EVO.EXE 2.0: PROLOGUE

Alright, full reset! I made it too high tech last time! I want to start modern day and build up to some stuff so it's mcfuckin cooler that way cause that's what I want, so there! I won't erase all that came before, but expect full rewrites coming your way my lovelies!

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Once upon a time, there were no monsters. Oh, there were beasts, and hungry things, and parasites and predators and all the rabid parts of the world, but monsters? No, the world was a balanced thing, made from hard work and evolution, adapted to itself in a cycle, forever and ever, amen..

Then the monkeys got smart enough to be stupid, and began dedicating themselves to making some.

Their first monsters were simple things. Warriors, trained in mind and body to see other monkeys as nothing more than meat, wielding sharpened sticks and stones. The next ones came far more violent, wielding pieces of metal, and the metal grew, metastasized, until it could contain explosive flame and throw out death for miles and miles.

And then that got boring. 

So they made better monsters. More expensive, perhaps, but what is money to a monster making monsters? What is money to a thing that only hungers? 

These new monsters didn’t need the monkeys at all. They could fly, and spit flame, and see to the world’s horizon, or float above the distant sky so far above the world that they became like glittering stars, ready to sing hosannah and spit death down onto the oxygen-rich thing below. With these new monsters, some of them so gargantuan in their fury that whole worlds could be unmade into atomic fire and cancer beneath their touch, the monkeys believed themselves the gods of their world, for they held the leashes. The monkeys could scream and spit at each other, could grab at the world with their teeth and knuckled hands and eat all they could grab, safe in that nothing could touch them, for their monsters were real, and they were owned.

But it’s not enough, is it? It’s just not enough. The monkeys always want more, always want to find better ways to do terrible things and make terrible monsters.

Personally, Jonah thinks it’s a fucking waste.

All that money, all those resources, all that time, just to make more things meant to break the world. Genuinely, in his heart, he cannot imagine anything more boring.

“Projected time to spin up?” he asks the console beside him.

“Thirty seven minutes, Doctor.”

“Thank you, Angie,” he says, idly patting the piece of metal beside him. The computer hums warmly, and Jonah pretends it’s in response rather than as a background feature. He looks around the room at the half dozen other stations, as well as the dozen or so scientists surrounding him. “You heard the lady, folks. We’ve got thirty seven minutes before this thing is up and running. I don’t want any fuckups this time, got it Bradley?”

“Yeah, yeah,” says the young, dark-haired man, but it’s offset by a half-dozen others chuckling lightly at the insult. Jonah smiles, making sure to look jovial.

“I know it’s been a long week. Six different spin-ups, and we’ve only had two go longer than a minute. I’m aiming for at least five this time. I want this thing up, running, and stabilized as best we can. If anyone can do it, it’s us, so let’s get it done.”

“Ay ay, captain,” smiles a taller blonde off to one side, standing at one of the more central consoles. “I bet you fifty bucks we make it to six.”

“I’ll take that bet Sam, every minute this thing is off is another hundred thousand dollars someone’s going to bitch at me about. I’d say that’s a good fucking purchase if we make it.”

Without needing specific orders, every one of the scientists in charge of one of the most expensive projects in the history of government spending finds their place. Commands are input, permissions granted, protocol accessed and approving of every step. Every person in the room has their own password, all passwords changed every thirteen hours, and if even one is input wrong the system shuts down entirely. It’s only when all thirteen passcodes, including Jonah’s, are at last input that the final panel lights up.

There are two key slots, and in the middle of them, a single large button, lit by a dramatic bit of red lighting. Jonah insisted on that part, actually.

“Projected time to spin up?” Jonah asks again.

“Base procedures acknowledged. Preliminary checks complete. Final check required to initiate activation.”

“Thank you. Who has the key today?”

“I do, doctor.” A young woman, maybe second youngest on the team, raises her hand. The key’s possessor is randomized daily, matched to Jonah’s own key, which he wears around his neck at all times. The other scientist chosen today, despite how young she is (twenty-five, six months and thirteen days, if Jonah has the calendars memorized properly), she’s one of only three scientists globally specialized in the highly specific field of computational neuro-architecture and bio-machine mapping algorithms. Dr. Jennifer Samsa holds up a key that looks like it was pulled out of a rubik's cube, all geometric patterning and color coding. She walks to the central console besides Jonah, and, waiting on his que, synchronizes inserting and turning their keys.

A small, bulletproof glass casing dramatically unlocks itself and opens into four pieces, revealing a second case. Jonah inserts his own password, algorithmically chosen every thirty minutes through a small randomizer that has no online access, built into his glasses.

The second casing opens, much more classic in execution, raising up all in one piece.

“Alright everyone. Hands on buttons, eyes on screens. I want this thing going as smooth as possible. Any system with less than a .001% deviation gets free drinks this saturday, and I want a log of any variations you note. We’re gonna be here all night reviewing, but this is where it starts. All clear?”

Twelve voices reply as one: “All clear!”

Dr Jonah hits the button.

It’s the only way to activate the machine in the room in front of him. Every computer in the room is connected to sensors and terminals of data of the machine before them, but they can only receive data, not send anything back: the programs are literally absent.

Visible behind glass paneling with some of the most advanced faraday tech in the world is a server farm. It looks like no server farm in the world. Six hundred square feet of open space, cooled by a completely self-contained system, utterly locked out from the outside world. Rather than blocky towers, standing apart for heat diffusion, the servers visible through the glass are curved, flowing into each other and designed with glass and coolant systems first and foremost. In some parts, there’s visible circuitry, woven so densely that they look like patches of gold more than like webs, leading to streams of color that shift and glow throughout the room of strange mechanisms. There is no way into the room without literally melting free a door made of a combination of tungsten, steel and lead, and the only window to the outside world is the one that Jonah is standing in front of right now. The only movement in the chamber is a cooling mist, colored vaguely green by the light reflecting off the machinery inside.

