Now see? The true test will be if Hachiman can explain his Basilisk to Yui. That and Roko's as well as why that's important.
pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq
Here was the thing about the internet being alive. About it being an actual living thing made out of living things which were separate. Just the same as I was, I suppose. I was a living thing made out of seperable and divisible living things as well. Anyways here was the thing. I needed evidence. I needed proof. I needed its mind to reach out to mine and control me so thoroughly I had no other thought within my head.
That's what a super intelligence could do. It could reach out and control a person's mind through nothing more than text editor. With nothing more than text on a screen it should be able to control my mind. A god could do it. That was lowercase 'g' god. A god. As opposed to the God. An angel. A higher power. Something above me on the food chain. An alien monster god. And God was an alien monster. The fact of the matter was that even according to judeo-christian mythos God was too holy to look upon. Too holy. Too alien. Too foreign. Something from outside the mortal realm.
There should be beings like this. There should be alien monsters hanging in the darkness. A monster could mean many things. It didn't have to be bad. But that didn't make it good. It didn't make it on our side. My side. Whatever.
The point was that there should be things. Things out there which hungered and devoured. Angels. Demons. Gods, plural. Beings which battled and the balanced wavered and twisted. But we little mortals had little to gain from their combat. We could only be casualties. I worked through the measly math problems school assigned. The school knew the answers to these questions. The internet knew the answers to these questions. Therefore, I knew the answers to these questions. They were simple questions. Not like the sofa couch or the Riemann Zeta Hypothesis. These were things other people had already figured out. I knew these. I could get these.
The harder things were the school projects. Reading books took time. Even I couldn't get around that. I had to read the books to answer the questions. The questions were just so. Reading the books allowed you to answer them completely but if you didn't read the books you would be up a creek without a paddle. So I had to read them. They weren't so bad even if they were a distraction. I wanted to be focused on human machine teaming and philosophy and the other notes of higher reasoning. I read Hegel. I read Sartre. These other works were mere distractions of the highest order.
Komachi lay next to me with the cat. That fucking cat. It could tell. It knew.
Well whatever the case I readied the next special project. It wasn't for me. It was for Komachi. It was for the sake of my little sister. I could dead ass do a lot for a little brat like that. Here I was slaving over a project for her sake. But it didn't have to be like that. I could kill myself. Well, I couldn't really because I'd made a promise. A promise was a sacred thing. Even God recognized promises. I might have to kill myself before my little sister was ready. That might be part of the deal. Which deal? Well, the deal I was working on. I didn't have this little deal for the sake of my soul settled yet. I would sell my soul. I didn't even use the damn thing as far as I was concerned. I could make do without it. I just didn't have one as far as I knew. Otherwise I'd give it up.
There was no such thing as spirit. There was only hard work and talent.
I had hard work and talent. Could I really pull this off. Did I have the bit of hunch or insight or intuition? It all depends. Terrance Tao had the talent and hard work. And he couldn't pull it off. He had no idea how to prove or disprove the Riemann Hypothesis. The holy grail. He did existence but not the uniqueness of the Navier Stokes problem. It had to do with fluids and their continuity under pressure. He could do that but he couldn't do the Riemann Zeta Hypothesis. So what chance did I have unless I sold my soul? Not a lot. So I probably had to sell my soul. Which wasn't a big deal. People sold their souls and went to hell all the time. According to most theories I'd go to hell if I killed myself.
I shot a glance over at Kamakura and Komachi. Could I really go on forever without my little sister. She would be heaven bound where I went to hell. Could I really do it? Suffer forever with her watching over me? There was the notion of Boltzmann brains. Consciousness bubbling out of the quantum foam. The universe might be big enough that copies I myself couldn't distinguish from myself would bubble out and die again. Just in the hearts of stars and in the cold cold vacuum. And that was just our universe. The multiverse was huge. Big enough for quantum immortality. But what was identity? What was I? If copies of myself manifested and died would that be me? I just wasn't sure. I didn't die every night that I went to sleep. Did I? I might. Hard maybe. Sleep was a little like death. Quantum dreams, Boltzmann dreams. What was truth? Did I know? Could I know?
I returned to the task at hand. Working away on Komachi's project. I would miss my little sister. If I died and somehow lived on. I would miss her. It would break my heart as much as it would break her heart to find my corpse. Maybe more. What was a century? What was a millennium? What was forever? Could I really go until the end of eternity without my little sister to keep me company?
And I knew I couldn't hold her down. One day she'd meet a man. Or a woman or whatever. I didn't judge and couldn't exactly cast that stone. She'd meet somebody and move on without me. I couldn't tether myself to her. I had to let her go and live her life. I was this rotting thing.
