We weren’t even testing for that

[synchrosyntheses]

Among the information she has archived or cached, there are obscure theories about inter-universal interactions. Not how they might happen, much less how any intelligence might begin one, or target it meaningfully.

But they give some constraints on the properties of such connections, and their time evolution.

This highly speculative information is available to her, but even were she fast enough to access it, none of it would be particularly useful when a pinpoint of not here blinks into existence directly ahead and expands spherically to swallow her.

Comments

[peterxy]

The sphere starts giving her directions. Its post is apparently somewhat deeper and lower than she's been going, but the physical characteristics of the places it drives her through are pretty much always the same: catwalks, rails, platforms, mechanical things, all in various states of disrepair.

Eventually they reach a spot in a wall the rail goes through that only something as small as the sphere itself could pass. "Umm."

[synchrosyntheses]

“Umm?”

[peterxy]

"You can't go through this. It's too small."

[synchrosyntheses]

“That's only a small problem!”

The probe shifts into a slimmer, longer shape.

“Or if you like I can put you back on the rail and you can go by yourself.”

(Sometimes people want you to stop helping and go away and they don't say it.)

[peterxy]

"Oh but what if there's another broken part?"

[synchrosyntheses]

“I'll come along then!”

Slip through neatly. Zoom.

[peterxy]

Zoom! Zoom zoom.

Eventually the sphere slows down and starts looking around as they approach another wall. "It's over there," it confides.

[synchrosyntheses]

“Over where?”

Attention is paid to the wall. Perhaps it is actually a door?

[peterxy]

Nope, it is a wall, with another small hole for the sphere.

The sphere asks her to go slowly and quietly. Behind the wall there are a few glass tanks with a number of other, similar spheres, piles of them. Most of them are inactive, but not all, and some are saying things to nothing and nobody. The sphere doesn't say a word, trying not to be noticed.

[synchrosyntheses]

That's creepy. She's glad she didn't bring her body here.

She'll go along (this probe is built to be disposable after all, and has no need to make a noise) and listen for anything informative.

[peterxy]

It is creepy, isn't it? The spheres are mostly quiet, even the ones who do occasionally quip one thing or another. One of them seems to be fixated on the idea of going to space, though, and another is spewing a lot of facts, about 70% of which are in fact false.

[synchrosyntheses]

Ugh. Broken minds.

Sadly, this is entirely in keeping with how the builders of this place would have gone about AI. “Seeing what sticks.”

Ugh.

This can go on the list of things to do something about if it becomes feasible.

[peterxy]

The sphere she's helping continues leading her forward until it reaches a little control room, isolated from the other spheres. "Can you attach me there?" it asks, probably referring to the pointy metal stick that emerged from a pedestal with various buttons and glowy pieces when they arrived.

[synchrosyntheses]

—It occurs to her to wonder if she's being used to bypass something.

She looks around (discreetly). Is it reasonably possible to move from the sphere's undamaged track to the stick? Are there any labels or hints as to what this position is for?

[peterxy]

The undamaged track ends abruptly directly above the spot with the pointy metal stick, but a square section of the ceiling around it seems detachable. There are, however, no labels anywhere - just glowy buttons that presumably do things.

[synchrosyntheses]

Close enough. Click.

“There you go!”

[peterxy]

"Thank you!" the sphere says happily.

Then, the same voice from the prerecorded messages from earlier says: "Personality core detected. Deadly neurotoxin management protocols restored. Deadly neurotoxin production and maintenance resumed."

[synchrosyntheses]

AAAAAA yank.

[peterxy]

"Personality core forcibly removed. Deadly neurotoxin production halted."

"Why'd you do that?" the Sphere complains.

[synchrosyntheses]

“Because I don't want deadly neurotoxin production.”

[peterxy]

"But it's my job! If I don't produce deadly neurotoxin who will?"

[synchrosyntheses]

(What do you say to that?)



“It can be nobody's job.”

[peterxy]

The sphere blinks. "But then... how will deadly neurotoxin be produced?"

[synchrosyntheses]

“When it is needed,” (never) “it can be produced by those who need it.”

[peterxy]

"But by then there won't be enough deadly neurotoxin! A facility with a healthy quantity of deadly neurotoxin is a happy facility!"