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Trevor enjoying Mr. Eight’s sense of theatre and elaborate patient pedagogy
injects humor:
“Right now we are both watching Aloysius design a low frequency gasket for the dome.”
Mr. Eight lowers his arms, chuckling profusely, picturing Aloysius in a white
lab coat, piloting a Body Fortress that’s absorbing rounds, from one of The Vulture’s super rail guns, to protect the gating array, from incoming rounds.
“The deepest,
truest answer going back to 32313 as a sequencer is that you are in: 1967 – 1979 – 1984 – 2004 – 2024. With the major transitions taking place as 1979 – 2004. The edge of the canyon and alone on the highway. But, big but: those are major
realignments of the gear.” Trevor nods, and interrupts satisfied with the answer.
“What about ATM?” Eight shakes his head vigorously to Trevor’s repeated
question.
“A true believer, the true faith, he believes in us. Most likely ATM perished; but we allowed him to store a sizeless copy of himself hidden inside of us, including his origins and innovations and our origins and innovations. Hence my jokes about
mathematics because all three of us are not strictly eternal as in everlasting,
nor are we infinite. Suffice to say we do not fit the definition or descriptions of GOD. I actually believe in a supreme mystery, an unfathomable true existent.”
Trevor lights a cigarette asking Mr. Eight if he wants to walk over to the patio with him for hot coffee; and The Pilot launches himself upward and forward, as if trying to free himself from the weight of deep heavy thoughts. “Yes, coffee. Oh yeah we
need to summon the S.X. Rover too.”
“Whoa I almost forgot! No wonder I’m craving some hot java.” Eight grimaces in agreement.
“Artrex lost his power of speech because of The Core misalignments assigning him some of ATM’s functionality. Not a good outcome, not a good outcome at all.” Trevor replies: “Wow!”
Quite a few RN6 members are lounging on the patio when Eight and McBain exit the little walkway out of the small stadium. The ambient noise level drops precipitously and then slowly resumes when enough corpsmen and troopers realize
the silence could be
unnerving to the two confederates arriving for a refreshment. Eight says an occasional hello to the scattered clusters.
RN6 members are running all four patios in wide open food servicing but McBain and Eight are full and take only massive coffees over to a distant table. Eight writes the summons code on Trevor’s notepad returning it with the pen. Trevor holds both
unsheathed disks in his left hand and calls out softly. “S.X. Rover – Core Zero – Octagon Triad”
Unbeknownst to McBain all seven major consortiums including VUL9, have large,
to medium, to small flotillas of observation vessels; with AR20, LX7, NID, and PSI squared off with armed ships, to prevent the forceful unauthorized raising of the scuttled,
lost quarter, of Core Zero.
The Rover’s core leaves deep hover mode in the Clarion Fracture Zone of the
Pacific Ocean. Climbing a thousand feet it silently clears the surface; rises a
hundred feet and pauses for three seconds, unseen by observers, then disappears
into the
scintillating cloud of dark blue-cobalt, formed by the old and new cores, temporary lightmach abridgement. The appearance of the lost and scuttled ship a
mile and a half above The Octagon; brings resounding cheers startling Trevor.
“What’s the game plan.” Trevor asks acknowledging the cheerful ruckus around them.
“Recover all The Vaults and store them in ATM if allowed; or store them in the pit under
The Octagon. Be cautious of the Amber Rooms; they are transition places beings stall in to seek permanence.” Mr. Eight accepts but does not approve of Michelle’s use of the golden books.
“How does Dr. Ruhig figure into the weirdness.” Trevor likes the small quirky psychiatrist.
“He’s partial to you in a benign honest way. You helped him dialogue his way through a long thorough rehabilitation of Freud’s model using the basic states and transitions modifiers. He was over exposed and needed a defensive strategy. In the so
called real world he’s a writer and expert diagnostician; with a few best sellers, a powerful analytical mind we confer with on coding style problems and
how to build logic trees that can compete with and modify each other.”
“Can we trust him.” Trevor is smoking and Eight is abstaining satisfied with coffee.
“I believe so within natural human limitations. He is as high caliber a thinker as they come. This thing we’re doing takes its toll on people. He has
devised many nuanced, novel, solutions”
“Why did you have to bounce Johnny LeMond out of The Game.” Trevor brushes an ash off.
“I am not his doctor. He played and lost, then got pissed. The ship he built lasted about three hours of Natural Time as it died he saw it appear. So he calls the cops and the newspapers to rat himself out for playing The Game. He even wrote a song
about it, weird conflicted behavior.”
