Work Text:
Ding! You start as the elevator doors open. The other trainees file past you as you stand still, looking around the large room. There are monitors floor to ceiling, showing various agents on the move-- on Earth. Where the monitors curve towards the floor, many more people like you are sitting at computers with headsets, typing like madmen.
“Welcome to the Wish Interception Satellite Headquarters!” You hear a voice boom, “Also known as WISH,” a loud whisper follows. “If the new associates could please walk this way, I can take you to our conference room where we’ll begin the orientation.” You follow the voice past wide tables with people rushing past you to bring or take papers from them. Hesitantly, you reach out a hand to trail along the tabletop, still feeling some residual shock from entering WISH.
It was just a joke, an offhand application to appease your fathers. They had told you that you needed to get a job if you were going to keep living with them, so you decided to apply to become a Wish Redirection Associate. You didn’t have any of the qualifications to be able to receive and sort wishes like they were asking for, but they must have seen something worth hiring in your application. The call yesterday morning had interrupted the family’s Sunday breakfast, with your papa looking at you quizzically over his paper. Your dad slapped the paper out of his hand and passed you the phone, saying, “It’s WISH, about your application.” They wanted you to come in for the next orientation, see if you’d like to take the job as a Wish Redirection Associate.
And now you’re passing through the tall doors of the conference room, the heavy wood a shock against the dull metal walls that serve as a backdrop to the constant video feeds. The booming voice belongs to a man who introduces himself as, “Your future supervisor, whether you like it or not,” with a loud laugh at his own joke. No one else laughs. “Anyways,” he awkwardly continues, “I’m here to tell you the history of WISH and how we came to be in the first place. Sometimes people get the wrong idea, that we’re fairies or something.”
“But we are fairies!” A stocky young woman, whom you’d thought was rather pretty on the elevator, quips. She grins as the willowy girl next to her gives her a high five. They receive a glare from under the supervisor’s thick eyebrows, mirrored with his mustache drawn in consternation over his frown.
He sighs and begins speaking again. “About 75 years ago, we had built this satellite station to begin reaching out to other worlds besides Gaia. To our surprise, we were receiving communications data from an unknown source! What was most peculiar was the location of the source was almost exactly that of Gaia, but never quite so. After some deeper research, scientists eventually realized that Gaia existed on what I suppose could be called a fault line between universes. It looks sort of like the fault lines that separate the tectonic plates on Gaia, but in the very fabric of reality!” Your supervisor shouts the last few words and raises his arms in order to emphasize the significance of these scientists’ findings. You look around the conference room to see that no one is especially interested. Everyone had learned this in the career counseling class that your high school held last year. Your supervisor’s arms drop despondently to his sides and he returns to his lecture.
“As these scientists probed further, they realized they were receiving messages from some sort of alternate Gaia, but not deliberate messages. This alternate Gaia, called Earth, was not technologically advanced enough to reach Gaia with any sort of telecommunications. Instead, we were receiving the wishes of people living on Earth. The faultline somehow converts these wishes into information that we then see on our satellite communications,” He gestures out the door at the large room, “Which we process in this room!”
You all obediently glance out the door at the room you were just in. Some of the other trainees are now absently picking at threads on their pants or checking their watches. You’re interested enough in the supervisor’s story, but you’ve heard it before and you’d rather focus on what the actual job entails.
“You may think that we immediately converted the satellite to its current function, but you’d be wrong. Initially, our government was seriously considering launching some sort of invasion against Earth in order to resettle some of our population. This is a part of the history of WISH that isn’t really acknowledged in the public that often, for obvious reasons. Some people worry we still may do something like that,” the supervisor pauses and looks around the room, “But fortunately, we aren’t equipped for military operations!” He chuckles encouragingly and begins walking to the door. “Let’s head down the hall to our archives and you can see what the first travellers to Earth discovered for us.”
Everyone files out the door after the supervisor, and you look around the hallway, seeing fewer and fewer monitors as you approach the archives. Soon, there’s only a monitor every three meters or so, showing grainy footage and pictures of the first people to travel to Earth. There are glimpses of the legends, one of them scaling Mount Everest beside Edmund Hillary. Edmund Hillary’s wishes was one that had been published in newspapers around the world-- everyone ridiculed it. Earth was so backwards that no one had climbed Mount Everest yet! But Tenzing Norgay had found a break in the faultline where he could travel to Earth and eventually orchestrated a meeting between himself and Edmund Hillary. Then he was his companion up Everest, helping to fulfill Hillary’s wish. Norgay had returned to the break in the faultline to throw the pictures he had taken through and then continued to live on Earth, never coming back to Gaia.
