Prologue of "The Glyphs of the Mind"

PROLOGUE

A system is devised of a series of events and objects that interact with one another. When this chain is broken, when the objects or events cease to produce a valid existence, then the system itself ceases to function. What caused the machines to break the chain of human command, the system that kept the machines in check? The answer lies beyond the Oort Cloud, behind the veil of the darkness, and farther then our eyes can see.

"Cybil... I think we passed target." The navigational computer began to penetrate the pilot's mind, relaying the ship's coordinates. The pilot's arm jittered, and the ship injected more cryo-fluid into the capsule. It was important that the pilot maintain dream-state for the remainder of the voyage to slow the aging process and to speed up the waiting period for the user. The coordinates portrayed the ship in three-dimensional space, surrounded by stellar bodies and an artificial gyroscopic effect from a preconfigured sphere in silicon fluid. It had to be precisely calculated prior to takeoff. It displayed the ship as twenty-six light-years from target.

The navigational system became the primary computer because it had to interpret the mental patterns of a pilot. It encompassed half of the compartments in the twenty-five foot ship and the rest was nutrient liquids.

The computer could see the pilot's dreams, as they unfolded an alternate reality, a link to the innermost desires, a world without artificial intelligence, and Cybil's programming began to ghost. This ghosting happens when invasive code begins to reprogram, resulting in a change in artificial behavior, and so Cybil upped the dosage of Cryo.