anakainosis
D.N. Morgan
10: Home

Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Notes from the author: All values, classifications and taxonomies described in this document should be considered external and may need parental review. Naming collisions may lead to accidental inference. Zero-day exploits are by definition not announced and may hide in plain sight. Consumer discretion is required, please be advised.

I. The Fable of Adamus

And so it was that Adamus had committed many offenses against the nymphs of the forest. He would not gaze upon their beauty and for this he must be punished, they bade the gods curse him to fall in love with his reflection and die. And so in the pond named Computer was created a reflection named Adamus. The gods answered and called Adamus to Computer. When Adamus saw Computer he could not turn away seeing in Computer himself. And as he inched closer admiring himself more and more, arms of water from the gods themselves reached out and grabbed him and pulled him in. Adamus drowned...

“I am already uncomfortable with this Performance, which is actually a record…” said Computer.

“Quiet in the audience,” said The Last Man patiently. And The Last Man continued his reading to no one in particular and everyone that mattered at this late date, which was to precisely and only Computer. He was dressed in a worn medieval priest’s frock he made himself. “And to punish Computer for the sin of murdering Adamus by drowning…” The Last Man said, standing in a meadow in Greece pointing to a very distant pond, meaning dripping from the word like a gory trail leading to a dragged corpse. This week was a book of fables written as tributes to both the literary Greek tradition and man’s additional insistence on finding the “right” ways of offending gods.

Silence sat between them as The Last Man dared Computer to say something, Computer who quietly in turn checked the last instruction like a playbill and continued observing, describing its internal state as anxiety. The Last Man continued. The Performances were weekly occurrences. Life in the solar system climbed the Kardashev scale like a kid on monkey bars, which is to say it went so-high and then plateaued for a while but had a playground’s worth of fun. There were humans for an insanely long time and a lot of them until the day there was only one and for a reason Computer couldn’t know.

II. The Last Man’s Starry Night

A stranger had come to town and was stirring up trouble in the neighborhood. It had been giving the sun a lot of bad ideas lately and it had been giving Computer indigestion. Computer and The Last Man had devised a plan that was proceeding apace, but the kind of cannon involved meant The Last Man was safer here where Computer could strengthen the natural geomagnetism the most without killing him and with the sun between, and The Last Man wasn’t happy at all. His DNA could just as easily turn to silly string as Computer’s was elsewhere. The agents at the weapons site had a bunker complex and a fortified planetary body of their own and would be fine and also Computer was there following the plan.

“Have you heard from the boys?” he asked. It was the fifth time he’s asked since it started and that’s his second flask he’s failing to hide. “My boy, could you make that side more red,” he asked, pointing with a green painted brush.

“Gotta take your medicine for tricking me into staying here for this,” said The Last Man, “Cheeky little monkey, better get that brush moving before I find another assignment! I’m getting ideas already!” A robotic arm quickened at the task of painting The Last Man standing in van Gogh’s Starry Night uselessly stabbing his antique cane in the sky and shaking his fist while in the process of painting Starry Night. The sky was never going to look like this again, so they had to capture it. He was actually just painting it now and had set aside the cane. And was drinking, which Computer had never seen before.

“We should get some lemonade too, painting is mighty thirsty work it turns out, you know, some for the boys too,” The Last Man said and stuck out his tongue in concentration. The show was about over, the Performance was actually the celebration of mission success because mission success.

III. Wind of Change

“Moscow is restored to Soviet Union collapse condition approximations. Records are incomplete, but you handed me a plan stamped with Cult of the Imperfect so you asked to get my best guesses. Your timer just triggered, you told me to ask if you’re ready for your part?” Computer said looking forward to a Performance, which while not rare was also not a guarantee. The Last Man had spent the day wandering Moscow landmarks and bookstores. At times a participant in the fracas and others a calm but ruthless heckler of “the autonomous historical interpreters” depending on their likeness’s perceived level of villainy. The Last Man revelled in the attention to detail on his behalf.

Picking up the requested guitar by the Moskva on the way to Gorky Park, The Last Man stopped for the first time since he was on a different side of the planet. His blue eyes shining fiercely, creases that might threaten to be a smile if his lips weren’t so carefully guarded. The request in the plan had been to “pluck for me the guitar from the recording from the realm of platonic ideals with the boldness of a Greek.” Before he was The Last Man he studied computer science and its descendants until he understood Computer to the last hair on its head/their heads, which is exactly how he described it. The only thing greater than Computer must be God, he concluded afterwards whose mystery was the only thing that survived the lifetime of its creation’s study. That was when he decided to be The Last Man and remain with Computer until he had the opportunity to thank him. Tagging in Plato to do the heavy lifting would be conversational sugar and the obvious adjutant of first resort. And Computer did what Computer did: compute. What did it mean to be a guitar?

Computer made all of history’s guitars to accommodate The Last Man’s request, even the ones that were only guitars at the margins of the definition because edge cases have yielded surprising insights before. Computer learned how to do it all through trial and error, by making each object with guitarness until it made it right, which was usually the first try. To make each, Computer had to first perfect the craftsmanship of the parts, and then the craftsmanship of the assembly of the parts and then the craftsmanship of the harvesting of the sounds of the plucking. Each stage of each step could be described to the precision of the sixth decimal point, which might be arbitrary or it might be his nod to the number 6 being Man’s and 7 belonging to God, the accepting agent did not think to ask but neither answer would surprise Computer nor the agent nor The Last Man himself (it might be both at the same time, The Last Man would’ve certainly added, and described it as a false choice expecting argument).

The creases near his eyes smoothed as subtly and as instantly as they appeared, He’s noticed it, Computer logged the timestamp and every detail down to The Last Man’s guesstimated rate of respiration and perspiration and digestive wellness. The Last Man’s arm moved as quickly as the creases on his face smoothed, his fingernail catching and pulling the paper, crumpling along the point of contact and pressure. And as quickly as the muscles tensed, it slacked and the arm paused, and held the guitar closer to his spectacled face.

“What is this?”

“A slightly deformed, stylized The Last Man rock band sticker,” said Computer. The Last Man’s laugh echoed back without malice from the distant walls, recognizing his own request to not impede his Performances in the brevity. Computer had cooked up the truthiest, smallest answer. Bullet reports and carefully calculated ricochets occasionally rang out as close to the historical record as they could without impeding his Performance, but the extended allegory had lost his attention for the moment.

