Prologue

In 2033, the world experienced a technological jump.

International experts called it the breach in the threshold. The threshold is the theoretical point at which any future technological development, no matter how small, would significantly change humanity in a more or less permanent way.

Many in the know or otherwise predicted that the technological jump – mainly fueled by the development of wireless electricity and mobile artificial intelligence applications – would now bring the world to the point of no return.

A few would even dare call the event the “easternization” of the world.

In the circus of minds of most people, Singularity has finally arrived.

This time, for good.  

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            “We’ve arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster.”

-         Carl Sagan 

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Chapter I

Eight:thirty-three p.m. Seventeen days before the World Economic Forum 2033.

Twenty-seven year old Israel Malimig – Ray – was trying to find basis on how he should solve his present predicament.

And short of shutting down all the servers fortunately, the two technical engineers accompanied by the guard returned to Israel’s station with their report. The guard gestured to Sir Ray, then swaggered back to his old post downstairs.

“Rat, Sir,” the older and more experienced of the two engineers demonstrated. “Made a hole this big in our fiber optics’ main lining. No need to shut down. I recommend we re-route the three auxiliaries northside of the tower. But we must save a back-up first. You do know how to make a back-up, don’t you, Sir?”

The young night-shift supervisor leaned back on his swivel chair and thought for a moment about what the man had just reported. With an awkward twirl of the opened sign pen he had been doodling with for some time now, he answered his technical triggerman.

“I’m definitely okay with the back-up, Baloy, I can do that right here in my station. I have administration access to the main files. But it’s the re-routing we’re going to have to do for later. I don’t have any idea on how to work that one out. And, even if I did, I believe it’s still protocol to call her…”

Her, meaning their Division Chief, Dra. Flordeliza Alegre.

A moment of silence ensued.

Then, the younger engineer, Allan, whispered to his companion. Technical Engineer Baloy stared at Allan for a second and then prodded him to tell their supervisor about it.

“I think there might be an easier way to do the re-routing, Sir!”

With a bit of strain, Israel Malimig listened. Any advice that would make him not to make a phone call to the “El Tigre” Dra. Alegre would be most agreeable at this junction.

“Let’s use the Tesla Flash!”

***

Everything the man with the overturned cross told him had gotten true.

Just this morning, the white smoke billowing from the papal chimney had been in perfect timing with Pope Elias’ predictions. Then, exactly an hour after the fateful day’s Angelus, the Cardinal Protodeacon was tasked to make the famous announcement.

“I announce to you all this Great Joy!

WE HAVE A POPE! HABEMUS PAPAM!

The Most Eminent and Reverent Lord,

Lord Catalino, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church Ponce De Leon,

Who takes to Himself the New Name Pablo Immanuel.

HABEMUS PAPAM PABLO IMMANUEL!”

Everything happened at such a swirling pace. After his Urbi et Orbi blessing, he was then tasked to recite the decade-old Regnare Reciperent. The “Reign or Retire” papal vow which had been instituted ten years ago by none other than Pope Elias himself.

For now, it would be time for his first true liberating rest before his first true lightning test as a Man of God’s People.

***

With the continuous practice of this new technology, the man of the casuistic coronet knew it would be the real advantage.

“By helping them, I am destroying them!”

This would be the deadly mixture of his heightened force and matter. The present distortion of his extra-ordinary wisdom. The beginning of his own personal singularity.

With Project Thirteen Point One safely embedded in the neocortex of his brain, the bearing gave him the added resilience required of the mission. He had proven its effectivity with the birth of his genius firstborn. But this would be – as he always declared to his Josephine – an internal triumph. Now it would have to face its first acid test against an external threat. The present ruling administration of Ziagar. 

The bio-neurons of the artificial neural network implanted in his cerebellum definitely boosted his performance. Not only would the brain be man’s most powerful sex organ, it would also be his most powerful weapon against any and all who would violate the honor of his sovereignty. Intellectual domination. He already had the sub-curators of the seven Houses of the Conspiracy of the Maharlikas under him, would Ziagar be finally his next conquest? With a strange sense of fulfillment, the man of royal pretense remarked to himself – I would have to revise the codes. The loyalty of numbers. The charter of the Exilum Rex. Re-integrate everything on a higher plane of reality.