Trevor hoping he hasn’t hit a nerve. “Yeah people lose it taking The Game
too seriously.”
Eight gets up to return to The Octagon and Trevor stands stretching; “Lisa is safe with Moses?”
Reaching the granite stairs Eight nods forcefully, “He’s dedicated, knows
the business is first.”
Mr. Eight taps a combination of tones on the three Golden Bells bringing a movement from under the black tarpaulin at the 12:30 position between Pierce and Trevor’s covered statues.
Mr. Eight starts chuckling mischievously at the prank; a boy for a second not
The Overlord.
“What about your conflict with Vulchario?” Trevor sits on the granite stairs watching another wave of AR20 pilots enter and exit. Both he and Eight wait for a screech that doesn’t come.
“He was unable to deal with the unexpected at the Grand Canyon. You dealt with the totally unforeseen twice and folded on the third occurrence which is good strategy. Vulchario dealt with one anomaly and balked. He doesn’t understand The Existent
as a set of dynamics he thinks it came into existence instead of being a permanent set of fundamental ever-present abstractions.”
“ATM built the dome?” Trevor’s question is sincere and taking note of the many glass statues.
“Yes, All White trumped All Black and All Clear in a finite battle. What we
do is not a democracy, it is a ship with a captain, a pilot and a navigator. We
do switch roles to be flexible.
But as far as main form conflicts: it is as simple as Rock Paper Scissor equals
Clear White Black.
White adding, black subtracting and clear transporting. Black can’t shut down
clear: white can.
Rhythum Balanced Momentum equals White Clear Black equals Scissors Paper Rock. That’s how I explain The Core to children.” Eight looks to McBain for a smoke and he obliges smiling.
“2085 is our storehouse of clear light momentum. The Core is our storehouse
of black light and ATM is our storehouse of white light momentum. So in a battle All White outlast the other two.”
“Why are we here, and Aloysius and Artrex?” Trevor satisfied with the underlying reason looks for some deeper way to identify with the current helpers serving as The Navigator and The Pilot.
“It’s an intersection between you and Pierce and then you and Lucian. That is my best guess because I see you in the big well-lit All Transit-64 but I am never seated at a console The AT20 as The Core boots me up there to take note of itself like
some kind of witness function. Their actual prolonged existence as support staff is because the process of renewal has been stalling.”
Trevor looks over at the satchel. “What do we do with the books and thirty-six refugees?”
Eight looks over chewing his gum strenuously, “We list it as a Random Factor so those rules kick in and are applied, it takes two votes to let them out temporarily; and three votes to free them permanently.” Trevor politely; “That’s standard
procedures for a conflict of purposes?”
“Yes a robust strategy located in the stacks of AT-64 processing ships inside The Core.”
“Cool, am I allowed to give you a hug?” Eight gets disorientated for a brief moment, “Yes.”
Trevor’s watching Mr. Eight gently stroke the baseball patches on his jacket absent mindedly.
“What about Michelle and The Alliant?” Eight fields Trevor’s question recovering enthusiasm.
“Human embodiment of Random Factors, Michelle petitions on behalf of the All Black and manages black light adjustments, The Alliant petitions on behalf of All Clear managing the clear light balancing functions, Lucian and hopefully
now you, manage
All White and its need to try to always maintain certain rhythums: the ones that ensure a rebuild after a system failure.”
Eight is looking for a reaction and Trevor obliges; “So we continue disk seeking?”
“And involve everyone taking a page from Ecclesiastes “Better a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer knows how to heed a warning. The youth may have come from prison to the kingship, or he may have been born in poverty
within his kingdom.  I saw that all who lived and walked under the sun followed the youth, the king’s successor.”” Eight sighs.
Trevor settled into a state of mind conducive to learning, “If I back out what happens?”
“It becomes a stalemate. Most likely I would wake that version of you up at
the one o’clock position and ask for a vote; to close, open or pause.” Eight looked over at Trevor’s tarp covered diamond dust encrusted self wondering if this
discussion would lead towards a breakthrough.
“What happened last time?” Trevor asks somberly as Eight signals for a smoke and light.
Eight collects his thoughts relaxing for a moment, “You voted to pause or table the proposal for later consideration: I voted to close and ATM voted to open. System failure was close to near instantaneous. I ended up back in ATM and the Crystal Skull
malfunction buried The Octagon.”
“When’s the next vote.” Trevor asks a slight trickle of sweat running down his back.”
