unstable field! You got lucky this time, but if you ever damage an AI, I’ll come for you.”

  Pushing the man away from the hole, Soraya opened a voice projector app and marched around the site.

  “Take a break everyone! Go read a safety manual!”

  Elodie sighed. This was not the vibe she wanted just before the augmentation.

  She turned around and walked all the way to Rising Dawn, when she received a message.

  [Sorry, had to clear something up. People are incompetent. Are you still around?]

  She responded that she was going to wait inside. Maybe it was best that she spent the last minutes pre-augmentation alone with herself. She closed all apps and returned to reading Nada Faraji’s book. In the absence of feeling like she had a true understanding of the gifted, the kind voice spoke to her from the pages soothingly. It’d been almost a hundred years since she’d gone through something similar. Plus, it supplied her with a mantra she’d adopted to not freak out in the process.

  You’re not the first one and not the last to go through this.

  Augmentations were routine, and a rite of passage. She was gonna be fine.

  The chapter she was reading was just getting interesting when she felt another person sitting next to her. She turned around and saw Soraya had finally made it.

  “Not only did I escape, I came to find out how long before security kicks me out of this wretched, wretched place,” she said, looking official in a tight dark grey anti-contamination suit. She stretched her skinny legs in front of her, picked up Nada Faraji’s book, and put it back with regret.

  “And here I thought Rising Dawn was your favourite hangout,” Elodie replied.

  “Oh no, I’m strictly here to talk to you.”

  Soraya looked so uncomfortable, constantly scanning for exits. It was almost endearing.

  “About how much you love Rising Dawn?”

  “Maybe! I certainly love how infallible they’ve made themselves look when their accuracy is still flawed. But in all seriousness, are you okay? If you thought about escaping, this is probably your last shot.”<
br />
  “This is a great conversation to have while I’m waiting for my augmentation.” Elodie crossed her arms.

  “Okay, fine, I’m still being selfish. I don’t like the gifted. I like you. We’ve been through this. I’ll keep a secret journal of negative thoughts and throw you a party when you’re back from augmentation. Just to remind you what great friends you have outside the crazy place.”

  “Or maybe you can just give them a chance.”

  “Yes, well, no,” Soraya said. “Seriously, gifted or not, you need to be careful how you handle yourself. These people are vindictive. They killed their own leader because they thought she was too soft. And they still worship her words. Talk about a cognitive dissonance.”

  “I know how to handle myself. I’m not the one pushing people into holes,” Elodie replied. She wasn’t about to be lectured by someone who couldn’t even keep their anger in check.

  “That’s my problem to deal with, well spotted. It’s affecting me. I’m angry. I don’t like seeing them around you.”

  She held Elodie’s hand as she looked into the distance.

  “Is that it? You don’t like them? That’s the whole story?” Elodie shouldn’t be starting this argument right now.

  “You know.” Soraya paused and bit her lip. “I’ve always trusted you. I know you wouldn’t purposely hurt me. But you know how paragnostics work. The closer you are to someone, the more about them you get to see. In your case, the future and past. And to be honest, I’m not happy for you to have that privilege. I’ve had some pain in my life. It gives me comfort to know that it’s private. The details at least.”

  “I-I would never…” Elodie stuttered.