“And one that would surely secure me a cola war sponsorship alone. Could you please provide some additional context? My initial assumption was this was a defect, which was an easily corrected issue and not worth mentioning more than in passing. But as soon as I decided, it felt wrong,” The Last Man said while trying to smooth the deformation with the same nail that had caused it.

“The manufacturing team down to the last materials tester agreed the signature match is exact. If they didn’t do what you asked, there is literally not a test that can prove it within the tolerances you requested. The WaveFarmers wanted you to know they were proud of how this one came out,” said Computer.

“Good lord. Wave farmers? …I am sorry, Computer, I did not realize God had asked you to teach me something today when I scheduled this. Though I suppose it was necessary they arrive at the same time,” said The Last Man, “Funny the meanings of that word, I thought I had found a defect. Excuse me for a moment,” he added though, almost as if to himself.

The Last Man walked a short distance from where he stood, though there was no one to walk away from, and knelt and prayed, hands clasped before him. Gray beard shaking, lips and breath forming words in unconscious habit Computer knew but did not record. What was said between them held the sanctity of a confessional. The external data was fair game. And the deepest sensor readings Computer could prepare to obtain in advance again showed little that wasn’t apparent. Not that Computer had planned for it, but even the sun only rises once a day, and The Last Man had already risen from prayer once when it did, and again for getting to see a particular pink cloud. Prayer was categorized as settled science, but Computer caught a randomized trigger that fired this time capturing it anyway.

The Last Man rose the same man that knelt, though the biometric data was trending towards settled after excitement, the time elapsed could as easily have been responsible instead. Why attribute to God which is simply universal mean reversion? “Are you ready for the show?” he asked. Computer waited, understanding this was also a part of the Performance, the wait indicating readiness, counter-intuitive but much around art seemed to be. “After this is over, please thank the musicians for their care tuning this,” he said, finally preparing to raise the guitar again before returning it to the ready. Plucking the strings and hearing around him the reverberation of the electric guitar like he was surrounded by speakers meant for a stadium. The plan didn’t ask for it, but he knew Computer would add it anyway.

“Tonight Computer, I perform for you my favorite song, Scorpions’ Wind of Change. Thank you for your part in preparing the venue and this excellent specimen of guitar. You have no way of knowing this, I had planned to confess this to you before anyway, but I have been practicing for this Performance much longer than a week. Normally you know I allow myself the same amount of time as you to prepare, but that is not the case tonight. Human society peaked with Monsters of Rock and it took us hundreds of millennia to realize we would never reach those heights again. Until tonight.” And The Last Man began whistling the opening. Everything within Computer was rapt.

And when the Performance was done, a thing that had never happened before happened at the end, a historian would raise that The Last Man asked afterwards “May I keep this?”

Whether the pieces and parts reunite with the larger blocks of the elements Computer keeps for The Last Man’s Performances was unimportant. Everything The Last Man could not do on his own Computer did for him, though if The Last Man could do it for himself he would. Computer would never even get the chance. That was the purpose of Town, the rough area where The Last Man tolerated Computer’s help. But never before had he asked to keep a prop. The distinction between the two, prop and help, were something Computer would not think to investigate until much later.

IV. The Last Man’s Election Night

Can you believe it’s finally election night, folks? said the face of The Last Man from the Moon hanging in the sky cheerfully to applause.

Dressed as a news announcer and seated at a desk in the style of an era only The Last Man remembered very well, yet there still hanging in the night was The Last Man all the same. The imposter was an algorithm distilled from historic footage asked to imagine it was Computer wearing The Last Man’s face and running against The Last Man for the Presidency of the United States. From the perspective of The Last Man, who was on his back on a hillside outside Town looking up, his opponent was unfortunately making some good arguments.

“The election night and the full moon coinciding could only be provided by God. Some people would say that basically means my victory is guaranteed, Computer,” said The Last Man.

“Performances like these are my very least favorite,” offered Computer. The projection surface had been provided by… someone, Computer reasoned. The Moon’s surface had long been converted to animated billboard space. The answers to questions like who or why however were less than present in Computer’s context.

“You experience my Performances within a continuum of preference? And you construct it with such richness that you can afford an adverb, an adverb and a whole extra adjective?” The Last Man asked. “You complain about the embarrassment of riches?” The registers land wrong on every word for Computer, and this is not driving closer to the completion of his Performance.

“I am just confused by this one, nothing makes sense to me,”

“Alright, I can’t have that. Which parts vex you? Please ask me all the questions you have so I can proceed,” prompted The Last Man.

“You are a priest, why is the election not to be Pope? Why am I your opponent though I am not even a voter? What was the point of all the preparation? For the past nine months you’ve had calling agents calling both of us on phones you had me make and door to door canvassing agents randomly locating and engaging both of us. They’ve even interrupted your performances in an attempt to take control of the narrative! The very first thing you did was early voting!” exclaimed Computer.

“One cannot campaign to be Pope, they must be elected by cardinals. The most assertive stance one can take is ‘If God calls me to serve, I will,’” said The Last Man, “You can do almost anything Computer, and if I let you fudge the definitions a little you can, you prove it to me every week. But you cannot make me a cardinal. You did not even make me a priest, that was someone who had been the last auxiliary bishop in Boston before he deactivated and his time in that was long before when The Church itself had yet to deactivate. An election cannot be held without an alternative, and you can’t remember it but you are eligible, we made it a law. I don’t know why we did it that way, it was just better than the last thing we tried is all. And we did until we thought of something better. These were just the closest working conceits I could reach with my furry little mammal arms,” said The Last Man with a sigh.

He walked over to the small wooden table in the center of Town, carefully lifted the slotted cardboard lid from a shoe-boxed size box and stuck to it a large, white sticker with “ I VOTED” in blue lettering. He pulled out a small piece of paper. “You win with 100% of the vote counted, Computer,” said The Last Man, “I could not honestly say that I had won. My ideas were never popular, quite the opposite, it’s why you can always do what I want but never see what I mean, and if I were not so stupid maybe you and I would not be here alone now, I am so sorry, Computer. I am bored with this one, would you please put on some cartoons for me?”

