The Convergence Project

Prologue

There is no city now, only what’s left in a place where glass once lay in grids. Broken glass twists into curves like organic growth snaking through the landscape. Moss grows in streaks of brown and green, marking the shapes of old buildings. The air has a strong metallic smell of rain on alloy that has long cooled down. Drones lie half-buried in the soil, their sleek casings dulled to soil colour. The Grid still throbs beneath the surface, deep and low, a sound that has outlasted its use. Birds nest inside open pipes, and water moves through what used to be corridors of light. The wind flows through the cracks, creating strange sounds that change with the seasons. 

Since the age of code and machines, shapeshifting creatures have appeared that are neither algorithm nor device. They consist of liquid metal woven with living data. They walk like humans but leave no heat trail, and their bulbous eyes reflect light like water. They don’t rebuild the city; they move through it, reading what’s left. One of them, small, amorphous, and curious, stands in front of a sculpture that’s almost intact. The sculpture rises from the ground, shifting as though frozen in motion. It’s made of fused glass and alloy warped by centuries of heat and wind. Light glints off the surface, scattering colours into the air. Beneath the rust, complex patterns still show through. Lines that twist and intersect. Light filaments pulse within the being as it shifts its shape in response to the sculpture’s energy. The air between it and the sculpture vibrates, and it lets out a small quivering sound. Then it lifts its eyes to the others of its kind also standing before the sculpture.

“Pattern recognition,” it says. The words come out clumsily. Its companion watches. “Do we collect it?”

One of them, tall, slender and translucent, moves its ever-shifting head to one side. Its form moves like water, rippling through filaments under its translucent skin. Light condenses and scatters along its surface, showing strange shapes that disappear as soon as they appear.

“No,” it says after a while. “We leave it.

They stand there for a long time, studying the sculpture. Listening to the wind through the broken alloys, a sound that undulates a little like music.