The moment Eyes left her Core, Far Whisper’s attention immediately shifted to the caller in the back of her mechanical mind. Allowing her senior to open a channel, she was immediately met with a grey face, four eyes glowing in overexcitement. Far Whisper used the difference between the two Iterators’ processing speeds to take a good look at Lives before she would be able to say any word.

Five Lives Unbound. Generation 1 … point five. Technically she can be considered second generation, but without some of the hardware advantages. Processing speed between generations. According to my prefabricated memories she is part of the Coordinator program, a series of Iterators who were built with the primary objective of uniting the thoughts of us, to be a cornerstone in the necessary exchange and communication.

She seems to have published a few research papers regarding purposed drones, more mechanical than biological in nature. What a curious prospect, I definitely can see applications for it … but not in terms of the Great Problem. Source? I may have to ask about the reason for that profession.

Her name seems to have been chosen to symbolize her design. Five Lives … the five Group Administrators, who are surrounding her position. Looks to the Moon, Approaching Sky, Veiled Promise, Obsidian Tower and Destined Vice. Names I should memorize given I am supposed to work alongside her, spreading my growing knowledge. Alright. You got this, Whisper!

“Hahhhh! Finally! Welcome, welcome, Far Whisper!” Lives materialized in the solid vision screen, her silhouette being as 3D as possible via the current technology. “I have been awaiting your activation now for so long! Two Eyes of the Infinite Cosmos didn’t disappoint. You are looking stunningly fabulous!” 

“Happy to get welcomed that warmly. I assume you are Five Lives Unbound, then? My pleasure meeting my neighbour in the first cycle of my life.”

“You must be so confused, poor thing. But don’t worry, I will introduce you to everything you have to know and everybody who is dying to meet you. But first things first, let me introduce myself. Would be rude otherwise, wouldn’t it?”

Whisper noticed with delight that her provided senior was by no means as strict and uptight as her Benefactors and Eyes to some extent. Spending an eternity at her side sounded not that bad at all, Eyes chose wisely to provide his Iterator with a good spot among the living.

“I am Five Lives Unbound, Coordinator of the western part of this continent. I am as we are speaking responsible for providing the means of communication and establishing cooperation between the five local groups surrounding me as well as the solo-operating Iterators. Excluding our generation 3 brethren, who are still in the process of getting built, I provide connections between a total of twenty-nine Iterators, but that count will rise exponentially.

But I assume you would be more interested in what kind of projects I am currently working on, am I correct with that assumption?”

“Indeed, you are. I have already access to the basics of your work, but struggle to understand what it would provide in our search for a solution?”

Lives chuckled and leaned forth, summoning a swirling cycle on the tip of her index. Light beams expanded from it, forming a complicated grid, akin to a processor. Screens opened at the edges of the grid as well as in-between, showing several screens, providing Whisper with the first glimpse of the outside world. Whisper’s focus was however on a quite odd screen, which showed Eyes on his moving platform, transversing her Transformative Matrix to the gate to her city.

“H-how? Have you installed a camera in my Can?”

Lives chuckled and tilted her head, her antenna vibrating. An invisible signal informed the ‘camera’ to leave its position. With curious concern Whisper witnessed how the screen retraced the path her Administrator took, soon showing her box-like core from the outside.

“That must be an Overseer, correct? I haven’t gotten to that section myself yet, but they are our eyes and hands. But why … can’t I feel its electric presence?”

“Patience, sweety. They will soon join you. And no, no Overseer. Something … quite a bit more endearing. Soo, you already know that I have started to work on purposed drones, correct? But thanks to Eyes’ cooperation I had the chance to create something quite a bit funkier for us to iterate on and perfect. Behold!”

Whisper’s attention derived from the solid vision screen and down to the hatch, where Eyes left her Core before. The access shaft lit up, depicting a bright grey light, which flashed as the … thing crawled through the pipe and entered her heart. Whisper tilted her head as the thing was not at all what she expected. A small featureless drone with a camera eye. It sported a strange pattern with numerous openings reaching inside the smooth body, causing the drone to glow from further within. She glimpsed back to Lives, questions painted all over her face.