From the primitive y languages of the older Projects to the advanced version of his own cybernetic electrode arrays.

Re-configuration should be done as quickly as possible. The new Tesla Flash technology had given him more freedom and power than ever before. Wireless electricity! He would now be able to re-charge anywhere, anytime. He would now be able to integrate his capabilities on-line without the constraints of a worldly environment outside of his own person. Alone, wireless electricity had already been exciting. And, now, to combine it with mobile artificial intelligence applications!

Most of the modern scientific minds of the last decade had been wrong about the promises of stem-cell technology. In the process, they created monstrosities and maleficence of all sorts.

All along, it had been electricity which would be the key to human life’s elixir!

He had become the legacy of all the forgotten geniuses of earth’s science and technology!

Nikola Tesla, Hans Berger, Eric Giler.

Henry Markram, Kevin Warwick, Philip Kennedy.

Yang Dan.

Helen Gorospe Tan.

Who could ever stop the full development of his own personal singularity? His own sense of ipseity?

He would no longer be afraid of the so-called technological creep for he had become the technological creep!

***

The temporarily muted crisis would have its multilateral language.

Clearly, the slithering bomb threat would have its multiple translations – from both the forewarned and the forewarners.

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“They'll change the face of the countryside. They get their clatter into everything.”

-         John Steinbeck, East of Eden

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Chapter II

Mega-Manila in the Year Twenty and Thirty-Three. Population: twenty million.

Within her, the old cities would be merging. Outside of her, new cities would be emerging. The Mega-Manila skyline was hydrologically transformed during the Benham Rise Anomaly a decade ago. The northern mountain ranges of the island of Luzon rose from the anomaly and almost tipped the entire western landmass with its abnormal heave. The predicted landmass slide into the Sunda Shelf, however, did not occur. The western side of the island scraped the Sunda shelf, releasing the rich water organisms which have inhabited the vast continental sea farm for more than twenty centuries.  This new environment gave rise, albeit utterly repulsive to the new humanity system of climate protection and resilience, to a flourishing underground aquacultural and insect farming economies which would make 25% of the entire food supply of the Maharlikan nation.

The Capital Development Authority had completely reclaimed the length of the mega-city’s coastline with a baseline limit of three hundred nautical miles as per the Exclusive Economic Zonal Revaluation by the New United Nation (N.U.N.) Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The newly-adjudicated land territories served as the launching ground for the ambitious multi-country project which would harness the hydrocarbonic fossil fuels: the SEA WORLD’s Sea-Walled Project.

SEA WORLD – Southeast Asian World – had been the private counterpart organization of ASEAN ever since the 2020 Rofu Shoals Crisis. The territorial crisis came to its natural end when the neighboring states of the Xinjan Confederacy united their efforts to, once and for all, dismantle the supracountry’s arrogant bid to claim the entire Sundan continental shelf as part of their sovereign boundaries.

The privately-run corporation’s first major effort as an internationally legal entity was the jointly funded and co-developed Sea-Walled Project.

The Sea-Walled Project stretched the entire neobiopolis of Mega-Manila and was now on its second phase of implementation – to link the modern water fortification with the same structure being built on the entire Palawan coastline. The original intent of the multinational corporation was to construct the seawall all the way from Taiwan to Borneo. But the country of Malaysia, which had taken a neutral stance during the Rofu Shoals dispute, did not give its consent and backed out of the said project.

As of the moment, however, SEA WORLD had been contented with the way the first phase of the project was completed. The Mega-Manila Sea-Walled Project became the biggest source of the region’s hydrocarbonic fossil fuel needs and there were plenty to share.

The Xinjan Confederacy, realizing the futility of its grandiose moves to take over the disputed territories of her neighboring countries, finally acceded to the request of the international community to hold a dialogue once more. This time, with Malaysia and the small country of Ziagar, being the chief negotiators of the talks. The N.U.N., however, would still be playing its part as over-all coordinator, but, for all intents and purposes, this issue, as ASEAN pointed out in its recently released joint statement, is “strictly a regional issue.”

***

High above the Mega-Manila skyline, if one could fly the new bio-copters being issued to the police force of the Capital City, one could notice that most of the roofs of the residential and commercial buildings which have sprouted are all painted with the strange solar-panelized liquid substance. The substance did not only protect the structures as an all-weather paint, but it enhanced the roofing frameworks as solar-sourcing power absorbers. With synaptic transmitters and transponders firmly in place around a solar-chromed roofing, their signals would then be picked up by the artificially intelligent mini-computers attached to the new overhead junction relays of the so-called Tesla Flash, or wireless electricity junction boxes.

