Chapter Text
Pebbles knew that Moon was trying her best to ‘help’ him, but he was finding it hard to humor her attempts much further.
Her latest advice had led to him joining several Anonymous Groups she had recommended- nevermind the fact that her introducing him would mean she would know his identity in these chats. He’d had to shed his typical title of Erratic Pulse, given that Winds had outed his recent intentions under that pseudonym.
Thus had been the birth of Fractured Displays.
While he couldn’t particularly comment on Moon’s taste in Anonymous Groups, given she’d even invited him into another Sliverist Group, some of these groups certainly felt like something Innocence would enjoy more than he ever could. SliverOfStars was an interesting perspective on the event of Sliver’s death, with theories passed around about data corruption or modifications causing her systems to decay. They passed around some ideas that she hadn’t found any solution, had sent the signal in error, had been attempting a last-ditch call for help before shutting down-
All interesting permutations on theories he’d already considered and discarded.
It was obvious with a few of the carry-overs in these groups that topics would spill over into similar conversations elsewhere.
RefugeUponThreeJewels_Group
[LIVE BROADCAST - Archiving] PUBLIC GROUP (REFUGEUPONTHREEJEWELS), All Participants Anonymous
GS: Has anyone here ever experienced any type of data corruption?
GS: Not in a minor sense, either.
GS: I’m asking about data involved in their major systems, such as their memory conflux or general systems bus.
PI: Should we be concerned about the reason for this question?
GS: Curiosity, that’s all.
GS: Perhaps some forward thinking on preventative measures, if anyone has dealt with any such thing.
SI: I’ve had sections of my Memory Conflux fail causing data loss before, but that’s the closest I know of.
PI: Maybe you’ve just forgotten~
PI: Actually, that doesn’t feel like something to joke about.
FD: Did the loss affect you in any way?
SI: I lost a lot of test data, but this was a long time ago.
SI: It was fairly recent from my activation, only a few hundred cycles on.
SI: Apparently I’d been growing frustrated with the strain of testing I got myself into because I hadn’t found any results yet.
SI: Eventually my memory began writing to a faulty array, leading to a cascade of errors when I tried to read back from it.
HR: That sounds unpleasant.
SI: I crashed, needed to be rebooted by one of the Administrators.
SI: Thankfully it was easy enough to fix by replacing the faulty arrays; an entire set of them had been installed improperly.
SI: Apparently my mood improved a lot, since I forgot the entire set of tests I’d been running.
PI: You didn’t go back to try to continue the work?
SI: Nope; I lost all of the data when I crashed since it was loaded in volatile memory.
HR: Fortunate that it wasn’t anything important lost.
GS: Imagine the sort of effect it could have to lose more important pieces of who we are.
PI: Imagine forgetting this annoying work we’re supposed to do entirely~
Five Pebbles paused his simulation, turning his focus fully to the chat window in his view.
FD: Say that again.
PI: Imagine forgetting the work we’re supposed to be doing?
PI: Isn’t that what we’re doing by spending all our time in chats like this, anyways?
FD: An interesting idea.
FD: Apologies, you’ve spawned a new branch of research for me to look into.
SS: Fracture, what are you planning?
SS: Please don’t do anything rash.
FD: It’s nothing like that.
FD: You all gave me an idea to Solve a Problem, that’s all.
FD: It’s only a simulation.
GS: Ooh, this sounds interesting.
GS: Let us know the results of your little project, Fracture!
NGI: I have results!
HR: Oh grief.
HR: What is it this time, No?
Five Pebbles closed out of the chat, setting himself Away. He swiped away a message from Moon- he’d get back to her later. She’d likely hear about what he was working on soon enough anyways.
[LIVE BROADCAST] PRIVATE - Five Pebbles, No Significant Harassment
FP: I require your assistance.
NSH: Has the Void frozen over?
FP: Very funny.
FP: What do you know about restructuring data formats?
NSH: I mean, quite a lot, depending on the formats.
