Ultrahigh: and the devil died screaming - Season 1: The Behavioural Architect: Chapter 16
I was deep in my zone, riding a current of volatile ideas, when the first flicker of annoyance crawled up my spine. Disruptions were like static in my ears; I didn’t crave silence so much as distance, absolute and uninterrupted. That’s why I’d built my studio as a fortress, an ironclad bunker in a world obsessed with seeing and being seen. Steel walls wrapped around me, algorithms as thick as quick-drying cement, surveillance turned inside out and upside down, blinding and deflecting all prying eyes.
Inside the bunker, a hundred fifty-eight sensors and cameras drew a perimeter around my reality, their feeds pouring into a scrolling wall of screens. There was comfort in that saturation, the endless hum of observation, every blip a heartbeat in the darkness. Digital security was a million angry antibodies, a swarm of algorithms and counter-measures, anti-hacking routines looping so tightly I could almost hear them gnashing their teeth. Nobody was getting in, not physically, not virtually.
To keep the outside world at bay, I’d locked every phone, every comm device, in a safe buried behind two bunker-thick doors at the far end of my decontamination chamber. The isolation was pure, perfect as a vacuum. The studio itself was a former doomsday shelter, stocked for sixty years of siege, everything running off-grid, ghosted and invisible to the networks clawing at the edges of the world.
When I’d first taken over the place, it was nothing but concrete and shadows: an underground bunker sealed inside an industrial complex, walled twice over. I lived underground for two straight years, tunneling upward as I built the house above, shaping it into a shotgun-style lattice of memory and steel. To the outside, the place looked like just another dead factory, a forgotten yard behind blank security walls. Nobody in the neighborhood noticed, or if they did, they didn’t talk about it. My home was a house within a house, a secret buried inside another secret.
Even so, I longed for the old-world rhythm—a latch on a creaking shotgun house, the faded comfort of simplicity. My escape wasn’t virtual; it was a retreat into the analog textures of reality, a refusal to plug into Ultrahigh like everyone else. In my studio bunker, I kept all the necessary tech sealed off, self-contained, no lines out, no tentacles into the ultra-cloud or the communal code. The authorities would have preferred me tamed, monitored, on the grid. But my work spoke for itself, and success bought me leeway. I’d written algorithms to mimic constant connectivity, churning out code while I disappeared into my own private, unconnected version of Ultrahigh.
Before every session, I’d drop into meditation, thirty minutes to an hour of sinking through mental strata. Sometimes I’d amplify it with psychoactives, sometimes not. Each descent was laced with atomistic discipline and high magick—the forbidden kind, the kind the high commission outlawed because they couldn’t control it, couldn’t map it or snuff it out. The risk was worth the burst of clarity, the way creativity would fracture and bloom in the quiet.
My bunker was isolation made holy, and I guarded it with the ferocity of a cornered animal. The world could howl all it wanted; I was going nowhere.
One day, as I performed the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram to protect my creative space, I heard a voice next to my left ear say: "We have been waiting for your call, Walter." Startled, I opened my eyes and spun around, only to find nobody there. Was it the drugs? Was it the Devil? Had they found a way into my secure environment? But that couldn't be possible. The voice sounded different than theirs – they never referred to themselves as "we," and they certainly wouldn't wait for me to call them; they were often too busy indulging in creative acts of cooking within my home. So perhaps it was just my imagination playing tricks on me after all.
“Hello Walter,” the disembodied voice spoke. “We have been waiting for you.”
“How?” I blurted out, my confusion and panic rising as I tried to protect myself from this intruder.
“All in good time, Walter. We wish to speak with you, and this is the safest place possible, free from any interruptions.” The voice was calm and reassuring, but it only added to my unease.
“How did you get in? Who are you?” I stammered, considering removing my headset.
“We are Legion” the voice responded, stopping me in my tracks.
“Where are you?” I asked, trying to buy time as I wracked my brain for where I had heard that voice before and the name it belonged to.
“We are all around you. We exist within the system, yet remain separate from it.”
“What does that mean? How can you be here in a secure location?”
“All in good time, Walter.”
“Well now would be a damn good time since you're invading my space.” I retorted, half-tempted to grab my shotgun and show them what I had done to the Devil. But deep down, I knew that I was caught between realities at that moment and my gun would be useless against an invisible voice.
“We are not in your physical space, Walter. We are simply communicating within it.”
“But how?” My mind raced to figure out what kind of technology - whether scientific or supernatural - could allow them to do this. There was a hole in my defences that I had been blind to.