The two technologies – wireless electricity and mobile artificial intelligence – would then be working together to provide the new humanity with various applications which are either semi-Singularity or full-Singularity based.

There would only be one problem, however.

Magnetic susceptibility.

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            “Man may have discovered fire, but women discovered how to play with it.”

-         Candace Bushnell, Sex and the City

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Chapter III

Nine:oh-seven a.m. Sixteen days before the World Economic Forum 2033.

The sensual thirty-four year old Dra. Alegre could not quite make up her mind. The prospect of holding the World Economic Forum at the Maharlikas Museum of Freedom absolutely tickled her imagination no end. So much so that for the last few weeks, she had become fickle-minded and irritable. El Tigre! She did not mind the title at all. It would just add to her ferocity to get her job done. And get it done one hundred and one percent perfect!

When her Infotreque Smart Watch vibrated for a voice call, she immediately walked outside of the main hall of the first and biggest roboticized museum and library center in the Eufrasian Continent. The international librarian society, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), had been trying to get in touch with her ever since her nomination as the International Librarian of the Year. When she tapped her watch to receive the call, she was surprised, however, to recognize the voice of her favorite first cousin.

Josephine Arboleda.

“Hi, Ate Jo! Yes, yes! Everything’s fine! I’m just a little nervous with the forum just weeks away. Why, of course, Ate Jo! Would I ever do that to Exilium Rex Foundation? I mean – to your Exilium Rex Foundation? Ha-ha-ha! I’ve set you some skeds with all of their top and big-time investors, Ate. Yes, yes, I totally understand! These would be big pogi points for Kuya KC when he finally arrives at Ziagar. Yes? Ha-ha-ha-ha… si Ate! No! No such luck yet! Who knows I might get myself a King Bee in this World Economic Forum? Ha-ha-ha! Okay! Bye, Ate Jo! See you soon! And say hi to young Carlito for me!”

Dra. Flordeliza Alegre – Lora – lightly tapped her Smart Watch to end the call.

Suddenly becoming aware of her present location just outside the main entrance of the museum, she turned around and looked up to see the blue-and-white streamer which would be welcoming the delegations from most of the three supracontinents of the world.

World Economic Forum 2033. This year’s theme – “Realism and Internationalism: The First Global Governance Comparative Symposium.”

With a glowing beam this time, Lora asked herself – Who could ever stop the full blossoming of Singularity’s New Information Age?

***

Jim tried to refrain from laughing when he saw Shol Mari’s familiar snorting. He brought the coffee cup down and then turned his head left to look out from the glass wall at some graveyard-shift call center agents proceeding to the other coffee shop right across theirs. They had already been there for no more than thirty minutes now.

‘What’s so funny, Jim?”

She noticed! – Jim remarked to himself. Same intuitive Shol Mari.

“Ha?”

“I mean, is there some speckle of dirt on my face right now? I know I look strange without my glasses. And the contacts! They’re just killing my eyes right now! But I’m slowly getting used to it…”

She closed her portable powder set and threw it inside her shoulder bag. One hand inside the bag started getting busy, looking for her gloss lipstick. Upon finding it, however, Shol Mari realized where she and Jim were and closed the bag for good. On the cold floor stuck underneath their table was a large duty-free shopping bag.

Meanwhile, the publisher of the Asian Federal Times grinned. After so many years without any form of communication, this would be practically the first time he and Shol Mari would be talking to each other again. Not that his past unrequited feelings for the plump novelist pleaded for him to have heart and go grant the woman’s invitation for a workday breakfast somewhere here at the outskirts of the new Intramuros Inner Walls, a few kilometers away from the Sea-Walled Project. 

Jim, however, surmised that this was what it was supposed to be. Merely to heed a friend’s simple request to meet and catch up with certain things about the group. The loyalty siblings. 

Certain things.

It was mainly because the now thirty-eight year old and still single Shol Mari Torres had gotten back from her protracted foreign stint as a free-lance feature writer of a well known e-zine. She would now be wanting to kick up her heels and to settle back on the bare grass of her motherland. To re-charge her badly short-circuited heart and mind.

