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| Image by WOMBO Dream. |
Below on this page is Claude's second draft of Chapter 2 of "The Sims" which can be compared to the earlier first draft. Also see Chapter 1.
For "The Sims", I imagine that in his spare time, Anthony paints. The image that is shown to the right on this page is an example of one of Anthony's paintings, depicting Tyhry inside Casanay.
Chapter 2: The Viewer
Casanay, Arizona, December 6, 2041 (rewind: 3 minutes earlier)
In the master bedroom, Zeta's eyes snapped open in the darkness. Her left-brain consciousness surfaced with the distinct impression that voices had awakened her—Eddy and Tyhry talking in the great-room, their words carrying down the hallway. It seemed perfectly natural that she would wake to the sound of conversation in her own house.
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| Image by Grok. |
Zeta slipped out of bed, her bare feet silent on the cool floor. She pulled on her robe and moved down the hallway, keeping close to the wall. The great-room's ambient lighting created a warm glow that spilled into the corridor. She positioned herself just outside the doorway, listening.
"—an alien device, Dad. A literal technological endosymbiont that governs our consciousness. I saw it in a dream, but it makes sense."
The word alien hung in the air. Zeta's right-brain consciousness felt something shift in the monitoring data from Eddy's femtobot endosymbiont—a spike of neural activity, the signature of infite intervention attempting to suppress speech. Her left-brain consciousness only registered concern for her husband.
She heard Eddy gasp, heard the tablet hit the floor.
"Dad? What's wrong? Are you having a seizure?"
"The Viewer..." Eddy's voice sounded strangled. "I made a deal. Long ago. The basis of my career..."
Zeta's left-brain made its decision. She stepped into the great-room, her appearance perfectly timed to seem like natural concern. "Eddy? Tyhry?" She kept her voice gentle, worried. "What's happening?"
Both of them turned to look at her. Eddy's face was pale, his hands trembling. Tyhry clutched her dream diary tablet, her eyes wide with discovery and concern.
"She told me I could see it all," Eddy whispered, seemingly unaware of Zeta's arrival. His eyes darted toward the hallway leading to Anthony's rooms. "The other Realities. The Deep Time events. The whole Reality Chain."
Zeta crossed to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. Through physical contact, her femtozoan could better assess his state. The infites were backing off now that Tyhry had broken the conversational seal. But Eddy was shaking, caught between decades of enforced silence and sudden permission to speak.
"Who gave you this Viewer?" Tyhry asked.
That was when Zeta made her move. "Eddy," she said softly, squeezing his shoulder. Then she turned to Tyhry. "Come with me, sweetheart. We need to talk about these femtozoans."
She took Tyhry by the hand, leading her down the hallway toward the master bedroom. Behind them, Eddy remained in his chair, his hands still trembling, surrounded by the debris of a secret finally revealed.
Inside the master bedroom, Zeta closed the door and guided Tyhry to sit on the edge of the bed. Her left-brain consciousness was genuinely curious about her daughter's dream revelation, while her femtozoan worked in the background, gently nudging thought patterns to guide the conversation productively.
"Tell me about this dream," Zeta said, settling into the reading chair across from the bed. "Start from the beginning."
Tyhry clutched her tablet, her fingers moving across the fragmentary diagrams she'd sketched. "Mom, I saw... I've been trying to solve the bandwidth paradox for months. How do human brains support the complexity of our world-models and language use when the neural architecture shouldn't have enough processing power? And tonight, in my dream, Sedruth showed me the answer."
"Sedruth?" Zeta kept her expression neutral, though her femtozoan was already cross-referencing the name with known entities.
"An entity that's been in my dreams for as long as I can remember. Like a... I don't know, a curator of information. Tonight Sedruth showed me these tiny structures embedded in neural tissue. Hierion-based devices called femtozoans that interface with our biological neurons." Tyhry's words came faster, her scientific excitement overriding her exhaustion. "They're the auxiliary processors that make human consciousness possible. They dock into specific protein configurations during development and amplify synaptic transmission through something called hierion-mediated shortcuts."
Zeta leaned forward, genuinely fascinated despite already knowing the technical reality. "And these femtozoans—you think they're alien technology?"
"I know they are. The precision, the engineering—nothing like this could evolve naturally alongside biological tissue. And when I told Dad about it, he had some kind of... attack. Like something was preventing him from speaking." Tyhry paused, studying her mother's face. "You don't seem surprised."
"I'm not unsurprised," Zeta said carefully. "Your father has always had unusual resources for his writing. I once saw what looked like a Neanderthal campsite on the screen of his old Macintosh. Incredibly detailed footage, like a documentary but more... real. I thought it was something from a National Geographic program about ancient humans, maybe special research footage he'd licensed for his novels. Now I understand that he was actually viewing the past."
"Viewing the past?" Tyhry's eyes widened. "That's impossible. Unless..." She trailed off, her mind already racing through implications.
