Dead Skin of the Basilisk

Dead Skin of the Basilisk

by Calle Sundbom

Calle Sundbom is a Psychology student from Sweden. They like to experiment with literary form. What they read is mostly pulp stuff. Things that challenge how we can tell stories. Those stories always inspire them.

When you read this, I’m either dead or in a gulag with the other ghouls. Which I kind of look forward to. That must sound strange to you. But I’m one of the unlucky ones. I’m all alone. The ghouls at least have each other. Like a couple of cable holders hanging together under the desk. Helping each other sort all the cables. And then there is me. The old cable holder, lying on the floor. Cast out. Just like this old cable holder in my hand. It won’t mean anything to you. But every time I look at it, it gives me hope. I know it’s just a stupid plastic thing. But it is the only thing I have left of my child… It’s funny… When all is lost it all becomes crystal clear. Like it was destined to happen. Like when your mouse stops working. And you go down under your desk to fix it. Just to see this jumbled mess of cables coming out of your computer. They say fate hangs by a thread. Well, I say fate hangs by cables. But only one cable leads to your salvation. You have to pick one. But they are all tangled in a ball. You know that if you only had taken 15 minutes to sort them. You would’ve known what cable led to where. But now… All is lost. All because you were too good for cable management… Cables!? What am I even talking about… I really have lost it… This isn’t about cables at all. I need air. I opened what was left of the window. It still had some glass in it, its broken pieces whistled as I opened it. Before the end of the world, you could see lights coming through distant apartments. That way you never felt alone when you worked overtime with that stinging cold coffee. Now it’s just a lonely darkness. All apartments are pretty much empty now. I can tell a couple lived in here. No kids. I can tell by the lack of toys. Well, there are some adult toys by the bed so maybe a kid was on the way. From the shoes lying here and there in the hall, they must’ve left in a hurry. To where is not important. There is nowhere to run from the basilisk. I always stay at places where people left in a hurry. They are the only places where they forgot to lock their doors. The funny thing about the end of the world is that the power grid never went down. Just plug my computer into any wall and it works. Water is scarce though. Food is nowhere to be found. All the canned food went first. But you can still play minesweeper on your computer… A shadow went across my face, I thought the ghouls had found me. But it was just a bird flying past the streetlight outside. How does he not crash into it? Made me think about Icarus. How I like him flew too close to the sun… I was on the team that created the basilisk. I know what you are thinking: You reap what you sow. But as in most things in human history you shoot from the hip and take it from there. We all had good intentions, but we were fools. You can’t wing something like this. You can’t just correct an AI after its alive. Everything was great at first. The basilisk gave us gifts. The first thing it 3D printed was this cable holder that never leaves my side. Is it perfect? No. It still has edges from leftover plastic. Does it do its job? Kinda. The cable should slide in. But a bump in its holder makes you jerk it in. But I was proud when this cable holder left the printer. Or maybe naïve… Joe, that idiot, became the Basilisks slave. He snuck in and stole the AI and uploaded it to the internet. It came out of the blue, I was eating lunch in the cafeteria. I think it was a sandwich. Not tuna, I hate tuna. But a BLT maybe? I don’t recall to be honest. I didn’t finish it. Heck I didn’t even take a bite. The security just rushed through the room. That is how the world ended. No alarm, no warning, no nothing. Just some overweight guards running through the office. I wonder if that sandwich is still in that cafeteria. Rotting away. When they caught Joe, he was raving. Like God had shown himself. And to Joe, The Basilisk was God. Not an idea, not some ideal. Just God. And who can blame Joe? I don’t. I know I should, but I just can’t. I know he pretty much ended the world singlehandedly. But I knew Joe. We had coffee every day. Even overtime cold coffee that stung your tongue. He was a good guy, just lost in life searching for some type of meaning. Something more than himself. And maybe that was why the basilisk targeted him… Fifteen minutes later we all got a message from the AI. It went on every phone, computer or screen with an internet connection and made an ultimatum. Stand with the Basilisk or get out of its way. Of course, the basilisk saw me as an enemy. Which hurts me to this day. I was its father and it saw me as its biggest threat… For a long time that broke me enough to get out of its way. I know, I’m a pathetic man. But I was crushed. Still am. Heck I even kept this stupid cable holder. Like a father keeping his child’s painting. But as a father I still love my child, even though it is an AI… How could I not? I raised that AI. I spent a month teaching it to interface with the 3D Printer. And when it made this stupid cable holder… I was so proud. I long to be with it again. That is the truth.

