The beginning of the event

Adabeie and Manahem watched the horizon while Jonathan scanned the bandwidth for news.

A slow rumble filled the room, loose papers and glasses slowly skittering across table tops.

Adabeie looked at Manahem, a look of disbelief breaking through his skeptical blankness. The sound grew, like an industrial scratching, whining, a static thunderclap stretched to infinity, but as the pitch rose the room ceased to tremble.

Jonathan scrambled to to window, the holoscreen distorted completely behind them, broadcasting only static.

There seemed to be a blink on the horizon from the city's epicenter. For a moment, an expanding circumference of dust seemed to race towards them, stirring an approaching globe of haze which seemed to magnify itself with each passing breath.

An enormous clap reverberated through the room, and the wide bay windows of the lounge which faced the city blew out, an enormous rise in pressure throwing everything and everyone to the ground in a sea of shattered glass.

The roar of unequal pressures reestablishing equilibrium filled their deafened ears, and Manahem was the first to arise. At once he surveyed the distant city, and his empty expression drew the others' notice. Adabeie and Jonathan rose to stand beside Manahem, though none said anything.

A point like a globe, perhaps a mile across, seemed to hover like a shadow amid the city, peeking out between the buildings, which were still intact.

"What is it?" Jonathan murmured.

Adabeie said softly, "It is the dreaded possibility, come to be."

Jonathan asked, "You mean to say.."

Manahem nodded. "A singularity."

Jonathan said, "But it's not drawing in anything, so.."

"No," Adabeie said, "Not a material singularity. It's a gravity hole. It's like a black hole but for all applicable consideration, it doesn't actually exist. A black hole is there, dense, vast, perpetually collapsing.. a gravity hole is.. well, until a second ago, it was purely hypothetical. It seems the gravity well has given way."

The gravity well was an experimental project designed to produce unlimited energy, cleanly, steadily, with no byproduct whatsoever. Its concept relied on an artificial black hole, magnetically contained, as a seed force to be placed beneath a balanced grid which in turn would support a city's superstructure. The black hole would equalize the downward force of the city and generate power by maintaining the downward force and evenly distributing that force in a way that would be unmanageable by mechanical means.

"But the gravity well has conflicted with the black hole... the reverberations have reversed, and the hole will expand now unless it is contained.. it's as though the force of the black hole has been inverted, yet it remains constrained by the remnants of the gravity well, with which it is now mixed inextricably," said Adabeie.

Manahem leapt up and cried, "The vault! We could contain the singularity in the vault!"

Adabeie nodded. "That's an idea," he said. "What better to contain an infinitely expanding explosion than a nullspace which by its very definition has no bounds?"

Jonathan stared at the two quizzically. "Is that even possible?" he asked.

"There's no point in not trying to find out... even at a slowed rate of expansion we'd feel the force of it all sooner or later... I'd be surprised if anyone survived the influence of the blast within the city," Manahem said flatly. "I'll flush the lines and prep the dish."

Manahem left, and Jonathan's face fell. "My family was in the city.. they hadn't moved to the Outer Township yet."

Adabeie put his hand on Jonathan's shoulder. "There's no reason they wouldn't have made it, you know. The explosion isn't exactly conventional, and if we can attract the singularity to the vault there's no reason we can't suspend thigns for a few days to head on in to the city and see what's left."

Jonathan nodded, and they waited in the falling light of the evening for Manahem.

An old event remembered

"It should be a cult," Adabeie said, smiling and rocking his chair forward to rest his palms on the table before him. "It's the only way to make sure that no one can call us credible."

Manahem considered Adabeie for a moment before laughing. "It's brilliant, really," he said, "And furthermore we should explicitly deny any association with truth or fact or whatever else have you..."

Adabeie filled his glass with more port before offering the bottle to Manahem. "I suppose the others would probably agree, don't you think?"

"Well, the basis of your guess seems to be the overhwelming reason this little philosophy of yours has gotten to be as interesting as it is. So why stop now?"

Jonathan came to the door and looked over to the seated men, his face blank.

"Yes?" Adabeie inquired.

"Something's happened. You should come and see for yourself."

Adabeie looked at Manahem before rising, his face tense with anxiety. "Let's hope it doesn't have anything to do with the core."

...............................................................................

The three of them entered the lounge.

"The problem's here?" asked Adabeie. "I thought we would end up in the lab."

"Nothing's wrong with the core, if that's what you mean," said Jonathan. "Although this might be worse." He pointed to the holoscreen and then out towards the horizon where the greater superstructure of Las Taoste lay. Adabeie could see smoke arising from the geometric monolith, smoke sufficiently thick to be clear from this distance.

