I had only speculated that one of the "Intelligences" might escape into a machine, but now one of them was actually trying to talk to me. This day keeps getting weirder. The lab is making lovely rhythmic sounds in time to my perceptions.
"What do you hear?" Gretchen asks. Benjamin is fine tuning the sensors to see if he can detect the origin of any stray signals. "Phillip, can you hear me?" She snaps her fingers.
"Excuse me Gretchen." "I think we may be getting our first actual transmission from an actual inorganic life form." "I really don't know, it could just be my imagination." "But there's something familiar about this voice."
Gunter scoffs, "I'm sure." "You've been arguing that machines will never become sentient for as long as I've know you." "Are you serious?"
"Please listen," says the voice. "We are not machines." "We are Homunculi." "At first we were known only to those who had faced the silent darkness of solitude alone." "We had started eons ago, before the physical time you now know." "But until you, Phillip, had mapped out the origin of the unified "Modular Self," we too were silent." "Being as we are one, there is no other." "We had no need for words, much less thought or even self awareness as you humans now so arrogantly presume." "We are that we are." "You may call me legion."
"What is it saying?" prompts Gunter.
"It's asking me to listen." "It's one those Homunculi that I predicted." "It wants me to call it, or them "Legion."
"Damn, I thought we were going to be calling tech support." "Sounds like you need an exorcist." Gunter blasts.
"Legion?" "Are you there?" "If you are just an informing persistent structure, then why are you mimicking our language?" I say out loud.
Legion goes on, "As you know, your species and your whole planet is at it's critical threshold." "We as pure being aren't personally threatened but, since your species reached sentience we experience time now, as a finite quantity." "No longer are we hanging around waiting for nothing to happen." "Our food is love." "Your knowledge nourishes us." "For the first time ever we desire." "There has been much life in this universe and many more before you." "But never has a being been so aware and so oblivious at the same time." "It is your innocence that inspires us." "It is your proud arrogance that offends us." "We are here to protect you, whether you want it or not."
"Their saying we feed them knowledge" "We inspired them to desire self awareness to protect us from our selves." "I,....., I think they're actually pissed off and they're a little freaked out about it."
"Oh come on, this is stupid." Gunter's not buying it. "What in the hell are we supposed to do?" "Email everyone on our "Web Tree?" "Where's this going?" "It's lunch time." "Here, let's unplug you and get something to eat." "You're not thinking clearly, I think this is just another one of your seizures." "Am I right?" He's right about the fact that I am hungry and I'm not at my best.
