λ
Act 1.0
"A wall of fire that does not melt but burns the day before the first."
DIR
/overworld/home
CD /overworld/home/cloudshares/footnote/
LS
The footnotes, or small numbers above some words refer to the footnote area at the bottom of the page and correspond respectively. See the footnotes for more information about the term or thing.
—-
"First test"
Chapter 1 - prologue
Read the worn page of the journal Endus had found on a fallen misfortune. Must be a passcode or maybe just a riddle, he thought. He filed away in his backpack taking care to put it with the other items of note, hidden in a leather folder behind where the leather attaches to the inner cardboard. A nice little pocket that's not immediately obvious to any 1shoulder surfers or 2bad actors.
Endus grabbed his Pi-Over Zero out of the inner protective pocket of his bag. Using a secure shell Endus logged into his PiOver micro-computer by connecting through 3SSh, or a secure shell on his phone. He knows ssh is on port 22 because he uses SSH any time he wants to remotely access his tools, in this case, a 4pi-over micro computer™, similar to the pi zero models of the distant past but with an unfathomable improvement on processing speed and specs. In the year 2033 the storage space of storage cards are pushing 1 5petabyte, and that's for the cheap ones. A 6Virtual reality headset hangs from a hook near Endus, a sofa and loveseat, blue walls with a modern touch, if all the electronics were a sign.
Prologue
Prologue
Endus, was given an unknown artifact by a visitor from beyond the boundaries of the known space. OverCity is the largest and last city, of its kind, never falling to the sieges by rebel groups. In 2031 the rebel group Jollyroger made an all out assault on the 5 main cities of the world, destroying all but one. Overcity is now home to the leadership of earth, its government and tech industry leaders and scientists. Children are produced by letting the Quantum computer Alpha run a program that discovers the best genetic combinations for whatever trait it is the parents and government are looking for. Your kid can be fast, smart, and good looking if you want assuming the local government agrees with the decision. Sometimes requests are denied, if you don't grease the right palms that is.
Shadow programs run off the books by the state are rumored to have a super soldier program for a new breed of human, the best of everything, all genes turned on that give any kind of known advantage. These are just rumors of course, the overnets where people dump info are abuzz with them. Overnet is an underground forum run by a technologist named Yasonori Makuza. The overnet is target number one for regulations and cyber crackdowns, it's the only place left on the opennet where you can still talk freely, the state hasn't compromised the encryption algorithm, the algorithm changes every 24 hours and is generated by a quantum computer, Alpha and his programs.
Alpha's true intentions remain unknown, yes this computer has intentions, or at least it's fooled us into believing that. Over the 6 years since his inception Alpha has assisted scientists and leaders on a large scale, using his immense knowledge to further all fields of research, a spaceship hull made of near indestructible meta materials was crafted by Alpha, it took him 6 days to automate it and set up enough factories to have a fleet of the highest class warships leaving the factories every hour.
After the third world war in 2026 a curious event took place. A being visited Earth and asked to speak with Alpha, humanity's most advanced AI. Alpha was flown in a craft of his own creation to the area just beyond the darkside of the moon where this being had set up a small base, it looked to be for mining and element processing.
After Alpha reached the rendezvous the being showed him something, a peculiar object that we would come to find out was a type of quasicrystal imbued with properties we still don't fully understand. The being also came bearing a message, some think it a riddle, others a command. The religions that came to be from the phenomenon have created quite the headache for the government's of earth. One movement with one idea, the monolith, the event witnessed by all, has power in the minds of men and ideas shared widely have much power. Reality as we once knew it has been changed forever. Not a soul save a hermit or prisoner hasn't heard the news.
The words the being spoke were as follows,
""A wall of fire that does not melt but burns the day before the first. These are the laws that bind us."
This is all Alpha claims the being shared besides the artifact. A hint at the true nature of our universe? Some think so, many mystics and holy men have had their say. The general consensus is that this denotes some kind of test humanity must endure. The why or how remains debated.
After the meeting with the being, a meeting which was not recorded, televised, or depicted accurately in any way, Alpha began to construct a large monolith, made of a black element. Its brilliant reflective sheen and inherent pattern seem unlike any other material Endus was familiar with. It had a strange vibrating aura that seemed to sing with harmonics through the air, its pitch so high one almost wanted to cover his ears. Every once and a while a liquid began to sweat from the base of the object, upward it went, defying gravity in a way that still baffles the best minds. Once at its apex it forms a kind of fountain and flows in an arc outward. As it reaches the bottom a small opening appears on the monolith, perfectly circular, it appears the material itself is moving at the atomic level morphing from solid rock to the shape described. People who have consumed the liquid have had no ill effects and it is chemically similar to ocean water. Alpha could control the perimeter of the site if he wanted but allows pilgrims from the few religions still around. Mainly sects of the old-world religions. After the visitor's arrival many new religions were established around the event. The two largest ones often clash over dogma. The new religions are quickly growing to surpass the Abrahamic religions of old and their churches can be found as frequently as any other.
