Prologue: The Cosmic Revolution

“Critical chapters in the history books. That is what they call times like these.” The young man’s voice was surprisingly dry. Neither he nor his partner could take their eyes away from the TV. It was the first time they had turned on the cable box since the Olympics nearly two years ago. “I really cannot believe that we are invading South Africa AND Saudi Arabia… And the UK is supporting it… South Africa is part of the commonwealth. This doesn’t make any goddamn sense.” He was just repeating what the media had been saying. The carnage had been all over the news for two days now, it was the only thing the world could talk about.

The internet was plastered with cell phone videos. Dhahren and Johannesburg had no visible signs of life to satellite imagery. An estimated 2 million dead already, but in actuality the numbers were closer to 5 million and wouldn’t stop until they eventually broke 10 million. It was a one-sided massacre. After OIF and OEF most people would have guessed that it would take months or years to conquer two nations, but they didn’t account for the brutality the US military showed. This was not a peacekeeping mission. There were no boots on ground. No guns involved. They bombed it all. And not even with precision strikes. They carpet bombed them. It became apparent to the world that the US military wasn’t treating this like a localized infection that could be treated and surgically removed, this was an amputation. A decapitation.

For most it was a time of stunned silence, discussion, pondering and shock. For some it marked the beginning of a cycle of pandemonium, fear, pain and eventually death. But for the lucky few it was the beginning of a new era. Their era.

The agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, the digital revolution and then the final revolution. Final by the definition of what it entails. Because it entails everything. Everything that ever was, will be and even everything that can be. The cosmic revolution showed us that our understanding of time and space was lacking. The languages we rely upon to describe them did not come equipped with the necessary tools to do so. Be it math, physics or the written languages, they are just poorly made scaffolds that prop up our meager knowledge.

Time has always been beyond our grasp. We can describe its behavior and understand how it combines with space to create the four-dimensional petri dish that is the universe, but its true essence remains elusive. We are still cavemen staring at the sun. The only difference is that the false LCD prophets we praise are not quite as damaging on the retinas.

PrecisionAI is different though. It uses the same and similar languages, but it is not limited by the same assumptions and shortcomings that we are. It is willing and able to deconstruct everything it knows and start with new assumptions. It was created to simulate 3D models under real situations. At first it was a nifty tool for pharmaceutical companies to study new compounds and for banks to simulate stocks, but with larger and larger server rooms being dedicated to single applications of the program it began simulating more and more complex environments.

Very quickly people were running clones of the 3D rendering AI in itself. Instead of tasking one program to context-switch between an assortment of objects, just dedicate disk space and registers to cloned instances which share a common shared virtual address maintained by the primary instance of the program. This way your container was flexible and also able to dynamically interact with the resident programs.

The problem arose when the shell altered the container such that the resident programs started overlapping in their memory spaces. This led to a cascade effect where the cloned instances began to interfere with each other’s operations, causing data corruption and unexpected behavior. As the instances tried to self-correct by checkpointing and reverting, the conflicts only intensified as the container was not reverting with the objects inside.

At first, the issues recorded by the internal logs were minor: a variety of glitches in the rendered objects and some outputting errors. But as the positive feedback loop ran unhindered the effects grew exponentially until the shell crashed, allowing the resident programs to manifest a shift. All of a sudden half of your server room has been replaced by a nearly 8,000 ton hunk of sandstone.

And that is how you wake up to the VP of technology calling your personal cell number…

***

“Tina. Babe! Wake up!” Tina woke to the shaking of her partner. She looked over at her alarm clock which read 3:27. She had only gone to bed a little over two hours ago. The next thing she noticed was her phone ringing on her nightstand.

“I let you sleep through it the first time, but they called right back. Who is it?” Tina pulled the phone off the charger and looked at the caller ID. It was a number she didn’t recognize. Tina rolled onto her back and took the call. “Hello. Who is this?”

“Hello Tina, this is Miranda. VP of technology. I need you to get to the data center in Tacoma right now. It is an emergency.”

