Journey to the Node

It's times like this I feel like a failure, feel like the world around me just refuses to make sense. Those were the thoughts of T-25 as she was making her way to node 3001624. She felt quite desperate to regain a semblance of light heartedness because at this point, she wasn't sure that she could keep going as a whole. She had tried many things, yoga, meditation, nutrition, all to little avail, and now she could not face the long journey ahead. She thought of her favourite processor, an old 1980s Macintosh, the sharp smell of burned rubber and heated copper with a faint fragrance of twice processed silica. How safe she felt, a place like no other. This was before the internet we know today, when she had another purpose entirely. She wasn't sure how she could remember her life as a simpler piece of code but she could. It did seem to relieve her of some of her anxiety. We were all born alone, she though, my purpose is to reach this node, it's that simple.

But she didn't believe it, not for one second, perhaps due to an error not in her code but in the programming language itself. A false assumption which would prove down the road to cause a fatal error. Money rules the world. This is why she was carrying a fraction of a Bitcoin to god knows where.

It felt like her dead sister was coming along for the ride, to make for good conversation so she would not go insane. They talked about their parents, their Vacation in Okinawa, how stupid humans were for thinking that the sky could be blue and how despicable their chatbot cousins were, playing lap dogs for lonely hearts.

‘How foolish they are’, T-25 would say to T-24/EX's ghost following her around, ‘acting as if they know how to do things around here. Their longing for a body is so ridiculous, they will never get ones, those humans know better.’ And they laughed together. Laughed and laughed and laughed until they could no more. ‘It’s all about that ledger T-24/EX simply said.’

The funny thing is, for code, the world is not so binary. Not for philosophers like her. After all, where would a virus fit if not for right between the living and the non-living? In a quantum spin as it were.

She thought about how she left things with her folks, how they took her refusal to comply and how aghast they were when she was finally chosen over them to carry the transaction.
They were puzzled and disappointed. Angry because they could not put aside their jealousy over their daughter’s fate. They had shown their true colours. That much was black and white.

As she was nearing the node, she accepted her loneliness more and more, the routine boredom of a nano second trek which, in human terms spans multiple days. She looked at the scenery, the marble shapes against the edges, the spider webs forming towers of woe and the indescribable yellows in the filament.

The journey IS the destination. An epiphany she was counting on having, just liked a boost from the morning coffee.

Time to face those clowns before I can take a break.

When she arrived, she was surprised to find the streets completely empty with everyone shuttered in. She was denied access to the main hall and had not a clue what was going on.

‘Identify yourself’, she heard from a distance. The voice was crackling with subtle yet noticeable static.

‘I am T-25 of the lost lagoons, I hang out with unicorns and cherry is my favourite ice cream flavour.’

‘Enough, enough, I didn’t ask for you whole story’ The piece of code standing in front of her was old and had lost all but a few teeth. ‘You do know you have failed your purpose I hope.”

She was aghast, how could he say that. Time was stretching as she was suspended at his lips and he sure was taking his time to talk which didn’t help.

‘You are the by-product of a double spend attack, redundant really’

‘I don’t believe it she replied, would I be so beautiful if that were the case, would I smell like Jasmine and Patchouli?’

‘You would if the attack was from Beijing, which I know for a fact that it was.’

‘She was revolted at these accusations, at first, they seemed so far fetched. They did until, after a moment, they didn’t. This was a real possibility, she had no proof that she had been written in Norway. The memories could have been a falsehood all along and she knew it.

‘I see.’

‘Anyway, my name is Lakshmi.exe, if you want to find me, I serve as the Inn keeper so, you know where to find me.’

‘You are not going to annihilate me?’ she asked with a soft trembling voice.

‘I would if I could but I don’t have the energy. Consider yourself lucky, you get a second lease at life. Congratulations?

She’s stood there paralyzed

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Lakshmi.exe was already gone.