Forever Thrilled, Part 2
Forever Thrilled, Part 2
Chapter 1: Escaping the Relativity Prison
Through the usual intense migraine, Na-Yeli reads LateralSys’ note, and it doesn’t exactly help against the throbbing pain in her front lobes. Rather the contrary. But she can’t sleep this one out—time is her enemy in this naked singularity environment—so she takes a few heavy painkillers and gets to the job at hand. No matter how strange and impossible it seems to be.
First, she has a treasure trove of info from the alter-Universal aliens. If they get through the ominous second layer alive and in one piece, then there’s the not-inconceivable chance that other aliens will try to steal it from her. So, first things first: she’s encrypting and biometrically protecting that file. On top of that, humanity already considered that possibility at home and provided her with a unique encryption key whose decoding key is kept safe in Earth space. So, she encrypts the files again and then deletes the originals. If—hopefully when—the Moiety Alien recovers, she can give that file to her alien partner, with instructions to take it to Earth space in case she doesn’t make it. It’s the ultimate gesture of trust.
Second, she initiates her ion thruster the moment her batteries are fully charged and moves to a higher orbit. They’d been orbiting at close to six kilometers from the naked singularity, less than one kilometer from what Na-Yeli estimates is their energetic point of no return (where her ion thruster cannot deliver sufficient energy to lift her into a higher orbit). Now that they’re at nine-point-three kilometers, she feels a bit better while her batteries recharge in preparation for the next orbital lift.
Third, while Na-Yeli did set up a virtual environment to match the extreme soundscapes at the mind-bending decibel levels of the Doom Bells layer, and she did manage to copy the ‘unpredictable’ 2%, but she’s not sure if they’re, well, life, but not as we know it. That was just her hunch, as that 2% could be abstract sound art, a weird echo of the strange attractors as far as she knows, or another non-sentient phenomenon in that pandemonium from hell.
She only copied and downloaded it in the unlikely case it might be life, and then she wanted to conserve it, as she surmised that the crazy circumstances in the Doom Bells layer wouldn’t last forever. In particular, when taking into account that these huge balls of brass do wear down over time.
So now she must a) somehow find out if what she copied & downloaded is life, and b) find a way to communicate with it, and c) hope they’ve got advice she can use. As long shots go, this is a leap of faith into the utter unknown, where you’re entirely unaware of the rules of the game. Well, it’s either that, or staying here until time runs back to the Big Bang, or time moves forward to the Heat Death of the Universe, or they get ripped apart by a hail of strangelet debris.
Fast-forward the study into the anomalous—for your concept of abnormal, as it’s definitely a moving target right here in the Enigmatic Object—phenomena in an extreme noise soundscape, which Na-Yeli initially thought she’d be doing after they’d left this craziest of all places. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then she might consider planning purely evil things if that would get her away from her position right between the devil and the deep black sea. But unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. In reality, it requires work, more work, mountains of work, planets full of work, galaxies teeming with work, and then some more work.
She sets up a pattern-recognition program to filter through the virtual world of the hypersounders. To look for patterns approaching a Zipf slope of -1, a Goldilocks area for the existence of communication. Too regular, and the source is probably a normal, natural cycle or rhythm; too irregular, and it’s chaos or white noise. Then, she can increase the program’s chances of finding the motherlode by letting it explore a larger area and hopefully save some precious time in the process.
So she speeds up the simulation until the CPU load of the triple-redundant quantum computer reaches 90% and sets up a pattern recognition protocol to filter out the 2% that may actually be life—or at least the living copy of the originals. Then she takes a quick look at the Moiety Alien. It remains highly asymmetrical, its smallest four orbitals still quite minimal. Or have they become a bit bigger? Na-Yeli can’t recall. She exchanges a few gestures with it, telling her—she hopes—that it’s recovering, albeit quite slowly, and needs more rest.
Like it or not, my friend, I may have to tow you through the Strange Hail, she thinks, I hope you realize that I have no choice. Get better soon.
