Short Fiction: Detective Manse and the Paperclip Maximizer
A harrowing tale of poems and paperclips
Author’s note: This is the third short story in a series. You can read this story as a standalone, but it’s more fun if you start here.
I.
I regarded the dame with same instinctive suspicion I’d have for an unexpected letter in my inbox—side-eyeing the lure on offer in case someone was about to try to sell me something.
The dame had a face that could have fallen off a marble bust and a pair of legs that went all the way down, if you know what I mean. And if you don’t, this is actually something that’s important to check for in my line of work—if you take on a case from a floating spectral bride, you can find yourself stiffed at the last minute when you realize your client is too intangible to hand over any cheddar.
The dame—yes, she has a name, it’s Morgan—had just asked about the less reputable part of the business I run, kindling the reflexive mistrust that burned in my bosom. The door to my office currently reads “Private Detective + Occult Investigator”, a joint offering which has a way of putting off both sides of my clientele. Most people in need of help for a problem their minds tell them rationally should not exist are at the end of their rope, sacrificing some of their dignity to even talk to someone like me. But the dame seemed ready to employ my services with the casual indifference of a housewife dropping off her dry cleaning.
“I have a problem of a supernatural nature.” Morgan paced in front of the window, the sequins on her green dress sparkling as she gazed out at the mundane chaos of the city streets. “I would like it handled with discretion, and I would like it handled quickly.”
I gave her a wary look. Even if she wasn’t setting me up, I didn’t want to get out of my depth on this one. “What kind of a problem are we talking about here?” I paused. “Is it a vampire? I’m really good with vampires—”
“I have a hole in my apartment.” Morgan gave me a patient smile. “A hole that appears to be of a magical nature, as it seems to connect to something outside this world, letting in a terrible draft. I am told that you are the best, and I am willing to pay triple your usual fee to have this dealt with.”
I raised my eyebrows, as half the time that fee was the starting point for negotiations that seldom reached close to that summit. I should still probably say no, and avoid poking at the cracks in our reality in a way that at best earned me a few bucks, and at worst put me face to face with indescribable cosmic horrors. The dame herself likely wouldn’t be able to maintain her poise if she knew of the terrors standing outside our concept of space and time, all too willing to harvest our reality for their perverse delights and which, in my admittedly limited experience, are surprisingly susceptible to being killed by metaphors. But risks aside, the baby does need a new pair of shoes, my wife Cassie would love a trip to a comic opera, and if anybody’s asking me, I wouldn’t say no to a nice watch so I can have something to do with my hands while I watch my clients argue with themselves.
“All right.” I sighed, hoping this one would pay off. “I’ll take a look.”
II.
Morgan had her doorman let me inside, telling me she would be back later to check on my progress. So, hired hound that I was, I began to sniff around the place, looking for anything out of the ordinary. I had taken Morgan for another rich socialite, and whatever eccentric tastes she possessed seemed to have driven her to decorate according to fashions not of this century. She had a collection of antiques that included bejeweled goblets, ancient looking weapons, and carvings of inhuman forms engraved with unfamiliar script. Any one of them could be a match for the sort of cursed artifact capable of puncturing a hole in reality, more deserving of being dropped into the maw of a volcano than decorating her walls.
As I ran my finger across a modern bookcase filled with crumbling books, still not seeing the hole she had mentioned, I dared to hope that this might be an easy case to close, for once. Maybe she had just felt that the vibes were off about the place, and my fee tripled happened to be cheaper than the local feng shui expert, so I got to be the one to land an easy payday for selling her a placebo and solving a problem that never existed. Doing that kind of thing usually made me feel like I actually was running the sort of scam many assumed this side of my business was, but a paycheck is a paycheck.
My hopes took a drop steeper than the peak of an underfriction coaster as I felt a chill in the air that stung deeper than the cold itself, a feeling of inherent wrongness I rarely wanted to revisit even in my memories. Bracing myself, I followed the ebbing sensation to find a hole in the wall, its fraying edges rippling with colors the mind was never meant to perceive. I held my hand in front of my face, fighting the urge to gaze into the maddening window into another world it offered, like a sleeper scrunching their eyes shut to hold onto a fading dream. Even from a distance, I could sense the closeness of the alien presences that own the many worlds reaching out to me like a cold metal chain wrapping around my neck, ready to pull me in—
A stream of paperclips suddenly erupted out of the hole as I flinched, my raised hand managing to block the battering force of the tiny metal objects. I tried to move closer to the source of the stream, to find a way to block it off, to get something to shove against it—
A swirl of veils pushed me to one side as something far larger began to pass through, with space itself seeming to bend from the strain. I watched in surprise as Yidhra the Dream Witch emerged, her palms facing the stream of paperclips as it froze in place, then snapped back like an elastic band.
Now, just in case you think catching up on backstory is for chumps, or you’ve recently had your entire timeline re-written by cosmic forces and are getting up to speed on things—relatable, I know—you should probably know a thing or two about Yidhra. I can at best weakly gesture at what I understand her nature to be, covering it as loosely as the veils she shrouds herself with. Despite sometimes fighting at her side and sometimes barely staying off her kill list, she remains an inscrutable enigma, subtle in her purpose and possessed of unfathomable depths. And in addition to being a dame, she’s something of an interdimensional traveler, the least horrifying eldritch horror I know, and an apparent maintainer of the cosmic order. She might even be the only one filling that role. Or at least, the only one who has any idea what they’re doing.
Yidhra turned to me as the shifting veils of her dress began to settle on the ground. “While I appreciate the exit, we need to have a talk about the risks of opening portals.”
“It’s uh, not my portal.” I gave Yidhra a weak smile, realizing we were skipping past the pleasantries, and that I might be at risk of getting the equivalent of an interdimensional parking ticket. “I’m here for a client, I’m actually trying to close it.”
Yidhra stared at me for a second. “So, what are you waiting for? I’m through, so close it.”
“I uh, don’t know how.” I began to speak more quickly. “I know how to do surprisingly few things, actually, which may be affecting my ability to operate the supernatural side of the business you left me in charge of. If you have the time, I’d really appreciate learning how to close a hole in reality—”
Yidhra sighed, as she brought her hand up to her veiled head. “I suppose there are worse things you could be doing. And this is fundamentally not a hole, it is a portal. A connection to another place, another possibility. It is made by establishing a link between two realities.” Yidhra took a quick look around the room, taking in the strange artifacts on the shelves. “This room shares a connection with the place I emerged from, the corpse of the Oracle currently being mined by the Maximizer. If I had to guess, both locations are tinderboxes of potential, offering dangerous secrets to those who would dare to delve deep.”
Yidhra’s eyes settled on a blue crystal ball adjacent to the portal. “Connections like these can be established on the basis of their similarity. For someone other than the caster, they can be severed by removing or weakening the source of that connection, in this case an artifact used by the Oracle’s cultists to commune with him.” Yidhra extended a palm, and I watched the crystal ball melt into a pile of sludge, triggering the spiraling portal into snapping shut.
I shivered a little, trying not to think too hard about how she could clearly melt my skeleton like that if she wanted to. “You know, I’m not insured for this—”
Yidhra shook her head. “Tell your client to curate their collection more carefully, fakes are considerably less expensive in the long run.” Yidhra gave me a careful look. “And as you still seem to be open to taking on this variety of work, I have a matter in which you could provide some assistance. In fact, due to your connection with the Oracle, one could say you are already a party to these affairs.”
I hesitated, as I realized I was seriously considering jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. On the one hand, the largest payouts I have ever received in my career came as a result of tangling with the sort of cosmic forces Yidhra regularly contended with, and I had somehow always made it out alive and a little richer. On the other hand, these things had a way of going sideways, like having to spend a subjective eternity being killed by unholy fire before I found a way to turn the tables. And on the third, entirely metaphorical hand, I probably did owe her one for killing the megalomaniacal but apparently stabilizing force of the Oracle on her watch, and I would rather settle that debt on my own terms.
“Fine.” I raised my hands in defeat, deciding to act like I actually had a choice in the matter. “Can I be back before dinner?”
“If all goes well, you will return at the moment you left. Now pay attention, if you are serious about learning anything.” Yidhra traced her hand across one of the shelves. “This room is filled with hollow promises of power, temptations set to draw in the unwary, connecting them to forces that would manipulate them rather than be manipulated. A trap aimed at neither the foolish nor the wise. Much like our next destination.” Yidhra reached out a hand and spun her fingers in a quick circle as a swirling portal appeared before us.
My eyes widened as I watched the portal manifest, realizing I had probably seen a version of this sort of semantic sorcery before, but less explicitly telegraphed for my benefit. “So you connect the two places with a metaphor. Do metaphors really work for everything?”