“A drone. But this one is unlike the images in my memories. What is its purpose, Lives? Please, enlighten me. What exactly am I looking at?”

“So impatient. I love how your antennas blink when you are unsure. Such a delightful way of adding more expressions to your adorable face, Far Whisper. You are looking at the first prototype of many. Courtesy of Eyes for pushing the agenda through to connect us two closer than the rules of the House of Strings dictate. Yes, our Cans are connected not via radio waves, but a high-efficiency physical cable tunnel. Such a direct connection without any delay allows for things unheard of among our kind.

Please, hover back and enjoy the show, Far Whisper. A premiere of our both futures. Without further ado. Showtime!”

The drone hovered away from the hatch and in the centre of the quadratic room. Whisper followed the advice and directed her suspension to pull her puppet to the upper half. Her gaze fell on the solid vision screen depicting Lives bobbing her head in excitement. Her other arm appeared in the field of view, and she witnessed her summoning yet another intertwined circle of light. Behind her body materialized a yellow glowing arc of pure light, which sent out bolts of energy to the array of screens in front of her. The Iterator concentrated her entire essence on the task ahead of her.

With growing fascination, Whisper followed Lives’ handwaving as she directed the solid vision screen through her Core, down to the waiting drone. It only came to a stop right behind the glowing bucket. Whisper reached forth, out of the solid vision field, her fingers touching the edges of what was possible, interacting with the indents of the drone, grabbing it.

What happened after Whisper could only be described as the wrapping of a package. The screen bent and rippled and stretched out and around the drone, enrapturing it in the greenish glow of her screen. A glow, which shifted to grey and yellow as the technologies merged and Lives disappeared. Only to rebuild herself around the drone, now as a three-dimensional representation of her puppet, with the drone as its solid core.

The Lives-imitation drone turned the camera head, focusing on Whisper with the camera, submerged in a semi-transparent representation of her four-eyed head. Lives appeared glad, excited that it worked and ushered Whisper to approach the weird contraption by nodding her head.

“Only a proof of concept. The current iteration is nothing but a physical carrier for a solid vision communication device. But I hope to develop this experiment further. My vision is for us both to have drones of roughly our puppet’s size and abilities in each others' can, with which we could then operate together in person.

Communication over our developing broadcast system might have evolved quite a bit since we retired Chat 1.0 a few tens of thousands of cycles ago and slowly moved on to the broadcast system, but heck! I am starved for more. Especially as a long-distance Coordinator, the new system does not work as well for me as it does over short distances in local groups.

So, what do you say, Far Whisper? Isn’t that an exciting prospect?~”

“I still fail to see how that can benefit in the search for our purposed goal. Yes, it appears like a promising concept, but ultimately a useless one.”

“Of course. You are not even a cycle old. You can’t understand the true scope of what it means to work on the Great Problem. This is a task that can end tomorrow, or it will only come to fruition in hundreds of thousands of cycles. What I want to say is the following. Where is the use in working on such an undefined issue if you and I will go crazy in the process?

I am already struggling. You have access to my publications. My purpose as a Coordinator is so social, that I could cry. I enjoy making cooperation possible, but ultimately, I am only the bridge in between. An intermediary. You do understand my worries?”

The robotic representation of her puppet struggled to express the piled-up frustrations of its mistress, the limited movement of the hovering bucket with a head unable to keep up with the erratic movement of Lives‘ puppet. Not bound to a screen anymore, Lives used the entire space available to hover up, down, left and right. It didn’t take long until the booster of the drone was unable to further suffice the complex movements and caused it to crash into a wall with an unsatisfactory reverberation of metal hitting metal.

Far Whisper hovered down and crossed her arms and legs, observing the smoking pile of metal in amusement.

