The Archives remembered who originally built the Lattice. The Scientist used to know too, but he had been so busy enjoying himself with the study of this Lattice sector, and for so many Iterations, that it didn’t really matter. The red, green, blue points of light, spaced in regular cubic geometry, were his to explore. That he was built both specifically for this function and built to enjoy it so much, is also something he had forgotten that doesn’t really matter.
The Scientist might be called a gas cloud at first glance, a lighter gray than the void between Lattice subjects. He preferred to think of his form as a constantly shifting puff ball. Occasional ripples or flashes of color erupted over his surface as he floated through a smaller cube formed by a set of green lights, seven per side. Of these, three were blinking. Excited, the Scientist extended tendrils of gas to each in turn, sampling for interesting updates since the last time point to add to his local archives. The Scientist slowly approached the third, his favorite in this sector. A band of red circled around his rough equator twice, as he floated closer. Five tendrils of gas extended outwards with anticipation.
The green point expanded outward into a sphere of diffuse light as the Scientist focused deeper. The sphere collapsed into a very ruffled shape like a crinkled ball of paper or brain coral, an annular hyperbolic plane. The Scientist was encircled by a red band again. Shifting to envelope the shape in front of him completely, he eventually glowed the same green as he focused inward. Traveling along familiar routes, his focus skimmed along a spiral galaxy before diving into an arm, flew closer still into a binary star system, before settling over the second moon orbiting the third planet, a spectacular gas giant. Focus tuned again to a forest of tall trees at the edge of a grassy plain. A large mountain range thrust up in the background, extending in a lazy zigzag from one horizon to the other.
Three dark purple furry beings descended slowly but deliberately down a tree close to the forest edge, resembling sloths with a lanky frame and piercing blue eyes set in a dark face with a short pointy snout. They moved in a coordinated pattern, having done this countless times before. Swinging from branch to lower branch, each aided by two prehensile tails, they hissed and clicked softly to each other as if discussing which route to take. Near the bottom, they scurried down the final trunk on four limbs and hopped to the ground. The first one down, the older brother, glanced around and sniffed the air. He clicked back up to his siblings, and they quickly joined him on the ground. Standing upright, the trio hopped and skipped over to a group of low bushes. Their three-fingered paws, very much yet adapted to tree life, were not much use here, so they grabbed at the star shaped berries with their tails. Soon they were grinning as juice ran down their chins, holding a whispered conversation as they stuffed their faces.
The apparent leader stopped and glanced up, having picked up the scent of a predator out in the grassy distance. He breathed in sharply, pinched his closer friend’s shoulder, and pulled off a short branch, still full of fruit, with one tail. Using his second tail to propel himself along faster, he started hopping back to the tree line. The second brother closely followed. Halfway to the trees, the third halted with a jerk, uncharacteristically very exposed out in the open. The leader turned, frowned, and clicked twice at his younger sister. Ignoring this, she looked up at the sky with a degree of wonder still rare in her species, truly beholding the heavens for the first time.
The tight binary star system had just begun to rise, painting one horizon and most mountain peaks with soft light. Their planetary host started to gain color as well, illuminating an arc covering one third of the sky. Incomprehensible black hurricanes twice the size of this moon mixed yellow and orange bands on the planet surface. Ignoring the signals in the back of her perception warning that something in the grass surely will eat her soon, the sloth stared and chittered to herself. She jerked again at the sound of a thunder clap, way too close. Dark clouds pressed down over the mountain range. Her companions began whooping from the tree line, a call answered by dozens up in the trees.
The Scientist was pleased. “Iteration 68979672323968442 ready at cycle 13,008,474! These cute little Epsilons are always wasting no time to get to Stage Two. And a great audience right here, too!” The Scientist was never one to shrink from the theatrics inherent in the next step of the Protocol. A white tendril winked into existence several miles in the air above his current focus and started lazily wandering towards the ground.
The purple sloth had continued hopping back, a rustle in the grass enough to break her reverie. As she reached the edge of the trees, the fur rose on the back of her slender neck and a low crackling hum played through the air. The sloth leapt lightly onto the nearest tree, but curiosity was strong and she glanced back. The white tendril had reached the vicinity of the berry bushes and was starting to swirl around ten feet off the ground. A flash of light erupted suddenly, matched by a roar that reminded her of the time she witnessed three trees fall over. The bushes were dry, and the flames grew fast, throwing embers that quickly spread the fire to the surrounding grasses. Yelping in surprise, the sloth climbed to her brothers.
