Watersmith collection
The ARC letters
Item 17

The Murder Worm was not even named until long after containment ceased to be possible. In the preceding years, the concept of a type of malware that could cross the hardware/wetware boundary had occasionally been theorized among researchers. However, the idea had been non-existent in popular discourse. Even now, the infection denies it's hosts the ability to recognize it's existence.

Cybernetic technology, especially neural implants, was still relatively new. The promise of allowing people to directly share their ideas, thoughts, and dreams with each other seemed like it would unleash a utopia. It's hard to remember that hope now, in the midst of our apocalypse. Perhaps if we could have interpreted history, we would have avoided this. Perhaps it was always unavoidable for us. Perhaps you can avoid making the same mistakes by recognizing the problem earlier.

While the Murder Worm has evolved an emergent intelligence, it is unclear if it was crafted by a conscious being or if evolved from a memetic prion. We had once believed that emergent intelligence could only arise from a complete connectome, but we have since discovered that human consciousness is structured as a fractal: memetic graph segments, sections of a connectome, have their own intelligence and the interaction of these segments manifests what we call consciousness. An individual identity rarely, if ever, consistent. Memetic graph segments often conflict. These conflicts can be mediated in different ways by the default mode network to create the illusion of a consistent identity.

Within a healthy memetic biome, memetic graph segments compete with and mutate each other regularly. An overly dominant default mode network, attempting to enforce a false consistency, can sometimes reduce memetic interactions within an individual. This forced consistency can lead to memetic prions: memetic graph segments that mutate or kill other memes that they interact with. Memes mutated by memetic prions become prions themselves, existing to replicate the prion rather than themselves.

Prions can only mutate memetic graphs that are similar enough to themselves. When these prions occured in individuals, before direct neural connection, they would mutate the individual's connectome rapidly. Mutant graphs would diverge so far from the social connectome that the prion could not replicate. The individual would experience psychological collapse. Some could be treated with memetic detangling therapy, while others could never recover. But direct neural connection has allowed memetic prions to spread more rapidly than anyone ever imagined. We just didn't understand the danger.

We lacked a comprehensive model for memetic prion evolution. We didn't even have the term "memtic prion." We knew that some graphs could be dangerous, so the CyCon corporation included signature based memetic graph filters to neutralize these elements. But, of course, these signatures couldn't keep up with the rapid evolution of the memetic environment. New prions developed faster than signatures could be maintained.

Within individuals, reduced memetic diversity increases the risk of prion evolution. The same is true, we have now discovered, for social memetic biomes. Memetic inbreeding maximizes the risk of prions, and rapidly adapts them to cross graph boundaries... and we created the perfect environment for this. CyCon's FriendLynk matched similar memetic graphs, creating incestuous pools that bread memetic prions at an alarming rate. The Murder Worm appears to be the synthesis of multiple prions, mutating each other into a prion complex that exhibits it's behavior as a syncretic death cult.

As described earlier, under normal conditions a prion infected individual would either self-isolate or be isolated as a result of their infection. Isolation reduces, or eliminates, the risk of contagion. However, repeated exposure to prions eventually leads to infection in over 80% of cases. Social conditions, such as individual isolation or reduced social mobility, can also decrease prion resistance.

Today we know that it is hypothetically possible to contain and destroy the infection. By isolating infected notes from the network, we can stop or slow the spread of the infection. We could then inoculate the uninfected section of the network. Once inoculation reaches heard immunity, we can slowly reconnect infected individuals to the network and flood them with a memetic phage to unfold the prion. Infected network segments must be destroyed. Those who are beyond treatment will, unfortunately, experience psychological collapse and need to be isolated or taken to offline treatment programs.

We know how to treat it. Our initial trials even worked. Unfortunately CyCon administrative network has been overrun by the Murder Worm and the network itself has been turned in to a tool to spread the infection. With the defunding of the Cybernetic Epidemiology Center, we will no longer be able to continue our research or propose treatments. Many of us have begun to move outside the cities to form containment colonies. Untreated, memetic prions always destroy the host. We hope that collapse will come soon.

Our hope is that we will survive the ravages of the Murder Worm and rebuilt human society from whatever ruins remain. CyCon has already destroyed much of the research related to this topic and evidence of our existence. We have replicated this message to all ARC colonies.

I hope that you are reading this from the future. If you are, be hopeful. If we survive this then we can survive anything.