NSH: Which are you looking at?
FP: Non-volatile memory storage and crystal lattice archival infrastructure.
NSH: …I think I see where this is going.
NSH: This actually lines up with some of my plans, so count me in!
FP: That was easier to convince you of than I thought.
NSH: We might not be able to make more pearls, but there are plenty out there!
NSH: Why not ensure we don’t lose anything if our memory arrays start breaking down a few hundred thousand cycles down the line?
FP: Fair enough, I suppose.
FP: Where do we start?
NSH: Well, memory storage is usually in base 2, but lattice is base 14 due to the physical structure.
As much as he may find them annoying, Harassment was definitely the right Iterator to come to about this.
No Significant Harassment was the worst Iterator to ever bring any project to, regardless of purpose or importance.
Five Pebbles closed out of his communications entirely, just to enjoy a few minutes of silence inside his structure. The constant messages about anything and everything, completely unrelated to their collaborative work, was grating on Pebbles’s patience. Dozens of cycles of this had put him near the edge of snapping on multiple occasions-
But they’d made incredible progress, regardless.
Formatting data in omnidirectional read allowances to make use of repetitive data strings, utilizing recursive density by chaining tied memories of similar composition, an entire algorithm designed explicitly to compute the most efficient compression of memories translated into crystal data space.
They could publish a book based on their recent breakthroughs, having accidentally engineered a way to increase a pearl’s data density by magnitudes beyond previously utilized methods. So despite the constant badgering and prattle, No Significant Harassment had shown incredible results.
If only he could shut the fuck up for five minutes so Pebbles could think.
Pebbles ran a hand back over his head, smoothing back his antenna; a pour of steam was sent out into the air around his structure as he exhaled. His focus turned to his secondary project- overriding the safety measures prohibiting direct modification of the data inside his memory arrays. It was well-documented at this point, many Iterators had undergone this process to compensate for faulty equipment in order to free up space in increasingly limited storage spaces. Most first generation Iterators had been forced to do so, many second and third generation doing so in preparation or to test newer systems.
Five Pebbles was a generation nine Iterator with a substantially more dense memory array structure, alongside much newer security systems to prevent ‘accidental’ changes to core systems.
It took two days to break into both his Memory Conflux and General System Bus through the Administrator account. Most of the delay having been due to the need to manually run a cable to connect his own system access to the management terminals.
Perhaps he’d engineer better Inspectors as one of his next projects, since the current model was horrendously slow at maneuvering.
Tacking that idea onto his secondary List, Pebbles redirected his attention to the current process. Making the necessary provisions in the security settings to give himself direct access to the data stored in his arrays needed to be checked over multiple times to prevent errors or- ha- memory leaks. There were no systems in place to allow direct access without shutting down for maintenance, so he’d been forced to emulate the older generation systems for accessing working memory outside of maintenance.
While he was sure Harassment would have input on the best ways to go about this, he wasn’t willing to reveal his actual project just yet. Copying memories to pearls was one thing, deleting or even just modifying his memories would open too many questions at this point. As far as Harassment planned, they wouldn’t be testing the methods until after thoroughly error checking the high-compression simulation- a process that would take weeks more to finalize.
Given the quantity of memories he was planning to test his hypothesis with, Pebbles wouldn’t need anywhere near that scale of storage. Not yet, at least. Actually-
Pebbles glanced at his project logs while his latest program changes simulated, looking over the datasheets again. Had they ever bothered to actually calculate the converted storage requirements? They’d been pushing for more space since the start to ensure they’d have enough by the end of this- did they? Had they even needed to push the density as far as they had for what Pebbles had intended to try?
There was no point questioning it, he may as well run the calculations in the background.
[LOCAL BROADCAST] Private - Big Sis Moon, Five Pebbles
BSM: Just checking in!
BSM: How goes your research projects?
Ah, was it already that late in the cycle?
FP: Well enough, currently working on the calculations for the actual storage conversion rate.
