From: Avatar Polymorph (avatarpolymorph@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Aug 19 2002 - 11:14:23 MDT
Here's a story I wrote if you're into sf you may or may not like it...
***
EXIT PATTERNS OF THE HEART
Nicholas Playford [pseudonym of Avatar Polymorph]
[A fiction, (c) Avatar Polymorph 2002]
PERSUASION
I was summoned by the Hierophant, Naxor BlueSky.
"Greetings, Hierophant," I murmured as I strolled into his villa. Above me
the dome was studded with a map of the universe, with the Near sector in
velvet blue at its centre.
Naxor was one of the oldest of the old, reputedly from old Earth itself.
That would make him six billion years old. In appearance he was human-like,
but with silver skin and cat eyes. Gossip, again, had it that he was a
synthesis of two personas, a cat and an AI, from the birthing period of the
Great Split. Of course, time lost specific distinction after a certain
point, around one hundred thousand years in my case. I was getting close to
my millionth birthday but as ever I found myself bound up in the moment -
and naturally I kept my memory systems properly filtered and periodically
reset, which keeps one fresh.
"What seems to be the problem?" I asked.
Naxor smiled. His perfect teeth were embedded with diamonds.
"The vote is approaching, and I was curious as to your position, Hexal.
Your writings display certain predilections."
"Ah," I replied. "The vote."
The vote for the galactic hub, the astronomical black hole that was the
prime energy source for this galaxy, one similar to the many others of its
ilk. Of the Beings, including the largely computronium interstellar Hermits
who devoted their time to the theory of multiversal sequencing design, sixty
per cent had declared for the Reconstruction Project and thirty per cent for
the Gateway Project. The rest didn't care, so long as the Final Resurrection
was included in either package - they called themselves the Ethicists. Their
detractors termed them the Fencesitters.
Naxor held protective suzerainty over the control mechanisms of Lineside,
our mutual home, a darkling system, at least as far as sunlight went. We had
disassembled the local star and formed a chain of planetoid-sized hydrogen
and helium bodies. Adjacent to them was our linear city, Trashcanreduction,
its glittering lights and pincushion spires absurdly beautiful in the cosmic
night.
"Are you still opposed to Gateway?" he asked, talking through the ceiling
as well to emphasize his point. If he could have resonated to me neurally he
would have, but I was a Waller, and despite my recent fame as a commentator
of fashion I never opened up direct connections, only observational portals.
I was so strict a Waller I didn't ever leave overtuality and travel
Downside, into the realms connected through broadcast and stored in the
synergistic interstellar veins of dark wavepackets. It wasn't as though I
didn't like the three billion billion billion channels of virtuality but I
found the overtual world somehow more gritty. And Upside really mattered.
"I think so," I said slowly.
It was one or the other. Quantum mechanics was set by the number of
Observer-Beings, and with the numbers existent our Quantum engineering
options were limited.
"We are all born of the same world," said Naxor. "You have been there?" I
nodded. Earth - and the other original Sol bodies had been relocated to a
new sun in the early billenia of expansion, before partial femtotech had
made solar bodies more malleable. "I'll be blunt with you, Hexal. You carry
many of the Wallers with you. Your code of fashion etiquette has been hugely
popular with them this past six hundred thousand years. I have been
examining your life. I anticipate the voting process will move to conclusion
within ten billion years. I feel that persuading you is crucial to this
process. Well...
"Let us retire to my gardenium..."
"Certainly," I assented. The floor formed a fog below us and this lifted us
up, gradually hardening into a disc which floated, miniature jetstreams
humming quietly, up into the dome. Part of it was permeable and we moved
into a vacuum tube, most of our bodies temporarily blackened as we created a
protective layering, and accelerated down a transparent corridor towards the
gardenium. The visible and Near universe, light in layered time fragments,
snapshots of the past. The stars were still and point-like, as always. Here
and there, if I stared and magnified, I could see solar flares on the
surfaces of the nearer ones. They coruscated brilliantly through the
spectra, light-years away.
Seconds later we entered his green sanctuary, a large structure with
friezes of great artistic detail depicting morphed creatures in poses of
sexual dalliance amidst complex mathematical models of symmetrical fusions
and divisions. The allegory was of course of the Final Resurrection when all
animals including humans from the time of sentient mortality would be
quantumly split at the moment of death and transported to the Now - there to
accept boosting and life, one or both, or not.