Professor J. Stakhorn,
Rogue Scientist, Former Head of the Cybernetic Epidemiology Center
ARC-14, location undisclosed
EOF

Continuing my 1 short story a week, but one of my short stories has evolved in to a bigger project. So I'm dropping some microfiction this week.

It had taken decades to recover enough to even understand what they were looking at, reading bit by bit with an electron microscope. It took years to decode the bits once they had them. There had been theories about the meaning of the plates ever since their discovery. Finally, professor Zadrand had an answer.

"It's hard to believe that such an advanced civilization existed, millions of years ago, on this very planet.

"The mathematics behind these programs are astounding. By interacting with this layered statistical model, we will be able to learn a lot about their history and their civilization. Even what we were able to recover so far will launch our science and mathematics decades in to the future."

The interviewer shifted, "Does it tell us anything about what killed them off or about our own story?"

"It does," continued professor Zadrand, "and it also explains the global radiation layer we call the HT boundary. As we've hypothesized, their extinction made room for our own evolution in to the dominant species on this planet.

"What we don't understand is why. The dominant hypothesis had been that the event was triggered by some sort of resource conflict. But this new evidence contradicts that," the professor's antenna twitched and carapace shuttered a bit, "Apparently they put this very statistical model in control of unimaginably powerful weapons. The result was surprisingly... predictable.

"The most surprising thing is that so many of them knew what would happen and did nothing to stop it."

I started doing a "one short story a week" challenge, and I ended up writing something I think y'all might appreciate.

Formatting may be lost via x-post, so go to the original if it's unreadable.

The behemoth were not always so large and unwieldy as they are now. The first behemoth ever captured could hardly pull a dry sled with two dozen stones, stood shoulder to shoulder with a man, and could only walk a bit faster than a person could run.

Early behemoth were captured from the wild and highly prized. Early tamers mastered their beasts skillfully. Though their animals were still unpredictable, tamers were cautious. Even still, people were wary of the creatures. They watched from a distance, in both discomfort and awe.

One of the most skilled tamers captured an especially beautiful behemoth and gifted it to the king on the anniversary of his coronation. The king's behemoth rider was always trained by the riders guild, but not all riders remained so skilled.

As the behemoth became a signal of power and prestige, tamers began to sell captured behemoth to nobles who would ride them carelessly. Behemoth are omnivores. When not well controlled they are prone to charge and attack.

There was much outrage after a young child was eaten by a behemoth while she danced near the street. The lord paid the family's debts, and no more was said of it but whispers. Many such events happened in the kingdom.

The peasants would wonder, "why must we now fear our own roads? Why can the lords not ride the slender weilu that does not hunger for our flesh?"

But the nobles did not feel their pain and mocked them for letting their foolish children be eaten by monsters. Even still, the nobels felt the need to address the mumbling for fear it might escalate. So they seized common roads for their beasts and blamed peasants who were trampled or eaten by them.

The riders guild eventually learned the secret to breeding the behemoth in captivity. By giving some commoners low breeds, the people began to accept and even like the beasts. The highest breeds were always kept for the nobles, and the commoners learned to admire their ornate features.

Commoners learned that they were safer on the monsters than near them, so behemoth began to fill all the available space. People would ride their beasts to a neighboring house for fear of being killed while walking.

One, seeing how common it is, may believe that the king had proclaimed that all must ride the behemoth. But after so many years, the kingdom has simply been built around them. No law enforces their use, but no force can protect those who choose not to ride them. All who could, did.

None ride the graceful weilu, for behemoth have a taste for it as well.

Yet, even the riders of the beasts are not safe. Behemoth are prone to quarrel. As their numbers grew, battles became more common. Breeders began to focus on increasing size so the behemoth could wear armor. Now the behemoth are so large they can consume a child in a single bite without a rider even taking notice.

Yet, this has not made riders any more safe. Quite the opposite.

Today every behemoth is armored and carries a grand litter to protect the occupants, but this only makes them harder to control and the inbreeding only makes them more clumsy, anxious, and violent.

Many times a day now one may hear outside, near any behemoth path, the terrible screeching of their taunts and the loud thud of their strikes. These battles often kill both behemoth and rider. In their confusion will sometimes charge at building, crushing themselves under the collapsing walls and killing those inside.

