An Archivist's Life, Part 1

A month had passed, and I find myself standing in a strange garden: a beautiful, Roman-style garden ended abruptly on the edge of a monolithic, white nano-cermet cube, an abyssal void laid between it and the sector's City Hall.

How deep was the gap, really? I did not know. Maybe several kilometres. Maybe more. Regardless, I couldn’t see the bottom of it. It looked like a scene from vintage video games, when full-planet simulation technology was still in its infancy, and developers had to make do with bottomless valleys to keep players from prying further.

But what is clear is that the gap was too wide for a person to cross, and falling into it would mean certain death without an anti-gravity unit.

“This sector, no, the entire block is really in disrepair, huh… There was supposed to be a bridge here. It would be really troublesome if non-flying drones fall into that.”

Time to work.

I raised my right hand and started channelling my “magic”.

“Awaken.”

A pale blue hologram popped up, its form shaking and vague. The AI’s databank must have suffered some damage after some long-time neglect.

“Reactivating maintenance protocol… engaging city management AI… powering nano machines… User confirmed. Welcome, Sage Constance Rainsford.”

A fuzzy voice replied. At least it recognised me, and I didn’t need to beat some sense into it... literally. It got my rank wrong, though.

“Execute Protocol K-812-ORP2. Construction module, load template ‘Versailles mk II Final Final’. At my command.”

“At your command.”

I waved at the air. The monolithic nano-cermet cube began to dissolve, breaking into smaller cubes that started to line up between the edge and the other side of the gap. Some began to change colour, no, texture, into that of stone. Soon, solid ground began to take shape over the gap.

The crude name notwithstanding, ‘Versailles mk II Final Final’ was a nano-construction template I poured my heart and soul into. Programming a nano machine-metal-ceramic composite wasn’t easy to begin with, not to mention I had to deal with millennia’s worth of spaghetti code. But with my ‘Versailles mk II Final Final’ template, the nano machines should automatically form into materials that have the same textures as stone, metal or even glass, then form into section similar to a part of the Versailles’s Garden. The artistic style wouldn’t match exactly, but it would be better than an empty gap.

Theoretically.

“Caching schematics… performing spatial transformation calculations… accessing processors… accessing processors… acc… <error> <error>”

The AI’s voice became erratic, and soon disappeared along with the fuzzy hologram. The cube started to disintegrate at a faster rate, into irregular shards that flew high into the air, like a flock of white birds, or a tornado that tore through a castle made of white stones. A beautiful sight, if not for the fact that those little pieces were coming straight at me.

I raised my right hand again, as if I wanted to grab the flock. A beige rod suddenly extruded from the palm of my hand, and I quickly grabbed it. As if it was a magic stick, the body of the rod started to emit a purple light, and with the true power of “magic” in my hand, the rampaging flock stopped, and slowly flew back to the gap, becoming a part of the ground.

The dust soon settled. Literally.

“Archon Emerald. It’s done.” I gave a call to my manager.

“Good job. That was quite a display.” A voice, like that of a late-night comedian, replied.

“…Archon Emerald, please maintain your senile AIs. It’s the 3rd time this week.”

“By the way, is that an amplifier-antenna in your hand? That’s how you were able to manually take control of the nano machines. Being able to create an item out of yourself in that situation is quite impressive.”

“Archon Emerald.” Have you become senile yourself, I wanted to say.

“I know, I know. I will be more careful about it in the future. By the way, Reddie is here to pick you up. He’s two blocks above you.”

“Isn’t he supposed to be busy right now?”

“He’s worried of you again, newbie. Don’t let him know I told you though.”

“Hah…”

“In any case, I doubt there’s any more work to do today. Enjoy your rest.” The comedian hang up.

“…”

I looked around again.

The bottomless abyss, that was still the dominating feature of this place, had disappeared without a trace. In its place, a neat, French-style garden had been built, complete with fake flowers formed by nano machines. The ground felt solid; on the neatly arranged mosaic footpath, even the heaviest drones shouldn’t have issues going through it.

Even though ground was only about a meter thick. Kexteran nanomaterials were strong.

...Guess the work was really done.

As that thought went through my mind, a bit of fatigue hit me. With another swing of my “wand”, a portion of the ground turned into a bench, complete with a wooden texture. For extras, an 1:1 statue of Paddington was erected next to the bench for no particular reason.

I sat down, and let go of the “wand”. The “wand” started to lose its shape, turning to a liquid-like state, and quickly merged back into my right arm. I glanced at my arm; my white, smooth skin glossed slightly under the sun as always. It was, undeniably, still a human arm.

“Highly advanced technology looks like magic, huh.” I whispered to myself.

No matter how many times I’ve done it, I couldn’t get used to altering buildings and landscape using words and imagination, flying freely like a bird, or making things out of a part of my body.

Even then, it had been a month since I became an Archivist, and I had gotten used to the life on the Kexteran home world.

Mostly.

Author's Note:

Continuing in Pt 2 in next chapter :)