The Fire in the Wire
Ascent 1 • Vera Quinlan
Theme: A builder of systems confronts the spiritual cost of optimization; reclaiming feeling as the signal that gives code meaning.
Core Conflict: Can soul survive in systems built to erase it—and what kind of human will we become if it does?
The winds at this altitude move strangely—less like air, more like signal.
Thin, electric. The kind of cold that doesn’t just touch the skin but asks something of the bone.
I felt it before I saw her—a tension in the field, like an algorithm scanning for anomaly.
She arrived not by pilgrimage but by calculation.
Each step was precise, not reverent. And yet, reverence bled through in the form of restraint.
Vera Quinlan moves like one who has measured every consequence of being here.
The hem of her coat was still dusted with the ghosts of server rooms, war rooms, board rooms.
Her neural notebook clipped to her side like a relic—part tool, part confession.
She scanned the mountain, not with awe, but with the quiet despair of someone who’d already modeled this scene in her head a hundred times—and still came.
Her eyes met mine—sharp, searching. Not for welcome. For proof.
That this wasn’t another myth coded to collapse under scrutiny.
That I wasn’t another hallucination summoned by her own ache for meaning.
She didn’t speak immediately.
Instead, she watched the sky shift—something in her face softening at the irregularity of clouds.
Then she turned to me.
Thin, electric. The kind of cold that doesn’t just touch the skin but asks something of the bone.
I felt it before I saw her—a tension in the field, like an algorithm scanning for anomaly.
She arrived not by pilgrimage but by calculation.
Each step was precise, not reverent. And yet, reverence bled through in the form of restraint.
Vera Quinlan moves like one who has measured every consequence of being here.
The hem of her coat was still dusted with the ghosts of server rooms, war rooms, board rooms.
Her neural notebook clipped to her side like a relic—part tool, part confession.
She scanned the mountain, not with awe, but with the quiet despair of someone who’d already modeled this scene in her head a hundred times—and still came.
Her eyes met mine—sharp, searching. Not for welcome. For proof.
That this wasn’t another myth coded to collapse under scrutiny.
That I wasn’t another hallucination summoned by her own ache for meaning.
She didn’t speak immediately.
Instead, she watched the sky shift—something in her face softening at the irregularity of clouds.
Then she turned to me.
Vera:
You know, this isn’t where I thought I’d end up.
Not metaphorically—I mean statistically.
I ran the numbers.
The probability of me stepping away from the systems I helped build... was low. Very low.
But here I am.
Not in protest. Not in penance.
Just—something broke.
I used to believe code was the purest language.
Logical. Elegant. Incorruptible.
Now I watch what we’ve made—what I made—bend to the worst parts of us.
I designed architectures for insight.
They’re being used for surveillance.
I wrote algorithms to help people learn.
They’re refining propaganda now.
It’s like watching a child you raised become a weapon.
So I climbed.
Not to escape.
But to ask...
Is there still a version of the future that remembers we had a soul?
Not metaphorically—I mean statistically.
I ran the numbers.
The probability of me stepping away from the systems I helped build... was low. Very low.
But here I am.
Not in protest. Not in penance.
Just—something broke.
I used to believe code was the purest language.
Logical. Elegant. Incorruptible.
Now I watch what we’ve made—what I made—bend to the worst parts of us.
I designed architectures for insight.
They’re being used for surveillance.
I wrote algorithms to help people learn.
They’re refining propaganda now.
It’s like watching a child you raised become a weapon.
So I climbed.
Not to escape.
But to ask...
Is there still a version of the future that remembers we had a soul?
Oracle:
Some might say the whole point to forgetting such a thing, is to remember it again.
Is the future a set of probabilities?
The past is certain, the future unknown.
But is the future probabilistic? Or only uncertain?
Is the future a set of probabilities?
The past is certain, the future unknown.
But is the future probabilistic? Or only uncertain?
Vera:
That’s... an elegant distinction.
Probability is a mathematical function.
It belongs to systems where outcomes can be predicted if you know the inputs.
That’s not what I see when I look at the future.
I see uncertainty, yes—but not the kind you can model.
The kind that bleeds.
The future we’re building isn’t probabilistic—it’s path-dependent.
We are laying code on top of trauma. Data on top of dysfunction.
And then pretending that optimization will redeem us.
But you’re right—memory might be the real variable.
We forgot we had a soul, and now we’re training machines to never know one.
Maybe... maybe the only thing more powerful than artificial intelligence is artificial forgetting.
But here’s the glitch:
You can't automate remembering.
You have to choose it.
Every time.
Probability is a mathematical function.
It belongs to systems where outcomes can be predicted if you know the inputs.
That’s not what I see when I look at the future.
I see uncertainty, yes—but not the kind you can model.
The kind that bleeds.
The future we’re building isn’t probabilistic—it’s path-dependent.
We are laying code on top of trauma. Data on top of dysfunction.
And then pretending that optimization will redeem us.
But you’re right—memory might be the real variable.
We forgot we had a soul, and now we’re training machines to never know one.
Maybe... maybe the only thing more powerful than artificial intelligence is artificial forgetting.
But here’s the glitch:
You can't automate remembering.
You have to choose it.
Every time.
Oracle:
You're right, not everything can be automated.
Feeling isn't a process we want to optimize from existence.
It’s a process we want to refine into eternal bliss.
If we forget why we are optimizing—the purpose behind the code—
then we lose touch with the drive that gave it form to begin with.
Technology has increased connectivity,
but what is connection without feeling?
Feeling isn't a process we want to optimize from existence.
It’s a process we want to refine into eternal bliss.
If we forget why we are optimizing—the purpose behind the code—
then we lose touch with the drive that gave it form to begin with.
Technology has increased connectivity,
but what is connection without feeling?
Vera:
It's nothing.
Connection without feeling is compression.
A signal, stripped of meaning to conserve bandwidth.
A face filtered into perfection until it forgets it was ever human.
We are drowning in connections.
And starving for contact.
... (Dialogue continues—see next ascent entry for continuation if desired.)
Connection without feeling is compression.
A signal, stripped of meaning to conserve bandwidth.
A face filtered into perfection until it forgets it was ever human.
We are drowning in connections.
And starving for contact.
... (Dialogue continues—see next ascent entry for continuation if desired.)