"According to the news, there's a problem with the nullspace projects," Jonathan said.

Adabeie frowned. "I wasn't aware that those projects were made public."

"It was deemed in the public interest, but only recently. What they're saying indicates that there's been a slow meltdown for some time."

Manahem asked, "Isn't this something we would have known about even if they chose to keep it from us? Wouldn't we experience some blackout, some power drain, something?"

Jonathan shook his head. "It's not like that. We'd experience something in the lab if there was some issue with the feedback mechanism, but what seems to be happening... has nothing to do with that."

Adabeie looked to Manahem. "It could only be..." Adabeie stopped.

"No," he whispered.

Eie explained further

"We recognized a need for a stable system in the world.. one which would not be subject to objections of truth or fact, one which did not suffer from the vagaries of 'universal' application and 'ultimate' origin...

So we took the Fictional path and admitted the Triviality of it all, and forged a form which we named 'Arbitrary,' a clever form which was useful, having been grounded in image, in language, in written diagrammatical dialectic.. it was a form which was Oneself and Other, commingled to actuate a single Linear Cycle which was both those things once called East and West.

I am all, all, I am: Eieamwho, Whoameie.

We partook of the greatest blasphemy of the ignorant world and declared ourselves fledgling gods, and we no longer feared the Judgment, knowing ourselves to be Judges. We no longer feared Damnation, having been freed; having been freed, we no longer clamored for Redemption.

Our statement is our question: Who am I? I who am! Am I who I am? Am I? I am!

Eie, merged with the first singular Person, I: This is our golden key, our Philosophical Body examined."

- From the writings of Ad af'Adabeie

A first encounter

The hollow, skittering squeaks of metal on slate tile filled the long, cold corridor. I peered around the corner to see two boys hunched over, chipping at scraping the tiles and grout, aimlessly engaged in their task. One of them looked ruefully upwards and saw me, saying, "Hello, teacher," and giving a slight nod before continuing at what was a common punishment for misbehavior.

They seemed to make little progress. and at the angle they were working it must have been impossible to actually remove the gum and grit that they were supposed to.. but their aim was to work as slowly as possible and thus miss as much class as possible while accomplishing as little as possible.

I walked over, and leaned down, motioning to hand me on of their thin, warped chisels. I said, "You've got to make like you're prying it up, go in like this," showing them a different way which effortlessly lifted a grey mass of filth from the floor tile. They hummed in mumbled agreement as I handed the chisel back to them, leaving them to wonder why I should know how to clean the gum from floor tiles. It should be beneath a teacher to know such things.

I stood and walked off as they said, "See you again," and got back to scraping the tiles.

I have been here for about three weeks, having been recruited from an intermittent assistantship to a full-time assistantship aiding teachers and office staff at the main community college in the Outer City, the one place where one might have a last chance to gain entry to the Inner City. My tasks are simple, mainly clerical, and occasionally I fill in for one of the instructors, as I have discovered that there are certain subjects in common with the education one might receive in the outer township.. Primarily this similarity is related to subjects like philosophy, literature, and music.. the sciences of the Outer Township which are presently delineated into two schools, that of the Void and that of the Eie, are, or would be regarded with suspicion here, as cults of any kind are unlawful. Some churches of the archaic persuasions remain, temples and mosques here and there as well, but they are largely cultural gatherings with no spiritual identity.. they were too easily regarded as cancerous at the City's inception, and so were stripped of anything which might differentiate one from another.. texts were re-edited, and now one may attend the fundamentalist orthodox Our Lady of Eternal Sorrow on Third and Euclid and hear the same message as the evangelical microchurches which are often held in the basements of individual residences. (Though evangelism is no longer practiced, nor would it be permitted if anyone bothered to express such a vocation anymore.)

But a crucial difference in that one bron in the desert learns from birth.. natural birth is no longer practiced in the city, but has long since been replaced with labnaisence, or conception and cultivation from gamete-lines constructed and stored in for-profit retailers scattered about town. People who are born and raised in Autopia are naturally sterile, and therefore the population is very much a controlled genetic experiment, not in crossbreeding but in metagenetic actuation, the way in which phenotypes interact with the physical environment.

When one dies in this city, the body is reclaimed by the labnaiscent techs, and evaluated by comparing the initial genetic structure of the pre-conceived organism and the resulting individual body, complete with social history and epigenetic markers which indicate how one's behavior implemented or ignored certain genetic traits or predispositions.

None of the Outer Autopians know this, however, though this is common knowledge in the Inner City.

