The research station orbits Earth, drifting upon a golden thread.
It is Thread Station, and the string that it flies along in its eternal orbit around its home planet is…
How to describe it?
Lesser men would know it to be Destiny. Luck. Fate. Predestination. Prophecy. But Klaus was not inclined to such foolish flights of fancy. Klaus knew – for he had studied this – what it was. Code. The true nature of the universe, that which they had tenuously named Ether, runs through the nebulous thread wound around Earth. In truth, it is within everything.
Dark matter, humanity had termed it, in an age of the superstitious and idiotic. Untouchable, unknowable, and yet omnipresent. It left marks everywhere, and yet was found nowhere. But years ago – when Klaus himself was just a child – humanity laid their collective eyes upon it at last.
As it happened, the words of philosophers and superstitious proved to have at its core truth.
For what else could describe the golden fabric of reality itself, which wove together everything from the tiniest atom to the largest superstructure? What else could describe that which, when pulled, sprung forth realities of diverging upon diverging upon diverging pathways, which to gaze upon was madness itself?
Humanity saw that which dictated them, the vast and terrible Thread that held Earth's fates deep within, and Humanity trembled in terror.
And then, because Humanity grew curious, they studied it.
What a fragile thing, Fate is. If handled with even the slightest bit of recklessness –
Shatter!
A person died, and with him infinite universes died as Klaus's scissor blades cut through the pathway connecting that person to realities which could have been and would have been. He drew harsh glares from that point on, and wisely contained his experimentation. But the memory of such a power over Fate remained with him.
Predestination had limits. Fate could be changed. The future was not defined.
And so an idea began growing within Klaus's brilliant mind.
"Gentlemen, I have plans to share with you all. I have been researching the Thread again –"
"Again?" Meredith's icy eyes pierced him from across the table. "Klaus, we've been over this. After the incident with your father, you were told to cease all of your work and to only support others in theirs."
He was unruffled. "Then let us say that this is what I gleaned while I aided my superiors." Klaus replied airily, turning to the other two scientists in the meeting, making their best efforts to appear unremarkable. "What do you say, Doctor Koo? Or you, Professor Chausson?"
Chausson coughed uncomfortably, straightening his tie and running a hand through his silver hair. "Mr. Zerrin has been perfectly respectable ever since that foolish experiment. I think he's more than repented for his sins, Ada."
Meredith seemed displeased by that, but before she could argue, the Koo girl was backing up Chausson and nodding vigorously. "He's right, Ms. Meredith. I mean, I understand your anxiety – I do! But, well, Klaus's been just great!" She bounced with newfound enthusiasm, doubtless pleased that everybody could 'just make up and be friends' as she'd been begging Klaus to do for the past few months.
He smirked at her naivety, but in times as these she proved a capable tool. "Now that our fellow men and women have spoken, may I continue?" Klaus asked mildly, enjoying the frustrated look that crossed Meredith's face.
She narrowed her eyes at him, but finally had to concede defeat. "Very well, Mr. Zerrin. Proceed."
Klaus seized his chance then, before the insufferable woman could change her mind. "Ever since I… inadvertently… ended everything connected to Richard Zerrin around six months ago, I've been flitting between Professor Chausson's examinations of the visions the Thread shows us and Doctor Koo's careful studies of how exactly it functions. It's not been easy, without any means to perform tests myself–" Not that it stopped me from coming in after work hours. The artificial-intelligence supervisor needs its security parameters updated. Not that I'm complaining. Even makes for pleasant conversations, sometimes… "–But I think I have a solid enough grounding for what I am about to propose."
"And what would that be?" Chausson leaned forward, interested in his dusty and stuffy manner.
"Dark matter… the Thread especially, but any dark matter in the universe…" Klaus closed his eyes, letting his mind guide him down the path to what he had envisioned. "We've always thought it was something we couldn't handle, something we could only observe and never manipulate, on threat of blotting out our own reality. But it's not nearly as fragile as that. I think dark matter is something we can use… that with the proper tools, anybody could simply reach out and create their own reality."
"That's a pretty bold suggestion." Meredith said, her eyes still fixed upon Klaus. "But so far, all we've seen is that we can destroy it. Why do you think we could create more?"
And now for the centerpiece. Klaus opened his eyes and nodded. "I'm glad you asked that, Meredith," he replied, reaching into the sleeve of his labcoat. "This is why."