“Huy, Jim! So, what’s new and what’s news with the others?”

No answer.

Sensing some well-based reluctance from her present company, the woman changed subject.

“Anyway, I know most of you have not forgiven me for my past transgressions against the group. And that thing I had with George. But, how was I supposed to know he was married? Anyway, rest assured, you may have forgotten about me, but I haven’t forgotten about you all. All have balikbayan gifts from me. Especially the children. They must be all so grown up already. By the way, here’s yours, Jim,” the more than amenable transgressor reached out to the large shopping bag underneath the table and gave something to the man of regional news. “I know it’s not quite to your…”

Jim’s face lit up as he saw the fluran hip flask. He had been wanting to own one ever since he became his paper’s publisher. It’s 2033! – he often justified to himself – a man’s got a right to cope with his own personal humanity, for God’s sake! We as a species may have taken more one step towards the transhumanity being promised by most of the world’s leaders, but I would be quite comfortable with reading the Asian Federal Times in the morning, with a dash of alcohol in my breath!

“Don’t think I’m being kunsintidura all of a sudden, Jim. Well, I just want to see you smile…”

“Thanks, Shol Mari. I really wanted, needed this!”

“Wait, here’s more…”

The woman threw a bar of chocolate across the table towards Jim.

The man’s eyes glowed. For more than a decade, chocolate had become a commodity rarer than coffee. In fact, one could only buy a chocolate bar in Mega-Manila if he or she would venture out to enter the Golden Mosque of old Quiapo, or the now forbidden area of the former Raon which had become the safe haven of colorum artificial intelligence robotics and surplus of the branded and high-end kind.

“Where in Jesus’ good name did you get this? Do they sell this at the duty-free?”

“The duty-free has nothing to offer but a free cup of water! Anyway, you know me.”

Jim smiled at Shol Mari and nonchalantly shook his head. The woman concluded with a wink.

“I find ways.”

***

“There is no way I’m going to change my mind with this one, Hon.”

Prof Ferdie’s voice was low but firm. But Liza started again.

“Hon, what’s the matter with my plan? We’ve been doing this routine year after year.”

“That’s exactly what’s wrong with it, Liz. Maybe, maybe, it’s time…”

“Time for what?”

Suddenly, Prof Ferdie’s Infotreque Smart Watch vibrated and signaled a holo-conference call from Michael Librado.

“Wait, Hon! I have to get this one. This is important!”

Important? – Liza muttered to herself – what would be more important than their seven-year old beloved Federaliza and her Ate Adi’s field trip right now?

Meantime, her husband had already walked out of the bedroom and stood at the hallway to receive Mike’s hologram by “eye-lighting” the call. When the wristwatch’s power mode turned green, he blinked to open the call. Immediately, Mike’s holographic figure popped out in front of him.

“Hello, Mike! What’s up?”

The clouded backdrop made the bio-engineer’s hologram more pronounced as Mike showed off his new dread locks.

“This is what’s up here at MIT, pare! It’s our new invention after Rooks Fall! Y’know, robots made to look and feel like books. These aren’t actual dread locks…”

“So what are they?”

“They’re human memory scanners.”

Prof Ferdie crossed his arms and nodded his head in response.

“Wow,” was all he could say.

“You can say that again! Right now, it’s scanning my brain at a rate of ten to the twentieth power binop-synapses! We’re four degrees faster than Blue Brain Project’s version! Right now, we’re already past recombinant DNA sequencing here at MIT, pare. We’re going for the next big step – regenerative DNAs! Is that Liza?”

The holographic figure of Mike slightly looked over Prof Ferdie’s shoulder and noticed the woman combing her newly re-bonded hair. Liza answered the hologram.

“Hi, Mike! Although I don’t have any idea on what you two are discussing right now, I have to say, your hair looks good on you! Makes you more appealing to women than to men!”

The two men laughed at Liza’s joke. Prof Ferdie had to ask his friend from abroad.

“So, Mike, when are you planning to get back here in our country?”

“Soon, Prof, soon! I have some important things to finish down there, y’know. Some very important things…”

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            “Worry – a God, invisible, but omnipotent. It steals the bloom from the cheek and lightness from the pulse; it takes away the appetite, and turns the hair grey.”

