Tani took a deep breath as she looked out from the small tunnel into the open, bustling market way. The intense sound of life, restrained and refracted by old stone and a dozen feet of earth, crashed into her. Gritting her teeth and placing a hand on the wall as she felt lightheaded, she looked forward to the stall she needed to get to, mapping her path before she stepped down onto the floor of the market and was swept forward into the crowd. Once she was in the throng of people, she followed the path in her mind—seemingly the only person there that had a destination in mind, rather than loitering and talking.
As a space cleared in the surrounding people, the bright fluorescent flood lamps shone through. She winced as she felt the shot of pain from her eyes but continued on her way, squinting in preparation for another beam of wretched light to blind her. When she heard her name being called, she turned in circles, searching with her eyes half closed for Vin, but could not find him.
“Tani! Tani!”
She stopped hearing her name after a few calls and gave up her search a few moments later, only to hear the voice next to her ear.
“Right here, you dunce.”
“God dammit, Vin.” She turned enough to roll her eyes at him before continuing towards the large tables by the noodle stand where they liked to poach the undisposed plates that the wealthy left behind on tables. She left it to Vin to stay with her as she weaved in between people. She heard him clumsily apologizing behind her.
“Sorry. Excuse—sorry—no, I, just—Sorry—”
His chain of apologies faded as she got further ahead, but they both knew where they were going. He arrived several minutes after she had grabbed a spot on the edge of a table occupied by some kids that appeared to be college students playing tourist. They wore the lightly embroidered robes and cloaks common to the students of the source academy. Affluent enough to be selected for the Academy meant a high chance of leaving behind food without thinking about it. Vin sat across the table from her to cover both sides whenever the group stood up.
He leaned forward across the table to whisper at her, hovering off the bench, even though in the market's din they could talk about nearly anything without their conversation being overheard. “Did you see the schematics, Tani?”
“There are a lot of schematics in the world, Vin. You will have to be more specific.”
He smiled, “Not today, there aren’t. You’re going to enjoy these.” He pulled out his LightTab and a short second later, Tani felt her own vibrate in the front pocket of her baggy cloth pants. She didn’t bother pulling it out, but just shrugged over at Vin.
He rolled his eyes, “You really need to get a new Tab.” He handed his over to her across the table. His unregistered LightTab was worth a fortune before the rumors of war started. Now, with possible conscription for all registered Undergrounders between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five, it was worth Topside credits. More credits than either of them had seen in their lives—or likely would see. He never seemed to care that he could have traded it for a registered Tab and gotten enough credits from the deal to buy him the best food in Prin for months. Whenever she pointed it out to him when they were scavenging for food, he shrugged and said something similar to, "The only thing I like more than food is ninjas. Since I can’t actually be invisible and murder-y, I like to pretend I’m a SatNet ninja."
Tani took the priceless Tab extended to her and looked at it. The screen was a mess of lines and symbols laid over a vaguely Terranoid form. The form was tall and thin, the arms slightly too long compared to the rest of the body.
She didn’t know what she was looking at, at first. Next to the original document, someone had created a digitized version, separating the image into layers. It was nothing like the schematics of wiring and housings she was used to working with, but it spoke to her. It felt as if the unknown Author thought like she did. Everything is a system. The systems here made little sense, for now, but she knew they would all merge into an understanding, eventually. As she scrolled deeper into the layers, she reached the image that made it all click. Source crystals. Her eyes shot up to meet Vin’s.
“Xenai?”
Vin nodded. “That’s the theory. No one knows where the schematic came from, but it's a scan of old documents. Someone from Praha already used the Old Terra analysis machine on it; they authenticated the source files. The original schematic is older than the Sundering.”
Tani tapped out of the layered digital version and zoomed into the original document. It was worn yellow and brown paper with layers of dark ink splashed with colors to differentiate each system. She zoomed in and out of the image, recreating the lines and symbols in her head as she went, “Has anyone corroborated their findings?”
“I’m sure that is in the works. Does any of it make sense to you?”
Tani tapped back into the digital copy of the schematics, flipping back and forth between the layers, comparing them to her visual memory of the original schematic for any transcription errors. It made some sense, but she would have to study Terran systems to piece it all together. She looked up to Vin and found his seat was empty.
“Table cleared out, you dunce.”
Looking to her right, she found Vin seated now at the far end of the table and eating leftovers from a bowl of noodles. She returned her focus to the schematic, putting a hand out as a barrier as she heard the grating sound of a bowl sliding on the old splintered table top. Feeling the pressure of the bowl that Vin pushed down to her tap her palm, she felt around for utensils to eat with. Not looking up to check what the dish was, she continued examining the schematics as she put the food in her mouth.