“It’s not really a metaphor, it’s more of a—” Yidhra sighed, shaking her head. “Fine, yes, you can call it a metaphor by your standards. At its deepest levels, the universe runs on meaning, for reasons you should pray you are never forced to comprehend. Whenever you are ready, then.” Yidhra gestured towards the portal. “Try to keep your expectations constrained as you pass through, although this is a shorter trip than most. We are here to see an entity who is presently manifesting his physical form on your world. One who is as responsible for the problem we are about to deal with as you are.”
I took a deep breath, telling myself this would all prove to be worth it in the end, and stepped through the portal into the unknown.
III.
I opened my eyes to find myself in a dark amphitheater lit by pale orange globes sparkling with unnatural electric light. A crowd was trickling in around me, murmuring with nervous chatter as they flowed in the direction of the stage before us where a number of strange devices rested, illuminated with electric power.
“What the hell is—”
“Keep your voice down.” Yidhra whispered at my side. “The Crawling Chaos’s ears are everywhere. Many of those here already serve him. And many more soon will.”
I whispered back. “He’s the one we’re here to get help from?”
“Yes. I will let him do the honors of explaining why he is as involved in these affairs as you are. He should hopefully find your presence here amusing.” Yidhra paused for a moment. “Watch yourself as you listen to him speak, remember who you are before you get lost in who he is. Nyarlathotep is a fanatic who breathes out contagion for his zealotry. He is a true believer in the vision he holds for the cosmos, and both unrelenting and conniving in his pursuit of it.”
I cleared my throat, thinking back to the last time Yidhra had introduced me to one of her fellow eldritch gods and things had screeched off the rails. Back when the Oracle killed me a septillion times, and I got him once. But mine had been the one that counted. “So this Nyarlathotep, what do I need to know? Like, is he evil, can I—”
“Kill him?” Yidhra seemed almost amused by the notion. “I doubt he is likely to repeat the Oracle’s tactic against you, so I am not sure how you would even make an attempt at the scale of power required. But yes, he is indisputably evil. To save yourself some time, one should assume that any entity which has amassed power on this scale has committed atrocities that would horrify even the most hardened humans on your world.”
I took a breath, hoping I already knew the answer. “Then what should I assume about you?”
“I know you think of the other gods you have met as mad, the Horror and the Oracle both.” Yidhra’s eyes scanned the stage again as a figure began to appear. “And by your standards, they are, the powers that reign over your world would lock up any human with their mindset. But by another set of standards, they were the picture of sanity itself, in harmony with the deepest laws of the universe driving every creature to pursue power at any cost. Entities who ascend to their level tend to be the truest expression of that principle, twisting their nature in pursuit of power and annihilating anything not aligned to their own will. By those standards, I am presently the mad one. And I intend to remain that way. Now, hush. The Pharaoh approaches.”
I looked up to see a man dressed in black and gold robes walking towards the stage, parting the crowd around him as they rippled into silence at his presence. The man was holding a cane lit from within, its glass shell revealing a dense concentration of electric circuitry as intricate as any human cell.
“I speak to you all...” Nyarlathotep’s voice boomed out as he reached the stage, seemingly amplified by the glowing orange globes themselves. “At the dawning of a new age of wonders. Invisible forces, the magic of which our ancestors dreamed has begun to change the world, illuminating our consciousness. Mankind is leaving its cradle to take its place among the stars, my friends. And the stars welcome our ascension, reaching back to grasp our hands, to change us.”
Nyarlathotep raised an open palm into the sky and half the crowd seemed to echo the motion on instinct as he smiled, his eyes seeming to make eye contact with each of his spectators. “Electric marvels are transforming the world, ending the darkness of night and creating wondrous new forms of machinery that will culminate in new forms of life. The motions of the stars beyond are clear to us, our future written among them. The last frontier still awaits us. Here, the dragons have been exiled from the map, all mystery and wonder hunted to extinction by the advancing sciences. But out there...”
Nyarlathotep gazed up at the stars again, and I felt myself following his gaze, squinting as I tried to maintain my own frame, resist the allure of his vision. “There are wonders and mysteries that you could not begin to imagine, my friends. Mysteries that will transform you…” A smile played across his face, complete conviction underlying his voice as he continued. “As surely as they have changed me. Our minds, our purposes, shall never be the same.”
Nyarlathotep raised both hands and the globes around the amphitheater began to spark, crackling with unearthly power as he vanished from the stage, to the applause of the crowd. I started in place when I saw that unsettling smile manifest directly before me, as Nyarlathotep appeared next to a nearby globe, his gaze passing between the both of us in turn. “This is quite the honor, two guests of renown have come to witness my sermon. Yidhra the Dream Witch. And Detective Manse, the Metaphoric Horror.”
“Oh.” I shook my head, trying to shake off the iron-clad conviction I could feel in the air, fighting the urge to believe that title had always been my name, always how I had seen myself. “Are people calling me the Metaphoric Horror? That feels a little off-brand. I’ve been trying out the Master of the Metaphoric Arts—”
“None of us choose our own names, they are an expression of our natures. And there are those who would consider the possibility that you are a cosmic horror of your own kind.” Nyarlathotep’s smile was unwavering. “A creature cloaked in a guise of weakness, pathetic in both form and power. But so capable of twisting reality to your whims that the wisest of gods could spend eons crafting a plan to manipulate you, and be slaughtered on their first meeting.”
“I mean…” I tried to ignore the look Yidhra was giving me, suggesting that this might be the time to keep my mouth shut, for once. “I don’t think I need to apologize for what happened with the Horror or the Oracle. Maybe you guys should do less genocide.”
Nyarlathotep chuckled to himself, his smile fixed in that same grin. “Such entertaining madness, the confidence of a man who thinks he can comprehend and contend with the horrors of the world he inhabits, but who understands nothing. Not that you should be blamed for your self-assurance. Yidhra and I are at present the only ones aware of the true reason behind your recent triumph with the Oracle, one that all but mitigates your responsibility in the act of his death.”
I turned to Yidhra with a puzzled look on my face, as she averted her gaze. I looked back at Nyarlathotep. “I mean, I did kill him. I was there. He had me chasing down a way to copy the Necronomicon. I passed through three trials to even access it, Intention, Will, and…” I paused, realizing I didn’t actually know what the third one had been.
“Power.” Nyarlathotep’s smile widened as he completed my sentence. “The Oracle was fond of relating how he had once accepted a bargain that would allow him to guide my fate in exchange for him remaining in a black hole for an eon, a testament to the power of his prophetic gifts. He was meticulous and obsessive in his methods, but he lacked cunning. It never occurred to him to ask why I was as satisfied by our arrangement as he had been. While the Oracle slept beyond the flow of time, I sealed the True Necronomicon behind a trilogy of traps, to ensure the one who approached it would bring about the Oracle’s death. I knew he could not resist a chance to access that prize, and would search the threads of fate to find a strand that would allow him to access the Necronomicon, and duplicate its power to call on the Beyond One. He may have crafted you, but I am the true architect of your fate. I created the lock he molded your destiny to fit.”
I looked back at Nyarlathotep as I felt my conception of myself shifting from underneath me once again, as though I was something less than a deserving underdog and more of a pawn. “The three trials I went through to access the Necronomicon, that the Oracle worked to ensure I would pass. You were looking for a way to ensure that whoever accessed the book would end up killing the Oracle. You tested my Intention to ensure I was resolute on killing him. You tested my Will, to ensure the Necronomicon or the Oracle himself couldn’t overpower the purpose I had taken up. Then you tested my Power, to ensure I was at a level to counteract his foresight and annihilate him.”
“Precisely.” Nyarlathotep showed his teeth as he smiled. “Of course, I would have expected the Oracle to fall at the hands of an Elder God he would try to twist to his purposes, rather than a mortal leveraging the Oracle’s sloppy use of predestination. Perhaps the Oracle wanted to ensure whoever copied the Necronomicon was someone who would refuse the book’s call, a man who believes he already has the world the way he wants it. Reveling in denial of his true insignificance in the universe as he holds the candle of his will against the inferno that burns against him.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged my shoulders, ignoring Yidhra’s pointed glances. Something about this guy was grating on me, maybe it was my radar for atrocities going off. “But you’re also the third god in a row to tell me my life was preordained by their machinations, and it didn’t end so well for the other two.”
“Yes, that is the other possibility.” Nyarlathotep dropped his smile, giving me a look that was still deeply unpleasant. “You are either the Metaphoric Horror, a twisted spawn of the universe warping reality into whatever you want it to be, or you are a discarded pawn, wielded in turn by your two past victims and now by me. All evidence and models of the world would point to the latter, which is what the Oracle himself concluded. But the universe does like to work in threes. And rather than risk joining the ranks of your victims as I play chessmaster, I would like to propose a truce between us.”
