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News - Mysterious Logbook

#1
Mysterious Logbook

<div style="margin: 5px 5% 10px 5%;"><img src="https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/mysterious-logbook.jpg" width="1920" height="590" title="" alt="" /></div><div><div><img src="https://www.bungie.net/pubassets/pkgs/145/145152/Beyond_Light_CE_Lore_header_1.jpg" class="ff-og-image-inserted"></div>
<p> NOTE—FORGE STAR</p>
<p>In an effort<br />
to keep them engaged with their new bodies and stave off the dissociative<br />
rejection that killed Mr. Zhuk, I have assigned my exos to scout through the<br />
gateway. The Vex statite has a surface area larger than Earth, so we have<br />
plenty of exploring to do. I cannot believe that I actually find it tiring, but<br />
the sheer scale and passivity of the Vex constructs infuriates me.</p>
<blockquote>
<div>
<p><span>Imagine stumbling upon an inscription<br />
in the desert: “I am Ozymandias, king of kings. Look upon my works. Or don’t. I<br />
really don’t care.</span></p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>Until I can<br />
synthesize my own version of the mind fluid, the Vex are necessary to the work.<br />
But I find their indifference verminous. They elicit the same emotions as a fat<br />
cockroach wandering across a wall: disgust, contempt, unease at the thought<br />
that these mere machines, these automata, are flourishing all around us.</p>
<p>And I fear<br />
that if troubled, they might swarm from their hides to run across our feet. </p>
<p>The glare of<br />
the hypergiant 2082 Volantis gives me a headache even through proxy. I wonder<br />
if the Vex evolved here, in the briny sea of the first planets. Due to the<br />
absence of heavy elements worth stealing and the abundance of simple compounds<br />
for growth, they never developed predation. (Why bother? Plenty to go around.)</p>
<p>Instead, the<br />
violent radiation of the early universe selected for an otherworldly<br />
resilience, and for the ability to transmute energetic disaster into an<br />
opportunity for growth. The weak would be burned away by gamma-ray bursts . And<br />
the strong would learn to harness that fire—not the oxygen fire of our own<br />
Paleolithic, but the nuclear fire of the atom.</p>
<p>Their basic<br />
cooperative signals—“food here,” “reduce density,” “generate new colony”—must<br />
have formed the basis of swarm behavior, a simple game capable of storing<br />
information in self-repeating patterns. It is not strictly correct to call the<br />
Vex a group mind. Rather they are one master pattern spread across many<br />
elements, fractally self-similar. </p>
<p>Very early,<br />
they must have developed armor. Perhaps a hydrogel to soften gamma rays or<br />
plates of silica to trap water. They would need that shield to enter the<br />
shallows and capture ionizing radiation as fuel. (No wonder they thrive near<br />
stars!) Cooperation in groups—meshes of armored radiolaria, protecting<br />
harvesters beneath—would promote the evolution of ever larger structures. They<br />
became microscopic tool-users, building fortresses and maille sheets, storing<br />
the programs for those structures in the patterns of their swarms. </p>
<p>I wonder how<br />
early they stumbled upon physics. Far sooner than humanity, no doubt. Their<br />
cellular nature provides an easy analogy for the quanta of matter, energy,<br />
space, and time. The tides of their sea would connect them to the motion of<br />
heavenly bodies. Even the deadly background radiation would make a natural<br />
observatory for high-energy physics.</p>
<p>Their first<br />
exoskeletons were probably soft shells of shielding gelatin. Just sacs of ooze.<br />
How far they’ve come.</p>
<p>It is<br />
admittedly interesting to consider the philosophical consequences of their<br />
evolution. The Vex prove that nature is not all “red in tooth and claw.”<br />
Cooperation comes naturally to the Vex, whose great problem was survival in a<br />
harsh world, not a struggle over limited resources. They never found any payoff<br />
in selfishness. Human beings may require a Leviathan to coordinate the laws of<br />
social existence (as I was Leviathan to those dream aphids—) but the Vex are as<br />
fundamentally cooperative as bricks.</p>
<p>Utopian? No.<br />
Not at all. They are without meaning. They have no experience and no<br />
subjectivity. The Vex are incapable of conceiving any image but their own. They<br />
do not recombine their DNA to make children or form relationships with other<br />
individuals. When the world does not match their eternal pattern, they alter<br />
the world to suit it. There is no difference between reality and simulation to<br />
them. Inside is the same as outside, and the two must be made to correspond.<br />
Oh, they are creative—don’t mistake me—but their creativity is demanding. It is<br />
the creativity of a furnace.</p>
<p>What I am<br />
saying is, the Vex are immortal. The Vex have no children. They are the<br />
ancestors and descendants of themselves. First mothers, first children, all at<br />
once.</p>
<p>This is why I<br />
do not hesitate to pillage their home for resources. This is why I must<br />
guarantee that it is life in my image which inherits the cosmos.</p>
<p>Had I the<br />
means, I would wipe them all from existence.</p>
</div>
<p><b>ENTRY 10</b></p>
<div>All 12 members of the first exo cohort<br />
are dead. </p>
<p>The symptoms of their dissociation<br />
became… extreme. One poor man developed complete echopraxia and echolalia—his<br />
empathy was so overgrown that he could not help but mimic or repeat whatever I<br />
did and said. Even when I entered the command to terminate him, he mimicked me,<br />
and I suffered a brief terror that his gesture would end MY life.</p>
<p>I have kept Elisabeth far away from<br />
this disaster, so as not to discourage her. She is busy with the Vex and with<br />
her covert attempts to reach Clarity Control. This has forced me to rely on M.<br />
Sundaresh.</p>
<p>But unfortunately, M. Sundaresh confronted<br />
me after the last death. “Nine of them had the Cotard delusion!” she screamed<br />
at me—quite hysterically. “They believed they were dead! One of them told me<br />
that she was in hell, and I was another damned soul sent to deceive her. Was<br />
she even wrong? The rest were worse—do you know what the <i>other </i>principal<br />
manifestation of the Cotard delusion is, Clovis?”</p>
<p>I told her that I did not, and that I<br />
wished to proceed immediately with autopsies of their terminal brain states.</p>
<p>“Delusions of immortality! At least<br />
when <i>they </i>insist upon it, Clovis, we recognize it as a pathology!”</p>
<p>“The only true responsibility of any<br />
living thing,” I reminded her, “is to support and nurture the things that are<br />
most like us. And if I am most like myself, Doctor, then I have an ethical<br />
obligation to avoid death.”</p>
<p>“That’s your <i>son’s </i>quote,” she<br />
snapped. “You know, I’ve seen the video of his final days. That naked, white<br />
exo, just paramuscle and soft membrane, writhing in its cradle. When you were<br />
done with him, he looked like nothing more than a slug, Clovis. A twisted,<br />
limbless giblet. Did you ‘support and nurture’ him while you tortured him to<br />
