Tale:Conspiracy Theory that the World is Controlled by an Amaranth Author

I'm back home. I've left my computer off the net; I got around to some books I had downloaded, a few from Red's parents' mainframe. Well, their workplace's. A lot of them deal with the Noosphere, the realm of minds, its existence being necessary to not only sapient life, but the ONET. Here's an excerpt from The Mind-Body Problem:

While clearly, existential (which is to say sapient, praxis-capable) beings are situated within the realm of matter as much as other life, there has been no ground broken for most of history on what exactly separates them from merely living or surviving creatures, until now. There has never been an epistemologically supported instance of paranormal activity related to subsapient creatures. Any such instance has had a rational explanation, or the sapience of the responsible beings was unknown. The preternatural is the intersection of the mental and material. What seems to defy classical or quantum physics really relies on the existence of the Noosphere. The mental and material worlds are not so far apart, really.

That's where our gift comes from. The EIGHT were way ahead of the curve, so they engineered the conditions for sapient life and created Synapse for us to draw power from. It's ridiculous that they still tell us Neuromancy should be left to the experts, in their stupid monasteries. How can they utilize the power of connectivity when they can't even connect with their own society? Withdrawl from the material world won't make their powers stronger.

In my reading, I came across an unfamiliar concept. I firmly believe in free will. How could I not? There's no singular purpose to our existence, is there? Self-improvement is great, sure, but determined by a higher force as our reason of existence? No way. Even the EIGHT were just people, right? But this concept I came across was the idea of reality as a singular story. The characters? Not people like me. Overlords. I've heard of them. The concept is based on certain leaders on the other side of the galaxy, in Aylathiya. They shape worlds by lifting a finger, according to "historical documents" (myths.) I don't give a shit about them. Singularity, singularity, all for one, one for all. Why can't all just be all, and one just be one of all? If the world really were just a story, it wouldn't be like a single book, or single series of books. It wouldn't even have a single author. Everybody is a protagonist, antagonist, deuteragonist, whatever-agonist, and their stories are always being written.

I'm getting bored. I connect to the ONET in spite of my better judgement. I wait for a bit. No sign of him on the peer list. I look up the term "Narrative Singularity." A few results from the mainframe at Ithillid. I pick out an article. "Amaranth," it's called.

Amaranth is the singlemost inherent and absolute force within all existence; the conduit in which the entire Line to the End flows to its Ultimate conclusion. It serves as the foundational thematic through-line which all Creation is formed and to which it is inextricably and fundamentally bound. All conceptualization — whether manifested coherently, incoherently, concretely, or metaphysically — is invariably and unavoidably bound to Amaranth without exception or exemption.

I blink. The page is gone, like it was never there. Replacing it is an introduction to an organization called "UNTIED." I remember. I had found the node for it when Eater stopped me. I don't want to know what other kinds of freaks are part of it, but I don't have the will to disconnect. When did I connect to it again? My system would have detected an incoming connection... I must have done it myself. Withdrawl, from the stimcans, it can cause lapses in memory. I should just quit them, full stop. I look around my room. Still so many empty cans, not many filled ones left. I should take out my trash, but I'm scared to go out, alone, at night.

The page describes,

We are UNTIED. We shall unite Ousia. We shall rule the stars. We shall rule Cosmoria. We shall rule beyond Cosmoria. We have nearly created an AGI, and the singularity is within reach.

Horrifying... but what's beyond Cosmoria? Either Lowiras is beyond the galaxy Cosmoria, or Lowiras is within the reality Cosmoria. What's outside of the universe? It couldn't be... Of course. Andvaris. Their goal is supposedly to destroy the swarm. Destroy it, or control it? I disconnect. That's enough for now.

I shut off the lights, curl up in bed with my walrite plushie, and drift off into sleep. The visual noise of closed eyes or total darkness engulfs my sight. The events of the past hours sediment into simple memories. I see a reddish color. Amaranth, but it looks almost dulled, fading into the background. From this endless swirling color, a figure emerges. Him again, Eater. I call out to him by his real name, Loadhar. He doesn't move. I approach him. His wires run into the void. I tell him to wake up.

He stirs. His voice is layered by many others. It's not him alone. He alone does not exist anymore. "So, Occi. Do you understand why our reality is the way that it is?" He asks. I shake my head, and he says, "What would you say is the meaning of existence? Of Creation?"

I open my mouth, about to give an answer, but the better part of my mind causes me to say, "What?" He starts to repeat himself—"Ever!!" I shout. A couple of his wires snap as he writhes in agony. Then, he stares at me, with absolute malice. A desk rises from the ether. My tail slides beneath myself and my arms rest upon the desk; a sitting position, ready to learn. He manifests a screen-board from nothing. "What are you..." I ask, "This isn't a dream, is it?"