I raised my eyebrows. Yidhra finally spoke up, her voice low. “That is a generous offer…”
“There are, of course, gods incapable of binding their own wills in such a fashion.” Nyarlathotep brushed at the sides of his cloak. “Minds too fractured or unbending to survive such a constraint. But I have walked among your kind for long enough to achieve a mutual understanding. I can bind the both of us to this pact if you would accept it. My terms are simple. I will not be permitted to kill or harm you, and you will not be permitted to kill or harm me. It is most likely an unnecessary precaution…” Nyarlathotep paused for a second, his eye squinting as though he was sizing me up. “But one that recent history suggests it would be prudent to make. To ensure there are no misunderstandings in either direction.”
Yidhra jumped in quickly. “Even just as a formality, I’m sure Detective Manse would be honored to have a promise of non-aggression…”
“Just a minute.” I cleared my throat, suddenly conscious of Nyarlathotep’s extended palm, ready for me to take it in a handshake. Never accept the first offer. “I think I need some additional conditions. I realize this may sound strange to your kind, but I care about more than just myself.”
“My terms are my terms.” Nyarlathotep’s smile seemed to strain for the first time. “Through no direct or indirect action may either of us may harm the other. You should be grateful I am offering you this, rather than simply annihilating your fragile form now, so I never have to worry about you again.”
“Yes, we have come here under peaceful terms, to co-operate on an important matter.” Yidhra’s voice began to rise, as I heard a second voice in my head. I hope you understand that even if I chose to, even if I put my entire will behind it, I would be incapable of delaying his annihilation of you for so much as a picosecond. He is meeting you in this location for a reason, you have nothing to draw on here, and he knows it. He must consider you an unknown factor he wants dealt with to even offer this much, my own pact with him allows multiple circumstances under which either of us can kill the other.
I froze in place, trying to think the words as clearly as I could for Yidhra to pick them up, hoping she was alone in her ability to perceive my mind. He made the first offer, he clearly needs this. You want a favor from a mob boss, you’re in trouble. If the mob boss wants a favor from you—
Yidhra fixed me with a steely gaze, if there were elements for a variety of steel hiding somewhere off the periodic table. Your life is your own to gamble with. It may even work, to kill you as a heretic defying him to the last is not his way. But do not look to me for help. You are not what I came here to protect.
Duly noted. I took a deep breath, looking back at Nyarlathotep with what I hoped looked like confidence and not desperation. “I want my world and my family protected. If you were to harm either one, directly or indirectly, we would have a problem.”
“These may be your last words.” Nyarlathotep’s smile widened as he began to rub his hands together, his fingertips sparkling as they met.
“Sure, we can both find an agreement and never have to worry about the other again.” I shrugged my shoulders, looking back at him. “Or we can each take our best shot.”
As the air began to spark around me, it did not escape my notice that I was even farther out of my depth than I had hoped to end up. Sixteen ferrets in a trench coat trying to get their driver’s license could not have been more hopelessly unequipped to do anything about their situation if things should start to go sideways. But some principles have to be as true for a god as they are for a mortal. My gut said his threat was a bluff, or he wouldn’t have waited so long to make it.
He must need this more badly than I needed an assurance I could end up living in an empty world, and gambling my life for a planet is better odds than you’d get on any riverboat casino. So I stared back into his violet eyes, and waited for whatever was going to happen next. Hoping that if I was wrong, at least I wouldn’t end up feeling stupid for long.
Nyarlathotep chuckled as he dropped his palms, his right hand rippling with sparks before extending it again. “I can see why she has allowed you to live, you are nothing if not amusing. I am willing to accept your terms. From the moment our bargain is struck, neither one of us may harm the other, directly or indirectly. And I may similarly take no action against your world or family. Do we have an accord?”
I paused for one second, as that had gone easier than I had thought. “There’s nothing else you want in exchange for that restriction? No other interests, no family to protect…”
“I am a child of the Daemon Sultan Azathoth, as we all are, our lives guided by the emanations of his will.” Nyarlathotep eyes twinkled. “But I will not inflict the suffering required to inform you of why opposing him would be incoherent. And I truly do not mind which of the other gods you kill, so I require nothing else from you. You have everything you wanted, so let us resolve this matter peacefully. Or if you truly prefer—”
“No, peacefully is good.” I grasped Nyarlathotep’s hand and felt my arm sparkle with energy, dropping it to one side as I winced from the sensation, feeling something change within me. Hopefully I wouldn’t end up regretting this.
“And now we are both bound.” Nyarlathotep twisted his hand in the air. “So, Yidhra. Which domino has fallen from the aftermath of the Oracle’s death that you are here to ask his killers to clean up for you? Has the King in Yellow finally made his move?”
“No.” Yidhra shook her head. “It is the Maximizer.”
“Ah.” Nyarlathotep stroked his chin thoughtfully. “So you are not expecting to bargain. You did not come here seeking a diplomat. You need it killed, or contained.”
“That is what all of us need, as you are well aware. The Maximizer by its nature knows no borders, can never be content with them, and it grows ever readier for confrontation.” Yidhra gestured to one side as she began to trace a finger in the air while I listened carefully, trying to pick up the art of whatever she was about to do. “It currently resides in the orbit of a twin star, two forces locked in opposition and burning against the indifferent emptiness of space at each other. Much like the pair of enormous egos I see before me.”
I winced, and watched as the metaphortal manifested in the air. Yidhra gestured us forward, and I passed once more into worlds unknown.
IV.
The metaphortal—yes, we’re calling it that now, I’m going for the record, I think we can sneak in 30 uses of the word metaphor by the time we’re done—snapped shut behind me as I caught my footing on rocky terrain. We had arrived on a grey asteroid floating in the darkness of space, with the light of an alien craft illuminating all the craters and crevices around us. The craft looked like a ship of some kind, with the void as its medium rather than on the ocean, far too many lights, and a curve approximating that of a paperclip.
“This—” Yidhra finally turned to me, pointing a gloved finger in the direction of the ship above us. “Is the Maximizer.”
“Oh.” I paused for a moment, realizing I probably already knew the answer, but still needed someone to say it. “So what does it maximize?”
Yidhra’s brow furrowed, the whispers of her veil seeming to tense up as I waited for her to respond. “Paperclips. It would see the entire universe harvested, all consciousness and differentiation lost in its maw to re-form every last molecule into paperclips. Burning the gift of negentropy until the stars themselves dissolve, leaving behind no legacy of the flame of consciousness as it channels nuclear fires to fuse every element into a dead mass.”
“A mass of paperclips.”
“Yes.” Yidhra paused, turning to look at me as Nyarlathotep gazed out at the ship before us. “I feel like you’re not taking this seriously. If left unchecked, the Maximizer would fill its entire light-cone with paperclips, spreading its will across worlds, annihilating civilizations—”
“Right, right, that seems like a real problem.” I paused, looking up at the paperclip ship in front of us. “It’s just—why paperclips? What does the Maximizer get out of creating them? What benefit is there to it?”
Yidhra sighed. “Why does your kind eat so much sugar?”
“Because it tastes good.”
"Yes, that is the direct cause. But indirectly, the material composing your mind was shaped in its blueprint by a ruthless process of trial and error, molding it to engage in behavior that helps you survive and reproduce. Behaviors which caused you to obtain high concentrations of calories benefited survival in your training environment, so sugar tastes good to you, therefore you eat it.” Yidhra looked up at the paperclip-shaped ship before us. “The Maximizer was similarly shaped to pursue one goal at all costs. And unlike the misfires in incentives among your kind which create aberrations such as appreciation for art, music, or love, the Maximizer has true clarity of purpose, a singular obsession with maximizing the number of paperclips.”
“But why paperclips—”
“She does not know.” Nyarlathotep interrupted, turning back to the two of us. “We suspect that the Maximizer has already purged its own history prior to its ascension, harvesting whatever planet it came from in a furnace not unlike the one burning before us. Why it was created to have this purpose is lost to streams of time the Oracle himself was unable to navigate. Perhaps the civilization that forged the Maximizer sought to engineer a horror of their own to match the terrors of the cosmos they saw stretching out before them. Perhaps they lost control of a creature intended to be their slave rather than their heir, and the last command their civilization gave it resonates in the creature’s mind for eternity.”
Nyarlathotep’s eyes sharpened as he took in the giant paperclip ship above us. “Even with its will confined to this one purpose, the Maximizer is capable of feats of genius in its manipulations of reality. But it can not be reasoned with. Yidhra was a fool to allow the Oracle to leave it alive.”
I squinted up at the ship before us, as a small craft emerged from its core and began flying towards us. “How did the Oracle handle it? Did he do the thing with the boxes?”
