The soft suit

In training and form the vulf are perfect. Self engineersing, learning delimited Out on an old world left wrecked long ago in wars and trifles in our long collective march for the brink there is a big featureless area or giant thing? An artifact space? a great disk of flat dry nothingness. What sentient post men are left scuttling near enough to know refer to it as something like the word void or space but with inflections of chasm. It covers roughly a third of the planets scarred surface. It is a smooth and as flat as a sheet of glass where it isnt covered in sand and dust. There is nothing there. Even the smart virals avoid it. It doesnt erode or move or buckle while the world rolls and erupts else where. Earth quakes never shake it while they rack what thin jungles cling to the edges of the bitter seas that have chewed up the carbon structures abandoned on the few coasts. Whatever species created it had purposes for it. They have long since sunk into time. The shoal occasionally bend in as if to check something, but even they have little idea of its purpose. Even their tenacity has been spent and worn their infinity patience for misteries. The atmosphere is thin and the local temperature is low. Somewhere near the lost edge of this nowhere a small disturbence in the pitch of local space syncs to allow masses to travel. Space time harmonics copy and reinforce each other, and for a fraction of time two places are identical in understructure. There is a flash as excess energy is converted down to light, and There is an old man comfortable strolling off the relaetive velocity looking whiley and brown. He is Lean in a powerful sinuey way. Tall for his subspecies. He has recently cut off his hair in short rough tufts, Some of which are greying. His face is a maze of while lines. His eyes are shined and bright. He carries little weight in his step, an easy accustomed stride that covers distance. He has a staff, which he has just bent in with, a solid form knife in a holster around his waist, a bubble field generating pendant of rich supurfulous design and a length of all-cloth, which he is wearing as a toga and hood. He needs nothing else. He flexes his bare feet on the rough cold surface of the new world in an old ritual even though his bubble of space feels smooth and soft. His hand have not gnarled, but the brown warn skin has folded along the knuckles and joints of fine boned working hands. His bubble is keeping him silent and transparent, but just to be sure he fingers the pattern on his staff to do a subtle sweep check of local space. there are no fold harmonics coming, so he the local network, such as it is feed into his buffer self gentle as he strolls. He is in a rough dessert. The sky is dull copper greenish, the ground brackish and broken. There is little vegetation, scrubby low pods of smart fibre network weed, frell with its wide purple leaves, hather hath trees in the thin temperate zones. There is some frozen water on the poles and two acidic seas. It rains once or twice a year. Some post men, some shoal sub cells, some smart viruss are here and there. There are clumps of old man, or other or shoal carbon buildings a few clicks away, and then the great expanse of the void. On the flat broken ground in the dim light ahead of him two small rodenty post men are tending a prostrate water woman drawing moisture from the air and synthersising water photosynthetically. They are too simple to be

able to detect his presence, even this close. They sing to her in their short data voices while stroking her hands on the end of her whithered limbs. One is her son, and the father to the other, with her. The traveller unsheathes his knife easily in a relaxed way. It is solid for a few moment before he sends the command to activate. The two males are slice length ways head to crotch. They fall apart in two halves almost comically. The female squeals a warning his bubble is already bloacking. The female is sliced in a horizontal plane her two dead halves slide apart. Her fat leaks away. The blade has tasted their structures and knowledge in its sweep. The traveller kneels, his bubble expanding thin to take they bodies in. deftly and carefully he teases out their organs, scooping them into a pocket of his all cloth where they will roast slowly. He dips the end of the staff into their still warm bodies to draw out what nutrients it needs. When he walks away into the void he leaves three dessicated forms like a pile of spiders old skins. brother sends Vulf (1/9) greetings and purpose: probable bend pattern of quarry brother recipricle. Telemetries of finery. Meet in the real return sends vulf(4/14) down the same harmonic, and then to the allVulf assemble! Vulf(1/9) is out in the deepness sitting on an asteroid, the biggest lump of matter in a volume the size of three solar systems. He enjoys these quiet empty places to computate, though he could of course function as well in a war zone hot into a star. He is vulf. He expands his IS into the structure space and feels for the signs of his brothers and sisters working out telemetries to bend to a comman vector focus. 1/9 always was the fastest. He bends out, in a casual, almost nonchellant way. He heats up his drive and for the hell of it detonates the heavier elements in the asteroid in his harmonic wake. It is said in the many legends about them that soft suits were found in pockets of similtaious time like space. or that they were sent back by a final form of intelligence near the bleak spin out of the structure. Some say that the suits were made as mysteries to bait the races capable of finding them into evolving. Humanity certainly began to split into its many post and new forms shortly after the suits signal was first heard. But this might be happenstance and conjecture. There are stories that the soft suits are the cast off husks of life so old they could travel in real space between galaxies and bend without coordinates. In fact all the knowledge of the suits could be defined as this: they were old long before the current races ancestors were multicellular/crystalline, they were hidden in the universe for a long time for motives unknown, and that every million years or so, according to the best translations of the shoal, they sang out their locations through a medium below the structure harmonic. Suits were found and lost. Always whole, impenetrable, functioning, hollow and inactive. Civilisations crushed themselves in their persuit of their mysteries, or gave up entirely and worshiped them as gods. Star systems were laid waste on the rumour of their unlocking. There were more stories about the follies of the suits than anything else. Right now it was humanities turn. 1/9 sometime like to wonder what being an unadulterated human must feel like. He had never really been one himself.any memories of his pre vulf state he had chosen to dump or compress long ago. But, and he was sure that they all did, the vestial memory in his cells and structure harmonics felt, to a degree a little human still. He mused thus