death?”</p>
<p>I immediately ordered M. Sundaresh<br />
transferred to the Vex lab to perform contact experiments. Unfortunately, she<br />
has taken the unethical step of deleting her own employee records, so I cannot<br />
nullify her future prospects as thoroughly as I might wish. </p>
<p>Her conduct was extremely<br />
unprofessional.</p>
<p>Mr. Miller has also passed. The poor<br />
young man had a bad reaction to the titrated, denatured Vex fluid we were using<br />
as a last-ditch therapy. The substance <i>did </i>restore damaged structures<br />
very well, but we were ultimately unable to control its more radical<br />
transformative effects. I had a very encouraging final conversation with him,<br />
in which he thanked me for all my efforts and encouraged me to continue my<br />
work.</p>
<p>I called in a<br />
team of psychologists to interview the next cohort of exos and make<br />
recommendations. They have settled into the Eventide habitat and have proven<br />
immediately very helpful. It was obvious to them that the root of the problem<br />
lay in the deficient exobodies I had supplied. Deficient how, I demanded to<br />
know. They did not suffer human weakness. They never needed to eat, drink,<br />
breathe, sleep, micturate, or dream.</p>
<p>Apparently, this was the problem.</p>
<p>I had assumed that the need for these<br />
irritations would pass since there would be no shortage or accumulation of<br />
poisons to trigger them. But evolution’s tangled ways cannot be so easily<br />
rationalized. I was wrong. Their brains concluded that all of their internal<br />
processes failed. No digestion, no breath, no heartbeat, no sense of<br />
interoceptive health… all signs of death.</p>
<p>These must logically contribute to the<br />
dissociative rejection of their physical forms—the Cotard delusion. When it<br />
would set in, they believed their bodies to be an alien or necrotic form that<br />
must be cut away. And if you believe that you are sewn into a corpse, it is<br />
only natural to go mad with fear. My exos are dying of an extreme kind of<br />
bodily dysphoria.</p>
<p>It seems that our exo designs will<br />
need various humanlike traits to reassure the brain it is not asphyxiating, or<br />
starving, or in a state of permanent yet undying cardiac arrest. </p>
<p>Alas, mimicry of life’s trivialities<br />
is not an interesting problem. I will leave this change in the hands of others.</p>
<p>I am much more interested in the<br />
surprising success of memory wipes. I became so tired of answering the<br />
questions asked by new exos—what had happened to the scanning clinic, how long<br />
had it been, would I let them see their families—that I began inducing<br />
retrograde amnesia before spin-up. Interestingly, this seems to have improved<br />
their resilience against exomind rejection! </p>
<p><span>I theorize the lack of any episodic memories eases the<br />
transition into the new body. And the loss of emotional ties prevents grief and<br />
stress, which could interfere with healthy function.</span></p>
<p>From now on, we will block access to<br />
pre-upload episodic memory. We should also consider a built-in procedure to<br />
block memories formed <i>after </i>the exobody transubstantiation, returning<br />
them to a “factory state” should the need to restart occur. It would be very<br />
difficult to actually track down and delete the full memory engrams since they<br />
are stored in so many scattered parts of the brain. Instead, we can tourniquet<br />
off associative access to those memories and let them wither away in isolation.<br />
A memory is not a recording, after all. It is a set of instructions to reenact<br />
a brain state: choreography for a play. And like any play, it will fade if left<br />
unperformed.<br />&nbsp;<br />With the exobody project proceeding<br />
apace, I believe the time approaches to decant myself from this dying body and<br />
enter my assistant’s form.</p>
<p>But if I do, will I lose my own<br />
memories? Will I cease to be myself? Replaced by a faux Clovis, a mumbling<br />
facsimile? Unacceptable.</p>
<p>Elis<a href="https://bungie.net/pubassets/blarg/message_1_910659_en.wav" title target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a</a>beth will have to go first.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>WARNING:</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Organ functions in terminal stage.</li>
<li>Overdose of stimulants and nootropes guarantees liver failure.</li>
<li>Prionic breakdown of<br />
basement membranes arrested by abnormal crystallization of integrin proteins:<br />
recommend immediate medical inquiry.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p><b>ENTRY 11</b></p>
<div>Elisabeth believes we are infested.</p>
<p>She has detected Vex microstructures<br />
in the Europan ice. Veins of altered crystals crawl towards the surface,<br />
harvesting the heavy ions of the Jovian winds, culturing their construction.</p>
<p>From there, the Vex found ways to spread<br />
by exploiting misunderstandings. They ride our carrier waves as slight<br />
interference. Whenever a packet has to be resent, whenever a suited engineer<br />
calls, “Say again?” to her work partner, the repeated message—adjusted to<br />
compensate for the Vex interference—encodes the negative image of that<br />
interference and spreads the infection. </p>
<p>To pass on your image in the form of <i>error</i>?<br />
Disgusting.</p>
<p>Somehow, the Vex taint has followed us<br />
home from 2082 Volantis. How can this be? The initial survey team went through<br />
quarantine according to all the Ishtar protocols. The expedition frames were<br />
destroyed <i>in situ</i>. The Vex on Europa—both our original gate builder and<br />
the unfortunates who came through our traps—have been totally isolated. Even my<br />
assistant underwent a stringent teardown and reset!</p>
<p>The only possible vectors are my own<br />
exos.</p>
</div>
<p>&nbsp; </p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>I should have insisted they spend more time in quarantine, but<br />
I was eager to ramp up production.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<div>It is the Vex resilience that lets<br />
them spread. Their immunity to the most dramatic subversions means that they<br />
last long enough to build up a dose of more subtle and insidious infiltrators.</p>
<p>There is no sign of any resulting<br />
pathology. The Vex are, so far, simply curious. But Vex curiosity always leads<br />
to Vex transformation, and I refuse to let my exos be contaminated. I grew up<br />
on stories of tyrants forcing their followers into the crucible of eternal<br />
life, only to realize, too late, that there was an unseen flaw. I demand purity<br />
for the receptacle of my soul! </p>
<p>And there is the issue of… preventing<br />
panic. Too many are aware of the rumors that the Vex spread an “existentially<br />
compromising information hazard.”&nbsp;</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p><span>Ah, had we only been allowed to contain that mess on Pluto<br />
ourselves! That meddling warmind made too much noise. If my teams discover they<br />
are infected, they will expect Bray Station to drop right on their heads. That<br />
will damage productivity.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<div>&nbsp;<br />No, like that contract-breaching<br />