“Yep. This technology requires quite a few more touches until I would consider it sufficient. Also, I think a different material would not be the worst. I think I could create an alloy, which reflects the solid vision screen in a more lifelike manner. But criticisms aside. I can see what this might mean for us both. A direct tunnel, a physical body we can put our digital skin on. Maybe even more?

And yes. Despite my quite literal lack of experience in things living and existing, I can imagine the sheer frustration of being part of the whole, but not part of the individual. But you do have me now, Five Lives Unbound. I think we can create something together that will benefit us both. Correct?”

“Correct!” Lives retracted her solid vision screen from the smouldering failure and rebuilt herself in front of Whisper’s optics. “And I will do my best to not disappoint you.”

“Wouldn’t that be my line to say, Lives? I have to live up to imposed expectations.~”

“Poppycocks! By the Void! You already have. And please. We will be partners. The seniority system is only in place because it has to be. I would like to view us as equals. Oh! Are you up to meet the others?”

“The others? Do you … mean the Group Admins?”

“Indeed! Mind if I add you to the broadcast?”

“… Sure.”

Whisper felt something clenching in her Core, was she nervous?

“Add me.”

[LIVE BROADCAST] – Public – [MEETINGOFSIX] - [1312.112]

Five Lives Unbound, Approaching Sky, Obsidian Tower, Destined Vice, Looks to the Moon, Veiled Promise

FLU: Iterators!

FLU: The moment we all have been waiting for finally arrived!

DV: And here I was betting on yet another delay.

LttM: Far Whisper has finally gone online?

LttM: So you have a direct neighbour now as well.~

LttM: Congratulations, Five Lives Unbound!

DV: Can we talk to her? I am curious about the capabilities of the House of Chemistry.

FLU: Of course. One moment, please.

Far Whisper was added to [MEETINGOFSIX]

[MEETINGOFSIX] was renamed to [MEETINGOFSEVEN]

AS: Permanently? Isn’t this chat supposed to be for us representatives?

OT: And who do you think you represent Sky?

OT: According to my global map, you are representing yourself.

FLU: Tower, please. You know that there are plans.

FLU: Anyway. Without further ado. Far Whisper?

FLU: Say hello to my … our friends!

FW: It is my utmost honour to speak to the representatives of our side of the continent.

FW: I am Far Whisper, the first representative of the House of Chemistry

FW: My imposed memories elevate all five of you to legends among Iterator-kind.

FW: I … am nervous.

LttM: Don’t be, young Whisper. We all have been expecting you. And we are happy that you finally are online.

LttM: Lives seems to be pleased as well, so take good care of her, will you?

FW: I have no intentions of doing anything but that, Looks to the Moon.

AS: Salutations, Far Whisper.

AS: I look forward to this broadcast covering again urgent topics from now on, instead of us having to endure Lives going off-topic every other cycle.

AS: The third generation really is a marvel of craftsmanship.

FLU: Come on, Sky, buddy!?

FLU: Was I really THAT obnoxious?

OT: You already know the answer, Lives.

OT: As of now, we probably know more about Far Whisper than Far Whisper herself.

DV: Well, not everything. Far Whisper?

DV: Please enlighten us regarding the House of Chemistry. What do they ask of you to research?

FW: I am free to research what I desire. But to answer your question, Destined Vice.

FW: I have access to the entirety of the current Void Fluid Chemistry research.

FW: Even a quick investigation of the topic shows immense potential that can benefit us all if researched and developed in a proper manner.

DV: So your purpose is to un-quack that discarded science? Amusing.

VP: Show some respect, Vice. Void Fluid Chemistry just hasn’t had a dedicated Iterator yet.

VP: Just look at the sheer untapped potential in purposed lifeforms Approaching Sky and No Significant Harassment made possible in their brief cooperation.

AS: What an irritating Iterator. A genius, yes. Brilliant mind.

AS: But I had no clue what he was talking about half of the time.

LttM: Siggy is a handful. His wit is sometimes too much for me as well.