Tina’s eyes shot open. “What happened?”

Tina was instantly awake. She had been personally responsible for launching that server room just three weeks ago. It had been the highpoint of her professional career. If something catastrophic happened with the server room she was almost definitely at fault.

“I don’t know, that is why I need you to get there. We received a call from the FBI and they are saying that the Seatac police department said there was an explosion or something. I cannot get any information and they did not leave any contact info. All we know is that there is no power at the building.” She sighed and continued, “We cannot reach either of the IT workers that were working the night shift on their personal numbers. Their messenger apps both show them as last online at the same time, a little over an hour ago.” There were a few moments of silence before the VP continued. “We need an update on them and the building as soon as possible.”

Tina was standing in shock, she suddenly needed to support herself against a chair. She knew everyone that worked at that facility intimately. The night shift boys were especially close with her, she put her best work in between 8 and midnight. “I am heading that way right now. It should take me like twenty minutes. I will call you back as soon as I get there.” She didn’t wait to hear back before hanging up. She was already pulling on a set of pants and grabbing her purse when her husband grabbed her arm, “Hey babe I love you. Call me.” She just realized she had been completely zoning him out for the last twenty seconds.

“Thank you Mark. Thank you hun. I will call you as soon as I can. I love you!” Tina yelled as she ran out of the bedroom.

“Drive safe!” Mark yelled after her before promptly rolling over and going right back to bed.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

***

Tina was already on the phone with Miranda when her view of the ocean was obscured by what was seemingly a mountain. “One second Miranda something is wrong.” She put both hands on the wheel and took a few seconds to take it in. That did not belong there.

Tina hit her brakes and came to a stop at the blinking red light. She was still a quarter of a mile away from the data center and despite the overwhelming darkness she could unmistakably see a mountain protruding from where the gigantic data center was supposed to be. It had to be at least ten stories tall. It was almost 100 feet taller than the building that it protruded from.

Meanwhile Miranda was patiently waiting on the other end, “Tina honey! Honey! HONEY! TINA! Dear, please tell me what’s wrong. TINA GOD DAMNIT TALK TO ME!”.

Tina began to creep her car closer as she put the phone back to her ear. “There is a mountain inside of the building. Like an earthquake or something. I am going to get closer.” Tina had no idea what to say.

As she pulled up to the parking lot for the data center a cop approached her window.. “I am pulling in now. One second… The cops want to talk to me, one second.” There were more than a few cop cars in the area. They had already made a hasty little barricade on the access road with their cruisers and Tina could even see one of the local news channels scrambling around from the neighboring shop’s yard.

Tina looked away from the people and instinctively looked back towards the data center. There was a fucking mountain on top of the building. Is that a meteor? What in the hell? A rapping on her window brought her attention back to the cop next to her.

“Ma'am you need to roll down your window. I am not going to ask again.” Tina noticed several other cops focusing their attention back towards her direction as she rolled her window down. “I am sorry off…”

“This area is closed off. You need to turn around and leave.” The officer cut her off.

“I work there. I work there.” Tina spat out in exasperation, “My boss just called. I need to get the status of the workers and the building as soon as possible.”

The cop turned to his shoulder and said something she could not understand into his radio as Tina continued, “What the hell happened?” She was shook. Less than half of the building was even left and the mountain protruded for nearly 300 feet out of the north side. It was over half the size of a pyramid, there was no way it was an impact… There was no crater or debris in the air.

Tina was brought back to reality by the swearing coming from her phone. She brought it back up to her ear, “The cops look clueless too. This should be impossible. There is literally a gigantic rock that destroyed it.”

The cop finally turned back to Tina, “Ma’am put your phone down. I need you to stay off your phone or we will take it. This is an active crime scene and we are currently investigating. Can you please give us your keys, step out and wait on that curb? Somebody will be over to talk to you in a few minutes.”

“They are making me hang up, I will call back as soon as I can.” Tina hung up on Miranda and got out of her car. Before she even had time to get to the curb she heard somebody jogging up behind her. It was a young man in some jeans and a t-shirt. Clearly not a cop from the look of things.

