What to do now?
Despite having an arm, leg, and part of my pelvis ripped off, I did not seem to be bleeding. In fact, it seems like since I entered this place my physical body stopped doing anything. That part of my network had stopped twinkling, as if frozen in time. No feedback, no physical sensation. If this injury was going to kill me it would have already done so.
I can't say the same for my consciousness though. If damaged would my own mind simply vanish, becoming dead nodes floating in... "space"? What should I call this place anyway? It's definitely not "outer space" as I know from Earth. Hmm... How about “the Aether.” Good enough I suppose. Not like there’s anyone else to tell it to. I'm not sure if there's anything alive out here, or how I could communicate if I found something.
let's organize my knowledge of the situation:
- I don’t think I'm in a coma, and even if I was it's not like I could magically wake myself up. This is not a cliche tv show.
- I appear to have left Earth, well more likely reality itself as I know it.
- I'm no longer a physical entity, not in the same way at least. More like a consciousness floating in the Aether.
- What used to be my body seems to be useless now. I guess without a world to interact with it's now just a clump of dead nodes, like a puppet off its strings.
So what to do now?... I need to gather info about my current situation and how the Aether works. Nearby I can see a piece of network many times my size, It must be what I collided into when I was jettisoned. There was also the networks for the physical items I had with me, like my clothes and cell phone.
And what about networks themselves? Can I alter them? I imagine reaching out and changing the connections in my body. With some effort I can disconnect and reconnect different nodes. But what about nodes that are not part of my body? I try connecting to my clothes, it's more difficult but eventually I do. The moment it connects I suddenly understand the entire structure of the new network, now merged with my own, an extension of myself. Exact knowledge of what nodes are where and their connections. I still don't understand why or how the structure makes a T-shirt, But it's a start.
Well, time is awasting, might as well experiment with networks. Not like there is much else to do.
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It's been a few months. Or what I assume to be. By studying and messing with the structure of systems around me I've learned alot about how nodes work. It's almost like programming. Different color nodes have different basic functions. string enough together and you can do simple things. The first one I figured out was a clock. Well, more like a cycle. A switch flipping on and off over and over again for eternity.
It struck me as odd. Was there no need for energy? Something to drive this state change forward? What about violating thermodynamics? But that was a stupid thought. Who is to say how the hell things work here? Do any of the old laws of physics still apply?
I think I figured out what the giant network I had been next to was. It was a corpse, or at least part of it. Whatever it was must have been massive, hundreds of times larger than myself.
Carefully examining the structure of the body, I recognised a set of nodes, it's like a switch. I'm not sure what would happen, but when presented with a big red button the obvious thing to do is push it. So I pushed it. The section rapidly came alive, lighting up like a christmas tree. Then something shot out, an odd distortion, tearing apart the nodes in front of it and quickly fizzling out. Luckily it missed me. The weapon slowly began returning itself to the original state, was it recharging?
This did not bode well, weapons implied a fight for survival. Though you don't need water, heat, or shelter here. Nodes are not interchangeable, different types have different uses. The idea is reminiscent of germs in a petri dish, competing for resources, evolving chemical weapons to defeat each other. If I wanted to survive, I would need to understand this place and arm myself, or else I would be prey.
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And if this was a piece of something akin to a hunter, was it the reason for the hole in my world? Was I unknowingly about to be swallowed up before I was caught in the crossfire? I don't know if such an event made me lucky or not. I was alive, but almost being eaten by inter-dimensional parasites was about as bad of luck as luck could get in my book.
I wonder if such external forces had led to some of the unexplained disappearances I would see on late night mystery-history shows. Then again there were not many I could recall. There would be more disappearances if people falling out of reality was all that common, either that or leaving might erase you from everyone's memories.
Simply vanishing one day and the world continuing without skipping a beat. I shuddered at the thought. Assuming it's true, The mechanics of everyone forgetting were even more frightening. Something would have to go through and subtly alter everyone's consciousness, warping and rewriting their perceptions and memories.
Which brought about another question. Was my original world alive, well... more like... sentient? Like some sort of mechanical god watching, maintaining, and composing the entirety of my reality. If so, why do humans exist? Were we simply a byproduct of something like a simulation that was being run? I already knew from my own body that if it was destroyed the consciousness would still exist. So what happens after death? Is it just eternal solitude with your own thoughts? Would the world do something with your consciousness? Destroy it? Heaven? Maybe harvest its memories and discard it?
I had thought of something similar before back on Earth. Pondering the idea of a god. If a god were all knowing, they would know how to become all powerful. And if a god were all powerful, they could simply become all knowing. So a god who is either all knowing or all powerful must be both.
what if you were not all knowing, but had vast power, and could warp reality? How could you obtain your missing knowledge? couldn't you create something like the world, full of people, and then when they die collect their knowledge, ideas, thoughts, and add them to your own, increasing your own understanding of the world? Possibly running multiple simultaneous worlds of differing nature, or even multiple timelines?
I had no idea what the truth of the world was. who's to say if I had guessed right, or if I was even close. still the idea itself felt disconcerting. wouldn't humans be akin to turkeys being farmed not for meat, but for perception? Small self contained entities, created, imbued with consciousness, left alone to the tribulations of the world, only to have it be stripped away and devoured at the end.
The unknowns of my world were scary, but I miss talking to people, and food. Even if it might be a glorified slaughterhouse, it was home. I pressed down the longing, not much I can do about that right now. I need to deal with the situation I am currently in. I need to be able to protect myself. I need a new body. After all, my current body was defenseless, and not ready to deal with the Aethers hostility.
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It took a while, but I did it. Learning the structure of the corpse, its weapons, and defenses. Then by breaking it down, along with my old body, and clothes as raw materials, I had weaved an outer shell to defend myself.
I carefully unknit my consciousness from the few remaining strands of my old body. Truly left with nothing else connected, I made my way to the center of my new abode. Almost spherical in shape, it was hundreds of times bigger than my old one. At its core I slowly reached out and connected. Taking control and closing the hole I used to enter. I'm not keen on reenacting a "death star"-esque self destruction by leaving such a tunnel. It was tiresome work, but hopefully it would leave my mind well protected.
I had made storage for the unused nodes, along with an archive of different structures. The weapons' networks were too complicated to memorize, so an extra unaltered copy would allow me to replicate them or fix the weapons if they were damaged.
I still had my cell phone's network. I chose to leave it untouched. I would need to study its structure. Although it can't do much in its current state, if I could reverse engineer how computation works at the basic level, I might be able to take those ideas and build computers out of nodes. Calculation was a nice prospect, and it would give me a goal to work towards.
My consciousness was unaltered, the thought had occurred to me, but I wasn’t sure if messing with my own mind was a good idea. Improving it was a tantalizing prospect. Making my mind harder, better, faster, stronger... Work it harder, make it better, do it faster, makes us stronger... I miss music.
But for now, I have equipped myself. If I wanted to better my defense I would need to find more nodes. grow myself and my knowledge. So I began moving, hunting for more.