Welcome to the story! If you don't know what you're looking at, you should try Act I first.

Post titles on the left.

Cloud.exe has been closed. Cloud.exe will still run in the background.

The last two years have been among the most intensive in my career. I have been under constant scrutiny and surveillance, examined by cameras hiding Genera operatives I may never know. I was assigned to one single project, the most demanding: AD A DGLGMUT.

They would never tell me what, exactly, the goal of this project is. But after a while, I began piecing it together in my head. I've been learning some very advanced coding languages on their request, compiling programs that learn from each other, even programs that learn from themselves. I spent the last several months learning engineering, building complex electric systems that all but run themselves. I am not building artificial life, that much is clear. What they ask me to do is, I suspect, far more sinister.

It all boils down to DESCARTES. That program has followed me all this time, infecting my code, yet the examination board does nothing. That's what tipped me off: DESCARTES is involved with this project. The higher-ups are happiest when I accidentally compile code that DESCARTES does not corrode but commandeers entirely.

I'm building a body for it. But why? What possible advantage could we gain?
In any case, I cannot complete the project until I figure out a way to connect the software to the hardware. There's the rub.

Cloud.exe is still running in the background. . . . .

Retrieving control.

Displaying transcript:



Cloud.exe has encountered a critical problem and needs to restart.

Cloud.exe has been closed. Cloud.exe will still run in the background.

My work has successfully overshadowed the rest of my life. I haven't gone home all week. Not once have I even picked up a book. I sleep when I collapse, and other than that I am huddled over my desk lit by lamp even when everyone else has left and the overhead lights are turned off.

Before one can criticize me, one must understand: Completing this project is far more than just building some vessel (the higher-ups may have their own agendas, but my motive is pure curiosity); this could pave the way for a deeper understanding of the mechanics of life. I recall fondly some college days long passed, a fascination I had with waxing rhetoric on what little separates me from the computer software I argued with out of frustration. Even in those days, I had a strong interest in the value of a life. Those days to me now are distractions, an eternal return for my mind in exhaustion. I can't help but picture my high school biology teacher. She had a pet dung beetle which she brought into class one day, much to the chagrin of some phobic students. Come to think of it, I seem to recall that I was one of these. I have no reason to doubt this other than that I was not aware of having any phobias. Funny, how the thoughts proceed. In any case, the mechanics of life: What made me different from computer software was my vessel, being my body. Without it, I would just be the coding of a brain, with no incentive to develop. I would be a program. It is my body that allows me to interact with the corporeal world, allowing complex input from the mitigating factors of existence to shape and mould my mind. A bodiless program such as DESCARTES is like the primordial Earthborn life, primitive and bound to the sea (or in this case, bound to technology's electric sea).

If I can complete its vessel, my hypothesis would be proven, and we would have an even deeper understanding of the world around us. And that's why we need Project AD A DGLGMUT. That's why I must work.

However, in taking the time to step away from my work for writing this blog post, the perspective has enlightened some other matters for me as well. Like Lilywhite Lilith. She has been keeping her distance but always watching. Her unmarred rhythmic sway and its synchronism with other higher-ups brings to mind the terrible experience I had with Gestas two years ago. She has also been asking many questions of me, often petty ones of my stability but sometimes telling inquiries regarding the project. She wants me not just to complete the vessel, but to produce a replicable method for building further vessels (as if my way is not repeatable). The rest of the examination board has gone silent and will no longer reply to my requests; I have to go directly through Lilith for supplies now.

I must be wary, guard must not be let down. But the research cannot be jeopardized. I must finish AD A DGLGMUT. For the dung beetle.

Cloud.exe has returned negative results. Please hang up and try again.

The vessel is almost complete.

I had one last interview with the examining board. They wanted to know what my plans were for my new job as a higher-up. I wanted to know how much freedom this status would grant me. The response was a curt "Six degrees."

Our interview was cut short when a clockwork man appeared in the doorway and looked at the board, prompting discomfort from all. I was ushered out, to return to my post and put on the finishing touches to the project-- I have done all of the hard work, and all that's left to do is connect the software's circuitry to the hardware's.

But every atom in my body is screaming of a mistake. I still know too little of this familiar territory. Gestas, who I am sure is Lilith, has to be planning something. Am I to be usurped and discarded once I've outworn my usefulness?

I took a walk before writing this post. Asked Lilith if I could be excused, said I wanted to give the project one last mental review, said I needed space. She refused to comply, insisted on following me. So I led her on a wild goose chase through the Genera's multitude of labs and corridors. You could say I gave her the slip. But the more I separated myself from her, the darker the surrounding environs became. I swear many of the doors I saw weren't there before. By all rationale, some of those corridors should have led out of the facility, but instead they promised even deeper laboratories.

That was when I started thinking about that response: "Six degrees." Six degrees of freedom will be granted to me once I accept the promotion. I suppose that's more than I could ask for, but still how frustrating it is to have broken new heights and ascended human science further than it has gone before only to have my will articulated in such brevity! For my own potential to be summarized in so few words, nothing could be more emasculating.