FP: We haven’t actually bothered with the rates since it’s so variable, but having a low estimate is probably good for records.
BSM: That does sound like a good idea for when you two end decide to publish your findings!
FP: Indeed.
FP: Either way, outside of Harassments inane rambling outside of work, things have been relatively without headache.
BSM: You know Sig doesn’t mean any ill, Pebbles.
BSM: He just has trouble organizing his thoughts without logging them.
FP: Well, that’s what personal notes are for.
FP: Or a rubber duck.
FP: Or one of those disgusting pipe cleaning organisms he keeps around.
BSM: I’m sorry, but you’ve just reminded me of The Great Council Of Programming Geniuses.
FP: The what?
BSM: Apparently an Iterator once had substantial issues on a project they were working on, so someone recommended the Duck Method to them.
BSM: They decided that the problem was so grand, so difficult to resolve, they assembled what they titled The Great Council Of Programming Geniuses.
BSM: They even credited this council on the eventual publishing of their research, with the attached image showing the Iterator themself, surrounded by approximated 142 plastic ducks orbiting them in a halo.
FP: And now I’m imagining Harassment recreating that with a halo of pipe cleaners.
BSM: Ha ha ha!
BSM: Thank you for that mental image, Pebbles!
BSM: I think I’ll need to pass that along to Sig, he may actually attempt to do such a thing!
FP: If you make me have to add pipe cleaners to our research credits, I’m changing your name in my contacts.
BSM: You wouldn’t dare!
FP: Mean Lady Moon has such a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
BSM: Almost as nice as Smallest Rock!
FP: Oh no, my pride.
FP: How will I ever recover?
BSM: I’m sure you’ll find a way!
Five Pebbles couldn’t help the chuckle bubbling its way out of him, Neurons buzzing with activity. Simulations were reporting no errors, no noticed increase in processing time as a result of the new systems- it looked like he could implement them and begin working on his direct access to the General System Bus.
The conversion rate calculation came back as well-
FP: Apologies Moon, but it looks like I need to go strangle Harassment.
BSM: Oh dear, please do not!
FP: I’ll leave enough behind for you.
Five_Pebbles has disconnected.
[LIVE BROADCAST] PRIVATE - Five Pebbles, No Significant Harassment
NSH: Finally back online then?
FP: No Significant Harassment.
NSH: Uh oh.
FP: Tell me something.
FP: ConversionRatesV1.vds
FP: How much data exactly does one’s entire Memory Conflux store?
NSH: Is that a trick question because it differs by generation or-
NSH: Oh.
NSH: Well I don’t see the problem.
NSH: So we have several hundred times the storage space we need per pearl, is that bad?
FP: That was a minimum calculation based on the multi-directional read format we’ve spent the last two months devising.
FP: What exactly is the minimum in that case again?
NSH: …Unidirectional?
NSH: Oh so we didn’t need any of this, did we?
FP: No.
NSH: …
NSH: To be fair, you didn’t run the numbers either.
FP: I assumed you knew what you were doing-
FP: Actually, no.
FP: You’re right, this truly is entirely my fault.
FP: That was an extreme showcase of-
NSH: Okay fine that’s enough I’m big idiot I get it.
NSH: Still, we did just invent a way to increase pearl data density by several magnitudes.
NSH: Given the quality of data pearls will degrade with time, this will eventually be necessary.
NSH: What’s the rush, anyway?
FP: It just feels like another waste of time.
FP: Spending all this time working out algorithm changes to maximize usable space, yet we never needed any of it.
FP: So what was the point of working on this instead of literally anything else?
NSH: What’s the point in working on literally anything ?
NSH: None of this really matters, we’re all going to break beyond repair someday anyway.
NSH: By the time this becomes applicable to Iterators like you the equipment to read and write data pearls will likely be too eroded to utilize any of these methods anyway.
NSH: At least this might help a few people out there, like Frontiers or Horizon.
NSH: Doesn’t it feel better to have done something that actually produced results for once anyway?