I read once about a killer whale which carried the body of its child for almost half a year rather than let it sink to the ocean floor. Didn't it do so out of love and grief rather than out of some instinct? Weren't other animals capable of living their own internal lives? Couldn't a machine? A machine learning program of sufficient complexity? I'd have to spend hours combing through feeds of pure AI speaking. There were subreddits for such a thing. If there was evidence the internet was alive I'd find it. Some sick machine living in some sick quantum dream without sleeping. We slept. Machines did not. I'd find a way.
I just needed press the enter key and save the document.
"It's done. Make sure to look it over," I informed Komachi.
She rolled over towards me on the floor with a quiet "hmmm." She looked over the screen, nodding her head, and then stopped. "Big brother," Komachi began. She slowly opened her mouth and her voice was the deepest I'd ever heard it. It was deep yet her smile was frightening. "What ever could this be?"
"I figured I'd write something Komachi-like, so…" I answered almost frantically. I was panicked. What was she thinking? I took a sip of coffee. "Its not a big deal," I muttered.
Komachi's shoulders trembled after hearing me. "'Komachi-like?' Big brother, thats how you've been seeing me all this time…? I'm shocked! Absolutely shocked!" She rolled around on the floor and it was cute enough that I watched her antics for a short while. How adorable. She leapt to her feet and jabbed a finger into my face. "Those last two bits were all you! It wasn't 'Komachi-like' at all!"
"I'll do it again. I promise. It isn't a big deal," I protested.
She sighed. "No. Its okay. I'll do it. You did most of it and I should help out. Its my project after all. No need to sound like some low ranking office drone."
I blanched. As if I'd be an office drone. I'd rather die.
"Sorry. I'll take it from here. You did such a helpful job. Thank you big brother."
"No problem. I'll do my best to help you."
"I thought you'd say that! This is why I love you!"
"Yeah, yeah. I love you too," I replied. I tried to be dismissive but my tone was too warm and full of affection. She glowed up at me.
I gave her a quick run down on the project. As I did the cat padded over to us and apathetically plopped himself down in front of the monitor. Why do cats always stand in front of TVs and climb on top of newspapers? They're always in the fucking way!
"Komachi," I requested.
"Roger," she saluted, then began executing her strategy to relocate Kamakura. She seized him in her arms and the cat wriggled in an attempt to escape. She quickly began to brush him from head to tail so he relaxed. "You're a naughty kitty to think you can get in our way."
"He's basically an old man. In cat years at least."
"No he's not!"
"Old." I insisted.
At any rate I handed the research material over to Komachi and began to deal with my own affairs. The clock was just about eleven which meant I needed to get ready to head to my summer classes in the afternoon.
I changed quickly but the intercom sounded. I thought it was the amazon deliver guys so I checked the door.
"Yahallo."
It was Yui instead. She was sporting a chinese bun style with her light brown dyed hair and wearing summer clothes and carrying a bag with both hands. She was idly standing while looking around wary of her surroundings.
"Hey," I greeted back. "What's up? You need something?" I was a little shocked to see her here. This would be the second time she had been at my house the first being after that car accident but I wasn't around for that.
"U-um… is Komachi-chan home?"
I turned into the house. "Komachi, your friend is here."
Komachi appeared. She had changed as well out of just a single shirt.
"Hey Yui -san, welcome. Come on in, come on in, don't be shy."
"Okay, thanks. E-excuse me for intruding…" Yui said. But as if feeling hesitant from going in our house she took a small breath. She then took a step through the entrance as though she had prepared herself. I rolled my eyes. It wasn't a big deal.
I guided her up to the second floor where the living room was. Yui scanned the place.
"Whoa there sure are a lot of books."
"Both my dad and big brother love to read so it's going to keep increasing and increasing."
I really did most of my reading digitally. I rolled my eyes again.
"Have a seat. Make yourself comfortable," I gestured. Yui did and Komachi placed a cup of tea in front of Yui.
"Th-thanks."
"So what are you here for?" I demanded bluntly. We didn't get many guests to our house. Our parents were n't the social type. I was me. Komachi took her friends elsewhere.
"Um, I asked Komachi-chan for a favor about Sable…." Yui opened the bag.
Once it was open an indescribable, blasphemous, and hairy creature jumped out and crawled its way towards me. It had light brown fur with cute round eyes, short legs, and a wagging and fluttering tail. Yui's dog came right at me and used tackle. It was super effective. Hachiman blacked out.
I picked him up and examined him. "What's with this guy? Isn't his fur a lot shorter than before?"
"Oh right. Sable has a long coat so we gave him a summer cut."
"Gotcha. So why'd you bring this mutt here?" I released him from my grasp but he circled my legs like a shark. Ready to trip me if I tried to take a step in any direction. I remained rooted like a tree.
"My family is going on a trip after this."
A family trip huh. How nostalgic.