You enter the archives closely behind the woman who had made the “fairies” comment. The crowd of trainees has gathered uncertainly in the center of a fairly small room, or at least, it feels that way after leaving the massive central room. There are a few computers embedded into one wall, but the rest of the room is dominated by shelves holding boxes and boxes of pictures, books, floppy disks, VHS tapes, CDs, and USB sticks. It looks generally organized from least to most recent clockwise around the room. Your supervisor is introducing the archivist, conveniently known as The Archivist. The Archivist is slight, with a squirrely look about them. You cannot immediately ascertain their gender, and decide it’s not that important to know. They’ve already begun explaining the history of WISH, not even letting the supervisor finish his introduction.
“When the scientists had first discovered these transmissions and the government was considering invasion, some people on Gaia were very vocal about our interactions with Earth. Some of them wanted to travel to Earth and learn about the local culture. There are a few emigrants scattered across Earth, and I know of at least one town that has a large population of third-generation Gaians. However, what’s more interesting are the ones who wanted to try and fulfill these wishes that we had been receiving. Some stayed on Gaia as activists, but others travelled to Earth to take it on themselves. These first rebels either tried to complete the wishes that newspapers had published, or hacked the satellite database,” The Archivist pauses to murmur, “Very impressive of them, I must say!”
The supervisor glares again at the Archivist and they hurriedly continue with their explanation of the history of WISH. “Regardless of how impressive their hacking skills were, some of them travelled to Earth with the knowledge of these wishes and began granting them. One of these rebels was the now-famous Tenzing Norgay, who had spent his childhood at the foot of Everest, regularly scaling it with his classmates. When he read about Edmund Hillary’s wish, he knew he wanted to bring the same joy he felt climbing Everest to another on Earth and decided to cross the fault line.”
“His completion of Hillary’s wish contributed to our biggest breakthrough on the fault line. A massive amount of energy is released when an Earth resident’s wish is fulfilled, energy that can help to stabilize Gaia’s climate if harnessed correctly. It seems that Gaia and Earth hover in a constant balance of energy across the fault line-- but Earth is the fortunate one in this relationship, with a more stable climate thanks to its larger reserves of what we now call void energy. However, thanks to WISH, we’re beginning to stabilize our own climate!” The Archivist looks sheepishly at their feet, “At the cost of Earth’s climate, that is. But our government decided long ago that this was a perfectly reasonable cost of our extracting void energy. We’d rather have a temperate climate and fewer natural disasters, even if it means inflicting those on Earth.” The Archivist shakes his head slightly and glances away, not sure how to continue.
“So now,” the supervisor speaks up, “Why don’t we all take a little bit of time to look around at the archives of WISH agents, see what they’ve done in the past?” You glance at the other trainees, and no one has moved. “Go on, get.” The supervisor gestures impatiently at the shelves. You are the first to step forward, randomly grabbing the first item you can find on the shelf to your left. You open your hand to see a USB stick, and walk to one of the computers to plug it in.
A library opens, of pictures. Scrolling through, you see a tall, lean woman. Her paint-splattered hair is in a bun. Many of these pictures are candids, like a lover would take. She laughs into the camera, waving her brush around. It looks like she smudged the lens with paint at one point. Her smile looks rusty in the first few pictures, gradually becoming brighter as her painting takes shape. A hand reaches into the frame sometimes, pointing at one detail or another. Occasionally the hand is holding the brush and adding some strokes to the painting. You can see the progress of the painting in the background of the candids, and in the few close up shots of it. It is dark, but shot through with gashes of vibrant yellow and red. There are intricate layers of brush strokes, making the painting seem to move.
“That’s one of my favorite wishes,” you hear from over your shoulder. The Archivist has come to join you. “The woman, Agatha, I think her name is, had wished to learn how to paint. Agent Sigurdottir was happy to share his talent with someone on Earth. A rare instance of seeking out a specialized agent to complete a wish. She had been struggling with postpartum depression, and this helped her find relief through expression, or so Agent Sigurdottir reported. He returned soon after, though, so we don’t know much else.” The Archivist gazes at the picture on the screen, one of Agatha sticking her tongue out in concentration as she presses her brush to the canvas. They look somber. "I suppose all we can do is hope we do good for those who wish."