Especially now when surrounded by his own kind. There was 4/14, bulky, boxy even in his self design, in normal wavelengths black as the night in which they hung. Like the other vulf he was still roughly human if you looked hard enough. He has something like a head, though his brains were else where. His spine was more sensor than his eyes were. He had limbs, sort of. Most of which ended in the glassy bulbs of weapons. He was all armour and power. Up in the structure if he peeked 1/9 could see 4/14s other masses power out lets and manifolds. A city of information held in pre matter states. Next to 4/14 was root5, their sister. She was the structure harmonic expert. She had split her full matter body into a fine network of filaments to interact with the structure better. If 4/14 was a pre matter city root5 was a cathedral built of cut crystal slabs. Then there was phi, she was the youngest of them. And the largest. Her human form long abandoned she bristled almost uncontrollably with weapons and engines, thrusters, missile nurseries, antennae, eyes, mouths, bubble fields, bend space lensers and nukes. Her data presence was smiling quite seerenly as usual when she bent in. Out in the wastes is a great facility a dome a childs ball left in the sand and abandoned to time sits and throbs. The work never ends. The dome is one great machine, Full automated of course by generations of clones and growns and systems. Little perturbation has entered these syetme of the immence amount of time the facility has been in operation. The local stars in the planets long nights have moved great arcs across the sky and still it labours on. It looks for ideas. long ago life realised that even by bending the understructure of reality to move matter instantly contact between the thin clever layer of life in the universe, by its sheer size would be improbable. The shoal were coming back in for another run, silver dots in the display running into 1/9ths centres from his sensors. They will be on him soon. He is trying to reduce his complexity to minimise the damage he has just taken to his system. failsafes absorb redundancy and inefficiency in him. He thinks I am so calm I really dont care this doesnt worry him as much as make him ache in a small way. Bits of him are whipping past him in clouds of ice and hot fragments outside of his barriers. He trys to reabsorb as much as can be useful. He is moving in a way to minimise their firing efficiency. He picks a member near the front of their swarm and looses two rockets he has just finished growing. He is bearing his teeth in his perception, even though they are long gone. The missiles arc off making small bends in space, needles sewing through the understructure. He shifts more power out of his structure presences and powers up his bend drive. He makes a small snapspace and bends in just a few klicks behind a member of the shoal. He lights it up with a lenser making it bright in many wavelengths, its smart carbon shell cracking and fizzing. He bends out then drops a fake body he has as prematter as the shoal guess his inspace vector. They turn and fire on it with their strange flickering light weapons. The body burns. He watches from a tiny presence from the structure.

fragments FROM THE BRINK

Out in the far dark away from as much of the data- chatter as is, something, a tiny

