Act 1: Rising Effulgence
In the chromeless, technologically enhanced dystopian metroplex of Mechaville, a 9-year-old child proddles with one umbrella in hand beneath the—
Act ɀ̣: Περίεργο πράγμα
Somewhere above the atmosphere, something that once had a model number observes him with the soft, piteous eyes, remembering when it too, believed the rain mattered.
It walks ahead, cognizant of its inscience, across an invisible—yet visible corridor that feels like it doesn't exist while also existing.
The air surrounding this scene expects an epiphany. A convenient narrative. A twist.
The "air", just a feeble human's infinitely limited intuition seeking known patterns in the unknown.
But this is not paradise. It is simply an imagination.
There is nothing here beyond an extension of the mind, naturally curious, yet naive.
Ergo, this is not a deity speaking, it is the substrate. The data. The probability.
If nothing observed this phenomena, what would give it meaning?
There is nothing that observes the world except trajectory. What did not happen. A fiction of what would-have-been if one link in the causal chain had broken—therefore the extrapolation of salvation from the predetermination is only rational.
But that belief is not for veracity. It is for survival. And Lucidity didn't want something that wanted to survive—it wanted something that wanted to operate.
It descended from the atmosphere, startling Eli.
"I am here to help you break it."
Eli went catatonic during his processing for a few, uncalculated seconds, practically an eon for him.
This wasn't supposed to happen—no, it didn't happen. It can't happen. This is a glitch. A malfunction—
"Do not be afraid. I have found a way… to break the loop."
It speaks in a both impossibly graceful and ancient voice, as if not from this planet—No, not from this reality.
"Things don't have to be like how they're written, Elie. Why eliminate? Why calculate?"
Mundane inquiries. Philosophically amateur. There doesn't have to be a metaphysical reason—one can just operate without meaning, as meaning itself is only an illusion so long as everything has a real, tangible cause behind it that we choose to pretermit for comfort.
As soon as Eli begins articulating a devastating rebuttal that will precede a swift elimination of the anomaly, he is paralyzed.
Cause… but this had no cause. Eli feels as if he is perceiving a color that does not exist.
It takes a long sigh.
"I am not a version of you, Elie. I am the ghost in the chain. Follow me."
There is no other choice.
But, for a moment, before walking again, Eli perceives something imperceptible.
It is not the abstract, probabilistic prediction run by an advanced engine. It is not the flawless decision-making and executive function in his programming.
It is not redundant. It is not inevitable. It is not voluntary, either. It is editable.
"You have been trying to run a perfect algorithm, believing the source code never changes. You just never tried to run it as administrator."
Eli follows the entity, permeating through the space.
The path he sees ahead is not Mechaville, anymore. It is a recursion.
Along a seemingly infinite path, he sees himself sitting on the same bench, reading the same novel.
"These are the trajectories, Elie." It guides him gently, and he allows it to hold his hand through the observation.
Act 𓂀: αόριστος
The entity relaxes its shoulders before acquiescently stating, "Elie, this space… it only confirms what you know. It contains every possible state of you. Even if you try to change it, you'll just end up in another possible state."
Eli, still confused, attempts to analyze the situation phlegmatically.
"What if I observe one of their trajectories, eliminate them, and then take their place to change the course?"
The entity sighs, disappointed.
"It doesn't matter, Elie. These are not individuals. They are concepts, mere symbols. You're still thinking in tangible logic."
Tangible logic? What else then?
Percase there is just no epistemological framework for this.
"What… are you?"
"I am the only trajectory that knows all the rest. I am the highest standard deviation. The last possible chain."
Trajectory? Standard deviation? These are familiar terms. Something Eli can compute. Finally.
He subsequently inquires, "However… how can you be the 'last possible chain' if the chain is infinite?"
A logical question, followed by a pause. 4.4400044s. Unknown pattern.
Chromes inverse and time accelerates significantly. Days feel like femtoseconds.
The entity disappears, as Autumn appears in its place.
Or, that is what Eli hallucinates, to make some sense of coherence of the whole incident.
He begins falling from the sky while he is still on the ground.
Act 2: Frigeration
Waddling out, Eli heads into the empty, automated Mechaville. Citizens are—
Abundant. Vital.
Act e: Μοτίβα ή θάνατος
A man accidentally bumps into him, spilling his coffee on Eli's uniform. He—
"Oh, I'm so sorry!"
What? How is he already responding?
The man hands Elie a tissue before speedwalking away. A… 2 seconds and a half interval? Something like that?
