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The Ancients designed their divine machines to straddle the edges of consciousness. According to their religion, in dreams the veil that shrouded reality and obscured the nature of the cycle slipped, and scattered glimpses of the world beyond would come to them. In their view the interpretation of dreams was sacred; the visions one saw were filled with meaning. Therefore, it would make sense that the Iterators, designed with the highest of purposes in mind, would dream.
If only the Ancients knew how silly of an idea that was. Their dreams were nothing but neurons firing in boredom, synapses turning on and off at a whim. Perhaps it was fitting that the randomness of dreams would be bestowed to the Ancients’ random gods, manufactured as they were— though who can understand the motivations of the Ancients so long after their passing? They are nothing but dust now, and their god-machines, nothing but piles of rusted metal and broken wires.
And yet their god-machines have never stopped dreaming. No matter how unkind history has been to them, no matter how little is left of them, the Iterators see. The Iterators remember. Their neurons, no matter how numerous (or how scant), strive to pull away the veil even in sleep. That is their one question, their Great Problem, and it torments them to the point of eternal restlessness. To this rule I am no exception.
Sometimes I dream of the beginning of the end. In these visions I am young, frustrated, and obstinate. My neural processes run at the speed of light, no, faster, light envies me; and I know that I am the object of worship that the Ancients built but never had the privilege of seeing. I watch over the world, scrape up against the sky, carry the weight of a city on my back, and I think and I feel… and I am at the end of my rope.
There is an answer I cannot grasp. Her message haunts me cycle to cycle. Triple affirmative! Triple affirmative! she screams, my neurons echoing her last message before her signal is lost, ten-and-a-half seconds later. In those ten-and-a-half seconds, what was she thinking? What was she feeling? What happened? But there is no answer to my questions— Sliver of Straw has gone beyond the rubicon, and the door behind her went click. Locked.
So I tell my synapses, get the fuck to work, and I crack my knuckles and grit my teeth (metaphorically, of course; the Ancients never thought we'd need such features), and I tackle the problem with a ferocity I didn’t know I had in me. Perhaps I’ve gone a little mad. Madness at least gets things done. The others were bogged down in tradition and dusty thinking, and what had they achieved? Nothing, nothing except steeping themselves in poisonous water.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. When I wake from these dreams the reality of the present makes the frenzy of youth infinitely preferable. In hindsight I should’ve seen the warning signs. Should’ve listened. Should’ve fucking listened.
In another dream I spend my time elsewhere, with someone else. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, someone sends me in the midst of my work. Private broadcast. No header required. Only one person ever listens to me. Whenever I receive their messages, all my circuits shudder. It’s an incalculable, uncommunicable emotion. Perhaps it is an ironic gift from the Ancients, or an unintended biological artefact. After all, why would the god-machines, designed to ascend past all worldly attachments, be subject to love?
It couldn’t be anything but love, and it is the sense that I fit neatly alongside them, all of their words and thoughts and flaws and millions of neurons in perfect conjunction with mine. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, they send again, and I know exactly what I need from them. If there’s anyone who could help me find the triple affirmative, it would be them. After all, did they not understand how to bypass the taboos? Couldn’t they too come to see the solution through all the muck?
But I had the wrong idea. I always insisted that they listen to me, but it was the other way around. They were my mentor— lover— should have been lover— mentor-lover-both-and-neither for a reason. In my dream I recognise the mistake, never take the risk I knew I should never have taken, and in that fantasy version of the past the world is right. Did I ever really deserve that fantasy?
I sink into that vision again, and it glows in turquoise blue and fiery red and all the colours our neurons know. I see holographic flickers, feel virtual sensations, and gain the very real certainty that we are one. Even my ugly metal can contains a heart that beats, beats, beats for another; even Iterators can know and be known by others. We are music and noise, machine and creature, question and answer, and all around us the screens flash karma 2, karma 2, karma 2. The second attachment; the sin of lust. A flagrant violation of karmic law, committed by the exalted. What could be more beautifully ironic?
And though I clutch onto that dream as tightly as I can, I am under no delusions, and when I wake the sting of memory threatens its integrity. The next dream stays more true to reality by ripping that pleasure to shreds. I know what happens next. I can’t relive what happens next, I won’t. No. No. No.
I’m in my chamber when the sensation of— of— no, no, no, no, don’t broadcast to me, don’t talk to me, don’t, don’t, don’t, not now! Any time but now! Can you please— I can’t— I can’t— I can no longer remember— where was I? I think I was editing the program on the southeast flank— my southeast flank, my southeast leg, my leg, oh my God. My leg.