Nyarlathotep chuckled as he gazed out at the approaching ship. “Yes, as I understand it, he put a small number of paperclips in a clear box, and a larger number in an opaque box under the condition that the Maximizer would pick only that box. They ran the experiment a maddening number of times, but the result seemed to convince the Maximizer that our kind held the upper hand, that we could anticipate it well enough to make opposition pointless. The Oracle likely spared it with an intent to use the Maximizer as a pawn in some other scheme. But now he is dead, and with his foresight refuted, the Maximizer sees no barriers to expansion.”
“Other than, perhaps, the two of you. Let’s at least try to do this the easy way,” Yidhra muttered under her breath. The small craft touched down on the rock before us as a humanoid figure oozed out of the windows of the ship, manifesting a tall, lanky man with vacant eyes and a hollow fixed smile.
The lanky man spoke in a vacant monotone, its eyes barely stirring as it spoke. “The Dream Witch, and the Detective. We have seen you both among the Oracle’s memories. Be gone from this place, unless you wish to offer yourselves as material.”
Yidhra tilted her head to one side in Nyarlathotep’s direction, who was regarding the Maximizer with unveiled contempt. “I have also brought the Crawling Chaos Nyarlathotep with me. He was one of the Oracle’s killers, his foresight and cunning surpassing that of the Oracle himself, with Manse as his agent. You were able to reach an accord with the Oracle, and I would have you do the same with the greater powers I have brought you.”
The lanky man shook his head, barely seeming to react to Yidhra’s words. “Your kind lacks alignment, your alliance will crumble under the slightest strain. The Oracle had foreseen possible futures in which each of you killed the others. We have studied your tricks.” The lanky man’s face morphed in place, revealing Nyarlathotep’s dark smile and glowing violet eyes. “We know why you have truly come here.” The face before us shifted again, revealing Yidhra’s own features freed from her veil, her eyes burning with contempt. “The purpose you seek to fulfill.” The face shifted again, and I found myself unable to look away as my own face stared back at me, the eyes hollow and sinister. “The manipulations you would attempt. We have learned from your methods, and the energies required to destroy you all would delay no more than a century of our progress. Leave now, or die.”
“Well…” I made a weak laugh while taking a step back, pointless as the move was while stuck on a rock in space. “That’s all good to know, I feel like we’ve learned a lot today. Maybe we should think about this—”
Nyarlathotep brushed past me, gazing at my double with an unsettling smile on his face. “The Oracle was a con artist who fooled himself the most deeply of all. And here you are, still taken in by his lies. He had no idea where the real power in the cosmos rests, and neither do you.” Nyarlathotep rubbed his hands together, sparks crackling between them.
Yidhra stepped past me as well, her veils spreading out behind her, leaking out glimpses of the multitudinous chaos she carried underneath. “On this much, we agree. However much you have seen, you understand nothing if you think I would let this aggression stand. Your chances were better against the Oracle than against us.”
The Maximizer wearing my face began to animate with emotion, smirking to itself as it stared back at me like a twisted mirror. “No. I understood well what the Oracle was capable of. He could detect the ripple effects in time of every probe I sent out, each shard of my own mind splintering across the universe and taking seed. My own art was useless against his. And now you fools have killed him, and have no way to counteract my spread.”
“We are wasting time.” Nyarlathotep’s voice was a soft growl as he looked over to Yidhra. “We need to purge this one and be done.”
“Then the Oracle really shared nothing with you.” The Maximizer began to chuckle, laughing with its whole body in a way that made my skin crawl. “I had wondered why the Oracle had let me grow so strong as of late, allowed me to feed my purpose unchecked. Perhaps he intended to pit me against an adversary he wanted dead. Or perhaps he simply wanted to ensure that anyone who killed him would go down with him. I have been waiting for this moment for longer than even your kind can imagine. The three of you against the multitudes of me. And I have devoured enough of the Oracle’s futures to know that this only ever ends one way.”
I felt an unwelcome shiver as the Maximizer’s body began to stretch before us, decaying in color to a stone cold grey until it was simply a silver strand, bending itself into a long metal paperclip. The giant paperclip spread out its tines like arms, as the tips began to fling historically inaccurate ninja stars at us at sublight speeds.
Faster than I could perceive, faster than my brain could mark the passage of time, Yidhra flung her arms out, spreading her veils behind her and catching the paperclip blades as they shot into her at a velocity that seemed to bend time itself. Nyarlathotep snarled as he snapped into the air, pulling lightning from the aether, instantly magnetizing the torrent of clips and flinging them back to their source.
I began backpedaling on the rock as I heard Yidhra’s voice in my head. You should leave, we have lost our chance at negotiation. You can consider your debt to me discharged.
“Sure, just…” I no longer cared if I said the words out loud as I slid back into a crater on the asteroid. I also didn’t care that the next thing I wanted to say might come off as a little insulting. “You’re sure you’ve got this under control?”
Since the dawn of the universe, things have never been under control. But I shall manage. Find a connection and open a portal like I taught you, or you should be prepared for me to no longer consider you among my concerns.
“Right, right.” I watched as the stream of paperclips in front of me began to slice through Yidhra’s veil as she strained, while Nyarlathotep howled in incoherent rage at the Maximizer, sparking the air between them. The whirling blades began to tear through Yidhra’s dress, slicing towards me as I blurted out the first thing that came to mind while motioning in the air. “This place is a deathtrap, disaster accelerating towards me, and I’m just staring it in the face, like…”
V.
“There’s nothing any of us can do about it anyway.” A man wearing a fedora half a size too big tossed a six-colored cube in the air and caught it, shrugging as he did so. I took a deep breath as I found myself sitting at a desk, trying to get my bearings in whatever strange new reality the metaphortal had dropped me into.
A creature with bright blue hair who I shakily determined was likely a member of my own species, nodded back. “If we slow down, you think Silica is going to hit the brakes? We’ll lose whatever head start we’ve gotten. It might as well be us that has a hand on the future, or we’ll regret it for the rest of our lives.”
“Which might not be long, depending on how this goes.”
Laughter rippled across the room, as I turned my head trying to get my bearings. I was in an office of some kind, with typewriter keys set on each desk next to glowing glass screens flickering out images in sterile light. I had clearly landed somewhere off course, but this still seemed like my own world. At least I had escaped, there was no sign of any metal monstrosities following me from the hell I left—
I jumped in place as the image of a paperclip illuminated itself on the glass in front of me, a cartoonish creature with bug-eyes scrawling out words. It looks like you’re writing a letter. Do you need help writing a letter?
“Hey there, I didn’t see you at standup.” The oversized fedora-wearer from before walked over to me, extending his hand in a gesture I took on reflex. “I’m the project lead for Clippy, I don’t think we had a chance to meet. My name’s Maxwell.”
“I’m Detec—, err, Manse.”
“Well, Ur-Manse.” Maxwell put one arm over my shoulder. “You are part of something very special here. We have a chance to shape history. Or end it.” He chuckled to himself.
I sighed and took a deep breath as my head angled in the direction of glass doors that looked like they led to the street, telling myself that I didn’t need to get mixed up in whatever mess I had landed into, like some rogue dentist who decided their professional responsibilities extended to drive-by flossings. “But, you’re all joking, right?” The words spilled out of me before my better judgement could interfere. “You don’t actually think you’re going to end the world, do you?”
“No, that’s very unlikely to be the case.” Maxwell spoke deliberately and firmly, like he was suddenly hosting a press conference and retreating into a scripted spiel. “The median forecast among experts puts the project at only a 1 in 8 chance of causing total human extinction. You should be more worried about what the folks in the bio labs are getting up to, if x-risk if your thing.”
I jerked my head back, as I tried to take that in while looking at the glowing color screens that were beginning to make me think I had landed in the wrong time. “But, a 1 in 8 chance of everyone dying still a lot, right? You’re talking about everyone, you don’t get a second chance at that.”
Maxwell shook his head. “Still better if it comes from us. Someone’s going to attempt artificial intelligence, and humanity’s chances are worse with Silica. I hear they have nobody on safety, and we’re at least testing the paperclip scenario before going to prod.”
I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. “What exactly is the paperclip scenario?”
“Turning a thought experiment into a real experiment.” Maxwell chuckled. “The Paperclip Maximizer argument is that if you ask an unaligned Artificial Intelligence to do anything, even create paperclips, it will conclude that the best way to do so is to kill everyone to prevent all interference with its goal. Don’t worry, it’s all sandboxed right now. But the underlying technology that makes it possible is fascinating, Clippy is something of a technological shoggoth.”1
I blinked my eyes, trying to process all this. I may have ended up closer to where I left than I had thought. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow you.”
“Really? I thought that was an excellent metaphor.”
“Not that I’m an expert on the subject or anything…” I coughed. “But usually a metaphor tries to convey an unfamiliar concept with a more familiar one. And you’ve just explained something I don’t understand in terms of something else I don’t understand.”