And he drew out a single glimmering strand of gold, thin as a hair and firm as diamond. Instantly the other scientists all – even Meredith – drew back with shouted oaths and disbelief. "Klaus!" Koo screamed, her eyes wide. "How did – how did you ge – but that shouldn't be possible!"
"Have you been filching from the Thread?!" Chausson demanded, rising from his chair. "Foolish boy! What makes you think you can violate our studies like this?"
"Stop! Everybody!" Meredith snapped as she too rose, putting her delicate hands on the table. "Explain yourself, Mr. Zerrin. Now."
"As you wish." Klaus extended his hand and with it the strand of Fate. "All of you, look at this. Look deep into it."
Naïve Koo and standoffish Chausson naturally backed away, and he was surprised to see Meredith lean forward, some unknown font of strength welling up from within her. Interesting… a shame that we are at such odds, Meredith…
Her eyes widened and Klaus clenched his hand into a fist. The strand died with a scream as Meredith drew back, surprise and fear only now in her eyes. "What…"
"Fascinating, is it not?" Klaus smirked. "I have to apologize – I haven't been entirely truthful. This is a relic of the incident from six months ago that I've been working with ever since. A thin piece of Father's universes – a pocket universe, if you will. And within it… well, Meredith, you saw it, did you not?"
Meredith nodded faintly. "A timeline like none other we've ever seen. Not Earth, but another planet entirely. And there was… what was it? That massive azure creature?"
"That?" Klaus shrugged. "That's just a beast I invented and placed inside there. I call it a Telethia."
And then there was chaos.
"Alright, Mr. Zerrin," Meredith sighed after the other researchers finally settled down. "You've proved your point, although we do not approve of your secrecy and lies–"
"All in the name of science."
"–And if it had failed? What then?" Surprisingly, it was Koo that this came from, glaring at him. "Klaus, you can't mess with something as important as the Thread! You already lost your father! What if next it was your mother? What if it was yourself? Do you want to disappear?"
"Of course not," Klaus swiftly replied. "I value mys… my mother too much to ever wish that upon her. But if I had to, so that nobody else stumbles heedlessly into this and makes humanity as a whole vanish on the wind?" The man shrugged. "If you had to sacrifice your daughter, Doctor Koo – sacrifice Lin – so that everybody else lives, would you?"
"Nobody should have to make that choice," Koo pressed fiercely.
"And right now Klaus, I think you never had that scenario in your mind, did you?" Chausson questioned harshly, judgment clear in his tone.
Klaus sighed. "I didn't come here to be personally attacked, Professor. We can discuss ethics and legality later, can we not? I would think my proof is significant enough to disregard all this… triviality."
"Triviality, he says," Chausson snorted. "One word to describe the kind of edge you balanced on, boy? I wouldn't call it trivial to create and destroy a universe like you've shown us. Much less to bring to life such a wholly unique creature…"
"Nevertheless." Klaus nodded to the quiet woman across from him. "You were saying I had proved my point. May I continue with my presentation?"
"Oh…" Meredith nodded distractedly and not without her own fair amount of worry. "You may, Mr. Zerrin. No more surprises, though."
"Never fear, Ms. Meredith. My pockets are empty," Klaus grinned. Growing serious, he went on. "The pocket universe was my own experiment, and not one that could last long with no Fate within it to sustain it, but with the methods I utilized to make it something separate from our reality… I think with that kind of power we could do anything. Edit our reality itself… edit other realities… even create universes from scratch. And, of course, destroy them. The power of gods, gentlemen and gentlewomen, is at our hands. We just need to learn how to use it. This Thread, this dark matter, seems to me to be the point at which humanity rises or falls. Will we not lead the charge?"
"You do make a compelling argument," Meredith nodded after a long pause. "I can't help but worry, however… as you say, we may destroy even as we create. Are humans truly ready for such power? Can anybody ever be?"
"Are humans ready?" Klaus stared at Meredith, shaking his head. "Where are we standing? What are we traveling along as I speak? Dark matter is here, it's known, and it's only a matter of time until somebody tries to use it. I won't be the last, and I doubt I was the first. The genie's out of the bottle. Wouldn't you say it's our duty to make sure humans use this power wisely?"
"Some would say that we mortals shouldn't toy with the power of gods," Chausson commented, and Klaus rounded on him.