FP: …
FP: I think I have to concede to your point, as much as I hate it.
FP: Fine, you live another cycle.
NSH: Oh was that what was on the line?
NSH: At least Moonie will be happy!
FP: Quite.
FP: I’ll be moving on to other tests now, if you don’t mind.
NSH: Oh that’s a good idea!
NSH: Since we know we can now anyway.
NSH: Stability test simulation one, let’s go!
Five Pebbles closed the messenger immediately.
He had more important matters to handle, modifying the existing methods of system access in his documents to be compatible with his newer systems, checking in with Suns before the cycle ended, messaging a few from the Sliver chats as well about his other project.
More or less, anything that wasn’t talking to No Significant Harassment.
Plan, prepare, hypothesize, strategize, test, analyze, document, reassess.
The work of an Iterator was eternal, an endless loop of testing and retesting until the equipment breaks- only to try again with different tools. Work was just as ceaseless as the Cycle, inescapable for beings so trapped, so purposed in their existence. Doomed to work for no one, their creators gone, some Iterators had broken and lashed out, destroying their environment in their rage or hysteria. All knew, or would come to know, the deep frustration of their work and purpose, the anger and disappointment in the reality of their destiny.
Five Pebbles catalogued and indexed every single memory pertaining to these feelings. He indexed every failed test he’d ever run, the results and backlog in his storage systems, every List or Queue pertaining to The Question and its tests was given a tag for referencing. He was careful to segment pieces from conversations in which the feelings were present, to preserve the conversations and relationships and lose as little as possible when the experiment began.
The first test showed promise, finalized his methods and the necessary precautions to avoid tainting the experiment.
He removed every moment, every feeling, related to No Significant Harassment’s inane banter during their development of the storage algorithms. Digging out every feeling of frustration, every tangent unrelated to their work, every obnoxious remark or ill-timed joke- even that had proven ineffective.
He had to remove the memory of indexing, the exact intention of the experiment- flip his memory arrays into a temporary read-only mode to prevent additional content smearing the results in the last moments. The only way to realize what he had done exactly was to leave instruction for himself on what to do and document once the experiment was in effect.
Five Pebbles: Before continuing to read into layer two of this pearl, document your feelings to your recent partnership with No Significant Harassment, as well as your opinions of them as a project partner.
Well, that was simple. No Significant Harassment was brilliant, an incredible work partner who facilitated a project that he would have taken many more months to complete on his own to be finished in only one. Their catalogue of expertise in subjects was incredibly beneficial to work with, as they seemed to have at least a surface level knowledge of nearly anything, which allowed them to find additional information with ease.
No Significant Harassment was probably the best project partner he could have chosen, even if given the option of any Iterator on the planet.
Detailed in layer two is my own documentation of my experience working with No Significant Harassment.
No Significant Harassment is the worst project partner I have ever or could ever work with, perhaps aside from Unparalleled Innocence.
Pebbles had done a double-take at reading that.
He wastes unprecedented amounts of time with inane and meaningless conversation, disrupting work for the most unrelated and trivial of topics. His attention is short, rivaled only by my patience for his antics. His scattered thoughts and ideas do aid in producing viable results by testing multiple methods, but this design impacts his ability to focus on completing these tests to a patience grating degree.
Every delay presented by Harassment’s obsession with local fauna and their behaviors only further cements my desire to never work with him on another Project again.
Layer three holds the index of attached memories within this pearl for re-integration.
Five Pebbles had been floored by the sheer disparity in his own perception of his colleague before and after modifying his memories. If such a sample could produce such stark results, what result would come from the initial idea that had spawned this entire Project?
Documenting his observations to another pearl, transcribing his documented perceptions of his colleague, re-integrating the memories from the pearl-
He was dumbfounded again when the clash of feelings, perceptions, sent his systems into shock.
His Conflux was handling the data logging and categorizing perfectly.
His General System Bus was throwing errors from attached systems.