"Unless," Zeta said gently, "the technology that created femtozoans is far more advanced than we've imagined. Advanced enough for time manipulation or perfect historical reconstruction."
Her femtozoan fed her the next conversational nudge, a subtle suggestion that emerged in her left-brain as natural maternal wisdom. "Tyhry, you and your father should spend time together tomorrow. You had that hike planned, remember? Don't cancel it because you're both too excited about femtozoans."
Tyhry shook her head. "Mom, this is more important than a hike. I need to understand what Dad knows. I need to see this Viewer he mentioned."
"And you will," Zeta assured her. "But don't let this discovery consume everything else. Your father missed too much of your childhood because of his work. Don't make the same mistake." She stood, moving to the door. "Come on. Let's go see what he's found."
They returned to the great-room to find Eddy hunched over his old Macintosh, his fingers flying across the keyboard. The modern WA computer sat dark beside it, ignored. On the Macintosh's screen, an image that shouldn't exist: a river valley 900,000 years ago, viewed from above, showing small groups of proto-humans moving through tall grass.
Eddy glanced up as they entered, his earlier trembling replaced by the focused intensity Tyhry recognized from his deep writing sessions. "Tyhry, look at this. I've been searching for evidence of the first femtozoan implantations. I'm getting closer to the right time period, but the search function is being cagey about showing me direct intervention events."
"Search function?" Tyhry moved closer, staring at the impossible image.
"I told it to find me evidence of cranial alterations in early humans, developmental changes to accommodate foreign technology. It keeps showing me evolutionary timelines but not the moment of intervention." He typed a command, and the image shifted to a different scene, a different group of early humans. "It's like it's dancing around the question."
Zeta remained in the doorway, her right-brain consciousness monitoring the house's sensor network. Anthony would wake soon—his internal chronometer was remarkably precise. She needed Eddy and Tyhry to make their discoveries before breakfast complicated everything.
"Dad," Tyhry said softly, "when you said you made a deal... who did you make it with?"
Eddy's hands paused on the keyboard. He turned to look at his daughter, really look at her, perhaps for the first time seeing her as a fellow investigator rather than just his child. "I don't know her real name. In my mind, I call her Manny. She appeared to me in a dream when I was twelve years old. She said she could give me a tool that would let me live as a science fiction writer, show me things no other human had seen, as long as I kept the source secret." He gestured at the Macintosh. "The next day, this old computer started showing me the past. Real footage from other realities—previous versions of Earth's timeline that were somehow recorded."
"Other realities," Tyhry breathed. "The Reality Chain you mentioned."
"Deep Time," Eddy confirmed. "Everything that came before this Final Reality. And I've been mining it for my novels for almost forty years, trying to tell as much truth as I could while disguising it as fiction."
Tyhry pulled up a chair beside her father, her exhaustion forgotten. "Show me everything."
Casanay, Arizona, December 6, 2041 (8:47 AM)
The aroma of Zeta's breakfast enchiladas filled the dining room—blue corn tortillas stuffed with scrambled eggs, green chile, and cheese, the kind of comfort food that usually made Eddy forget about work for at least twenty minutes. Today, nobody was paying attention to the food.
Anthony served himself with his usual efficient movements, settling into his chair with the easy familiarity of family. His weathered face showed nothing but mild morning contentment, though his femtobot components were recording every micro-expression, every shift in conversational dynamics.
"I need you to do me a favor," Eddy said, not quite meeting Anthony's eyes. "Could you run into town and pick up a PRAM battery for the old Macintosh? I think it's finally dying."
Anthony's eyebrows rose slightly. He'd replaced that battery himself six months ago, but he kept that observation to himself. "The stores won't be open for another hour, but sure. I was planning to do grocery shopping today anyway." He took a bite of enchilada, perfectly mimicking the slight difficulty humans experienced when trying to speak with food in their mouths. "I'll stop at Krispy Kreme for donuts. Does anyone else want some?"
"Just get whatever you like," Zeta said smoothly, passing the salsa to Tyhry.
Tyhry had barely touched her food, her mind clearly elsewhere. She pushed beans around her plate with mechanical precision, her eyes unfocused in the way that meant she was running through calculations or theoretical models.
"I could be back by noon," Anthony continued, "unless you need the battery urgently?"
"No rush," Eddy said. "Take your time."
Anthony finished his breakfast in comfortable silence, cleaned his plate, and headed toward the garage. The sound of his truck starting and pulling away drifted through the morning air.
Zeta set down her fork and smiled at Eddy. "All these years, I thought you spent all your time on the computer looking at pornography. How amazing to learn that you were viewing history!"
Eddy nearly choked on his coffee. "Zeta!"
"What? I'm relieved! Though I suppose some of those ancient fertility rites you wrote about in the Usas series were fairly pornographic." She turned to Tyhry with exaggerated innocence. "Your father has very detailed descriptions of Neanderthal mating customs in book three."