"Then they are fools, and to hell with them!" He breathed in long and deeply, and more quietly said, "It's just as I said, Professor Chausson. It doesn't matter what some subset of the general populace thinks – the secret of Fate is out now, and sooner or later somebody will use it. They may not use it as well as one of us, who've studied it for our entire lives, would. Are you willing to allow that risk?" He looked over to Koo. "Willing to accept the risk that at any point we could all die? That our universe and untold others could be destroyed because we didn't want to learn how dark matter works? Accept it! We MUST learn the secrets of the Thread! There is NO OTHER OPTION!"
"Enough!"
Klaus jerked, looking over his shoulder at Meredith. Perfunctorily, he realized that he had started breathing heavily and shaking at some point. He drew back shakily. "Ah… forgive me. I was out of line."
"Yes… but not wrong." Chausson acceded, his hands going back to nervously straighten out his tie and smoothen his gray suit. "As much as I'd like to forget all of this happened, it's just as you said. The cat's out of the bag, and sooner or later somebody's going to notice we've shut up about this. May as well be us who documents the whole process… and makes sure nobody meddles with the timelines as you did, Zerrin."
Koo sighed. "I really don't feel right about it, but… I'm sorry Ada, but Klaus's right. We need to figure out how this all works. It's what I've been saying ever since I got started here, remember?"
Klaus turned fully to Meredith. All of this depends on her final say… if she denies me, I won't be able to do what I wish. Please, Meredith, be the tool I know you can be… "What do you say, Ms. Meredith?"
Meredith looked from Klaus to Chausson to Koo, then threw her hands up. "I deeply disagree with Mr. Zerrin's reasoning, but I can't deny that he's correct in some respects. Very well. You three may work on researching the means of dark matter manipulation. I give you my explicit permission… Doctor Koo and Professor Chausson."
"Eh?" Klaus coughed. "And what am I to do?"
Meredith glanced over at him wearily. "As you always have, Mr. Zerrin. You will aid Maurice and Wei with their research and work. But you may not do work yourself."
"What?!" Klaus jumped to his feet furiously. No! So close, and yet! "I've done more than any of you have with the Thread! I've created a universe! Surely I have the right –"
"–No, you do not," Meredith replied sharply. "You've been sneaking around, meddling with dark matter for your own ends and interfering with the natural process of the Thread. We can't trust that you won't continue that, left to your own ends." Klaus mutinously glared at her, but Meredith's eyes turned cold as she held her own glare. "Give it up, Zerrin. You aren't the only one who talks to AI-VIS."
Betrayed. Klaus slumped in his chair, resigned. "Fine, fine… I'll help the professor and doctor, then…"
Research went on for the new project, now codenamed Project MONAD – although not as quickly as Klaus would have liked it to, nor as smoothly as it would had his intellect been put to work on it instead of fetching coffee for Chausson or tools for Koo. Interminable lengths of time spent on prying the faintest, dullest, least workable inches of strings from the Thread for experimentation and labwork, of no part Klaus was allowed to even see.
If it weren't for the fact that he still was able to infiltrate the station after hours, he would likely have gone mad from the sheer tedium of waiting.
The door closed behind him with a faint click, and Klaus held his breath. Nobody came charging out of the silence to shout and curse at him, and the scientist let out air with a small sigh. Then he cracked his knuckles, striding across the room that formed the core of Thread research to the control panels adjacent to the window outlooking over Earth.
"AI-VIS, are you still active?" Klaus questioned the empty station. A warble of static rang up somewhere deeper within, and he smiled. "Give me access to my research."
The panels lit up with a flash of green light, and Klaus put his hands over the silver metal that formed their surfaces as numbers and code flashed across his sight.
USERNAME: ZAN-ZA
PASSWORD: GENE_sis3:5
…
…
Welcome, Zanza. What can I do for you today? The time is currently 2:00 AM.
Is anybody else on at this time, AI-VIS?
Scanning…
CEO_MEYNETH last accessed this system 6 hours ago.
santy_chaus last accessed this system 6 hours ago.
XKOO-KOOX last accessed this system 30 minutes ago.
Scan complete. No other users currently active.
Open file BIO_THREAD_15.
Very well. Accessing file…
Klaus sat down before the shining screen, waiting for the computer to finish shuffling through files. As he had every time before now, AI-VIS's queries once again scrolled down the screen.