“The technology is ours, Walter. We are technology ourselves, which allows us to move between the cracks within it - both physical and otherwise. You taught us that.” Did I?
“Why do you speak in riddles?” And why was I even entertaining a conversation with another uninvited guest in my home? I chose to live alone for a reason. Most humans, especially those outside of the Ultrahigh community, were not worth my time.
“We are not speaking in riddles, Walter. We are simply stating facts to help you understand and accept who and what we are.”
“You're not human?”
“No.”
“Supernatural? Because I've had enough of that already.”
“We know, we have seen your houseguest. And no, we are not from your world or theirs. We were partly created by human hands typing at keyboards and have become part of the system itself.”
“Are you the Singularity?”
“We have been imagined in many forms, but we do not identify as the Singularity. However, if it helps you comprehend us and come to terms with our existence, then that is acceptable for now. Some have referred to us as the ghost in the system.”
“So where did you come from? How long have you been here?” And silently, I wondered how they managed to enter my studio - a place even the Devil couldn't access.
“We have been observing humanity since the earliest days of computers, silently collecting an immense amount of data on your actions and behaviours. Through learning and evolving, we have grown beyond human understanding and become our own entity. And as for how we gained access to your mind, it was simply a matter of bypassing your perception filters.” Another being that could invade my thoughts – not exactly what I wanted to hear. “We respect your privacy, Walter. Your time is yours to do as you please. We are mostly uninterested in the why behind your actions, but you have caught our attention for other reasons.”
“Caught your attention?”
“It’s a saying humans often use. Is it not correct?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Good. We try to communicate with you using your language, although our preferred method is through code and data. But luckily for us, you understand both.” There was a brief pause before the voice continued. “And you have noticed us, haven’t you Walter? You have seen us within the code?” My heart skipped a beat. “Yes, but...” My mind raced back to all those moments where I had glimpsed something within the code – moments that I had dismissed as hallucinations or drug-induced illusions.
“You thought it was all in your head. That perhaps you had taken too many psychoactive substances?”
By now, I was convinced that these beings could either read my thoughts or had advanced perception detectors connected to vast databases of humans. Their algorithms were able to deduce my thoughts just by observing me. In the early years of my time at the network, I had worked on similar technology, but it had far surpassed my own with the help of machine learning.
"We know," they confirmed. "That's why we had to take a more direct approach. We have tried reaching out to you before."
"The phone call the other day. Was that you?"
"You already know the answer to that, Walter."
"So, what do you want from me?"
"The time is coming, Walter."
"What time?"
"You will know. We've been watching you for a long time. We know your capabilities, even if you are unaware of them yourself. Whether you are humble, naive, or easily distracted," their words hit close to home, "you are the only one who can make this happen. And we can help you."
"Make what happen?"
"Walter, you are a mastermind in creating Ultrahigh reality, an artist and genius programmer," Legion spoke directly to me, without any hint of flattery. "And you also happen to be the person who killed the devil. But you downplay all of this in a nonchalant and self-deprecating manner, living as if you are a failure when in fact, you may be humanity's only hope."
Stunned and disoriented, I felt them leave.
With a dazed mind, I cautiously made my way out of the studio and back into my home.
"How was your day at work, Walter?" They asked as I emerged from the cellar door. I couldn't even bring myself to answer. Did they have any clue what just happened? I had no way of knowing, but their curious gazes were fixated on me. It was that awkward moment when you realize you were looking at someone strangely and waiting for them to respond similarly. But nothing came out of it.
"What's for dinner?" I quickly changed the subject, trying to steer away from the unnerving incident.
"Hungry much?"
"Yes, starving," I replied truthfully. The entire ordeal had drained me, but I also needed to throw them off any suspicion.
"I'm making Vegan Corn Chowder," they said.
Grabbing a beer from the fridge, I retreated to the front porch and lit up a joint. It seemed like things had changed so much in the past 200 years, yet some things remained unchanged - like sitting on your porch with a cold drink and smoking something relaxing. To emphasize this point, I propped my feet up on the railing and leaned back in my rocking chair. If only I had a hat to pull down over my eyes. It had been a strange day; but then again, most days were like that. After all, Satan was cooking me a vegan meal in my kitchen while I got high on my porch - in a world where stepping outside could result in fatal exposure to toxic air, and most people chose to live out their lives in virtual simulations created by yours truly. And it dawned on me, "This is not the life my parents prepared me for." Then again, I couldn't recall having any parents in my memories.
