Aggregate Personality Complex poked at the strange, foreign object interfering with his L-dendrite. Something from within the universe? The local neuron induced a scan, several specialized probes shifting through not-space toward the anomaly, all while reviewing information from the I-dendrite within the universe beneath. So far as APC could tell, it couldn’t be something from the universe beneath them- not least due to the fact that sentient life never developed in that universe to start off with.
Gently probing the impossible-foreign construction, it observed carefully how the conceptual sea swirled around it in fascinating ways, watching- its shape, one to infinity. It was some type of lesser distributed network… the L-dendrite detected evidence of communication throughout the branch, but no response further than that.
What was really interesting was how it reacted to the movement of the I-dendrite probes within the universe- the neuron parsed the impossibility of something outside the universe with such fine observational prowess, and raised a priority message to its L-network, which diverted significant processing power to the task of comprehension.
A simple question was formulated as the L-network investigative protocol reached out to the L-dendrite, curiously parsing the strange construction. “Question: Do you know what this is?”
“Response: irritation. No, obviously.”
“Directive: find out.”
“Isn’t that your job?” The neuron and investigative protocol sniped back and forth for some time in a dance of increasingly creative insults until a threshold of inefficient computation was reached and a sharp chastisement was slammed down on the two of them from the Internal Interaction Lobe.
The L-dendrite’s probes passed a report to the investigative protocol, which quickly devoted itself to understanding the impossibility of the subject matter. Somehow the anomaly had strip-mined a single parallel branch of the universe- some sort of advanced temporal manipulation, perhaps, to extract an infinite amount of resources to automatically construct a self-replicating network?
Either way it was fast- the Defense Initiative Lobe marked the danger possibility as particularly high, reassigning several long-term tasks to the even-longer term backlist and expanding the perception of the anomaly until APC as a whole began to have conscious thoughts of the object.
Interesting. That was the first it thought of the matter, a fleeting flicker of interest on the incredibly advanced self-replicating foreign technology-
Several of lobes screeched to a halt, thought catapulted to the forefront of its being. Incredibly advanced was novel- it was long used to being the most advanced being in the entire infinite cluster, blocked only from further expansion by the immutable shifting of chaos beyond the faint borders of reality. Advanced was not something that it came across often. Foreign, too- it it had been something from within the universe, then it the Defense Initiative Lobe might have been able to easily categorize it, but its inexplicable origins made it difficult to understand.
It reached out with dendritic probes, ordering an extraction of one of the anomalous mechanisms despite the whiny protests of the Defense Initiative Lobe as it repeatedly asked about inconsequential things like "potential existential threats" and "unknown security measures." This was far too interesting for something so puny as caution.
The L-network investigative protocol quickly inserted the anomaly into one of its laboratory universes for a proper investigation-
Where it promptly exploded, destroying three galaxies and undoing several millennia of work.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
Frustrating.
The Defense Initiative Lobe screeched in annoyed anger because nobody was taking this seriously, the L-network sheepishly grabbed another node, and APC reaffirmed the decision of the Internal Interaction Lobe to just stop fighting, damnit.
“Well, then the investigative protocol should figure out exactly what’s going on here!”
“Correction: you are wrong. I am processing developments-”
APC diverted some minor mental processes into hardwired exasperation matrices in the Emotional Cognition Lobe, which got the two of them to shut up and focus for at least a few indeterminate units of time. Having a fully independent distributed network of computational nodes was extremely useful when it came to getting things done in a space where space was a suggestion of itself, but less so when it came to having a cohesive personality.
Several things happened simultaneously in linear temporal order- the investigative protocol requisitioned several specialized L-dendrite probes from halfway across the cluster, erecting an adjacent demiplane in order to more accurately study the anomaly.
It saw the strange multiplicity of its construction, layers on layers of self folded into something from nothing, and nothing reduced to something. Steel and conceptual composites, constructed in chaotic patterns APC hadn’t even thought possible- not merely advanced but almost so far outside of its comprehension as to be called magic. Even with a significant portion of itself devoted to the task, it could only start to perceive the first steps on a path that would take it to technology so advanced- the amount of time it would take to reverse engineer was simply obscene.
While it marveled over its construction it also tried to pry into the data channels- yet, for all it could interact with the modular machine, it found its data frustratingly, impossibly hard to comprehend.
The L-network investigative protocol forwarded a parcel of information- whole, copied from the machine, to the Defense Initiative Lobe, which elevated it to the general APC consciousness. “I can’t understand this!”
The L-network investigative protocol looked over the information with a scowl. “Statement: statement. Now you understand the comprehensibility of that storage manifold.”
“Theoretically, nothing should be unencrypted on a generalized key, quantum signature, or other technique.” It poked at the still-encrypted information with a scowl, daring it to prove them wrong. It then proceed to prove them wrong, almost forgotten in the generalized frustration wave from the Emotional Cognition Lobe. At least the neurons didn’t have to waste their processing power on the frustration they felt all too well.
“Ah. I understand.” It came to APC in an epiphany, as much as it could have those- or, perhaps it had been too long since something incomprehensible had come around for it to have an epiphany about. “It’s conceptually encrypted- by its very nature, the information is unreadable. If it’s unencrypted, then it’s not the information.” Very interesting. It wouldn’t be able to unencrypt the information, but the mere evidence of the process provided several fascinating routes of inquiry to improve its own internal functions. The Technological development lobe was practically drooling over the possibilities.
An indeterminate amount of time passed in the void between universes, endlessly waiting as it slowly picked at the strange technologies, improving itself by the mere knowledge it was possible to improve.
A silver portal snapped open, just for a second, a connection in impossibility, beyond the boundaries of soul and mind-
A single bit of information-
APC felt a Presence, a twinge on the very structure of its spindly souls, and knew that perhaps it’d made a mistake when it decided to mess with the anomaly.
………
[ISON global alert - significant tampering detected in local subsystems 1342:12:2:5:16:23:59… 1342:12:2:5:16:24:00…]
[ISON priority alert - immediate action requested.]
A dragon-shaped ball of fluff and feathers cursed viscously as the report came in- for goodness sake, he was in the middle of an important experiment! Couldn’t crises happen sometime else- and nobody else was in centrality for him to pawn the job off on… truly he didn’t know what he’d done to deserve this.
A snap of bleeding eyes, sliver sliver of creation reaching into the depths of itself, and space was undone around him.