Tani could smell the walls. As each droplet of water rolled its way down and joined the stream on the floor, Tani felt as though the taste of the room became stronger. The smell crept into her mouth, the resulting dryness seeming to exaggerate the taste. She felt like she was being gagged with old fry bread covered in that terrible powder of spores that coated every corner of the mouth on the way down. It was a sensation that most Underground children knew and loathed, but the moldy bread at the supply banks had always been a special horror for Tani. She hated the walls for reminding her of it, but other than the smell, she loved this room.
It was small and cozy—just enough space for her and her few belongings, and it didn't add any burden to her life to keep it tidy. Not just because it was dirty before she moved in, but because it had no windows. She navigated the space by memory and feel. The darkness in the room was like a blanket wrapped around her.
She inched further from the wall and pushed back the knowledge it was likely the bed itself that smelled. Refocusing on the words in front of her, a small amount of light reflected from the LightTab she borrowed every day from her landlord. He lived in the room next to hers—the one with windows. Her own LightTab barely held a charge, so she saved it for nighttime when she did her work.
She felt like a slug or some sewer-dwelling creature. Maybe a rat? She lived her life in darkness, eating what was leftover and building things from scraps that no one else would miss. When it became dark above ground, she would go to the Ditch, the large gully to the north-east where everyone dumped things they didn’t want to keep.
It was mostly junk; various parts from motos and bots that didn’t work anymore. Their parts sat neglected beneath layers of garbage that Prin had tossed into the Ditch for decades. Sometimes she got lucky and someone had tossed their leftover lunch out with a cartful of other waste. Sometimes, a local restaurant had made a deposit. Those were the good days. Tani would sit in the dirt with her feast spread out on both sides of her hips, legs splayed open with the salvageable parts from a bot in front of her. With her LightTab propped up wherever she could find a spot, she scrolled through schematics from the SatNet with one hand while she shoved food into her mouth with the other hand, pausing from her frantic consumption of information and food only to disassemble and reassemble parts.
The problem with people was that most of them didn’t actually do the work. What was that phrase her landlord liked? Miss the forest in the trees?
The Ditch bore witness to this. Most people threw away the forest because a tree wasn’t working. It was easier for people to survive these days since basic manufacturing was abundant. No Topsider had to scrounge for scraps or parts anymore. The reality of it was that many people in the Underground still did, just the Topsiders didn’t see it. That’s what the phrase means, right? Tani smiled to herself. She was always missing nuances of phrases that people used, and she was certain this was being exaggerated because she hadn’t slept in a week. Not meaningfully, anyway. Any rest period of longer than an hour at a time seemed wasteful. She never felt that sleep was necessary unless she was in danger of falling asleep standing up.
The SatNet had always been weak, and mostly filled with things like schematics, with a spattering of history and art from the old world. The pre-Sundering Terrans had stored what they deemed to be vital information in the SatNet infrastructure itself. They had just forgotten to update it in the last hundred or so years before the Sundering. Tani didn’t care. She could use the broken technology to figure out the gaps in knowledge, just like what she was doing with the Xenai document. There was a new movement in the Underground to make sense of this new schematic on the SatNet. So many people struggling in their daily lives had latched onto it, hoping they could build something new. For Tani, that mostly translated into the possibility of being able to buy her own food if she was the one to figure it out.
A new system emerged around her. At night she analyzed schematics of wires and cables woven into metal and ceramic so she could repair and reconfigure ancient machines. During the day, the wires became veins and the ceramic and metal became flesh and bone. She learned all the unknown parts and the things she could do to improve upon the millennium-old Terran forms.
When the Sundering had happened, Terrans had found out their world was odd. Most of the Others had not chosen to build machines or motos. They had improved upon themselves. Their bodies and minds were their technology. And now they knew the Xenai cut themselves open and placed materials in the wounds so they could grow new powers inside of themselves through the materials. Some might think this method was like a horror story, especially compared to the Illara's beautiful process. The Illara Source-casters all wore necklaces that looked like old engraved jewelry from the bygone baronies the SatNet taught her about. They could shape the world with sparkling jewels.
To Tani, there was equal beauty in the Illara way and the Xenai way. Even the poorest of their kinds hadn’t suffered the way the Underground Terran rats like Tani did. They could manipulate the world around them to always provide food and shelter. Tani couldn't even imagine the power the lowliest Illara wielded — but she wanted to. And here it was. Right here on the SatNet. The process. How to give power to the powerless. Tani didn’t bother to sleep because even the best dreams paled next to the chance in front of her: the chance to change reality.