All That We See or Seem

If dreams can be shared, secrets can be stolen...

- by Ken Liu

All That We See or Seem is a near-future thriller set in a world where the dark algorithms of AI have permeated every aspect of life.

The camera spins around to reveal Mall-Jill, a woman in her forties: bright red lipstick, thick-rimmed glamour glasses, eyes that gleam from a bit of post-processing sparkle. MALL-JILL: (whispering excitedly) I talked to Elli, and she agreed to let me film the dream session!

The camera spins back to Elli, who holds up both hands. The crowd quiets. She waits a beat.

ELLI: They say that the past is gone forever, that you can’t go back. But every living thing leaves a ripple in Heraclitus’s river, an expanding wave front that fades but never disappears. Just by living, you've already changed the universe forever.

Come with me to the anthracite mines of Carbon County...

Elli’s fingers dance across the console on the podium. Images swirl across the giant screen behind her: ferns, cycads, ginkgos, dinosaurs.

The crowd is rapt, eyes glazing over. Even distanced by the camera, one can feel that something extraordinary is happening. The crowd's breathing synchronizes, the murmuring voices merging into one. It’s as though there’s a single lung breathing, a bellows between earth and heaven, its unceasing movement the very beat of the cosmos.

The camera tilts to an odd angle and stops moving, seemingly propped against something. Jurassic images continue to play across the screen. Elli’s voice fades, replaced by Mall-Jill’s narration off-screen. MALL-JILL: I’ve been to plenty of performances, some of them with big stars. But I can’t remember any that moved me as much as Elli’s did. The story she told is ridiculous, preposterous, absurd, on the level of the flat-earth theory or the moon-landing hoax.

Yet, I was utterly entranced.