2254-12-10
Today is a long-awaited day in your technopath training--your first year final exam. After magnetically locking your uniform dress and its belt, you check its many pockets--everything right where you left it, your...
2254-12-10 09:50:25 Aydan > I have to focus on my exam. can you try and look into this more while I’m ætherside ?
2254-12-10 09:50:26 ÆON > Yes. Should I engage directly?
The elevator stops at the wall level and you exit.
2254-12-10 09:50:35 Aydan > I...
“Synthesis 05,” you say.
“Heh, pretty far off, zero five doesn’t really talk to people,” they say.
“Ahh, I’ll learn someday,” you say.
“It’s okay Aydan, not even Trish gets it right all the time.” They pat your head. “I’m zero three. But to the...
“Hello, Admin,” you say.
Vanitas takes the seat across from you. “Hello Aydan. There has been a change in schedule. Your exam is a new type of test scenario, so the Admins wish to oversee its first run personally. That of course is all I can tell...
You open your eyes. It’s bright. You hear an alarm going off and instinctively reach over to pick up your terminal. You silence the noise. There’s no way you’ll go back to sleep with the bright sunlight shining through your window. You check the...
You open the heavy front doors and hurry inside. Down the hallway and up the stairs, you find your homeroom. Without hesitation you walk in like nothing is wrong.
“Aydan! Late again?” Mx. Haze stares you down. Their gaze always feels like they can...
[CW: descriptions of Earth food]
“Maybe thought experiments like this can teach us something about the ethics of things like simulated worlds and artificial consciousness, which we might someday have the technology to create,” you say.
“Well said,...
“I guess somehow I feel safe around them,” you say.
“I think they’re a little scary,” Zeta says. “But I get it though, I’ve heard they had a hard childhood.”
“I heard they grew up in a cult,” says the voice of your classmate Ida, poking her head in...
“Have you ever thought about if the universe could be a simulation?” you sign.
She considers the question a moment and slides down your arm to sign back, “For me it’s like, what I can touch is real.” She reaches up to caress the side of your face....
“Want to explore more?” you sign.
“Yes,” she says with four rapid taps on your arm, then turns her hand over to hold yours again.
Looking around, you mostly see dust, floating in the sunbeams shining through the broken windows and settling on every...
“Curiosity never hurt anyone.” With your main signing hand, you grasp the handle of the switch. Akiko’s fingers close around yours. Together you pull it up, locking it into place with a metallic thud that echoes through this huge room of hardware...
username > _
What could a viable login even be on this machine? Maybe you can just bypass it. You try entering nothing.
username >
username > _
Nothing happens.
Maybe the model number of this machine.
username > 4304_
You enter it.
username > 4304
“Let’s look around some more,” you sign. “There’s a lot of papers and folders scattered around here.”
“Okay, you do that. I’ll see if I can find anything else on the machine,” Akiko signs.
You start picking up the dusty papers, yellow with age and...
2024-12-16 18:45:24 Aydan > I’m having dinner with Akiko tonight!
2024-12-16 18:45:39 Аэлита > I wish you’d tell us these things in advance, now I’ve made too much food...
2024-12-16 18:45:44 Аэлита > please be home by nightfall.
“That’ll buy me some...