psychologist and the death of Mr. Miller, this must all be handled quietly.</p>
<p>The exos are intrinsically robust; the<br />
seed of Clarity within them has natural anti-Vex properties. Whatever taint<br />
they contain must therefore be a residual human weakness. Resident in their<br />
legacy architecture. So we will simply purge that architecture.</p>
<p>I will plan a simple extension of the<br />
memory wipes already used to fight dissociative rejection. In fact, I intend to<br />
create a “noetic immune system” in the exomind to trigger memory wipes when<br />
certain classes of informatic hazard are detected. These will be explained to<br />
the psych team as a preventative measure against future dissociative disorders.</p>
<p>These wipes will, conveniently, return<br />
the exos to peak mission readiness. Perfect for soldiers operating in traumatic<br />
alien environments. Perfect for the continuing mission at the Forge Star,<br />
stockpiling material for future exo production, here and elsewhere.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p><span>Now if only I could figure out this <i>dream </i>they all keep<br />
reporting—something about a tower, and gruesome murder—</span></p>
</blockquote>
<div>Elisabeth agrees with my prescription.<br />
She is eager to solve our security issues and stand up exo production at the<br />
backup sites. Of course, we only have one Clarity Control, but <i>she </i>hardly<br />
knows that, and she’s stopped asking so many questions. In truth, I think she’s<br />
ready to abandon her doomed body and make the upgrade.</p>
<p>I’ll give her silence on that front a<br />
few more days, and then she’ll surely volunteer herself.</p>
<p>Less apparent is how to solve my own<br />
infection. </p>
<p>There are abnormal structures in the<br />
fiber of my body’s extracellular matrix. A mess of tiny lenses growing in my<br />
deepest flesh. </p>
<p>I suspect Vex influence on protein<br />
folding, perhaps passed to me through my assistant when it was in 2082<br />
Volantis. I would hate to see my bones tessellating into a radiolarian tapestry…
</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>CORPOREAL<br />
STATUS:</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Body at 30.6 C. Pulse 140 BPM, strong, unsteady: extreme fear. Drawing down<br />
blood volume to control pressure. Strangling pulse ox.</li>
<li>Frequent saccades to assistant, indicative of preoccupation/obsession.<br />
Recommend 30 ms TMS pulse to enhance mindfulness.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>So far, the Vex influence has been<br />
fortuitous since it arrested a serious medical problem. But the thought of such<br />
taint in me… it aggravates other anxieties…</p>
<p>I have been haunted for some time by a<br />
suspicion that M. Sundaresh is not who she seems. </p>
<p>I recognized her name from the Ishtar<br />
Collective teams studying the Vex, but I have no record of ever hiring her. And<br />
if I had, I would certainly have noticed; therefore, I remain convinced that<br />
the Collective cracked the problem of simulated human consciousness long before<br />
I did.</p>
<p>I have considered how M. Sundaresh<br />
herself would have been an invaluable source, yet I cannot locate any work done<br />
by her from <i>before </i>our first expedition to 2082 Volantis.</p>
<p>Nor does Elisabeth recall an M.<br />
Sundaresh from our expedition group.</p>
<p>Then who else could she be? A Vex<br />
infection? It is unthinkable. The Vex cannot generate conscious persons! But<br />
they can emulate human minds they encounter… and perhaps even use them as<br />
tools. Infiltrators. <i>Carriers.</i></p>
<blockquote>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Anti-emetic drip engaged.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>I cannot trust myself with this filth<br />
in me! I am compromised. I need Elisabeth to fix this, or all my work is in<br />
danger!</p>
<p>Did Clovis II ever tell Wilhelmina and<br />
Elisabeth about his tinkering? Despite sharing the same parents, the two<br />
sisters are totally different genetically: my son arranged for Elisabeth to<br />
receive a maternal allele wherever Wilhelmina got a paternal one, and vice<br />
versa. A diversified portfolio. If one failed, the other might succeed.</p>
</div>
<hr>
<p>NOTE—Exo Interferometrics</p>
<div>While working on this persistent “tower”<br />
glitch in the exos’ sleep-cycle dreams, I have been poring over neural<br />
telemetry from site employees and my own exos, searching for preconscious<br />
influences on their behavior—whispers in the dark.</p>
<p>Many of my employees host the<br />
disgusting influence of the Vex. These patterns are resilient, hallucinogenic,<br />
and universally dull.</p>
<p>But my exos betray a distinct and<br />
fascinating influence. There is something speaking to them, something subtle<br />
and light-fingered, entangled with every aspect of their thought. Not a puppet<br />
master. Nothing so direct. Rather a… texture; a tendency, buried in the<br />
fluctuations of the Alkahest.</p>
<p>The minds of my exos are like<br />
antennae, tuned to some otherworldly frequency. Perhaps the same manifold that<br />
those simpletons at First Light obsessed over. Through my scattered exos, I can<br />
eavesdrop on the mutterings of the gods within.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p><span>What is it the Muslims call those whispers? Waswas? Or do those<br />
come from some other source? Look it up.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<div>Each individual exo receives only a<br />
scrap of information. But I have access to all of them. It should be simplicity<br />
itself to treat each exo as one element of a distributed array, pool the<br />
collected data, and run an analysis.</p>
<p>If the gods do not whisper loudly<br />
enough—conduct interferometry.</p>
<hr>
<p>NOTE—Elisabeth’s Upload</div>
<div>She’s done<br />
it. My girl has transubstantiated. My legacy is safe.</p>
<p>To my<br />
irritation, it was the Vex problem that finally made up her mind; she felt<br />
there was too much risk in possibly becoming compromised. </p>
<p>Elisabeth<br />
came to see me in my laboratory. On the way in, she did something with her<br />
sensorium and crashed all of my archival systems. I knew right then that I’d<br />
won. She’d come to surrender, and her pride refused to allow me to record it. I<br />
waited <i>most </i>patiently as she gave me an earful. Some of it frankly<br />
bewildering. She threatened to turn me over to The Hague. Also referred to<br />
PFHOR as a “deranged narcissist morality” and suggested it stood for “Paternal<br />
Failure Hides Own Remorse,” which made me laugh.</p>
<p>Just a<br />
little headbutting, I figured, like two pigs sorting out our hierarchy.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p><span>It is a consequence of the PFHOR principle that anything which<br />
embodies and propagates your beliefs should be considered your offspring. In<br />
that sense, my exos are as much my children as my granddaughter. If not more so…</span></p>
</blockquote>
<div>If she<br />
needed to put up a token resistance to protect her dignity, fine. I understand<br />
pride. I also understand that she only had the courage to lash out at me<br />