Then, she activates the communication AI to prepare it for its upcoming task. Also, this is not exactly smooth sailing.
“If you manipulate waves just right,” Na-Yeli says, after a long explanation, “you can amplify them or cancel them out, like we did with our anti-speakers.”
—i don’t know anything about that— the communication AI signals —you only activate me when you need me—
“Correct, I try to be as thrifty as possible regarding energy usage,” Na-Yeli acknowledges, “but do keep in mind that when I activate you, I really need you. Very hard.”
—so i’m only called upon when the translational shit hits the communicative fan—
“Yes,” Na-Yeli admits, “but then you’re the best. A-number one.”
—of course i’m the best— the communication AI signals —in this place i’m the only one—
“True, but do keep in mind I’m the only one of my kind in this alien madhouse, as well.”
—but you, at least, can talk to yourself—
“It’s more complicated than that,” Na-Yeli says, hoping the communication AI doesn’t see her eyes rolling, “but can we focus on the bigger picture, please?”
At moments like this, Na-Yeli misses a punching bag. She’s carrying the galaxy’s most sought-after knowledge with her. At the same time, she has no clue how to get out through the Strange Hail layer in one piece—let alone alive—and is following the faintest lead that might give her the ghost of a chance, and then the communication AI throws a temper tantrum. All the time, the clock is not just ticking; it’s accelerating either into the past or the future. And she has to waste time with an artificial wiseacre. If she survives this and finds a way to get back home, then she’ll have a few words with the persons who programmed it. But first things first.
“We—note the plural here: you, I, the Moiety Alien, the hypersounders, and the superposed aliens that supposedly take a hitch-a-ride on my and possibly the Moiety Alien’s version of a nervous system—are facing our most formidable obstacle ever. Frankly, I have no clue how to overcome it.” Na-Yeli says, trying not to sound too stressed or fatigued. “Not even my idiot savant self—who I call LateralSys, and who gives me a huge headache when she’s in control, bigger even than working with certain auxiliary systems—but she thinks that the hypersounders we copied-cum-downloaded from the Doom Bell layer might have some innate knowledge that might help us. Note the two ‘mights’ in a row.”
—you’re saying things are a tiny bit dire— Supposedly, the communication AI’s voicing software is free from intonation. Yet Na-Yeli feels like it’s drier than ever.
“I like to think that Icarus, as he was rushing towards the Earth, had more options,” Na-Yeli says, not to be less understated than a machine, “and we do have to do a little bit more than just grin and bear it. With me so far?”
—admittedly, i would like to do more translation jobs in the future— the communication AI signals —so how can i be of service—
“By finding a way to communicate with them.”
—talk with them— the communication AI signals —we barely know how they function—
“Obviously, we need to cooperate on this,” Na-Yeli says, willing to accept any movement forward, no matter how small, “LateralSys and I have a working hypothesis on that. We suspect that they communicate through either wave reinforcements—but that would be energetically expensive—or wave cancellations—which consume much less energy.”
“So now, in the stupendously chaotic simulation,” Na-Yeli suppresses a sigh of despair, “we have to look for the 2% that is supposedly alive, and then sudden silences—relatively speaking, in a 190 dB environment—between them. Then find a pattern in those silences for you to decipher before you can even start exchanging your standard First Contact protocols.”
—is that all— the communication AI’s voice sounds brittle to the point of shattering —piece of cake—
“Apple π,” Na-Yeli can’t help herself, “µ-waved?”
—do your worst—
“Pardon me?”
—do your best, of course— the communication AI signals —as i’ll attempt to overcome the worst-case scenario—
“Good.”
Author’s note: again I missed my (self-imposed) Wednesday deadline. In an ideal world (for me), I wouldn’t need the day job to pay the bills and I could bring my full attention to my writing. Although that day is approaching, for the foreseeable future I’ll have to compromise, meaning I can’t post quite as much as I would like.
Nevertheless, things should change considerably in the second half of 2024 (if all goes well). A warm welcome to new followers and subscribers, and many thanks for reading!