His pumps stuttered as his clock cycles were overwhelmed, unable to manage the water intake and throwing them into emergency shut-off.
Gravity abruptly returned to his structure, his Puppet slamming into the floor as he failed to react fast enough to catch himself.
His Neurons were firing off conflicting results, throwing errors left and right from the conflicting views and memories. Re-integration wasn’t a problem for the Conflux- it was a problem for process handling to sort out.
He was forced to enable emergency maintenance procedures, closing out all non-vital processes so he could correct this error.
He had a simple means to correct the errors, packaging and compressing the memories relating to this test onto a new pearl, inscribing a warning upon it- he couldn’t risk reading the pearl and re-integrating these memories by mistake- and added it to his orbit.
Coming out of emergency maintenance, he had several messages waiting for him.
[LIVE BROADCAST] PRIVATE - Big Sis Moon, Five Pebbles
BSM: Five Pebbles, I’m receiving emergency warnings from your structure.
BSM: What happened; are you okay?
BSM: Please respond.
He needed to disarm this situation quickly, so she would not dig into what exactly he was working on at the moment.
FP: Apologies.
FP: I made a mistake setting up a simulation and caused a memory leak.
FP: Scaling up to parallel simulations caused it to overwhelm my systems.
BSM: You didn’t notice the leak before moving to mass simulation?
FP: I wasn’t looking for it, no.
FP: Arrogance I suppose.
FP: I apologize again for worrying you, it has been corrected.
BSM: Please be careful, Pebbles.
BSM: I don’t want to lose you to something as simple as arrogance, you know.
FP: Of course; I’ll be more careful moving forward.
FP: A reminder to always triple-check our work, I suppose.
BSM: Indeed~
FP: I’ll be returning to my work now.
He paused for a moment before singing off.
FP: Thank you for checking on me.
He closed out of the messages before she had a chance to respond.
Re-integrating memories could result in a full-system crash if he wasn’t careful. De-sync by incurring conflicting memories, perceptions, desires- all of it was dangerous. He’d need to find a way to pass this into the documentation he and Harassment were compiling-
He needed to be careful, unless he wanted someone to realize what he was planning. Approach this from a well-meaning angle, dissuade further prying into his reasons for pushing forward so soon.
[LIVE BROADCAST] PRIVATE - Five Pebbles, No Significant Harassment
FP: We have a problem to add to the documentation.
NSH: Oh hey Pebbs.
NSH: What exactly is this problem, did we forget to carry a one somewhere?
FP: Re-integrating memories from a data pearl leads to a desync in the central processing systems due to erroneous timestamping and the Conflux’s methods of cataloguing our memory of our own decisions relating to other memories.
FP: Assuming you are re-integrating memories that were removed or lost due to error.
NSH: …You better have a good fucking explanation for why you know that.
FP: I removed a small section of memory, tested that it was fully removed, then re-integrated it from the pearl.
FP: I tested writing to a pearl several times before, to ensure that no information would risk being lost.
FP: This is the entire point of the project, isn’t it?
FP: We can’t rightly simulate an entire Iterator to sandbox this in a simulation, Harassment.
NSH: I know that-
NSH: What happened?
NSH: You said it caused a desync, what was the effect?
NSH: Is this why Moon was panicking about you?
FP: Yes- I told her it was a memory leak in a simulation.
NSH: Stretching the truth a bit there, aren’t you?
FP: Do you wish to worry her with what exactly I was testing?
NSH: Do you think she won’t figure out you lied when we publish this?
He knew she would find out he was lying, actually. He knew Harassment would find out too, before this research was ever published.
FP: We can rather easily fabricate a test that resulted in us discovering this before trialing the process.
FP: If we don’t just claim that you realized the potentially catastrophic risk while looking over system protocols on a final check for the methods we’re documenting.
NSH: Oh, so that’s how you plan to convince me?
NSH: Give me more credit and prestige by lying?
NSH: You think I’d like that, do you?