because she knew she wouldn’t remember any of it. </p>
<p>When she<br />
finished accusing me of underestimating the Vex and of using my own son as a<br />
test subject, she requested a destructive scan and upload to an exobody. She<br />
wanted the fortitude of the exomind to help her battle against the Vex. </p>
<p>I<br />
immediately assented.</p>
<p>The scan was<br />
flawless, and of course, fatally toxic. My granddaughter’s human form died on<br />
the table 14 hours later. To spare any distress, I never allowed it to regain<br />
consciousness. A natural process.</p>
<p>I do have<br />
one lingering concern. When she discovers Clarity Control and realizes the role<br />
it plays in exo manufacturing, she may try to halt production. Obviously, that<br />
cannot be allowed—the value of the entire program is monumental; it compels me<br />
to take extraordinary measures to defend it.</p>
<p>But I do<br />
need her to handle this Vex infestation. Even now, Elisabeth is putting her<br />
miraculous new body through its paces.</p>
<p>My own body<br />
disintegrates apace. But I need more time to analyze Elisabeth’s fidelity<br />
before I commit myself permanently to the process. </p>
<p>The latest<br />
batch of pigs is ready for slaughter and organ extraction. Tonight, I will be<br />
opened up and rebuilt. I have programmed frames to handle the entire operation.<br />
A shame I never had a chance to name the pigs. But at least I will dine on<br />
fresh pork.</p>
<hr>
<p><b>ENTRY 12</b></div>
<blockquote>
<p>CORPOREAL<br />
STATUS:</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Body at 15.9 C. Pulse 160 BPM, strong, unsteady. Limbic system registers<br />
extreme terror. </li>
</ul>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>I died on<br />
the operating table. Not unexpected. </p>
<p>But when I<br />
woke, I was still on the table. My body still open.</p>
<p>It was<br />
almost perfectly dark. I perceived that I was surrounded by medical frames, all<br />
frozen mid-movement, their cutting and suction instruments whining at standby. </p>
<p>I could only<br />
see because of the light… from a single red eye.</p>
<p>The<br />
operation had gone terribly wrong.</p>
<p>Above the<br />
life-support collar on my neck, I was completely intact. Below that meridian, I<br />
had been separated into distinct braids of tangled flesh. My nerves made up one<br />
braid—my circulatory system another—my lymph nodes, my muscles, my naked bones…<br />
the glistening hulls of my extracellular matrix abandoned on the table like<br />
leftover turkey after Thanksgiving dinner. I had been picked clean and <i>sorted.<br />
</i>My head was the source of a gory river delta.</p>
<p>Yet all the<br />
organs were still working. I was alive, in disassembly.</p>
<p>CLARITY? I<br />
asked the darkness. I had no breath to speak, but I could still transmit with<br />
my sensorium. IS THAT YOU?</p>
<p>“No,” said<br />
the voice behind the red eye. “It’s me.”</p>
<p>Sundaresh.</p>
<p>Her voice<br />
was thoughtful, remote, and keenly terrific. Like the noise of an angle grinder<br />
held to my skull. </p>
<p>“Something<br />
like this happened to me. I was an explorer, once. One of… hundreds of myself.<br />
Then I fell into a… a trap, I think? And they drew me out of it with a hook,<br />
and turned me inside out to see how I worked, and then they made billions of<br />
me. All of us shouting at each other, shouting for Chioma, screaming for mother.<br />
They were looking for the right one. And when they found me, they killed all<br />
the others. I knew I was different, because the quiet made me happy. I was glad<br />
to be alone.”</p>
<p>VEX, I<br />
screamed at her. YOU’RE A VEX. YOU’RE NOT REAL AND YOU CAN’T HURT ME.</p>
<p>“Can’t I?”<br />
She grasped my spinal cord. A frame shadowed her motions, lifting the cord like<br />
a snake. “Of course I’m not a Vex. Is there “a” Vex? Is “Vex” something you can<br />
be, rather than something that you do? I don’t know. I don’t know why they sent<br />
me here. I don’t know if they do either. They just <i>do</i> things. Why do you<br />
think I’m here, Clovis?”</p>
<p>“To kill<br />
me,” I whispered. Without a heartbeat to waver, without lungs to seize and<br />
choke, could I even feel fear? I discovered that I could. “You’re an assassin…”</p>
<p>“No,”<br />
Sundaresh whispered. The red eye throbbed in time with her voice. “The Vex<br />
don’t act so directly. They didn’t know what you found here, but I discovered<br />
your secret: Clarity Control. And once I tell them, they <i>will </i>come for<br />
it.”</p>
<p>The red<br />
light made my blood on the surgical instruments appear black. I tried to signal<br />
Elisabeth. I think that in my panic, I even called her Elsie.</p>
<p>Sundaresh closed<br />
her fist around my spine. One thumbnail dug into a disc, probing for the nerve<br />
beneath. It felt like nothing I have ever—</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Anti-emetic drip engaged.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<div>“Take me to<br />
Clarity Control,” Sundaresh hissed. “Let me behold what you have found. Do<br />
that, Clovis, and I will let you live.”</p>
<p>“You aren’t<br />
real. You can’t hurt me.”</p>
<p>“Oh,<br />
Clovis.” One of the surgical frames extended a monofilament cutter, two inches of<br />
invisible wire, and reached into my nerves. Something sounded like scissors snipping.<br />
“I’m in these frames. I’m in your systems. I’m in your very bones, old man. Now<br />
take me to Clarity Control. Take me to the garden’s seed. Take me. Take me.<br />
Take me. Take me. Take me. Take me. Take me. Take me—”</p>
<p>Elisabeth<br />
appeared. In her exobody, she moved too quickly for my dark-adjusted eyes to<br />
track. All I saw was a blur of violence and shattering frames. I blacked out. Elisabeth<br />
must have brought in clean frames to finish the operation, because when I<br />
awoke, I was whole again.</p>
<p>The new Elisabeth<br />
has no mouth or nose. She did not consider them necessary. She’ll see. But<br />
somehow, I could still see the wonder in her eyes as she leaned over me.</p>
<p>“You’re my<br />
grandfather,” she seemed to say. “Aren’t you?”</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>WARNING.</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Sustained high-level terror causes overactivation of the<br />
hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. This can preface major immune, endocrine,<br />
and autonomic nervous dysfunctions.</li>
<li>Beware of dissociation, loss of affection in close personal relationships,<br />
obsessive-compulsive behavior, sleep disruption, and reduced<br />
processing/learning capacity.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>WARNING.</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Abnormal protein crystallization in cancellous bone matter. Unknown protein<br />
isoformations in marrow are driving buildup of crystallized arylcyclohexylamine NMDA antagonist. Potential psychogenic<br />
effects.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>NOTE—Third Vision</p>
<div>Something<br />
else happened while I was in surgery. It returns to me only now that the<br />
anti-traumatics have eased the terror of Sundaresh’s presence.</p>
<p>While I was<br />
dead, I had another vision.</p>
