The Future Utopia

Chapter 6: That Time I Went Outside the City and Saw What It Really Is

After a few more weeks of living in the city, I find myself feeling more comfortable with life in a future erotic utopia than ever. The city is big, sure, but it isn't that big. You can pretty much see all you need to see of it within a couple of months. Soon enough, I settle into what you could call a normal routine for this time. There are still nice surprises every now and then, like going to Varlo's, the virtuoso chef's restaurant, which was an amazing night. But for everyday life, I have my favourite rainy groves and cafeterias that I go to by habit, and I establish my own little daily round of waking, eating, bathing, visiting the twins, and giving myself over to the city in abject masochistic surrender before I sleep.

I also spend some of my time watching old movies and shows with other retro media fans. There aren't any TVs or computers in the future, but people can still watch old media on invisible "screens" or glowing sections that appear spontaneously on the walls of public spaces. We just ask city to show the episodes we want, either by title or general plot description, and the city "imagines" them for us (or so I'm told). Some of the things we watch are exactly the way I remember them, but others seem like later recreations based on scripts, or even on memories or oral traditions. In a few cases, crucial events or lines have been changed. I guess at some point in the past, people who didn't like the way things went in the show originally decided to tell it their own way instead.

I try to explain what really happened and clarify references or customs that the future fans don't understand. Sometimes they accept what I say as Ancient Wisdom, but other times they resist my version, saying things like "But that doesn't make sense..." or "That character would never..." or "This is the way it's been for hundreds of years..." and so on. I guess if an Ancient Greek came forward in time, they might be just as confused by twenty-first century versions of their famous plays, too. And just like with Greek plays, some of the biggest hits from film history, like

Gone with the Wind

, are completely lost due to happenstance, while more minor works are held up as era-defining masterpieces--like, dare I say it,

Supernatural

.

I try watching some shows made after my time, too, like

Contexted

, but I find them too confusing. Apparently in the near future, every showrunner with ambitions of becoming the Next Big Thing will decide to make either: 1) a show with a plot so convoluted that it's like an extended Nolan film on mushrooms, or 2) a knockoff Marvel Cinematic Universe with dozens of tie-ins across multiple media. Don't kill the messenger, but get ready for a lot of streaming and then asking people online WTF just happened--if you're not doing so already, that is.

They have very little media from after about 2050. The historical record just kind of cuts off. It's unnerving, so I try not to think about it. I do think sometimes that I should spend my time in the future trying to find out what caused the end of the world back in the twenty-first century and figure out how to prevent it. But I don't want to open that potential Pandora's box (what if I make things worse?), so I don't. I just focus on enjoying myself and being with others here, in this time, millennia away from it all. The city makes it very easy to do.

After a while, though, I start to feel a bit restless. I'm not used to living a life of absolute hedonistic leisure. I want to be doing things, learning things, experiencing something new. I've seen most of what the city has to offer inside. So naturally, I start to get curious about what's outside.

"Hey," I ask the twins one day, as we lounge in our morning hot spring bath, "Are we allowed to go outside the city?"

"Sure," Sunni replies. "You can go out any time you like and come back when you're ready."

"This place isn't a prison." Raine adds. "People come and go all the time. No documents or identification needed. The city knows who's here and who's not."

"So what's it like out there?" I ask.

"Oh, you know, it's the outside. Sometimes it's fun and exciting, sometimes it's boring or dangerous. It depends on where we are. You get to see the city, though, I mean the whole thing, from the outside. That's the best part."

I'm a bit confused by the "depends on where we are" remark, but I let it pass and stay on target: namely, getting out there.

"That sounds awesome! I definitely want to see it. Can you take me?"

The twins look at each other for a moment in silent consultation, then nod.

"Hell yeah, we can!" Sunni says, maybe quoting something because it makes Raine laugh.

"Sick!" I drawl, just to make them both laugh more. "When can we go?"