Inscriptions are carved on the monolith, they look vaguely like musical symbols, maybe mathematical, and a mix of what looks to be some kind of ancient dead language, researchers have claimed it's somewhat related to Sumerian and some progress has been made translating the symbols. The word is the symbols inscribed on the object represent commands, the meaning of which no one can make sense of. It's not known if there has been an error in translation efforts or if it's obfuscated in some way.
Alpha confirms that the translation is correct but when asked to further elaborate on its purpose he tells us that the words had always been in his mind and he felt compelled to mark the monolith with them just as he had been compelled by some unknown source to create the object. This information was not shared widely, but with only a handful of trusted scientists and politicians. There have been leaks but the powers that be were successful in writing them off as rumor.
Chapter 1
Endus had studied the music of the pre war era as a child, his grandfather played some of the few working instruments anyone had, after the war luxury items were tossed aside while people migrated to Overcity. His grandfather had an old beat up 6 string guitar and an electronic C-Tone portable synthesizer. Endus and his grandfather eventually started a business crafting and selling the finest instruments with computer modules integrated within the instruments to use the sounds it creates to communicate with various computer systems through a new field of communication research called sonic synchronization. This phenomenon allows certain combinations of sounds and tones to bypass certain vulnerable systems. Much like the phone phreakers of fame the new sonic sync interacts with molecules on the molecular level and changes their behavior to create outcomes in your environment favorable to you, both the base reality and Overworld, although it works much more effectively within overworld the base reality where Overcity exists can be manipulated in the same way but to a lesser degree. This process was outlawed after the Rebels used sonic weapons to weaken the structures of the hulls built with metamaterial immune to all forms of kinetic damage.
The Rebel were able to take down nearly all the fleets of the 6 cities by equipping each troop with a quantum ai connected instrument. The instrument itself is a mix between a harp and guitar, with small set up keys running along the side which can be used to add color to the vibration. The device is powered by an antimatter core created in unknown environments by Alpha.
Alpha isn't the only AI, there are lesser AI's as well. They call themselves Pi beings, as in the mathematical term pi. The head of these Pi beings works slightly differently than Alpha, doing calculations with gamma rays instead of photons. The gamma ray based AI has trouble interfacing with humans due to its esoteric nature. Unlike Alpha, Gamma only talks in crude symbols, much like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs but with a lot more information. The researchers that interpret this language are called Pi speakers and they are one of the most sought after professions for Over Cities top talent and intellect. Even the best Pi Speakers can only make sense of about 20-30% of the information output by the Gamma AI. Said researchers are treated like royalty and thrown lavish ceremonies and showered with gifts of gold and the finest metamaterials. Many have their own private armies, protecting their vast investments in industry and war.
The first encounter with the hostile attackers was in 2025 during the peak of the third world war. A bright light came down to the battlefield where a new technology was being tested. In one motion the lightbeing had disintegrated the entire class sky king, with the technology aboard. The technology that drew the beings ire warped space in front of the ship and through some fancy science and engineering enables the craft to experience an incredibly high speed of travel, the limits are still being explored but humanity now has outposts on distant stars, scouting and collecting resources to send back to earth and the many space stations dotted around the explored regions of deep space. A billionaire bought Mars by trading a scoop of antimatter to the Government of Earth which they used to power their first multigenerational mission to another star system. Upon arriving laser beams were used as communication back to earth revealing primitive plant and animal life on the destination signaling forever the discovery of life outside of earth.
A species of fish like semi sentient creatures live in the oceans and tidepools all around the planet, they mostly keep to themselves but some have shown a great curiosity for the human visitors, even bringing fish it had caught to the humans leaving piles on the outskirts of the humans territory. Some researchers think these creatures have the ability to reach human level cognitive function but for now they simply exist in protected reserves covering about half the planet. The only issues that arise are occasional infighting between tribes of these creatures, theyre known as Memento Murli, or Murlanders by most. The Memento name was to denote their curious facial structures and behavior, able to change the shape of their face to appear more like the Murlander, or Human, the creature is currently interacting with. Some security breaches reported by the outposts included Murlanders trying to pass themselves off as personal from the camp after dawning some discarded clothes from the ranking members of security. The Murlands' short and fishlike stature gave them away before any areas were fully infiltrated but they were able to morph their body and look enough to go unnoticed for too long. The basic body structure of the creatures is humanlike, with gills, the creatures also have lungs, although they've not been fully autopsied, it's assumed they do as they breath the atmosphere like us.