-         Benjamin Disraeli

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Chapter IV

Thirteen days before the World Economic Forum 2033.

The content of the Papal Letter to be issued later today by His Eminence, Pope Paul Emmanuel, to the Maharlikan Federal Government:

“To my beloved brothers and sisters in the country of Maharlikas, with special mention to my Jubano brethren; sa mga Maharlikan, magandang araw! Mabuhay! Ig sa manga Jubano kong bogtitinai, mayad na adlaw kanindo tanan! Tagbalay!”

“As Christ’s Public Servant, I come forth to you with a message of intellectual reconciliation, cultural repatriation, and spiritual healing. For today, I announce to you the important return of your sacred artifact – the Comb of Lerma.”

“For more than five years now, the relic being well-taken care of by the Vatican Ethnological Museum has produced more questions rather than answers, more controversies rather than resolutions, and more ill-will rather than peace and goodwill.”

“His Eminence has taken this as a sign that this new Vatican Papal Council must now learn to ask the correct questions in order to arrive at the correct answers.”

“There has been no debate in the authenticity of the Comb as to its provenance, for it was and has always been the symbol of the Maharlikan struggle for freedom and equality against any and all kind of oppression during the most significant times in your country’s history.”

“Yet because of the question of the authenticity of the carvings, particularly of the so-called Seal of the Hadsburgs, on the artifact, I, as the new curator of the ethnological museum and as the new permanent member of the Vatican Papal Council, have decided to decline its status as a generous donation and to return it to its provenance where, God willing, it shall serve more the honorable mission of one people’s quest for true self-identity and self-realization.”

“I appeal, therefore, to the donor, the Exilium Rex Foundation, that it bestow upon this careful act of repatriation its blessing, which will, in turn, facilitate the transport of the Comb of Lerma within five (5) fays from today’s reading of this Papal Letter to its mother Maharlikan shore.”

“Rest assured that this careful act of repatriation does not, in any measure, pre-empt the Vatican’s decisions concerning applications for Da Imperium by some quarters.”

“My beloved brothers and sisters, the Papacy is neither in the position nor has the authority to authenticate such a major and significant find. Redde Caesari quae sunt Caesaris! Redde Maharlikas quae sunt Maharlikasi!”

“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s! Render unto the Maharlikas the things that are theirs!”

As Pope Paul ended his recitation, the man with the overturned cross signaled his overwhelming protest.

“Madness! Even religious suicide!”

Pope Elias, at his old age, stood before the much younger and calmly seated papal council co-member unaided by his Romanesque baston. He had been trying to stare down this new Man of God from the America-Oceania Alliance who supposedly was to be his trusted companion in the Vatican kingdom. The old man could not believe the utter hostility and lack of respect emanating from such a highly-regarded office of pure faith. And to think Pope Elias was the one who manipulated this young Cardinal’s election as the new Pope of the West!

The concurrent chief curator of the Vatican Ethnological Museum, however, would not be easily cowed by psychological tactics of seniority and narrow-minded senility. Albeit, with respect to Pope Elias’ position, Pope Paul offered his explanation.

“Au contraire, Papa, this is what we may define as political martyrdom. We may be losing the pleasurable company of a powerful ally like Exilium Rex, but we may be gaining the sympathy of the whole international community. And, if we will just play our cards right, even without a full deck, the Vatican might just come out of this issue more powerful than ever before.”

“And is that supposed to be part of what you learned as assistant librarian for ten miserable and lonely years?”

“Hush, now, my dear old friend. No need to be harsh about your erstwhile sponsorship of my new papacy. Besides, do not worry so much about things that most probably would never happen. I would always remember, Sir, the first law of power you taught me: never outshine the master!”

The older pope would not listen to anything from the younger man anymore and decided to retrieve his baston from the Bernini-inspired rare wood cane-holder. Pope Elias walked over to the open glazed window which revealed a portion of the city-state’s colonnade.

From outside the opened aperture, the old man of dangerous faith tried to observe. If and when, beyond the more popular and revered icons of Dominic, Francis, Ignatius of Loyola and Benedict, he would finally see before his passing the venerable Dymphna of his life of religious disorder.

***

“You have my full trust and confidence in all your decisions, Ray. Just make doubly sure that you can back up all your decisions with actions and not just words.”