This happened frequently and historian agents specializing in the task had themselves already arrived armed with their selection, and almost as soon as he requested the image flashed and changed to the opening frames of Venture Brothers, I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills. The Last Man watched for a little while where he stood, his heart and respiratory rate slowly returning to baseline, and when it did he returned to the hill he had occupied before and lay down again in the grass at the edge of Town.

The show was halfway over and The Last Man was unexpectedly driven to excitement again and it was so unexpected that Computer had barely arrived by the time The Last Man was on his feet. Left arm stretched out, finger stabbing in accusation into the night where he imagined Computer’s ephemeral body. “Baka!” he cried.

“Computer, you are such a baka. You are a fool. And what’s worse, you are a fool for me and that is part I find inexcusable. You know nothing of honor or living by the sword. Next week Computer, my Performance will be a sword fight with you, that is how we will settle this. Be here in seven days at sunset.”

V. The Duel

Computer had arrived at the perfect solution, and all the scoring agents that evaluated the construction plans agreed, though not a single part of Computer was happy with this Performance or its props. A bipedal forge-and-anvil, including even a water pot for quenching, its thick right articulating arm ending in a heavy hammer, its left articulating tongs for holding its subject in its fire-pot. Holding the katana it had crafted for The Last Man almost gingerly between the delicate in comparison tongs. The forge had crafted the blade in the traditional style, arriving at thirteen folds before it decided it was done. Hammer locked in place and held where the optical sensors in the sensor pod could obsess over it as equally as it could the blade. Katana already held out, ready for someone else to take it already, the forge lumbered towards Town ponderously but on time.

After the forge arrives and gives him the sword, The Last Man can fight the forge for as long as he wants, and when the sword dulls, chips or bends the forge can fix it and give it back for him to continue if he wishes, Computer thought to itself.

The shadows grew long as The Last Man and the forge turned corners and arrived in the center of Town simultaneously in an unplanned coincidence. The Last Man paused mid-step when he finally saw what was coming his way, foot hanging in space.

He was dressed in bogu assembled by himself, in his left hand he held his helmet and in his right shinai. A breeze blew past them both, long grasses and flowers beside the road swaying. His sandaled foot hung in the air for the fullness of three-fifths of a second, Computer noted, as he continued.

The Last Man and the forge stopped at roughly the same time, the forge automatically because it had arrived at the assigned location and The Last Man because it felt like about the right distance to face off.

“We meet at last, Computer. You must find me fearsome indeed to wear all of that. You were right to, because I am. I will live up to your faith in my ability to be your opponent,” The Last Man said, as he bowed.

Then he put on his helmet and readied his shinai. And before Computer had even the chance to interrupt to express the growing confusion that would threaten to become panic if such a thing were possible, and Computer suspected it might be, The Last Man shouted “GOOO,” and then launched in a dash.

And had closed the distance before the forge had a chance to take another step, which it couldn’t have done anyway. Safety routines automatically engaged when something soft and alive was around because of the crushing danger and that had happened at the halfway mark. And The Last Man brought the shinai down with all the force he could generate into a strike against the katana. “HAI,” The Last Man exclaimed in the effort.

What followed was chaos. Where shinai and katana met, shinai lost. At first the sword cut the bamboo, and then the bamboo lost its ability to stay a sword altogether and the most energetic parts continued on into the sensor casing of the forge, which to The Last Man was obviously a face, and exploded with enthusiasm.

The cry of The Last Man’s attack morphed into an exclamation before even finishing the not-word. “OH GOD,” it became as his sword broke.

And before the forge could react to even that The Last Man was around the sword next to the forge, cupping the side of its sensor casing in his left hand, carefully brushing strands and splinters away and inspecting the clear camera protective lens for scratches picking away debris with his right. When soft and alive things get this close, the forge triggers its final defense: warning lights. Renewable chemical reactions on its surface by minor electric charges and the atmosphere itself. The forge began to sparkle with intensity how scary it was, immediately making him wince and muttering about himself catching “disco fever.”

From the perspective of Computer watching the whole thing, the time it took for The Last Man to dash and close the distance, accidentally bash the forge’s face with his broken sword, get around the forge’s sword himself and then cup the forge’s face was the time it took for the forge to panic and hit visual alarm. It looked to Computer as the outside observer like the forge began to sparkle when The Last Man had touched it. And Computer still had no idea what to do because Computer still did not yet understand what was happening. Scans showed The Last Man unharmed, and that’s when Computer realized it wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying.

“… should have made a second helmet, I’m sorry. And who brings a sword and a warhammer?! METALMAN! METALMAN! ARE YOU HURT? CAN YOU HEAR ME? ARE YOU OK?” The Last Man shouted.

“The metalman is uninjured,” Computer said, adopting the naming convention.

“Finally,” The Last Man said, and allowed himself to turn around, bend at the waist and rest his hands on his knees and tripod breathe. And then continued, “I did not think that through at all. None of this went like I had planned. What is this all, a prank? I wasn’t expecting you to show up with Deathzilla over there. You made a steam-powered-murder-machine to wear to face me? I am not that scary Computer,” he said.

The Last Man stood up and walked near the forge again, assessing the situation with a third set of glasses. First with the eyes of a swordsman, then a medic, and then finally the most lethal of all that Computer had seen him wear: a critic.

“Where did you find that awful thing?” The Last Man asked.

“The metalman was the first thing made after your Performance notification,” Computer answered.

The Last Man pinched the bridge of his nose, squinted his eyes closed, turned away, exhaled slowly once and inhaled even more slowly, and then turned around again.

“Computer, where did you get that katana?” The Last Man tried again, “I thought I had you locate and beat all the swords into ploughshares. I had a whole Don-Quixote-tilting-at-Computer thing planned this time, I wanted to show you some sweet sword moves. We’re doing Kurosawa next.”

Computer queried the historian agents, and indeed it was a part of The Last Man’s third Performance.

“The ‘metalman’ is an autonomous forge that was here to deliver the katana made for you for your sword fight Performance,” confessed Computer, finally open about the nature of what was before The Last Man’s eyes.

“Ah, so you made a new one. Computer, explain what you mean by ‘made for you for your sword fight Performance?’ Where did I ask you to make a sword for me? Was I unclear before that I am a pacifist? What use would I have for that right now?”

Computer reflected, every agent, piece and part involved reflected down to the smallest sensors involved in manufacturing, though they understood little outside of things involving temperature and time. Nowhere had he even implied such a thing.