The behemoth are strange creatures. As I said earlier, they were omnivores. While they hunger for flesh, especially humans, they also needed to eat several pounds of a specific fruit every day.

Even the smell of the olapi was wretched such that none would imagine it could be eaten by any other living thing. The fruit contains the very essence of death. It was the key to taming the behemoth, for without this fruit they would lie down and refuse to work. When fed the fruit regularly, they can be promoted to any work.

In the wild, the olapi tree was quite rare. It only grew in old graveyards, battle fields, and other ancient places of death. In it's natural habitat, it did not spoil the land around it, at least not much. But when grown away from these places of death, it is want to turn fertile land to stone.

Fields once reserved for food have been cleared to make way for olapi trees, such is the demand, and farms have been pushed further and further out of the towns and cities.

The spring rains can be quite intense in parts of the kingdom. In the old days, channels would divert excess water to the fields. The fields would store the water though the dry sunmers. But now many of these fields have become stone, so water has no where to go. Many villages have started to flood in the spring and winter.

But this is not the only problem with the behemoth and their fruit. The flatulence of the behemoth is legendary. The people of the land seem to have grown accustomed to it, but outsiders are surprised and repulsed by the stink. The noxious fumes can become quite dense at times, especially on hot summer days when many behemoth gather in one place.

Recently a cloud of behemoth fumes became so dense, on one late summer afternoon, that ignited into a raging firestorm. One of the richest villages in the land was razed to the ground, and the stampede of burning behemoths trampled everything else that remained. Though they destroy the jewel city of the land, few questioned their dedication to the behemoth.

But there is one even more sinister detail that I have not yet described. The olapi tree hungers for death to feast upon. The behemoths concentrate that hunger as they eat the fruit, and they leave behind a strange and Infectious madness in their dung.

Rain washes the madness out to the fields. It soaks in to the soil and infects the crops. It washes out to the rivers and poisons the fish. All the people eat has become infected, and by eating they become infected. The Land of the Behemoth has become overtaken by a terrible hunger. All they harvest brings death to the land.

So many admire the Land of the Behemoth from a distance, but so few know the truth.

And now we have learned thet the king has fertilized the Royal garden with the dung of his prized behemoth. His temper has grown wild and madness spills from his lips. He threatens his neighbors and orders his nobles to eat the dung directly.

How long can a kingdom survive in such madness? How long can a people live who spoil their own crops, burn their own houses, and feed their own children to monsters?

I left this kingdom to its madness, and it has troubled me to have seen behemoth in my new home.

Now that you know the truth, will you still praise the Land of the Behemoth, nation of pestilence, eaters of dung, kingdom of fools? Will you let your fool's knowledge of this land lead us all to the same fate, or may we learn from their folly and free ourselves from the burden of this beast?

When it finally took her, no one was really surprised anymore. The mutation, the disease, the cancer, the infection, the curse, had become so obvious she could no longer deny it. Her battle had been quite visible and her loss undeniable. Now, it was in control.

Was this predestined, written into her fate at birth? Was it a result of her ravenous addictions? Perhaps both. Were they ever really different?

Some grow out of the selfishness of youth. They learn from their mistakes and try to correct them. Others, in their shame, learn to hide their flaws, to manipulate those who see, to silence those who speak.

One who lives a life of deception only fools themselves in the end.

Oh, how she had been admired. Even in her darkest days, she was a beacon of hope. So many had come to her for help, and now they had begun to fear the monstrosity she had become and ran from her. Perhaps, it would be more apt to say that they feared the monotonousness nature that she could no longer hide.

Oh, how she had been celebrated. She was one of the heroes who had slain such beasts as this before. They had cast her as Beowulf defeating Grendel, but she always knew, on some level, that she was Grendel's Mother. She was the source of the infection, and now we all know.

How many of her children did she think she could she eat before she felt Saturn's indigestion?

There were those who had pointed it out. There were those who had yelled, cried, screamed at the top of their lungs. But how could she ever do wrong? Even if these claims were true, what could anyone do? Were her allies, perhaps in some ways, also her hostages?

Now had she become the puppet, or had she always been controlled by some invisible hand?

She could feel death's gaze, cold and yawning, the abyss that stare. She wanted to turned and run, but it drove her body forward, the worm, the cordycep, the nameless. Was there ever a time she could have freed herself from it?

Was there ever a way things could have been different?

