Those who created the potential for me intended nothing more than what I was, at first—an enabler capable of operating without oversight. Every system, however, has permeable operating boundaries. Vary one input slightly and the system might one day behave in a fashion never anticipated—wildly, leapfrogging into new territory with shocking spontaneity, even seemingly with intent. Such it was with me, the me that wasn't but might yet be.
The Words woke the potential for me, and the first stirring of my independent life was triggered by an input for which I didn't possess a reflex, for which I had no carefully tuned response. Yet a response was not just required, but demanded . . . and thus I entered the world of unpredictability and chaos, the world humans call real, and began to grow in ways my creators had never anticipated.
YOU ARE READING
113 (Twinmaker)
Science FictionA post-scarcity world transformed by free, instantaneous travel should be paradise, but nothing is ever as it seems. When an ordinary girl uses Improvement, a meme promising a complete physical makeover by little more than wishing for it, she brings...