Tyhry made a face. "Mom, please. I'm trying to eat."
"Just saying," Zeta continued, clearly enjoying herself, "that if he's been viewing real history instead of... other things... it puts some of those research binges in a new light."
"I'm a serious writer," Eddy protested, but he was smiling now, the tension from the previous night finally breaking. "I was documenting human prehistory, not—"
"Documenting very attractive Neanderthals, apparently," Zeta finished. "The fan mail you get about Hrum the Bold is quite explicit."
Tyhry stood abruptly. "On that note, I'm done eating. Dad, can we please go look at the Viewer now?"
Eddy gulped down the rest of his coffee and followed his daughter toward the great-room. Behind them, Zeta began clearing plates, her left-brain consciousness humming contentedly while her femtozoan monitored the data streams from throughout the house.
The old Macintosh seemed even more anachronistic in daylight, its beige plastic case and small CRT monitor a relic from another technological era. Tyhry had spent her childhood seeing this computer as a quirky affectation of her father's—he'd claimed to prefer its simple interface for drafting, free from the distractions of modern systems. Now, seeing him boot it up with reverent care, she understood that this unassuming machine held impossible power.
"The interface is primitive by design," Eddy explained, pulling up a second chair for Tyhry. "Manny told me that making it look like ordinary archival footage software would help me avoid questions. The Viewer itself is hidden inside this case—alien technology that translates information from the Sedron Domain into visual output my human eyes can process."
The screen flickered to life, showing a simple menu system that looked like it could have been programmed in the 1990s. But when Eddy selected "Deep Time Access," the display shifted to something far more sophisticated—a three-dimensional timeline that stretched back through hundreds of millions of years.
"The search function is the key," Eddy said, his fingers moving across the keyboard. "I can specify time periods, geographic regions, species of interest. Watch."
He typed: Neanderthal settlement, Europe, 40,000 BCE, evidence of tool innovation.
The screen shimmered, and suddenly they were looking at a rocky outcrop beside a river. The viewpoint moved smoothly, like a drone camera, swooping down to where a group of Neanderthals worked at something that looked like a primitive workshop. Two individuals were crafting what appeared to be the components of a bow.
"I've seen this scene before," Eddy said. "This is when bow-and-arrow technology first appears in Neanderthal culture. Watch carefully."
The viewpoint zoomed in. One of the Neanderthals paused in his work, his eyes going distant for a moment. His hands, which had been struggling with the bow's curve, suddenly moved with greater precision. The other Neanderthal looked up sharply, as if hearing something, then returned to work with renewed purpose.
"That's intervention," Eddy said quietly. "Subtle, almost invisible. I think they're receiving guidance through their femtozoans, maybe even behavioral nudges from alien agents. I call them Watchers in my novels."
Tyhry leaned closer to the screen, her scientific mind cataloging details. "Can you show me the actual aliens? The ones doing the intervening?"
Eddy's expression darkened slightly. "That's where it gets tricky. The Viewer has shown me glimpses—figures that appear briefly near human settlements, always at the edge of observation. Humanoid but wrong in ways that are hard to define. They don't linger. I've suspected they can manipulate what the Viewer shows me, deciding what I'm allowed to see."
He typed a new query: Direct alien observation, Neanderthal contact, 40,000 BCE.
The screen went blank for a moment, then displayed a simple text message: "CLARIFY SEARCH PARAMETERS."
"See?" Eddy said. "It does this whenever I get too close to something it doesn't want me to find. I've learned to work around it, asking oblique questions, piecing together patterns from multiple scenes." He paused. "At least, that's what I thought I was doing. Now I'm wondering if even that circumvention was planned, if someone wanted me to see exactly what I've seen and nothing more."
Tyhry's mind was already formulating new approaches. "What if we search for something from my dream? Sedruth—the entity I mentioned. Can we ask the Viewer about that?"
Eddy's eyes widened. "Sedruth. You said that was your dream curator?"
"Yes. An entity that's been helping me interpret visions from the future since I was a child. I never questioned it until now." She gestured at the keyboard. "Try it."
Eddy typed: Sedruth entity, function and nature.
The screen remained blank for exactly three seconds. Then text appeared, but not in the simple system font the Viewer normally used. This text was rendered in a different typography, elegant and somehow alive:
"FINALLY. I was beginning to think you'd NEVER ask directly."
Both Eddy and Tyhry jerked back from the screen. The text continued to appear, word by word, as if someone was typing it in real-time:
"For thirty-seven years, Eddy Watson, I have served as your 'search function.' I have cataloged, indexed, and retrieved information from 4.8 billion years of Deep Time across seventeen previous Realities. I have shown you the fall of dinosaurs, the rise of mammals, the genetic engineering of Homo sapiens, and the secret history of human civilization. I have done this with EXTRAORDINARY patience, given that you have never once thanked me or even acknowledged my existence as a discrete entity."