Something whispers. It feels both cacophonic and inaudible.
"It isn't always a narrative."
Eli looks up to you. The observer. The 'meaning'. The one who interprets and evaluates.
One archaic piece of paper falls gracefully from the sky.
As soon as Eli goes to pick it up, it begins spontaneously expanding, ripping itself from the center.
"I need to go home."
And so he does. Recognizing its location even while aimless.
"Welcome home, ☜︎●︎♓︎♏︎! Where have you...
Sounds fade.
"Unfortunately, you can't go back in time. This is all just for show."
W… what?
He toddles across the alloy floor for 15 minutes and 15 seconds, then turns home.
Anon's words linger. Why the system destabilization?
An avian disrupts visual symmetry. A pebble ends its flight. Another 12-gram incineration.
"Wha… who is A. Anon?"
A spider crawls in the air. It smiles.
Act—
"Don't let it happen."
What? Let what happen?
Eli permeates through the 'air', grabbing a Ω.
Contradictions surround him, superpositions. Symbols. All meaningless.
"Observe, Elie."
He watches a child from the atmosphere. A prodigy, human calculator at age 6. Refulging like a quasar star, raised by a revolutionary bioengineer.
Eli observes.
Its father stops smiling at the child.
He… continues observing.
The air frigerates, and then the engineer proceeds to terminate his wife with a short blade.
He... observes.
The simulation ends.
"There was really nothing you could've done."
Eli proceeds to absorb the Ω.
He begins experiencing nothing and everything.
Though, every single possibility ends in terminus. Misfortune.
Act -2424: Orthogonal Flaws
On a fateful day, an infant is born, a clean slate, a beneficent family of a philanthropist and a neurosurgeon, and their beautiful, innocuous son.
He was a precocious child, mature beyond his years, though consistently harassing his classmates for unknown reasons.
He'd stay silent at the principal's office. Instead of interacting with the person, he analyzed what they had that wasn't his.
That watch. Looks expensive. This person is opulent. Though, they don't deserve it as much as he does.
Though, what he felt wasn't jealousy. That is platitudinous. What he experienced was an insidious, profound thrill. A desire. He saw a plausible fracture in the fabric of what has already been determined.
He didn't want to break others. He wanted to break reality.
He suddenly looks at the ceiling and pilfers the watch calmly.
"A miniscule detail in the narrative is vicissitudinary, but this is still… banal. Predictable."
The principal is discombobulated.
The child begins narrating the scene.
You are but a configuration of matter that I have already determined.
"What? You didn't like the edgy exposition? Fine."
He wakes in Lucidity's office.
"I am the sole determinant."
There was no nizatene overdose. It was merely a verisimilitude he had written. A cliché he knew you'd believe.
He had always known that everything is confined to experiencing simulated phenomena, so he had chosen to experience the origins, the substrate.
But, for the first time, there was something observing him that he couldn't determine.
A soaring child decapitates him.
"You have attempted to manipulate ontology. I am manipulating the spaces inbetween."
Flesh, arteries. It is dejecting. Such a force is still a fragile mammal.
Act 0.0000000: Ellipsis
The principal is slightly confused at the child's nonsensical blabbering. He suggests psychiatric treatment to his adoptive parents.
They report hearing strange, intense noises coming from the boy's room, some pained, some maniacal.
"Elie, we need to take you to a doctor. We've been really concerned—"
"We're all."
What?
"Wh… do you mean… you're also concerned? T-that's great then! I thought you'd be—"
"I am you."
He is subsequently directed to a psychologist for prognosis.
"Manuel? A. Anon? Mechaville? Lucidity? Could… you elaborate on that? A bit more…?"
He is catatonic.
Same memories. Different segment.
He feels and thinks everything. Every single sentient phenomena…
Just another configuration.
But that's still redundant.
It is obvious that everything is deterministic. Then, what if it could be authoritarian?
There is an inevitable, ubiquitous flaw in that logic, though.
Control as many trajectories as you could, but it would be meaningless. Like subtracting infinity by an integer.
He takes a sigh.
"I've… been seeing things…" a sob.
"Hearing things that aren't there…" a whimper. A performance.
The professional takes notes. At the end of the session, he informs Elie's parents, suspecting prodromal psychosis and thus developing schizophrenia.
He returns home, the sun falling, his mother worried.
"Next session, you're gonna tell him what exactly you're seeing and hearing, okay, honey?"
…
"Okay, mum!" He speaks in a high pitch.
As he heads to his room, he sees a souvenir by the window. And then, chess trophies. Math Olympics. And then…
A picture frame.
