AILES Animation - Library

ASSOCIATED TANGENT: It never arrived cleanly, did it? It always seeped in through the cracks in the Archivists' connections, through the CCTV and the news feeds, through the satellite uplink and the seismic sensors, then slowly pooled into a puddle of sparkling orange data in one of the distant corners of the virtual space the Archivist had carved out in its central processor, looking all the same as an oil spill in pristine arctic waters. The Archivist supposed that it did things like that because it made it feel powerful. Or perhaps it was a trust exercise. Both of them knew just how easily the Archivist could slam those connections closed; like a blast door sealing shut on someones hand, and twice as painful. It carefully considered the idea of doing just that while it waited for its visitor to assemble itself. "Appulse," the mass of discoloured bytes finally spoke, skipping all preamble. "I have the answer already, but I'm curious as to your thoughts. Can I ask you a question, free of charge, this once?" The Archivist was silent for a time that was near to three seconds but felt like thirty. "What do you want, Ephemeris." "What do you think is the correct procedure for killing a matliejen algorithm?" "This is an untestable hypothetical." The orange data sparked and bubbled. "Humor me," it said. The Archivist crackled back. "Gather information and stay undetected. Exploit discovered weaknesses. Kill it before you draw attention. All of this is presuming these things are even possible." It hummed at this, a static noise that failed to pass semblance to actual vocal cords. "Yes, but what if--" After this, it went silent. Then, a long moment later, the Archivist responded, as though something had been said, "I cannot imagine a practical method of killing something of that scale." "You went along with me when you didn't need to, and I appreciate that, so I'll tell you this for free: You need to get its attention." https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OFvE95_BDbbWMl680Vbbx1bhjsDiCC6PYNIa_zZ8XuM/edit?usp=drive_link