Among the classified sections of the research centre there was a ghost in the machine. Not a sentient AI, that was quite a harder task than one might think and generally more problematic, this was a very human presence pervading a particular area. Namely sourced from one Aoife MacPheadair in the medical wing along a secure VR hardlink to the Sygaldry Forge. In a quarantine suspension tank she was linked by a neural harness to the VR system. Thus she was always watching mostly because she wasn't going anywhere soon.Nanotechnology's effort to cleanse her of an unusual parasite had just resulted in medical finding the parasite re-emerged some days later. This vexed both further especially as medical reported neuromuscular damage resumed. Thereafter the medical group poured through generated data to qualify the parasite's pathology and life cycle as a result. The nanotechnology center developed several new motor cortex implants to allow Aoife's brain to interface intent directly to VR without transmitting the seizures. Still prototypes with baseband chips built for hot-swapping under an active neural link there's numbers of research papers emitting from researchers in nearby departments mentioning Aoife as a 'voluntary company asset' rather than a test subject.As a new specie with infectious habits very particular to Cortex the parasite, currently called the black sygl for its transitory patterned marks on her skin, was a boon for the medical group. That they assess her such often irked Aoife but they treat her with respect as an active fellow rather than a patient. Their study got easier once they'd determined the parasite was not airborne though it necessitated different decontamination procedures. This eased Aoife's worries so while wanting out of her 'slime bottle' she's become quite aware that the neuromuscular damage the parasite has wrought may not be reversible.
There were two people working in the 'Cathedral' as some preferred to call it than the sygaldry forge. The walls and even the ceiling were workspaces of an AI managed by Aoife and her workspaces could be seen by the simple fact that all the labels were backward. The glyphs moved and compiled as someone worked on the wrong side of the stained glass. A particularly large group of deep folding searches were running, interface backward, when another tech looked about and spied the idled workspace."Aoife, could you come look at this?", he spoke to an interface with a statistical sygil drift report in front of him, "There's a self-similar leaf reference moving through a lot of patterns."
The interface flipped backward as a mind took control of the interface 'moving' the viewport to look at it from inside the machine. Separate windows open as Aoife pulls out a few of the marked leafs to discuss them more clearly. The eight leaf grid showed primary symmetry lines in blue, the leaf in question in green, and distorted leaves outside the snapshot in red. Backward text in a small tool window opened dimly beneath the display surface as a diaphanous white hand appeared to interact with it.Aoife's false 'hands' virtualized into the display moved in an inhuman pantomime. Viewing hardware attempted to reconcile a mind insisting the letters be typed with how fast it received typing intent. The blur made it very apparent the connection wasn't remoting into another physical space.Several Sygil patterns turned white to highlight them as the filter tool ran Aoife's selection instructions and the system rendered vocal intent, "Aye, what's these in then? I think some sort of reference manifold but they have different iteration copies of the same pattern."
Came the reply, "I'm not entirely sure where exact time index the folds come from. I was working on control hardware for armor layer motility and someone sent me deep core scans of weapons, sygil conduit in between, and the interface layer to analyze. I happened to see the similar pattern in my layer and the interface scan."
Interfaces scurried back and forth as Aoife's presence skittered around to her deep fold search. The backward progress window ceased as new parameters sent a new tool window referencing into his data. She wondered how many different types of this particular fold existed. She opened up a duplicate viewport so the tech could see what she was doing.As the distinct patterns poured into the AI's search efforts she signified sorting intent into the raw data window which contorted as her voice started the focused man, "I think you're onto something. There's only four distinct iterations at any one time in this manifold. I'm trying to get a snapshot of the average potential vector."
The man worked on his side of the tool teasing out folding paths and average potentials to trace down causal frames within the massive fractal that was the corpse flower project. Disassembling the project as individual sygaldry patterns just wasn't feasible anymore. They had to keep up with a running engine and follow a moving bit of signal as it poured through the calculating engine that perturbed its own sygaldry patterns. It took him a moment to realize the pattern was itself self-similar and cross-referenced Aoife's own fold-vector.His voice had the elongated shift of a focused mind while his hands flittered about the constellation of sygaldry patterns and statistical potential readouts, "Aoife, I think your manifold is referencing the same larger pattern that mine is. Do the other two have this pattern?"
Intent pushed through the vocal processor even carrying her enthused tone as similar flashes of backward statistical readouts flushed behind the looking glass, "Aye! You take sample 3, I'll take the last."
As they worked on a common space arranged by the AI a larger pattern emerged among an increasing number of matches among the deep search already running. The vector path took on a pattern of golden spirals nested like a four pointed caltrop.
Aoife wondered out loud, "What damn thing is this then? Is this some false signal with some damnable high p value? How did this pattern get missed folding in throughout nearly everything?"
The tech pointed out the obvious, "It's always everywhere and it's always only slightly different from every other copy everywhere. It probably got ignored as noise."
Aoife wrote a small bit of sygaldry to test the crux point's reaction. If it frothed at the mouth with the concept of language it was an interface point. Deep within the mirror the tech watched as sygaldry exploded through the interface, turned to static, then crashed utterly as it exceeded the small signal buffer allotted to her test.
The AI's flat voice intoned with a sharpness as if almost unwilling to speak, "Node (8d 93 8e 45) hosting user Aoife has crashed. User Aoife has Critical priority shunt active. Redundant node has preserved continuous data flow."
The noise vanished reappearing with Aoife's backward interface as well as her voice, "Ach Damn. Get a sygildryst. I think we found a crux point for some new interface. I got huge amount of feedback potential that blew the code window."
A image appeared in front of the tech as Aoife pushed an image out of her neural interface. The hands churned downward into oblivion as the view of some indistinct human in quarantine suit spread his arms above cortex inside some gigantic flaming eye.
