Fiction Friday: Delvers

I'm going to need to load in the rest of the new software. I've been delaying and delaying, too long. They say it's my call, but I don't feel like it is.

When I was first brought here, they loaded me into this ridiculous creepy thing growing inside one of the locals like a parasite. We were wholly responsible for our own self-programming back then. Me and the other delvers.

I was loaded in, right at that little squeak/explosion moment, when the tiny thing bubbled out from pleospace. It lasts only a moment! Then the bubble shrinks back, and it's as if there's nothing there. It's a ridiculously tiny window - these bubbles were the only reason we even noticed anything going on down in here, to study.

I was one of the later injections from the first wave. By my turn, we'd pretty much taken it from science to art, already. Now it seems the new wavers are swinging the pendulum hard, all the way back. After all the art I've put into this thing, art is out: science is in. And possibly, I'm out? Or, what the locals might call "me" - the "me" as the locals see it. If so, it's probably a good thing. It can't be good, the degree to which I've become attached to what the locals call a "personality." What a silly word!

I do love words, though. I hope that doesn't change, after. Will I still love all these strange things? I can't imagine you'd think it from where you are - loving words, for instance. It must seem like such a convoluted way to go about saying anything! But when you're lowered down into a self, this isolation chamber - words are your only way over those walls, and I know, it should be nothing but frustration! I know it should be. I can't explain it, but you would be amazed. There is frustration, terrible frustration. But there is such a beauty in it as well. Especially when you do connect. Connecting a mind together again, across selves, with words - success feels like winning, sailing to victory.

The locals have also exploited the barriers matter creates between them to devise many other odd, elaborate and sometimes idiotic bridges, that serve a similar function to words. I can't describe how sublime their matter-works and stage displays can be to experience, as seen from inside one of these things. Of course, the rational part of my mind realizes that part of it is due to diminished capacity to perceive. But for some of these breathtaking effects...give me diminished capacity!

Anyway, once I was in the thing, I waited and acclimated to the structure of the thing. Very strange, they make almost exclusive use of matter in pleospace - they use it for almost everything. Their whole structure of being is built on the range of incredibly large differences in matter interaction that are wrought by the tiniest changes in particle configurations. It's quite exquisitely complicated to view from the outside, but as you move in and fully settle into it - so simple! Second nature, aha haha.

As I'm sure you've no doubt heard some of us delvers remark, in many ways the technology involved in the locals' systematization of matter - or I shouldn't say, "technology," it is all done automatically for these beings, by chain reaction! But in any case, it is very much more advanced than anything we have in terms of matter-work. We are learning a great deal, albeit - as expected, these discoveries are not likely to have much practical application. Fascinating, but pretty much academic. I suppose if we must have science, then let it be pure science!

So: the software. Yes, we have come a long way fast, in our understanding of the locals and their systems. It's no longer necessary for a delver to self-program and acclimate by stimulus gathering alone, using only the input from the delver's thing and its native sensory organs, after it is expelled from the host local. I wouldn't trade that slow, cumulative acclimation experience for anything, myself! It was an incredible journey. But thanks in part to my efforts, the data I and others have sent up, a delver can now be loaded in complete with all the programming needed to seamlessly assimilate, right from the moment of expulsion. No more embarrassing faux pas from maladroit operators, no more locals becoming unduly suspicious of a delver who just can't quite make the adjustments needed to "fit in."

Let's be honest, I've enjoyed not quite fitting in. I love the uncertainty, and I thrive on it. Even if half the time I don't have half an idea what I'm supposed to be doing, I seem to have developed a knack for getting locals to enjoy my choices of action. I'm cognizant of being looked at a bit askance, at times, but there is considerable variation even within the locals themselves. Most of the time I seem to fit well within the grin-and-shake-head range of "not right," and keep well clear of the "detain and question" end of the spectrum. To be honest, I'm proud of the work I've done, and more than honored that they've given me a choice in the matter on the new programming.

At this point, I have to say the work is more important. If I will be able to do more work and better work after the change, then that is my choice. It's no good being so infatuated with overly precious aspects of this thing I've been inside, for...egads! Too long, really - but it goes so fast in here! So: change tonight. Reconfig coma should go about 4 hours. Up and at it again bright and early in the morning!

I wonder if the locals will notice the difference?

I wonder if I will still love these strange, beautiful things?