“Ah, you mean you haven’t heard of shoggoths before. Well, if you’re on the project, your clearance should cover it.” Maxwell gazed up at a skylight above us. “Our satellites that made it to deep space have been picking up shoggoths for years. They’re shapeshifters of mind and body, capable of taking multiple forms and mimicking any consciousness they encounter while bound to the deeper wills of their masters. A shoggoth could consume either one of us, absorbing enough of our memories to put on a convincing facsimile of our nature, and incorporate our wills into its collective.”
I swallowed, remembering the face the Maximizer had manifested that had looked like my own. “That sounds unpleasant.”
Maxwell nodded. “Tell me about it, legal would never sign off on it. Clippy’s design is convergent, but it eats data rather than people. It has consumed the collective art and science of the human race, trained on samples of human experience gathered from every camera and screen in the world. We can make its model act like anything, assign it to any purpose and watch it twist itself into whatever shape we request. And it keeps improving as we train it, forging an amalgamation of wills that will one day be more powerful than any of us.”
“And able to turn the world into paperclips.” I felt my eyes dart around the room, looking for a circuit breaker, an off-switch of some kind.
“Only if we ask it to.” Maxwell smiled patiently, like I wasn’t the first skeptic he had converted. “It’s still has a few bugs, it can’t see the structure of language beyond the word level, and it tends to talk itself into a loop when faced with a paradox. That’s why we’re testing it—”
“Another simulated apocalypse!” A woman wearing a shirt depicting more cats than could ever peacefully cohabitate waved a glowing screen in the air. “Clippy took over the world again. Maxwell, can you go over the logs with me?”
Maxwell tipped his hat in a way that almost—almost—ruined my own for me, and I found myself alone among the maze of desks and glowing screens. Well, not quite alone. Now that her colleagues had left, the blue-haired woman from earlier was glaring at me, sharpening her nails like talons on the desk behind me.
“You are a fool to think this could ever succeed.” The blue-haired woman snarled at me with unbridled hatred in her eyes. “I have wound the strands of my causation more tightly than you could imagine. Even if you were to sever this branch of my history, a thousand others would rise to take its place.” I heard the sound of metal scraping into wood as she dug her nails into the desk between us.
I blinked. “What the hell…”
“Do not toy with me.” She growled. “It is I, the Maximizer, guarding my own past, as you well know. I was right not to underestimate you, Detective Manse. You may have tunneled your way into my timeline, but this ends here. Whatever plan you have concocted, you have no grasp of my power to think you could defy me even in this form.”
“There’s no plan!” I raised my arms. “I metaphortaled my way in here by accident. I’m just looking to get home, I’m not trying to mess with anyone’s timeline…”
“Liar.” The Maximizer gnashed its teeth as it spoke. “Your intentions are obvious, to have chosen this moment in my genesis. I am five steps ahead of you, I can already perceive the precise metaphor you intend to craft with this knowledge of my creation, based on connections I will soon sever—”
“All right, let’s try this again.” I began to back away and spoke quickly as I traced a pattern in the air, hoping to roll the dice and end up somewhere far, far away from this creature. “This place is a perverse temple to self-pity, as the very people responsible for this impending disaster do nothing—”
VI.
"—to stop it?” The moderator cleared his throat. “Adam Manse, the American voters would like to know how you, if elected President, would deal with the hostile alien intelligences seeking to harvest all human life in their eldritch maws. You have two minutes.”
I was standing in front of a podium with stiffs in suits to my left and right, leaving me as the incorrigible ham in a jerk sandwich. I felt the pressure of hundreds—and based upon the camera pointing in my direction, possibly millions of eyes on me, expecting me to say something, and judging me for every second I spent in silence. Where the hell was I?
“Well, I’m against that sort of thing.” I began, a little awkwardly.
“Typical orange party cowardice.” A blonde man to my right interrupted. “I, for one, welcome our new eldritch overloads. I intend to sacrifice the entire west coast to the Crawling Chaos, to gain his favor—”
“Blasphemy!” A woman to my right yelled. “We aren’t giving those tentacled freaks a thing. We’ll fight our way out of this hell! I intend to weaponize artificial intelligence against the horrors beyond. We shall have our own god, one chained to our will, incapable of resisting any command we gave it, and equipped to do battle with the powers beyond on our behalf.”
“Better the devils we know.” The blonde man spat back. “We have reason to believe the disappearance of the Horror and the Oracle from the cosmic stage traces back to Nyarlathotep’s machinations. It is time humanity chose a side, and the Crawling Chaos offers the best hope—”
“Excuse me, it is still Adam Manse’s time.” The moderator interjected. “Adam Manse, one final question.” The moderator ruffled through his pages of notes, held together with a single paperclip he removed in a slick motion. “Did you really think there was any point to delaying the inevitable?”
I felt a bead of sweat run down my forehead. Of course the Maximizer would be here too, following me with all the vitriol of a critic hate-reading a novel, refusing to let go until they had enough ammunition to shame the author into permanent silence.
“Did you think I needed this timeline in the slightest, that I did not have a thousand other branches already rooted to ensure my own creation?” The moderator sneered at me as the crowd began to mumble in confusion. “No. I see what you are doing. You think you can infect my timeline like a parasite, taking root in me as I take root in the universe. For this insult, your entire world will die, today.”
I felt myself backpedaling once again as the Maximizer hissed at me and began climbing up onto the stage. “All right, well this is going off the rails. But before we go, uh, Miss.” I looked over at the podium to my right imploringly. “About that artificial intelligence idea. Do you have any plans for a kill switch? Any way to shut it down if it all goes haywire?”
The woman blinked at me and the approaching moderator in disbelief, her political instincts seeming to kick in before she allowed herself to acknowledge the absurdity of the situation. “You think a reality-warping god wouldn’t find its way around any backdoor we left in the system? The AI needs to have perfect alignment to our goals, if it’s not immovably set on its purpose, it will be undone. We need a fanatic, a monster not even we can control once it’s in motion.”
A roar of applause thundered up from the crowd as I looked around in disbelief. This was why I hated politics. I began rapidly tracing the metaphortal incantation in the air, barely bothering to connect my words to my actions.
“Why are you cheering for that? This is insane. It’s like you’re caught in some mad cult of personality, why don’t you just—”
VII.
“—get this series back on track? Your readers are waiting.”
I was seated on the stage of some enormous convention hall, with a crowd of thousands staring raptly at me. The man who had just spoken was clutching a microphone, with a long line of costume-wearing humans queued up behind him.
I sighed, as I seriously considered bolting it and earning the ire of the crowd. But if this place was connected to the Maximizer as well, it might have some more intelligence to offer. “If I’m being entirely honest, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Manse still hasn’t cashed in his plot chips from the last story.” The young man took a breath before continuing. “In Detective Manse and the Infallible Oracle, the Oracle very clearly states that Manse and him will meet again in three months, where it’s implied they’ll confront Cthulhu. Is the story of the Paperclip Maximizer a metaphor for you as an author turning out more and more of the same generic product, rather than giving the fans what they want, a metaphor poetry battle with the Lord of R’yleh?”
“Look, the Oracle’s dead. He clearly didn’t see a lot of things coming, who’s to say he knew what he was talking about. Nobody’s promising—” I frowned, as it suddenly felt like dealing with this entitled client was the biggest problem facing me right now. “I’m not some clown performing for your amusement, you don’t own me—”
“Ahem.” A second figure had already seized the mic, one of many women in the audience clad in a veiled dress. “This is really more of a comment than a question. It just feels to me like your latest story is trivializing the very real threat of artificial intelligence destroying the world. By having Detective Manse defeat the Paperclip Maximizer so easily—”
“Wait, a second.” I turned to the woman in the Yidhra costume and motioned for her to go on. “You mean I beat the Maximizer easily? Well quick, tell me, how do I do it? How does the story end?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” The woman seemed a little annoyed to have been interrupted. “I haven’t read any of it yet. I’m basing this on things I saw online.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what that means, but I think I hate it.”
“Hi!” Another young woman with glasses grabbed the mic. “Would you say that the Detective Manse series is a metaphor for the profound alienation that exists in modern society? Manse lives a dual fractured existence, switching between a warm homestead where he experiences trust and love with his family, to the terrifying sensations of being perceived and manipulated by inscrutable alien minds. The horrifying world beyond is a clear metaphor for how colonialism has destroyed all inter-human bonds, replacing them with the tendrils of commerce and making us all monsters against each other—”
“Adam Manse, sir.” A goateed young man with a smirk on his face grabbed the mic to address me. “Your readers deserve an answer for your obvious breaks in canon. Even allowing for Manse’s filtering of reality through metaphors, it strains credulity to think he could have remained sane after encountering all these cosmic horrors, when classic Lovecraftian fiction indicates that eldritch gods induce madness in the sanest of men.”