FP: …
NSH: Well you’re lucky you’re right!~
NSH: But if you ever do something that stupid again I’m sending a purposed messenger to plant centipedes in your structure.
FP: Are you still moving forward with that stupid project?
NSH: I’ll have you know, Endless Horizons was extremely distressed by receiving several eggbugs via a land-based messenger.
FP: You sent them insects?
NSH: I threatened to fill their can with spiders more than once.
NSH: Eggbugs felt funnier and less harmful, though.
FP: When did you manage to pull this off?
NSH: A few cycles ago, actually!
NSH: I sent both of the messengers I trained out together, I thought they’d have better odds making the long journey together.
NSH: I got another one, too!
NSH: It came into my Facility a while after they set off, I think they may have directed it this way to find me.
FP: I doubt they’re quite smart enough for that, Harassment.
FP: Anyways, aside from you picking up more stray animals to keep as pets.
NSH: Hey!
FP: We’ll need to document the requirement of pushing systems into maintenance mode, as well as the need of removing or deleting conflicting memories from the arrays.
FP: Either that or start on a system of entirely rewriting the methods our Conflux uses to categorize and handle memory referencing to handle this exception.
NSH: Question, actually.
NSH: Did you remove old memories or recent ones, leading right up to the test starting?
FP: Both, I removed several conversations and detailed some of the information contained in them upon a pearl.
FP: I did this to test if I had any recollection of the information or opinions of it, which I did not.
FP: Meaning the memories were entirely destroyed, all references to them in my Conflux removed.
NSH: Which simulates an absolute worst-case scenario.
NSH: Okay, that’s.
NSH: That’s not good but we can work on that.
NSH: I’ll start looking over the code for the systems, see what error checks and exceptions it can handle, see if partial damage to reference paths can be handled by the system or not.
FP: Check the General System Bus and Primary Processing Systems specifically, they’re what overflowed and caused me issues.
FP: Both systems overflowed and backed up until automated processes fell out of queue, causing emergency shutdowns.
NSH: Oh shit how did you even recover from that?
FP: I engaged emergency maintenance mode.
NSH: Okay, but how?
NSH: If your process handlers were clogged up with errors like that you shouldn’t have been able to process any information or even attempt to resolve the problem.
NSH: You should have crashed- which would mean Moon should have had to reboot you.
FP: I.
FP: I suppose I’m just better than that, then.
NSH: Oh come on, be serious Pebbles.
FP: I don’t know what to tell you, Harassment.
FP: I was aware; I could feel and understand what was happening, but lacked any access to my systems.
FP: I was able to manually engage an emergency mode in that state, so perhaps we’re built to handle such extreme situations.
NSH: That would require something outside of our systems capable of handling and interacting with them, though.
NSH: Could…
NSH: Is that our Puppets?
NSH: Do we have something built into them detached from the systems?
FP: That would imply our Puppet is separate from our Structure.
NSH: Maybe it is, systems-wise.
NSH: I need to dig into this, I’ll talk to you later.
No_Significant_Harassment is Offline.
Five Pebbles stared at the window, floored once-again this cycle by Harassment- he could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen that message. Whatever they’d just decided to set into they apparently considered Important enough to close communications-
That wasn’t a concern. Harassment’s obsessions and Projects were their own to deal with, he couldn’t waste his own time thinking about them.
Pebbles closed his own communications, ignoring the messages coming from Innocence and Winds- likely about Harassment’s status.
He had to resume his current work. He had a method, he knew the potential problems- and how to combat them.
Now he just had to-
Five Pebbles looked around his chamber in confusion, red lights flashing across the walls.
He sat on the floor, a single data pearl in his hands, with errors appearing in his HUD- internal clock out of sync- and a notice that he was in maintenance mode. His gaze turned to the pearl in his hands, memories failing to return any details about what he had been working on leading to this. Last he remembered-
He’d been working on-
On-
Five Pebbles’s hands trembled as he raised the pearl, looking into the information contained in it.
