brilliant green. Beside it, in characters that must be many times the size of Riptide, floats a single sentence.
You are here.
“Goddess,” she whispers.
[There are over a million Visitors’ Galleries like this on this station], says Eleven. [And this is one of the smallest Blackstars.]
For once, the suit seems to be completely missing her distress. “Okay,” she says, and swallows. “That doesn’t really…help.”
[And there are, what, over a million Blackstars? So really, there are trillions of rooms like this. You could give a few hundred thousand Visitors’ Galleries to every single legal intelligence in this Visitors’ Gallery, I’d bet. In fact, if you made it your goal to visit every single one of them, and you had Ol’ Ernie to get you through the lines—hold on, let’s measure this in thousands of Human lifespans—]
There is more to the message, but Sarya has stopped reading. “Seriously,” she says. “Stop. This is…impossible.”
A small [laughter] tag appears on Eleven’s holo. [Just because it’s too big for you doesn’t mean it’s too big for everyone.]
Sarya drops her eyes from the monster display of the Network. Her gaze crosses hundreds of floors of balconies on its way down, each one of which probably contains the population of Watertower Station. In the time her line of sight takes to transition from vertical to horizontal, more people have entered or exited this space than she will meet in a lifetime. She has never been this overwhelmed. And worse: when her gaze reaches the floor, she is startled to realize that it has not in fact reached the floor. Eleven is now far out onto a bridge; when Sarya peers over the edge, she can see that there is even more Gallery below her than above. She swallows and averts her eyes before she ever sees bottom.
“Um,” she says, suddenly aware that the individuals pressing against the suit’s armored sides are both less synthetic and less furry than she expected. “Where are Mer and Roche?”
A highlight flashes around a platform jutting out from this bridge. Its suspended location is not the most reassuring, but at least it has a domed roof. As soon as she sees it, Sarya wants nothing more than to be under it.
“Yes,” she says, and then again: “Please.”
[Feeling overwhelmed?]
“There is no word for what I’m feeling right now,” she says quietly.
Eleven approaches the platform, which of course looks even larger up close. It’s a park, maybe twice the size of Watertower’s largest arboretum, but Sarya doesn’t point out this fact because Eleven will just tell her that there are a trillion trillion more of these things, and that she’s even smaller than she thought. Around her, life continues. Two transports pass Eleven, carrying a variety of flora and digging tools. Above, a flock of flying somethings-or-others spiral and dive up near the top of the dome. Half a dozen maintenance drones cheerfully water and trim the plants, while a recycler follows close behind in case of waste. Sarya watches these various activities play out in a billionth of a trillionth of the Network and realizes that never before in her life has she known how insignificant she is. She is lost in a system vaster and more intricate than she could understand in a million lifetimes—and she is at the bottom of it.
And she is alone.
She is startled by the feeling of something on her face and raises her hand to feel wetness. Her body remembers tears, apparently. “So,” she says softly. “Um.”
A strap squeezes her shoulder.
“I just…” She swallows. “I’m lost, Eleven.”
[I’m guessing you don’t mean you need a map.]
Sarya would laugh if she could remember how. “You mean like that map?” she says, pointing straight up to where the gigantic image of the Network looms through the park’s translucent ceiling. “That thing the size of the station I grew up on, that monstrosity that shows me just how lost I am? When I say I’m lost, Eleven, I mean I’m lost lost. I…I can’t even tell you how lost.” She is trembling, and she can’t stop. “You know, for like five minutes I thought the universe was sort of on my side. Fate. Destiny. Whatever you want to call it. I spent years obsessed with my people and then right when I resign myself to a boring life—boom, somebody shows up and says hey, I might have a future for you.