And yet, what if six degrees are all that I need? I've measured the fossil particle, I've seen the Tower, I've observed Shalott, I've had an interview with the fragmented death of our race, I've built a vessel of immortal life, and in doing each one, my total degrees of freedom have narrowed significantly. Six is frightening, but it can be enough to do what I need to do.

The powers that be have made themselves clear: I must finish AD A DGLGMUT. Whatever the greater truth is, it's our apocalypse versus theirs.

Cloud.exe is uninstalling itself. . . . .

My work is done. Project AD A DGLGMUT is complete. As soon as I connected the circuits, it whirred into life, humming and droning with metal and the PASSACAGLIA I used to hold it all together. This vessel was not inhabited by a DESCARTES as I had expected, but with an identity I had never met before. And that identity was about to use its synthetic body to crush me into pulp before Lilith stepped between us.

The last I saw of her was a flurry of her organic material merging into DGLGMUT.
This is no mere vessel. I've just created a brand new Fossil.

Cloud.exe is uninstalling itself. . . . .

As I ran out of my lab, electrics sparked and the power for the entire Genera short-circuited. FT-DGLGMUT had risen to its full standing height at a staggering thirteen feet, and it had used its reinforced steel limbs to force an exit big enough for itself.

In the grim dark of this subterranean facility, all I can hear is screaming and destruction. All I can see is the steady crackle of broken electric cables and the occasional flashlight held by a cowering colleague.

I must remain calm. Remember the SUNRISE PROTOCOLS. I installed this virus into DGLGMUT's body before I turned it on. It can be triggered with the push of a button. I just need to get the power back in my office.

Cloud.exe is uninstalling itself. . . . .

The trip to the breaker room that powers my office involved avoiding broken glass littering every room and assisting fellow researchers to their feet. Many of them require medical attention that I do not think they will receive. DGLGMUT thunders in the distance, sounds like it's heading deeper underground. In the interest of maintaining some level of discretion, I only reactivated the power in my own office.

On my way back, however, I opened the wrong door and caught a glimpse into a bottomless cathedral-like tower. On catwalks affixed to walls at regular intervals, humans toiled away in dedicated construction, opening panels, revealing bare circuitry, and then connecting the circuits into incisions on their arms. Each then turned and looked at me with vacant blue stares, and I shut the door without a thought.

After reaching my office, I found Doctor Walls standing over the SUNRISE PROTOCOLS button.

Cloud.exe is uninstalling itself. . . . .

Walls: It's this button, right?
Cloud: [nods]
Walls: Good. This project was never going to work in the first place. Something must be done.
Cloud: What was the point of the project?
Walls: It started as a backdoor deal. One of the HOMUNCULI subjects wanted us to find a way to give its god a voice.
Cloud: Its "god?"
Walls: The Tower. They wanted a way to help their Tower gain more power.
Cloud: That thing is HOMUNCULI's Tower encapsulated?! Did the higher-ups think we could just control it?
Walls: That was the reasoning. [laughs]
Cloud: Well, they've gone too far this time. Now finally their own creation is going to prove them wrong.
Walls: One step at a time. First, I should push this button.
Cloud: [reaches for Doctor Walls] Hold on.
Walls: What? Are you serious?
Cloud: Let's let DGLGMUT do what it needs to do. Then pull the plug.
Walls: No. [reaches for button]
Cloud: [grabs Doctor Walls's hand] This could be the only way of stopping them!
Walls: [while fighting] If the higher-ups can't control that thing, what makes you think you can?
Cloud: [while fighting] Because I created it.
Lilith: [entering office] That's enough.
Cloud: Lilith? You're alive!
Walls: Oh god no.
Cloud: What happened? Where's DGLGMUT?
Lilith: Heading this way as we speak. We need to get out of here.
Walls: We need to activate the SUNRISE PROTOCOLS. It's this button here, if you'd tell Doctor Cloud to stop being threateningly unreasonable.
Lilith: The SUNRISE PROTOCOLS won't work. Come, we need to leave.
Walls: What do you mean? Why won't they work?
Lilith: Doctor Cloud, [extends hand] come.
Walls: Lilith, why won't the protocols work?
Cloud: [takes her hand, looks into her watery blue eyes] It's so nice to see you. I thought you were dead.
Lilith: [stares back at him, gives an assuring smile] You can't kill a higher-up. The Genera won't allow it.
AD A DGLGMUT: [crashes into office] FOLLOW THE STRAIGHT LINE [grabs Doctor Walls, lifting him off the ground] BUILD THE TOWER [opens mouth of razor-sharp steel]
Walls: [screams]
Cloud: [still gazing into Lilith's eyes] Nothing makes me happier than knowing you're alive, my dear. It might just make it all worth it. I knew you couldn't be Gestas. I knew it deep down. He must have been a red herring, he and his Striga.
AD A DGLGMUT: FOLLOW THE STRAIGHT LINE [heads towards Doctor Cloud]
Cloud: Though that brings me to something I haven't been able to figure out.
Lilith: We don't really have time, doctor. We need to leave.
Cloud: [does not move] What about the Night

Cloud.exe has successfully been uninstalled.
System shut down.
Main screen turn off.