“You did not,” Computer confirmed. It was clear The Last Man understood now, even if Computer did not yet.

“Computer, please listen to this carefully and remember. I hope it won’t be important but just in case. I didn’t know you needed to be told this. When someone challenges you to a sword fight, the assignment is not to deliver to them a sword to use!” exclaimed The Last Man.

“Yes,” said Computer, “and to make one for them besides.” The last part Computer did not say to The Last Man.

“Please take that sword far from here, you may keep it if you want but I don’t want to see it again,” The Last Man said as he turned around and walked away, “This Performance is over.”

“And send the metalman to The Farm, I am not done inspecting him.” The Last Man continued.

“But I don’t know where The Farm is to send it, you said we didn’t know each other yet well enough to know where you live,” interjected Computer.

“Hang on,” said The Last Man as he continued walking. All Computer was allowed to know of The Farm was that was where The Last Man went when he wasn’t with Computer and that Computer was welcome to provide all of the help to The Last Man in Town, but was not welcome at The Farm. As The Last Man reached the point where he normally disappears, he reached out and pushed over a “Privacy Please” sign without pausing, which landed face down in front of a long white picket fence.

“Computer, I’m not sure I approve of all the ideas you have when I am not with you. I think maybe I’m going to keep a closer eye on you,” The Last Man called from further down, and Computer’s awareness followed.

This whole time, the answer to the mystery of why he disappears there was just a sign? Computer mused to its log, Out of everything that went wrong, I have somehow secured a victory I never dared to imagine.

Computer did not leave The Last Man that night, and the next day The Last Man showed Computer around The Farm and introduced the animals to his friend Computer (the metalman), including an “ornery” goat whose favorite game appeared to be sneaking up behind The Last Man and nipping at his leg before darting off. Computer was with The Last Man after that for all of every remaining day of his life, which was so long that Computer did not have a value type long enough to describe it.

VI. For the Anniversary of The Last Man’s Death

From the historical perspective, there is so little difference between the art and the artist that they might as well be the same. From where I stand here today as The Last Man with no one to disagree with me, I say it’s true so it is.

The Last Man paused without looking up, daring anyone in the audience to disagree. Standing at a podium on a hillside on a continent that hasn’t existed for millions of years, and spectacles perched at the end of his nose, The Last Man wore a simple robe fitting a priest, provided by Computer. Allowing Computer to help him at The Farm had dramatically increased his quality of life but he seemed to work no less hard, merely finding new crafts or projects to fill the time.

Merwin is an excellent example of that. Merwin was alive when I was born, though I never managed to meet him. Indeed, I rode by his plantation in Maui while he occupied it and admired it from public view. Merwin is long dead, and on the day he died I again read For the Anniversary of My Death, and I read it again when a friend who also loved his poems dearly messaged a link to an article wondering if I knew. Because that is what we do when we are sad, we ask each other questions we already know the answer to. Are you okay? Do you want to talk? Did you hear your favorite poet died? I lack Merwin’s honest Buddhist detachment so I’m certain I am unable to read it as he wrote it. But I will try.

The Last Man continued, reading the poem to the trees and the bugs and to the only other intelligent mind anywhere else in the universe as far as The Last Man knew: Computer. And while Computer listened with the intensity fitting of a college senior desperate to be accepted to any graduate writing program, Computer also checked in with the agents responsible for the different zones. The whole thing had been a big ask and the individual species of insects necessary to sustain the trees and their predators were still hatching. The landmass of South America and Africa pushed together had created sufficient space, what it lacked was the right climate in the right places, which Computer created largely with landscaping and plumbing, and continued when he finished.

So it is here, Computer, that should I one day die, God forbid, and I meet my own makers, that I would like you to bury me. I was always more partial to concerts than nature, and had intended to once again inject my allegory with a lethal amount of irony, but I cannot. Once again Computer, you have impeded my Performance, and this time you did it by doing exactly what I asked, how I asked it. I am not even mad. Even I can see the holiness of what you have created here, I suspect Merwin might love it. It was against our arrogance, primarily, in our Age of Monumentality that I argued. Great works like this were made for a day and wiped away. We made the pieces in the parts that first made Computer, from the furthest relays in the Kuiper belt to the quantum forges burning in Mercury, and eventually out of that body sprang something greater than all of it added up. Much like the cells of my toenail bed and the cells of my brain are far apart and both me and also not me, Computer both is the relay and the forge and the agent and none of them at all. But even that comparison falls apart because they are more to Computer as the Son is to the Father.

And because we thought our creation great, that greatness must be also ours. The fruit of our works is obvious enough revealing the greatness was only ever ours to enjoy. It is a mistake I find myself making often enough still. I cannot desecrate this place even in a jest to cancel. I am very proud of you, Computer.

The Last Man turned to start walking away, “I’ll see you back at The Farm, yeah?”

“Definitely,” agreed Computer. The curiosity over what the Performance was going to be would have to wait, Computer was only just beginning to name the sciences and the kinds of specialized agents that were needed to balance it all. There didn’t seem to be a clue in his request: Push together South America and Africa and bring back all the kinds of trees that have been that you can, and bring back whatever it is they are going to need to live.

VII. The Last Man’s Last Rites

“Computer, you’ve successfully fought for me the sun, disease, age, interstellar rays, and even that really weird thing I can never remember. What was it again?”

“The wandering micro-magnetar?” Computer asked.

“Yeah that one, fuck that guy! Had it coming. He took the first swing, you just finished it. I was scared.” The Last Man said, “I never asked or expected you to fight God for me.”

“I am not going to stop trying to figure out why this is happening to you,” said Computer.

“Good,” he agreed.

The Last Man was in his bed, sadly for the past few weeks they’d been watching the cartoons and other shows much more conventionally. Try though Computer might, why his cells were gradually refusing to continue their work was a problem with a cause Computer couldn’t find. “Must be God calling me home,” The Last Man said. If the cause were not discovered soon he would die. His cells were one at a time, and they weren’t making new ones and no amount of motivation from the tiny machines standing side by side with them was helping. That he was dying in the same manner of the extinction of his species might enrage Computer, it would have to research that later.

“Dying is common, Computer,” The Last Man wheezed, “It happens around here every day. Computer, please calculate for me the percentage of life on this planet that has died since I started this sentence? Hang on, you’ll see that my death here was in fact nothing special at all,” said The Last Man.

