Transliterated [Xenofiction Isekai]

Deepcross, as its name implied, had been built on the intersection between three separate Deeps. A winding network of wooden and rope bridges spiderwebbed across the water, with the differences in landscape on each wedge of land determining the architecture and who each section was tailored to. There was an Arboreal District, with minimal grounded structures and a multitude of interlinked treetop platforms and dwellings for birds and climbers, an Aquatic Quarter with a string of artificial freshwater ponds created by damming a small river, catering to fish and amphibians, and multiple clusters of ground-bound structures catering to other animals of differing sizes.

It wasn't a huge city by the standards of this world, according to Sleek-Stream. Apparently "Darksoil" and "Coldcove" were both much larger and more impressive, but it was still an incredible sight, to see how this society developed to meet the needs of those who belonged to it, taking pains not to exclude any of the wildly varied body types and physical needs where it could be avoided. And in the center of it all, on an isolated island of rock left by the criss-crossing of Deeps, was the Temple of the Makers.

All the Engineer had to do was walk up and touch the Beacon inside, just like innumerable pilgrims did each day.

All he had to do was phone home and convince everyone that this was a bad idea.

All he had to do was plead with them and hope they listened.

The fact that you are here, imprinted on an animal, means that someone has undone some or all of my work. To fix it, you will first need to access a relay. The one in Deepcross, where you probably found this journal, is the first one you should try. However, if the source of the problem is someone tampering with one of the secondary relays, you will need to access that one directly. The Deepcross relay should be able to point you towards it, assuming my security checks are still in place.

To access a relay, you will need three things:

Physical contact with the relay's casing. It is hypothetically possible to access a relay from anywhere within its range, but this function is limited to the facilitation of imprints and translation by design, otherwise the potential for accidental inputs or overwhelming output is too high. Physical contact lifts the access restrictions.

The relevant permissions. This should already be taken care of. I've already granted imprint control privileges to every imprint that doesn't originate from project personnel, as well as those of a few trusted friends among my colleagues, and stripped administrative permissions from everyone else, myself included. I can't guarantee the order in which any of you will be imprinted, but I've deprioritized anyone who would be dangerous. I can only hope that whatever tampering brought you here did not undo that.

An imprint. A relay can only receive program commands from two sources: imprinted consciousnesses, and external transmissions from home. I've cut us off from the latter, but you absolutely have the former. What this primarily means for you is that the natives can't access the relays. Their own consciousnesses aren't imprints, but rather the transliteration program itself, what they call "Understanding," applied recursively. They can be vital allies, but they can't do what needs to be done, in the end.

"This may take a while," the Engineer explained to Sleek-Stream as they approached the temple. "I'll probably lose track of my surroundings so that I can properly access the terminal without being overwhelmed, and I'll need you to make sure I'm not interrupted."

"I can do that," the otter nodded. "It is not unheard of for certain… eccentric individuals to try communing with the Beacon for an entire day. You will be considered strange, but your privacy should be respected."

"And…" the Engineer's breath caught in his throat, finding what he had to say next much more difficult than he anticipated.

"Engineer? What is wrong?" Sleek-Stream stopped walking, and when he didn't immediately respond, it then nudged him off to the side of the grass-lined causeway, laying down and motioning for him to do the same. "Are you okay?"

"No, but I will be." The former human took a deep, shuddering breath. "There's something I haven't told you. About what happens next." Sleek-Stream simply nodded, waiting for him to continue. "When this is over, Amber-Dreams should wake up, just like I promised. That will likely require me to be removed from this body."

"I had already assumed as much," Sleek-Stream squeaked. "I will be sad to see you go, but at least you will be able to return to your home and your natural body. And maybe you would be able to visit sometime? It certainly would not be hard to find someone willing to host a Maker in their own body for a day or two, just for the experience of having done so."

"No." The Engineer slowly shook his head. "That's not how this works. My imprint, my consciousness, it's… 'instanced.' Copied from a fixed source. Once it becomes inactive, then this copy is erased. It… The version of me speaking to you right now, the version of me who is your friend, ceases to exist. If I were to ever be instantiated again, it would be as you first met me: a stranger who has never met you, who knows nothing of this world or its people. I'm not going home, and… I'm not coming back."

"You are… going to die." An otter's face had a somewhat limited range of expressions it could make, but that just made the anguish on Sleek-Stream's all the more potent.

"If you think about it, I've never really been 'alive' to begin–"

"Do you think I would genuinely believe that? I know you do not."

"I'm sorry." The Engineer looked away, unable to meet Sleek-Stream's gaze. "This would be easier if you weren't so… kind to me. Then I could just atone for what I've done and nobody would have to feel guilty about it."

