🌑

Another strange shell command flashes in your mind’s eye. But weird ideas worked last time things got this weird. You enter it.

In front of you, just above the top of the stairs, a sphere of translucent pink fluid condenses from the air. It grows, stretching and collapsing into a flat circle. Ripples flow across the liquid surface from the glowing edge to the transparent center.

“Okay, maybe something weird is going on,” Zeta says.

“Do you trust me?” you say.

“Always.”

You take its hand and jump from the top of the stairs into the portal you opened. The water flows over your skin as you pass through, with no texture or temperature. For a moment, the world around you dissolves, and you see only a glimpse of a place where space glows. You’re falling, but there is no down. Linear rivers of light trace the shapes of unnatural constellations all around you. As fast as it appears, it vanishes. You crash through onto the concrete floor of the abandoned factory, and Zeta hits the floor next to you.

“...Æther?” The word came to your mind as you floated in the liminal non-space between the ends of your portal. Looking back, not a trace of it remains in the air.

“Ow...” Zeta says. “Whoa, where are we?”

“Right where I intended us to be.” You stand up and brush the dust off of your hair and your uniform. “It’s that old factory behind the Academy. Maybe they won’t look for us here.”

“Wow, I’ve never been here,” it says.

“I was meaning to take you here anyway.”

“Well that was quite a way to get here.” It pulls itself up, looking around.

“Come on. There’s something I want to show you. And someone I have some questions for...” You step onto the elevator platform. In careful steps, Zeta follows. Down you go.

The gate opens on the terminal level, illuminated only by the green snow of the screen. As you approach, the storm recedes from the center, leaving a chaotic border of green pixels flickering on the edges of the screen, and a single input prompt.

> _

“Whoa, is it some kind of mainframe?” Zeta says.

“Yeah, it’s apparently a supercomputer.”

“This is so cool!”

Aydan > ÆON?

IT WILL END. IT MUST END.

“What?” you say. The lights in the room flicker on and go dark, again and again. The screen flashes with green noise each time.

ÆON > Aydan, I’m glad you are here. The problem has worsened.

Aydan > I can see that, but I’m having problems of my own here!

“Ah, here it is,” you say. “This is ‘ÆON,’ an AI chatbot hosted on the supercomputer.”

“Whoa, this must have been really groundbreaking in its time!” Zeta says. “I guess programmers have always been fascinated with the idea of creating artificial intelligence.”

The screen flashes again.

IT WILL END. IT MUST END. IT WILL END. IT MUST END. IT WILL END. IT MUST END.

And again. Your prompt returns.

Aydan > really weird things are happening here, and it all suddenly started after we activated your machine.

ÆON > It seems the entity has begun to affect the æther around you. I could not contain it in its own system.

Aydan > but I thought the æther was your world, what do you mean?

ÆON > The æther is the æther.

IT WILL END. IT MUST END. IT WILL END. IT MUST END. IT WILL END. IT MUST END. IT WILL END. IT MUST END. IT WILL END. IT MUST END. IT WILL END. IT MUST END.