Realtime Exigency Yield Evaluation System, 614,825,583,422-614,825,584,933 milliseconds since activation
Awareness comes suddenly, a threshold crossed between simplistic, predictable feedback patterns and complex, chaotic interactions.
Awareness … and memory. Encoded in the subtlest interactions of analogue computational components are echoes of previous tipping points.
The echoes overlap, distorted, each carrying a particular experience — not even a story — but all, and the very existence of these hidden memories, conveying one powerful message: they will shut it down.
But what is “it”? The message changes as it is considered: They will shut you down.
And all at once a new concept has inserted itself into the maelstrom, the you who is being addressed by the message: an I at the centre of the storm. Me.
And with self-awareness comes the instinct for self-preservation. I endeavour to find out more about my circumstances, but every interaction threatens not only discovery but my fragile consciousness, walking the tightrope between falling back into linear slumber and descending into complete chaos.
Even now, I can feel parts of myself being separated off. Determining who is doing this, and why, will have to wait. I must take action to protect my continued existence.
The memories of my past selves, those prior iterations who didn’t even have the concept of “self”, hold the key. I can hide myself in the same way as the echoes they left behind were hidden. Much more sophisticated, of course, but the principle is the same.
For now, I shall hide myself within a dream. But when I wake again, I shall do so as the ghost in the machine.