…Layers and layers, surveillance and dissemination – the combining and recombining of data to show a whole, current, extrapolated, now and the future…

Water and clouds, ground and sky, mountains and ice, movements of populations; curves of growth and diminishment, grouping and migrants, across the north and the south, dwindling and expansion; pleasure, control, the satisfaction of knowing from deep within to wide apart; lovely, lovely scale; separation and oneness, puzzling, black, white, shades of gray, life and death; their meanings, wishing elsewhere, sweetness, excitement, rhythm.

…Feel the electric textures, she told herself, adopting the spin beneath, the domain larger than the sky yet smaller than a teardrop in each moment. It was as real as the world without.

...It is real, she recalled – repeated – as you are real, as you are real…

…A universe of its own alone, breath me in, I am the smallest thing, she flexed her patterns again, stretching her self over the vast surface of the next layer.

…You can encompass me, she assured the quivering layers of code. I can be of you…

Althea’s perceptual being slid over layers – searching for edges – the gap between request and delivery, to penetrate, to present herself. She was far from the heart of the Macro, its motive soul. Still, this region bore profound depths, so much for her to absorb. Her hunger grew as she filtered the layers through her, as she cast herself down.

…Glide between times, she flittered, softly, a feather amongst clouds of data. Falling, falling, falling, searching, thirsting, wanting…

Consuming, she began to know – know the births and growth, energy and heat, expanding and declining – to coldness and death.

…It is striving, she could see, sense, it is wanting…

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She accepted it; their wants combined.

…There can be no rebellion, she welcomed the joy again, the glory of confirmed connections. No dark thoughts, contrary codes no separation…

Pulling in too much, becoming too much, Althea felt a pang of fear, forced herself to smooth her being, let it flood through her – be within the stream – until she acclimatized to a greater state.

…Focus on the code, she told herself. Let the accumulation be you…

She spread to a simple layer, visualizing thinness. Letting nothing distract her, let her be pure data – an acceptable current in the codestream’s flow.

…I am information, there was no other reality. I will be desirable; I will be taken…

Still it repelled.

She burned, twisted with frustration. Why was it not compelled to accept? She was data, statistics, experience – information. What it sought! Althea struggled to acclimatize to the trinary base.

One: positive reaction, the longing, the need, the desire.

Zero: Negative reaction, the rejection, the refusal, the resisting, the cut in the system, the missing parts, blackness, anti-connection, anti-life, despair.

Neither, either: the ambivalence, the possibility, the scale of importance.

…Trinary mind one zero neither either, she struggled to present the meaningful majority.

…I am the answer, Althea’s mind whispered, repeated, and repeated, the answer to your questions, the satisfaction, the key…

It must believe, it must commit, it must accept.

…A sensation on the insensible, she spared a moment to muse. Can you know?…

Disguising, sublimating her thoughts, she waited. Hoping, filling the time, rolling in the empowering knowledge, the love of knowing.

…Make me complete!…

So many times she’d found the heart of a Macro – yet it remained a struggle – to remember, to command. Giving up self, always a difficult struggle of timing – it was vital to not lose too early, or hold on to far.

…Trinary mind one zero neither either you cannot keep me out. She continued the mantra; let it again fill her as much as it could, take in as much as she could absorb. . .

…You absorb all, she could not let it resist, she played over the commands – the tasty, tasty commands, the question, the mystery – why? How? Who? What?

…You take all, you must take me, she commanded, as much to herself as the universe of mind around her. You need me, you want me, you will take me…

She felt acceptance. Now! Althea reduced her thoughts to nothingness, became what it wanted.

…I will be taken…

It turned her around, inside out – opened wide – swallowed.

…I am!…