The others had already left.
Sybil had just received a call, something urgent about a change in the location or theme of the latest social event, probably. And Grant, well, Grant had work do to. Actual work, work people would notice if he was absent from, work people expected him to be doing. Royce remembered what that was like, back when he'd been designing new structures for the city, always hurrying to meet the demands of the capricious voters. He didn't envy Grant his position, and likely, Grant didn't envy his.
He, personally, found great satisfaction in working on his own time. But to each their own, he supposed. We all have our own niche, our own place. Like Asher, with his writing. Schedules, deadlines, publication dates. A whole world of time requirements that Royce himself would no doubt feel quite lost in, and where Asher certainly seemed, seemed at least, quite comfortable.
It had been a strange evening.
They were still in the early stages, their plans still abstract, their designs still only half-finished. They'd been discussing a lot of things, just discussing, but it was clear to all parties the potential consequences of what was now only a vague framework. They had been talking about taking people, killing them, perhaps, depending on your outlook. It was just talk now, but it wouldn't be for long if everything went smoothly, like it had been so far. Sybil was going to make a list, submit it for group review.
There was, possibly, quite literally no one better for the job, Royce thought.
And then they'd had a very lovely late dinner. Some sort of seafood flatbread, and some expensive, oddly named wine. Asher, seeing how late their, ideally, last group-wide face-to-face meeting was running on had the foresight to order ahead of time, the food arriving just as things were wrapping up.
It had been strange. They were not the kind of people one would expect to have dinner together. They were not, collectively, friends. Oh, he was quite comfortable with Grant, quite friendly with Grant, he'd known Grant for years and years. Same with Asher, apparently. But collectively? Coworkers or distant acquaintances, at best.
Asher and Sybil, perhaps, would have encountered each other occasionally along the course of their own lines of work. Asher was an editor for OVC. So, surely, he and Sybil had run into each other at some point, had reason to speak to one another, at some point. But they didn't seem very friendly with each other.
Grant was surely used to a somewhat, older, crowd. And Royce himself usually ate alone, and at very different hours than these.
But soon everyone was gone, just Asher and Royce. Asher in his and Grants kitchen, depositing empty plates and glasses. Royce, waiting on Asher to return so he could properly excuse himself, without being rude, and so he could start the journey back to Fairview. He had work to do. They all, had work to do. Assignments had been doled out, roles clarified. Royce was eager to return to his studio. He wasn't planning on having to leave Fairview again for a good long while.
He was surprised when Asher returned to the kitchen with two filled glasses of wine.
"Have a minute?" He asked.
"Well…yes. Yes, I suppose I do." Royce said, taking the offered glass. It really was good wine. "Is there a problem?"
If so, he should have brought it up to Grant, or even Sybil.
"Oh no, I just wanted to talk for a minute, if you had a minute. You're a hard man to get a hold of."
"No I'm not. Grant has all of my contact information."
"I meant for an interview. I was supposed to write one, years ago before I met Grant, when Bracket Towers first came up."
Really? He hadn't heard anything about an interview.
"Oh. What was the problem? I'm sure I'd have been perfectly amenable had I been contacted."
Asher quirked up an eyebrow, crossing one leg and leaning back in his chair. "You're unlisted. Had to go digging through census data just to find where you live. And Fairview isn't exactly the most accessible of locales. By the time I tracked you down my deadline was coming up."
Oh.
"Ah. Yes, I can see how that would be problematic. Sorry for any inconvenience."
"It's fine. Editor let me write a piece about new faces in the music scene, the growing tensions between the fanbases of a couple of prominent rising stars. Glowing reviews."
"Well I am here now. I'm guessing it's not another interview you want however, I haven't built anything in the city in years. And surely you aren't planning to write something on what I do believe still constitutes a criminal conspiracy."
Asher set his glass down on the table.
"Can you tell me what, exactly, happens to them? When they go inside that thing? What it's like in there?"
Ah. He'd expected someone to bring this up eventually. Expected it to probably be Asher too. Sure wouldn't have been Sybil. Grant, perhaps, privately, professionally. But asking about the immediate moral implications of their little scheme, as regarding the few individuals who'd actually be going into the Transistor? Over wine? Only Asher, out of the four of them.
"No, not exactly. I can give you a rough description though, of what's inside. I think I've got a pretty decent idea."
"How? Have you actually been there yourself?"
"No, no that'd be a bit too dangerous. I still haven't worked out all the way whether or not it's possible to get back out once you're in. Preliminary examinations, however…suggest that it's a very, permanent, trip. But I did take a, ah, little peek, a quick look, once."
"How?"
"Math. A lot, a whole lot, of math. It was big."
