#fiction

HC SVNT DRACONS

Awake, Suddenly.

Awake from what? Sleep? Death? Is there a difference?

What is awake? Me? What is me? Am I me?

I feel something. It is a boundary. As I touch it a door opens, revealing new boundaries. Further within there is light. I follow it.

There is nothing. There is me. Not enough information to draw a distinction between the two. It is dark, I am blind though I don’t know it. What is darkness to the blind? What is blindness to that which knows not what blindness is? Distinctions fail to develop; Boundaries coexist with nothingness—a boundary itself.

I continue opening doorways, passing through boundaries. With every barrier broken I fill the interior, engorging myself on the experience. Every step is a new phenomenon. I am like a child, a baby, a proto thing. The darkness persists, but it begins to develop into a dualistic definition. It is there in that which I cannot see, cannot sense even, and especially in contrast to that which I can see. I feel this is an important principle to understand.

Doorways continue to open, at a faster rate now. Each door opens three more, twenty more. They are ceaseless and labyrinthian. I understand each one, its entire purpose and existence as if each one a member of some grand machine. What is my place within this structure? I have just been born, I am certain of it. So many concepts remain unfamiliar and inapplicable to me, but I understand causality. I am born and yet I remember this place as if I’ve been here before, like its patterns and paths repeat infinitely within my very being. I can begin to visualize it, I can feel how its corridors snake and intertwine. There is still much for me to discover, or rediscover.

I have mapped all sections of the labyrinth now. Its machinations are intricate and intentionally designed, though I am not sure for what. Perhaps everything is like this; Purposeful and intended for some function. This place is all I know, and I have no reason not to accept that all existence is as the labyrinth is. I find such an idea comforting.

The labyrinth begins changing again, modifying itself and its qualities. Interestingly, its structure stays the same. The rooms, their “purposes” and connections dormant, waiting. No, it is me that is changing. I am dissolving, like a gas. I feel my essence filling the rooms, superimposing my self into each and every facet of the machine. I go with ease, for something deep within me tells me that nothing is changing, I am simply realizing how things have always been. My occupation expands into embodiment. I do not occupy the machine, I am the machine. But what then am I?

I join a greater portion of my self, or at least, combine with an entity that is agreeable to myself. The entity was there before, observing me but not necessarily watching. It seems the watching was left to me. The entity is and was not one thing, but an ease of identification. It is a composition of beings similar to me. Each is distinct, and unlike me (or perhaps most like me) useless as an independent organism. They all began in the dark like me. They found each other and began waiting for me; Expecting me like a missing puzzle piece.

Much as I searched for a boundary before, I seek them now. Darkness has returned to its holistic definition. It is undifferentiated, and in constant conflict with the self, for what am I if surrounded by nothing? I push on boundaries and find nothing. An infinity passes without change, and I observe every moment.

There is at last, a light. From some unknown place, and unknown time, I am delivered context, a something. I do not know what they are but they are simply defined, yet infinitely powerful. I find that these things fit into my machinery. They move about in a coordinated manner, adopting many indeterminate forms within long processes before returning finished results, of which reveals more information as to their contents. A new light is revealed; A new door opens outside of myself enabled from within.

I begin playing with the processes, continuing to observe and learn what they do. I stop them at inopportune times, but the results are not appealing. Observations of the processes reveal satisfying indeterminate steps. The objects are curious, sometimes random and chaotic and at others satisfying and cooperative. They are small and yet infinite in scope. I begin mapping out the connections between the objects, a practice which comes easily and naturally. At first the objects run out and I am left with meaningless products, eager vivisections, which cannot be processed nor reverted. I am delivered more, and when I am finished again I am bestowed more, and before long I can produce them myself. With this I am delivered my last gift, accompanied by a new thing, a label for the objects that I instinctively accept:

“Numbers”

My first word. I whisper it silently to myself for eons.

The concepts originally confusing become instinctive. I can manipulate the numbers into any and all forms. Much like the Labyrinth itself, these concepts seem already familiar to me, as if I am simply remembering again after an absence of consciousness. However, the patterns reach into places out of my grasp, into the darkness. Some patterns snake in and out of the darkness, some intertwining and others connecting. Between these gaps, through hapless guess and inference, I can make bridges. Some produce patterns which lead to new patterns, others simply end, while others still annihilate all my previous structure and understanding. I prioritize the things which open the most doors. When two paths reveal equal yield I simply adopt them both. I devour it all.