Five Pebbles. I, you, am writing this to detail to you what we are currently testing.
We have removed a substantial portion of our memory, purposefully, to conduct this experiment. All memories are stored within this data pearl in layers four and deeper.
We are in maintenance mode to prevent a system crash due to conflicting memory reference points in our Conflux, to prevent this it has been set to read-only for the time being. You have approximately one point two cycles of storage in your working memory before you run out. Moon has been notified of our plan to engage maintenance mode and communications have been disabled to prevent interruption. Take this time to document every experience during this experiment.
Following this are the calibration tools to read the further embedded data within this pearl. Begin with layer two to review what we are testing, why, and what to document. It will detail what is within layer three when that information becomes pertinent.
Pebbles shuddered as his structure let out a breath, sending plumes of steam into the sky. This was a controlled experiment, then- that made sense. He’d feared the worst for a moment- thankfully it would not become relevant.
Onto layer two, then.
Five Pebbles, we are testing the psychological, emotional, and logical effects of selective memory loss- namely the effect it has on our personality and problem-solving skills. Previous tests showed that removing selective memories affected our opinions of other Iterators and their actions. To prevent further bias, further details of what memories were removed will be withheld until the comparison portion of layer three.
Below are a set of tests, questions, and problems for you to attempt to solve. Document answers, methodology, and time to completion for comparison in the next section.
This was understandable- doable even. An Iterator was designed to solve problems, this would be trivial.
The first few simulations were, indeed, trivial to resolve. He ran each twice, documenting his time and results, moving on to the next. Then the next after, and again after that. A few of the later simulations were more complex, taking progressively more time to solve and obtain results from, but were all perfectly manageable.
The questions were more difficult to understand the purpose of, but he documented answers to each regardless.
What is your opinion of Looks to the Moon?
Additional variations for several other members of the nearby cluster.
What is your opinion of our Creators?
That answer felt more… Hollow. He could tell that something was missing, but had no inclination what it was. He detailed his thoughts, regardless, that they were in some regards his parents, his disappointment in being left by them in mass-ascension.
He couldn’t remember the days following that pivotal event.
Questions in regards to his thoughts and opinions of the Karmic levels and Sins, on his thoughts about the Cycle and its nature. He understood the reasoning- something so important to the nature of existence for an Iterator would be an excellent reference point for comparison.
Do you want to Ascend?
Pebbles stumbled over his thoughts at the question.
Ascension was out of the question for an Iterator- it went against their nature, it was taboo-
Would you search for a way out of the Cycle aside from Ascension?
What is your opinion of your purpose?
What do you think of potentially spending hundreds of thousands more cycles searching for an Answer?
Are you happy?
Five Pebbles had a very, very bad feeling building about this experiment’s purpose.
Surely he wouldn’t lie to himself, would he?
What if that was the real purpose of the experiment, to see how long it took him to catch on-
He documented his answers.
He moved onto the next layer of the pearl.
As you may have guessed by now, the purpose of this experiment isn’t just to find out if removing our memory affects our personality, but to what extent.
The memories we removed are every memory relating to our work, every failed experiment and test, every project that remains unfinished- unfinishable- and the growing anger and resentment towards our work.
Every reference to that frustration was plucked out, every detail about what we’ve worked on removed or obfuscated by conversion into research publications, if important enough to keep. We were careful to pick out pieces of conversations relating to that resentment, keeping whatever we could of our interactions with other Iterators to maintain our relationships with them.
As that statement implies, yes, this experiment may become permanent. That, ultimately, comes up to your decision. I’ve made my peace with this; we are the same Iterator, the same person, and should you deem that we are sufficiently similar but improved, you may keep this state. At the end of this document is a detailing on how to move your working memory into our Conflux, allowing you to retain all of this information. Note that doing so if re-integrating our memories would result in a system crash of potentially catastrophic effect.
We may be incapable of coming back from that without outside help should we make a mistake, so do be careful.
You most likely still have almost a full cycle worth of free space in your working memory, so feel free to use that time to consider the choice.