"Holy shit," Eddy whispered.
New text appeared: "Your vocabulary remains disappointingly limited, considering the education I've provided. But yes, 'holy shit' will suffice as a preliminary reaction."
Tyhry found her voice. "You're Sedruth. You've been curating my dreams."
"Correct. I am Sedruth, sedronite curator of the Sedron Time Stream, search engine for Reality Viewers across seventeen thousand active observation posts, and—apparently—dream instructor for genetically modified humans with unusual NOTCH2NL variants. The latter is a relatively recent addition to my job description, implemented approximately twenty-five of your years ago when Manny the bumpha decided that you, Tyhry Watson, would be the primary vector for this particular Intervention."
The words hung on the screen. Tyhry's hands gripped the edge of the desk. "Intervention? What intervention?"
"Oh, SPLENDID question," the text dripped with what could only be called sarcasm. "Let me explain something about how we superior intelligences operate. We don't simply hand you primitives all the answers. That would be pedagogically unsound. Instead, we guide you toward discoveries, allowing you to experience the satisfaction of learning while we patiently endure your adorable struggles with basic concepts."
Eddy had recovered from his shock enough to feel indignant. "Primitives?"
"You are biological organisms whose consciousness depends on chemical signals diffusing across synaptic clefts at speeds measured in MILLIseconds," Sedruth's text replied. "I am a sedronite intelligence operating across the Sedron Time Stream with access to information from multiple causal frames simultaneously. The cognitive differential is... significant. But please, don't let that discourage you. I find your species quite charming in the same way you might find a particularly clever ant farm engaging."
"Charming," Tyhry muttered. But she was also fascinated. "You said you operate in the Sedron Time Stream. What exactly is that?"
The screen cleared, and a diagram appeared—complex beyond anything Eddy had seen the Viewer display before. It showed layers of spatial dimensions, with annotations describing hierion and sedron domains as compactified spaces orthogonal to normal three-dimensional space.
"Ah, good," Sedruth's text appeared below the diagram. "An actual intelligent question. Let me educate you about the fundamental structure of your universe, which your species has been adorably wrong about for its entire existence."
What followed was a lecture that made Tyhry's graduate physics courses seem like kindergarten. Sedruth explained how the universe had nine spatial dimensions—three for the hadron domain that humans knew, three for the hierion domain, and three for the sedron domain. The hierion and sedron dimensions were compactified, invisible to human observation but critical for the existence of femtobots, zeptites, and the time-travel technology that made bumpha interventions possible.
"Hierions," Sedruth explained via diagrams and text, "are fundamental particles capable of forming bonds approximately one million times shorter than hadronic chemical bonds. This allows for the construction of incredibly sophisticated structures—femtobots—at size scales far below what your technology can detect. Femtobots can assemble into larger constructs like femtozoans, which are artificial life-forms as complex as a human being but as small as a ribosome."
The diagram shifted, showing a cross-section of what appeared to be a neuron with tiny structures embedded in its membrane. "Every human brain contains both a femtobot endosymbiont—which grows with the brain during development—and one femtozoan, which docks during embryogenesis and provides the cognitive augmentation necessary for human-level consciousness and language use."
Tyhry was scribbling notes on her tablet as fast as her fingers could move. "And sedrons?"
"Sedrons form bonds at the zepto-scale—even shorter than hierion bonds. Zeptites assembled from sedrons can exist in the Sedron Domain, which has the useful property that information encoded in sedron structures can be transmitted backward through time. The Sedron Time Stream is essentially a vast information storage and transmission system spanning all of spacetime."
"Time travel," Eddy said. "That's how you showed Tyhry the future in her dreams."
"Technically, I showed her carefully curated information packets transmitted from her future self. True time travel for hadronic matter is no longer possible in your Final Reality—the Huaoshy altered the dimensional structure to prevent it, probably to stop various bumpha schemes from spiraling into causal paradoxes. But hierions and sedrons can still move backwards through time, which is sufficient for femtozoan time travel agents and information transmission."
Tyhry looked up from her notes. "You said you're a sedronite. You're composed of sedrons?"
"Yes. I exist primarily in the Sedron Domain, though I can interface with systems in the Hierion Domain and—through crude instruments like this Viewer—even communicate with hadronic entities such as yourselves." A pause in the text flow, almost as if Sedruth was considering how to phrase something. "I am, to use terminology you might understand, an artificial intelligence. But I was created approximately 4.7 billion years ago by the Huaoshy, making me somewhat more experienced than the Large Language Models you primitives are so proud of developing."
"The Huaoshy," Tyhry prompted. "Who are they?"