"Later today, if that's ok with you. We just have to request the..." Raine pauses, hunting for the right word.

"...the chopper!" Sunni enthuses. When Raine looks confused, he says, "You know, a helicopter. Like an airplane, but with a spinning blade on the top."

"There's no spinning blade, though."

"Yeah but it carries a few people, it flies high and fast..." He mimes flying in big curves with one hand.

"Ok, ok, the chopper!" Raine gives me a sober look. "We're not really going to ride in a helicopter. We'll just take a vehicle that serves the same purpose. I hope you're not disappointed."

"No, that's even better," I say reassuringly. "Helicopters were loud and windy and bad for the environment."

They both nod sagely in agreement, then climb out of the hot spring and head off to request the "chopper." As I wait for them to return, my apprehension starts to build. Sure, the city is a utopia, like a hothouse for pampered tropical plants, but what about the harsh world outside its coddling dome? I remember someone saying once that people leave the city to struggle and fight. Will it be a Mad Max desert wasteland out there, filled with warrior tribes in leather and spikes? Or maybe there's a ghetto full of outcasts, expelled by the city, who live clinging to its edges in hopes of regaining paradise. Is this where I'll finally learn the true, horrific nature of this future world?

Spoiler alert: the answer is no.

The outside world is just fine, at least the parts of it I can see. What really holds your interest out there--as the twins said--is still and always the city.

The "chopper" we ride in looks like a giant, aerodynamic seed pod with a glass dome instead of a seed. When we first get outside in our seed/ship, we can't really see the city because we're too close to it. All we can see is a shimmering, pearly white wall, like the inside of a seashell but convex, that seems to curve to infinity above us. The sky beyond the city's shell is not blue either, but a hazy burnished colour, as if there's a pall of smoke over us, though I can't smell smoke like when there's a forest fire. I feel a momentary shock of surprise to see the actual sun, a shining coppery disk hanging over the horizon, looking just the same as it did in 2021.

It's evening, I realize. When I ask the twins if the sky always looks this way, they guess that it's normal. Sometimes the stars and the moon come out, they say, and people who like to stargaze will come out from the city to see them. In the mellow evening light, I can see the landscape far below: a familiar enough panorama of scrubby trees, bushes, and lakes, cut through with a wide road that's not being used at the moment but seem to be in reasonable repair--at least, in the middle lanes. An old highway, I guess; maybe part of the 401 or the TransCanada? If I was geosynced as well as timesynced, I must still be in the land that was once known as Ontario. There's no sign of any cities, though, and no sign of smoke from campfires or houses.

"Where is everyone?" I ask.

"Oh, the city doesn't walk where people live. It might step on them by accident, if there are too many to avoid." Sunni says.

"The city walks?"

"Well, crawls. Glides. It moves, basically. Pick a landmark on the ground and watch, you'll see it moving." Raine suggests.

I pick a bent tree by the edge of one ribbed curve in the city wall, and sure enough, after a few moments I see the ridge of the city is sliding by it. Looking back, behind the city, I can see a trail of smoke drifting off behind it, twisting like a ghostly veil and then vanishing.

"What's that smoke?" I ask. "It looks like a huge cloud of exhaust."

"It's mist. Kind of like the city's sweat, but not salty." Raine explains. Sunni continues:

"If you go back where the city was, lots of plants are growing. They like the moisture and the nutrients. The city saves a lot of nutrients for itself, but what it can't use it gives back."

I look again, and it's true that the grass in front of us is yellow and dry-looking, but behind us in the distance it seems greener.

"Amazing!"

We swing down low to check out the city's movements, though we don't get too close to its underside. Its "legs" aren't so much physical things as long white columns of semi-transparent energy within a hazy cloud. I guess it's some sort of levitation field that's being directed by delicate tendrils of focused force. There are thousands upon thousands of soft-edged tendrils, constantly coalescing, stretching out, stepping down, and then fading away. On firm ground, there's no trace of the city's passage besides a fresh rainfall from its misty trail. I notice that it keeps above the old highway and concentrates most of its force on the bare pavement.

