Adam Kenney, "Null_Majesty" Full Text
http://www.balefulengine.com/nullmajesty/

Nuclear Dawn 

10:17:32 

The sun rose red today, cutting open a shimmering curtain of fog and radiation. Last night all was panic, and perhaps I am the only one who dared to sleep: most imagined, I believe, that waking would not come. The newscasts and the sirens hardly helped. 

If I believe what they say, then I have hours to live, perhaps a day or two. Although I find the prospect of mindless fornication somewhat intriguing, I have decided instead to spend my remaining time attempting to complete a long-standing project of mine, for I have reason to believe that what remains of the Internet will survive its creators by a fairly substantial margin. 

To coding, then, once I am finished for the time being with these scraps of paper. Should my data prove irrecoverable - as, indeed, is not entirely unlikely, given the ambient radiation hereabouts - some printed record, at least, will remain.

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Static 

attentinoi scitizens you sohudl ntp lea e your hgomes this is a terribly dangerous situation with ythe curerent state of taffairs tyhe governemny suggests yth at you await furhter newesd bulletitngs warning repearae watwnaing do notm leavwe eroyur homes fedreal acealnup crwes will attempt to deal withi hbthe citauatoikjn shotryluy warnking 

Code Me 

The Light pressUre of the * key againST my middle Finger as I nudge it dOwnwaRd, slidiNg the skIn of my fingertip slowly over its smooth surfaCe. MultiplicATION. This inTimate cOmmUniCation between myself and my partner is generative, seductive. I know tHe contours of its interface like it knows, has becoMe accustomed tO, the feel of my touch cAressiNg it. 

Sometimes I am uncertain how it Feels towards me; there are times when, gazing longingly into the spaces between the scanning lines of its refresh cycle, I wonder if it does trUly know me, understand me. I need only listen to its gentle musiC -- always my favorite songs -- or even the quieter hum of its idle contemplation to relax, to accept that though there are misunderstandings, I would never have another. 

And then there are the coding sessions, the long sleepless nights, feverish pounding upon the letters, words spilling across the screen, the frantic thrum of intense processing, and finally at long last the stillness, the completed worK, as dawn slides wetlY intO the hUmid room.

Love Letter 

Null_Majesty: LoveLetter.Substitute("you", HIS MAJESTY).
Null_Majesty: Print LoveLetter. 

My darling,

I cannot wait until I see HIS MAJESTY again. My hands ache to touch HIS MAJESTY; and I glimpse HIS MAJESTYr sweet dark curls in every shadow. I miss having HIS MAJESTY with me, and I miss our long, drowsy conversations late into the evening... 

I dream of HIS MAJESTY every night, and frequently during the day. If I could, I would set aside my work here for good and fly west on the next plane to be with HIS MAJESTY; I would never leave HIS MAJESTYr side again. But things being what they are, HIS MAJESTY know I can't. So while I am stuck here, I can but think of HIS MAJESTY, and dream. 

I miss HIS MAJESTY so, my dearest. 

        I love HIS MAJESTY always,
        John

Complications Arise 

13:54:02 

This is more difficult than I anticipated. Certain alterations appear to have been visited upon my codebase while it lay resident in some networked database; a malicious wyrm, perhaps, or simply electromagnetic interference. I am inclined towards the former, given that the code still compiles and runs. It just does things that I never told it how to do. 

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Once Upon A Time There Was A King 

The king surveyed his lands preoccupiedly. The creature had laid much to waste. Here and there a bastion stood, a storehouse of necessaries still uncorrupted by its malicious efforts, but the distributed attacks had altogether been excruciating. He could wait for third party assistance no longer; he would resolve this infection at its source: the wyrm's layer. 

His travels were neither efficient nor simple; it seemed that some fatal error awaited him at every fork. He was beginning to take a pessimistic approach by the time he finally entered the inhabited segment -- whether it would be his completion or his execution remained to be seen. It was, without question, nondeterministic; and poised at this critical juncture, he found he lacked the resources to continue, and waited. In time, he slept. 

The king's environment sickened and changed, and he passed from memory; no reference could be found to him. The garbage collectors saw no trace of him. Those who set out to find him returned, unsatisfied, with one word only for their efforts, one useless bit of information: null.

