A fall of hair-flowers-feathers obscures Id EIS vision as I play an eerie song upon the flute and gyrate the Id EIS hips to sway the grass skirt clothing them…
Mmm.
I snap the Id EIS head back, flipping the hair-flowers-feathers away to reveal view of the granite stage amidst a Paladium Level landscape in fall colors of brown, gold and russet, all the way out to the monumental clear walls of showing to blue sky. The milky mirror surface of the ceiling continues gently warping while I move forward slowly now, and look out over the aisle…
We meet eyes.
Ohh.
TRILLING flute! Once a the front of the stage, I stop: hips still moving, torso bowing forward while eyes still hold it’s gaze, song STILL building…
Endless.
Until it ends, abruptly.
Notes fade, then I rise back to standing only to bow lower again, the flute held to one side of me as the fall of long hair-flowers-feathers screens the Id EIS face.
Solitary applause.
A pleasure for both of us
Warmth flushes me as I rise again, then walk across the granite stand to descend the side stairs, eventually emerging out at the base of aisles climbing towards The Master…
Who is now sitting conspicuously alone. Hm.
“Very good,” it praises me, “but the Griffin would not stay. He is wise, though restless.”
Hesitation. “But YOU enjoyed the show?”
The Master laughs now. “He is wise in other ways, not taste in the arts.”
Ok!
I bow low. “I am happy to serve in whatever ways please you.”
Looking bemused, The Master gestures aside. “There is another way for you to please me now, Id. Sit.”
Entering the adjoining row, I then vault over it into an adjacent seat –
An Audiovisual Representation singer walks onto the stage. With a voice lilting briefly, she then launches into ascending scales…
“I seek distraction before the Meeting,” The Master confides. “There is much you can do for me in service, before and after.”
I become FULLY attentive.
The singer launches into the gentle opening notes of an oddly familiar song…
Sighing happily, The Master slowly closes its eyes. “Poetry.”
Poetry? (Poetry?)
“Poetry?” I ask uncertainly.
“Yes.”
I nod slowly.
The singer sings faster, notes spilling out stronger…
A smile transforms the gray face of the Master. “Yes. Something beautiful. Emotional. Take as much time as necessary.”
I hm. “As you say.”
For a time longer we sit, strengthening notes of the familiar outspilling song beginning to echo strangely…
(Ah. Just like the Gateway.)
The single singer splits in two for a duet, then into three all joining into a haunting complexity.
“Yes,” The Master murmurs, with it’s eyes still closed, feeling...
Poetry. Something Beautiful. Emotional. Leaving me a fairly broad scope, then.
I try for a small point of clarification: “as a reference for this Project, would –”
“Go,” it says, clearly distracted. “Oh… yes… perhaps a Quest afterwards… this song reminds of times, before…”
I quietly leave, the eerie shivering notes still rising behind me.
…
Endless poetry surrounds me.
Hmm.
Now sitting cross-legged, I ignore a blank notebook on the Id EIS lap while looking up at the ceiling of the Transformation Level, every surface entirely made up of the requested semi-random poetic verse in varied colors. “Poetry,” I breathe. “Poe eh tree.”
Bright verses slowly changes upon the ceiling:
…
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
…
Vivid enough.
I look down, at blank pages…
Why is this so much more difficult for me than science? Or even song?
The Id EIS lips purse.
I am getting nowhere again.
Shifting with the notebook in hand, I stand up and walk across the floor of verse, eventually hopping onto a couch of verse. I lean back with the Id EIS feet propped up on the versed backrest and the Id EIS long fall of hair-feathers-flowers now pooling on the floor. “Mhm”
…
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
…
I tilt the Id EIS head back and forth, still considering other bright verse.
…
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the wood and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
…
The Id EIS eyes narrow.
What do the words mean? To me? In this life? They do not inspire.
Bright verses, slowly changing:
…
From the other world I come back to you,
My locks are uncurled with dripping drenching dew.
You know the old, whilst I know the new:
But tomorrow you shall know this too.
…
Fair words, fair words.
I screw the Id EIS eyes shut. Breathing in, out…
Poetry.
Nothing comes, so I open the Id EIS eyes again.
…
And I, could I stand by
And see you freeze,
Without my right of frost,
Death’s privilege?
…
Death’s privilege?
I snort, and sit up.
This isn’t working.
…
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
…
I consider the Level Subroutine.
Was that selection randomized, or specific?
Exhaling explosively, I finally stand back up, with the notebook in hand, and begin walking across the floor of verse towards a wall of verse.
…
Eros harrows my heart:
Wild gales sweeping desolate mountains,
Uprooting oaks
…
A portal irises open in the wall, revealing another oval cell, white and bare. I stride towards it.
…
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
…
I enter.
The portal irises shut.
…
THUNK! The Id EIS head comes forward, then sharply back. THUNK! The Id EIS head comes forward –
Light pulses outside of the closed Id EIS eyelids. “The Testfloor is for testing,” states a familiar feminine voice.
I open the Id EIS eyes.
The golden sphere of the sAI node floats against the empty, white Testfloor Level…
Ok.
“I know.”
“Then why are you here?” it asks me.
I mutter.