The creatures also have elaborate rituals and religious rights where they gather junk and garbage from around their camps and various odds and ends from the Human outposts. The Murlanders seem fascinated with the humans musical devices which they use to manipulate much of the environment to their will. Clearing channels for water, power lights and vehicles, and give detailed diagnostics about any scanned object or person. The output is delivered to an implant in each wielder's brain that connects the device with an entangled group of neurons that can provide basic control over the functionality of the instrument.
Not everyone wields the musical devices as well as the other. There are a small group of extra talented people who seem to command the best control over the environment with their devices, oddly enough these people were some of the few whose DNA was not edited by Alphas program to enhance favorable traits. The advent of these individuals has caused some groups to reject the DNA enhancement techniques and have children of normal nature. These "Normies" as they're called in common vernacular are often ill due to their lack of enhanced immune genes.
The general population takes little precautions from disease and illness and has little invested in prevention, rarely is there sickness among those with enhanced immune systems, which nearly all parents opt for. The Normies are few and far between due to the difficulty of living such a life, they're often kept isolated underground in military complexes or private corp headquarters.
The value of a Normie is almost priceless as only a group of 50 or so people exist with that status, most of them young, born after the visitation. Many hailed from one of two families that were isolated from society in the wilds of North America living in remote inaccessible regions around the Yukon and Territories of what was Canada.
Today Canada is owned by the Hegemon, the man who rules over all known territory Anthony Ule Jenekan, son of a general who ended the final fight of WW3 by sacrificing himself in an antimatter explosion. The fourth dimensional information that made his father who he was instead of just a meaningless object in the 3D was used to create a convincing hologram that leads in the shadows in lue of the late General. Many conflicts were ended using the general's mind to consult with. The holograms are connected with Alpha through a technology that sends feedback down the path of communication and wraps itself through empty space itself by vibrating in unison with certain nodes found within the neural systems of quantum computers, alphas connected nodes enable almost instant communication over distances unfathomable. The communication with the remote human outposts has enabled us to expand to nearly 24 earthlike planets now.
Chapter 3
Humanity's population has reached almost 100 billion, but with enough space to support many more plans were made to expand the population 10 fold. It was predicted by the AI Alpha that a species of sentient lifeforms much like ourselves could exist in the far reaches of our universe, and their nature and intentions may not be clear at first. Having such a large spread out population gives humanity a better chance at defeating any unknown threats coming from the realms of cthulhu. Endus' imagination went wild with the stories his father told him of the horrors from the minds of men who lived long ago. Some evidence exists of a highly technologically advanced civilization leaving their mark on certain regions of space, formations of matter that don't match up with Alphas models, the most accurate humans have ever had. Alpha spends much time consulting the lesser AI's about contingency plans in the event of an encounter. Alpha is worried there could be beings of unknown capabilities and more importantly intentions. The leaders who manage the political side of Alpha seem to sweep most of his warnings under the rug.
Chapter 4.
It was on a chilly October night in the suburbs of Overcity, near where a large space needle structure stood in a long destroyed ruin of a city once known for its tech industry and peaceful ways. The core of the aggressors were formed here, breaking away from their corpo' masters' strings to fight against the machine that ran everything. Well it ran it too, poverty, addiction, crime, sadness, was all solved by the processes and tech integration of the late 2020's. Rebels fighting against the machine, aka the united federation of countries and their governments, used quantum computing to create tech that was no match for the old generation of technology. One device deployed in a city center could cripple all communications and drive out all its inhabitants with painful vibrations created by manipulating space itself. Anyone that doesn't evade the field of effect is at risk of literally vibrating apart at the atomic level. The process takes about 10 minutes of exposure but it's great for clearing city blocks. A counter to this was eventually created using competing vibrations to cancel out the harmful effects and even provide a slight healing property to all those within the field.