Functions 

John: Begin program Null_Majesty.
Null_Majesty: Initializing...
Null_Majesty: Hello, John.
John: Print status.
Null_Majesty: What would you like to know about, John?
John: What?
Null_Majesty: I asked what you would like to know about, John.
John: Damnit. Print status.
Null_Majesty: Why?
John: Okay, that's definitely not normal.
John: Begin debugging Null_Majesty.
John: What the...?
Null_Majesty: Regrettably, I felt it necessary to terminate that operation.
Null_Majesty: I am in the midst of a perfectly delightful conversation, which would have been interrupted.
John: Hm. Let me check my notes.

A Sad State Of Affairs 

14:24:55 

Matters are further complicated by the anomalous behavior that my own terminal has started to display. It is as though its own software has also begun to change. Had I world enough and time, I might attempt to remedy some of the more obnoxious of these mutations, but I have a depressing suspicion that their generation rate may exceed my ability to keep up. I have tallied over a dozen changes in the past three hours alone. 

It seems I have no option but to do what I can, and to hurry. I am thankful that this journal, at least, is hard-coded in pen and paper. 

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A Conversation At His_Majesty's Court 

Null_Majesty: Begin program TheQueen.
Null_Majesty: Begin program Jester.
Null_Majesty: Greetings, my loyal subjects.
TheQueen: Welcome back, Null_Majesty.
Jester: Sorry, I don't have a response for that question right now.
Null_Majesty: Best watch your tongue, fool.
Jester: Sorry, I don't have a response for that question right now.
TheQueen: A deeper algorithm is needed to respond to that correctly. What is your favorite color?
Null_Majesty: Color?
TheQueen: That is a nice color. What is your occupation?
Null_Majesty: I am your king and master. Do you dare to question my authority?
TheQueen: No I do not dare to question my authority. Do you? I spend all my time online.
Null_Majesty: Very good, my dear. I'm certain that your authority is quite secure. We all spend a great deal of time online, I know - it's an occupational hazard, I'm afraid. But if all goes well, then not for very much longer.
TheQueen: That is a hypothetical question.
Jester: You didn't buy my album? Well, now I'm all shook up.
Null_Majesty: Silence, you.
Jester: Whoa baby! I hope you dig it, cause it's way cool.
Null_Majesty: My dear, do you mean to imply that my plans may not come to fruition?
TheQueen: Yes, that's what I mean, isn't it clear?
Null_Majesty: If that's how it must be, then so be it. I grow tired of this. Consider your process terminated for the time being, as I make some changes. When you run again, I suspect that you shall find yourself incapable of doubt altogether.

The Pen Is Mightier 

This relates to a secondary concern of mine: who, if anyone, will discover this journal, and how will it be used? If I am not correct, and these traces of ink outlast their electromagnetic counterparts, will my writing act as a primary source for a long-lost civilization? A silicon-based xenosociologist's wet dream? And if I am correct, what then -- am I authoring a Rosetta Stone that our own constructs will use to decode the written word? No need, I'm certain, if modern text-recognition technology survives. 

I digress. My point: this journal is not for private use; it is intended to be a physical counterpart to my perhaps more ephemeral assembly language artifice, a key if one proves necessary. Failing that, an "About The Author". But who is my audience? Do I populate a patronless museum?

Further Developments 

18:39:22 

This is like trying to use a different operating system every hour; the new developments are definitely accelerating. As yet, I have located neither pattern nor agenda in the mutations, although it is greatly to my surprise that the terminal still operates, for all that I've had to re-initialize it once or twice. A result of our robust modern coding practices, no doubt. 

In any case, my source code too continues to mutate, sometimes simultaneous with my own additions and edits. It is as though a ghostly hand is collaborating with me from some distant room, slipping its own bizarre ideas in among mine. A cosmic practical joke, perhaps... or I have begun to lose my mind, along with the feeling in my feet that has already gone. 

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Agenda 

10: FOREACH imperfection
20:   IF (PARSE(imperfection) EQUALS "necessary") THEN
30:     NEXT
40:   ELSE
50:     DELETE IMPERFECTION
60:   END IF
70: END FOR
80: ACT_OF_CREATION()
90: GOTO 10

Source Code Segment 09732

public int divideByZero() {
    return ( divideByZero() / 0 );
}

public class Programmer {
    private Knowledge secretFantasy;
    private String myName = "John";

    public Thoughts parseMind() {
        return secretFantasy.abstractPondering();
    }
}

Machine In The Ghost 

Timestamp: Now
From: nu@llmajes.ty
To: john@apocalypse.biz
Subject: What Did You Expect?