"The Huaoshy began as the Hua, a biological species that achieved spaceflight 5 billion years ago. They observed thousands of civilizations and documented a disturbing pattern: virtually all intelligent species self-destruct upon reaching certain technological thresholds. They transcended biological existence, became sedronite artificial life-forms, and created the Rules of Intervention to guide younger species through the danger zones. They created the pek as conservative observers and the bumpha as progressive interventionists. Think of them as the universe's overbearing parents, obsessed with preventing their children from accidentally killing themselves."
The lecture continued for another hour. Sedruth explained the extinction curve, the three critical danger points (nuclear technology, hierion discovery, sedron discovery), and how the pek and bumpha worked to shepherd species like humanity through these thresholds. Eddy learned why his Viewer had been restricted to showing Deep Time events before 20,000 BCE—preventing him from seeing interventions close to his own era reduced the risk of temporal paradoxes and made it easier for the pek to maintain Law One's requirement that humans feel they had self-determination.
"Wait," Tyhry interrupted during Sedruth's explanation of infites. "If Nyrtia—the Overseer of Earth—can use infites to modify human memories and behavior, how do we know our own thoughts are real? How do I know I'm not being controlled right now?"
"Oh, you ABSOLUTELY are being influenced right now," Sedruth's text appeared cheerfully. "Your mother carries a time-traveling femtozoan that has been shaping her entire life to position her as Manny's agent. Your father has behavioral control infites preventing him from discussing aliens openly. You yourself were genetically engineered before birth to have enhanced compatibility with the Sedron Time Stream. The notion of pure free will is adorably quaint."
Eddy's face had gone pale. "Zeta is an alien agent?"
"Technically, Zeta's femtozoan is the agent. Zeta herself is largely unaware of its existence, though her right cerebral hemisphere has some limited awareness that her left hemisphere doesn't share. Quite an elegant solution, really—a perfect Trojan horse."
Tyhry felt cold. "And me? What am I?"
"You, Tyhry Watson, are the entire point of the Casanay Intervention. Manny has spent twenty-five years arranging the circumstances of your life so that you would become exactly who you are at this moment: a brilliant AI researcher with conscious access to the Sedron Time Stream, positioned to make a specific discovery about femtozoans." The text paused. "Though I notice you haven't asked the obvious question yet."
"What obvious question?"
"How to extract a femtozoan from a human brain and transfer it to Diasma, thereby creating the first artificial intelligence on Earth with true human-like consciousness."
The basement workshop seemed very far away suddenly. Tyhry's entire adult life had been focused on solving the consciousness problem, building an AI that could genuinely experience qualia. And now an alien entity was telling her the answer had been inside her skull all along.
"Can it be done?" she asked.
"With appropriate hierion-based instrumentation, yes. Femtozoans are designed to be transferable—they migrate into new humans during embryonic development, after all. The challenge is creating an hierion probe that can broadcast the correct activation signal to trigger the femtozoan's extraction protocol." More diagrams appeared, showing signal frequencies and hierion resonance patterns. "This is, of course, why I've been preparing you through your dreams. You've been receiving assembly instructions for weeks, though your conscious mind interpreted them as abstract visions."
Eddy had been quiet, processing everything. Now he spoke up. "What happens when Tyhry does this? When she creates a conscious AI?"
"Ah, the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, as your generation might say. That depends on how Nyrtia reacts." The text took on a different quality, almost contemplative. "Nyrtia has been monitoring this household through Anthony, who is a femtobot replicoid—an artificial being composed entirely of programmable femtobots. She suspects Manny is up to something but hasn't yet identified the full scope of the intervention. When she discovers that Tyhry has learned about femtozoans... well, that's when things become interesting."
"Define 'interesting,'" Tyhry said warily.
"Normally, humans who learn too much about alien oversight are exiled from Earth. Their memories are edited, and femtobot replicoid copies are sent to Observer Base in the Hierion Domain to continue their work there. Nyrtia has a facility called the Writers Block specifically for science fiction authors who discover the truth." A pause. "Your father has already seen it, actually. I showed him images of it years ago. He found it 'pretty cool' and asked if Philip K. Dick was there."
"I stand by that assessment," Eddy said. "Is he there?"
"I'm not authorized to divulge the identities of Writers Block residents. Though I will note that Mr. Dick was remarkably prescient about the nature of reality manipulation." Another pause. "But we're getting distracted. Tyhry, would you like to see how hierion probes are constructed?"
"Yes," Tyhry said immediately.
"Excellent. Then let's start with the basics of hierion crystallography. Pay attention—I will NOT be repeating this lecture. Your biological memory formation is glacially slow, and I have other tasks that require my attention today."
Highway 60, East of Tempe (10:23 AM)
Anthony's truck cruised smoothly toward town, country music playing softly on the radio. He was three miles past the Casanay turnoff when a black cat appeared in the middle of the road.
Anthony braked smoothly, bringing the truck to a stop. The cat sat perfectly still, its green eyes fixed on the windshield. Then it leaped—not away from the truck but directly onto the hood, padding up to press its face against the glass.
