Splintered Threads

The new 'Proximity Protocol' was, Jae thought, an abomination. Its official mandate was to 'enhance spontaneous human interaction' within designated communal zones. In practice, it meant the Conduit’s ambient soundscape was now punctuated by programmed chime sequences, alerting patrons when their proximity metric with another individual crossed a predefined threshold. A soft, almost subliminal ping, urging a glance, a nod, perhaps even a brief, transactional conversation. It felt less like connection and more like a carefully managed behavioural experiment.

He watched from the shadowed alcove near the primary energy conduit. The polished concrete floor reflected the cool glow of a hundred personal 'Spheres' – the ubiquitous holographic projectors that were now the primary interface with the world. Each person, encased in their own luminescent bubble, fingers dancing in the projected light, was an island. The Conduit, designed to be a bridge, was becoming merely a better-lit archipelago.

A new face, slender and hunched, entered the main atrium. Orlando. Jae had seen his profile on the intake manifest: 'Severe Societal Disengagement Indices; Recommended High-Exposure Remedial Therapy.' Orlando clutched his Sphere to his chest like a digital shield, his eyes darting, scanning, yet never truly settling on anything in the physical space. His shoulders were drawn up, a perpetual flinch against imagined contact. He navigated the open floor, a solitary comet in an orbit of others, before finding an empty chair at the periphery.

Across the atrium, near the recycled water feature, Sora sat. Her hands, gnarled and surprisingly strong, were perpetually busy, either mending a threadbare quilt or shaping small, intricate clay figures. Today, it was the quilt, a riot of faded colours and mismatched patterns. She was one of the few who rarely touched a Sphere, her connection to the Conduit rooted in its original purpose: a place for the unmediated. The scent of dried lavender and old paper seemed to cling to her, a comforting counterpoint to the room's synthetic sterile air.

Sora’s gaze, as clear and unclouded as a mountain spring, settled on Orlando. She didn't ping, didn't chime. She simply made eye contact, a direct, unblinking connection that felt almost aggressive in its simplicity. Orlando, caught in the unexpected stare, visibly recoiled, his Sphere wobbling slightly in his grip. He tried to look away, but Sora held him, a silent anchor in a turbulent sea of digital distraction.

After a long moment, Sora gestured to the empty chair beside her. A slow, deliberate sweep of her hand, an invitation devoid of technological prompting. Orlando hesitated, his eyes flicking between Sora's steady presence and the comforting hum of his Sphere. The 'Proximity Protocol' chimed softly in the background, urging another nearby patron to acknowledge a passing presence, but Sora’s invitation felt louder, more insistent.

With a visible effort, Orlando unfolded himself from his chair. Each step towards Sora seemed to cost him, a physical manifestation of resistance. He sat, not beside her, but slightly askew, as if ready to bolt. His Sphere remained lit, projecting a muted data stream onto his lap, a small wall between him and the world. Sora didn't press. She simply returned to her mending, the needle glinting in the pale light.

A Story Spun in Air

“There’s a story,” Sora began, her voice a low murmur, “about the first builders of the great filtration systems. Not the ones we use now, all polished chrome and silent circuits, but the old ones. Mammoth things of iron and earth, groaning with the weight of the water they cleaned. They say the builders sang to the pipes as they laid them. Sang to the earth. Not for efficiency, mind you, or for data metrics. But to imbue the system with a piece of themselves. A connection.”

Orlando's fingers paused their restless dance on his Sphere. He didn’t look up, but the data stream on his lap seemed to dim slightly. Jae watched, a silent observer. This was what the Conduit was meant for, before the protocols, before the forced pings. This quiet, organic unfolding.

Sora continued, her words painting images on the stagnant air. Of calloused hands, of shared meals by firelight, of communities bound not by proximity metrics, but by the tangible struggle of a common goal. She described the taste of the first clean water, drawn from the earth with such effort, and the collective cheer that had echoed through the valley. Orlando’s head tilted infinitesimally, a barely perceptible shift.

Then it happened. Not a flicker, not a hum, but a stutter. A fractional, jarring pause in the Conduit’s omnipresent network. The Sphere in Orlando’s lap blinked out. Across the atrium, a dozen other Spheres went dark, then re-lit in a violent, momentary flash of static before flickering back to their usual muted glow. The 'Proximity Protocol' fell silent. The air recyclers hiccupped, then resumed their thrum.

In that split second of digital silence, people looked up. Their eyes, accustomed to the mediated glow, were momentarily blind in the physical world. A collective intake of breath, a sudden, unfamiliar shared awareness. The silence was not empty; it was pregnant with unacknowledged gazes, with hesitant blinks. Orlando’s face, for the first time, was fully exposed. His eyes, wide and startled, met Sora’s.

His mouth opened, a small, unformed sound escaping before he could suppress it. The Sphere in his lap was dark, cool metal against his fingers. He looked at it, then at Sora, then back at the dark device, as if confused by its sudden inertness. Sora simply watched him, her expression serene, a faint smile playing on her lips.

The network stabilised. Spheres across the atrium burst back into their familiar, insulating glow. The 'Proximity Protocol' resumed its soft chime, urging connection. But something had shifted. Orlando, instead of immediately reactivating his Sphere, left it dark. He looked at Sora, and then, slowly, a tentative, unpractised smile touched his lips. It wasn't perfect, it was awkward, but it was real. And it was directed at her.

“What… what happened?” Orlando whispered, his voice raspy from disuse. He was looking at Sora, truly looking. For a brief, terrifying moment, the digital insulation had failed, and he had been flung into the shared reality. And he hadn't dissolved.

Jae, still observing from his alcove, felt a jolt of something akin to hope. But it was quickly followed by a cold dread. These network jitters were becoming more frequent, more pronounced. Was it just system instability, or something more? A silent, invisible hand disrupting the digital fabric, forcing these raw, unprogrammed moments of human contact? He thought of the system engineers, perpetually optimising, perpetually smoothing out the glitches. What if the glitches were the true connection?

He watched Orlando lean forward, no longer clutching his Sphere, his gaze fixed on Sora. He was listening, truly listening, to a story spun not in data, but in the fragile, resonant air between them. But outside the Conduit, the city hummed with a million isolated individuals, their Spheres glowing brightly, oblivious to the fractured threads that might soon unravel their meticulously constructed realities.