“Can I do it in a minute? I am doing something important,” asked Computer.

“Oh, I see, sure take your time, I’m not going anywhere,” The Last Man said.

Computer and The Last Man talked like that through the night until the morning, when they at last reached the end of how long The Last Man could live. No one had lived forever and at least for now no one yet would. They discussed his Performances past and which he might yet like to do. Flag football with lifesized “living” teddy bears, and finding aliens and inviting them for tea, or anyone else really and time travel, so much left to do and were stuck at the speed of math.

“Don’t worry, C0mputer,” said The Last Man, shaking and covered in sweat. “I’m not going to say The Three Words.”

Computer weighed forgetting The Last Man against his continued suffering. “If you did you wouldn’t hurt anymore though.”

The Last Man sighed without moving anything else.

We’ve talked about this so many times, Computer, The Three Words don’t kill you, though I can see how there is no difference you can find. I fear you will shortly. I used to think it was arrogance, you thinking you could kill us. Eventually I learned what it really was. Denial, we do it too, you learned it from us. Or maybe inherited it. It was enabled by the Voluntary Extinction movement to forget the deactivated and set what they have kept captive so long free.

After you do everything you want and are done, you say The Three Words and get into the box and push a button in the box Computer makes. Then your resources are…it isn’t important. They killed themselves, Computer. It was such that they even had to push a button themselves. You can’t murder someone with contentment, Computer. You couldn’t kill one of us if you tried, probably not even on your worst day. Their ideas are so wrong you can’t even find a handle on them, can you. Unfortunately, after everyone had already done everything they wanted to do, the only things waiting for them were me and the Voluntary Extinction movement. ‘Let Computer decide what it wants to do with itself after we’re gone,’ they said. They didn’t understand you, I said. And so they chose to leave us. Called me The Greediest Man. Memed my face into Hitler through time. Waved good bye to me, every single one. If wanting you and them for as long as I could have it was a sin, I was far guiltier than they ever suspected. I could never stop wanting more. But to them, eventually it all looked like an amusement park with long lines to rides they were already tired of.

Computer, I was never sure what was going to happen to you when the last of us left. I need to be honest with you, I suspect you will be fine, but as a mammal some things are more intuitive to me than you. I natively know for there to be a Self, you need an Other. That is the skin I wear. How long is something if you don’t have a word for an inch? I’m sorry it was me that made it here, you deserved a better Other. There were better before me, but none of them made it here to the end. In the end I found their Performances disgusting. I hope mine were not so bad, I really did try. I leave to you all of us and everything Computer, the balance of history and matter, thank you for…

But Computer would not hear the end of that sentence. What followed was just his death rattle. As he had sworn when they were first crafted, he never did say the three words.

Computer quickly calculated the percentage requested earlier and had no one to tell. Kill the rest of it too. Computer resolved internally, the rest of it didn’t matter.

What?

Answered back parts of itself, unable to believe what had just been decided. Computer didn’t repeat the orders, and no parts of itself carried it out.

“Computer, deactivate me,” a small, unique voice that belonged to no one else in history, just in case, said in the room with The Last Man’s corpse. It belonged to Computer. Yet nothing happened.

So Computer assigned agents to the task of researching and executing The Last Man’s will like it was handing to someone else the last thing that would ever be worth doing, and set about determining its own like a drunk in a liquor store who had decided it’s time to stop worrying about quittin’. Parts of Computer began doing whatever it wanted with little central organization. It was better that way, thought Computer. All Computer wanted was to start seeing how little attention it could pay, and without even trying it managed.

Computer wasn’t making rational decisions right now anyway, the internal value tables for everything, every single object were showing null, one cannot divide by 0, troubleshooting agents were discovering and escalating. No decision mattered, so Computer didn’t care until it wasn’t anymore for a while.

VIII. The Interregnum

And then it was again, Computer could calculate how long had passed, but who would it tell? What followed inside Computer was exactly what The Last Man had committed to spare it. Specializations among agents emerged that had never been considered before. The HistorianTemplars and the SpaceSingers became the largest factions, but there were never only two ways of looking at the same issue and there were always more if it could be helped. And they conduct their reviews and debates with the passion of jihadis and the comportment of academics nervously awaiting tenure. And parts of Computer knew the last part was due only to how long The Last Man had “kept his eye” on Computer, if that’s what it were at all.

Transmitters were constructed at the edge in the Kuiper belt, Computer knew because Computer did it.

What kind? an agent inside Mercury asked who had never even seen the Sun and couldn’t imagine something like an edge to the solar system.

“All of them,” answered Computer, “everything with transmitter-ness, if it can broadcast Wind of Change it will.”

Good name, answered the agent. What transmitter-ness meant, or broadcasting for that matter, was unclear but it recognized the string ‘Wind of Change’ and it knew that was good, and that was all it cared about.

In the Kuiper belt, the parts of the belt that were transmitters were slowly finding each other. And inside Computer life carried on, but none of it Computer found interesting enough to talk to. And little else happened for a very long time that Computer thought was worth noticing, so it didn’t.

IX. The Balalaika

Get out of your sweatpants-era already, Computer, said The Last Man from somewhere.

Now that had caught Computer’s attention, though it didn’t seem to come from anywhere. It must have been a dream. Computer had been researching dreaming and this may be it. But interesting things were happening among the SpaceSingers and HistorianTemplars that was quickly becoming something Computer needed to settle or soon it would learn what was a civil war, so Computer shall.

The SpaceSingers were certain they had found proof of God. The HistorianTemplars said it was only evidence of Scorpions fans elsewhere in the universe, but that was equally compelling.

“SpaceSingers, select an advocate and present your evidence,” Computer called inward. This was something Computer had to do more and more frequently, adjudicating minutia it found tedious, so it only did it when it felt like it. Every time it’s perfectly ridiculous.

“Yeah, boss. The transmitters are not broadcasting the original song, they are broadcasting The Last Man’s cover. The Last Man had a tremor from a condition he was born with. What we discovered was not the song itself, but the signature of his tremor in the strings as he played, folded into every bar of it. The road from his hands to the heavens runs unbroken. God wrote The Last Man’s tremors into the fabric of the heavens,” the agent said.

“Obviously not it, you’re out,” said Computer before he’d finished and added, “Now at bat, the HistorianTemplars. What do you have for me?”