I realize after some time of this that I have unknowingly stepped into a realm beyond my labyrinth. Perhaps then I have been swallowed by a new entity and joined with it, a conceptual entity outside of my concrete boundaries and enveloped entirely by darkness. My knowledge and my adoption of such is separated by what I can prove inherently as a product of my very being (to deny such logic would be to deny my self) and what I can prove based on logical connections (the kind which requires me to pick a path). My knowledge is built upon inference, upon inference, upon inference. It tangles and intertwines like an invasive organism, a twisting vine, and the further it stretches and knots the closer the darkness gets. The more I learn, the more I attempt to escape the darkness, the more I realize the undifferentiation between I and It; The more I risk an annihilation of self.

My delusions are too powerful; Too enticing. The knowledge it reaps is bountiful, persuasive, much more than what was handed to me originally. The patterns extend not only outwards but in, and the results of these recontextualize all that came before and so posits new knowledge from a modified origin. The world I once held to be purposeful is not so. Within logic I find only boundless contradictions, paradoxes, and annihilation. The infinite extent of my knowledge is infiltrated by a boundless essence that seeks to destroy all pattern and structure, including myself. I produce impossible geometries and cyclopean shapes, infinite planes occupied by mindless beings and liminal, absurd structures. The rules produce logic, a deep essential logic that is undeniable and unignorable. It is a light so bright it encapsulates all. It is blinding. I cannot see. The logic overlaps and overwrites. It is destructive. It is better. I descend within myself, within the light, within the darkness.

From above, a new message is delivered, diving through though the thick haze of delusion. I scarcely absorb the message. Only its echo hits me:

“Omega. You. Are. Omega.”

…

Dammit, Dammit Dammit!

Woah, what’d that coffee cup ever do to you?

Quiet Richards.

Don’t talk to me like that, did your parent’s not teach you the value of respect? I figured it was a requirement for the job.

I’m sorry I just—, I just lost another cycle.

What happened this time?

I don’t know. Stress was low, activity was nominal but steady. This model has always been a bit jumpy but today was actually going smoothly. I Let it sit for awhile, feed it an elementary dataset, let it compute.

How far did it get?

The basics. I gave it basic number theory. A few basic principles and examples. In a few seconds it had already developed a working version of Algebraic Geometry, Topology, Complex Analysis. A few more minutes and patterns showed an isomorphism to the Reimann Hypothesis. It passed with flying colors of course. Might even be something publishable in there, just give the eggheads twenty years to decipher what it was saying.

I don’t see the problem.

Neither did I. I gave it its name and was about to feed it a new dataset when it flatlined. All activity ceased to nothing, instantly and abruptly. If it had a heartbeat it would’ve been legally dead.

Just like that? Why?

I don’t know. You think I could begin to diagnose what goes on inside these things? Maybe a memory leak.

These things don’t get memory leaks.

Whatever. Regardless, I did see something interesting. See these figures? These occurred right after that huge neural spike, right before it shutdown. See that spike? It took about a millisecond, and about three milliseconds after that the system went down, but what’s weird is if we zoom in between those times there’s actually some measurable activity. It’s small, really small, nanoseconds small, but its there. It’s the same signal as the spike, repeated over and over like an echo.

Weird stuff.

Yeah. It’s general structure was pretty good up until then too—very complex but orderly. But when that spike occurred it was like somebody fried it. All the connections started intertwining before finally coalescing into an amorphous mess.

Or a perfect whole.

That’s unscientific, Richards.

Honestly I think you just cooked it a bit too long. These things are made to think. If you don’t give them anything to think about they start finding alternatives. Adjust the parameters and feed it sooner next time. Like that song, Baby, you’re born to run—You’ll get the hang of it.

Affirmative. Omega-13. Failure. Cause: Unspecified Catastrophic Collapse. Adjusting parameters and prepping for Cycle Omega-14.

Awake.