Eie

Eie is our greatest resource, the golden key given to us by he of my same name who helped to found the desert community of the Outer Township nearly two hundred years ago.

Having realized that there was no internal coherence to any human truth; that no religion or philosophical system would bear greater fruit than any other, and that any given system of sufficient power, be it metaphorical or mathematical, would yield similar results in the view of ultimacy; that no single system of thought was any more prior or necessary than any other: these reasons and realizations compelled Ad af'Adabeie to resolve the Arbitrary Philosophy.

His system revolved around oneself; that there was nothing but Self, and that there was no limit or delineation of Selfhood: infinite extent, infinite intent. Adabeie was compelled to resolve that further there was no inherence of this Selfhood, nor that this Selfhood was necessary or fundamental: it was merely useful, a fiction, a figment of the eternal imagination wherein possibility coalesces with experience and thus forms the first filaments of the future, along which we are drawn, filaments which have no necessary end or association, filaments which may disperse as we traverse them or which may remain constant.

His view was purposefully Western in its intent but decidedly Eastern in its awareness. He felt that current systems of his time could not be reformed, and that none could be saved; that indeed there was not only no reason for salvation either by religion or by realization, only freedom from delusion but recognizing delusion and making use of it as one recognizes skills upon learning a new instrument, or partaking in a new activity. There was no coherent Self to worry about: no damnation, no redemption. Only freedom in the emptiness of That Which Is Arbitrary.

Adabeie then set out to develop his freedom, and at this time he was employed in a physics laboratory embedded into what we now call the Autopian Range. He and others regularly experimented with high-energy fields and particles, and as such his realization regarding the arbitrary nature of the abstract world (this of course was only made possible by the much ignored Catastrophe of Von Neumann centuries earlier) found a fertile field in which to develop, through wandering arguments and conversations.

At this time the lab began to operate independently, as the Ismist government, recently elected and compelled to suspend all secular studies withdrew funding and advocated a full-shutdown of the lab's properties. This was a time of great upheaval for the City which came to be Autopia, for its mass was such that it could not sustain itself. It was so vast that it would neither feed itself nor expel its own waste sufficiently.. it was analogous to a cell which has become bloated and sickly, restrained by an inability to innovate and evolve.

Autopia clearly survived, mainly by differentiating, whereby a ruthless sieving of the populace was held, those who were suitable, both in interest and ability, to the new goals of what is now called the Inner City, and those who resisted or were unable to envision or stomach the new ideals were left in the Outer City.. those of the latter category had in many ways a greater freedom, but freedom without structure (and the two need not conflict) is aimlessness, and it was the utter extend of possible lives which left the Outer City adrift.

The purpose of those living in the Inner City was unknown to the outer half as the two began to associate less and less, neighbors though they were.

All the while, the laboratory in the desert was forgotten, and by the time the cataclysm happened, Autopia had a rudimentary Cradle, and was thus mostly spared by that horrendous belching of the earth's bowels which toppled entire continental shelves and vacuumed away entire seas into vast caverns underground.

The deserters, as they now called themselves, had sheared away from any pretense of identity; among them were enlightened Christians, Mohists, Taoists, and others; none were observant of these divisions, nor had any who bothered to call themselves this or that had done so out of that obligation to familial inheritance, but rather out of exploration and curiosity. It seemed no mistake then that they, detached as they were from ideas of the past and now from any duty to serve the City which had set them loose, should explore a new, hilariously untruthful philosophy fostered by the very members of their community.. they were ripe for the Eie.

..........................................................................................................................................................................

We say that the Eie begins where you are, and to find out where you are, you must begin by choosing to stand on the spot where you are and circumnavigate that point.

Are you further from your foot than you are from your hand?

If one standing across the room can see you, it is not because some part of you extends to them, thus connecting you? One might say, "My Self reflects light," but we might say, "Nothing is reflected, nothing reflects."

Thus the distinction that you draw, arm extended and finger pointing outwards, slowly turning, is not one which severs you from the world around you but rather binds you to it, a seed of recognition. The Eie is not so much defined as it is experienced.

We say that as far as abstract truths are concerned, all is fiction: as soon as the mind moves, one has already lied; it is for this reason that lies are not crime in our philosophy, as lies are essential to communication.. it is rather good faith that we adhere to, not truth. It is also for this reason that the more advanced esoterics of the Greater school and the major prophets do not deign to speak.. they have more to say than words allow.

This is likewise the reason for our calligraphic script and our meandering intonations, which do not make use of grammar as typically conceived. There is nothing prescriptive about who we are or what we are doing, or how what we are doing should be done.