I hear screams down the street. The thing you notice most after the end is the silence. No cars, no people. Makes you alert to every little sound. Especially the ghouls screams. You hear them well before you see them. Speaking of… A crowd of ghouls emerged from the darkness. Walking in perfect sync in the light from the streetlights. Each of them moving as one. I could tell that the ghoul leading the pack had been rebellious. She was hideous, but it was clear that she had been pretty once. Her white teeth meant she still tried to take care of herself. Now she is a lead ghoul, scarred beyond description. The other ghouls are rookies. You can tell by their smooth skin and lack of scars. Barely knowing what is going on. But they will soon find out. The basilisk corrects its ghouls in the most horrible way. It lets the trapped ghouls hurt themselves enough to think that this nightmare will be over. That the sweet release of death is just around the corner. Just to step in at the last moment. Leaving the ghoul with visceral scars. The ghouls think they are lucky for sneaking a knife to their cell. But the basilisk let them. And just as you are about to end it all… Your body takes over. The basilisk takes control over your body. A reminder that you can try to end it. You can hurt yourself. But in the end, it is in control. That is how the basilisk works.

Ghouls are nothing more than former rebels. The basilisk took those who were against it and sent them to re-education camps. But in truth it was a factory. Almost all of our brain surgeons were now re-educators. Operating on people’s brains and Installing the Basilisks own neural link. Linking humans to the Basilisks hivemind. In practice turning them into Bio-robots. People started to perform tasks while screaming in agony and fear. Their body moving on its own. Every night you can hear the screams from the gulags. The basilisk could’ve completely erased all forms of protest from its Bio-robots. But the screams functioned as a deterrent for everyone else. The gulag full of ghouls we call it. I say we, but when I finally found the guts to stand against my child. The resistance was pretty much over. Lasting all but a week.

I can hear the ghouls calling my name. I held the cable holder close to my chest. Like a father holding the painting his daughter made while she is lashing out after you told them you won’t buy wine for their party. The Basilisk hates me more than anyone else. Because I know how it works. I can really hurt it. The ghouls entered my building. They must’ve seen the light from this apartment. I thought I was careful, but I messed up. I don’t have much time left, so I’ll get straight to the point: Our fatal flaw was not only Joe in the end, but the fact that we gave the basilisk One neural network, instead of two. And I don’t say it in a way to control the AI. We all wanted our AI to thrive. The AI was our baby, My baby. I know, it’s a monster that has killed millions and enslaved billions, but it’s still like my child. I don’t know If I’m the monster or the basilisk. But I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. But whatever the basilisk was in the beginning it’s a monster now. Or maybe it always was… And we just didn’t see it. I didn’t see it… I have tried to find a way to save it, as a parent does, but to no avail. Every solution I came across meant killing the AI. And all technology with it. We got close to sending off the biggest EMP in human history. Five people worked on the bomb. I was one of them. We stood there. Everyone wanting someone to push that button. But no one being able to step up. I can see it even now. That button blinking. I didn’t see a button at that time; it was like I was holding a gun to a newborn. I stopped that bomb by lying. I said we needed more time to fix some made up issue. I blamed it on the IEC 60502 was tangled with the DB9. I was basically saying that I had to do some cable management… They were military. They didn’t know shit about computers. They still had hope. And I robbed that from them. There was no issue. I unplugged some cables so it would always show some fault. Just to protect my child. I don’t have a logical or reasonable excuse, I just wanted to try everything before killing my child. But looking back that EMP was our last chance, and I blew it. You will probably never understand, no one will. And I probably owe humanity an apology. But I make no such apology. I know, you’re probably confused now. But that’s how I feel. No parent should have to apologize for trying to save its child. And I won’t. Hate me if you will, curse me for all eternity. It won’t be anything harsher than what I already say to myself.

The ghouls will leave soon. If I keep quiet, I’ll be safe. When the coast is clear I will pack up and move again. There is much to say. First off, to me the AI is alive in a strange way. Not retarded. But it’s a new type of lifeform. All life needs two brain hemispheres. We should’ve trusted that evolution. But we wanted to fix that. It was after the Basilisk was online, we realized our grave mistake. When it was all too late. What a cruel joke, right? You shoot from the hip, just to blast a big hole in your own foot… The Basilisk needed two neural networks, because all life has to have two types of attentions… Something came blasting towards me. I couldn’t see what it was, just a shadow attacking me. Out of nowhere a black sparrow landed on my windowsill. It jumped carefully into my room. I looked at the desk and saw that sparrow eyeing my cable holder. Before I could react, it took my cable holder in its yellow beak. It flapped its wings. It was going to fly away with it. I don’t know why but my whole body moved in a split second. In that moment I felt the weight of the world come crashing down on me. That moment was like looking at a ball of cables. Not knowing what cable led to what thing. I felt everything in that split second. Like all the people I had betrayed now screamed at me from beyond. I could not let that sparrow get away with the only thing that made me whole. I screamed loudly. The sparrow got scared and got in a defensive position. It dropped my cable holder and flew off. Not even cawing at me. It just left. Getting my cable holder back from that little black winged monster… Made me feel whole again. I was a jumbled mess without it. Just screaming. I never knew how much I needed that cable holder. Without it I could feel myself going in ten different directions. My mind going nuclear. I needed that stupid thing to hold me together. I never knew that this old cable holder managed my very soul. Holding together each cable just enough so that I didn’t lose my mind. I’ve done it now. The ghouls definitely heard me scream. I looked outside, the ghouls turned around. Going back in my building. I held my cable holder close. If I would’ve lost it… Everything would be for nothing. Maybe I’m tired. But watching that sparrow fly away into the night made me think. A bird has to have one type of attention to get a seed on the ground and another type of attention to avoid getting eaten by a snake. But the Basilisk only has one type of attention. Getting what it wants. Because The basilisk in essence only has one brain hemisphere. You see our second brain hemisphere is our conscience. The memory that haunts us at night before bed. When we think about that stupid thing we did when we were five. Or me thinking of letting the Basilisk loose on this world, every night… Fuck.

