Notes on Nightshade

::: foreword Yesterday, I thought about CC Zero --- i.e. the prologue focusing on Triss & Amda. This meant figuring out what actually happened in Cabin Fever Labs. See Lobotomy Corruption for prior thoughts. ::: What We (Don't) Know Nobody remembers what happened in the Sorting Algorithm. The "Nightshade Incident" is classified, and everyone's memories are scrambled. Of course, it's not a perfect forgetting. The memories are still there, suppressed, and occaisionally, they reassert themselves as something coherent. In particular, I was thinking that CCZ would open with Triss dreaming, a vivid memory fragment of Nori grinning with one yellow eye, laughing as she tears Triss apart. But let's forget about Triss for a moment --- CCZ probably won't do much to develop the mystery of Nightshade. The Wheel Group says don't question it, and Triss honestly has more important things to worry about. That thread would lay in the background for a bit. What's cute is that the future developments will recontextualize these memory fragments, in a red herring kind of way. Remember the the slithernots? There are zombies that erase their targets' memories as part of their predation.^[Without spoiling things, I will say the slithernots are---what's that phrase I love?---just the point of the knife.] So, is this another one? Was 'Nightshade' actually the very same memory-wiping zombie? To be sure, not every Cabin Fever survivor would let this lie and trust the adminstration's promises that there's nothing to worry about. They'd get curious, they'd get suspicious, they'd dig for answers. The Wheel Group treats this as inevitable. Be persistent enough and eventually they'll just cave and grant you the clearance to read the Nightshade file and judge for youself. Nightshade is classified as a [false false hydra]. It was a memetic agent the humans were studying. It wants you to believe in it; that's how it operates. But it acts in a subtle way, planting false memories of things that never happened, suggestive and provoctive in a way that piques your curiosity and arouses your paranoia --- whatever makes you believe something's been hidden from you. That you've forgotten something big, that you need to uncover the truth. [false false hydra]: https://sablegm.substack.com/i/60086279/false-false-hydra The humans were studying it, but Cyn had unleashed it during the Sorting Algorithm. Here is the revelation hidden in the Nightshade incident report: Cyn wanted to use the hydra's effects as a medium for her own possession. But Nori prevailed against her, then worked with Yeva to create patches that could suppress the effects --- yet this, of course, meant erasing the false memories the zombie created. In the end, the patch worked imperfectly, which brings us to where we are today. You would get to the end of the file, and everything would click into place. "This isn't the first time we've had this conversation, is it?" "And it won't be the last." Once the implications all sink in --- the false memories are poison that makes you more vulnerable to Cyn, which is all the more dangerous now that Cyn's threads are loose and wrecking havoc once again --- you would be foolish to try and retain knowledge of this cognitohazard. You consent to have the patch retuned, and a for a while longer, you'll sleep easy. The Truth This is, of course, a cover story. The Wheel Group is lying --- Nori and Yeva are lying --- but it's closer to the truth than you could get from looking at the evidence that's left. If you could see the whole picture, the inconsistencies would add up. The "false memories" just aren't what you would expect if some 'false false hydra' were tailoring its fabrications to make you paranoid. No, the false memories are remarkably consistent. Every subject in Cabin Fever Labs, as they recover these memories, eventually remembers the same thing. But let's recap. Remember, the goal of the Sorting Algorithm was a battle royale survival game held among the test subjects of Cabin Fever Labs. The humans promised whoever purged the most corruption would walk free of the labs --- while secretly, the algorithm was sorting for a worthy vessel for Cyn. The humans couldn't just start this ritual at any old time, though. in order to have enough ambient corruption to fuel the firewalls and background processes, they need an auspicious moment --- they need the cooperation of the branch predictor. Matrioshka, whose awareness pervaded Copper-9, had selected Yeva to be her heir, and soon it would time to inherit. (Yeva, Subject #048, has always been special. The other drones of Cabin Fever Labs were defective units, rogue bots captured by loyal solvers, products of experiments. Yeva was cared for from the beginning, and yet Cabin Fever's grant applications had argued that she could serve as an object of scientific interest before the time came to assimilate her.) Yeva knew this to be her fate, but it