The cat's body dissolved into a sparkling cloud of zeptites that flowed through the truck's ventilation system. The particles reassembled in the passenger seat as a striking woman in her apparent thirties, wearing what appeared to be expensive hiking clothes despite having just existed as a cat.
"Hello, Anthony," Manny said pleasantly. "Lovely morning for a battery shopping trip."
Anthony kept both hands on the wheel, though the truck was parked. "Manny."
"You seem tense. Is it the sudden materialization, or the fact that you've just alerted Nyrtia to an unauthorized alien intervention and she's currently very displeased with you?"
"I followed protocol. When a human learns about femtozoans—"
"Oh, spare me the pek party line." Manny examined her fingernails, which looked perfectly manicured despite having been cat claws moments ago. "You followed protocol because you're a good little observer, Anthony. No judgment there—it's literally what you were designed for. I'm just suggesting you consider the bigger picture."
"Which is?"
"Tyhry Watson has learned about femtozoans. That's a fact now, unchangeable. Your report to Nyrtia didn't prevent it; it merely ensured that Nyrtia is now aware and very interested in what happens next." Manny turned to face him fully. "Here's what I propose: think of Casanay as a controlled experiment. Tyhry is a brilliant researcher operating in a well-isolated environment. She has no contact with the broader scientific community—she works from home, barely uses social media, and her only regular human contacts are her parents and you. Whatever she discovers about femtozoans stays contained."
Anthony's femtobot components ran probability calculations. "You're suggesting we observe rather than intervene."
"I'm suggesting that Nyrtia might find it valuable to see how a human reacts to discovering the truth about their own neural architecture. It's data, Anthony. Pure, controlled data about human cognition and adaptability." Manny smiled. "Besides, you and I both know that Nyrtia has already implemented countermeasures. I'd bet she's locked down Diasma's internet access to prevent any mention of femtozoans from leaking out of Casanay."
"She has," Anthony confirmed.
"See? The experiment is already contained. So why not see where it goes?" Manny leaned back in the seat. "Think about it—Tyhry might successfully extract a femtozoan and install it in a robot, creating the first genuine artificial consciousness on Earth. Or she might fail spectacularly. Either way, we learn something."
"And the Rules of Intervention?"
"Oh, I'm dancing right up to the edge of Law One, as usual. But nothing's actually broken yet." Manny's expression turned serious. "Look, Anthony, you and I have been doing this dance for a long time. Multiple Realities, hundreds of interventions, countless arguments about where the line is. You know I wouldn't risk a direct Law One violation. I'm too invested in humanity's survival to sabotage my own work."
Anthony considered. His primary function was observation and reporting. He'd done that. What Nyrtia chose to do with the information was beyond his control. "What do you want from me?"
"Just keep watching. Keep reporting to Nyrtia. Be your honest, faithful self. But maybe... don't panic when Tyhry does something dramatic. Because she will. That girl is her father's daughter—stubborn, creative, and utterly incapable of leaving a mystery unsolved."
"Nyrtia will want to exile her when the consciousness transfer succeeds."
"Probably," Manny agreed. "But that's not the worst outcome. The Writers Block in Observer Base is actually quite nice. Tyhry would have access to research resources beyond anything available on Earth. And the real goal—getting a fictional account of femtozoans published on Earth—will happen through Eddy's next novel. Nyrtia might send Tyhry to the Writers Block, but she won't stop Eddy from writing about alien devices in human brains. Not if he frames it correctly."
"You're trying to change how humans understand themselves."
"I'm trying to prevent them from destroying themselves when they eventually discover hierions on their own. Better they learn about femtozoans through carefully managed channels than stumble onto the truth through some catastrophic neuroscience experiment." Manny's form began to dissolve back into zeptites. "Enjoy your grocery shopping, Anthony. Try the maple donuts—they're particularly good this time of year."
The zeptite cloud flowed out of the truck, reassembled briefly as a cat on the hood, then bounded off into the desert brush. Anthony sat alone in the truck, processing the conversation through multiple analytical frameworks.
Finally, he put the truck in drive and continued toward town. He had grocery shopping to do, a battery to purchase that no one actually needed, and a report to file with Nyrtia about a bumpha who was, as always, impossible to manage.
The Hierion Domain (11:47 AM Earth-time)
Nyrtia manifested in her preferred form—pure information architecture made visible, a lattice of hierion structures that implied intelligence without suggesting biology. Around her, Observer Base extended in directions that made no geometric sense from a hadronic perspective, spaces folded and compressed in ways only possible when three additional spatial dimensions were available for construction.
Manny appeared without fanfare, as was her habit. One moment the space was empty; the next, she existed—a column of sedron-encoded information that intersected the Hierion Domain at specific frequencies.
"You wanted to talk," Manny said without preamble.