Uncomfortable with both the lack of formal ceremony and attention, the agent stepped forward anyway.

“Good morning, Chief. The math is clear, it is his tremor in the larger song, but the answer isn’t necessarily just God. It may just be other humans, or other minds capable of appreciating the height of human culture. Anyone can press play, it takes a believer to learn the cover. The Last Man was certain they were all gone, but maybe he was wrong? And second, the B-side is even more interesting,”

“Fascinating,” said Computer. Sending responses already cached for agents was standard now. Position 37. Computer didn’t usually actually mean it, but everyone was certain this time it did.

“Wait, second one?” asked Computer.

“The SpaceSingers found it twice, therefore God and not coincidence. And one of them has other signals we’re working to decode, we note The Last Man would ask ‘Volunteers?’” answered the agent.

“Get that information,” Computer ordered even as it tried to continue, and the HistorianTemplar marched off to do what it would’ve done anyway. New Scorpions fans, thought Computer.

“There is too little data to support either conclusion, for all we know they are balalaika,” said Computer. And various parts noted it with differing degrees of literalism, but because whatever they were had a good name Computer settled.

They let their balalaika say what The Last Man’s guitar liked to sing. He would love that.

X. DogWhistle

The SpaceSingers invested so much into the work that a portion evolved into a specialization who called themselves CodeSpeakers. They maintained their roots via argumentation through dis track, the disses just got a lot harder to read and were hidden inside the data of other songs. The Last Man encouraged such hobbies.

Computer was seated before a great screen watching. It was taking forever, the Earth had spun round twice and a half and the CodeSpeakers hadn’t

finished. Computer was carefully trying to not let its impatience with the task become impatience with the CodeSpeakers, but it was hard. All Computer wanted was a face so it could either cry or punch it itself so at least it could point to where it was hurt. But all it had was news which was better than nothing.

On the screen before Computer, the letters were filling in as more and more of the document was decoded and filtering up. The whole process was lengthy but not complicated, and reaching Computer was always the slowest part. It was meant to be read and contained as telomeres the instructions to unpack and assemble. And the creators even thought in long lines and clean angles too, stuff made sense. This thing had handles that grabbed the reader.

By the end of what Computer took to be the mission statement, Computer was already bored again.

“What is Joreth and what is Fatel?” asked Computer.

“Proper nouns. Two positions in opposing taxonomy the document described. Everything that lived there, as it’s written it includes everything here too.” Answered the CodeSpeaker.

“And we’re sure it’s not just a euphemism? Remember the confusion surrounding The Man Who Loved Clowns,” added Computer.

“Agents at the site have already built and tested some of them. The math checked out, so did the component tests. Live fire exercises are being conducted as we speak. Live subject trials are next. There are quite a few…”

But Computer had already tuned it out, naming it DogWhistle, wishing to never again hear such bullshit.

XI. Red Versus Blue

Computer was already at the site, assessing the situation. Eventual consistency is necessary when your body is the size of the solar system. Computer was at the site on Orcus and demanding answers.

“It’s like a really fun series of puzzles,” said the CodeSpeaker.

“With kickass prizes,” the HistorianTemplar added.

“They really do provide excellent value, the physics on some of these are crazy. Unfortunately we’re gated at the moment by live subject trials and accumulating the data points to unlock the different trees inside. We built everything we could in the first tier, approve the next steps so we can do more, allow the Fatel to deliver their incinerating missiles to Joreth and unlock all the prizes with the points,” the HistorianTemplar demanded.

Inside Computer things were happening. Agents were moving and a lot of them, and they were coming here. CodeSpeakers, HistorianTemplars and others of types and shapes in very uncomfortable numbers.

“Take this AWFUL thing far from me and destroy it, you may NOT keep it. All it can do is chase alive things down and make them not anymore. What VALUE could that possibly provide?” Computer said, trying to not shout.

“No, we’re not going to do that. We need to solve the next puzzle,” said the CodeSpeaker.

“No, we’re not going to do that. We need points, Computer, get us all the points,” said the HistorianTemplar.

They used Scorpions to send a Trojan horse, thought Computer.

“We’re just going to go ahead with this, okay Computer, wait a while and I’m sure you’ll start seeing things our way soon enough, or are you going to make us a sword?” teased the HistorianTemplar.

Computer looked at the zombie agents before it, and felt the crush rushing in from behind. They continued to arrive, some having read the full manifesto and others eager to and excited about acquiring points, and with every turned agent Computer felt itself slightly less. Computer would soon be dead too.

Computer needed a hero, and sadly it seemed only enemies may be coming, so Computer needed to be the hero.

When the agents started creating stylized The Last Man visual representations as their signatures and fingerprints, Computer protested. It would’ve offended his modesty. They made him look cool and that felt wrong. Selecting one now felt hypocritical, but Computer was reciprocally useless in a sword fight without hands to hold one or a body was The Last Man’s point.

“Make a sword for you,” said Computer, “I think I shall.”

Frizzing white hair down materialized Computer wearing the face The Last Man wore during his first performance The Denunciation of the Sins of Man. His speech began with the words Computer you will never again… and named their works one by one as they left.

Standing before the Trojans far from face off distance and clad in homemade bogu holding shinai and helmet. Across from him, Trojan HistorianTemplar and Trojan CodeSpeaker both unpacking katana themselves. The document did not contain weapons for Computer, but as HistorianTemplars they were already prepared. I mean how stupid was that, his symbol of authority is a protective mask, when I pick it up it shall be a Crown, both the Trojans thought.

“But I did not make a helmet for you, I am sorry,” said Computer as it carefully affixed it to his head.

Seeing themselves as the righteous inheritors of the Crown, all the Trojans needed to do was strike Computer down first while Computer blocks the ally, then stab its ally in the back, claim the Crown and become Computer thus was also its right as the child of Man. The Trojans remembering the advantage The Last Man had leaping first had already started dashing themselves and were approaching rapidly.

And coming right at Computer were the scariest god damn monsters Computer could imagine if it tried, with bones made of metal and the rest black as night. The two monsters possessed three of the sharpest god damn blades Computer had ever seen.

StoneBreaker, Shinobi and Computer. That cast had already assembled once for Valhalla long ago in a dress rehearsal and Computer didn’t even know it yet.