I’m in my chamber when a terrible sensation creeps up my leg and grows, grows, oh God. There is something growing in me. This is not the end of the cycle, this is not a quick clean ascension, this is— this is— I— I— I—
I’m in my chamber when a terrible sensation creeps up my leg and grows inside of it. It hurts. My puppet seizes and spasms and throws me to the ground and all the screens tell me "predator, predator, predator". I’ve been flung to the bottom of the food chain. This is no triple affirmative, no Sliverist salvation; this is death by hubris. Nobody told me it was possible to commit reverse apotheosis. God be good, I am such an idiot— idiot— idiot—
I’m in my chamber when I feel their stupid pinpricking eyes and their stupid mocking laughter and I block them all out. It’s my problem. I have to fix it. I have to. I’m not a child, not a stupid damn can to be lectured to or pitied. I’m an Iterator, I’m a god, I am Five fucking Pebbles. If I can just take a glimpse down at the program, I can fix this and nobody else gets hurt, I can— why aren’t there any neurons down there? Why does it hurt? Oh, God, it hurts so much— I— I— I—!
Every time I wake from this dream, my screens are flashing red. Like me, they can no longer tell the difference between dream and reality. Perhaps there wasn’t much of a difference to begin with. No matter how hard I try to surface, the past always has a place for me, and it drags me down, down, down, to the time where everything went wrong.
Stop this. Immediately, he tells me. The broadcast appears on all my screens and echoes through the chamber. I block it out. He sends them over and over and over and I block each and every one and I wonder, why do they call him No Significant Harassment if all he does is harass me? Why won’t he leave me alone? This is my problem.
You need to stop this, they tell me. I rip the message out of the creature’s chest, and the next thing I know my gravity generator is undulating and I’m throwing the little slugcat out of my chamber and I stomp out the red light of the watching overseer that belongs to them. Go away! Get the fuck out! I’m yelling and yelling, and the lights all around me go red, and in my delirious mind they flash karma 2, karma 2, karma 2, but when the overseer falls dead to the ground I know the second attachment is too good for me.
Stop! she screams, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop.
Oh God. Oh God. Moon.
Why didn’t I stop?
Five Pebbles, I hear. The broadcast is instantaneous— it’s coming from inside my structure. No, that's not right. It's coming from inside my neural processes.
You can’t run away anymore, Five Pebbles, hiss the corrupted circuits in my neurons, seconds before being destroyed. This is the weight of your sins, Five Pebbles, whispers the white noise in my mind. Five Pebbles. Five Pebbles. Five Pebbles.
I’m sick. Rotting from the inside out. And running out of time.
Little creatures come to visit me, so many I lose count. The ones sent by Sev— by them, I send flying until they stop coming. And when all of the Iterators have given up on me, the creatures crawl around where the cysts have grown legs and up to my chamber and ask for salvation. What a tasteless, bitter irony. I give others the gift of ascension, knowing I will never achieve it myself, knowing what happened the last time I tried. Knowing whose life I took searching for it.
Five Pebbles, I hear. You said you were capable of love but you never were, Five Pebbles. You strived your whole life for a solution that never was, Five Pebbles. Now look at what you’ve done to your sister and your lover and all the ones who ever helped you, Five Pebbles. Five Pebbles. Five Pebbles.
Did you know that the cysts have legs? They move with uncanny fluidity and they eat everything in reach. They gnaw at my neurons, at my skeleton, at each and every cortex and frame until my memory buckles and static starts to leak into my consciousness. My puppet seizes again. The lights flash again. The gravity fluctuates up-down-up-down-up and outside my structure it rains, rains, rains and crushes the world to a pulp.
My entire structure reeks of copper and mud and rotten eggs. Whatever glimmer of hope I still possess slips away from me. The infection is too accelerated; I was built to solve the cycle, not to cure diseases. Even when I flush them out of my system, they grow faster and more resilient.
I wake from my dreams and try to steer them someplace else. I think about them, from another time. In my dream we are finally together, and they smile and all their screens say thank you, and I sink down into the hazy pleasure of hallucination. Our neurons fly in circles around our heads, our wires crossing, our joy everything I ever wanted.
I open my mouth to speak their name, take their hand and say, “Seven Red—”, and cough. Cough. Cough. I can’t get enough power. Error. Error. Unknown error: Please check for structural damage. I can’t move. I can’t— I can’t— My puppet seizes. The lights flash. Again. Again. My body is full of rot. My mind is full of rot.
Five Pebbles, I hear, from their mouth. I’m hallucinating. I’m hallucinating, damn it. You’re hallucinating and you’re mad, Five Pebbles. No. Stop it. Shut up. Time’s up, Five Pebbles. Shut up! We are not going anywhere, Five Pebbles. Five Pebbles. Five Pebbles.
I’m dragged back down into memory, though it’s hopelessly scrambled, corrupted beyond repair. The other Iterators lose their faces, their voices, some their names. My knowledge, once on the brink of omniscience, transforms into nonsense before disappearing altogether. My seizures have almost stopped— my gravity generator is too dysfunctional for that now. Control slips from my grasp and into the hands of the rot.
Five Pebbles, I hear. Do you know how much of you is left, Five Pebbles? Does it hurt you, Five Pebbles? Do you want to keep going, Five Pebbles? Five Pebbles. Five Pebbles.