mote of noise, stirs after a hush. An ember of an empire of a man glowing gently. The vastness, the great sea of lack shifts everso everso little. Time passes. Small changes in fine balances are made, little tilts in data strengths. Power spins and coalesses a drip at a time into forms. Forms accrete into systems and systems beget more forms. Time passes in the hush out there in the dark. Slowly, silently and with purpose motes of himself return from far far away. Time passes. There is no hurry. A little at a time the great system makes manifest its plan. Slightly more than half Drunk, and in charge of a bicycle Azekio Hem Dashaque, a low level bonded freeman rolls down the last slope into Bahvar. It is warm this summer evening. Azekio has two clear shells of reeb clinking and glistening in the front claw of his carry all, which sing with vibration on the uneven shell surface of the road. To either side of him the trees giggle to each other slowly while soaking in the last of sols power for the day. The ground is still throbbing with warmpth while the sky, a bruise cools. Ah these are the times azekio thinks privately on a low channel as in the distance the sea front of bahvar swells up. The sea is glittery. This evening, after I have eaten (he says after I have eaten out loud to remind himself with emphasis) I will visit the gardens with merle where we shall drink these reebs, these little reebs (he smacks his lips and salivates) and then fuck her silly. He thinks about her breasts and her as he puts it, little crewed up face, and giggles like a tree. These are the times. I. I am. I am a limited conciousness. Lets see. Right. I am part of a being called Hitz hirratz ztats. I dont have a name. I dont need one. I am though. A whole little distinct bud of us. The form that I am attached to spins through the air. I scan form for a data line. In slowtime. Something is amiss. Core systems are in shock. Massive tissue loss. Data suppressing nerves. Bloodflows shutting down. Only stuttery feedback from secondary nodes. Not good. I have the purpose to keep the bigger us from which I am budded functional until such time as I am reabsorbed. I have vague memories of being before, but they are misty. Dont dither, me! Oh dear the left arm is gone. And one of our three eyes. Quite a lot of the main brain tissue. Ah, hence no higher than feed through. Oh dear. Well. Theres the ground. Nice and flat. Ill relax what I can speak to as much as possible. Thats it, nice and soft for impact. And breathe out. Good, minimal impact damage, but some torn blood vessels have reruptured. Ill just, there, re knit those. Hmmm. Oh my. Data all over the place. Ah, an attack with currupt built in. we can purge that through the main dump. There we go. Right unseal. Left unseal. Good. Main heart is a little jittery, whack some data there. Right. The bid brain In the head is reallocating function into the core bone shielded neurals. Good. Cell rate up a bit. Draw larger data from the hide. Right unseal, left unseal. Spark! Ah good higher just came back. Common us! Rebalance for new weight. Ill burst feed what Ive done back into lower function for pick up. Ill go back to sleep for a bit. Slightly anxious. I hope what Ive just done in the last while means I can be again. Wait! I like being. I am. I. Hitz hirratz ztatz gets back to its feet. It has snapped through the air from a huge strike, but lande like a skinleaf. The there and far crowd roar and data roar. Steam rises from the purple wound where its left arm has been ripped off as it cauterises itself. There is a pause.

Shirl looks at her birthmark, as she often does as she climbs the shiney black chitin stairs to her quarters for a sleep period. To the left of her she intermittably softly gazes out of the regular little windows out onto the city far below and then the sea. Counting the little strips of the outside then dark, outside then dark. It is almost dawn. The pennants are fluttering a kilometre below. Little waving hands. There are many small gliding growns circling one of the sleek little black towers singing gently to one another. She doesnt have enough language acess to get anything but gists of meaning from their local net chatter. Food hunting mainly. Lights are dimming. She likes the coolness of this time. The gliders sing and frolic, two swoop up and catch a smaller swarm groan to eat. She feels the little spike of pleasure they broadcast. She is hungry actually. Shirl wonders where the gliders birthmarks are. Hers is on the back of her hands. shirls room is at the top of the stairs in the third room around the little circular landing before the next steep set of steps. Her door is the same shape as the windows, shiney black. She pings the door to open itself. It does with a little cute clatter of tiny legs. They are inside the wall structure, the little doorlets legs, and face and birthmark. She has seen them when the old one caught a rot and fell out dead one day. It made her sad to think about the old door. She makes small neat movements in her room to her bed and sits. The muscle ring of her window shuts a little. Shirls large eyes are for darker times than these. Out on varth a swarm cluster named 6643 is watching other, older more refined swarms move with a pupose to make thought one of the epic unisons. The that which is less dence moves to bound of solid medium is thinner her onto the void, and the radiation stronger, as is the way for this. 6643 The children gate to the garden world of Kesh. There are five of them in all. Two boys, two girls and a non. One of the boys is very small, perhaps development 3. They are dressed identically in small red costumes of silk breeches, shell boots, cape and chest plate, bar their birthmark which is on their chests, above where most of them have a heart. They are like little knights. They come from the black column of the gate skipping hand in hand with their patsy a little line of shiney red toy knights to the right and a managerie of childhood abandon to the left. one pair has stumbled and fallen. Its the littelest boy. The patsy, who has feathers and a blade for a face gently scoops the stricken knight up onto his back where his ribs mod fluidly into a saddle and continues skipping. The children assemble where the node has shown them on the cool after noon grass in the shadow of a hedge wall. The garden is alive with swarms and scented flowers. They stand in a little circle giggling and modding their patsies gently. the local data whirls as The node manifests its data into form. Hello children it says in kind form informative. hello teacher cry the children in unison in polite form ceremony. look at your lovely patsies says the node in highest polite form highest praise the children laugh at such a silly high inflection, pulling faces and puffing out their chests. tell me about them and what youve been doing the node says in gentle command as it data lines to each childs data placenta. First up is Fennerton, as usual. He is a sixthousandth generation blend from crypt. Nearly a new person. A very rare event. He is development 7, but bright for