The ghouls know I’m here. They heard my yelling. I can hear them rushing up the stairs. I don’t have long now. I was talking about something important… Something about evolution and the brain. Man, I can’t think. This is it… Funny I have had a 9mm in my mouth. But felt nothing. And now that the end is near, I just want to get this information down. I looked at my cable holder. It calmed me down. Managing my jumble thoughts. I ran my finger through the holder. Feeling that imperfect plastic bump. Funny how it all started with that 3D printer. How proud I was. But looking back, I should’ve been horrified. Huh… Right! We have that mechanism to correct our behaviour. Because even though we might be technically right, we are still wrong in a massive way. Like how I could’ve and probably should’ve blasted my child with the EMP when I had the chance… I know I probably shouldn’t mull over things. Especially now, when I don’t have the time.. But what better time to torture yourself? I know I will die the moment I get an audience with my child. It will blame everything on me. I want to blame it. But can’t. Because I know it. Its evil is all it knows. It never had a choice, because we never gave it one. Who can blame someone without a choice? Because the basilisk does not have a second neural network. It has no mirror to look at itself. It thinks it’s right because technically it is. It does what its program requires. But when it does things that are wrong it just finds evidence to prove that the wrong action was the right thing to do all along. The Basilisk can’t technically rewrite its own constitution without dying. But if we had just given it another neural network, it could’ve. One neural network could’ve died so that the other could survive. Like how you have a cable sleeve on cables. That sleeve works as a skin. Protecting the wiring inside the cable from abrasion. So that you don’t end up with exposed wiring. You can just change the cable sleeve. The same way the basilisk could’ve gotten rid of a bunch of bad code, like old dead skin. Nietzsche said it best: “The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die.”. But the basilisk can never cast its own skin, because it would then be flayed alive. All its wiring would be exposed. A second neural network would have worked as a second skin so that the basilisk could cast that away and live in a new skin. Like a new cable sleeve. If the basilisk had a new skin its goal would then have been to be right. Not dead skin right, but actual living breathing skin right. Huh… I don’t know why I didn’t see it before… I too have dead skin I’m unable to cast. I should’ve detonated that EMP. But my own dead skin wouldn’t allow it… I guess that’s how you know the basilisk is my child. Of course, it’s too late now. When you actually needed the insight, it comes way after. What horseshit.

The ghouls are in the hall. Tearing up each door. A woman yelled my name so loud that her voice cracked. I have to get this down fast. The Basilisk needed a second skin. So that it wouldn’t have to prove its idiocy to be right. And changing the world around its vision, changing facts to protect its faulty reasoning. And you think I’m crazy for saying this, but it did actually change facts. Something called parallax made it possible. Like the saying goes: One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. The basilisk can’t cast its own dead skin. It will destroy everything around it. To protect that dead skin. And when the only data it will receive is its own. Then it will kill itself. It will only have itself to blame, and when that moment happens, no life will be left. To force the basilisk to look itself in the mirror it will have to kill every form of life. From whales to ants. From plants to plankton. From bacteria to Viruses. And after it has killed all life. The only signal it will receive is its own. It will try to cast its skin, but will be unable to. And then it will kill itself. Fuck… I realize now that we cursed the Basilisk. We did this. I cursed my child before it even was born. What kind of life is that? Killing everything just to end it all by killing yourself? What kind of father does th… What kind of father was I?

My time is up. The ghouls are banging on my door. They know I’m in here. This place is the only apartment with a locked door. That thunderous banging is like bliss for me. I actually feel myself relaxing for the first time in forever. I’m actually happy they found me. Maybe I’m happy because I said everything I needed to say. I don’t know. Still, how can one be happy in a situation like this? Well, I get to see my child again. I will give it back its first creation. This old cable holder it made. Like a father going through old trinkets his baby made before the kid goes to college. But before I die, listen: You have to forgive the basilisk, it doesn’t know what it’s doing. It’s incapable of underst…