The plants were pleasing to the eye, and their fragrances were subtle,
responding to our moods. Naxor was a talented artist, some would say he had
genius.
The Hierophant summoned stonelike furniture with responsive padding and we
sat down. Drinks hovered nearby and I ordered an amaretto and decided to let
it intoxicate me a little. I saw my face reflected in the glass,
traditionally human. Black hair, aquiline nose, green eyes. I had dispensed
with follicles except for public and scalp hair and kept my skin texture
very smooth. Quite a normal face really, seen every day in most places on
Trashcanreduction. Many of the other animal species and AIs had adopted
human features, right at the start of things, after the Stone Age and the
Singularity had occurred, the time of the Great Split - when the Earthly
ecosystem had been reengineered to provide boosting for the sentient
creatures. After then, and the subsequent minglings of form and mind, social
choice had become the great art form.
"The thing is, my friend," said the Hierophant, "I am certain that the
Gateway will offer us more fun, despite closing this universe and making us
into exiles. The Reconstructionists claim we achieve the same goals through
expansion and virtuality, but there are limits to both the expansive model
and virtual schema, as you know. The possibilities with Gateway are more
interesting. The overtual multiverse, being pre-existent of us, will contain
virgin exoverses such as ours, and therefore wholly different cultures. We
are still parameter-induced in our needs and wants, our wishes and issues."
"Surely that's a positive," I mused.
"Architecture is a tool, Hexal, like any other. You have read my views
already but I want you to hear my words, clearly. The other consideration is
that Reconstruction, while capable of some continuous expansion, is not
entirely infinite in itself. It retains the Planck-limitation to virtuality
derived from the first forty-two dimensions of the spacetime lattice and the
Hoylean steady state necessity. The multiverse will contain wholly new
axioms including universes more complex than ours."
I had heard the arguments before. Cosmology was not a major interest of
mine. The theoretical mathematics of universes necessitated that travelling
into Class Two universes closed off virgin or Class One universes. Class Two
universes had inbuilt transference and reconfiguration mechanisms which were
capable of addressing any Observer-Being, and, in Class Two axioms, linked
any Observer-Being individually into the transference mechanism.
I coughed lightly. It was a genuine cough. I did not care to control every
cell in my body overtly, though my commands were carried out when ordered by
intra and inter-cellular supercomputing facilities, as was the case with
most Beings save for the Reconfigurationalists. They used outside mechanisms
to reset their bodies every few years. And the various mortal sects
refrained. "Some say it is, well, uncouth to throw away the universe that
sings around us for a multiverse of greater depth. Some say you argue for
size over detail."
"The main point has been the Final Resurrection, and there will certainly
be enough excess energy when the Galactic black holes are inflated and
interlinked. This occurs regardless of what direction we then pursue. It is
the Final Resurrection and extropy which inform our sanity. However, I
believe the Gateway is necessary too. It is an aesthetic gateway as much as
anything!"
I turned the issue over in my mind, briefly. It had a resonance to it. "You
may have a point. I am more concerned, however, with, uh, a more delicate...
uh, issue."
The Hierophant nodded and gave a strange laugh. The floating plants nearby
glided away from them in elaborate patterns, activated by noise.
"You want something. Something related to... me?"
I nodded in return. The Hierophant would have adopted much of what was
possible for a superintelligence to use against someone who was fully Walled
and wished to retain privacy. Undoubtedly, he had run millions of
simulations to come to his guess. That did not make him infallible.
"Your daughter, Hierophant, I want you to speak to her. When I first saw
her on the infochannels I fell in love with her zeal. Ask her to break her
vow of silence. Teleport us to Vestibule. Deliver the Oracle of Saint Peter
to me, that I may make her my lover."
EXTRACTION
We met in the Forum of the capital of Vestibule, an unusual world largely
covered in ocean. Its sole, small continent had been moulded flat and
covered with vast mountains. The Forum was bounded by two immense
structures, which reflected the two diverse societies which had both settled
here in the distant past.
"It's always impressive, isn't it?" said Naxor BlueSky. "I haven't seen it
directly for half a million years."