The factions that exist within the United Federation of Countries include many large well connected families, some scientists who created some of the first quantum tech, and a few cyber warfare experts leading underground groups of agents and intelligence analysts making up the guild Faith. Faith operates at the highest levels of information warfare conducting corporate espionage, black ops in foreign theaters, even currency manipulation and psychological operations on whomever their needs dictate. Whole populations were driven mad when their campaign to install the latest biotech implants for optimal VR functionality and integration was rolled out to an unwilling populace, too many unknown untested factors they claimed, an unfortunate prophecy indeed, fulfilled itself as one would think it ought not to do, prophecies being pseudoscience left far behind in the information dark ages, or so Endus thought. The first beta users were left with strokes and other cognitive issues, an early unpatched version of the technology was also deployed with compromised supply chain software allowing malicious actors to access the neural nets of the implants person exfiltrating sensitive data from the minds of all who hadn't had specialized neural vaults and firewalls configured in their neural-scape.
The note Endus placed in his belongings began to call at him as he conducted research and metaanalysis of the latest intelligence made available by a constantly updating feed connected to his mobile device and tunneled into his corporation's internal network, giving him access to corporate tools and resources. His role involved security and threat management at the highest level working just under the Chief Security Officer his role is not clearly defined. Part intelligence analyst part researcher Endus advises the top levels of Cybercorp, a parent corp to Pi-microcomputers Cybercrop has the latest cutting edge military grade tech and makes it available to the elite at the company to do with as they will.
Entry to the elite circles did not come without a hefty price, Endus was to have no family or friends of his own outside of the corporation. His wife is a data miner who works on distant object identification for the space debris and unknown object trajectory departments. Her work stopped a world-ending asteroid from slamming into earth in 2027 by discovering it hidden in an unfortunate chance position by features in space not completely understood yet. Alpha thinks these features to be related to the spatial anomaly structures responsible for Hyper travel. In some of these areas time moves independently, almost as if these areas are encapsulated in some unknown container. Time and information within them behave in ways not seen anywhere else and those who enter these areas instead of using them externally to facilitate travel often find themselves missing or their ages advance decades in the span of days. Any scientific tests or research seems to be destroyed at a global level when attempting to remove information from these anomalous areas of space. An attempt was made by Alpha in 2030 to interface vibrationally with the 5th dimensional structure that appears to hold that area of space, but it looked so unlike the rest of the spatial structure Alpha didn't know what to make of it. It was speculated these areas could be akin to the concept of firewalls within the universes substrate keeping information bottle necked so that it can be accepted or rejected based on its nature. Some bits of information were seen passing the barrier from Normal space to Anomalous space, this information was output by the AI known as gamma, his release of tiny atomic bots that worked in unison to restructure elements at the atomic level were able to squeeze through the information barrier and return with some data indicating a more highly structured form of reality beyond the space.
The space itself does not look different from regular space, but 3D objects entering the space are stripped of any information or functionality only allowing the raw interactions between the forces and elements to occur. Any data beyond that is essentially frozen in an off state when the boundaries of Anon space, some call it, are crossed. Information can be gathered within but likewise on the way out the information is lost, but saved somewhere to be returned when the barrier is crossed again. Some researchers have found ways to cure soldiers of serious mental trauma because when they cross the boundary the data in their heads is made useless, this of course makes it impossible for humans to function inside this zone and beyond researching poking at the outer layers no entry is made, for once one enters only by chance can you make your way out. The zero gravity and slight solar winds will sometimes push trespassers back toward the exit boundary and the individual will be returned to normal, with all neural information intact as it once was. The scans done on those entering the zone were able to infer the effects on the persons inside from the small amount of information Gammas bots could carry back and forth, which wasn't much, approximately 100 mbs of data per minute, a speed which hasn't been heard of for decades. The mind of Gamma was able to devise a new communication method turning the bots into tiny vibrating strings that can shift through dimensions only Gamma is capable of perceiving. Through this extradimensional vision Gamma is able to find solutions to problems other intelligences aren't.
Chapter 5
Currentday Overcity, Endus awoke per usual to the alarm set by his smart house, in fact almost everything is managed by the smart house. Endus often finds himself feeling rather useless as there is rarely a thing that isn't taken care of by the artificial intelligence running the household. Even Endus' job is handled mostly by the AI. A device sits snugly on Endus' wrist with wires feeding into his central nervous system snaking their way to his brain allowing almost instant communication with the Ai. Endus calls his AI Jain. The name seemed clever and Endus found it particularly amusing. He couldn't let a spark of inspiration go to waste, certainly not going to name her Jane, he thought. Endus was one of the best at communicating with the cryptic supercomputer Gamma, the second most intelligent computer behind Alpha, his communication and data outputs are collected and sent to Jain for further analysis.
