But Thomas Aiken Is Dead - Part I by Alex McKechnie Read Free Book Online

physical eksist mode. I don’t share my self sense directly with any other denizen. Occasionally I eat and drink and fornicate in the traditional ningen style. Why, if I’m that – to use your word, eccentric, would I dream of goading a child into creating the mergerment?
    The Interlokutor:
We are unsure, hence the question.
    Atia:
This is absurd.
    The Breacher:
She is still not entirely being truthful.
    Atia:
About what? You incompetency at even basic reasoning?
    The Interlokutor:
We don’t doubt that you are surprised. The Breacher is only concerned that you are not as surprised as you perhaps should be.
    Atia:
This is a total invasion of my selfsense autonomy, as I must have said a hundred times now.
    The Interlokutor:
Did you suspect your infant might do something like this?
    Atia:
No.
    The Breacher:
Yet again you are lying.
    Atia:
Gnesha’s teeth , perhaps, I don’t know. She was abnormal, a freak. Obsessed with novel modes of eksist. Everything I loved ningenity for, she hated. Language was inconceivable to her. She wanted direct selfsense fusion with every denizen she met. Physical form was inconceivable too. She wanted to be a pure concept or something equally as macabre. But yes. Fine. I suspected she might do something radical, go looking for new modes of eksist. But I never envisioned her starting a crisis, never envisioned her creating the mergerment.
    The Interlokutor:
Nevertheless.
    Atia:
Why do you suspect her of initiating it?
    The Interlokutor:
The archives show that she had been obsessively researching the early Cadence pioneers. They too dreamed of direct selfsense fusion. She also began to correspond with a number of Cadence philosophers on the subject.
    Atia:
Oh, philosophers. Why, that does sound threatening.
    The Interlokutor:
Most Cadence renegades begin in the thought forums and end with the exactment of their schemes. We monitor the thought forums closely for that reason.
    Atia:
Even if she did initiate the merge there’s no way she could have known it would spiral so violently out of control.
    The Interlokutor:
Perhaps not. Nevertheless, she is almost certainly its mother. If this is so then the answer to its destruction may lie in uncovering certain personal weaknesses of hers.
    Atia:
Why? If she has joined the mergerment, she will be long gone, fused with the other selfsenses. There must be well over a million now in there. That is how the mergerment works, isn’t it?
    The Interlokutor:
Not necessarily. Distinctness may still be preserved. If we could antagonise it somehow with her fears or phobias, we may stand in a favourable stead. I will be frank. At present, we are totally powerless. We have tried setting up partitions all across the Cadence but the mergerment simply passes through them and continues its onslaught.
    Atia:
I’m sure there are protocols for this. The original pioneer council will have left behind safeguards or something.
    The Interlokutor:
The cadential founders set up the habitat so that no one individual could influence its structure. If the council still eksisted, yes, they could intervene. But they disbanded so as not to guide events in any way and to leave the Cadence to itself.
    Atia:
We’re fucked by virtue of our autonomy. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?
    The Interlokutor:
Crassly put, but yes. The mergerment recently consumed the partition artisan and all of his contained expertise. It now has the ability to eradicate any blockade whatsoever, including that between itself and Blue Tier.
    Atia:
How much time is left?
    The Interlokutor:
Unknown, hence why we are now turning this investigation temporarily away from Aiken’s writings and towards your infant.
    Atia:
There really isn’t much I can help you with on that subject. She was as much as mystery to me as she is to you.
    The Breacher:
This is unlikely.
    Atia:
I don’t think you understand just how anomalous she was.
    The Interlokutor:
Information has recently come to light regarding this