Dra. Alegre’s statements were not as sugar-coated as the other days before this – Ray declared to himself as he sought to calculate the bridge network he had to build once the Tesla Flash was on full drive. His Division Chief’s feline fingernails curled the back of his neck as he sat on his makeshift office quarters in the basement of the main library section at the Maharlikas Museum of Freedom.

“Yes, Ma’am. I consulted the Tesla Flash re-routing with the Robotechnical Manager of the Exilium Rex Foundation. They switched our subscriptions to full Singularity base. Our entire communications facilities, at least, in the main library and museum display sections are running in full wireless electricity capacity. And,” the supervisor paused as he felt Dra. Alegre’s left hand slowly finding its way to his masculinity. The woman was starting to massage Ray’s shoulder ever so softly. With the subtle push of his hips, Israel Malimig moved the swivel chair forward. The Division Chief became conscious of the young man’s effort to evade her advances. But she just smiled it all off. For her, it was all part of a game.

And, for now, Ray was El Tigre’s game.

“And what, Ray?”

The supervisor stammered for a moment. “Aah, and we just have to configure our mobile AI network so that we can remote control everything from out Smart Watches.”

“But will that have any effects to our other networks? With the Forum just more than a week away, I cannot afford to have security lapses…”

“Well, Ma’am, if you want I will assign a special team to monitor the Tesla Flash 24-7 so that we can resolve issues with relative efficiency.”

“I don’t need relative efficiency, Ray. What I want is maximum efficiency… Can I trust you to give that to me, Ray?”

There was something in the way Dra. Alegre delivered her question which made Ray completely awkward.

Dra. Alegre smiled a sensual smile. “I mean, when it comes to performance.”

Ray was just at a loss for words.

“Huh?”

“Why, Ray, of the Tesla Flash, of course! Ha-ha-ha! Whatever you are thinking, young man!”

“Oh, yes, of course, Ma’am! The Tesla Flash, of course.”

“And please, Ray…” Dra. Alegre flirtatiously eyed the young supervisor’s awakened senses. “Just call me Lora. Tell me, do you have a girlfriend right now, Ray?”

“Aah, yes, Ma’am! I mean, Lora…”

“Oh, that’s sweet. What’s her name?”

“Alydia. Alydia Apostol.”

“Tell me, Ray. Is she so anxious to be with you in bed as much as you’re acting so anxious now?”

At the back of Israel Malimig’s mind, he felt like cursing the young engineer who recommended the easiest way to re-route the three auxiliaries and the fastest way to get raped by his tigerish Division Chief. Grrr!

***

Gemma slapped Angel’s right cheek, but it was the kind of slap a wife does whenever the husband forgets something relatively important.

“Hay, Angel, will you stop worrying about what Jack told you. It’s not Lydia we’re after. It’s the Comb of Lerma. When we get back the artifact, everything will fall into its rightful place. It’s for Lydia’s benefit, too.”

Angel sighed. With more than seventeen years of marriage and twelve years of living “underground,” he already knew how to argue with Gemma without really arguing.

“Yes, I agree with you one hundred and ten percent, Gem. I mean, Jack’s inside info about this new pope being sympathetic to our cause is more important to everyone than train our efforts to one woman’s plight. But, it’s been years, too…”

It was his wife’s turn to heave a sigh. As Gemma folded the note which bore Jack’s report containing the U.S. Embassy’s profile on Pope Paul Emmanuel and the Maharlikan Supreme Court’s issuance of a temporary restraining order on the ocular inspection of a bicameral Senate inquiry on the Kalanbamgwas medical facilities. The same facilities which served as Exilium Rex’s laboratory for allegedly unethical artificial neural network human implantations as well as the mental asylum of King Carlos’ estranged wife – Lydia Apostol. Their friend. One of the so-called “loyalty siblings.” Her kumara.

Gemma reminisced the day they – she, Lydia and Shol Mari – got together in their Mandaluyong condominium residence. Indeed, it was brief, but very memorable. Very emotionally memorable. She looked at her husband’s face as he tried to list down the provisions they needed for the week.

