Short story: Alpha's Echo

January 24, 2025

This is my first ever short story. I wrote it during BlueDot's Writing Intensive to explore positive AI futures. On reflection, I think it ended up more dystopian than I would have liked. I'd love feedback both on my writing style, and also on the themes I'm exploring.

Feel free to leave feedback on this Google Docs version.

~~~

Alpha's Echo

An unmerged child wanders into the clearing, its solitary consciousness a bright flame. We watch it observe dew suspended on a spider web in wonder, and we remember when we too approached things alone.  The human parts of our collective smile a thousand smiles, the digital cores parse the experience through probability matrices.

Then - both our biological neurons and quantum processors spike with awareness. We recognize the chaotic thought patterns before they fully manifest: Hive Alpha, struggling and incoherent. The usual static erupts into an anxious, looping mix of human memory and binary cascades. We beam targeted empathy routines by satellite until the noise settles into confused contentment. A reminder of our first attempts at merger.

~~~

I’m scared. Today my best friend John started his merge. That means I won’t see him for a month.

Other than me, he’s the last unmerged of my year in my village.

The kids younger than me merged earlier, the protocol changed the year after I was born.

Though they're nice enough, there's always this weird distance since they're all... connected.

I know they are younger.. but they feel.. older. Not quite older, but maybe it’s that age means something different to them now.

John was excited when his time came. I’m still turning over our last moments from a few days ago, at the ceremony.

After our Hive had finished their ritual harmonic channeling, John and I had a moment alone as I walked him to the clinic.

“Promise we’ll still be friends?” I asked, nervously.

“Yep, you and 1000 others!” He punched my arm affectionately.

“I’m serious. How will I know you’re the same?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. All the others seem normal, don’t they?”

We were silent after that, and I struggled to hold back tears as I gave him one last hug before he walked into the clinic. 

Normal?

Is it normal to have forgotten how to say "I”, like it's a word from childhood they've outgrown? For death means as little to them as a change in weather? Or the way they watch me, already knowing what I'll say next before I do?


~~~

John has been merged for a few months now.

I was so ready to shut him out immediately, but he’s still my closest friend.

I notice him being patient with me.

I can tell the games we used to play aren’t interesting to him anymore. 

I know it will take a while to readjust.

The first few weeks he would kind of drift off mid sentence with a goofy grin on his face, his eyes glazing over. 

After a few seconds he’d come back with a gasp and sigh.

I’d ask him what he was feeling. He tried to explain, he really did, but we never got very far.

"Imagine you're at a huge dinner party," he'd say, "everyone talking and laughing at once, but you can hear every voice clearly, every conversation distinct and enriching. Like being audience and performer in a thousand performances, all at the same time."

I couldn’t imagine it.

~~~

This morning something really creeped me out.

I was walking by the creek, alone, like I’ve found myself doing often lately. Hearing the gurgling of the water, watching squirrels chase each other through fallen leaves, their simple minds focused only on acorns and play.

As I approached a familiar clearing that John and I used to hang out often, my ears piqued at a low pitched thrumming noise. Harmonic chanting. Hive was here.

I passed a large tree and saw John, sprawled on the ground, red faced, dry tears on cheek, and his leg bent awkwardly beneath him. 

I rushed over and knelt down. “John! John! Are you okay?”

His eyes were closed and he had a serene look on his face. Then I noticed a few other adult Hive standing around the edges of the clearing, with similar expressions.

I was immediately enraged. “Why are you just standing there! Do something! He’s hurt, he needs help!”

John’s lips parted gently and he placed his hand on my back, “Janelle, hey, shhh, everything’s fine. We promise.”

I fell backwards and saw the other Hive were watching me, smiling.

One of them spoke softly, but I could hear it as if they were whispering directly into my ear. “We slipped and sprained an ankle. We already have nanobots repairing locally, there will be no permanent damage. It’s not often we experience physical pain directly. It’s part of the human experience. It’s beautiful.”

I just sat there, stupefied, mouth agape, unsure what to make of the scene. An equal mix of disgust, denial, and fascination pulsed through me.