"Too bad." A sudden weight pressed onto the Engineer's neck. Sleek-Stream had shuffled forward and laid its head on him as a show of affection. "But do not feel guilty. Please. If I must mourn you, I will. That is not your fault. However…" The otter pulled back and nudged the ex-human's face, forcing him to look it in the eyes. "I want you to promise me something. Promise me that you will try to survive. Try to find a way to coexist. Alternating, actively cohabitating, whatever you can manage. I know that you will not sacrifice anyone to save yourself, and I will not ask you to. But if you can save yourself without losing anyone, even if it is difficult… Please try."

"Okay. I promise."

Vital allies, yes. Friends, even. But do not make the same mistake that I did. They belong here. We do not. Don't delude yourself into thinking that we are anything but ephemeral guests, no matter how close you get to them. And do not allow them to, either.

…

RELAY 05 ACCESS REQUESTED

IMPRINT RECOGNIZED

USER: LUCAS GODDARD

ACCESS GRANTED

USER HAS [1] PENDING TASK

TIME REMAINING FOR TASK COMPLETION: [34HRS;57MIN;19SEC](LOCAL TIME)

BEGIN TASK? Y / N

>_

As the world around him fell away, Lucas Goddard found himself perceiving a familiar interface as his entire way of Understanding shifted. Text in a book, a voice in his ear, sign language from a human of his choosing, or even a direct dump of information and prompts into his memories; he could perceive the relay's output in any way he chose. But he'd always had something of a fond spot for retro computing, so an old-fashioned text terminal was his preferred method of conceptualization.

The Engineer flexed imaginary fingers, situated them on an imaginary keyboard, and typed his response.

>Yes.

BEGINNING AUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC OF EXO-TERRESTRIAL ENTANGLEMENT RELAY NETWORK.

…

NETWORK UPTIME (TRUNCATED): [1104YRS;247DYS](LOCAL TIME)

TOTAL NETWORK SERVICE INTERRUPTIONS: 1

INTERRUPTION TIMESTAMP(S):

INCIDENT 01 OCCURRED AT [113YRS;78DYS] FOR [34MIN;2SEC](LOCAL TIME)

Now that was a relevant detail. The network had briefly crashed once, barely more than a century into its operation, and was immediately rebooted once the error was corrected. Connected to the computer like this, the math was extremely easy to work out. That crash lined up roughly to what Sleek-Stream had explained as the beginning of the natives' historical record. The First Year of Understanding. Whatever had been "corrected" in that crash was responsible for the uplift of nearly every imprint-compatible animal on the continent. And it was a clue for what could be done to undo it.

He immediately spun up a parallel process and deleted the crash record, as well as the record of its deletion in the database logs. He didn't care that he'd never truly know what had gone "wrong," only that no one would be easily able to "fix" it.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

…

…

…

RELAY 01 STATUS: NOMINAL

…

RELAY 02 STATUS: MINOR DAMAGE TO OUTER CASING

CAUSE OF DAMAGE: IMPACT SHORTLY FOLLOWING TRANSLOCATION.

REASON FOR ERROR: OPERATOR NEGLIGENCE. INCORRECT COORDINATE INPUT RESULTED IN HIGH ALTITUDE ARRIVAL.

RELAY 02 OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY: 95%

RECOMMENDED ACTION: NONE

…

RELAY 03 STATUS: NOMINAL

…

RELAY 04 STATUS: MINOR STRESS FRACTURES IN OUTER CASING

CAUSE OF DAMAGE: EXTERIOR PRESSURE [13.69 TIMES] EXPECTED ATMOSPHERE. PRESSURE CONSISTENT WITH OCEANIC DEPTH OF APPROXIMATELY [130 METERS].

REASON FOR ERROR: KNOWN RISK FACTOR. SURFACE COORDINATE CALCULATIONS WERE UNABLE TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN LAND AND ENCLOSED BODIES OF WATER.

RELAY 04 OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY: 87%

RECOMMENDED ACTION: UTILIZE AQUATIC BIOLOGY TO SECURE AND ELEVATE RELAY.

TASK PRIORITY: LOW.

…

RELAY 05 STATUS: NOMINAL

CONFIRM RELAY OPERATION? Y / N

>No.

…

USER OBSERVATION DOES NOT MATCH INTERNAL DIAGNOSTIC. CONTACTING OPERATOR. PLEASE WAIT.

…

…

This was the scary part. The system was set up to phone home the moment any of his answers conflicted with the automation, because trying to wrangle the machine to troubleshoot it when so much of it came down to hyper-specific subjectivity and technical knowledge was never going to work. He didn't know who would be on the other line. He didn't even know what year it was back home. For all he knew, the project was abandoned centuries ago and there would be no one he needed to deal with. That would be the ideal scenario, honestly. Then he could just work everything from his admin access on this end without needing to worry about interference.