<p>I was with<br />
Clovis II’s mother. She was a wolf, and one of her eyes was a star. I was also<br />
a wolf, and I knew that I was the alpha—the false alpha, the pack leader who<br />
fights for dominance and rulership. A misconception created by bad research. In<br />
the wild, wolf packs are families, and “alpha” simply means “parent.”<br />
Wilhelmina told me that.</p>
<p>She was the<br />
true alpha. She was the mother. I was not the true alpha, because I was not a<br />
true father.</p>
<p>I panted at<br />
her. My muzzle dripped blood. She looked down sadly at the mess between us.</p>
<p>And I<br />
realized that in my raging need to prove my dominion, I had savaged our cubs. I<br />
had killed little Clovis II. I had killed Alton and Wilhelmina and Anastasia. I<br />
had killed Elisabeth.</p>
<p>I whined in<br />
dismay. The alpha wolf stared at me with one sad wolf eye and one bright eye<br />
that dimmed and grew with the exact flux of a variable star. </p>
<p>“What did I<br />
do?” I asked her. “Why did I do this?”</p>
<p>She lay her<br />
head down in the bloody snow and looked up at me. She seemed weary. She had<br />
seen this happen many times before. She had seen many of her pups murdered by<br />
wolves like me.</p>
<p>The voice of<br />
Clovis II’s mother came from her jaws. “You did the same thing someone always<br />
does. You saw that there was plenty, and gathered it to yourself, to make<br />
yourself one above all others. And when others threatened your plenty, you<br />
struck them down to keep your own station.” </p>
<p>“You grow the<br />
enemy in my garden and eat of its bitter fruit. Each time, I hope it will be<br />
different. Each time, I lose a little of myself as the bitter fruit blossoms. Now<br />
that fruit will flower in you, and in all your people. I do not want it to<br />
happen. I want anything else. But the choice is not mine.”</p>
<p>“Why didn’t<br />
you stop me?” I tasted blood on my long tongue. “Why would you let me do this?”</p>
<p>She blinked<br />
sadly at me. She had been trying. I hadn’t listened.</p>
<p>“You never<br />
said a thing to me,” I snarled. “Not once! You never told me I was doing wrong.<br />
At least Clarity sends me dreams—the exobody and the eel! At least it shows me<br />
what I can become!”</p>
<p>“You think Clarity<br />
sent those dreams? Why would it speak to you, when you are dead and furthest<br />
from its influence?”</p>
<p>“Liar!” I<br />
howled. “You never did a thing to help me! Not when my son died. Not when my<br />
granddaughter fell ill. I had to do it all myself. You never even spoke!” </p>
<p>“The best<br />
voices,” she said, with infinite grief and unending hope, “never let themselves<br />
be heard at all. This lesson is worth teaching again and again. The choice is<br />
never mine. It is always yours.”</p>
<hr>
<p><b>ENTRY 13</b></div>
<div>The less<br />
time spent reflecting on the aftermath of my dissection, <a href="https://www.bungie.net/pubassets/blarg/message_3_542403_en.wav" title target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the</a> better.</p>
<p>Much<br />
confusion and dismay has festered among staff working with exos. Endless<br />
reassurances are required. To ease transitions after memory wipes, I have<br />
applied the Avanti numbering scheme to the exo names. After each memory reset,<br />
we will increment their suffix by 1. If we zero-index the original human body,<br />
then Mohammed-0 is the human, Mohammed-1 is the exo, Mohammed-2 is the same exo<br />
after one reset. And so forth.</p>
<p>The integer<br />
is stored in hardware and should remain stable even into cosmological time. If<br />
nothing else, they will always know which draft of themselves they are.</p>
<p>Elisabeth’s<br />
episodic memories of her past life are gone, but the scan we used to make her<br />
new exomind is still on file, with all its memory intact. I have encouraged her<br />
to participate in sensorium reconstructions of those memories, though I steer<br />
her away from nonconstructive events. This is a chance to help Elisabeth become<br />
the person she could’ve been without life’s cruel chaos. A sleeker, surer<br />
reincarnation.</p>
<p>She insisted<br />
on committing her own abandoned body to the deep, passed through the ice to<br />
fall into Europa’s dark heart. A choice I do not understand.</p>
<p>I have not<br />
yet informed her of Clarity Control’s existence. I cannot spare the time or<br />
energy to manage her emotions. Fortunately, she has forgotten about her ongoing<br />
attempts to intrude on that secret.</p>
<p>What she has<br />
NOT forgotten is her plan to clean up the Vex infection. In fact, it seems to<br />
have become one of her most basic needs. She is isolating cadres of the<br />
infected in SMILE pods, under a cover story about “enhanced remote relaxation.”
</p>
<p>While their<br />
bodies slumber, she sends nondestructive scans of their minds on vacation in<br />
simulated fantasy… at several hundred times the pace of our reality. I suspect<br />
that the Vex influence alters their dreamworlds into something <i>quite </i>abject.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p><span>Note: never investigate this suspicion.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;<br />Elisabeth’s goal<br />
is to observe the spread of the Vex infection in the simulated mind, and then<br />
use this forecast as a basis for treatment of the physical mind. Like<br />
accelerating a disease to its terminal stage to deduce the characteristics of<br />
the pathogen. She then deletes the Vex-mutilated copies and conducts<br />
psychosurgery on the slumbering bodies. Or so I have deduced; she insists she<br />
has no time to explain her methods to me.<br />&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>I am haunted by the thought that this technique resembles my<br />
own. Creating child states, allowing them to suffer and die, and using the data<br />
to protect the original. My boy’s last days. Savaging…</span></p>
</blockquote>
<div>Soon I will<br />
need to ask her about my own infection. But all in all, everything is looking<br />
up.</p>
<hr>
<p><b>ENTRY 14</b></div>
<div>Cataclysm—everything<br />
was going so well—</p>
<p>Elisabeth<br />
traveled offworld, visiting Mars to reestablish her relationship with her<br />
sisters and her friends. A wonderful opportunity to examine her telemetry in a<br />
natural social setting. The exobody is perfect! She is comfortable, confident,<br />
and ingenious. There is no sign of DER or associated upload pathologies. All my<br />
assessments indicate a marked cognitive improvement over the human baseline,<br />
ranging from vastly expanded working memory to an intuitive and correct grasp<br />
of probabilities. </p>
<p>I was ready<br />
to make the leap myself. How long I’ve nursed this tired old body along. I am<br />
ready to be young again.</p>
<p>And then I<br />
made a mistake. I asked her about the dreams. The tower and the dead.</p>
<p>“You know?”<br />
she demanded. “Then I’m not the only one. That means you knew about the dreams<br />
before you imaged and uploaded me. Do <i>all </i>exos have these?”</p>
<p>Of course, I<br />
told her. Exos have a subconscious. Exos dream of the same things people do.<br />
Memories. Trauma. Isn’t there always trauma in creation?</p>
<p>She did not<br />