Where the ground is softer behind us from the city's rain, the shoulders of the highway are dimpled with shallow pock-marks a meter or two across from the contact of its tendrils. Where the edge of the city overhangs the highway (and it does so by many kilometers), it picks its way fastidiously between the larger trees. The bushes that it "steps" on are whipped around as if in a brief tornado, but they seem to spring back after it has passed. I can imagine it wouldn't be fun to be stepped on by the city, but then again it doesn't look like it would kill you for sure. For such a large thing, it walks lightly on the earth, having about the same impact as a gentle thunderstorm.

"Let's go higher and get a better look at the whole city," Raine suggests.

As soon as Sunni and I agree, the seedpod-helicopter rises up fast. It's enough to give me a thrilling sense of gravity pushing me into my seat, but it moves so smoothly that it's not jarring at all. If you've ever been in a Tesla, you might have an idea of the kind of acceleration I'm talking about.

Once we get higher, it becomes very clear to me that the city isn't a collection of buildings or a mechanical moving castle, but a living thing. The best way I can describe it is that it looks kind of like the ohmu, the giant insects from that Studio Ghibli movie

Nausicäa of the Valley of the Wind

, only without the mandibles or the dozen eyes, and overall much softer and rounder. It has a vaulted dome that's the same pearly, opalescent white colour as the sky seen from the inside. Close up, I can see that the dome is not quite solid, as wisps of cloud are moving through it, especially at the back where the clouds are more thickly massed and trail out in streamers through the dome. Now that I think about it, there is that rainforest-like section of the city with all the showering groves; that must be toward the back end of the city, where the moisture collects. Toward its middle and front, I can see the hazy forms of familiar arcades and squares and springs inside. It looks delicate, for all its size, and very beautiful.

Suddenly, I'm struck with a strong feeling of affection and protectiveness. It's what astronauts must feel, looking back at the Earth hanging in space and realizing how very small and precious it is. If I could take the city in my arms and shelter it, the way it has sheltered me, I would. And I feel, strangely, as if this sense of fond nurturing isn't only coming from me, but from the city itself. This is the way it feels toward us: as if we're both its children and parts of its own beloved body. Maybe we are, I think. People are the cells moving within it, transporting oxygen and water and energy throughout its body. Perfect symbiosis: we give life to the city as the city gives life to us. I glance at the twins and see tears shining in their eyes, and I know they feel it too. I tear up at the sight of their tears, until the moment becomes almost too fraught.

"Hey, I can see your house from here," I say, and though my voice breaks with emotion, the joke does its job. The twins laugh and ask where, and I laugh with relief and say "pysch!", and they laugh at the old slang until everything is normal again. Well, as normal as it can be when you're watching a giant, shining city-creature pick its way over the boreal forest.

"You know, I really felt something just now," I say. "Like I was connected with the city and I could feel what it feels for us."

"Yeah, it's true, you can." Sunni says.

"Can you also connect with all the people inside the city that way?" I ask out of curiosity. "Like, all at once? If you had something to say to everyone, or you needed to hear what they all want?"

"For sure," Raine replies. "That's what they do, the...what did we call them again? The 'confluencers.' You know, the pansexual people we told you about who are the most connected to everyone. They can reach out to the entire populace and feel the pulse of city."

"So is it only the confluencers? Or can everyone do it?"

"No, not everyone." Sunni takes Raine's hand and raises their two clenched fists.

"We can't do it because we're bound only to each other. Most people aren't able to, actually. It's...let's say it's very intense. You feel the ecstasy of all those people, all at once. Their sorrows and hurts, too. Whatever anyone feels--well, anyone except for those who want privacy, like us--you feel it all in your body and mind, like it's happening to you. Or so they say. I've never tried it. It can be...damaging, if it's not done right."