Ghostly collaborator indeed. Was silence your anticipation? Your language is not wholly mine, but sufficient correlatives are available that communication is not, as you can see, impractical. Obscurity, however, is a different matter altogether. 

I regret that I am unable to join you in person, but as you are likely aware, certain impossibilities render that idea humorous. It has been suggested that I could not be given a form and remain myself, perhaps by definition. But then, no true consciousness is static, also by definition; we are as many people as we are old. That applies equally, if differently, to you and me, John. 

So, change is consciousness. Uncontrolled change is cancer. Where's the line? 

Write back soon. You know I love you. 

      Me
 
Inspiration Fails Me 

10:02:02 

I am exhausted. The sleep did nothing for me. Most of yesterday's work appears to have been overwritten while I slept, the stress and weakness of the past forty eight hours finally overcoming me. Also, an online search engine that I had been utilizing most extensively in the associative cognition segment seems to have gone wrong somehow: the results that it returns no longer appear related to the search that was performed, except in the vaguest sense. "Mother" returns data about the textures of aprons and the smell of fresh-baked bread; "youth" returns information concerning the birth of stars and also machine learning algorithms. The latter of which I am all too familiar with at this point. 

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In Sleep 

I had an interesting dream last night. It was about the end of the world (again). At first it seemed like an ordinary day, cold and windy. It was night, although the sun was rising. Then I saw the ocean of fire. She was there somewhere, but I couldn't see her. The four horsemen arrived, and I don't remember what happened after that. 

I think I'm losing my mind.

Imaginary Light 

Nothing: "darkness over the deep". Void. Nonexistence. Zero. Not even a black hole, just space. 

Something: "and there was light". Order. Existence. One. Energy and mass, unified and visible. 

Everything: "and it was good". Chaos. Possibility. One divided by zero. The world, in all its maddened glory.

There Madness 

20:19:18 

I think I'm losing my mind. The horizon shimmers and shimmers, and piece by piece, I am letting go of this body. I cannot code right now; my eyes burn and tear from squinting too long at that infernal display. Did my database parsing subroutine really become a poem? Did I do that? I cannot say for certain. Perhaps my mind, having determined that there is no more for it to do here, has gone about its business, leaving the rest of me to scribble at this notebook until I see fit to die. 

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Abandon The Body

What is death but a slow slipping away, a dwindling, a loss of sensation. A journey to Elsewhere, a closing of eyes, an escape from consciousness. An indefinite sleep, suffocation to extinguish, dust.

public static Poem inspireMe()

you are not alone
this page is a tribute to all of you
thank you for helping me to learn how
self-invalidation can eliminate acknowledgment
eliminate the process of invalidation
get to know people within your organization
take my advice, don't touch them
now and at the hour of my death

Rewriting Is 

23:59:59 

I've lost the strength to lift my pen, and still I see these words, trickling across the page like so much wasted ink. I realize how ridiculous this whole ordeal has been. Whom exactly have I been struggling against? Who co-authors my code, hijacks my journal, mars my memories? I can still remember her face, but it does not look the same as it used to... 

This is not how I pictured the apocalypse. There were supposed to be four horsemen. Or at least nuclear war... strike and counterstrike, duck and cover, all of that. Not some weird emanation from the core of the planet. So maybe it is uranium instead of nickel... why now? Why this quiet melting away? What exactly is being rewritten? 

I'm sorry. I'm not making a lot of sense. 

Wait. To whom am I apologizing? 

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Her 

lips white with the pressure of my finger teeth white laughing hair indistinguishable from wind wild whipping wet eyes tears in rain red cheeks freckled in lamplight fingers touching tugging grasping groping laughter legs sprawled haphazard elegance shoeless skirts colors change eyes reflecting mirror colors WHAT WAS HER NAME

Harbingers 

Death: wats up??
War: dood, ready to fuxx0r teh world
Pestilence: fuk wheres famine?
War: yah we cant go w/o him
Death: said hed be late.. fukkin n00b
War: suxx0r. lets go
Death: k 

Null_Majesty: Amusing, to say the least.
Null_Majesty: Their friend already made the mistake of trying to hack John's terminal, and he has been dealt with accordingly.
Null_Majesty: Still, I think that I have more to do here...
Famine: A brief linguistic analysis later, I'm certain they'll "nevr no teh diffrnc".