He was referring to the Arena, a giant cubic building a standard kilometre
high and wide, architecturally modelled on the Roman Coliseum. Lines of
mechanical, non-sentient macrobots guarded its main entrance from those who
might challenge the Beings within. Their polished armoured bodies shone in
the sunlight. The Gladiatorial sect had once been strong here, but their
periodic duels to the death had allowed their numbers to dwindle. They died
only through combat systems, and though they had many children only a small
fraction of their offspring accepted the code. The access to boosting had
negated the evolutionary pressure of regular combat, but in any cast the
Gladiatorials did not allow random mutations, correcting their effects. Some
other sects, including mortals, had long ago shed their original forms,
whether human or mammal, bird or marsupial. Once, the Gladiatorials had
inhabited half the continent. Now they occupied only half the capital. The
ruins of their buildings, once wholly self-repairing, having lasted for
billenia, were their legacy. They regarded their reduced state as a signpost
of their approach to victory, when one would have conquered all and the
conqueror would then fall on their own sword. Not surprisingly, they were
neo-Crowleyites, an ancient Earth sect.
But the Gladiatorials, impressive as they were, were not of overwhelming
interest to me. Closer to us, on the other side of the Forum, crowded with
tourists, visitors and pilgrims, was the Cathedral of the Four Gospels.
"Let's go," said the Hierophant. "I want to get this over with. Genevieve
was my lover for ten thousand years. This is difficult for me. I will lose
her."
"Everything has a price, for some," I said.
"That's your opinion," said the Hierophant. "Mass will begin shortly. She
delivers her soothsaying after Christ appears."
I lowered my head. We were dressed as pilgrims of the 23rd Catholic Fusion,
as Genevieve's two mothers had been. They had inducted her into the faith
after she had broken off her affair with her father. The Pope of the 23rd
Catholic Fusion himself, Leo DXII, had blessed her. In this Catholic Fusion
Popes were appointed for a million years, then Ascended into the communal
mind-section and resided in the Third Blessed Heaven, which was a virtuality
existent in their shared neural linkaging of broadcast computronium, its
memory pool accentuated by a controlled naked singularity in orbit beyond
the ninth planet of this solar system. Their communal mind did have some
obvious overtual expression, as we were about to discover. I had never seen
their Christ. His manifestations were deemed private, direct experiences,
not broadcast outside of their own circle, and even then only neurally.
The Cathedral was covered with statues of the Saints and models of the
Final Heaven and Day of Judgement. This Catholic Fusion believed that their
God would intervene at the Day of Judgement and that souls were invisible to
detection and unrelated to neurological networks. In their mythology, those
who denied their Christ were devotees of science. Science was the conceptual
grid of directly expressive local overtuality axioms preceding the
Singularity.
We entered, walking between the two huge bronze-coloured doors with their
images of dove-above-chalice. Our sandals slapped the stonework. My cassock
and hood felt rough. It was olive-coloured, like Naxor's. Priests and nuns
surrounded us. This was the climax of their year, Easter Friday. Their Pope
was officiating at the altar.
People whispered near us, and many turned their heads simultaneously as the
mental word was passed. Naxor BlueSky had been recognized. Or perhaps I was
their target. I blushed. Crude stares were gauche.
I listened to the Mass, translating the Latin and checking it against other
versions in my internal libraries.
The Lord be in my heart and on my lips...
The Hierophant nudged me. "There she is."
To the side, in the nave, was a marble throne with candles burning around
it. On it was Genevieve, in the loose clothing reminiscent of the late
Greek-Romano world of the 18th to 20th centuries before Singularity. Her
body appeared human but that was deceptive. The throne was connected to the
foundations of the Cathedral, which was in fact a gigantic and elaborate
Artefact, a machine of superability.
The Pope was raising the Host. His triple tiara seemed huge. The crowd was
still, their attention mesmerized by the circle of white, the wafer of
transparent bread. The Pope lowered the Host next to the chalice on the
altar. Bells tinkled. Despite being Walled, Hexal could almost taste the
broadcast neural interlinking of these 23rd Catholics.