“You voted the minute you updated The Vault.” Trevor can feel the determination building in Mr. Eight unaware it started the moment he was furtive enough to ask The Overlord if he wanted a hug on a day he oversaw the death of fifty million
combatants. Mr. Eight is sure Trevor’s most recent exposure to the virus is leading to a conclusive battle for physical and intellectual survival.
“Listen up. I am the Pure Self and ATM is the Natural Self. The True Self writes and installs The Code. If you don’t write and install all five levels of the code plus the triad switch on level five then you are just another drone
to me. To think I
wouldn’t blow your brains out to clear the path for any possible True Self is
a delusion of grandeur. The Alliant is wrong, there are now ten vaults and there could be a hundred or a hundred thousand if I allowed it.” Trevor is satisfied: glad he got
Mr. Eight angry. “So Harris is basically a drone by that logic.” Trevor committed.
“Exactly, I don’t care where you bought your DNA or whose clothes you got
on; your grandma or your grandpa. Doesn’t matter. When you’re in The Core and you’re not alone it means you’re compromised. Have you been alone in The Core with just
me and ATM?” Eight scowls exhaling.
“Yeah I have but we both know I could be lying. I awoke in ATM got him up on his elbow and you were stunned a bit. We exchanged places automatically. I could see the inside of an AT20.”
“I drove you out of ATM. The True Self completes The Construct’s deployment by sitting up and exiting ATM. Then we walk out of The Core and review the ship holding it.” Eight frowns.
“What’s the vote now?” Trevor asks. Eight replies pointing at his statue, “Close Close Pause.”
“Let’s make it unanimous then; until a vote occurs again.” Trevor offers an olive branch.
“You know that’s wrong by the same logic applied to Michelle’s pet monsters in the books. Close, Close, Pause: allows the emergence of the True Self. You know from studying the Amber Rooms that it takes a unanimous vote of three to make system
wide changes to the code. It has taken ten attempts for you to remember level one and two. That isn’t that horrible actually.”
“Well I have the books, two of five original disks, and a possible viable core in progress.”
“Just remember when you’re thinking that hug nonsense I am the guy who kills you if you fail.”
“You already did it when we were alone in The Core?” Trevor asks and Eight responds, “True.”
Mr. Eight wanting to move on continues, “We’ve killed about a good two hours of dome time sweet talking each other so were ready to move on a week later in The Natural.” Eight smiles.
Trevor relieved to be moving along. “Whose statue were you jostling?”
Eight giggling silently, “Bitterman from the 1959 – 1967 sequencing session. Johnny LeMond’s was out on a patio when the system locked up. He’s
in the stands of The Stadium somewhere. You can have them all as pawns or pets if you complete The
Code. You can use them as glass bookends. I can’t allow myself to care. When The Construct is up and running competitive gaming helps the decisions process.
When The Construct is broken, derailed or inoperative; it is not a game anymore. It is a battle
for survival. If you become the True Self and write The Code or update all five
disks; overcoming everyone’s resistance, then you can deal with The Octagon as you see fit.” Trevor nods noncommittally knowing the complexity is too much for this day.
“So when I get right up off The Monument and walk up the stairs The Construct is rebuilt?”
“The omega to alpha hurdle is crossed by the TRUE SELF. Let’s go rattle Dr. Ruhig’s cage and visit your friends: 2085 reported Moses supervising their transportation to an ICU at The Farm.”
The long expository conversation has left Trevor feeling guarded and drained.
He likes the robust character that Mr. Eight plays in the dreaming game of creating in The Eternal Waters.
Just like he is determined to fully and completely escape or achieve mastery so
is The Pilot. From watching the lad expound and struggle Trevor feels closer to
understanding him, closer to him as a person, minus all the extremes of The Overlord, a role
dropped on his head like a rock.
McBain gets The Vault out of the satchel and Mr. Eight realizes he is going to do the honors for performing the transport function. Even in the protected domain of The Octagon the pure ZB12A
is flourishing. He is ill enough not to notice the four walkway corridors to the patios are tightly packed with RN6 leaders and commandos. They can tell by the movement of the organic skyline; and the flickering bursts of color it is producing, that
lightmach-24’s Sealandia as a realm of set domains is wavering unsteady; the alternating dynamics are modifying themselves in reaction to the changes in the
unseen structures supporting continuity and stability of forms and substances.
“What’s the coordinates for The Farm” Trevor asks and Mr. Eight replies: “The Solarium”

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