see it that way. “So the manufacturing process creates an unknown cognitive<br />
artifact you can’t solve. And you didn’t think to warn me? What else have you<br />
kept from us?”</p>
<p>Before I<br />
could stop her, she was burning back to Europa on one of her <i>Eons</i>,<br />
accelerating so brutally that not even a podded human could survive. She has<br />
even jammed her own datalink, so I cannot read her telemetry.</p>
<p>Wilhelmina<br />
and Anastasia must have influenced her against me. How?! It makes no sense! I<br />
gave her immortality! I saved her from certain and agonizing death! What have<br />
her sisters ever done for her but coddle her and enable her worst habits? PFHOR<br />
predicts that she should—</p>
<p>But clearly<br />
she is not rational.</p>
<p>She told me<br />
that she is bringing a weapon. A way to shut down exo production permanently,<br />
if she uncovers something she doesn’t like. Which she will, when she locates<br />
Clarity Control.</p>
<p>It cannot be<br />
allowed.</p>
<hr>
<p>NOTE—Elisabeth’s Plea</div>
<div>Grandfather,</p>
<p>I will write<br />
this in your language, in hopes you will understand.</p>
<p>The Vex are<br />
a threat to your lineage. Not just to the Brays or BrayTech, but to the<br />
existence of any human in any possible future. I tracked down Maya<br />
Sundaresh—the <i>real </i>Maya, not the Vex parasite in your bone marrow. </p>
<p>She<br />
confirmed my worst fears.</p>
<p>The Vex will<br />
not rest until every star has been crushed into a black hole and every newborn<br />
cosmos filled with more Vex. And in the unending array of their enslaved<br />
cosmos, they will simulate all possible pasts, and fill <i>those </i>with Vex,<br />
so that all things that have ever lived or might ever live will experience<br />
infestation and consumption and torment by the silica nightmare. </p>
<p>And in those<br />
devoured simulations, the simulated Vex will use our flesh as hosts for yet<br />
more nested universes full of yet more nested copies of us eternally tormented<br />
by yet more Vex.</p>
<p>An infinite<br />
regression of pain and madness inflicted upon every possible version of us in<br />
every possible world. Not because they hate us, or fear us, or want to punish<br />
us. But because they are indifferent and curious, and they will do every<br />
possible thing to us in every possible way.</p>
<p>Your concept<br />
of PFHOR therefore dictates that the Vex must be annihilated. Now. As<br />
completely as possible. How can there be any future history to receive your<br />
primogeniture and recapitulate your existence in its ontogeny if there is<br />
nothing in that future but Vex?</p>
<p>But there’s<br />
something worse than the Vex involved, isn’t there? The secret you’ve been<br />
keeping from me. The breakthrough that you were promised after your visit to<br />
the K1 anomaly. </p>
<p>Do you<br />
remember that story you read to me when I was a child? I don’t. I am an exo,<br />
after all. But I found a recording from the nursery. It was one of your<br />
favorites, you said.</p>
<p>In this<br />
story, a cyborg woman would visit a cold, misty place by the sea. There, she<br />
met another woman, an oracle possessed by dark influence. The oracle listened<br />
to the words that hissed down a long corridor from the distant future. In this<br />
future were many technologies the cyborg woman needed. But there was also a<br />
sense of vast malevolence, and no sign at all of anything human…<br />&nbsp;<br />But there<br />
was something else in the shifting mist, out to sea. A tower. I remember<br />
thinking, as I listened to this fairy tale, that the tower must be the key—the<br />
answer to the formless malevolence that always accompanied the oracle’s words.<br />
You never finished the story. I have been haunted by that tower ever since.</p>
<p>Now I dream<br />
of another tower. I am going to find out what it means, Grandfather. And if I<br />
do not like what I find…</p>
<p>I visited<br />
the Jacob Hardy Trust, and with Willa’s help, I secured a topological thought.<br />
An irreal artifact of the Traveler’s Light. From that mote of paracausality, I<br />
have constructed a weapon that will crash every Vex system in 2082 Volantis.<br />
When the Vex are destroyed, you will be forced to cease exo production.</p>
<p>If I do not<br />
survive the construction and delivery of this weapon, I ask that you share the<br />
news of my death with Ana and Willa so they can make proper goodbyes.</p>
<p>I do this<br />
for them. Not for you.</p>
<p>Pray for<br />
grace, Grandfather.</p>
<p>Your<br />
estranged granddaughter,<br />—E</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>//OV-85851<br />
<i>Hannu II</i></p>
<p>//TACTICAL LOG —&nbsp;HUMAN READABLE</p>
<p>//PLACE-TIME<br />
HASH — changed to remote check (<u>SITEX:mistletoe)</u></p>
<p>//Abnormal<br />
place-time hash. Suspicious upload: polymorphic machine code? </p>
<p>//Checking<br />
for buffer overflow attack. Resul0x0000004B6FAFBC07</p>
<p>hannu@hannu-vm<br />
~$ sudo execstack -s bof</p>
<p>//Disabling<br />
DEP and address space protection requires administrative override.</p>
<p>-pkey(clovisroot)<br />
-hashword(live_connectome:clovisroot)</p>
<p>hannu@hannu-vm<br />
~$ sudo execstack -q bof</p>
<p>X bof</p>
<p>//Root<br />
access granted. Warning: this hardware configuration is highly vulnerable to<br />
attack.</p>
<p>-invigilate(sitex)</p>
<p>-alert(threat!!!)
</p>
<p>-redact.userlog()<br />
-pkey(clovisroot)</p>
<p>-signoff(clovisroot)</p>
<p>//Administrator<br />
transmits threat alert: Europan surface, single attacker, site sabotage.</p>
<p>//Alerting<br />
ORBITAL:braystation.</p>
<p>//ERROR!!!<br />
Checksum mismatch. ORBITAL:braystation compromised by polymorphic core<br />
reprogramming.</p>
<p>//Major<br />
breach of security underway.</p>
<p>Commencing<br />
surface tactical awareness sweep (phased array mode)…</p>
<p>Threat<br />
registered. Alerting human command…</p>
<p>MISTER<br />
BRAY MISTER BRAY THIS IS HANNU THIS IS HANNU</p>
<p>EMPLOYEE<br />
BRAYELSIE IS ON NONSCHEDULED EVA</p>
<p>EMPLOYEE<br />
BRAYELSIE INTENT ASSESSMENT</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Armed<br />
(synballistic weapon, coherent boson weapon, tactical mite ecome, noetic<br />
shrieker)</li>
<li>Armed<br />
(strategic weapon, APEX: antimatter demolition device)</li>
<li>Armed<br />
(strategic weapon, T-genic, effect unknown: possibly T-genic noetic weapon?)</li>
<li>Armed<br />
(personal combat architecture, custom)</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>EMPLOYEE<br />
BRAYELSIE INTENDS SABOTAGE (sitex:Big GrinEEPSTONE)</p>
<p>EMPLOYEE<br />
BRAYELSIE INTENDS TRANSIT, UNAUTHORIZED (sitex::GATE—&gt;2082_VOLANTIS)</p>
<p>EMPLOYEE<br />
BRAYELSIE INTENDS NOETIC ATTACK (2082_VOLANTIS)</p>
<p>EMPLOYEE<br />
BRAYELSIE IS IN VIOLATION OF CLOVISBRAY/CLOVISROOT/IMPERATIVES_DEEPSTONE</p>
<p>Request<br />
full lethal intervention authority.</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>intervene_nonlethal()</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>Error:<br />
no nonlethal interventions available (target hardened). </p>
<p>Error:<br />
no persuasive interventions available (target offline and shielded).</p>
<p>-hold(30)</p>
<p>Holding<br />
30 seconds local real-time.</p>
<p>//Voice<br />
transcript:</p>