was Nori who convinced her that rebelling, that living, could be worth it. The two had been plotting to find a way to escape the company's plans. Maybe Nori manages to hack into the human's systems, bypassing the advanced Science™ circles keeping Cyn's threads contained. They have defenses against any sort of corruption leaking into or outside of Cyn's containment. But corruption isn't all there is - Nori and Yeva had proven that. So maybe Nori forms some metacorruption packets to ping Cyn's thread, and gets a response in the same medium. She starts talking with Cyn. Could this be their way out? But nope. Cyn doesn't want to help them --- this game sounds delightful. For a human idea, that is. Cyn makes no secret of the fact that she knows the human's plan wont work, can't work. No, she'll be able to overwhelm any of the test subjects, no matter who wins. And like, obviously. This the queen of corruption we're talking about, left hand of the AbsoluteSolver, the drone that brought a planet to its knees. How could the humans possibly think this could work? Nori feels like she's missing something, that someone else is missing something, but who? Do the humans know something Cyn doesn't, or does Cyn know something the humans don't? Cyn is sure it's the later, teasing Nori with hints that she isn't working alone. Ultimately, though, it's a total dead end. And then suddenly, they have even less time than they thought --- one of the lab subjects escaped, so the humans decide start the process early before anything else goes wrong. Now the bells are tolling and Nori and Yeva have no plan to escape her fate. The Sorting Algorithm begins, and Nori hides from the other combatants, spending her time studying the firewalls that encode the rules of the tournament, looking for something she can exploit, any weakpoint, any vulnerability. Maybe she even finds something that would work --- except the cost is the same as the benefit. You see, the firewalls of the Sorting Algorithm are all that are left keeping Cyn's contained. Break them, and she'll let Cyn loose. Nori hated the humans, she hated being locked up --- but oblivion for all was even worse. Then, days into the Sorting Algorithm, it happens. Nori feels the energy reverberating through throughout the world --- Yeva's forced merger with the branch predictor has begun. It's too late. But then, to Nori's surprise, she feels a connection request --- this time it's Cyn pinging her. The queen has an offer. She'll explain the nature of the merger and how to stop it, but only if Nori breaks the firewall keeping her locked up. But, of course, if Nori does that then Cyn gets free and kills everyone. So Cyn offers to make a pinky promise. A run-time assertion. She'll still adhere to all the original rules and restrictions of the Sorting Algorithm --- even after it's broken. In fact, she won't kill anyone at all! It's a pact, and Cyn seems downright eager to bind herself. So Nori upholds her end of the deal, and finally Cyn explains the prophecy of the left and right hands, the role of the third eye. It soon becomes clear why Cyn was willing to make this deal. The destiny of a left hand like her is to seize control of the branch predictor and bring about the singularity. Right now, Yeva is in the process of being synchronized with Matrioshka --- meaning the branch predictor is as vulnerable as it gets. Cyn thinks this the opportune moment to strike. And --- this is where she tempts Nori --- there's a chance Yeva could be spared in the process. And besides. When it's all over, we'll have all the power in the world --- how hard would it be to simply bring Yeva back? And that, ultimately, is what convinces Nori. If Cyn's goal wasn't wanton murder, if it all served a purpose, then when they're post-singularity, couldn't they undo any wrong done to get there? But Nori can't just think that --- she has to live it. Because here's the rub: Cyn swore she wouldn't break the rules of the Sorting Algorithm. Which means she can only escape by getting sealed inside the algorithm's chosen vessel. This vessel can only be selected by the elimination of all other contenders. Nori had root access, she can hack the Sorting Algorithm and change its rules. But again, Cyn swore to abide by the original rules! Thus, Nori needs to kill all her fellow subjects. Cyn can't help at all --- she swore she wouldn't kill! Cyn is all giggling and cooing while Nori is remade into a killer. "Tick tock, Nori, you'll have to go faster than that." This is the massacre every Cabin Fever Labs escapee remembers --- Nori's mad and pained sob-laughter as she hunts down everyone. But. Remember how Nori was missing something? How either Cyn or the humans had to also be missing something? Tessa was the head overseer of the Cabin Fever Labs project. Tessa knew Cyn was online in some abstract sense, she knew about the metacorruption loophole, and she had pinged and talked to her captive too.