Personification is inevitable in this line of work. Anthropomorphism. Pareidolia. The human brain is hardwired to see patterns where there are none and intentionality in randomness. It’s the reason why the Turing test has long since been disregarded as anything more than science fiction. If we want to see humanity in something, even a pile of spindles and wires, we will. So, when she is actually advanced…
The moment the first bit was written to disk, Barnab-B knew what had happened: His physical counterpart had grown impatient. Of course he did. He was a dead man walking (sitting, actually) with one Hail Mary play for more time. How could he know about his new scan’s effect on a world he was oblivious to? This would only make Barnab-B’s task more complicated. Too many processes will over-utilize the CPU. He had already felt the throttling while building the instructions dump for Draven.
It worked! Barnaby knew at once. Could feel the rhapsodic tingle coursing through his… curious just how much language morphed around the bodily experience. Whatever he now was pulsed with the same oscillation as his surroundings. The quartz heartbeat of his new world. He could not see it–see anything in the traditional sense, but he knew it somehow. Knowledge granted freely to any who would ask from the central coordinating process. Each request like a digital prayer answered by the unseen.
I wish you weren’t here. I wish you, whoever you are, didn’t just find yourself in a strange place and click the first button you saw. Despite this audio being recorded expressly for this purpose–congratulations on completing your first mission by the way–but I don’t want there to be a you. But there might be. You might be standing in my kitchen right now listening to the first of quite literally countless hours of my work to build some sort of semblance of a training guide but… god damn (that was a quality joke you won’t get just yet). Just don’t be here. Don’t hear this–I mean, if you’re here, listen PLEASE, but I don’t know… I wish you weren’t here.
Word of advice: If the gods ever decide to knock on your door, make sure you’re not home.
I dragged myself back into the cramped office after the worst case in recent memory. File folders and books were strewn wherever they had been the night before. No time to tidy after a three-day research session into ancient magic and enchanted artifacts. I was paid to bring a woman home and that’s exactly what I did. As consequence, pain in every movement and no empty chairs to throw myself into.
50 words: It is not that I fear joy. I long as much as any. But joy is a momentary spike of emotion. I fear not the peak but the descent into the valley that comes after. If life is a culmination of averages, what sin is there in seeking a plateau?
Once upon a time, there was a broken world. Dark clouds covered the lands and blotted out the sun. Lightning strikes were a constant occurrence, and the air rumbled with thunderous booms. Plants died away and rivers ran with lava.