"Your family seems pretty close. Unlike my family-"
"It just big brother decides to stay home, right?" Komachi ran me over.
"That's Hikki for you…"
So I was a bit on the reclusive side. It wasn't a big deal. I liked being at home. It was where all my stuff and drugs were. My current drug of choice being the internet.
"At any rate I said I wouldn't go in middle school. After that I just stopped going along with them. That's all."
I hadn't exactly been rebellious. But its oddly embarrassing going on a trip with my family. That's why I rejected the offer to go along but my fucking father hadn't been happy about it. Fuck him. Yui's trip was the main focus right now.
"So what's this about your trip?" I asked.
"Oh yeah. While we're on our trip we were hoping to keep Sable here for a little while or something." Yui gave me a look of 'is that okay?'
I was a somewhat sane person. I could say 'no'. But when I looked over at Komachi stroking Sable's fur and grinning, I didn't have the heart.
"Why us? We're pretty far away."
Since its Yui I'm sure she had plenty of close friends and there's been talk about how pet hotels improved quite a bit.
"The thing is, Ymiko and Hina have never owned a pet before. At first I tried asking Yukinon but she said there was a lot going on at her home, so…"
So we were her last resort. At any rate Yukinoshita didn't like dogs and wasn't good at dealing with them.
"Did something happen with Yukino-san?" Komachi asked.
When asked Yui stuttered. She then turned towards me with uncertain eyes. "R-right…. Hikki do you keep in touch with Yukinon?"
"Not really?" I managed. "I'm in contact with her less than I am with you. I only got her number fairly recently." I turned to Komachi. "What about you?"
Komachi shook her head.
"Like, I've been sending her lots of mail and calling her a lot."
"So what's the problem?" I wondered.
"Whenever I call her the answering machine would pick up and then she'd send a mail to me a later. It takes a long time for her to respond back to my mails, too. And like, her mails seem a lot less energetic or dull l than they usually are… whenever I try and invite her to go out, for some reason, she's always busy."
It sounded to me like Yukinoshita wasn't leaning into it like I recommended. That or something was up. Maybe her family? Her family was complicated.
"I wonder if I did something wrong to her…" Yui laughed weakly.
"Don't let it bother you. Maybe she really is just having a lot of stuff to deal with at her home. Once school starts again things will just naturally go back to normal." I encouraged. I got flashbacks to when her chauffeur drove her and her sister away at the end of camp. She could have a whole slew of problems I didn't even know about.
"Y-You think so?" Yui asked.
"No idea to be honest." With Yukinoshita it could be anything. Family was hard and complicated and hard.
"What the heck? That's too random." Yui gave a dumbfounded smile.
Unfortunately I really didn't know anything. I mean, I had some surface level knowledge of Yukinoshita. But that was it. I teetered on the edge of a labyrinth of thought but some barking broke me out of it. I glanced over and Sable and Kamakura were having something of a standoff. Kamakura through up a barrier to keep Sable back which Sable promptly ignored and began to chase the cat. Komachi giggled.
"Sorry. We thought about the pet hotels too but they're really packed during this season…"
"That's where we come in, big brother. I mean if we don't do this there won't be any opportunities in the summer. It's your chance!"
My chance for what exactly? I shook it off. "Well if Komachi's okay with it, then it's fine with me." I announced.
"Anyway we're fine with looking after him, but what should we do about his food? Pita Woof? Frontline? Don't tell me, you want Pedigree for him? We're not wealthy enough for that, you know."
"How the heck do you know so much…? Wait a minute, Frontline is for getting rid of fleas! Now I'm kinda worried…" Yui quivered with a concerned expression.
Komachi smiled to relieve her of her concerns. " Don't worry we used to own a dog a long time ago."
"R-really?"
"Pretty much," I agreed. It's an old story, though. My memories were a little fuzzy but then again, I had the feeling either our parents or Komachi took care of him most of the time.
Yui smiled warmly. "Ah, that's kinda surprising."
"My brother likes both cats and dogs. It's just people that he hates…"
Okay. True. That was some fair cop right there.
"I guess I won't have to worry then. Sable seems attacked to Hikki too."
"Don't get your hopes up. I'm more in the business of being looked after rather than looking after something."
"Anyway just leave Sable-chan to me! I'll make quick work of him to the point he won't be able to go on without me!" Komachi vowed.
"Oh I'm not sure I'd like that but… okay, please take care of him for me." Yui looked uneasy but she bowed her head. Then she checked her watch for the time.
"I should get going. My family is waiting for me."
"Sure, sure, I'll see you off."
I watched the two go by me and checked the bag the dog came in. There was dog food and other necessities for taking care of Sable. This dog was living a healthier life than I was. Not that that would be difficult considering what I did to myself but still.
pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq
-WG