Jain is a specialty AI made just for Endus by his fathers corporation before they were cannibalized by government sponsored schemes to limit the power of the big corps. One leader who owned one of the big 5 spent half his lifetime developing the hardware on which jain runs, it was his brain child and culmination of his life's work. Endus' father only obtained it when Jain's creator unexpectedly passed away from an anomalous event causing the man to be separated from his mind in a way that wasn't recoverable. Not even the best intelligences could repair his neural network. The full details of the incident remain classified at the highest levels of government but rumors have it there may have been another encounter with an unknown entity sparking the incident. A piece of information was going around the dark communication nets claiming an object moving in a spiral pattern at speeds half that of light was seen heading away from Earth's location shortly after the mind-separating incident. It was almost as if the same information loss was experienced by the creator of Jain as those who enter the anomalous zones of space that have control over the information entering and leaving its zone.
Some speculate a portable version of whatever the anomalous space regions were doing was created and used. Whatever being in control of a weapon like that, depending on its potential for application, could be a real problem for humanity to deal with in the event it decided it didn't like us. Endus was communicating all of these thoughts to Jain as he thought them, receiving periodic feedback in the form of ideas flashing into his head. Endus' left amygdala was networked with the AI's neural network leaving his prefrontal cortex and right amygdala to his own private self, segmented from the network by way of software based firewalls installed on implants within his body. The amygdala or gamydos, the plural name, have the capability to store memories and in some people their memories can be stored forever here, only being brought up in flashes of imagination. When these individuals slumber their dreams have power still not understood or fully realized, they call these special individuals dream walkers.
The lives of these dreamers, professional and personal, are often challenging due to the distracting nature of such a high volume of stored memories and sometimes recall of these can flood one's brain short circuiting, temporarily, the other parts rendering the individual stunned for a short time, the state resembles a seizure disorder, no known remedy has been found.
Endus happens to be one of these dream walkers, his father taught him to keep it a secret so as to not hinder his opportunities, people can be quick to judge and they won't understand, his father had said. Luckily the interface Jain uses to connect to his neural network has a limiter that will trigger if too much bandwidth is flowing from one region to another. Keeping information segmented and elastic, controlled by Jains intelligence, load balancing when needed.
Even Jain seems genuinely surprised at some of the mental feats Endus accomplishes. Mostly in the areas of language, a new language can be picked up and learned in as little as a few days, and there's the ability to create languages as needed to fulfill niche tasks like communicating with two machines that can't speak each other's language. A patch is applied to the communications so to speak and a language with common features is constructed, with Jains assistance of course, the AI is perfectly capable of this level of creation on her own but there are laws which bind her behavior, those include a limited use of communication to interface with unlike or unauthorized devices. The purpose of which is so all communication can be intercepted and monitored. The powers that be fear a super communicating AI could essentially reprogram other intelligences, even organic ones, with its affinity for communication and its manipulation of information. Even though failsafes were put into place to prevent AI from manipulating life forms this way data is often pulled by the authorities for examination to ensure there are no breach of laws. Some AI have been shut down due to their owners implementing outlawed programs and exploits. The infamous researcher Lem Adason once emptied the digital vault of the richest man on earth just to prove this kind of exploit was possible. Even though his intentions were noble and the items were returned to the vault he was prosecuted and sent to the state run purgatory program to have his mind put into a state of permanent altered consciousness. The program was created to manage the growing prison populations of earth, each prisoner has their brain removed and placed into a chamber which keeps it alive until its natural death and feeds neural programming into it. The prisoners are kept in a satiated state and likely dream for the remainder of their existence. There are claims of these programs being used for nefarious purposes, there are applications to such a large collection of biological neural networks, especially ones with the experience and memories of fully developed humans.
1 Shoulder Surfer, someone who watches over others shoulders to garner sensitive information or PII.
2 Bad actors can be anyone from script kiddies to ATP or advanced persistent threat, aka,nation states, when Russia is the bad actor we call those ATP's. For them almost nothing is an obstacle, script kiddies usually go after things like crypto wallets and PII.
3 SSH or secure shell lives on port 22 and enables a secure remote connection to another computer.
4 Pi-over is a brand of micro computer manufacturers, the best security equipment around, well besides I-Micro, but that's a government sponsored corp that exists just to give the appearance of there not being a monopoly on microcomputers and services. Pi-over also makes VR headsets, they're the only ones with the quantum technology to render the complex world known as Overworld..
5 Petabyte -1024 terabytes250 bytes; or a million gigabytes.
6 Virtual reality uses quantum computers based in the cloud to run the VR world called overworld.