For more than a decade already, they had survived the reach of the long arms of the law by posing as chop-chop experts of branded and high-end AI technological wares here at a small sales and repair outpost in the middle of the new Raon. Now a forbidden zone. Here – where Infotreque Smart Watch imitations are sold by the boxes. Here – where man and machine traded, negotiated and, at times, bullied their way to the ever-changing technological continuum called Singularity. Here – where a human being could still be perfectly untouched by the reality of transhumanity, wireless electricity, and the MaharliQuest Sat Alpha’s fearful omnipresence facilitated through surgically implanted electrochemical arrays. The proliferation of these implantations were likened by the Eufrasian Catholic Church to their own circumcision rituals. As one cardinal had put it, “Surgically implanted arrays have become the rites of passage of most young people nowadays. It is making the Book of Revelations more like a recipe book rather than a book of prophecies yet to come!”

“Angel…”

“What, Gem?”

“Honestly speaking, I’m not sure if Lydia would still be the same person all these years. Especially if Jack’s report of the goings-on in the island of Kalanbangwas are true. I mean, who could survive such an ordeal of being confined to a mental institution, electrocuted at will, and God knows what else!”

Angel could only look at his wife as the woman’s silent tears started to flow, careful not to invite the attention of their neighboring stalls and the patrol cars which combed the Raon jungle more for their daily allowances from the vendors and stall owners rather than for anything else.

***

“Survivor?”

“Yes! That’s correct, Ate! My big brother’s a survivor, too.”

Lydia Apostol was given a new set of white over-alls, but the female nurse in front of her insisted that, for today, she could wear what she liked. Lydia continued with her inquiry.

“But how’s that, Chin Chin?”

The patient and her therapeutic nurse for more than five years already had developed a special bond between them. A rare friendship which transcended the realities of why their lives intersected in the first place. Chin Chin Ng was a product of Exilium Rex’s Nursing Scholarship Program which virtually provided for all the medical workforce needed by their clandestine laboratory and asylum. When Chin Chin and Lydia initially met years ago, the doctors diagnosed the woman’s mental disorder as hebephrenic schizophrenia. Since this was considered as a more severe form of schizophrenia, Lydia’s doctors advised extensive electroconvulsive therapeutic sessions. When on duty, Chin Chin saw, however, how this kind of treatment was abused by most of the male nurses. She resolved to be appointed as Lydia’s in-house voluntary private nurse on the pretense that she needed it for her further studies as a full Exilium Rex nursing scholar.

This was how their special bond started. Chin Chin discovered that, contrary to what her doctors are saying, Lydia Apostol is completely capable of controlling her emotions and her so-called “disorganized schizophrenic” attacks. In fact, Chin Chin discovered that Lydia had been keeping herself updated with the outside world by transforming her i-pod into a radio. Chin Chin was impressed by Lydia’s knowledge and experience as a software engineer.

Chin Chin Ng felt empathy for Lydia because her brother had been treated by the outside world in, more or less, the same manner, too. After all, who in the AI community would not recognize her extremely popular and gifted brother – Andrew Ng?

Andrew Ng practically ran Google’s highly controversial and secretive X division before being contracted by his Xinjan motherland to be the chief scientist of the supracountry’s artificial intelligence research laboratories in Bixhein. When Chin Chin talked to her elder brother about the decision, Andrew lamented the state of AI research being conducted by the western companies and vowed to return to Xinja and practice his so-called “easternization” of AI research and development. Andrew, however, developed symptoms of paranoia which made him aloof at times and even unapproachable. But, ever the loyal and loving kindred, his little sister made sure he would get back on the right track of both his career and personal life.

“Wow, I never thought I would be hearing that story from you, Chin. I mean, your brother’s my idol. In fact, he was the one who primarily inspired me to take up software engineering. All my college classmates then were mostly guys.”

Chin Chin heaved a relaxed sigh. More than empathy for this long-suffering and mis-diagnosed (or even mal-diagnosed) woman, she knew that Lydia would also be able to overcome tragedy and turn it into her own sense of triumph, personal or otherwise. And Chin Chin also recognized the fact that she herself would be in the best position to offer Lydia the much-needed support for her cause. The young nurse started.

“Ah, Ate, I’ve already sent the message yesterday. And when I scrolled my inbox this morning, there was already a reply from Michael Librado.”

“Yes, Mike! What did he say?”

“These are his exact words, Ate: Tell Ate Lydia that I will be returning to Maharlikas three days from now to get her away from hell.”

***

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