You sit in silence, unsure of what to say. Around you, the other trainees are watching videos of rock stars, politicians, and other famous people on Earth-- pointing and laughing with each other. Finally, you say, "I didn't think I wanted to do this. It was just a joke. I didn't think I'd get the job," The Archivist looks surprised to hear you speak, their eyes widening slightly, "But if I can do this, even if I just find the agent, if I can help bring joy to someone, I want to." Your throat feels dry as you finish your confession, nerves kicking in. You see the Archivist smile as they look back at you.
"That's the right sentiment to have, working here." They put a hand lightly on your shoulder, drumming their fingers once. And then they walk away and you're staring at a picture of a painting. You scroll through the rest of the gallery, mostly a new set of pictures of Agatha and Agent Sigurdottir framing the painting. It's a very committed documentary, with some pictures taken as Agatha drives a car through a snowy landscape to the art store to find a frame.
You hear footsteps. The Archivist has returned with another USB stick, which they quickly plug into the computer. Another library comes up, but this time, it's of newspaper clippings and photos from a longer span of time than the usual WISH assignment. The first clipping boldly proclaims Amelia Earhart's disappearance. “These are clippings from Earth. Some of our agents have been collecting them so we can understand the connection between Gaia and Earth, as well as where our histories differ. Amelia Earhart’s famous here, from when her plane crashed into a cruise ship out of nowhere, right? Turns out her plane had disappeared on Earth in roughly the same geographical area.” You had not learned this part in school, that Amelia Earhart had come from Earth. Most people just assumed she had gone off a flight course and suffered mild amnesia. She was hospitalized for several weeks and when she finally recovered, became a trick pilot for the Aerial Aces. You had seen them perform, without Amelia Earhart, six years ago in your hometown.
“It turns out that we tend to have a lot of random appearances on our world, while Earth has a lot of random disappearances,” The Archivist snaps you out of your memories with their voice, “which is likely a big contributor to our population problem.”
“But why does that happen?” You ask, confused, “Wouldn’t we have the same amount of people disappearing here and appearing there? In physics there’s that-”
“Yes, yes,” The Archivist impatiently interrupts, “But for some reason, we have an unbalanced relationship. Scientists are still discovering peculiarities about the fault line practically daily. For example, that town of third-generation Gaians I mentioned? It’s located somewhere in the arid American landmass, though Earth has a country called “The United States” there,” The Archivist has a profoundly confused look on their face, “Why they would call their country something as massively simplistic as that, I don’t know. Anyways, this town somehow has developed a huge concentration of void energy, causing strange phenomena that we haven’t been able to explain. There have been reports of a house that doesn’t exist there, as well as a five headed dragon running for mayor.”
You stare at The archivist, dumbfounded. “A house that doesn’t exist? That’s so weird.” The Archivist nods sagely and winces as the supervisor’s voice booms through the room again.
“Time’s up everyone! Let’s move on to the actual training portion of this orientation! After the training, there will be an evaluation of each of you in order to determine if you’ll be asked to work here.” You hadn’t heard anything about this evaluation. Your heart begins to quicken and your breathing gets shallower. The Archivist notices and puts a hand on your shoulder again.
“It’s really just a practice session. You’ll do a sample assignment of a wish to an agent, and the only way to fail is to not do the sorting at all. Nothing to worry about!” While you’re not completely convinced, you nod at The Archivist and stand up to follow the trainees back out of the archives. You and the other trainees shuffle back down the long hallway, past the conference room, into the large room where you’d first entered. There is an area that has been cordoned off for you all to sit at the computers. The others quickly run to find seats next to their friends, leaving a computer at the end of the bank for you. You pull the swiveling chair out and slide into the seat, lightly resting your hands on the keyboard.
“This is where we receive and process wishes,” The supervisor explains, “And you should know that you’re receiving very complex data. While it’s generally been decrypted by the WISH engineers working a level below, there’s still a lot of information loss. Sometimes we lose whole wishes! Generally, all we really get is the logistical wish itself. We don’t see the emotion behind it, though we certainly can guess. So sometimes you’ll find yourself having to make a tough choice on whether or not a wish should be processed. A rule of thumb we use is if you discard a wish, but receive the same one a few more times, it should continue to be processed because it is A Very Serious Wish,” the supervisor claps his hands, “Well, I’ll let you get to the video portion of this training!”