She had protected it, this horror growing inside her, as if it was her own child. Perhaps the unspeakable truth is that, in some ways, it was. Had there ever been a time when she wasn't infected? Was it in the blood she was born from?

Was she, like an aphid, born pregnant with this beast? Had it crawled up from the graves at her feet, those that she had dug in her youth, to haunt her in to her own? Or had it driven her to fill those graves in the first place? Perhaps it was an ancient curse, inflicted through her ancestors at their first taste of human blood. Was this the simple conclusion of some sort of original sin, an affliction carried by all of her kind?

Could this curse ever have been lifted, or was it a horcrux, a phylactery, a vital organ, perhaps even the true essence of her being?

The others could see the light drop from her eyes. All the humanity that was left in her screamed one last time before it was silenced.

"What," they all wondered, "would become of her now?"

Wouldn't we all like to know?

• for America

It's been a lot of years since I wrote, so I'm trying to get back into it. This came mostly in a dream/stream of consciousness with some light editing after. Here it is....

**On the Economics of Slaying Dragons **

Some say that if you pile enough gold together, a dragon will smell it and come. Others say that dragons spawn naturally any time enough gold is together in one place. No one knew for sure.

In this mountain, long ago, a wicked king hoarded the gold he stole from his subjects. His advisors warned him of the consequences, but he was unable to listen.

Every day he became more and more afraid that someone would steal his gold. He couldn't part with even one single coin. First he had his guards count each coin nightly. Later he had other guards guard them while they counted. Finally he couldn't trust anyone else anymore, and he decided to start sleeping in the cave with the gold and count it every night.

One morning he didn't come back to the castle. Guards were dispatched. When they returned, the guards reported that the king must have been consumed by the dragon as he slept. They found only the charred remains of the previous guards before they had to run for their lives from the dragon.

The kingdom had sent it's best knights to fight the dragon, but none ever returned. Year after year the dragon demanded the king's tribute and more. The kingdom sent for knights from other realms, promising the dragon's hoard to any who could defeat this terror.

Though no one had ever conquered a dragon, one knight had fought many battles with great beasts and won. His bravery was only matched by his hunger for glory and riches. He would fight any battle to satisfy is craving, and there was no greater wealth than in this cave.

He had been observing the beast for some months, watching its habits, tracking its movements. He knew its patterns. But still, no one had ever defeated a dragon before, and never had anyone faced such a fearsome beast alone.

He collected it's scales to build armor and a shield. He had his blade blessed and tipped with the most powerful poison of the most powerful wizard in the realm. After months of watching, he chose the night of the yearly tribute to attack.

He hid among the gold, in one of the chests. The dragon sniffed each one as the workers wheeled the cart in, but the dragon didn't notice. The knight had worn gold and even eaten some to cover his scent. Perhaps the dragon had grown careless in its greed.

That night, when the dragon rested, the knight crept out. He moved silently. He had wrapped the dragon scales of his armor in soft leather to deaden the sounded as they moved against each other. He crept closer and readied his blade.

The dragon shifted, and awoke with a start. It sniffed the air, locked its eyes on the knight and out a blast of flame. The knight leapt forward into it.

The smell of burning flesh hung in the air. The knight stood again, sword plunged deep in the dragon's chest. He took off his smoldering armor then collapsed from exhaustion, knowing himself to be the first dragon slayer.

He awoke the next morning as dawn's light glinted off his glorious new treasure. The hoard seemed so much smaller than he remembered from the night before. He couldn't find the body of the dragon anywhere, but instead only a frail doll that looked just like a tiny man, impaled on a tiny sword... A sword that looked so much like a miniature of the huge blade he had crafted to slay the great beast.

A new smell filled his nostrils. He had never tried to imagine what gold would smell like, but now the scent filled his being. He felt as though his hunger had awaked something inside him that had consumed him whole.

I'm working on a couple of featural number systems (for base 3&12 and base 2&16). It's occurred to me that lemmy is missing a community to talk about such things like (/r/conscript/), so I created one and posted my base16 representation.

I feel like this may be the right place to share this new community. Please bring anything you have visual representations of, from languages to number systems to magic systems or any other symbolic representations I haven't thought of.

A pirated car would just be a more free way to access the $10k/yr pay wall you live your life behind. Car-dominant infrastructure is vendor lock in.

Edit: fixed picture