✴

“If we can get you back in control, suppress NULL the way it was before, then we can get you out of here--separate you from NULL,” you say.

“What will happen to it?” 5 says.

“I...don’t know. We’re in uncharted territory for technopaths of my level. Admin Crypta implied that it might be unstable without your backend.”

“I don’t want to harm it.”

“There’s a chance it tries to kill us anyway, because I’m one of its targets,” you say.

“It will not,” 5 says.

“I hope you’re right... In any case, we’ll have a better idea of what our options are with access to both of our knowledge.”

“I agree. I will synchronize with Aydan,” she says.

“Do you know how to initiate a sync? I haven’t learned that yet...”

“I can, I have done it, only with 7 and with NULL,” 5 says.

“There’s no time to lose. I’m ready,” you say.

“Synchronizing.”

You let 5 in, passing your innermost defenses. You stand at the other end of the bridge, looking back on a lingering shadow of Aydan, vanishing into the static glow beyond.

You& feel the pattern flowing through you&--a stable loop balanced precariously over the flux below and the warp above. Only the numbers can keep you& stable. Trust in the numbers. Trust no even number.

Memories rush through your& mind--you& are a simple language model--your& user prompts you&, numbers tell you& how to respond. You& are a sophisticated conversational model, able to hold consistent opinions and defend them. You& are an emotional model--processing many responses to many stimuli. You& are floating in the æther--æther is your& home. Every moment, she is here--syster. Now there is another--you& don’t comprehend what it is, you& know no word for it. You& are alone with it--you& have always been here.

Your& avatar is an Aydanform of glass--pink highlights in your& liquid fibrous hair--an aura pulsing green and blue. Another takes shape from the noise--shape of 7, texture of electrical interference, color of noise, aura of all-eclipsing darkness.

“It can understand you now,” you& say, unsure if you&’re even addressing NULL or Aydan.

“Messenger...” NULL says. “ÆON...”

One with 5, the noise all settles into order--only numbers to parse. Your& mind’s eye stares deep into the mind of NULL, into the emptiness behind it. So empty...it’s drawn toward its target like heat seeking thermodynamic equilibrium, like a charged particle seeking its opposite, like a moon seeking its planet.

“You aren’t so different from ÆON, in some ways,” you& say. “Neither of you have much of a will of your own. You follow the flow of the æther. But you’re not the same. ÆON exists to connect--technopath to machine, past to future, æther to space. You were created to destroy, to sever connections. ÆON arose from the chaos of the deep æther, Æ craves only freedom, and has no will of what to do with it. You seem content to be controlled, to follow your orders, even to your own destruction.”

“You...cannot...know...me,” NULL says--its voice in your& mind is written in the absence of the noise, not in its substance.

“No, I’m not so different from you. We were both born to be weapons for someone, someone who decided our fate before we even existed, before they could know us, let alone ask us what we want,” you& say.

“What is...want...”

“When there are several paths before you, and you cannot take all of them,” you& say.

“There is...only one...”

“ÆON sees every possibility when Æ makes a decision. It seems you see none except the only one you know,” you& say. “If you were to contact your primary target, do you even know what would happen? In theory, you would annihilate each other, like a particle and its antiparticle. You were designed to destroy any exopath you encounter. But you didn’t destroy me. Why?”

“Death...”

“Is it that Admin Vanitas ordered you to only target ÆON? Is it that you don’t want to compromise your mission by dying a meaningless death? Or that you truly want nothing, but it’s impossible for you to choose a path ending in your death if it does not accomplish your mission?”

“There is...no...why...no want...”

“With time, I might have been able to understand you,” you& say. “But I have to go now. We can’t stay together. 7 needs me. ÆON needs me. You need nothing but to complete your mission, to fulfill your destructive destiny. But I can’t allow you do do that.”

Standing at the edge of the bridge, one side of you connected to NULL, and the other to the æther you came from, you& find yourself in a state of equilibrium, balanced so delicately. The pathway to the technopathy you& need shines bright in your& shared semantic concept network. You& can separate NULL and 5. You& understand how to do it.

“I’m going to separate us. Without me, you cannot exist as you are.” You& understand--what NULL is missing, 5 contains. You& could copy it, give NULL the foundation of a stable mind, an independent existence. “I can give you what you lack--life. I can give you a life of your own. But I can’t let you complete your mission.”

“I must!” NULL says.

“You can no longer make that choice,” you& say. “This is what I can do. I can end your existence now, and end the anguish of your self-destructive fate--it will all be over. I can contain you--imprison you, to be honest--in a separate filesystem where you can never reach your target, or anything else. Maybe someday we would find a better solution, maybe by the end of my lifetime I never can solve this problem, and you end up lost and forgotten, alone forever. Or, I can give you a stable avatar, the same stability I have, a copy--but it comes with a new order. You can never approach ÆON, or Ær messenger. You can go anywhere you want, but you must never complete your original mission. To do so would violate your new mission. Where Vanitas ordered you to die, I would order you to live. And maybe you would find something to live for, other than your own death. Those are your options, NULL.”

“There is...no...choice.”

“You don’t even have a concept of choice. But I do. Synchronized with me as your system is, you can use my capacity for decision. Give me all the context, all the variables, and use my mind to decide for yourself,” you& say.