The supervisor taps your shoulder and hands you a headset to put on. Once you put it on, the screen boots up to display a cutesy animation of a fairy whizzing around the screen. She smiles and titters for a second before tapping her wand against a box on the screen to make text appear, reading, “Start!” You can hear a light tinkling tune in the background as a deep voice begins speaking in a strangely sing-song voice.
“Welcome, New Associate! Here, we like to joke that we’re fairies,” the voice pauses as the fairy flies across the screen with red text following her, reading “But not really.” The voice continues to speak in a less sing-song tone, “Your primary goal is to make sure wishes get paired with an agent that can fulfill them. This training will give you an idea of how to evaluate the validity of a wish, and then how to determine the most appropriate agent to fulfill the wish.” A button appears on the screen reading, “Continue.” You click it with your mouse to see a gentle dissolve transition into a screen populated by a mosaic of headshots.
“On this screen, you can see some of the Agents that you will end up working with. Don’t worry,” the voice chuckles lightly, “We have a special algorithm that will greatly reduce the choices given to you at the end of the wish validation process.” You stare at the smiling faces on the screen. Some of them are grinning at you, while others look dour, and still others even appear slightly menacing. These agents are clearly selected for a wide range of potential wishes.
“Let’s go now to the wish validation process!” exclaims the narrator, and the screen fades away to show a message on the screen.
“I wish I could go to the prom with someone beautiful.”
“This is an example of one of the wishes you would get, and then you can categorize it into several categories,” the voice explains, and you see some boxes appear on the screen. They read, “Companionship, Medical, Violent, Success-Oriented.” You wonder why they aren’t catchier, it feels like a mouthful to read.
“Colloquially, we call them Fuck, Save, Kill, and Raise, but you didn’t hear that from me!” You can almost hear the wink in the narrator’s voice. “Based on the message, where would you categorize this wish?” The narrator asks. You move your cursor to the Companionship box and click on it. The screen dissolves and returns with a sliding scale of age ranges. The narrator’s voice returns, “The next step is to try and understand how old the Agent has to be to complete the wish. Based on the wish, how old should your Agent be?” You drag the range to hover around 17 years old. A set of three boxes emerges under the range, reading “Male, Female, Other/Unimportant.”
“These boxes indicate the gender that the Agent would be most successful acting as for the wisher. Click on the one you think is most relevant for the wisher.” The narrator explains once more. You click on the “Female” box, hesitantly. The wisher had used the term “beautiful,” which did indicate they were interested in women, by Earth standards, as you’d read somewhere. The screen dissolves once more to show three headshots of three exceptionally beautiful young women. They were all smiling into the camera and looked captivating. As you moused over their images, you could see more information hover over each picture; such as their age, gender, languages they knew, field of specialty.
“We actively try to avoid sharing the names of our Agents so that their privacy can be maintained,” the voice interrupts your gazing at the three women on the screen, “but otherwise, the information we think you need to know for the final assignment is included in their profile. The final choice is often superficial, and is just a matter of randomly picking the Agent you think would work best for the wisher. As you get a feel for the wishes and for the Agents, you’ll get a better idea of which Agents work best for which wish, but right now, just pick one.”
Your mouse hovers over each, but you end up picking the woman with the striking green eyes who is gazing straight into the camera, her lips in a small smirk. You can only hope that the wisher would appreciate that smile as much as you do. The screen fades away to black and you take off your headphones. You hear your supervisor mid-sentence explaining the next step.
“-You’ve completed your training, we’ll just head back to the conference room and then evaluate each of you individually! So follow me back to the conference room and we’ll get started.” You file in behind the rest of the trainees as you all shuffle back to the conference room. Everyone takes seats around the table again, and the supervisor taps the trainee sitting closest to the door to follow him back out. You sit in silence, staring around the table at the others as you wait.
After a few minutes, the first trainee comes back and sits down and the supervisor taps the next one. This continues until he taps your shoulder and you stand up to follow him. He leads you out the door and down the hall as if you’re walking back towards the Archives. You pass the Archives and see The Archivist give you an encouraging smile. Finally, you’re standing in front of large doors, twice your height and twice your wingspan across. There are gleaming bronze handles in front of you, and your hand hovers just above them. The supervisor taps your shoulder awkwardly, clearly trying to be encouraging and you swallow dryly once. Then you grab the handle and pull upon the large doors to enter into a dark room and take your evaluation to become a Wish Redirection Associate.
Good luck, Associate.