And now, the manifestation of that interlinkaging appeared. From the
ceiling, a nanofog descended. Lights shone out from within it, rays of
glorious splendour. A figure formed slowly from the fog, serene, bearded,
covered by a loincloth. However, it was not pierced and carried no wounds.
His immaculate body was the result of some deep inner experience of 23rd
Catholic Fusionists around me and throughout the continent. It was not a
result of theological debate. It was a spiritual call, an outpouring of
their poetry.
Christ extended his hand and Pope Leo knelt, received it and kissed the
ivory fingers. Christ raised his other hand in a gesture of blessing, then
walked towards the nave. The crowd parted. The Cathedral had no seats,
rendering it more impressive visually.
Christ swept by, moving with utmost grace. I was impressed. The smell of
incense from the censers of the priests was emotionally overwhelming. The
Hierophant looked passive, but through minute signs I could sense he was
distracted. Perhaps he was maintaining the front for my benefit. Being
boosted, he could cut himself off from emotional display, but this carried
inherent dangers of destabilization over long periods of time and constant
resetting of the mindstruct, which had its own menaces. Speculation,
speculation... A formal dinner had first linked him to Genevieve's two
mothers, sisters and, subsequently and consequently, despite their
unCatholic menage, to their faith. 23rd Catholics had to adopt fully human
form outwardly, whatever their heritage, but it was not a Humanist Descenter
sect. But all this was hardly relevant to me. Genevieve remained my object.
Now Christ reached her.
She remained still, almost a statue. She did not blink. She was the Oracle.
Linked to the Cathedral and its internal mechanisms she could compute vast
amounts of information and deliver a yearly verdict. She had not, however,
spoken words since assuming the post. Nor did she normally move, or eat. She
had modified her body to achieve this state.
The Artefact was partially connected to the spacetime lattice itself and
was capable of many things.
Christ stood before her. He raised his arm, touched his forefinger against
her chest. In front of her chest, where the heart traditionally occurred,
the drapes of her tunic parted. Her white and blue mantle moved as she
spread her arms wide.
Within her chest space was an image. I focussed on it, and gave a puzzled
grin. Pearly gates! Literally. Studded with pearls. She was indeed the
Oracle of Saint Peter. Before the Pearly Gates was a prostrate figure. The
Pearly Gates opened. Suddenly, over the figure, hundreds swarmed forward,
obliterating the view of the figure, trampling it, turning into the blur of
millions. The vision darkened, faded back to skin, to partially exposed,
pert breasts. Christ turned, began to dissolve, rose as a twisting pillar of
mist and climbed to the ceiling of the spire. The Pope gave a blessing.
May the body of Our Lord Jesus Christ keep our souls unto life everlasting.
Amen.
The Hierophant looked at me. "She has spoken. It was as I expected. I have
won."
"You are being ironical," I said.
"This may kill me," he said.
"Naxor BlueSky!" I was perturbed. "Your emotional reactions are not my
responsibility. This is a matter between you and Genevieve. I am surprised."
"I am surprised at myself. You are right. Please forgive my rudeness. Let's
approach."
The throng was dissipating. We gingerly stepped closer. She was gorgeous. I
had seen her proselytizing before becoming Oracle and had fallen head over
heels for her energy, her strange devotion. As one who was not a 23rd
Catholic Fusionist, however, I stood little chance of becoming her second
lover, even were she to leave her calling behind.
The Hierophant moved ahead of me. The unexpected delivery of one particular
dream of mine, overtually! Somehow it all harmonized correctly, and for me
that was a paramount consideration.
"Genevieve," he whispered from beneath his dark khaki cowl. "My darling."
She did not turn her face to him. She remained unblinking. Only a slight
movement of her now flesh-pink chest showed her body was active. A Cardinal
came forward and touched the Hierophant's sleeve.
"Greetings to the representative of Trashcanreduction from the Holy Father.
The Oracle has requested you leave."
"Goodbye, Genevieve," said Naxos. "There was a light between us. That light
never died, not for me. Do what you must and take comfort in the affection
of others. Grant my request to acquiesce to my companion."
He turned and left, brushing against me. "You will not see me again," were
his final words to me.
He had cut himself off from any future contact. He had done to me what his
daughter had done to him.