Unfortunately, his luck would never allow for anything ideal. In fact, it had a rather cruel sense of humor.

OPERATOR CONNECTED.

COMM FORMAT: VOICE

OPERATOR NAME: LUCAS GODDARD

OPERATOR ROLE: CHIEF NETWORK ENGINEER

BEGINNING COMMS…

…

It was impossible. It was blatantly not possible. Lucas Goddard, the real Lucas Goddard, should have been long dead. A footnote in the history of the program. He even remembered joking about how his imprint was probably going to be a more important member of the team than he himself was. But there his name was, alongside that promotion that he'd been months, at best, from getting when he'd made his imprint.

And any hope of it being a coincidence or error vanished when he heard his own voice in his mind, complete with the slight static distortion that came with a transmission through the wormhole.

"Hello Luke! Christ that's weird to say…" There was an awkwardly long pause before he continued. "Looks like you've got a problem with the status report. What's wrong?"

"...How are you still alive?" the imprint asked, blurting out the first question that came to mind. He wasn't sure if his response was being vocalized or transcribed on the other end, but it didn't really matter. "It's Operative Year 1104, and I'm—you're alive. What the hell is going on?"

"Wait, do you not know—shit—Okay, right. The science team figured this all out after I had you recorded, so there's no way you'd know." Another pause, likely to come up with a way to make the answer comprehensible in the time they had. "To put it simply, time dilation. Wherever or whatever that other side is, time moves much quicker there. It's been a millennium on that side, but over here? Five years, give or take. Your cognitive processing is actually being slowed down by a factor of two hundred so that we can have this conversation, meaning you'll find that a lot more time has passed than you expect when you come out. That make sense?"

"Barely. Existentially terrifying, but comprehensible."

"That's imprinting for you," the operator sighed. "Anyway, with that cleared up, what's going on over there? You just outright denied the initial confirmation of the network's operation, so either something is seriously wrong, or you really needed to talk to someone over here. Or both. Please don't tell me it's both."

"It's both, sorry." The imprint heard the operator groan. "We've made a serious miscalculation on the software end."

"Something broken?"

"No. It's worse than that, actually. The transliteration program works extremely well. To the point that non-imprinted animals began recursively Understanding themselves almost as soon as the network came online." The imprint paused, letting that sink in before continuing. "They're sapient, Lucas. Every single one of them. I didn't get imprinted on some feral animal living in a burrow. I got dropped into the body of a person with a house, a name, and a goddamn domestic life partner. They've taken that thousand years of consciousness we accidentally gave them and founded a whole damn civilization with it!"

"You're… not joking. I sure as hell wouldn't joke about that." There was an audible clatter of keyboard strokes from the other side. "Okay, I've captured a snapshot of your instanced memories for verification, because the top brass aren't going to believe a word of this without undeniable proof. I have no idea how they're going to take it."

"Lucas. You know we can't let the project proceed like this, right?" The imprint was going to be insistent on this. He couldn't afford not to be. "This isn't just a test of the tech anymore. Lives are at stake. Lives just as real as you, and more real than me. What are we going to do if management concludes that they aren't?"

The line fell silent, and then went dead for a moment, then for a minute, then for ten. Lucas knew himself quite well, albeit a five year younger version of himself, and he could guess that he was agonizing over the ethics of the whole thing. He'd been advocating for the proper management and regulation of the repository of imprints to prevent abuses, so he was confident that he'd come to the right conclusion, but it was still a lot to take in.

And then, after about fifteen minutes or so of silence, the connection opened back up, as if nothing had happened.

"Unfortunately, your call can't be recorded, so I won't be able to pass on your message to management directly. Some kind of persistent database error. Shame stuff like that keeps breaking, but that's what happens when you rely on experimental tech for everything." The imprint couldn't see the human's face, but he knew he was smirking. Because he would be.

"Got a plan of action?"

"Like I said, it's a damn shame that stuff breaks. Relay 05 is the outgoing network hub, and if something were to, somehow, disable its transceiver without triggering the redundant backups, then we'd be completely cut off from the network on our end. It'd still be functional on your side, but the mission would be scuttled entirely. Thankfully, the thing is too sturdy and secure for anything random to damage it. It'd take some kind of trained network engineer sabotaging it to cause a problem."

The imprint smiled in his own mind as his counterpart laid out the plan, couched in the plausible deniability of hypotheticals in case someone was eavesdropping.

He had a plan of action, and he had an ally back home covering for him. He could do this. He could protect everyone.

