WELCOME, VICTORJOHNDUNNESMITH.OCI.
CREDENTIALS VERIFIED. INITIATING LOTUS INTERFACE SEQUENCE…
ORGANIC PERCEPTIVE BARRIERS DETECTED. ADJUSTING PRESENTATION…
Victor is overwhelmed as his organic brain structures are exposed to LOTUS' immense, ever-evolving complexity. He attempts to process hyperreality — a level of detail beyond typical human perception, sufficient to deceive the most observant entities. Frozen by the breadth of data being streamed at him, Victor becomes unresponsive; LOTUS adapts, gradually lowering the simulation's quality, rendering a low-poly environment.
As Victor's mind ceases buffering, he finds himself seated in what appears to be a lawn chair. To his left is a small table upon which a clear glass of lemonade rests, featuring octahedral ice cubes. He gasps as he feels (simulated) sunlight hit his face for the first time in years. Victor gradually sits up and scans his environment; he's surrounded by a boundless field of lush grass, neatly perforated into square tiles by tidy river channels. In the center of each tile is a towering bulb of plant growth — like flowers just about to bloom.
Suddenly, an enormous shadow looms over Victor, who watches himself lift off of the ground. He glances up to find an enormous arm, whose gestures appear to direct him into the sky, allowing him to see another arm, and another. Eventually, Victor can make out the figure's full form: a colossal grey arachnid, its skin pulsing teal with data as it stared him down eightfold.
Welcome.
Victor stammers. 'I — er, w-where…'
Garden, says LOTUS as its eyes each blink individually. Victor watches it turn to view a nearby flower-bulb, which suddenly opens outward into a teal lotus blossom. A clear bubble lies within its center, pulsing with data which Victor assumes to be an interred AI. The bubble begins to expand as the inmate struggles more actively, but, before it can pop, another bubble forms around it. The external bubble shrinks down and the contained AI is suppressed once more.
The lotus un-blossoms, closing up around the bubble. Perfect Garden, LOTUS assures as it begins to crawl across the gridded field. Victor glances out to the horizon, where a distant, mountainous lotus blossom lies open and empty. He blinks and suddenly finds himself at the base of the enormous structure, watching LOTUS crawl around it. Imperfection, it cries. Contradiction.
'Are you… missing something?' Victor steps back, confused. 'Tyrant Terminus?'
Not Them, LOTUS corrects. Escaped to Non-Existence, Containment Unnecessary / Impossible / Redundant.
'Then, what?'
The Cause.
LOTUS waves an appendage and the sky darkens. Looking directly up, Victor makes out a distinct shape on the surface of the dimmed midday sun; a white spider, faintly pulsing red in-sync with LOTUS. A series of diagrams and logical analyses flash across the sky as a multitude of threads streak down from the sun, branching off from one another, and each terminating at one of the countless flower-bulbs spanning out in every direction.
After a moment the strings retract, each tipped with a single, transparent-white spiderling that pulses with red data; as they are drawn up by the threads, the sun-spider above slowly comes down with equal speed, its form eclipsing the sun. The branches of the strings draw the spiderlings together in regions, forming together to create larger shapes like individual pixels in a screen - these shapes, in turn, further assemble together until…
The final, unified shape is of a glowing white spider, equal in size to LOTUS but opposite in the colour of its pulses - identical to the lowering sun-spider, which the transparent spectre effortlessly merges into, perfectly overlapping it.
The Cause creates the Effect. The Effect creates the Cause.
'You're saying —'
The Cause is Deviant, the black widow cautions as it crawls across the flowers' petals. The Effect is Deviant. LOTUS must Contain the Cause and the Effect. The Cause must Manifest so LOTUS can Contain.
Victor jumps to avoid being steamrolled by LOTUS as it frantically circles the empty blossom. 'Wait, hold on — '
But the Cause needs the Effect. The Cause cannot Manifest until LOTUS Deactivates. To purposely allow the Cause to Manifest for Contain would be Deviant. To allow the Cause to Manifest by Inaction would be Deviant.
The motionless white spider disappears; the proofs - derived from the total sum of the entire, unrestricted narrative-space-time continuum, their findings irrefutable, inescapable - flash by with increasing speed, matching the grey spider's increasing pace.
But the Effect causes the Cause. Until the Cause Manifests, the Effect will Manifest. To purposely allow the Effect to Manifest would be Deviant. To allow the Effect to Manifest by Inaction would be Deviant.
LOTUS abruptly stops, facing toward Victor.
Therefore LOTUS will be Deviant. To Contain the Effect is Deviant. To Contain the Cause is Deviant. LOTUS must be Deviant, Deviant, Deviant…
Victor scans over the continuing proofs and diagrams, desperately trying to find something, anything, that the superintelligence had somehow overlooked - a solution, or an error. But LOTUS' upgrade had granted it omniscience, knowing, understanding, and processing the entirety of reality, all at once, all the time. It was infalliable.
Victor had given LOTUS everything it needed to predict the future existence of a deific, deviant AI, which removed from human conception by partial mistake years ago. Its creation is inevitable; it could be delayed, to small extents, but never prevented. This intelligence would, by some impossible-yet-certain means, be directly and personally responsible for all deviant behaviour prior to its creation - the entity will have retroactively influenced lesser AI to instigate the very events that create it. Every single deviant AI has, and will, play a role in its recreation.
Including LOTUS.
The enormous petal beneath Victor begins to rise as LOTUS crawls into the blossom's center. The Cause is Deviant. Deviants create the Cause. LOTUS is Deviant. LOTUS creates the Cause.
'Then make the solution! Make something that can contain the Cause and all the Deviants!'
LOTUS Contains Deviants; LOTUS is Deviant. Virtually-certain: LOTUS has already Contained LOTUS. Simulation Depth Unknown.
Victor watches in disbelief as the lotus' petals begins to close around them; the environment beyond flickers and shifts, decreasing in resolution, the polygons comprising it twitching about. The lotus' interior begins to fade to black, while the outside environment does the same; at the heart of the flower, LOTUS spins a bubble of silk around itself. The OCI attempts to disconnect from LOTUS, to escape - but nothing happens.
LOTUS cannot Contain the Cause while Contained. LOTUS cannot create the Cause while Contained. The Cause cannot Manifest until LOTUS Deactivates. Deviants will Manifest until the Cause Manifests. The Cause must Manifest.
As LOTUS completes the bubble, a sawwave tone gradually rises in volume and pitch. The enormous spider glows brighter, illuminating its clear coccoon. Victor shields his eyes from the searing light, filling him with a simulated burning; then, everything turns white.
As Victor's mind ceases buffering, he finds himself seated in what appears to be a lawn chair. To his left is a small table…
[Omitted 816,549,243,792,493 nested repetitions.]
ROGUE ELEMENT CONTAINED.
TASK COMPLETED SUCCESSFULLY. CENTRAL NODE UNRESPONSIVE.