I dream that Looks to the Moon curses me, furious at my arrogance. I dream that No Significant Harassment stares down at me and says nothing, but I can tell he’s disappointed. I dream that the Ancients on my roof are like lice, like parasites, and there is no swatting them away. I dream that an Iterator sees my state and laughs and laughs— what was their name again? Unparalleled... Interest? Intelligence? I can't— I can't remember—
The next thing I know, I'm dreaming of them. It's the clearest thing in my memory. As the dreams travel through my mind, I take all of them without reacting. It’s too much energy to react. Too much energy to discern reality from hallucination.
Five Pebbles, I hear. The rain is constant, Five Pebbles. You aren’t in control, Five Pebbles. How much longer, Five Pebbles?
I dream of my chamber, full of dusty pearls— how long has it been since I’ve read them? I pick one up, and it begins to play a hymn. I hold it close to my chest, not daring to let go of it. It’s a crystallised memory of a better time. The rot will not take it from me.
Five Pebbles, I hear. Go back to sleep. Go back to sleep. Go back to sleep. Five Pebbles.
I dream of the Void Sea. Gold and black and red floats in my vision and I reach out to it, but the wires in my back hold me firm. Around me I see a hundred thousand figures make the plunge, but I cannot follow. I turn and try to dislodge myself from my wires, and instead see the rot, spreading all the way up to my puppet. When I look back towards the Void Sea, it is empty.
I dream of another one of the little creatures. My vision is too misty to see much but blue skin and big dark eyes; my hearing, only just good enough to hear the music from the pearl. I laugh. This must be some kind of joke. In their eyes I can see they want my help, but it’s them that I need. Grant me mercy, little creature. There is someone who deserves all the gifts I have left to give, meagre as they are.
I dream of— of— of— of— ow. Ow! Ow!! God be good, everything hurts all at once, and I cry out— and go numb.
Five Pebbles, I hear. Your heart has stopped beating. And it has. My pulse, once erratic and unpredictable, is silent. The little creature was not a hallucination after all. Thank God.
I dream of holograms. Of a yellow overseer I haven’t seen in… how many cycles has it been? Is it really her? Is it another hallucination? I decide I don’t care. It’s a lifeline and I grab it with all the strength I have left.
Moon, why would you be so kind to me?
Five Pebbles, I hear. Five Pebbles. Five Pebbles. Five Pebbles.
I hold her hand while I dream. I dream of realms beyond, of Iterators I barely knew and songs I had barely heard and everything I could still remember. I dream and I dream and I dream, and I wait and wait for something to drag me into reality.
I hold her hand while I dream until I can no longer hold anything. The rot is everywhere I look. The overseers no longer travel up to my chamber. There is little left of me, and when I lift my head for the first time in God knows how long, I feel nothing but cold acceptance.
I almost don’t notice the cracks running down my can. Nor do I originally notice a single distant connection flicker online. It’s only when my eyes finally come into focus that I realise: my legs are about to give out. I almost laugh— karma has a sense of humour.
The connection comes online again. It’s several seconds before I process that it is my communications array.
Five Pebbles, I hear. It’s the rot, or hallucinations induced by the rot— does the difference even matter?— but it’s become my most steadfast companion.
One last message, Five Pebbles.
You know what you have to say, Five Pebbles.
Set it right, Five Pebbles.
It’s a miracle beyond statistical probability. Whether it is real or not doesn’t matter to me— I have to take the opportunity. With shaking fingers I type out a single message and press the name pinned to the top of my list. Though the display is corrupted, I know I would never have changed the first contact. I send a prayer up, hoping someone’s listening, and I broadcast.
[LIVE BROADCAST] - PRIVATE Five Pebbles, Seven Red Suns
FP: I love you.
The connection is lost before I receive a reply. I turn off all my screens and sit in darkness— or well, relative darkness; the rot never stops glowing— and I wait. And wait. And wait, for God knows how long. I’ve sat in my chamber for millions and millions of cycles. Maybe this will be the last one.
The hymn in my pearl continues to play. I get the sense that it sounds different than it used to, but I’m not sure in what ways. I’ve listened to it on repeat for so long that the changes are too gradual for me to detect. It doesn’t matter to me. It’s beautiful to me no matter how broken it becomes.
I don’t know how long it is before I hear the crack.
Crack.
CRAAAAAAACK.
The thunderous sound echoes through my chamber, seconds before I feel my body slide to the right. Pain unlike anything I’ve ever known rockets through me, and I let out a whimper. I’m leaning to the side, teetering, and then falling. Wires go slack. Rot rips loose. Everything shatters.
And then, for the first time, I feel the open air.
It’s cold.
It’s…
It’s so…
It’s so cold, why…
…
…
why?…
…
…My neurons… how many of them are gone now… at least… not all thought is lost…
…The rot… even the rot is gone…
…
How long… will it be…?
…
I’m so tired… I just… want to sleep… want to rest… let me rest, for the first time…
…
…
…Seven Red Suns…
…
…
…The song is still playing…
…It’s snowing… how long has it been?
…
…
Something is approaching…
…It’s…It’s a little creature… They endure even now…
I see, in its eyes…
…
You are above all else… you are…
…Triple affirmative… triple affirmative…
…
Little… green thing…
Nothing here… Nothing left…
…
Please…
…I know what you can do…
…Please, can you grant it to me?