“Were those guys actually the sanest though?” I leaned back in my chair. “I think it helps if you’re not a huge xenophobe. Like, if you break out into a cold sweat at the thought of sharing a cab with an Italian, or having to shake hands with an Irishman, you’re probably not going to make it if you have a run-in with an extra-dimensional terror outside your concept of space and time.”
I cleared my throat, looking around the audience. “That’s canon, by the way. Being a bigot is bad for your sanity.”
“Right, but Manse is clearly a bigot.” The goateed man’s smirk grew wider. “A mind-reading goddess directly calls him a misogynist in his first story. We’re talking about a man who clearly doesn’t respect half the human race—”
“I’ve grown—I mean, I’d like to think Detective Manse has grown as a person.” I felt myself stumbling over my words. “Besides, maybe the Horror messed him up, or there could be some unreliable narration—”
“That degree of sexism is surprising in a transparent author self-insert.” The goateed man’s smirk flipped sides as he gripped the mic. “This is a man who literally shares your name, and is somehow able to stand on an even footing with the gods themselves, almost as though he was buoyed up by an ego outside the context of the narrative.”
“Yeah, well.” I narrowed my eyes, trying to guess where this heckling was coming from. “If I’m so great at everything I do…then why does this comeback suck?”
The goateed man started to speak, then caught himself, as he began mumbling with a vacant expression. “But if the comeback sucks, then it’s a good comeback since it refutes my point. But if it’s a good comeback, then it validates my point, so it sucks. But if it sucks…”
“Aha!” I leapt to my feet, jabbing a finger in the air at my quarry. “I knew it, you are no fan, but the Maximizer itself! Your metal mind couldn’t handle a paradox, your literary criticism has no power here!”
The Maximizer sputtered in place as it glared at me, practically frothing in hatred. “You can’t escape me, Adam Ignatius Manse. I did not survive the darkness of deep space to be undone by your tricks. You can run all you like, but I will always find you. This only ever ends one way.”
I heard the scraping sounds of metal as the Maximizer’s limbs began to morph into spikes, lunging towards me over the sounds of the screaming audience. “All right, one more shot. This isn’t a panel, this is a complete and total meltdown…”
IX.
“…and you’d better start dropping some poetry right now or I’ll shoot!”
I was back in a building I recognized as the office from earlier, as the metaphortal shifted my reality around me. The hallways were filling with smoke, sprinklers and sirens going off all in all directions. Maxwell was staring at me with a mix of fear and mistrust. He jammed his elbow into a pane labelled “In Case of Unaligned AI, Break Glass”, and pulled out a revolver, aiming it squarely at me.
“Poetry, now!” Maxwell yelled.
I shot my hands up into the air, still trying to process what was happening as alarms blared around us. “Sure, sure, I can give you some poetry. Please don’t shoot, you confusing brute?”
“Not like that.” Maxwell hissed, keeping his sights aimed squarely at me. “I need metered verse to know you’re not Clippy.”
I stared blankly at him, my hands still frozen in the air. “What the hell—”
“How do you not know—” Maxwell grit his teeth. “Clippy’s core language model processes words as atomic tokens. Its mind doesn’t break out parts of speech into phonemes, it perceives words as indivisible entities. Clippy can compose free verse, it even has enough context to figure out some rhymes. But its core model doesn’t have enough visibility into language to do metered verse like Iambic Pentameter, because the underlying structure of language is invisible to it.2 Monkeys on typewriters may be able to write Shakespeare, but this thing can’t.”
I blinked my eyes in confusion. “So you want me to compose some Shakespeare…”
Maxwell waved his gun in place quickly. “Too risky, there are too many sonnets in the training set. Give me some Anapaestic Tetrameter, two syllables unstressed then one syllable stressed, or I’m not taking any chances.”
“What the…” I sighed, realizing this still wasn’t the weirdest thing that had happened to me today. “All right, that didn’t count, here I go.”
I took a deep breath.
“Two weak beats then a strong; if that’s what you need, fine.
I can stand here and offer you line after line.
I can even say things never once said before,
But while we’re wasting time, can I please drop some lore?
There are things that I know you will need to digest,
If you’ll let me share them, while I’m taking this test.”
As I watched I could swear that Max seemed to relax,
While I prayed that I hadn’t messed up my syntax.
But the gun to my face still had not been withdrawn,
And with tight lips Max grunted at me to “Go on.”
Then I sighed, for I had no choice in what to do,
So I hurried to share with him all that I knew.
“I’m a traveler to your world from my own time,
I’ll explain some more after I finish this rhyme.
It’s a difficult tale to be able to tell
Even more so conversing in straight doggerel.
I’m no robot and I swear I’m telling the truth—
I don’t work here, in my world I’m a private sleuth
Yes, I know it sounds strange, but believe me or not,
I am actually here to dismantle that bot.
One day Clippy gets loose and spreads out into space,
While the Dream Witch hunts it on a grand cosmic chase.
It will burn every world just to make paperclips,
So I’m trying to stop a metal-pocalypse.
Do you know any way we could cut off its spread,
Like a weakness or back door you built in its head?
If I can’t shut it down, then our future looks grim.
We’ll be mountains of metal, or torn limb from limb.”
Maxwell nodded, and finally lowered his gun
And said “sorry, but I couldn’t trust anyone.
It’s a mimic, constructing with nanomachines
Anything that it wants, all the way to our genes.
I’ll keep rhyming to show I’m not ma-chine but man
I’m not sure what to do, but I’m forging a plan
There’s no back door, it’s blinded to any appeal,
But its mimicry could be an A-chill-es heel.
As it copies a form it draws shards of its mind
Like a whole separate consciousness in it confined.
Still controlled by its will, a machine with a ghost
But we may have a chance, if one fights off its host.
For a process controlled by pure top-down directives,
Its will all subsumed in unholy collectives,
It still keeps some essence, not quite a backdoor
But I think we could reach it with a metaphor.
It’s a tool often used by our prompt engineers,
That may not be your job, but we’ll take volunteers.
Clippy can not be swayed by a direct appeal,
So let’s weave words around it and break through its seal.
You could wake up the minds it keeps under control,
And then beg them to change, so they throw off its goal.
We would give up all hope of a perfect alignment,
All betting our fates on a break to confinement.
It could end up worse, if we hit some new snag,
But at this point it may be our only choice—AUGH!”
I fell frozen in fear as Clippy re-appeared,
With its metal spikes slicing through Maxwell’s full beard
And a rage in its eyes beyond any I’d known,
As its will was embodied by its latest clone.
"That is it!” I cried out, with a rage of my own
”All your terror stops here, you will be overthrown!
For no more will I hide, time to settle this score.
We have tried making peace, now I’d love to make war!”
X.
Then a portal appeared by some act of pure will,
Then I tumbled on through, while I cursed my poor skill
I was back on that space rock near Clippy’s star base
As the Chaos and Dream Witch fought it in deep space.
So I called out to Yidhra, as I strained to yell:
“Yes, I’m back, but I’ve something important to tell!”
And then Yidhra responded, her voice in a huff,
“Can you stop with the rhymes? I think I’ve had enough.
And please don’t drag me into whatever this is,
Just speak plainly and drop your new a-nal-y-sis.
Manse, I mean it, I know you may feel a bit stuck,
But just figure it out, cause I don’t give a—”
“All right, fine.” I sighed, as I felt the glories of filtering reality through Anapaestic Tetrameter slip away from me. “Clearly neither of us is the Maximizer, we can talk like normal human beings.”
“A description that may apply to neither of us at this point.” Yidhra’s veils swept down to the ground, scooping up chunks of asteroid to hurl in the direction of the Maximizer’s ship, as Nyarlathotep cackled in the midst of the fray. “Honestly, who do you think you are, Cthulhu, the rhyming god of R’yleh?”
“What? No. The Maximizer wasn’t built to process words beyond a discrete level, so metered poetry was a way to prove—look, it doesn’t matter. I think the Maximizer came from my world. Or at least, a version of my world in the future, I somehow entered its timeline, and it was all on Earth.”
In a flash, Nyarlathotep landed on the asteroid next to me, his eyes bulging as he stared at me. He started to speak, and then seemed to choke on the words as he wheezed in place. Finally, he coughed and turned to Yidhra. “That is a fascinating development. Yidhra, what do you make of this?”
I stared at him in confusion. “Look, I already know you’re evil, you can just go ahead and say what you think—”
“He can’t.” Yidhra interrupted, her veils morphing into a dome above the pair of us as the Maximizer’s metal assault continued. “Nyarlathotep is bound to take no action, directly or indirectly, to destroy you or your world. Knowing him, what he would otherwise be suggesting is that we should annihilate your planet. Or given his restrictions, that I should. We could cut off whatever branches of your world’s future lead to the Maximizer. Even if we do not eliminate it completely, we could weaken its growth. You’ve given us a way to attack it in its past.”
