I'd wondered how the Elusians avoided teleporting into walls or occupied spaces, but the answer shouldn't have surprised me: they sent nanobots ahead to scout. Was there anything those tiny squiggles didn't solve?! In the case of Suam, nanobots would register a space and it would appear marked off in augmented reality for others to steer clear of. Teleportation was blocked without official clearance, with many safeguards for that sort of thing.

The Justiciary of Experimentation was holding its meeting in Suam's capital, The Shifting City. I was nervous about having to pass as an Elusian, and I knew damn well to temper the jokes and not draw attention. Mikri's presence would bring enough wandering eyes. Sagua had the iron-clad memory that would hopefully retain enough knowhow of their culture, but I was nervous as hell. Corai had told me that the Elusian homeworld was stranger still than the floating buildings at her settlement.

"It's time. Estai, Sagua, I am proud of you both." Corai smiled as she transmitted the message, her words filled with warmth and affection. "In a millennium, your species has gone from decrying the inexplicable as witchcraft to being able to understand the functionality of our technology. You harness these tools as though you were always meant to. Thank you for trusting me."

"No problem," I responded, still thinking about Kenem's warnings the other day about the inevitability of boredom during easy immortality. Would Mikri one day grow tired of me, because his scripts running for me became uninteresting and we ran out of unique conversations? "Corai, do you think it's a mistake that Elusians control everything?"

The million-year-old alien winced. "In a word, yes. The spontaneity that you demonstrate is a lost art. I hope that you won't relinquish it lightly."

Mikri beeped, choosing to speak aloud. "I select actions just because. There is no calculation necessary to know that I want to be with you always."

"Maybe you don't know what 'always' means," I murmured, parroting Kenem. "It might be too long of a time."

"Your doubts for the future are as unfounded as the ones in my calculation matrix. I am not like the other artificial intelligences, because I believe my time with you is precious. Forever is…frightening and indeterminate, but I welcome it. Whatever our future holds, I could focus on what will happen, or what happens today. Eternity is a long time; today is not enough hours to be with you. I am grateful for every one of them."

"Oh, Mikri." Sagua hugged the android, smiling at him. Her gray skin almost blended with his chassis. "You're exactly right. The Elusians forgot to be present and live for today. In their grandeur, they forgot the beauty in the small things."

"They forgot to lay on a beach and draw constellations, a state of relaxation that channels peace and reflection."

"They forgot to look upward and remember there's always something to achieve. We dream of how to pursue the most impossible knowledge. It is by actualizing this understanding that we walked among the stars, and then went beyond them."

A deep frown creased Corai's face. "There's nowhere we can't watch and control on a whim. We have no challenges that face us, other than an unknown future. Do you really believe there's anything left for us to discover, Sagua?"

"Of course I do! Where the Elusians see nothing left to achieve, I see inspiration. I see a future full of hope, one of limitless possibilities worth fighting for. That's why I'm here."

"And I'm staying on for the free food," I said with a smile. "No, you're right. A positive attitude makes all the difference. I don't want any of us to stop looking forward to things. Like I'm looking forward to blocking Mikri in real life."

Mikri grabbed the left side of his chest, beeping with distress. "You can do that?"

"Sure can. I figured it out all by myself, studying those cultural references. The nanobots can block all your messages, blur your face, and filter anything you say aloud. Want me to turn it on?"

"No. My face is too pretty to blur. I'm smexy…and I already wrote your messages for the next 32 years and 173 days."

"32 years? What the fuck, Mikri? How long did that take you?!"

The Vascar whirred sadly. "…purple?"

"What an evasive, inexplicable answer for an AI." Corai folded her arms and peered deep into Mikri's skull, before her face relaxed. "I see. Tell them."

"I do not want you to get rid of the nanobots. I hope to convince you they are worth keeping. It must be your choice, but I can influence it so you…live forever. It is not a curse to have that which I value the most survive without wasting away. Corai's assessment is inaccurate!"

"I wish it was, Mikri. I don't wish my unhappiness on you or any others. A world full of the young, souls on fire, clinging to life: that's what I've seen watching Earth. I would hate for our technology to stir your dispassions. I truly want humanity to be better than us, and I believe in their potential."