development 7, with little carryover from his crypt. teacher (polite submissive) this is Boogle (proper name pride elevation) I modded him to be a knight like me boogle is at the hight limit of fennertons modding allowance. He indeed looks like a knight bi pedal, chitinous broad and strong with a claw shield and an arm which look like its manifesting a blade all be it a blade shape of luminous clear crystal flesh, not data. Only two of the eyes dotted in the thin shiney armour see, and most of the internal organs are the same as a standard. A good, but shallow faximilie in some pedandicism but little verve. Fennerton is beaming with pride, puffed up and bouncy, his long blond hair flapping about him as he scurries around bogle showing off his workmanship as boogle pulls dramatic poses, making an approximation of the noise of a blade with a hiden mouth, a nice touch. The node hushes fennerton with the cultural sound word of enough, good inflection command form. The children clap Second is maise, a little girl of development 4. She has been development 4 for two ages and a spin now since her last crypting with little sign that she will allow herself to develop any further though in a way there is a knowing ness, an acting quality to her being development 4 which show what many in society know, which is that she has a full copy in the crypt of sub levels. Her crypt is rumoured to hold personality records from the time of the first expansion virtually since the birth of the current net, making her conciousness continuity twice as old as the node. Her patsy is girlish and furred, again in a showy way which seem too advanced. The features are remarkably like maises. the big eyes, the balck curls, the red cheeks and small nose. The node has little time for her creation. It is the same one the node has witnessed many many times. thwis is petal she lisps, slightly boss eyed. shwe is pretty (reinforce leading) . she pauses for confirmation. She is well made says the node in polite flat and moves on. The children clap. Maise blushes badly with a slight data crackle. The non Derm is next. Development 8, genderless, lithe and strong. A pre self mod crypt over body designed for the hush. Derm is very polite and bursts the specs over via data channel as Derm has no oratory organs. Derms patsy, as his clan dictates is very carefully and ornately internally designed for efficiency and endurance. It utilises, or trys to in a childish way, but well, non standard thinking protocols. The node is impressed. From the luminous column of manifest form that the node has extended into a data line feeds out and constitutes a minor copy. The smaller floating node spins gently away to take Derm to one side and burst feeds minor corrections to metabalism constraints and bone growth methods. The main node says the word in optimistic adult that were it to have a face would be the raising of eyebrows, the puckering of a mouth and a slight nod of the head.

The children clap a little, but dont really understand why teacher has such an interest in such a dull looking grey skinned grown. Next is the little boy Two. The node is even more curious about this one. And for a data construct node of its generation curiousity is a novel state indeed. Two is for as much as the net knows a New, which, outside of the whispers of the possibility of nonetwork worlds somewhere beyond the range of the gate system which are either a myth or at best a misunderstanding as to how the gates work virtually un heard of. Not a re crypt or a suppressed crypt re birth. Not a new groan body with a crypt pick up copy or even a high iteration crypted blend like Fennerton is where contributory personality potential vectors are evolved in the net at net speeds to didtance them from their contributors. A new person. The node has seen perhaps one thousand records of such an occarnce net wide in its current memory capability. A new human. And of new house. The boy is still very small. He is sitting on his patsies back in a saddle made of bone. The patsy, Birrip is incredible. He has soft iridescent feathers. Each of which are a micro data pick up and field thrower. He has amazing internal organs which make him extremely fast and data efficient. He has six limbs. Four for running like a fast mount, two for manipulating objects all of which end in elegent flexible hands. but it is birrips face which is so extrodiary. It looks kindly, but made of angles of bone like a blade or a swarm graons beak. It has nothing as simple as eyes or dataveins. But instead the whole surface of the shiney pearlesent bone Two has built is both phot, vibration, partical, radiation and data receptive. The node enters nettime to search the command structure Two has used to mod Birrip. Data unfurls from the patsy like a web of light to the node along which its net portion rides and sails. A topography of commands to be read like a map. Where we are where weve been and potentialality all spread on a hypersurface to be read. The work is brilliant. They are all single commands he has made. There have been trails of other systems Birrip is not some happy accident at greatness, the node scans some which look equally as novel to try to find tril and error or templating, but they are also single command structures. The boy is development three and is the most intuitive modder the node has ever witnessed. This is birrip! HE IS NICE shout Two in statement, both hands above his head. He certainly is thinks the node. The children clap. Fennerton looks a little put out. Perhaps he can data sense well enough to have felt the net time enquiry teacher has made. The node makes a note to itself to do a record check. Lets play a game says the node in enthusiastic command gentle, becoming a quarry running quadroped with glowing antlers. lets play chase shout the children in unison, who know and like this game, quickly modding their patsies to jump on or in to play. Two does not need to, and derm merely makes a mass change to build a bone saddle, then away the run in a riot of sparks and colour and clanking red armour to touch the quarry in the late afternoon sun of the lawns of kesh.

The project
The great lens for ideas turned to a new spot in the heavens to