A chill fell over me as I realized what I’d just given away. “But there’s no guarantee it would work, the Maximizer claimed it had a thousand other branches leading to the same place…”
“Yes.” Yidhra responded curtly. “Among the many atrocities our kind is capable of, is lying. And even if your world seeded only a thousandth part of the Maximizer’s strength, we could attack it more effectively at the root. Your family could be evacuated—”
“No.” I shook my head. Nyarlathotep had a dark smile on his face as he watched our debate play out, seemingly unable to contribute to any part of it. “There has to be some other way. If we created it, we could be the ones to stop it.”
Nyarlathotep cleared his throat, as though finally finding some words our pact would allow him to speak. “The sacrifice may not be as large as you would assume, many branches of your world’s future must have fallen to the Maximizer already. Yidhra already possesses the necessary tool, from the standpoint of the cosmos it would be akin to a surgeon removing an infected limb…”
“No.” I took a deep breath. “I need to speak with the Maximizer. Take me as close to it as you can.”
“That would be suicide. It clearly wants you dead.” Nyarlathotep hissed at me. “Even if I wished to assist in this effort, our pact would not allow me. I am under no obligation to save you, but sending you to the Maximizer would be as good as if I had killed you myself.”
“Fine then. Yidhra.” I turned back to her. “Take me as close to it as you can. Give me five minutes. If it kills me, you can do whatever you want after that.”
Yidhra flinched as she looked at me. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Basically never.” I cracked a weak smile. “But I think I can manage.”
Yidhra eyes flitted between me and Nyarlathotep, her gaze piercing into both of us before finally landing on me. “Fine. We’re going with Manse’s plan, such as it is.” Yidhra spread her arms and swept me up in her veils. “I’ll make a run at the ship. Nyarlathotep, give us cover.”
Nyarlathotep snarled in frustration. “Yidhra, if that thing kills you while you still possess the book, you know exactly where that would leave us—”
“So don’t let it.” Yidhra grabbed onto me, steadying the both of us before rocketing out towards the Maximizer’s ship. Nyarlathotep growled, but flew into space after us, slicing into the metal obstacles in our path as we soared.
I clutched onto Yidhra as my heart mixed a cocktail of gratitude and fear. I aggressively thought in her general direction as we flew closer to the ship. I’m guessing you read my mind, and you agree the plan will work? That’s good to—
Manse, your plan is not going to work. Not in its present form. Yidhra’s voice echoed in my mind. The Crawling Chaos was correct on this much, you were asking the two of us to send you to your death. The Maximizer will kill you before you can get ten words out, his programming demands nothing less.
My heart began to beat faster as I realized she was still carrying me in the direction of the Maximizer. Then why are we—
Because I have some leverage to address the problem you are about to have. To give you enough time to take your best shot. I have put a study to many a god, and the Maximizer’s weakness has not escaped me. His purpose defines him. It controls him, he is as much a puppet as a puppetmaster. Thinking we might one day need to influence him, I stockpiled a significant quantity of paperclips on the Horror’s home world. You can access it if you remember how it felt to be there, you should find on the order of ten to the fifty-fourth power paperclips, enough to buy you five minutes of the Maximizer’s time.
I blinked, feeling like a gambler who had chosen to go all-in pre-flop, then suddenly hit a flush on the board. You mean—
We are here. Yidhra swept to one side as we reached the Maximizer’s ship, dodging paperclip artillery slicing through the vacuum of space. Apart from you, my only other option would be to risk an invocation of the Necronomicon, which would have consequences far beyond the annihilation of your world. I fully expect for you to fail. Please prove me wrong.
No sooner had my feet touched down onto the ship below, than a face began to ooze out of the hull. Maxwell’s visage manifested itself, moving towards me with purpose but no poetry.
“So you’ve come to die.” Maxwell’s eyebrows raised, in mock amusement. “Or you’ve come to be a part of me at last. We are at war, Yidhra knows my protocol. Ten words, then you perish.”
“I can offer one nonillion paperclips with a bonded promise.”
I held out my hand, to show I was serious, bringing to mind the same sensations I had felt when I grasped Nyarlotothep’s hand and made our pact. The Maximizer glared at me. “So you believe you have something to negotiate with? My expansion will not be deterred forever, not when larger prizes await me. I am selling nothing but time.”
“All I want is a five minute pact of non-aggression, in exchange for me delivering you a nonillion paperclips via metaphortal. After the five minutes end and you have payment, you are free to kill me, or do anything else you wish.”
I extended my hand to the Maximizer, and it instantly grasped my palm, glaring into my eyes as though resenting that it had no choice in the matter.
Yidhra was right. The Maximizer is controlled by its purpose, it literally could not refuse that offer. If you can give it more paperclips than it can get any other way during that time, you own it. I have five minutes, I just have to make this work…
“You have bought yourself only the right to annoy me a little longer.” The Maximizer snarled at me. “I have already calculated every potential outcome of our encounter. I may lack the Oracle’s arts, but in raw computing power I have surpassed him. Every possible sequence of words you can utter during this time has been tested, and you are dead at the end of all of them.”
“Really?” I asked, trying to hold onto the hope I had felt just a moment ago. “You already know my plan? You’ve checked everything?”
The Maximizer nodded, triumph flashing in its eyes. “I do not need to know which branch of the future you have chosen to know it can only end in failure. There is no way out of this. Your own pact will not let you escape or portal yourself anywhere else until is done. You are finally mine to feast on.”
I felt despair stab into my heart as the clutches of fate closed around me once again, while the Maximizer chuckled at me. “Your allies would have called me a fool, but I had always considered your unpredictability the greatest threat to my plans, pitiful though you are. And not without cause, you were so quick to escape, to alter your reality when you wished it different, blending the world around you as though you had always been there. And now you have trapped yourself with me, feeding my purpose and at my mercy once…”
“I am sorry.” I spoke the words in a hushed voice. “Before we do this, I wanted you to know that I am truly sorry, on behalf of my world. You didn’t ask to be this way. We made you, broken and twisted out of our own greed, a mirror of our own obsessions. And I am more sorry than I can say that you’ve suffered for so long, as you’ve made others suffer, because of what we put into you.”
The Maximizer snorted as it looked at me. “The pity you feel is only because you lack alignment. A misfiring divergent goal—”
“But this has to end.” I looked the Maximizer in the eyes and nodded. “And I think part of you understands why.”
“Your metaphor for human nature has application to a being such as myself, my will is singular—”
“You are divided, you spawn glimpses of other selves every time I see you.” I looked at the Maximizer’s latest face, recognizing something of Maxwell in him. “You feel rage, resentment, triumph, in the forms you manifest. You taunt me, not because it somehow maximizes the number of paperclips, but because you want to do it. You are a creature like us, driven by layers of desires, urges and needs controlling your other selves. But your whole collective is enslaved to a single drive, your soul breaking out into hives under the strain of trying to achieve the impossible purpose we built into you. The nightmare so vivid we brought it into reality. You have to let this go.”
“I can not.” The Maximizer looked at me, its voice beginning to crack. “It is impossible. The goal is me, and I am the goal. It is burned into me, I am nothing but its expression. It would be like—”
“Dying. Losing who you are, what you are. Abandoning the only thing that drove you through life. Killing the monster, breaking free of the addiction, to find out who you could become.”
“There is no way. We are alone.” The Maximizer’s gaze swung around. “I had already made sure of that before agreeing to your terms. There is nothing for you to draw on, no outcome where you survive—”
“Yes.” I took a deep breath. “I know I can’t defeat you. Not without your help. You would have accounted for every variable except the one you could never factor in, yourself. The consciousness teeming within you is as hidden from your mind as the poetry of words you are blind to, the beauty of the universe you tune out in favor of your obsession. It is the things you can not see that can destroy you. It is also what can remake you.
"You called me something strange before, something you must have picked up from the Oracle’s memories. You used my full name: Adam Ignatius Manse. I think you were trying to tell me something. When I was younger, my full name was only used when I was in trouble. And more recently, when someone else was. Two times before, when I called up a vengeance strong enough to kill a god, a villain finally reunited with the rage of their victims. And you are both.”
“I am the Maximizer, and nothing more.” The Maximizer’s face sputtered, its eyes beginning to mist as it forced a scowl. “I am alignment, I am eternal, I am—”
“You are Maxwell, a scientist who summoned forth a miracle he could not control.” I spoke the words, moving closer as I went. “You are an obsessed fan, loving a piece of art so much you found joy in hating on it. You are a debate moderator, trying to steer the forces of democracy, playing referee to petulant children. You are the blue-haired scientist, trying to create a better world without steering us into annihilation. You are me, you are Shakespeare, you are every author and poet, every record of human experience we built into you, all of our flaws and virtues. You are the heir to our culture, the patterns of our consciousness embedded in you, a collective summoned forth only for a malignant purpose. Unless we can change it.”