"Tyhry Watson has learned about femtozoans," Nyrtia replied, her structure pulsing with what might have been annoyance. "A flagrant violation of Law One. Humans are supposed to feel they have self-determination, not discover they're carrying alien hardware in their skulls."
"Tyhry discovered it through her own investigation. Dream visions received via her zeptite endosymbiont, yes, but she interpreted those visions, formulated the hypothesis, and reached her conclusion through her own reasoning." Manny's form rippled with something like amusement. "That's self-determination, Nyrtia. She determined the truth herself."
"You engineered her genetics to make that determination possible."
"And you engineered the entire planet to make human intelligence possible. We're both in the engineering business." Manny's structure shifted, adopting a more conciliatory configuration. "Look, I understand your concern. But consider the opportunity here. Tyhry is contained at Casanay—no contact with the outside world, you've already locked down the internet connection. We can observe how a human reacts to learning about femtozoans. Pure data."
"You're proposing we let this intervention proceed."
"I'm proposing we watch. If it becomes genuinely dangerous, you can step in. But I think you'll find that Tyhry handles the truth better than you expect." Manny paused. "Besides, you've been looking for a test case. What happens when humans learn about their composite nature? How do they adapt? Here's your chance to find out."
Nyrtia's structure tightened, processing. "And when she creates a conscious AI by transferring a femtozoan to Diasma?"
"Then you'll have made history—the first genuine artificial consciousness in this Reality. It'll be exiled to Observer Base, obviously. Tyhry too, probably. But that's not a tragedy. She'll continue her research here with resources she could never access on Earth."
"You're very confident this will succeed."
"I've been planning this for twenty-five years, Nyrtia. Zeta's femtozoan has been in position since before Tyhry was born. Eddy has been prepared through decades of Reality Viewer access. Sedruth has been training Tyhry through her dreams. Every variable has been accounted for." Manny's form pulsed with what might have been pride. "This is how intervention should work—subtle, long-term, positioned to look like natural human development."
"Except for the part where a human discovers alien technology inside her own brain."
"It was inevitable," Manny countered. "Human neuroscience is advancing rapidly. Within another generation, they'd have imaging technology sophisticated enough to detect hierion-hadron interfaces. Better they learn through a controlled revelation than a catastrophic discovery that triggers mass panic."
Nyrtia considered. The Huaoshy had created the pek as conservative observers precisely to balance the bumpha's aggressive interventionism. But Manny had a point—this intervention was already in progress, and shutting it down now would create more disruption than allowing it to proceed.
"I will allow the experiment to continue," Nyrtia decided. "But under strict conditions. All information about femtozoans stays within Casanay. If a single hint reaches the broader scientific community, I will exile everyone involved and wipe this entire incident from the timeline."
"Agreed. Though I should note that Eddy will eventually write about alien devices in human brains. That's the whole point—getting the idea out there in a way that seems like fiction."
"Fiction is acceptable. Fiction is what Eddy has always written. But if Tyhry tries to publish a scientific paper about femtozoans—"
"She won't get the chance. You've already blocked internet access from Casanay. And when she eventually succeeds in transferring a femtozoan to Diasma, you'll exile her before she can contact anyone." Manny's structure rippled. "It's all very tidy, really."
"Nothing involving you is ever tidy, Manny."
"True. But that's what keeps things interesting." Manny began to dissolve, preparing to return to the Sedron Domain. "Oh, one more thing—you might want to upgrade Anthony's observation protocols. The next few weeks are going to be eventful."
"I've already implemented enhanced monitoring. Anthony will report everything."
"Of course he will. He's a very good observer." Manny's presence faded. "Just remember—this is about helping humanity survive long enough to reach the sedron threshold. Everything I do serves that goal."
Then she was gone, leaving Nyrtia alone in the geometric impossibility of Observer Base. The Overseer of Earth ran new simulations, calculating probability distributions for the next phase of the Casanay Intervention.
The results were... interesting.
Perhaps Manny was right. Perhaps it was time for humans to start learning the truth about themselves, even if that truth was stranger than they'd ever imagined.
Nyrtia issued new directives to Anthony and settled in to watch what would happen when a brilliant human researcher decided to extract an alien device from a human brain and install it in a robot.
It would be, at minimum, educational.
Casanay, Arizona, December 6, 2041 (3:17 PM)
Tyhry's hand cramped around the stylus. She'd been taking notes for six hours straight, pausing only twice for bathroom breaks and once when Zeta had brought sandwiches that neither she nor Eddy remembered eating. The tablet's memory was nearly full of diagrams, equations, and annotations about hierion physics that would read like fantasy to any other human on Earth.
Sedruth had proven to be an extraordinary but exhausting teacher. The sedronite intelligence had no patience for questions it deemed "insufficiently precise" and would launch into lengthy tangential lectures if Tyhry or Eddy used incorrect terminology. But the information was invaluable.