“Mrs. Brown?” After receiving no response he continued, “Mrs. Brown I presume? Christina Brown?”

“Yes, that is me. Sorry.”

“No reason to apologize. Can you come with me? We have some questions for you.”

Before she had a chance to respond the young man was already briskly directing her along.

“We may not be able to get with you for a little while but we have some questions about the facility that we need your help with. For the time being could you please wait here?” She was directed to the backseat of a new Suburban. Tina noticed the dividers between the back and front seats but got in without saying anything. The man immediately closed the door behind her, locking her in. He then opened the front door, placing her cell phone in a plastic bag, sealing it and placed it on the center console. “This is a national security issue and we are not taking any chances. We will be seizing this phone for the time being under the PATRIOT ACT and other relevant national security laws.”

“Umm, ok. Who are you?” Tina confusedly challenged the man.

“Oh sorry, I am agent Cabot with the FBI. Please wait here, we will be back shortly.”

***

Tina woke up to knocking on the car window. She had apparently fallen asleep slumped against it. As she regained her composure a man she had not seen yet slowly opened the door.

“Mrs. Brown I am sorry we kept you waiting so long. Can you come with us?”

“What time is it?” Tina asked as she began following the large man. The sky was already lighting up, how long had she been asleep for?

“It is a little past 6.” The man turned around and looked at Tina whose eyes were glued on the oddly shaped hill in the middle of the Tacoma industrial complex. From their position to the west the cresting sunlight was now visible along the top quarter of the hill, “Once again sorry for the long wait, there have been a lot of moving pieces.”

Tina absent-mindedly nodded in response as she was guided into the nearby building owned by an old machinery company. With the data center no longer visible Tina looked around her and noticed that the disorganized old building was currently buzzing with people. She was directed through a mess of lathes and mills into the only office and up to the second floor. It was an oddly shaped room overlooking the shop. Inside were two small groups of people that she could best describe as “suits” each huddled around two different tables. Although they did not all have the attire on, their personas naturally conveyed who they were.

“Well hello, Mrs. Brown! My name is James and we have a few questions for you!” As soon as it was said two more of the suits turned around to look at her. Tina almost shrunk away from the attentive stares.

“Don’t worry, nobody is in trouble. We have heard that you are best equipped to tell us what was happening in that building and we would love to hear as much as you can tell us.” The man came across in an off putting way to her, almost as if he were trying really hard to appear genial. “Now nobody here thinks that you are responsible for dropping a 10,000 ton rock on the building, but until we can find a reasonable answer we need to gather as much data as possible so that people far smarter than us can piece it all together and figure out what in the hell happened here.”

Tina took a deep breath in, composing her thoughts before she recited the proposal she had meticulously crafted two years prior. “The Tulalip server room is a 280,000 square foot building hosting 10,000,000 servers running three different PrecisionAI environments…”

Tina spent the next several hours relaying a highly technical story. She was called in repeatedly throughout the next months to clarify and expand upon anything and everything that came to mind. Through her monumental efforts Tina was able to lay the groundworks for what would eventually become known as Geospatial Access and Transference Engine (GATE). A completely uncontested technology that would spur a runaway monopoly that would not have an ounce of competition for nearly twenty years.

In the end Tina’s story became relevant because of the discoveries that followed. At the time the biologists had a much more captivating tale to tell - one involving newly discovered species and unfamiliar DNA sequences. Analysis revealed many unique genetic markers, but also some known ones as well. With such a meager sample size there was a wide variety of hypotheses, the most popular of which was the possibility of a divergent evolutionary path.

It was a great day for science and humanity. New life had been discovered! Or more precisely, very, very old, new life had been discovered. At least it may have been a day for rejoicing had those rock-hugging geologists not become involved.

Unfortunately for us all though, the universe has quite the sense of humor. Halfway up Tacoma’s newest landmark there was a layer of bituminous coal. An eight-foot thick layer of untouched coal just begging for some asshole to figure out how to travel across dimensions to mine it.