It did not bother me, however. I had achieved my goal! Stylistically,
frenzied pursuit of a whimsical crush was glorious. And Naxor BlueSky had
argued I could help save the universe, or at least point it on the right
course, at the same time. I was obliged to do so to fulfil our bargain, yet
otherwise I was unconcerned. It was delicious.
The Oracle was looking at me with her luscious eyes. The priest next to me
gave a sound. His breath exhaled in shock, almost a gasp. Genevieve was
rising slowly. Now it was as if she had never been stilled. Her movements
were liquid.
"Your name?" came her voice.
"Hexal." I took her hand. It felt cold. "We are to be lovers."
IDENTIFICATION
We were married at Saint Ignatious Monastery, which had reached the far
eastern shore. The giant drop marked the edge of the flattened continent. We
had flown over the snow-capped mountains and lush green valleys, the
perspective unique. Here and there world machines rose up, giant pyramids
with tendrils and appendages holding the atmosphere and environment to
order, rendering Vestibule calm and safe for mortals.
Saint Ignatious Monastery was a mass of needle-like towers, ribbons and
domes. I found Christian marriage very strange, as did most Beings, but
acquiesced, promising to divorce her should I take another lover. Which was
likely, to say the least. Such a compromise was only one of very many for
most 23rd Catholics.
I had two and a half thousand guests directly present, including many
androgynes, neuterites, multiples, cats and hummingbirds. Amongst these my
writings were especially popular.
Genevieve was not particularly voluble. She had been surprisingly easy to
persuade, demanding only that she bear my child. She clasped my hand. Our
wedding rings were gold with filigree.
"He will be blessed by the Holy Spirit," she had said after she had made
her request. "I will hold his cells in stasis until we are near the time of
transition. Then I shall activate them, and his soul will grow in my womb."
No birthing unit for Genevieve, or any 23rd Catholic Fusionist.
The view slowly shifted. The Monastery meandered around the continent
slowly, moving from region to region. Generally 23rd Catholics were settled
Beings but occasionally they exhibited the flare of robust direction.
Perhaps it was the influence of the Gladiatorial remnants and their ruins.
It would be an interesting thousand years. I gave it at least a millenium.
She was very beautiful. Somehow her long isolation had made her utterly
desirable to me. I recalled the first time that I had seen a holoframe of
her. Amidst all the Beings I had heard of, she stood out quite distinctly.
"What shall I name our son?" she asked. She had apparently chosen his
initial sex.
I pondered the question. Nearby, my closest friends, all Walled, listened
attentively. "In honour of the Gateway Project and its adherents, I suggest
a name that was popular in the flicker before the Singularity, on ancient
Earth. A name that never existed, due to quantum necessity. Earth alone was
our first seat but this name may greet our lips and minds when we depart
this vale for our numerous destinations. When our friendships part, for
some, and despite eternity many become lost to us. Alien. Naxor Alien. We
shall see aliens, and he will be birthed amongst them. A worthy cause
indeed."
And now I had done it. I had my bargain with the Hierophant, now both
exiled and exiler. I had fulfilled my part of the bargain we had made.
This was why the Hierophant had given up what he had valued most. For a
higher cause, as he had seen it. I had heard that Naxor had resigned his
duties, had left Trashcanreduction and journeyed away to an uninhabited
system and transferred his consciousness into an asteroid, had become an
Isolant. Such entities were recluses in their private thoughts,
contemplating the infinite, subdividing themselves and engaging in internal
conversation. Most became unstable and chose expiration, despite redefining
their mindstructs. Such behaviour would be better chosen at the time of
transition, when the Gateway was activated, if in fact Naxor had been
correct and the Reconstructionists were now to lose the vote, when it came.
Naxor had seen too far, his conscience had impelled him to his doom. He had
acted knowing he would lose the last prospect of saving his relationship
with Genevieve, would turn Isolant.
"Friends," I called, my voice now amplified through the Monastery's hidden
speakers. "Let us have a toast." Most of my guests had drinks, and some of
the 23rd Catholics. The Abbot sat quietly upon his dais at the side of the
gathering, surrounded by officials and Cardinals. "To the beautiful
Genevieve!"
She smiled as the glasses were raised and lowered.