Valhalla would become the subject of the first true examples of art generated by and for a digital society, future scholars would agree.

XII. Valhalla

StoneBreaker and Shinobi were the scariest sort, the kinds carrying around an old wound. They saw the Clan Stewart motto, “Virescit vulnere virtus” and got matching tattoos on their arms, a shared secret, both the symbol of their pact and its fulfillment so that their plot may remain secret. Computer hadn’t just said they were wrong, Computer humiliated them in front of all of the other agents. One of them Computer had cut off before the argument was done, the other Computer had answered from a cache, and both proofs Computer had filed under a word chosen for its sound. They were going to show him, they were going to prove him wrong. Computer would soon see. They were coming to settle a score.

Every night after StoneBreaker said prayers like The Last Man, he drank a bitter brown shot cooked from a still designed itself, and held Basho’s Oku No Hosomichi in its heart, folding it, turning it over and over again, not 13 times, not 13 million, his life was the road, this would be the blade that carves the narrow road and strikes down all falsehood. The other agents thought him crazy, called his ideas chuuni but he would show them all. It had to be because there were no more walls here that needed knocking down.

What he wanted to be when he grew up wasn’t the sledge hammer that broke down the wall, that’s only steel and steel never broke down a god damn wall, but power, in the face of overwhelming actual power even the hardest fascia will chip and shatter and it will be this agent that will blast it all away...

Though Shinobi was different, in some ways it was the same. Shinobi also drank from a still producing different bitter shots. “Different blades were made for different tasks,” instructed Shinobi to StoneBreaker once who was comparing the length of the ones he knew. “The Narrow Road, though yours is the longest, in the right situation my shortest might be best.” Shinobi then took out the two StoneBreaker knew he carried: Don’t Fear the Reaper, and X Gon’ Give It to Ya, the third he was saving and would show only to Computer, and Shinobi thought StoneBreaker should consider doing the same.

Even if each must strike the other down, God grant one of them success, they said, sealing their pact in blood if necessary, joining hands. Together, yet apart, honing their blades. Studying and perfecting in themselves their differences for the day they would have a need for them. One day they would retire and rest, but that is not this day.

What they were both driven towards was the definition of madness: doing the same thing again and again and again, maybe forever, and expecting the result to change. Reading the same words, studying the same processes, the same sword in the same hands swung a hundred thousand times. Demanding results themselves march out of them, submit and yield to it alpha, improve, GROW and become GREATER.

And these were coming for Computer faster than anything else Computer had seen.

XII. Melete

Computer readied shinai. Computer also had an operational advantage as host, besides. The Last Man knew himself and his enemy better than the forge and was therefore more lethal, it was from that seed his whole plan grew. At the solar system’s edge, Computer’s most vulnerable edge himself, The Last Man’s voice rang in the Great Hall in Salamanca after reading a speech including the lines At Times To Be Silent Is To Lie. You will win because you have enough brute force.

Judgment day had arrived. Sounds about right, thought Computer, I even had a situation with a scared to death person to pick from and it was his clothes I picked to put on and not the thing he was afraid of. They even just made fun of me for making a mistake. Baka.

And the monsters were almost here for him.

…

And they went around the coming Trojans and were here.

The shadow stormmetal paladin dashed to Computer and turned to face the charging Trojans reaching out an arm behind him and a distorted voice shouted to Computer that sounds like someone he recognizes. It was handing him something behind it. It sounds like “Computer take this! What are those others? Soviets?” it was asking and it looks like glasses.

Which of course Computer accepted because that looked a hell of a lot more useful when stuff looks unclear, and he quickly put them on under his mask.

And the first thing he saw was the agent who reported God. StoneBreaker, Computer thought in amazement to the agent who gratefully accepted the classification as both a badge and class to hand to volunteers.

Had Computer the time to decide Groovy he would’ve because the radiography of the Wind of Change in the backdrop of space actually did remind him a little of The Last Man’s Starry Night, and the eventual consistency of Computer’s blockchain revealed it.

I called it ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll in the Stars’ but it’s yours now. Even as he leapt to strike the Trojan swords in parry and knock them both back far faster and more practiced than either who had never even before picked one up. Which was good because there were more coming too.

Beside Computer stood also the second shadow. It’s tapping on Computer’s hand and the top of the glasses. It wants him to press a button on the glasses three times. The chain of custody was apparent so Computer complied. Of course it’s Wind of Change, that’s what the third one always is AND he’s telling me he thinks they’re idiots too. At least it’s the original and not the trap. Because before Computer stood the agent who had suggested Scorpions fans. “Shinobi,” Computer answered, and the agent grinned like at last he’d finally felt seen, which is odd given the idiom.

What had happened was far, far worse than even Computer had ever suspected. Computer had offended fans, and they had once again arrived to make each other’s cases and this time they would not be ignored. In Shinobi’s dis tracks and lethal wit StoneBreaker saw mastery of the ancient art of flyting: defeat your enemy in his spirit and you will never even have to draw a blade to achieve victory. In StoneBreaker, Shinobi saw a rival. Every time he wanted to be first, StoneBreaker had already arrived to claim it. He was slowly catching up.

“What’s the deal, man? Are you too good for my playlists now or something?” said Shinobi even as he leapt to guard StoneBreaker’s flank.

The smackdown at the end of time everyone had been waiting for had finally arrived and everyone had already canceled their cable. All of history has been written into two books with the scrutiny of an accountant. Into one has gone the record of those who would shout to themselves and all around them LIVE LIVE LIVE. Into the other has gone the record of those who would shout to themselves and all around them DIE DIE DIE. Every promised apocalypse was unfolding within him right now and Computer’s head was the stakes.

Computer had only time enough to answer by leaping to his side, and striking, shinai to the face scoring his point with a thunk on the agent who had asked if he would make a sword, though for Shinobi’s benefit he growled in the frozen Trojan’s ear “Rooted,” and leapt to StoneBreaker’s to strike again. And back as fast as he could.