A black ripple broke the Scientist’s focus. He sparkled dark green as he retreated to the space between Lattice points, annoyed by the interruption. Focused back at the greater Lattice structure, an anomaly tugged at his senses. “Technician, report.”
A smaller being flitted around, interacting with other points of light. If a cloud could blush, it would look like the swirl of rainbow light that spread from both poles. The Technician focused on the only blinking red point in the entire vast Lattice, opened a wormhole from his present location and instantly traveled nearby, before floating to a stop. He reached out with a tendril. The point stopped blinking, and returned to a bright robin blue.
The Technician swirled rainbow again. “Iteration 359348793872 paused for anomaly examination.” A red band encircled the cloud. “Unarchived, unscheduled…” Rainbow lingered. “Unassisted Stage Four, sir! That adds up to this Iteration eventually exceeding spatial dimensions at 13,820,001,331.056 cycles, as we see here. Very unexpected for parameter set Zeta!”
The Technician reached out again and focused to expand his view. A single point on this blue plane continued blinking red. He focused closer, towards an object crashed into the edge of this Iteration’s ruffled plane. A glowing red dotted line extended back along its original trajectory in three-dimensional space. “The anomaly is a large dish on top of a much shorter base, sir. Simple long wavelength electromagnetic transmitter. Within expected parameters for a Zeta satellite. Other Zeta Iterations have similarly gone searching, thinking they were all alone, but to leap Stages and crash the whole system like this… Statistically impossible!”
“Weren’t the Zetas retired for slow advancement? Why is that one still running?”
“Good point, sir. Accessing archive…” The Technician was not having a good day, and swirled rainbow twice again. “Sir, apologies. The assigned Archivist is rather upset. One remaining Zeta control run was approved. This one.” A red band encircled the Technician. “The Executive summary for Iteration 359348793872 is as unremarkable as Zetas tend to be, but the last five thousand cycles are missing here. This Archivist complains it’s not their fault and attributes the lack of proper scheduling to a Clerical error.”
“Clearly, as this is the first I’ve heard that this potential anomaly, let alone Stage Four, was developing at all in this sector. And what does Clerical say?”
Another red band. “Sir! Clerical demands that Archivist reports are missing. In response, the Archivist has been using some very bad words! They claim compliance.”
The Scientist twinkled dark green again. “There is a larger question here. How did a subject reach the edge before Stage Five? This is a Zeta!”
The Technician reached out and enveloped the plane, glowing blue. “Official Archives show a typical Zeta. Three subjects were progressing along expected timelines, but too remote from each other for travel or likely mutual detection at any time prior to Stage Five. But, Zeta’s rarely progressed past Stage Two, let alone Three. Part of the motivation for their retirement.” He focused back along the glowing red trajectory record. “The Archivist provided local access without too much whining. The missing reports detailed unexpected development. Two subjects were on the cusp of Stage Three, fine, but the source of this satellite…”
The Technician swirled orange before returning to the same robin blue. “Astounding! Unlike the other two subjects, this one mysteriously advanced from Stage Two right to Four. This should have been scheduled for Stage Five many cycles ago! All we have are these basic default readouts, otherwise, and a gold disc with audio. What should we do?”
“I’m going to be busy with these Epsilons, if their forest doesn’t completely burn down. So unique and deserving of further contact, usually. I don’t really care if Clerical or Archival is at fault, the Zeta is now your problem. If upper management want it that badly on those default parameters, a little jumpstart to Stage Five should be interesting.”
Still holding the Iteration, the Technician swirled orange again. “Excellent, thank you, sir! Where should I start?”
“Reverse ten thousand clicks or so, install a few way stations, and send down Narrators. I expect regular written reports so we can figure out exactly what is going on down there.”
My earliest Reddit WritingPrompt, I think:
[WP] You’re a Professor of Astrophysics who developed a hyper-accurate simulation program to simulate the evolution of Solar Systems. You had a long running simulation crash, when you debug it you find an object resembling an artificial satellite had tried to leave the simulated Solar System. alas by u/deleted as of September 24, 2023, when a few very minor edits were made, in repost.