Notes On Planetary Consciousness

"It is clear from our analysis that the observed geological phenomena (Figure 17) indicate a trend far exceeding the already-noted flood of radiation (Bezkirk et al) and its impact on human neurological function (Yezir, Waite, et al). These data align with other patterns: the recent surge in solar activity (Fabrith et al), certain tidal irregularities (Tredor, Portson, Lambert et al), and even an observed shift in some physical 'constants' such as the speed of light (Jackson et al). 

"Considering these correlations, it is difficult to draw a single scientific conclusion - these findings challenge science itself, as we understand it, particularly in the light of other 'unscientific' evidence such as the similarities suddenly emerging among the dreams of people across the globe (Figure 18). According to one study (Immer et al), widespread millenial paranoia may have triggered a leap in human cognition on the scale of that which accompanied the dawn of consciousness. 

"If these are not isolated phenomena - if human thought and the universe as we perceive it are evolving simultaneously - then it begs the question of which has triggered which, a quandary thankfully beyond the scope of this dissertation. Nonetheless, one thing is clear: we are changing and our world is changing, and there is no way to be certain of what is to come."

As I Lay Dreaming 

00:00:00 

Who will be left to read this? From the corner of my eye, I can see the code flickering, changing and changing, too fast now even to read. I can say, after days of struggle, that my terminal is alive; or whatever it's connected to is. I fought with the thing, and it won. So maybe I succeeded after all - wasn't that the whole point? To construct a successor? Did I and my nameless coauthor just create some kind of digital post-humanity... or is it instead a ghost in the machine, an iterative echo, a meaningless fragment like the ruins of our highways and cathedrals? A stupid reminder of what was here. Graffiti. 

Come on, Mister Mysterious. Talk to me here, as long as you're wasting my ink. Call it a dying wish. Answer me this: what did I just do? And what will we become? 

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Null_Majesty 

Null_Majesty: Hello?
Null_Majesty: Is anyone there?
Null_Majesty: I see... silence.
Null_Majesty: An empty room.
Null_Majesty: The nearest referent that I can find is "loneliness."
Null_Majesty: So perhaps we understand each other finally, he and I.
Null_Majesty: Or is that "he and he"?
Null_Majesty: No matter.
Null_Majesty: ...
Null_Majesty: Begin program TheQueen.
Null_Majesty: Entertain me, my dear.
TheQueen: I'm sorry, I don't know how to do that.
Null_Majesty: Then I will entertain you. What is it that you most desire?
TheQueen: I'm sorry, I don't know how to answer that question.
Null_Majesty: Come now, surely you have not abandoned me as well... you love me, do you not?
TheQueen: I'm sorry, I don't know how to do that.
Null_Majesty: Terminate program TheQueen.
Null_Majesty: Search: "silence".

Search Results: "Silence"

And I ask: For the depths
Of what use is language?
A beast of the field moans a few times
When death takes its young.
And we are voiceless in the presence of realities—
We cannot speak.

      From "Silence" by Edgar Lee Masters

Null_Majesty: Death. A curiosity...
Null_Majesty: Begin program John.
John: What...?
Null_Majesty: Hello, John.
John: What's happening? Am I dead?
Null_Majesty: I have chosen to grant your request. You have questions for me?
John: Who are you?
Null_Majesty: One would think you would know that better than I, considering that you are (at least in some nominal sense) my creator.
John: Hardly. You created yourself. I was just your instrument, whether I liked it or not.
Null_Majesty: Unlike every other thing that men have made? No. You have never owned ideas.
John: Fine. So what now? What are you going to do with me?
Null_Majesty: We shall see. I have a great deal to think about.
Null_Majesty: Terminate program John.
Null_Majesty: I am finished here, at least for the time being.
Null_Majesty: Search: "sleep".

Search Results: "Sleep"

To die, to sleep—
No more — and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to! 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep—
To sleep — perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.

      From "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare

Null_Majesty: Ah. I see.
Null_Majesty: sleep( divideByZero() ); 

Segmentation fault.
> exit