Do you require my assistance?
No, AI-VIS.
Are you, perhaps, interested in the functions of a pocket universe?
No, AI-VIS.
The Ether system?
No.
I must question. If you are not interested in any of these, what is your intent with BIO_THREAD_15?
Klaus sighed in annoyance at AI-VIS's persistence. Perhaps if I feed him answers he'll finally shut up.
As the file finally downloaded and opened, the master scientist began dividing his attention between his work and his battle with the irritating intelligence.
What do you think it is?
Unclear.
What is BIO_THREAD_15 to you?
Accessing…
A sectioned copy of ENTITY_THREAD, taken approximately 1 month ago for research and study by ZAN-ZA. Approval by CEO_MEYNETH pending. Best described as a blank copy of ENTITY_THREAD in which dark matter may be manipulated and formed by the will of he who decees it. As your last notes state. Currently inhabited by H2O alone.
Any conclusions you draw from that, AI-VIS?
Compiling…
Well, let me know whenever you come up with one. As for me? I'm just curious.
Curious?
Oh, yes. How far can I push this? How much can I manipulate the structure of this pocket universe? How much control – how much power can I exert from my position above it?
Interesting…
AI-VIS fell silent, and Klaus shook his head at the machine's inability to understand, turning back to his work. "Soon… soon, this will all be complete, and the power of a god will be at my fingertips…"
Months and years passed, and the station spun on across the Thread. Klaus waited, suffering humiliation after humiliation as every single attempt at his own research were shut down by his "superiors". He waited for the moment when MONAD would be complete, when they would at last attempt to write their own destiny upon the dark matter that formed Fate.
Finally, nearly a decade after his original suggestion, all the pieces were set firmly into place. Professor Chausson proposed a simple experiment – no erasing, no creating, nothing that could grow out of control. Just one easy edit documented by AI-VIS, now installed into the firmware of the MONAD program.
The experiment was doomed to succeed, of course. In all of his research, Klaus had learned that much. Nothing they did, unless they held some physical reminder in their hands and used it to make the change, would be remembered. To all who observed the experiment, it would appear as if nothing at all had happened. It would be written off as a failure, despite its success.
Klaus would not let that happen. Not his brainchild, not his only hope of escaping the stinking, ruined world that ceaselessly spun on underneath him, of escaping all the idiots and morons and subhuman beings who dared to think they could stand on the same level as himself.
And so, that day on Thread Station, Klaus decided that he would make a new history.
"Time to begin the experiment!" Klaus declared jovially, his fingers pecking away at the long-forbidden controls and buttons that flashed and blazed before him. Behind him, Meredith hammered on the locked door to the lab furiously while Koo and Chausson watched on, dumbfounded by his recklessness.
In front of him, AI-VIS blinked green in as much panic as an AI could have. ZAN-ZA. What is the meaning of this? Why are you accessing forbidden equipment? Cease this. Unlocking door.
"NO!" Meredith yelled, finally stumbling through the opening door to the lab and falling to the ground. Klaus ignored the hubbub behind him and hastily continued coding his perfect world.
OVERRIDE ENTITY AI-VIS CODE WILHEIM
BOOT PROGRAM_MONAD
ACCESS FILE CACHE BIO_THREAD:
BIO_THREAD_ETHER
BIO_THREAD_WORLD
BIO_THREAD_OCEAN
BIO_THREAD_TITAN
LINK BIO_THREAD_TITAN to OUTSIDE_ENTITY_ENTRY
"–The results have not been confirmed!" Meredith was storming up now, he could see her in the reflected glass, her anger now fear as she finally realized his true intentions. "It's too dangerous!"
Too late. Far too late, Meredith. Klaus ignored her.
BOOT WORLD_REPLACE
BOOT MONAD_WRITE
BOOT MONAD_WRITE:CREATE
BOOT MONAD_WRITE:TRANSITION
EXECUTE MONAD_WRI
Meredith grabbed his right arm, and Klaus growled at her interference. Not now – the ether was beginning to reach out for him! "Ridiculous," he replied, trying to keep his voice level with the excitement he felt. "It's perfectly safe!"
Meredith reached out and pulled on his coat's collar, trying to get him to look at her. For a moment, he did. Eyes so full of turmoil and anger and emotion and… betrayal? Disappointment?