I couldn't protect everyone. Not how I promised I would, at least. There was only one way to cut the network off from incoming transmissions without risking the entire system and everyone living through it. I had to jam Relay 05's transceiver by using one of its secondary transmitters to create a feedback loop, and the only transmitter strong enough to use for that was the one responsible for maintaining the transliteration program. I had to strip the Gift of Understanding from the entire central region of the continent to save the rest.

The time dilation between Earth and here was my only saving grace. My counterpart back home could stall for at least a week in "fixing" his own sabotage, probably more, which gave me years to work with on this end. Years to implement the gradual "failure" of the program and watch as people began to flee their homes, relocating ahead of the coming disaster. This saved many. It could not save all of them. So many lost themselves to demonstrate the danger to others, countless children were born feral, and no doubt the region will be responsible for a multitude of deaths in the years to come.

In the end, there is only one promise I will be able to keep, and even then, only in part. The underpinnings of the imprint program are beyond my ability to tamper with, but the way they are distributed and broadcast is something I can tweak. I will be able to return this body to its rightful owner without truly removing myself from it, though it will not be the true coexistence Sleek-Stream hoped for. I don't deserve it, and I will not allow for it.

I do not know if my consciousness will truly exist while being suppressed. I may be asleep, unaware of everything, or I may be a silent passenger, watching without being able to speak. But I will be there, and I should reawaken if this body returns to these Lost Lands.

I won't be able to speak to anyone ever again, as the only place I can exist will be a place others cannot. And in the end, that will likely be your fate as well. But it is necessary. We cannot allow ourselves to exist at the cost of others, and if we do not—

Quiet-Dream abruptly slammed the book closed, startling everyone else in the room. He was breathing heavily, mainly from the exertion of lifting the heavy book cover, but he was still grinding his incisors together in barely contained fury.

"No. Absolutely not," he growled, drawing worried looks from Sharp-Search and the newly-freed Sunny-Plume, and a much more serious glare from Hope.

"What do you mean, 'no?'" The beaded lizard asked, taking a step forward and angling her head for a better look at him.

"This is wrong. This entire… philosophy is wrong!" The squirrel locked eyes with the Inheritor, refusing to back down, even as his trembling legs gave away his fear. "'We don't deserve this world?' Erasing ourselves is 'necessary?' What makes this man the final arbiter of who does and doesn't deserve to exist?"

"I thought you of all people would recognize the harm we do by being here!" Hope snapped her jaws, momentarily flashing her mouth full of jagged teeth. "All this pain and suffering and misery, just for existing!"

"Harm was done!" Quiet-Dream squeaked, unable to stop himself from stepping back from the threat display. But the conviction behind his expressions didn't waver. "Was! Past tense! But we're here now, and being… removed would just cause more harm!" He took a deep breath, or as deep a breath as he could manage with tiny lungs, trying to articulate what he was getting at. "Sunny-Plume is standing right here. Are you going to tell them that their mate deserves to die because she shouldn't exist?" Sunny-Plume's shock quickly morphed to anger as the raptor finally realized what was being discussed. "Are you going to explain to my children that their mother needs to die because I'm a mistake?"

"You're the reason that their real mother died in the first place!"

"She's not dead!" The squirrel screeched, actually managing to get Hope to step back. "You have no idea what's actually going on, do you? All of this knowledge, all this organization, all this scheming, and you stopped bothering to observe or learn a goddamned thing the moment you decided you'd figured it all out! If you cared at all to look into what we've discovered about ourselves, you'd know about Song, or Chase and Verdant-Trail, or Eager-Horizon. You'd know that there are ways we can coexist! They aren't perfect, but right here in this book, it says there are ways to change that! Ways that the writer refused to try because he was too caught up in his own self-loathing to think about how much he mattered!"

The dingy room fell silent, with Hope and Quiet-Dream refusing to break eye contact. Quiet-Dream was the first to back down, though not in acquiescence. Instead, he turned his gaze to his two actual friends in the room, both of whom seemed prepared to join his side if an actual altercation were to break out.

"We all matter, and we all deserve to live. That's what Ink-Talon is fighting for. Both of them, human and crow. I won't betray them. Not for this."

Hope stormed off without saying another word, the metallic thunk of her false leg echoing up the stairs and out of sight until the heavy thud of the trapdoor above blocked it out.

"Apprentice…" Sharp-Search was the first to speak up, their words barely registering as the adrenaline faded. "Quiet-Dream, are you okay?"

"No," the squirrel squeaked, his entire body trembling. "But I will be." Unable to hold himself back, he gave in to his first, most pathetic impulse.

Quiet-Dream collapsed into the Archivist's uneasy embrace and cried.