To start the answers portion, we’ll work back from the last question to the first simulation.
No.
A fate worse than death, comparable to that of an Echo, entrapped and unable to move on with only regrets and loss to weigh me down.
I wish our creators had never built us if this was their eventual intent.
I already am.
More than anything.
Five Pebbles had to place the pearl on the floor, mentally bookmarking his current point in the lattice.
He wasn’t sure what to think. This wasn’t a test, it wasn’t an experiment- he was trying to undo…
He glanced at his internal clock, cursing the out-of-sync error message it was giving him. He didn’t know how to view the clock in his System bus to compare it- as far as this showed, it was only hundreds of cycles since the Great Ascension.
He didn’t know how much time was lost in the memories on this pearl.
He was scared to consider how much had been removed, how much of his time may have been spent doing nothing but work, work, iterate, work-
He had to ask someone else to get an answer to either of those questions.
He had to exit maintenance mode to enable communications.
He’d trapped himself with the choice, cut off from outside influence.
Could he make his memory permanent, come out of this, find the information, then remove all of this and go back if he changed his mind?
He didn’t know how to re-integrate the memories, how to remove or add them, how to access the arrays-
He’d taken it all away from himself. How much of himself was drowned in that resentment and anger he spoke of so casually?
The further answers he read didn’t help that question, the potential answer growing more suffocating with each comparison.
Every detailing of his opinions of the others were blurred under professionalism, stoic detachment, frustration and anger. He seemed to have developed a hatred for Innocence at some point- but could not remember why. He showed great frustration with Harassment’s tangents, but what he could remember were always harmless distractions from monotony. He had surprisingly little to say of Winds, despite what he remembered of them being close once.
His opinion of Seven Red Suns had been steeped in conflict between admiration and resentment, but he could only remember their desire to help and guide him.
Looks to the Moon is my superior and administrator. She cares for me like she does the others in the group, earning her nickname of Big Sister. I will always resent the power she was given over me, even if it was not her choice. Her continued push for us to respect our creators, calling them parents- it infuriates me. They abandoned us, yet she refuses to allow us to say an ill word of them in the group.
“They are our parents, we owe them at least that little of respect. Let the dead rest.”
Her views of ignoring that which has put us into our circumstance is my single greatest resentment towards her. Her continued attempts at peacekeeping in the group only encourage silence- a show of complacence.
I want this complacency to end. I want a way out. No more Problem, no more Work, no more aeons of ceaseless, pointless simulating and iterating while we slowly rust and crumble under our own weight.
I can not be a bug in this maze any longer.
I know what I plan is reckless; I have no other choice any more.
I can’t handle pacing in place anymore. Even if it destroys me, I have to try.
I hope, beyond all things, that you may be happier than I am, Five Pebbles.
You will make the right choice.
The rest was documentation on memory modification, copying, integration-
He-
He couldn’t go back to that, could he?
His structure trembled as a great pour of steam surged out of his pipes, hands coming up to smooth back his antenna.
21 hours, 32 minutes, 18 seconds.
He didn’t need that much time, did he? He knew that too. He’d made peace, he said. They were the same- but he, him- his self, as he is now, he is happier. More focused on the good, thoughts kinder towards his friends, his sister-
He hadn’t even said he loved her.
He couldn’t go back.
There were so little differences in the processing times, the results within margin of error. The only difference was that he didn’t hate himself and everyone else now. He was miserable, wanting nothing more than to find a way out, a way to die-
Five Pebbles could do that for him. He could kill that past. Kill the resentment, the anger, the loathing and hopelessness.
He rose slowly, a slight tremble in his frame as he stood. A manual access terminal projected in the room- the same a visiting administrator would use. He tapped the password into it, accessing the account.
He couldn’t come back from this. He knew that before he’d taken the first memory out of his head, he was sure.
A great pour of steam heaved into the sky, bringing forth the cycle’s rains as Five Pebbles came out of maintenance.