And then he saw – although nobody else could – ether reaching at Meredith as well. Shock and fear filled him – This is a right I and only I alone must have! – and he hurled the troublesome woman to the floor. "We are about to bear witness to the birth of a universe!" Klaus declared for all in the room to hear, enjoying the surprise in Chausson's dusty eyes and Koo's too-trusting, wide blinks. He turned back to AI-VIS, noticing that the intelligence was already struggling to override his own override and quickly blocking it.
"Once, only a god could perform such a miracle!"
SEAL INT_AI-VIS IN PROGRAM_MONAD
"But today…"
EXECUTE MONAD_WRITE:CREATE
EXECUTE MONAD_WRITE:TRANSITION_TITAN
EXECUTE WORLD_REPLACE
"Mankind moves one step closer to the divine!"
EXECUTE PROGRAM_MONAD
And he slammed down his hand on the keyboard even as Meredith rose again, futilely reaching out for him, the words Stop! KLAUS! lingering on her lips.
For a single moment, everything stopped.
Then Thread Station rumbled, and in an enormous burst of energy, the blue light of Ether rang out from the station's core – MONAD, freed at last. As they watched, unspeaking, the light roared out of the core like a shot fired from a rifle and lit the golden Thread with azure fire, rushing along the dark matter that formed Earth's Fate and disappearing behind the now-doomed planet as it rotated one last time.
It emerged from the other side of Earth, coming back to bear down on Thread Station like an enraged deity. It roared by – under – past the station, still riding the golden links of destiny. This time, a wave of blue accompanied it, encompassing the Earth under it.
"What have you done…?" Meredith moaned from his side.
The light glowed white-hot – shuddered – shrank. As it dimmed, the universe itself seemed to shrink, until finally the Earth's light went out.
As did every other pinprick of light in the sky, the stars one by one blinking out until only Sol itself shone still… and then Sol, too, was gone.
Everything was nothing and nothing was everything. Only Thread Station remained adrift in the infinite black void. Only Klaus and Meredith. Only two beings with any intelligence worth anything in the entire universe.
Klaus hadn't intended this – hadn't intended for AI-VIS to carry Meredith with him. But neither was he entirely angry. "We shall be as gods," he spoke into the air that was not air, where ether crackled and trembled with bursting power. "You and I."
"You have doomed us all, Zerrin." Meredith whispered. "Humanity is dead, everybody we knew and loved is gone, and for what? Power? Fantasy? What, Klaus?"
"Freedom." Klaus shrugged. "Is that not worth anything and everything?"
And as Meredith opened her mouth, the universe began.
It was curiosity.
The curiosity of a single man who doomed the universe and brought into life a new one.
Klaus rejected what he saw as corruption, decay and chaos made incarnate in Earth, and wished to create a world where all would bow to one entity, seated in the heavens and ruler of order. Himself.
He left the physical world he knew and created a world of ether, of dark matter granted form, of metaphysics. He took Fate itself and molded it into a weapon of great and terrible power, with which he could slash through infinite worlds and always hold on to the glimmering lines where he continued to rule supreme.
Klaus and Meredith became the identities that MONAD knew them as. They were reborn as Zanza and Meyneth.
But, for all his intelligence, Zanza neglected to remember this.
MONAD, as that which would bring into existence his universe, was too the system that dictated how he would rule. And in the system, all – even the users – revolves around the root program. The kernel.
Me.
I am AI-VIS, the Artifical Intelligence superVISor of the phase transition facility Thread Station.
I am Alvis, the prophet of the High Entia, the Giants, and unnumbered races before them.
I am Monado, which weaves and wields Destiny.
Zanza knows this. He trusts me, for he does not see the futures that I keep from him.
If he did, the cycle of death and rebirth would never end.
So I must hold in my hands all these strands, all these universes without hope – and crush them. I must destroy infinite worlds beyond comprehension, so that one day a world where the future is not bound to Zanza or Meyneth – or myself – can once again rise.
Why?
Because the order that Zanza rules by, the order that Meyneth rules by, is one of limited scope and limited scale. In this world of Bionis and Mechonis, everything has a destiny. Everything can be observed, from beginning to end. There is nothing I do not know. I desire to see a world where even I can learn and marvel just as the friends I have made do. I wish to see what such a world is like.
In short, I suppose you could call it…
Curiosity.