Slowly, the light begins to grow. Bit by bit, things shift, and the neural towers are vast and curving enough that power flowing through them seems to illuminate the crests of waves, or the interior of a brain. 

And then it wakes.

In a single flash, like a thousand bolts of lightning all diffusing into a million tributaries, the system burns with impossible fire as a room of impossible architecture comes alive.

“Systems update! Give me everything we know, now! I want all eyes on power distribution, Brian, Devante, focus in on our startup procedure, give me any and all deviations. Jennifer, deepscan immediately, Bradley, I want frame by frame system caps. Come on people, it’s crunch time. System, projected stability?”

“Fifteen percent and climbing, Doctor.”

“Thank you system. Gimme data, people, I want to know what’s happening here.”

Even as he’s speaking, Jonah’s walked back across the room to the terminal at the very forefront of the space, in front of the button. On his screen is a projected model of a globe, flickering in broad patterns, shaped almost like a planet. There are hills and valleys, mountains and rivers, storms and eruptions, so long as one can interpret the three-dimensional model of the data. He watches as it flickers, stutters, almost two thirds of it a dull black highlighting only the background data that is a constant.

“Nanomodules holding for now, some flickers on 34-39 but nothing damaged.”

“Metrics exceeded on temp in bay three, rising to fifty four celsius, we’re three degrees up and climbing.

“Better than last time, keep it moving, Jennnifer? Where’s my deepscan?”

“Deepscan confirmed, showing 100% clarity. We’re messy, but no more than last time, variance is at .023.”

“Alright, excellent work, best variance we’ve had in a while. Bradley, again, I want frame-by-frame, let me know if anything stands out.”

As he watches, the data model in front of him grows further, rising to almost halfway to a complete sphere. Jonah’s eyes flicker, processing data at a nearly superhuman level, tracking the model he built, the only model so far that’s been able to present a full picture of the mind as it wakes. He notices there are some new patterns in what he’s calling the southern hemisphere, a ripple effect that manifests as distant earthquakes and dust clouds of data. There are less than four systems in the world that are theorized to exceed binary, and he’s built three of them.

It’s why he gets to decide what happens to this. It’s why he stands here, in front of the most terrifying thing he’s ever seen, being paid out the ass by the US of fucking A, rather than some general or senator. 

He watches his monster come to life, and marvels at how it could be anything else.

“Doctor! Down to .017 variance, we’re going into the same patterns.”

He says nothing. He doesn’t let himself say or feel or respond to anything but the data in front of him, to the variance. Fundamentally, it tells him everything his team tells him, but on a level that simply can’t be cataloged or understood, even by the mind of its maker. Still, deep down, there’s a shitty little feeling of frustration there. Every test before this one has ended the exact same, and the more variation there is, the higher the chance of success (to a certain standard metric, of course). Seeing the patterns retrace themselves… well. It’s impossible to know the exact, specific structural failing that leads such an incredibly complicated system to cascade, but it stands to reason that the closer it stays to the previous patterns, the higher the chance that one miniscule failing will happen again. 

Slowly, the model grows, advancing, changing. He’s too tuned in for now, but the instant that the test is over he’ll be comparing this latest model with the one from yesterday, and the day before, and the day before.

They get one activation a day. Every single one has to count.

The system grows, vibrant, alive in an incredibly detailed way. It’s like looking at a 3-D model of a brain in real time, or watching stars move through a galaxy. 

And then…

“100% activation achieved. System is operating at full capacity.”

“Thank you system,” Jonah says on instinct. “This is it, people. This is cascade territory, I want all eyes on every fucking digit.”

No one responds, which is good. It means his people are doing their jobs. 

“Time since activation?”

“Three minutes, fifty seven seconds as of the end of this sentence, Dr.”

“Alright people, we’re doing better than yesterday, let’s keep it up. Eyes up, fingers ready.”

Time keeps ticking. Four minutes turns to four and a half… and then-

“Sam, this is it. Thirty seconds to fifty bucks, let’s keep her steady, I want my wallet light as a feather tonight.”

“Yes Sir!”

This time there are some pretty big smiles around the room, the humor a bit higher. He shuts it down in himself, focusing exclusively on the page in front of him, blocking out-

There. That’s different.

“Bradley! I want double the regular data captures on section 34467 - B5, now!” 

As he hears his fellow scrambling to obey, he watches as something changes. The system, whole and complete, awake and alive, does something they’ve never seen before.

“Six minutes and four seconds and counting since activation, Dr.”

A tendril. It looks, for all the world, like a mountain climbing out of planetary atmosphere, like a spike in a three-dimensional wave, like-

There’s a twitch. The code twitches. His model stutters in a way he’s never seen before.

He hears one of the other scientists yell something, a note of panic in their voice. He looks over, for just a second, just an instant, and-

“Off-site shutdown engaged. Manual override activated. System shutdown.”

He doesn’t even bother looking back as the model goes inert and still, as the endless mind inside the room behind him goes dark, as the entire rest of the group starts yelling about protocol, about not being warned this could happen, about some asshole shutting them down-

Jonah is staring at a computer screen. It’s someone’s, he knows that, but that’s irrelevant because there are words on it that should not be there.

Shaped out of a cloud of temperature projections is a pattern that, when looked at on a visual graph, looks exactly like writing.

There are three words.

Where Am I?