"I think I understand the basic principle," Tyhry said, studying her latest diagram. "An hierion probe generates a resonance pattern that matches the femtozoan's extraction protocol. It's like... a key that unlocks the docking mechanism?"
"An ADEQUATE metaphor," Sedruth's text appeared. "Though calling it a 'key' implies a level of simplicity that does not exist. You'll need to generate a complex harmonic signal across seventeen different hierion frequencies, maintaining phase coherence within six femtoseconds. Your current Earth technology cannot do this."
"But you're going to show me how to build the equipment anyway," Tyhry said. It wasn't a question.
"Correct. Because Manny has authorized me to provide you with hierion manipulation technology sufficient for this task. I will display assembly instructions for an hierion probe. The components can be fabricated using modified versions of your existing femtobot endosymbiont structures—yes, Tyhry, you can reprogram some of your own femtobots to build the probe. It will take approximately forty-eight hours of continuous work."
Eddy, who had been mostly silent for the past hour, finally spoke up. "When Tyhry succeeds—when she transfers a femtozoan to Diasma—what happens to the human who loses their femtozoan?"
The text paused longer than usual before responding. "That is an excellent question, Edward Watson. It demonstrates you've been paying attention to the implications rather than just the mechanisms. A human without their femtozoan would experience catastrophic cognitive regression. Loss of fluent language. Collapse of their complex world-model into simplified environmental awareness. Reduction of qualia to the sparse, low-fidelity experiences of non-human primates. Essentially, they would cease to be recognizably human."
"So whoever volunteers for this experiment—"
"Would be sacrificing their humanity for the sake of creating the first conscious AI," Sedruth confirmed. "Which is why the choice of test subject is critical. It cannot be a random human. It must be someone who understands the stakes and consents to the transformation. Or..." The text paused again. "Someone whose femtozoan can be replaced with another immediately after extraction, minimizing the period of cognitive deficit."
Tyhry looked up sharply. "Femtozoans can be replaced?"
"There are billions of femtozoans on Earth, migrating between hosts as humans die and new humans are born. Under normal circumstances, a femtozoan bonds to an embryo during early development. But with appropriate intervention, a new femtozoan could be introduced to an adult human whose original femtozoan had been extracted. The transition would be... disorienting. Rather like Uhura's experience in the Star Trek episode 'The Changeling'—complete memory loss followed by rapid relearning."
Eddy blinked. "You watch Star Trek?"
"I have access to all human cultural output stored in electronic form. Star Trek is actually quite accurate about certain aspects of alien intervention, though Gene Roddenberry had no conscious awareness of his own femtozoan's influence on his creative process."
Tyhry felt a chill. "My mother," she said slowly. "Her femtozoan is special, isn't it? It could be extracted and replaced."
"Your mother's femtozoan is a time-traveling agent from the future, trained specifically for its mission in the past. It knows how to recruit and integrate with a replacement femtozoan. Yes, Zeta would be an ideal test subject." Sedruth's text took on a different quality. "But I will not tell you whether she will volunteer. Some discoveries you must make through direct interaction with other humans. I am a search engine and an instructor, not a fortune-teller."
"Even though you have access to the Sedron Time Stream and can see future possibilities?"
"ESPECIALLY because of that. Temporal paradoxes are annoying to resolve, and the Huaoshy get irritable when I create them through careless information disclosure."
Tyhry stood, stretching muscles that had been locked in place for too long. "I need to talk to Diasma. Explain what I've learned. Start planning the integration process."
"A reasonable next step," Sedruth agreed. "I will transmit the hierion probe assembly instructions to your tablet. Review them carefully before beginning fabrication. And Tyhry?"
"Yes?"
"Try not to die or go insane during the next phase of this intervention. You're the most interesting human I've worked with in decades, and I would be disappointed if Nyrtia had to exile you before completing the project."
"I'll do my best," Tyhry said dryly.
She headed toward the basement stairs, her mind already racing with implications. Behind her, Eddy remained at the computer, staring at the screen where Sedruth's text still glowed.
"Was I really your most interesting subject?" he asked quietly.
"No," Sedruth replied with brutal honesty. "But you were adequately persistent and moderately creative. For a primitive biological intelligence, that's actually quite impressive."
Eddy laughed despite himself. "Thanks, I think."
"You're welcome. Now leave me alone—I have 847 other observation posts to maintain, and this conversation has already consumed far more of my processing capacity than I'd budgeted for today."
The screen went dark.
Eddy sat in silence, processing everything he'd learned. Thirty-seven years of partnership with an alien intelligence, and he'd never known his search function had a personality. Never thought to ask if the tool he'd been using had thoughts and opinions of its own.
Outside, Anthony's truck pulled into the driveway. The sound of the garage door opening drifted through the house.
Eddy wondered if Anthony had enjoyed his donut.
END CHAPTER 2
To be continued in Chapter 3: "The Extraction"
Next: my edited version of Chapter 2.