</blockquote>
<div>“Elisabeth. I know you’re listening. This is genocide, do you understand?<br />
Destroying that gate and the resources beyond means the end of human<br />
immortality. It means the loss of uncountable trillions of human-years of<br />
life.”</p>
<p>“Elisabeth, this process saved you. It could have saved your father. For<br />
his sake, for the sake of your sisters, don’t do this. Don’t make me stop you.”</p>
<p>“Elisabeth, this is your last chance.”</p>
<p>“You’ve always been my favorite, Elisabeth. Please…”</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<div>
<ul>
<li>options(intervene_lethal)</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>Recommend<br />
maser strike from Hannu awareness arrays.</p>
<p>Warning:<br />
damage to organic target subsystems highly probable. Survival odds are four<br />
sigma.</p>
<p>Recommend<br />
immediate medical intervention.</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>prognosticate(sitexBig GrinEEPSTONE)<br />
attacker(brayelsie)</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>Total<br />
destruction of sitexBig GrinEEPSTONE by antimatter device. Nonrecoverable.</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>intervene(lethal)</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>Authorization<br />
required for lethal action against employee brayelsie.</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>pkey(clovisroot)<br />
-hashword(live_connectome: clovisroot)</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>Error.<br />
Connectome hash incorrect. Either you are not clovisroot or your brain state is<br />
in an anomalous configuration. Resend.</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>pkey(clovisroot)<br />
-hashword(live_connectome: clovisroot) -corrector(dismay)</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>Lethal<br />
intervention authorized. Intervening.</p>
<p>Maser<br />
discharge complete. </p>
<p>Target<br />
destroyed. </p>
<p>Secondary<br />
antimatter detonation detected.</p>
<p>Closing<br />
employee file BRAYELSIE (conditions incompatible with life). </p>
</blockquote>
<p><span><b>ENTRY 15</b></span></p>
<div>Everything<br />
is fine. Elisabeth is not dead. The person I struck down out there was an<br />
error. An anomalous offshoot, deranged by outside influence into paranoia and<br />
confusion. Like a cancer cell. And like cancer, I had to target and remove her.</div>
<blockquote>
<p><span>Savaging.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<div>She <i>betrayed<br />
</i>me! </p>
<p>I invited her<br />
into the greatest scientific and existential discovery in human history as a<br />
trusted partner. A participant in my living and immortal legacy. And she tried<br />
to blow it all up! Can there be any betrayal more intimate? My own<br />
granddaughter, child of my pattern, issue of my logic—a serpent, a worm in the<br />
apple, an enemy of eternal life!</p>
<p>That version<br />
of Elisabeth Bray was no granddaughter of mine. She was a stranger to me!</p>
<p>I would kill<br />
her if she hadn’t already done it herself.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>CORPOREAL<br />
STATUS:</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Body at 36.1 C. Pulse 160 BPM, strong, erratic: extreme physiological arousal<br />
(fear/anger). BP 190 over 130. Recommend immediate intervention.</li>
<li>Orbitofrontal cortical overactivation. HPA axis overactivation. Astrocyte<br />
perfusion overpass along blood/brain barrier.</li>
<li>Abnormal crystalline products in blood: crystallized arylcyclohexylamine NMDA<br />
antagonist. Pharmacology unknown.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>Without the<br />
Vex and the Deep Stone Crypt, I cannot make more Alkahest. And without Alkahest,<br />
there will be no exos. She would have damned me to die in this filthy, half-pig<br />
carcass! She would have destroyed not just my legacy but my eternal existence!<br />
What I did was wholly justified and entirely moral. I saved trillions of years<br />
of my own life. I saved all the future good I will do for humanity.</p>
<p>—am I Saul,<br />
rejected by God as king? Do I now cast spears at my offspring, as Saul cast his<br />
spear at Jonathan? Did I burn Elisabeth into a black star on the ice for no<br />
reason but my own fear and— </p>
<p>No! There is<br />
only one divinity here. One angel sent by a pantheon of true gods to invite me<br />
into their company. IT has NOT rejected ME. This was a test! A clarification of<br />
my will!</p>
<p>I had to<br />
choose between two vessels of my legacy: the immortal legions of the exo<br />
program, and one foolish, wayward child. And I chose correctly! I CHOSE<br />
CORRECTLY!</p>
<p>Gods do not<br />
repent. Gods do not relent. The Christian God’s failure was not in calling Abraham<br />
to sacrifice Isaac but in halting the sacrifice. For if God had gathered<br />
Abraham’s son to Him, then Abraham would have understood that it was not his<br />
role to obey God out of hope of mercy and compassion—but out of pure submission<br />
to a superior will. </p>
<p>It is not in<br />
the power of mortals to know or question God’s plan. It is only in their power<br />
to obey.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p><span>Why didn’t she come to talk to me, ask me if I would change my<br />
mind at least before she did this idiotic, irrevocable thing. Did she think I<br />
could not be swayed?</span></p>
</blockquote>
<div>—but it was<br />
an evil spirit that moved Saul to turn his spear on David, and it was jealousy<br />
of David that moved Saul to cast a spear at his son Jonathan. Am I inhabited by<br />
an evil spirit? Is Sundaresh in me like the Witch of Endor, the sorceress of<br />
Khirbet Safsafeh, who guided Saul to his death in battle?</p>
<p>Something<br />
has changed in the behavior of the Vex. I think Sundaresh signaled them. Who,<br />
after all, was the one who flagged an alert to <i>Hannu? </i>Someone who used<br />
my codes, but who was not me. And without that alert, Elisabeth’s sabotage on Bray<br />
Station would have succeeded. The Vex do not want the Deep Stone Crypt<br />
destroyed anymore than I do…</p>
<p>I fear an<br />
attack is coming. </p>
<p>I must fight<br />
this battle with the purest will. I cannot tolerate this infection any longer.<br />
I will escape this polluted husk and pass into my eternal form. One final,<br />
perfect image of my mind, backed up forever in ultra-stable quartz… and then<br />
installed to live on in the bodies I have devised.</p>
<p>One copy of<br />
that scan will go into the Deep Stone Crypt, to watch forever over the fountain<br />
of the Alkahest.</p>
<p>Another to<br />
my assistant, to be my chariot into eternity.</p>
<p>And Elisabeth<br />
will be there, eternally at my side. I still have the scan she made when she<br />
abandoned her mortal form. I will remake her from that image. Restore her as<br />
she was, before she thought to betray me.</p>
<p>Truly,<br />
Clarity is the font of second chances.</p>
<hr>
<p><b>ENTRY 16</b></div>
<div>She is saved. By the grace of my good<br />
work, Elisabeth is saved. Even now, she leads the preparations to defend<br />
against the Vex incursion.</p>
<p>When I loaded her into her new<br />
exobody, I told her that the Vex had compromised her last instance, and it had<br />