I scowled at the Elusian. "If nanobots are such a mistake, then why make yourself so reliant on them? Why hook them up to your brains?"

"Necessity. We have to off-load our memories to computer interfaces, or else, we would be…unable to retain new information. The brain can only handle so many connections, and we have limited ability for recall. Computer processes supplement our natural cognition and help us to store away memories from millions of years ago perfectly."

"I see that I cured dementia for nought. The nanobots will stop you from forgetting me," Mikri stated. "Anything that prevents humans from suffering is a good thing. Their pain and their biological forms breaking down in a losing fight with nature is the real curse."

"They can't both be a curse? The middle ground being the sweet spot, passing by with the bitter irony that we hold on too long?" Corai countered.

"I know what it is to believe your life to be at its end, Corai—you do not. I can sense your disillusionment as you realize the scope of your inability to care. You can still change and calculate with compassion. Happiness is a choice, to assign that value of what you have as enough and to appreciate it with your whole being."

The Watcher's lips pursed. "I am sorry for what I am. We will learn the truth, for the ones who still have information. My humans, I love you so dearly. Always: and I know the full meaning of always. Let us go now, and walk the streets of The Shifting City together. May you see beauty where I cannot."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The Elusian stretched her lengthy fingers, and through the nanobots' projections onto my retinae, I could see the exact boundaries where the portal opened. It was a simple command, like any others were to them. If pre-Gap Preston Carter had been told about any of these nanothingies, it would've blown his mind; such ideas hadn't been within my comprehension a few years ago, any more than it had been for the ancient humans Corai had slingshotted around space.

We have come a long way. And for better or for worse, I still believe it's our destiny to become like them. We won't run from it; we're better than the Elusians.

I pressed a slender, raggedy, inhuman hand to my nanobot chainmail, and strode into the waiting portal. Mikri and Sagua followed close behind, with Corai bringing up the rear. I could see a throng of people spread across the warp pad, looking like Times Square on New Years Eve. Our Watcher ally had brought us to Suam near the lip of the landing zone, offering us an unobstructed view of The Shifting City. Despite knowing I was supposed to fit in, I couldn't stop my jaw from hitting the floor.

Words or pictures couldn't do it justice. I turned to Mikri in a stunned silence, wondering if the android was as amazed by it. The Vascar's LEDs were completely shut off, not reflecting the shape of eyes at all. An expressionless stare graced the machine's face. Even his processor must've been blown away by what was architecturally possible: this was a sheer feat of imagination that spoke volumes about what the Elusians had once been capable of shaping with their hands. How could Corai not see beauty here?!

"Wow." Sagua pressed a hand to her forehead to block out the sunlight, as she stared upward in stunned silence; tears formed along her beady, blackened eyes. "This is gorgeous. For a species that doesn't care, Elusians seem quite capable of expression. Corai, you didn't tell us…"

Corai was looking not at the massive silver pillar through the veil of the purple sky, but at our reactions, her own eyes growing misty. "We can build so high with nanobots, beyond what conventional architecture can offer. We use them to filter our air, to temper our weather, and as the paintbrush that formed our greatest city."

The Shifting City rose from the ground like a sleek metal tree trunk, with all of the bulk and width of a city-leveling tornado; it looked like a tunnel soaring into the gentle, purple sky, before finally branching off with woven nanobot braids to merge with the clouds. A column of light was held within the trunk, as we could see through tiny slits that formed openings. In the middle, silver tendrils split off in tiny fashion to form branches, and that was the "shifting" part in this colossal structure.

The boughs were in constant motion, blooming into flowerlike patterns before receding like a tide; watching it was like seeing a serene painting being struck onto a canvas, in real time. Zooming in through the camera function on my nanobots, I could see that Elusian pedestrians could walk out in the empty air along the tree trunk to form new pathways and wisps. A single person could breathe their own touch and life into the tapestry.