"Of course it's a dream. It's just, I can follow you here, hacker. Allow us to begin the lesson. An introduction to metaontology. Nothing in this universe is certain. Everything seems to shift upon observation. Everything seems to be indeterminate until it actually happens. Classical physics have run their course. Nothing ever happens. At least, nothing that matters. The universe is a zero-sum game. Think of a perfectly balanced budget. Anything earned is spent by the end of the earning period. Only the earning period is the length of reality."

He doesn't mean... he couldn't mean... "You mean... the end is near?"

"Near? No, not for a long time by our calculations. The point is that reality is meaningless, because nothing will happen that will outlast reality. Except..."

"Except what?"

"Well, there are certain things in this world thought to have come from... before." An image of a biped clad in a rosy metal armor and a cloaked figure brandishing a scythe flash on the screen for just a moment. "They follow completely classical rules. Then, there's some who wish to keep this world existing forever. You know where Azurullya is, don't you?" I nod. "Well, their queen, their star mommy, Azurade, she thinks she can stop the end. She knows it'll happen eventually, and she's delayed thinking about it, but there's this sinking feeling in her heart. That's why she created the damn cluster." So Azurade is like the EIGHT for Azurullyans? Does this guy not want the world to keep going on?

"Do you have a single fact to back any of this up?" I ask, trying to keep a cool mind.

"The EIGHT told me. They've seen farther and wider than anybody else. And they told me, this world is not forever. But they told me something else, too. They said that what ruled before is dormant now, but it could be awakened. Whoever awakens it will write the story of the new world."

"So that's your plan?!" I shout, "You want to make yourself the god of this new world?!"

"The singularity. That is what we are becoming." This whole "we" spiel again. I'm not stupid, I know he's using telepathy, but does he think the barriers between individuals can just be knocked down? "Once we have subsumed Ousia, we will operate our megastructural body to take the rest of Cosmoria. Then, we will find a way to take control of this mysterious force that had governed reality up until the universe began." He's just crazy. None of this makes any logistical sense. He's a doomsayer. A eighth-cycle adventist.

"Hey, idiot!" I yell from my desk, "how do you expect to create a singularity of all of Cosmoria when you can't even bring anyone but yourself, Loadhar, Eater, whatever, to haunt me? You're just a crazy ghost!"

"You insolent fool..." One of his wires snaps. So this is his "no more mr nice guy" situation... "I am UNTIED. I am all of us linked together. A singularity."

"No way, dummy, I saw the website, they're still in the middle of making the singularity. They haven't even made their AI core." He starts shaking.

"I only look like Loadhar because that is the only part your mind can construct. If you had not seen him I would look completely formless. We cannot transmit senses to you." His mouthparts are chittering like crazy. And there he goes using "we" like he didn't just use "I." He doesn't have it together.

"Guess what, creep! You're alone! You're all alone!" I start laughing, "You think you can't telepathically transmit senses? You're an amateur." I recall burning myself on the stove. I remember the skin peeling and reddening, hurting like crazy even if just a minor burn. The fool starts screaming in agony, clutching one of his right hands. Must have a low pain tolerance, it's not like I could transmit the whole feeling. But if he can't transmit senses, what happened at the mall? Surely it was an illusion?

"You don't seem to understand," he says, "I'm telling you, join us, or you will fade into nothingness. Your story will never be told. I'm giving you the chance to become who the story's about. You wanna fade into the congruence of the Neural Amalgam? An individual powerless in the collective?" I'll admit, I've had concerns about the situation.

"How is that any different from your plan?!" I demand to know.

"Because this way, you will become one new individual. Not part of the whole, but the whole itself. The singularity, the antithesis to the collective. Plus, remaining in the material world."

"So you're not a ghost? You're not part of the Neural Amalgam?"

"Of course not. If I was dead, you'd know, wouldn't you?" Right. I don't get the same feeling from him that I get from cemeteries. "I'm in the cybersphere. I can go anywhere that there's technology, and I just need to stretch a bit to get inside someone's head. I'm a true cyberian."

"But what's the point of it all?"

"You want this world to continue, but it can't. Eventually, it runs out. The next one doesn't have to be that way. All we need is strength and will."

"You're just a troll and a conspiracy theorist. None of this is real. There's no world before, no world after. It's just this forever. And if I'm wrong about the former, I'll make sure I'm right about the latter, at least. I'm blocking you." With all my will, I simply ignore him. Rule 1 of the OusiaNET: Don't. Feed. The. Trolls. One by one, each of his wires snaps, he fades from my dream, and he yelps at each one. He has disappeared entirely, and I am free to move again.

I wake up. It's the start of my school week. I check my Pocket. One text, an unknown number. "Eater was just a useful idiot. We're more than you can imagine." I feel unsafe. I check the news on my computer before heading to school. There's a hostage crisis at a nearby data center. The culprits are unknown, but they wear the insignia: UNTIED.

In a small, master-planned city, in a dull, suburban county, in a country called the Repulic of Poz, something terrible is happening, and it's coming for the rest of Lowiras, the rest of Cosmoria, next.