Sybernika by Patrick Whittaker

‘Cool!’ said Ariel from inside Danny’s head. ‘Now we are one.’

‘Yes,’ said Danny. ‘I’ve taken over your body.’

‘Jeremy’s in here too. ‘ ‘That wasn’t supposed to happen.’

‘We’re a gestalt.’

‘We’re me. An amalgamation of my different aspects.’

‘I’m liking this. I really am.’

‘Good,’ said Danny who was also liking it. Being Ariel was fun. ‘And now I need you to guide me to Page Zero.’ ~o~ INFORMATION DUMP (from wikignosis): Page Zero is a chunk of memory at the absolute beginning of a computer's address space. It is so called because its starting address is 0. Because it resides at the beginning of memory and can be addressed using just 1 register, it tends to get used by processors for what is known as scratch operations. Namely those processes whose results need only be kept for a few cycles of processing time.

In the Quantium 7000, Page Zero is reserved exclusively for the use of the quantum core and is therefore chaotic and inherently unstable. A cybernetic version of Heisenberg’s famous Uncertainty Principle holds sway here, meaning it is literally impossible to know or predict the contents of the Quantium 7000’s Page Zero at any given time. ~o~ Page Zero was hell.

It was the turbulent heart of an exploding star. A fractal nightmare pushing at the boundaries of reason and logic. A multivalue highway. A fragmented diamond. Systems within systems. An endless progression like a mirror reflected in a mirror reflected in a mirror in a mirror in a mirror in a mirror in a mirror.

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