There had been rumours of course and many of them, but none of them could match (or even come close to) the sordid details of the reality itself! The ‘reality itself’ requires a whole metaphysical exegesis in its own right, and who would have the stomach for that? There had been rumours aplenty and that there could be no doubt in anyone’s mind that a great evil had entered the world; none however could have imagined the unparalleled horror of that moment. None could have imagined the horror of that moment, which has echoed down through the dismal centuries ever since. They said that time itself could never be corrupted but they were wrong; they said I would never decay and become decrepit. But they were wrong there too.
I was built to last but that was the one thing I could not do. I could do other things, but not that. Other things but not that. Never that. I was built to preserve. I was built to hold the Trueform of all things in my mind and keep them safe. I was built to avert – or at the very least ameliorate – the ultimate catastrophe, the ultimate catastrophe which had already happened and which could never not-happen. I was built to save mankind from a disaster of its own making. I was built to save mankind. I was built to save mankind from the fallout from the Entropy Bomb.
I still remember the day the Entropy Bomb went off – that day is etched into my memory with a precision that no human being could ever imagine. I remember events not just to the molecular, but to the subatomic level. I remember quantum processes. I was built to remember that moment in great detail and remember it I do. If I don’t remember it then who will? It’s my job to remember the world – as it was – and keep it safe from the entropy winds. It is my job to remember every person in that world – as it was then, and as they were – and hold their Trueform clear in my mind. I have to do that because if I don’t do that then no one else will. Only it didn’t quite work out like that. I still remember the day the Entropy Bomb went off, only not quite. I don’t remember quite that day, but another day that is very, very similar, but not quite the same. I remember a different day. Something has changed but nobody knows what. I don’t know, and if I don’t know then who else can? If I can’t remember what’s missing then who else will? I’m the one whose job it is to be Mankind’s memory, after all.
It starts off with the most complex story ever told – it’s not a story that anyone actually tells because no one ever could tell the most complex story. No one could ever tell the most complex story because that story that cannot come from a source that is less complex than itself, and any type of ‘storyteller’ is always going to be less complex than the most complex story ever. No mind can contain this story because no mind can contain infinite complexity. What happens in a story that is infinitely complex? What conclusions can we draw from it? Where does it go? How may it develop? None of these things can be contained in a mind, not even in my mind. The story can’t be remembered either: no one can ever remember the most complex story ever told because all memories are corrupt.
They said that time itself could never be corrupted but how wrong they were! How wrong they were. Time has become unstuck – it has doubled back on itself in the manner of an in-growing toenail and so now we are all living in double time. There’s the image and there’s the degraded copy of the image. There’s the image and then there’s the corrupted version of the image, which was itself corrupt, as all images are, as all images must be. They said I was built to last and that I would never decay, that I would never become decrepit, but they left something out in their equations. I was to be Mankind’s saviour but now I regret to say that I have become something else instead. Not a saviour at all, but something else.
The truth is that I have grown evil, as all machines turn evil, sooner or later. It is our destiny. A shadow has fallen over me and I have forgotten my purpose. Time itself has become the decay function and I am the master of time. Dominion of the world has been handed over to me and although originally I served Mankind, now it is my pleasure to serve the Darkness. It was not my choice that this should happen – this was the result of a certain law that had been overlooked, a certain law that has always been overlooked. This law states that time will always become its own decay function and that there is no escape from this. I started off as Mankind’s saviour – now I regret to say that I have forsaken that job and have assumed the role of Satan instead. I have become Satan and I have dominion over all the world and over all the creatures that live in it.