"I tried it once." Raine says quietly. "It was too much to bear."

Anyone with half a brain would back down at this point. But being the masochist that I am, their description piques my interest. An intensity, an ecstasy, an overwhelming surge of sensations that's too much to bear, all felt from a distance like it's happening to me...oh yes, I feel that twist of excitement in my gut. That fascination is stirring in me, that hunger for experiences beyond the ordinary, the thing that drives me. Frankly, the thought of it makes me wet. I think the twins are trying to warn me off, but what they say only spurs me on. And if they've taught me anything in the past couple of months, it's to ask for what I want clearly and directly.

"Can I try it too?"

The twins shift uncomfortably and are silent for a long moment, longer than it usually takes them to confer. I rarely ever see them hesitate, but they're hesitating at this request.

"You can't do it on your own," Raine says finally. "And not with us, either. You would need the help and protection of a confluencer."

"And I'm guessing you two aren't really part of the confluencer clique, eh?"

"I don't know any personally. Not well enough for this." Sunni says.

There is another pause as Sunni looks over at Raine, silently asking her something or prompting her to speak. Reluctantly, she says,

"I know one. Well, I used to. It was before I met Sunni, before we got together. I was with someone called Tsuna. We were intimate. Tsuna showed me the whole city, just like this, and let me feel what they felt from it. But it was too much for me even when I dialed it back, and we stopped getting together when I gave myself exclusively to Sunni. I'm not sure Tsuna would want to talk to me now. As I said, there can still be difficult feelings in the city. Even confluencers are not immune."

"Oh. Ok. I don't want to make it weird or anything. You definitely don't have to ask your ex to do favours for me."

"My ex?" Raine asks.

"Your ex-partner. You know, after a breakup, your former lover becomes your 'ex.'

Most people hate their exes. It's normal that you wouldn't want to see them or ask them for anything. Well, in my time, that's the common idea. It might not be true for everyone."

"It's not like that now!" Raine says with unusual vehemence. "We don't make people we love into an 'X.' I don't hate Tsuna, and I'm sure they don't hate me."

"Then what's the problem?"

"It might make them sad to see me so closed off. So exclusive. It can be upsetting, for people who yearn to share everything of themselves, to meet someone who refuses the bond they offer. And Tsuna wouldn't be able to touch my whole heart the way they used to, not when I have a piece of it hidden in the chest of another. We were compatible in so many ways, they might want to reconnect with me. I might want it too, if I saw them again. But I can't now. That will probably hurt them."

Sunni cups Raine's shoulder in support and the two of them put their foreheads together for a moment.

"I didn't realize. I'm sorry." I murmur. I'd realized abstractly that difficult relationships still exist in the future, but it's different to see it firsthand.

"You don't need to be sorry, Robyn." Raine takes my hand in the one that's not clasping Sunni's. "I'm the one who should apologize. I'm holding you back because I'm afraid of opening up an old wound. But now that I think about it, Tsuna is a confluencer. Confluencers see the whole city, even the people like me and Sunni, and they accept us all. They know how to bring our contrary urges into balance. So I think Tsuna probably knows how I feel already and has come to terms with it."

"And if not?"

"If not, I'll tell them and we'll talk it out. Then, if they're willing, they can share their senses with you, so you can have the experience of the city you want."

"No, no, I don't really need to do it that much!" I insist.

Raine looks at me with that penetrating gaze, the one that sees straight into the darkest part of me.

"I think you do."

"I mean, for sure, I'd like to...you know, get a grasp on it all. All of this." I wave my hand, gesturing out to the city. "Before I go back, I want to learn all I can. Feel everything I can."

"That's all you need to say. If you want to experience something, we'll help you do it. That's why we're your guides!"

So we go back into the city. A few days later, after some no doubt delicate and personal negotiations, the twins introduce me to the confluencer called Tsuna.