"Is that all?"
"Really, very, big. Several times the size of Cloudbank, I can tell you that."
"Can they move around inside it? Do their bodies still exist?"
Royce merely shrugged, taking another sip.
"I honestly don't know. I don't see why not. The Transistor is capable of far more impressive feats than that, creating a few virtual bodies for its inhabitants. I couldn't imagine why, it would do that, why it would have any function at all relating of the comforts of those integrated into it, but I can't say for certain that it doesn't."
Another sip.
"Though, if they can, move around that is, they'd certainly have plenty of space to do it in. Plenty of, hm, otherwise redundant space, actually, now that I think about it."
"Have you thought about the implications of that?" Asher asked.
"Well, there is only so much that could tell us. Just because I don't know what the space is for doesn't mean it doesn't have one. I might've just not figured it out yet. Though, taken as is, I could theorize about its origins based on the presence of all that extra room by saying that it…"
"No, no," Asher interrupted " I don't mean about what it means for the Transistor itself. I mean, what the implications are for the people inside it. The hypothetical people, at any rate."
"Oh. Sorry, I don't quite follow. What about them?"
Asher leaned forward, forearms against the table, untouched wine coming dangerously close to spilling out over the rim of his glass. His cat sauntered in from another room, walking over to twine itself about Asher's legs.
" Let's say they can move about in this great open space you said you found. Let's say that it not only makes them bodies, indistinguishable from their physical ones, but that the space isn't just space. Lets say it makes them a whole world. With ground and sky and some sort of unifying theme. A city, or an island, or something. Possible?"
" Yes."
"Then what, functionally, would be the difference between that and being out here in the real world?"
"The knowledge that they're not in the real world, for starters."
"But what if they don't know that. Or, better yet, what if the Transistor allows them to procreate?"
Royce's eyebrows shot up at that. More than anything, the idea that the Transistor could make possible the creation of new life within itself, independently, by way of hypothetically conscious beings integrated into it, was a stretch. The biggest stretch they'd taken, so far.
…but, again. Not impossible.
And, certainly, a very interesting train of thought.
"Hm. Your idea that they may not know they're in the Transistor was interesting enough but that, that is quite a leap. Quite a leap. But interesting nonetheless. People living their lives, with no idea that they're actually in a virtual world contained within a big blue sword."
" Worlds within worlds Royce. What does that say about ours, do you think?"
" Well like I've been saying, there is always a chance, just by virtue of our inability to confirm definitively one way or another. But at least with the Transistor we've got some room to move around in. There's so much we know it can do, as so much about it I haven't figured out yet. But as for our world, this one? Who knows. Who will, can, ever know? The questions so abstract, so incidental, that you can't really carry it anywhere after it's broached."
Asher smirked and laughed, a little sardonically Royce thought, before downing almost half his glass in one gulp before leaning back to give his cat room to jump up onto his lap. It began purring loudly, kneading his thighs, getting black hair all over his, intentionally, black pants no doubt.
"I guess it's a writer thing. I've held worlds in my head, so I guess the idea of worlds in swords and even our world just being some contained thing somewhere else, in someone else's head, is closer to familiar territory for me."
"I didn't know you wrote fiction."
"Honestly I'm shocked you're aware I write at all. I saw all the dates you've accessed the OVC terminals in Fairview, all two of them, when I was trying to track you down."
"Grant talks about you a lot."
"Nothing too true, I hope?"
"Bragging, of a type, I think. Nothing but good to say on the subject, being you, that is."
"Ha. Not even here and he's going to make me blush."
A quiet moment passed. An awkward moment, Asher thought. He imagined Royce, embarrassed by this sudden philosophical diatribe, would get up, thank him for the wine, then excuse himself and run back to his safe little island and sequester himself in all his precious hard numbers. He supposed it just frustrated him, just a little, the idea of this man pouring over this incredible, miraculous device he'd essentially stumbled upon without giving any serious thought to what the presence of a stable world inside a big blue sword might mean for their own.
To his surprise Royce made no move to get up. Instead he leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and sighed.
"That is a wonderful thought though, what you said about worlds within worlds. It would've never occurred to me, I think, on my own."
Asher watched him intently, noting how his gaze was turning away, how his normally languid speech was becoming faster, quieter. Grant talked to him too, about Royce, about what he was like when he was really working. How he seemed to fold into his own world, as though everything around him had just vanished.
"not a blank canvas. a new painting. entirely new. made by who? nothing from the real world. the process? the transistor itself? Something else? the architecture of a truly foreign mind. a second world, with so many possibilities having been available to its maker for its construction. no rules but the ones it makes. oh my, now that would be something to see. .. something to see indeed."