Distress

"I was wrong. The mainstream always assumed that an incomplete TOE was just the way things had to be. The Keystone would explain everything—except how a TOE could actually come into force. Anthrocosmology would answer that question—but that side of the equation would never be visible." Akili held out both hands, palms pressed together horizontally. "Physics and metaphysics: we believed they'd remain separate forever. They always had, in the past, so it seemed like a reasonable premise. Like the single Keystone." Ve interlocked vis fingers and tipped vis hands to a forty-five-degree angle. "It just happens to be wrong. Maybe because a TOE which unifies physics and information— which mixes the levels, and describes its own authority—is the very opposite of unraveling. It's more stable than any other possibility; it affirms itself, it tightens the knot."

I suddenly recalled the night I'd visited Amanda Conroy, when I'd concluded, tongue-in-cheek, that the separation of powers between Mosala and the Anthrocosmologists was a good thing. And later, Henry Buzzo had jokingly postulated a theory which supported itself, defended itself, ruled out all competitors, refused to be swallowed.

I said, "But whose theory is going to unify physics and information? Mosala's TOE makes no attempt to 'describe its own authority.'"

Akili saw no obstacle. "She never intended it to. But either she failed to understand all the implications of her own work—or someone out on the net is going to get hold of her purely physical TOE, and extend it to embrace information theory. In a matter of days. Or hours."

I stared at the ground, suddenly angry, all the mundane horrors of the day closing in on me. "How can you sit here wrapped up in this bullshit? Whatever happened to technoliberation?. Solidarity with the renegades? Smashing the boycott?" My own meager skills and connections had already come to nothing in the face of the invasion but somehow I'd imagined Akili proving to be a thousand times more resourceful: taking a vital role at the hub of the resistance, orchestrating some brilliant counter-attack.

Ve said quietly, "What do you expect me to do? I'm not a soldier; I don't know how to win the war for Stateless. And there'll soon be more people with Distress than there are on this whole island—and if ACs don't try to analyze the mixing plague, no one else is going to do it."

I laughed bitterly. "And now you're ready to believe that understanding everything drives us insane? The Ignorance Cults were right? The TOE sends us screaming and kicking into the abyss? Just when I'd made up my mind that there was no such thing."

Akili shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know why people are taking it so hard." For the first time there was a hint of fear in vis voice, breaking through the determined acceptance. "But… mixing before the Aleph moment must be imperfect, distorted—because if it wasn't flawed in some way, the first victim of Distress would have explained everything, and become the Keystone. I don't know what the flaw is—what's missing, what makes the partial understanding so traumatic—but once the TOE is completed…" Ve trailed off. If the Aleph moment didn't put an end to Distress, the misery of a war on Stateless would be nothing. If the TOE could not be faced, all that lay ahead was universal madness.

We both fell silent. The camp was quiet, except for a few young children crying in the distance, and the faint clatter of cooking utensils in some of the nearby tents.

Akili said, "Andrew?"

"Yes?"

"Look at me."

I turned and faced ver squarely, for the first time since I'd arrived. Vis dark eyes appeared more luminous than ever: intelligent, searching, compassionate. The unselfconscious beauty of vis face evoked a deep, astonished resonance inside me, a thrill of recognition which reverberated from the darkness in my skull to the base of my spine. My whole body ached at the sight of ver, every muscle fiber, every tendon. But it was welcome pain, as if I'd been beaten and left to die—and now found myself, impossibly, waking.

That was what Akili was: my last hope, my resurrection.

Ve said, "What is it you want?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Come on. I'm not blind." Ve searched my face, frowning slightly, puzzled but unaccusing. "Have I done something? To lead you on? To give you the wrong idea?"

"No." I wanted the ground to swallow me. And I wanted to touch ver more than I wanted to live.

"Neural asex can make people lose track of the messages they're sending. I thought I'd made everything clear, but if I've confused you—"

I cut ver off. "You did. Make everything." I heard my voice disintegrating; I waited a few seconds, forcing myself to breathe calmly, willing my throat to unknot, then said evenly, "It's not your fault. I'm sorry I've offended you. I'll go." I began to stand.