"To his Holiness," Genevieve responded, referring to the Pontiff. She
smiled at me again. "You will see Christ yet, and not the shadow of his
future presence, which passes through our minds."
"You are a very, very small minority," I whispered back to her, though some
could hear. "Almost as small as the mortal sects."
She shook her head. "Don't be a bore. I married you for the Gateway. With
the Cathedral, I saw it. It was like a beacon. It is God's will, it leads us
to Christ, to the Final Heaven. Only believers will go there, and that is as
it should be. And those who believe will always be able to venture there,
after the Gateway is passed through."
"These things can be discussed later. This is a festive occasion. But
remember, Beings will always be able to leave your club too."
"Oh Hexal, will you be there with me, to Fall?" She put her hand to my
cheek.
It was evening by the time the last guests had departed and the monks were
at Vespers. A strange feeling of pathos had enveloped me. Genevieve had
changed her hair colour to blue. Her smooth round face had a delightful
aesthetic, a quiet dignity even as a lay 23rd Catholic. She hoped one day I
would convert!
Christians were special enough, as were all pre-Singularity nodes of
thought and spirituality. But millions more forms of experiential worldview
had been spawned in the billenia since. Such types of culture were so
numerous that Walled mortals had to utterly rely on the summarized
categorizations of activated complexity to understand their modes and
trends.
We had a light supper and retired to the bedroom, a large hall with
paintings whose brushstrokes and pigments gradually shifted, altering the
composition minutely with every quarter hour.
Naked, she was even more stunning. We made love and I planted my
contribution within her. Our son. I had been one man most of my life. Most
adhered to the rough parameters of their birth, though perhaps a third
altered to another dominance and a very small number fluctuated a great
deal. The quality and aesthetics of memory selection, storage or deletion
were crucial to ensuring stability in such a climate.
I intended to pursue the sex for weeks. It was going to be an enjoyable
holiday. Already our fame had spread. The prediction of the Hierophant -
Hierophant no longer - was becoming self-fulfilling. A dilettante such as
myself was highly influential, but still a surprising choice for him. The
inference was, Naxor would not have selected a lesser vessel such as myself
unless guided by supercomplex insight. I had done nothing to dissuade this
initial view, which doubtless was spreading through many millions of
galaxies. If asked I simply noted an overtual multiverse was quite stylish,
by half.
We slept on the cotton sheets, content. She had been a surprisingly adept
lovemaker, seeming enthusiastic. Perhaps it was a falsehood or perhaps she
was genuinely enamoured, I being only her second lover. She had confided in
me that she had refused to take in the sexual memories of others directly,
had only watched recorded images and seen descriptions in artforms.
As I lay in slumber I dreamed. My dreams were always freeform, similar to
the traditional mode.
I dreamed I was in a forest and Naxor was present next to me, sitting
naked, all silver skin, his diamond teeth dots of light, his cat eyes
peering at me. I too was naked.
"Life has passed me by," he said. "Though I have seen billenia pass. "The
last thing I recalled was the last smile she gave me. I have slipped away."
I knelt and took his hand, and I saw it was wrinkled. His body had crumpled
up. He was an ancient, and I had destroyed him.
A flaming sword appeared above, slowly turning. The trees around me started
to burn. The smoke from the glade thickened, began to choke me. I adjusted
my body but Naxor coughed in spasms.
"Take the sword," he said.
But I would not.
"Take it," he repeated. "Or you will never leave here, you will be like
me."
"Why should I care?" I heard myself replying.
"She has trapped you. She will have her revenge."
"Not so, we will be parting in a short while."
"You can never duplicate her will. It is her private achievement."
"I can make it so."
"Take the sword anyway," he gasped.
My eyes were still watering a little. I grasped the sword. The flames that
leapt from it did not burn me. On it were written the words LOVE CAN BE
SPARKED FROM THE VERY ROCK.
Somehow I knew these words would save me, later. I awoke in a sweat, and
controlled my body immediately. Genevieve stirred next to me, turned her
face in my direction.
"There's one thing," she murmured. "As a Catholic, he is forbidden to me,
but I shall never love anyone but my father. Your conquest is meaningless."
For a moment my heart was stopped, but only for an instant. I had dreamt my
salvation, for the future was my foundation, my rock of ages.
***
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