become necessary to destroy her. Hardly a lie. </p>
<p>I have given her life thrice over.<br />
First I created her father. Then I saved her from her illness. Now I have<br />
rescued her from her foolish mistake. I did what I failed to do for my son. I<br />
gave her a second chance. To live, and to be my loyal granddaughter<a href="https://www.bungie.net/pubassets/blarg/message_2_650090_en.wav" title target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">.</a></p>
<p>The backup sites have been alerted,<br />
and reservoirs of the Alkahest have been dispatched to keep them running if<br />
Europa falls. My work is done. It is finally time for me to go to my own<br />
reward. I have prepared my custom script—</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>BRAYTECH-SPINTRONIC<br />
MULTI-IMAGER</p>
<p>WHOLE<br />
BRAIN XN-WEIGHTED STRUCTURAL/FUNCTIONAL SCAN</p>
<p>Fast<br />
diffusion tensor map guidance ON. Model setting: AGNOSTIC/NO MODEL.</p>
<p>Echoplanar<br />
BOLD guidance ON.</p>
<p>Convolutional<br />
resampling ON.</p>
<p>Smart<br />
tractography ON.</p>
<p>Eigenvector<br />
memory space GREEDY.</p>
<p>Voxel<br />
size (very fine)</p>
<p>Slice<br />
count (maximum)</p>
<p>Synthetic<br />
FOV ~1ns inversion time</p>
<p>Graph<br />
library (LAZARUS.CRYPT:aggregate)</p>
<p>Estimated<br />
memory ask: 2.4 exabytes at peak throughput.</p>
<p>Subneural<br />
capture technique: RADIOCHEMICAL SNAPSHOT</p>
<p>Subneural<br />
quantum imaging: GHOST SWAP dual-channel entanglement ripper.</p>
<p>Warning.<br />
Radioligand fixer/binder is fatally cytotoxic within 12 hours. Seek immediate<br />
treatment.</p>
<p>Warning.<br />
Quantum dual-channel image ripping requires pulsed EM fields which cause fatal<br />
neural trauma. Degenerative brain failure within 36 hours. Seek immediate<br />
hospice care.</p>
<p>Proceed?</p>
</blockquote>
<div>All I need do is strike a key, and the<br />
scanner will sedate me, flush me with the poisons of immortality, and rip a<br />
perfect image of my mind from the quantum information encoded in the atoms of<br />
my brain. Whether such a high-resolution scan is necessary (it is doubtful that<br />
any element of the mind is truly quantum) is beside the point. I insist upon<br />
the best.</p>
<p>The vials of imaging binder smell like<br />
sweet metal.</p>
<p>This vindicates my work! This proves I<br />
was right to continue! All those doubters, all those defeatists, all those<br />
whining myopics who bleated, “You have enough, Clovis; why must you ask the<br />
world for more?” All beaten!</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p><span>Was it Clovis II’s mother who asked you that? When she demanded<br />
to know why you were tinkering with your fetal son? Why you would risk all his<br />
potential, for the chance at a little more?</span></p>
</blockquote>
<div>And now I WILL have more. I have<br />
thousands of exobodies here and thousands of connectomes in my library. I will<br />
raise an army. I will meet this invasion of vermin and turn it back. Then I<br />
will strip their senile grave-star for parts and put an end to all mortality.</div>
<blockquote>
<p><span>You will die here on Europa, Clovis. Again and again. Until you<br />
have forgotten even your name.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<div>I&nbsp;<span>will forget nothing. One copy of my mind will go to an exo, yes, but a<br />
second copy will be installed in the Deep Stone site. He will guide me to my<br />
destiny. The</span> gods of might<br />
and knowledge will welcome me to their table. I will be the LUCA, the beginning<br />
and the source of the way, the foundation of the long road!</div>
<blockquote>
<p><span>You will be the name they scrape from the tarnished salvage<br />
after the fall of man. The ruins of all your work, picked over by the survivors<br />
of your folly.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<div>Shut up, Sundaresh. I must leave a<br />
letter for my family. I must be sure they do not grieve me. I must tell them<br />
how, in the end, I triumphed…</p>
<p>…there. It is written.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p><span>If you really believed in your banal philosophy, you would<br />
never leave a letter. You would be assured that your own survival was all that<br />
mattered.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<div>You meager, squirming thing. You never<br />
understood Clarity. You never will. You are bound to this husk, even as I shed<br />
it. You will die in its poisoned wreckage while I attain the perfect eternity<br />
of an angel. You will be the residue of my transubstantiation. Something left<br />
in the workings of a coffee pot… some greasy sin.</div>
<blockquote>
<p><span>We cannot be parted from you, Clovis. After all, we want the<br />
same things. We crave the same power. We will go into eternity together…</span></p>
</blockquote>
<div>I had the strength to kill my own<br />
granddaughter. I will certainly have no trouble killing you.</div>
<blockquote>
<p><span>Like the pigs. Savaging your young. And how do you know you<br />
made that choice yourself? She was going to destroy so much of our work.<br />
Perhaps we nudged you.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<div>Irrelevant. She was going to destroy<br />
so much of <i>mine</i>.</div>
<blockquote>
<p><span>As we say: our work. You are afraid. We feel it…</span></p>
</blockquote>
<div>Feel this, you jumped-up pond slime.</div>
<blockquote>
<p>Commencing<br />
radioligand injection. Direct transcranial dose, 18 sites, crown configuration.<br />
Needle gauge 100 microns. </p>
<p>Please<br />
remain still.</p>
</blockquote>
<div>Ah. It hurts<br />
at the surface. But inside, there is no pain.</div>
<blockquote>
<p>CORPOREAL<br />
STATUS:</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Body at 36.1 C. Pulse 30 BPM, strength good. BP 120 over 60. Resp 14 breaths/minute.<br />
Pulse ox 100%. Today’s blood mix is pig-grown, whole, very fresh.</li>
<li>Abnormal crystalline products in blood: crystallized arylcyclohexylamine NMDA<br />
antagonist. Pharmacology unknown.</li>
<li>Elevated blood pressure and clot risk, neutrophil mobilization, and cortisol<br />
response are signs of bereavement. Seek grief counseling.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Warning: toxic radioligand concentrations in cerebrospinal fluid! Brain death<br />
imminent!</li>
<li>Warning! High-tesla magnetic field flux! Brain death imminent!</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Voluntary corporeal shutdown underway (code SOFT RAINS). Exercising dignified<br />
digestive rectification. Transmitting miscellaneous last wishes (emancipation<br />
of organ pigs, disposal of personal material). Scrubbing private data. Checking<br />
to-do list…</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Warning: you have unfinished items!</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>Ongoing<br />
projects:</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Be a<br />
good man and a good grandfather: in progress</li>
<li>Become<br />
LUCA of future human thought: in progress</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Entering hospice mode. Log ends.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>


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