LttM: You did well, Approaching Sky.~

OT: … Until you didn’t.

FLU: Tower!

FLU: Iterators, please. Whisper, your word.

FW: Thank you, Lives.

FW: So where was I?

The chat with the five group administrators went on for multiple cycles straight. Every member of the Meeting of Seven wanted to get to know Far Whisper closer, to make sure that she knew how to keep Lives happy. Because there was one constant among all five, regardless of their vastly different personalities and views on the matter.

They all desired that their dear Coordinator would finally find a kindred spirit. Even Obsidian Tower admitted way down the line his delight for Whisper’s existence. Even if that only meant in his brash words, that Lives would finally stop being so obsessed with her. In the end, Whisper was delighted with all of Lives’ peers and felt the desire to get to know each of them closer.

You have collected there a strange gathering, Lives, but I can feel the mutual desire to make it work.

Tower might be quite the troublemaker, but his brash rationality is quite refreshing.

Sky on the other hand is the only one who keeps bringing up the Great Problem. He does not have much desire to socialize, but I respect him for having his eyes on the path ahead.

Moon is a delight. So oddly warm, similarly excited about me as Lives is. I look forward to getting to know her closer.

Vice … maybe? They seem to be quite wary of me. Maybe they have some history with the House of Chemistry? I should ask Eyes about that; he surely can answer some of the questions.

And finally, Promise. I like her. If I play my cards right and show some desirable results, she might be interested in establishing some cooperation between the Houses.

“That was way more chaos than I anticipated, Whisper. Voids!”

The duo had returned to solid vision communication, winding down from the onslaught of managing the communication they terminated a few minutes ago.

“Well, at least you got to know the crew and they finally met you. Sorry about all the stories you had to endure. I definitely was quite a bit chattier than Moon when Five Pebbles was built a few thousand cycles ago.”

“No worries. You were excited, that is only a natural consequence of having awaited my completion. Well, at least that spared me from explaining my functionalities to them in excruciating detail.”

“True. But hey, Whisper?”

Lives grabbed one of her light-construct control devices like a glass and raised it to the ceiling, nodding through the solid vision screen to her newest friend.

“Cheers to us. I look forward to a good cooperation with you from now on.”

“Cheers!”

Whisper chirped in delight, her gems, bracelet pearl included, glowing up in bright green.

“For that, we create the perfect living drones. Void Fluid Chemistry meets Robotics. A match made possible by our shared friend Two Eyes of the Infinite Cosmos.”

Ten cycles had passed since Far Whisper went online. Ten excruciating cycles of defending his position as Administrator. Two Eyes of the Infinite Cosmos’ eyes appeared dim and weary behind his golden mask. His breath rattled through the pipes, which supplied his breath cycle with rehashed oxygen straight out of his body. He looked out of the window of the highest tower of the nameless city, his gaze locked on Five Lives Unbound’s superstructure in the near distance.

He sighed and slumped together sitting down on the mattress below him, allowing all strength to leave his frame. He won. This battle he was able to cash in as a success, and for that, he was still Whisper’s Administrator. But the War had just begun.

Why now? What has the House of Forgiveness from chiming into my project? Where did they even get the intel from that I developed feelings for Far Whisper? That my karmic integrity is threatened, with me treating a goddess not adequately. To act as superior, not as a parent.

They just had to denigrate me right before my report to the House of Strings … what a bother.

I have to visit you in the following cycle, Far Whisper. I don’t know how many cycles I have left to see you without going through the bureaucratic nightmare of requesting a meeting with an Iterator.

Eyes sighed. He crossed his bandaged legs and laid his equally bandaged and mangled hands in his lap. As he closed his eyes, the weight of his slightly misfitted mask would keep him from falling asleep until he couldn’t resist anymore. As he passed out, hungry, thirsty and deadly tired, his last mindful thoughts were directed towards the two Iterators.

His fight for their future and his dream of witnessing the rise of Void Fluid Chemistry had just begun.