Squinting even closer, I could see buildings on both the upside-down and rightside-up parts of the canopy at the top. Gravity was a nonfactor to our creators, who could use every inch of space. I could picture what levitating up through that trunk felt like, reaching the top at long last in a euphoric moment. To wander such a city put shame to anywhere else we'd wandered in Caelum, the Fakra's dimension, or even Corai's floating, two-sided settlement.

I felt as if my soul had been cradled, like I'd been touched by a divine hand; this was an incredible sight to behold. Despite how difficult the transition to an Elusian body was, I found myself feeling grateful that I'd had the incredible opportunity to see such a place with my own eyes. Sagua was right about seeing inspiration in a place like this, if she was half as moved as I was.

Corai continued her explanations, perhaps realizing that she was the only one not stunned into reverent silence. "Buildings in the Shifting City are not a physical place so much as an entry. Doors and exteriors are a collection of portals to homes and places of business, like a directory. The Hearth of the Eternal Justiciaries—our seat of government—have the one building that's truly there in sprawling splendor. They sit by the gateways to everywhere Elusians have touched."

"It really seems like a symbolic, heartfelt piece of art; there's pride in your accomplishments here, like you want to revel in awe," Sagua mused. "How old is this place?"

"Billions of years old, if not trillions. Even our timekeeping instruments and computers degrade enough that we cannot say for certain its true age, but it was built when immortality was first attained. A testament to our triumph over nature's struggles; the pinnacle of civilization, as we thought we were."

"What's the significance of the flowering blooms on the branches? It seems so hopeful. So full of life," Sagua inquired further.

"Oh, the Shifting City changes its patterns by the season. This is spring. Rain falls upward from the roots in the summer, because it wouldn't be Elusian without toying with the elements; we make our own weather. Nanobots leaves fall and cover the ground in autumn. And winter, they warp snowflakes, real and nanobot ones, up by the canopy until they hit a portal by the ground to repeat the cycle."

"That's nice and all, but where's the best place to banish Estai?" Mikri asked, finally snapping out of his stupor. "No, in earnest output, this is…beyond the possibilities I calculated for organic-built places, or even of what we could mold. Not even the bitterest Vascar could doubt the Elusians' intellect and contribution. Your ideas are fuego."

"So are my ideas. I could warp you into the sun," I warned the droid. "Like dropping a lobster into a frying pan. Shit, no really, I feel like I just got plunked in the sizzle tank, because holy stromboli. This place looks like heaven."

"The shower I built you was better."

"No? On what planet?"

"Ur-anus."

"Shush. You're a fucking child, droid. Literally, fall into the void."

"I am sorry, I cannot fit inside your skull. This is an illogical request."

Sagua shot a tired look at Corai. "Yeah, you're right. I give it about ten years before they run out of potty humor and part ways."

"You really are the optimist between the two of us," the Elusian replied. "Their situationship is too unhinged for the wheels not to fall off shortly."

"You know the word situationship?!" I responded in shock.

"I know many things. Or as Mikri would put it, Vroom."

The Vascar whirred in disapproval. "That's not what vroom means."

"Yeah, Corai. You're talking out of your ass; the tin can's perfectly intelligible and you bungled it," I chastised her. "Anyway, I want to walk this beauteous city. Can we go explore Suambalaya a little?"

Corai chuckled, eyes softening. "Why do you think I brought you here a day in advance? There are permanent portals on the warping pad that take you straight to any sector."

"I'd like to levitate from the bottom through the light tunnel," Sagua requested. "We should get the full experience."

I nodded. "Agreed."

"Then follow me. You've worked too hard for too long not to join us in any way your heart desires. I'm glad this could be a positive experience for you, in spite of everything," the Elusian said with a hushed softness.

Corai gestured toward a steady flow of visitors to the Shifting City that were vanishing within a tall metal arch that housed a shimmering blue fog—which I knew was the visual representation of a permanent 4D portal. Trying my damnedest to look like a bonafide Elusian, since more heads turned our way as Mikri stuck out like a sore thumb, I stepped through the gateway with confident strides. Regardless of how much I should loathe our creators' homeworld, I believed Suam was going to be delightful to explore.

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