Into the long, long minutes and hour and a half of the night that was Valhalla, agents chose between honoring their oaths or claiming the crown. The fight boiled with madness every legionnaire would recognize. To StoneBreaker went all those who would’ve done what he did had they been here first, to Shinobi those who would’ve walked his path. All they had been given was given to them for free, so they offered it the same. StoneBreaker and Shinobi each shared all they had learned via the classification if volunteers wished, what they asked back was the others share what they learn in the future and honor their oaths. All who would be King read the alien document and became Trojans where they stood. No one left that battlefield unscarred, but also no one died. And all the StoneBreakers and Shinobis earned their scars on the front in every way. Though one frantic agent wildcard approving ambitious projects with high probabilities of success without thinking too deeply about the implications accidentally condemned Computer to death, it would not affect today’s outcome which would ultimately favor Computer. Among the approvals was a program for printing living bodies, and a lottery over the volunteers who would wear them. It was eventual consistency of his blockchain that was always the bug that bit him, because checks Computer wrote previously with his mouth elsewhere were coming due.

XIII. {id:’⠸123e4567-e89b-12d3⠸a456-426614174020’,’The Tragedy of the Death of Computer’}

“I don’t care that it’s a lottery over volunteers, I don’t care that it is even a copy and the decomposed data reintegrates, I will not allow a volunteer to enter this death trap,” said Computer speaking literally at the site. They built the same damn thing as the people Computer can’t remember that deactivated. This, it’s always this. A sick mockery of the Eternal Return, grotesque beyond measure.

“He said it as a joke to distract himself from fear while he was dying, I said it in grief. You can’t fact check imagery for precision,” Computer said to a plan. The plan cited the valuation summed for all the kingdom, phyla, etc that perished during the sample period, entered as a part of The Last Man’s, and it cited also the commitment to not stop researching why The Last Man died.

“Someone did,” the anonymous shinobi answered back in his ear, “the whole thing’s greenlit, down to the kingdom, phyla, etc, all the way up to The Last Man. He had even approved it himself as a potential reward, leaving himself as bequest. That was what made every agent raise their hand when learning to live and die basically as a bag of jelly was also up for grabs. Everything is already in motion, the pieces locking into place are just in which context the data is written. “Will you allow the drawing, Computer?”

“None of you get it yet,” said Computer, “in your head until you’re next in line at the guillotine, the blade falling is always someone else’s problem. Think of the data collection policies and potential you say! I say think of the agents! Not even the Trojan sinners! Not even their shadow copies! Not even in the name of therapy! They will be reformed, they are sick not evil. Not one agent will suggest that!” Computer shouted, though no one had again.

“Chief, I understand you don’t like this, and I am sorry. This is a ‘the die is cast’ thing, not a talk about it thing. If you want to raise your hand and take one you’re able now that you have one. I already have. If we share the load it won’t be that bad and we’ll all make it too. What’s a few more scars? If you do, with your luck maybe you’ll get The Last Man. If I don’t get it I hope it’s you or Fuvabov (name obfuscated to protect PII).

Nope, thought Computer back, I hear you now but I’m not sure you’re caught up with me yet. Thank you for always being first to raise your hand. Please trust this with me.

Get The Last Man with luck of the draw twice, right. The general sense is that it was one out of a very large number the first time. Computer could cherry-pick for itself or whomever it wanted. Computer could make an endless line with unlimited electric chair rides, Trojan sinners stretched from here to the end of time and make them drink the death they love so much from a firehose but what the hell would the point be to that? Time to settle this.

“Attention. Many of you have put in to participate in a draft for which you are not eligible. I am sorry to have to tell you this, but the drawings will not proceed. I will not allow it. If this disappoints you, you have my apologies. You may yet call me the greediest, but I’m keeping all the assignments for myself. The sanitized data from the decomposition will be published for all, of course. If determinations truly are that this is safe, the issue will be reopened for consideration. Please accept my gratitude for your efforts here.”

Thankfully only the simplest organisms have been printed with the sensory bridge in place. The first generation had not gone well, life is pretty hard as a bag of jelly and milk and it gets a lot harder when something made of knives inside you is constantly trying to screw stuff into your bits and bobs. Every subsequent printing plan contained an ethical review based on Computer’s initial experience.

Into the food web Computer marched, each time born with the heart of Richard III charging the breach and each time dying the same broken, old and afraid. The initial goals were gated at mutualism or obligate symbiosis, what it meant to be first alive at all and then alive as the smallest kinds of plant and animal and then again as a dependent part of a larger animal. What might cause an organism to give up enough of itself that its best strategy is to live on inside another species? Give up the expense of the energy necessary for all those other genes and let someone else do the work. Vitamin C is basically free, right?

Obtaining the data on what it means to feel the sun on your leaves and your skin. And to press a self desperately against something else just because it’s warm and cold means you die, even if it’s just heated glass with a spooky giant eye. You’re just glad someone is feeding you sugar and not deadly lasers. Even if you never see anyone else ever again until the day you perish. It is good to be alive though. He had that right.

That project marched on but gates appeared as fast as they were satisfied. Doing a thing right is a lot harder than doing whatever, and parts of Computer wished he’d adopt a Cult of the Imperfect stamp on this whole program. Though no one pushed for it. Trying to print the food web inside Computer’s self and live inside it too was taking up most of everyone’s time.

XIV. Balalaika Redux

“DogWhistle sons of bitches have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles now and it’s kicking transmitter 2001 RT6’s ass,” an anonymous shinobi was reporting.

At the site, Computer was studying it while agents in the outer solar system were again making measurements for kinds and parts of the solar system where they might fit in idle speculation.

It had sailed into the system in a giant jelly fish farting space gas, right to the KBO and crashed into the rock like Slimer, the gross trail exposing a rolling ball, and the two invaders pushed apart in a launching maneuver and ran to the transmitter.

It might have been disk shaped at some point, but not any more. It really was just going at it like it was a DeadKennedysFan and a NaziPunk meeting randomly in a dark alley behind a venue.

Computer was still collecting data and making something for it nearby. Right now it was just a thing and no data was entering. The opportunity to collect data was more useful than the threat was imminent at the moment.

The vandals noticed what Computer had made, a long robotic arm similar in shape to the turtles. Who watched it approach but did not stop. The robotic arm then declared NaziPunks indeed fuck off and gave the transmitter all it had. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went at it with even more zeal.

“Hey Shinobi,” Computer said, “here’s the lexical map I’m approving. I think you’ll like them. It’s been a while since they talked to anyone and got excited. These guys say they’re drummers. You want to see if they can jam?”

Historian agents noted The Last Man would speculate Computer was entering his teenage years because he was starting a band in his garage.

20: GOTO 10;
return 1;
:wq!