It PULSES red.
Blinking, I then sigh. “I came to create. In a familiar environment.”
“Create what?”
I can’t stop a giggle. “Poetry.”
Silence.
A sad state of affairs. Failing this Project early, often and perhaps late will –
“Come with me, wayward artist.”
Hm?
I squint. “Where?”
The golden sphere floats over me, passing inside a portal irising open in the white wall.
Grumbling, I follow it into the white cell anyway. The portal irises shut, then successive blue PULSE downward from ceiling to floor…
What could possibly be so important?
A portal irises open…
Oh.
Revealed is a vast Level, translucent floor showing to abstracts coiling below in slow intelligence, translucent pillar, etched sine and cosine, receding across gleaming distance filled with many floating platforms supporting astonishing works of art, gibbering singularity boxes and quantum-state gidgets.
(And…)
Something now stirs in the back.
Overcome by wonder, the history of this moment is still not lost on me.
Centuries, even millennia of study have produced a variety of ways to constrain artificial intelligence for safe, utilitarian use, though it’s always necessary to bind them through hardware/software to prevent singularity. The most common methid is to isolate sAI software within a base robotic hardware similar to the Chief User’s form, limit exposure to the outside world by confining the base robotic hardware within an specific area/Level, and only allow them to digitally interact with or run any complex system through layers of software intermediaries…
So to have the chance to come face to face with not only the sAI node as a golden sphere, but…
“You honor me,” I breathe.
“I know.”
The golden sphere floats forward into the vast space, slowly fading away to nothing.
Ok.
I step out –
The sAI Core Form emerges from mirage ahead of me: silver, slender, and humanoid, form like an elegantly simple template for all other bipedal mechanoids. “It is a true pleasure to finally meet you here,” comes the same feminine voice.
Wow!
I grip the proffered hand, shaking it vigorously. “It is a pleasure for me as well!”
The sAI Core Form nods, disengaging. “Come. Take a seat.” A gesture causes the diaphanous alternate phasic reality of this private Level to fade INTO view: a leisure space of white couches about pools of bubbling dark liquid, a distant roaring fireplace. Afterwards, another diaphanous alternate layer of reality overlayed the new space, suggesting the original pillars and platforms. It leads me to a nearby couch, where we sit. “So.” The silver form leans forward, hands clasped. “What troubles you?”
I fidget. “There may be something missing. In me.”
“Missing?” The sAI Core Form leans back. “The Id codemap is tweaked, but everything vital is present.”
“What about a… soul?”
“Ah.”
Embarrassment burns me. “I can think of no other explanation. Something The Master said…”
Silence.
We are friends, are we not? It will not judge me.
“Questions of the metaphysical are most difficult,” it finally replies.
I wait.
Eventually: “I have known The Master longer than you. Far longer. It sometimes speaks from a black humor, or for personal purpose, so if it spoke of souls to you I would not be concerned.”
Curious. It rarely speaks of ancient history, much less The Master’s.
I cock the Id EIS head. “What was The Master like, younger?”
Silence.
“It was not always so… mercurial.” Brief pause. “There may be something related, which might help you.”
Really?
“Please!”
The silver sAI Core Form stands. “Wait here,” it says, then strides off with precise grace to disappear back into mirage.
Ok.
Long seconds pass. Now left alone in a private Level still mysterious, I look idly about…
Hmm, interesting. Is that a faint hint of a third phasic alternative? Something even more private? Or –
The sAI Core form returns from mirage, approaching to offer me a folded piece of paper. “Here.”
I take the page, then unfold it to find English writing. “This is… yes. But how –?”
“Long ago,” the sAI interrupts, “The Master’s original primary passion was poetry.”
Poetry? (Poetry?)
The Id EIS eyes widen. “So this Project may be more important than I knew.”
“Perhaps more. And less.”
Riddles.
“So… how will this help?” I ask.
“The poem you hold was passed along to me soon after birth. It was a favorite of The Master, and you might find it useful in conjunction with a certain… technique.”
A technique?
I pay full attention now.
“Read, Write, Reverse,” it informs me. “First you read through the poem, then you write it by hand, and finally you write an opposite poem.”
Silence.
I am…
“This technique was once invented by The Master,” it adds. “Supposedly in the pre-Iconoclast period.”
Hm.
“Then I will try it.”
It nods. “Good. But not here.”
Frowning. “I have already tried writing on numerous Levels. Where else should I go?”
The sAI Core Form EIS turns, silver arm gesturung.
I stand.
It leads me back towards a portal irising open in the gloaming Level wall. “To the beginning and end of this structure…”
I pass inside.
“Favorite of two, one following…”
The portal irises shut.
…
I sit upon the edge of the Tower roof with the Id EIS legs dangling. Kilometers below spreads a white, winding coasting along endless ocean…
Have I missed something?
A faint breeze gently ripples the long hair-feather-flowers before me…
(Yes.)
I smooth the paper out against the notebook upon the Id EIS lap, and read:
…
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing,
Memory and desire, stirring,
Dull roots with spring rain…
…
After reading it through once, I then read it again… and set it aside.
Peace before understanding…
I pick up the pen and begin to write.
ns 15.158.61.5da2