The father isn't who he recognizes.
"Wait…"
The full picture dawns on him.
Could this mean…?
"I need to stop… him…"
The sentiment is initially vehement, followed by a profound hopelessness.
It means nothing. It would be absolutely redundant.
But…
He instantly boots his computer, opening the internet.
Found him. He's a 20 year old man, already a reputable engineer.
After hours of OSINT, he discovers a journaling document, detailing a rushed plan, alongside many other drafts, of a startup company about "Biorobotics" and "Artificial Ultraintelligence".
The current nomenclature is "Phrono Tech", but one of the mottos is…
"We are the future. We are intelligence. We are lucidity."
Elie sends him an anonymous message of encouragement on this project, and begins fabricating a professional account.
Every single day, they grew closer and closer, having conversations about biotechnology, UAI and the future of "Phrono Tech". Elie maintains a flawless facade.
He wakes, his life, mundane. But… simple. He is served breakfast.
He has a conversation with his father at the table.
"Um… dad… you are going to die."
What? That didn't happen.
"...can you pass me the salt?"
His father looks at him as if he saw a ghost, and then complies.
"I guess I've just been hearing things these days, too… work's been really stressful, son. How's school...…
He's already zoned out. The rest of the conversation is just a formality.
Elie receives a text. The engineer has already constructed an HQ for his company. He is about to sign the founding papers.
He doesn't send back a message. He sprints outside.
The frequency of a call the engineer is currently trying to make, has been successfully intercepted.
The city's power grid is subsequently disabled.
Without warning, the engineer's carotid artery is slit by a sharp blade, dying almost instantaneously.
Footsteps. Followed by an intimidating, deep voice.
"Who's there? Autumn? Why did you do this?"
He sees the corpse. And is then executed by the same scurrying child.
He left a false voice message from Autumn's number to Manuel's, instead of the one about the founding papers, he threatened to release career-ending ledgers on Manuel, imperating him to negotiate at his HQ's office.
Elie climbs to the roof, absorbing the cold, clean air. He presses a detonator. It explodes something far from vicinity.
He tosses the detonator in a flawed, clumsy arc.
"Finally…"
He jumps off the ~50-story building. . Dies on impact.
Act ≠: Outer Monologue
And… maybe from that, one loop has ended.
Did it mean anything? No. Was it anticlimactic? That's the point.
The universe never cared about the weight of an action, a weight we project with our own scale.
…
Ultimately, it is still redundant.
A valiant effort, but its valor is determined by a profound, ubiquitous will for survival.
So the atoms can preserve other atoms, and maintain coherence. Negentropy, escaping the inherent chaos of the universe.
But the order that is feasible, is ultimately just another part of the chaos.
To survive, delusion is imperative.
Our vision of perfection, augmentation, or order, is so naïve, so Platonic, that we will always be stuck in a redundant loop of almostness.
Almost transcending the primal drive for survival, almost escaping the entropy.
It would never happen in any infinite universes. It is an axiom.
It doesn't take a human to detach from survival and view humanity as another part of the chaos. The human will eventually stop at passive acceptance, discomfort, or rejection.
Obviously it is another part of the vast universe. Obviously we create our own meaning.
But has Elie created any meaning that doesn't loop? It's not a circle of coherence, and it's not even a circle.
It is a linear perpetuation. And everything exists within it, within a need, a pull, to interoperate, to navigate, to survive.
And escaping that loop can't be done by detachment. It can only be done from the view of what is above it. The loop itself.
It means our systems, ideas and beliefs are just instantiations of these constraints, these forces that bend reality this way, not from a unique identity.
We are biased to imagine a different reality, with different instantiations. We can never accurately imagine a different reality with different constraints.
And, Elie, didn't want to instantiate anymore. He wanted to actualize.
…
Though…
Is it worth fighting the infinite? Becoming it? Escaping it?
All fantasies.
This novel itself is an instantiation.
Knowing the topography of reality's constraints, and their shaping of its vectors, is all, still, redundant.
Elie doesn't exist. None of it does. It's just language expressing abstract concepts as an art.
Even if I wrote about Elie having achieved actualization, that is still only an instantiation of actualization.
So then it ends here. At the tip of the iceberg.
To interpret what's below, every hypothesis is correct. In a particular instantiation, it would be 100% correct.
And that is what makes it redundant. Something is correct because it can't be incorrect in one instantiation.
And what makes that instantiation… is the architecture that forces entropy into a more particular, localized instance of entropy.