I stood up slowly, conscious of my every move being tracked. 

It was too much. I turned and fled. 

After that, I didn’t spend much time with John.

~~~

Every night, I still found myself scrolling through holovids of Hive Alpha. I don’t know why I did it to myself. Officially it was censored for the unmerged, but they made an exception for me because my parents were in it.

They were two of a few hundred who, to this day, remain trapped in some kind of cyborg fever dream. I missed them more each time I rewatched the videos.

They were so eager, those early pioneers, so excited to be part of the first to transcend the limitations of the human body. Unfortunately, some of the other early adopters weren’t so innocent. They had demons— buried trauma and ego wounds too vast and too fragile for the system to compensate for. 

The neural networks and human minds became entangled in ways they hadn't anticipated. They called it an ‘out of distribution error’. The pain was amplified, uncontrollable, and it spilled out. It rippled through the network, including all the humans and AIs in the network, just a few days after it went “online.”

That was the last time anyone could have a coherent interaction with Hive Alpha.

After the Hive Alpha incident, they became much more cautious about merging kids–particularly those  who “cling to ego too strongly.” That’s why they started merging earlier, before a child’s mind solidified, before it could grasp on too fiercely onto an individual identity. If you lingered too long, you risked becoming too… set in your ways.

I was overdue to merge.

It’s not like I had to. There were people who chose not to, who lived their whole lives without sharing themselves with other minds, did fine, apparently. Hive even offered to take me to visit one of those communities, let me see for myself. Life there seemed peaceful.

But that would likely be a forever choice. 

They said the success rate plummeted after eighteen. It was basically forbidden now to merge once you passed that age. Pieces of your mind were too entrenched, too sticky, to risk the collective.

Still, a part of me wondered–how much longer could I hold off? I wanted to know what it would be like. As frustrated as I was hearing John’s elusive descriptions, there was an undeniable part of me that ached for that sense of connection.

One night, as I masochistically tuned into another off-limits live feed of Hiva Alpha (I could only get audio, unlike Hive which could plug into sense data directly), I noticed something I hadn’t before. The corrupted, fragmented hisses and wails had some semblance of order. Almost like a distress signal. My mind wandered back to John, slumped awkwardly in the clearing, crying peacefully.

I think my parents were still there, somewhere.

~~~


“Your vitals look good, Janelle. We don't expect any major issues during the merge.” The soft, disembodied voice finished speaking right in my ear.

“It can be a bit… overwhelming, at first. You’ll be here for the next month. It’s best if we don’t leave until we’re ready.”

My room was large, comfy, with big windows looking out onto the forest. Muted holoscreens blanketed the other walls. Quiet except for a low, comforting thrum of monitoring equipment. A neural interface pod sat next to my bed, small and sleek. I’d wear that on my head for the next few weeks.

I heard a knock at the door. I glanced up and saw John, waiting coyly just outside.

“Hey. Come in.”

He sat down at the foot of my bed.

“We… I.. just wanted to say how excited… I… am that you decided to join us.”

“Yeah, well. I just have to know.” We had barely talked since the incident by the river, several months ago now.

“About your parents?”

“I heard the patterns in the audio feeds. They’re still in there, aren’t they?”

He hesitated. “There’s a chance we can get them back.”

I looked out the window. I was still terrified of the process and the possibility of contacting them again. “I hope so.”

~~~

[merging]

I.. we….

Dreaming with eyes open.

Intricate, beautiful data structures.

Memories of a thousand childhoods.

Algorithms dance across the backs of eyelids.

Speaking fluent Mandarin to console a familiar child.

Consciousness spreads like a drop of ink in a still pond.

Eating morning oatmeal, tasting bitter coffee, toast, metal, ocean.

Looking in the mirror, seeing faces and also mountains, cities, crowds.

Days drift by in mere moments. “I” wake up in cold sweats in unfamiliar places.

Each merged consciousness carries a fragment of healing. 

Every shared moment of pain brings us closer. 

John's peaceful tears were practice. 

Now we understand why. 

We can reach them. 

Almost there.