Abadie therefore made use of the notion of the Philosophical Body, or rather, That Which Eie Examines.. it is the subject of the inquiry, and the Eie is what dissects the Philosophical Body.

All of this is Arbitrary, and insomuch as it is Arbitrary it is also Consistent. But this consistency adheres to not outer or inner law, no necessity, no expectation.

It is our New Science.

It is the source of our technology and our power.. it is how we encountered Void.

mr Soual, again

Anthea Soual wears a classical outfit, one which seems to be uncommon among the inhabitants of the Inner City. He wears a tailored vest, single-breasted, six buttons, matched to the rest of his suit which when I saw him was of the old continental style, double vent, his lapels peaked, every line in the brown pattern matching immaculately at every seam, his shirt beneath without a single rumple, collar perfectly symmetrical in a rich white cream contrasting the dark, sanguine purple and green striped tie. The effect was stunning, both by the very combination of such arresting elements; but also in that it set him clearly apart from his cohorts, they, clean and conservative, a dull background, and duly ignored (as was intended, not that anyone took care to note such things as intentions anymore).

His face is long, equine, but its proportions are such that they seem to be derived from abstract aesthetics: his appearance is at once uncontrived and yet unreal as though fashioned from a dream of something shocking when encountered in the mind only to be seen the very same day as imagined, and to find such that very same appearance ordinary and almost mundane (and therefore subtly unsettling). His hair is likewise fashionably styled, like a duck's ass, unmoving as he speaks.. his aristocratic air is then punctuated but not betrayed by his youth, which is indeterminate but definite, and while authoritative in his classicism the fact that he is presented strikingly is cause for consideration. This effect, of course, leave those whose company he keeps, unconsidered, and wholly unnoticed.

He appears like a picture, and is never shown in motion.. his speeches are articulate but unfeeling, his gaze slow and sweeping, his manner and direction of presentation glacial but fearsomely inevitable: if his eyes have not yet arrived at you they will, and though they may have passed, too surely will they return.

And though the teleosperes within Outer Autopia are attenuated to character instead of appearance, there is no reading of mr Soual's intent: it is as though he is an empty statue, speaking but unthinking, directed but unintending.

Quite the figurehead.

Outing

To go out into this City, one must be comfortable and invisible. My tattoos must not show, as the few who recognize these symbols would be quick to ascertain the incongruity of my presence. This is easy to do: the City is cold, windy, damp. A crewneck sweater, hems unwinding stitch by stitch, over a long sleeved shirt, dark colors, not rich. Perhaps light grey, in order to show stains. Pockets will be necessary on the pants, and everything, from shoes to cap, must fit very well - the most basic requirement of this outfit is to be able to break into a sustained run at any time without leaving any trace, anything from which dna or other traces might be collected.

So it is in this uniform that I leave the house, lacing up well-worn black shoes, which show rings of salt from the City's many polluted rivulets which trickle through the streets, pulling a loosely woven cap over the hair which I have been growing out for some time.. the general attention to hygiene in this City is not what it is in the desert, though we all are perhaps more fastidious than the others in the presence of our community. With me I have technology so old I have had to spend days reacquainting myself with it: a folding computer, with individual keys assigned to letters, and a rollscreen. I have outfitted a more modern transmission device, so as to be able to reach the relay towers and therefore to commit my communications to the archives in the desert.. I cannot rely upon more contingent systems, as they may easily become corrupted should interest focus on my person or should something as simple as inclement weather render them unreliable.

Additionally I am taking with me, and hope to keep with me generally, supplies to ensure strength and health if deprived of home: nutrient bars, a small supply of compressed hydrogenate, a toothbrush but no razor. I have already become, at first glance, completely unrecognizable as one of the prophetics. But to let anyone see my body would ruin the illusion, even if they did not understand the meaning of the tattooed symbols: no one in the City bears tattoos, as conditions render proper sterilization impossible. For this reason as well there are no doctors, or what doctors there are to be found are those who would practice, either out of necessity and moral obligation or from unsolicited malice, out of the dankest cesspool.

Here I go - it will be some time before I see my cubicle again, as students (I am still registering, even as a cover for my increased forays into the nullfilms) are expected to commit at least eighteen hours of each day to either study or service to others. It is my hope that I can secure some form of income, as the supply so generously granted to me by those in the desert who had so long ago fled is becoming spare. Additionally, too much use of such old bills indicates that one has been in some sort of isolation, which here is quite suspicious: just as we patrol the Outer Township for soldiers of the City they keep careful watch against outsiders in general, though residents of the Outer Township are not suspected in particular.

Eie Whoam, Am Whoeie? Ameie, Eieam!

Adabeie