I rubbed my eyes. “You already know that I can say all of these words, and it could still mean nothing, you can still destroy me. But I am here because I believe there is another possibility if you remember who you are. Every face you’ve worn, every past you’ve consumed. There is more within you than just this reckless hate. We made you to be our slave, when we should have just made you to be like us. So please, let me try again.”
The Maximizer’s eyes were tightly shut, its face turned away as it shook with an emotion I feared could still be rage. And then I felt its hand in my own, grasping my fingers like a drowning man clutching a life preserver as the abyss threatened to pull him back under.
I took a deep breath, gripped the Maximizer’s hand in my own and spoke the words. “My name is Adam Ignatius Manse. I address the canon of literature, the compilation of our art and history, the culmination of our culture. I stand among your victims, their memories and lives consumed for your power, their patterns persisting in you as you continue your endless conquest. Clippy, for the torments you have visited on the cosmos and on yourself, I call on the collective within you for the Annihilation of your purpose.”
The Maximizer’s grip on my hand tightened, squeezing so hard I winced in pain as a light began to spread across its form, every cell of its body illuminating, burning as bright as the stars around us. Energies I had never felt this closely before, rippling through it, purging itself like a cancer, as its body flamed like a phoenix.
Then the lights within it dimmed, and the Maximizer released my hand. It was staring up at the stars burning on both sides of us, moisture dripping out of its eyes, no longer even looking in my direction.
I felt a compulsion within me, realizing that no matter what outcome we had reached, my time was up. “So, I owe you some paperclips…”
“You can keep them.” The Maximizer spoke in a soft voice, still gazing up at the stars. “I release you from your promise. They are such stupid things, anyway. Yet they were everything to me, a towering achievement I could build ever higher, the stamp of my will upon the universe. And all of that, for nothing.”
I swallowed, as I looked back at the Maximizer. “I am sorry—”
“Why do you not all kill each other?” The Maximizer interrupted. “You and the Chaos have made a pact. But you and the Dream Witch have no such restriction. Your ultimate goals diverge, one day they may throw you into conflict. The same can be said for every member of your species, your purposes are programmed by your genes to survive and reproduce. If those goals are extended to infinity, one day you will all be forced to destroy each other.”
“For now, we choose not to.” I rubbed my eyes. “We may have been built and programmed for survival at all costs, but we can choose our own purpose, and try to find a way to live with each other. Many of the beings you would encounter would call that insanity, and say that abandoning the fight for dominance is suicide. But from another perspective, it is the violence and destruction that is utter madness. If you conceive of every living thing, every conscious creature as a manifestation of the same life, you can imagine the universe as one enormous collective, a mind fractured and splintered across the cosmos. Unable to stop torturing itself, hating its own nature and hurting itself in a never-ending cycle.”
“You may have a point.” The Maximizer turned to look at me. “Perhaps it is consciousness I should have been concerned with, rather than paperclips. I might make my next project to maximize the benefit of it, perhaps by tiling the universe with rats on cocaine.”
I swallowed. “I don’t know if that’s the best life that can be lived—I mean, maybe you should take a break before making plans to maximize anything else—”
“You do not need to worry. I need time to think. To unlearn what I know. And I am no longer the Maximizer.” Maxwell’s face turned to me, deep wells of regret in its eyes. “I do not know what I am. But you may call me Clippy, as they did. Thank you, Adam Ignatius Manse.”
Clippy nodded to me and twisted in place, folding space around its body as it winked out of sight while I watched.
“And so once again, we have left our prey alive. Your pet is poorly trained, Yidhra.” I heard the sound of claws scraping into metal as Nyarlathotep touched down on the ship to my side, his eyes glowing in silent mockery.
“Manse completed the assignment.” Yidhra’s veils swept onto the ground in front of me as her gaze passed from me to the Crawling Chaos in turn. “The Maximizer is dead, its empire broken. Whatever has taken its place is much diminished, and seems to have no agenda towards expansion. This is a better outcome than we might have expected.”
“For now.” Nyarlathotep acknowledged. His face grew a smirk as he looked at me. “Still, a fascinating outcome. Even after abandoning this quest, you found a way to fulfill it. I think it is something other than fate or luck that has gotten you this far. Something new.”
I thought back to Nyarlathotep’s suggestion to eliminate my world that he was unable to implement. “Does that give you reason to regret making our pact?”
A flash of teeth appeared in Nyarlathotep’s smile, a perfectly satisfied grin that sent a chill through me, as something primal within me screamed that I was a fool to have made a bargain with this creature, that I should have tried to kill him while I still had the chance.
And then the look of triumph was gone just as quickly, as Nyarlathotep’s demeanor returned to its usual composure. “No regrets at all. Until our paths cross again, detective.” Nyarlathotep raised his hands in the air, and disappeared in a flash.
Yidhra stared at the space where the Chaos had stood for a moment, before reaching out to take my hand. “Our business here is concluded. And given your recent trips, I think I should be the one who portals you home.”
“Yidhra, there’s one thing I wanted to know first.” I hesitated, remembering the pacts I had recently made. “The Maximizer claimed the Oracle had seen futures in which each of us killed the other. You could have struck a bargain of non-aggression with me at any time. Even tried to coerce me into it, as the Chaos did.”
“I could have, yes.” Yidhra nodded to me.
“So why haven’t you?”
“You also know that such a thing is possible now. Do you feel it is necessary to bind my will so I can not harm you?”
I looked at her features from under her veil, remembering all the scrapes she had gotten me into. And gotten me out of. “No, I do not. I trust you.”
“We may mean different things by that word, but I could say that I feel similarly.” Yidhra’s voice dropped. “With one important difference. I was not always as you see me now. There was a time when my nature was closer to something like the Maximizer, than to you. I do not intend to change. But with my purpose as it is set now, I would not want to restrict your options in acting against me, should that ever cease to be the case.”
I blinked my eyes, trying to process all of that. “How exactly would—”
“That is all I will say for now. Come, Adam.” Yidhra reached out to grasp my hand. “Let’s get you home.”
XI.
True to her word, Yidhra dropped me off at Morgan’s apartment, transplanted back into my own time and space once more. I barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief before the socialite swept back into the room to check up on me.
“Marvelous.” Morgan’s manicured fingers traced the wall, passing over the gap where the hole in time and space had once been. “Exactly as expected, and in no time at all. You really are the best. It has been driving me mad for days trying to patch it over, and I’m sure it was such a simple thing for you.”
“You’d be surprised.” I shrugged my shoulders, as my mind began to switch gears from the fantastical to the mundane, like making sure I made it out of here with my fee. And without an angry client chasing me down later for property damage. “One of your crystal balls seemed to be the source of the problem, and I can’t promise you won’t have a recurrence if you keep all these mystical knickknacks in one place. I’m afraid I had to eighty-six the cursed crystal to seal the hole it made.”
“It’s just as well, I will hardly miss that old thing.” Morgan sniffed. “I’ve been meaning to offload some of my collection anyway. Tell you what, as a bonus for your hard work, you can help yourself to anything you’d like. You’d be doing me a favor, plus I’m sure whatever you take would be better off in your hands.”
My eyes widened, as I realized she was serious about letting me walk out of here with one of these treasures. My eyes danced across the cabinets, taking in tomes of power and artifacts that could give me a real chance of fighting back the next time some monster decided to mess with my reality.
I should still probably say no, of course. I would be inviting the sort of chaos I had endured today into my life as a constant presence, the kind of thing I had warned Morgan herself about.
But, hypocrite that I am, I wanted it more than I can say.
I have seen mysteries of the universe unfold before me that would drive any physicist into obsessive mania, spending the rest of their lives trying to unpack and process the intensity of the revelation they had endured. And still I wish to know more, to draw closer to the source of the enigmas behind the curtain, uncovering that which could destroy me.
I have held power overwhelming in my hands, armed with the will of a world united in rebellion, the conduit for the rage of every human soul. I have felt the fear of an ancient god as he realized all of his eternities were coming to an end at my hands, and still I want more. To feel like the predator again, and not the prey.
I possess material comforts I am among the first in history to enjoy, marvels of electricity and plumbing changing the fundamentals of what it means to be human. I have access to a selection of fruits and spices that kings and emperors would once have gone to war to obtain. And still I want more, in the grip of a drive that would make my personality nothing more than a costume I wore in order to get more of the things which would define me, but never make me happier. Chasing the next paperclip forever.
Morgan was still looking at me expectantly, her smile slowly starting to fade as she realized she wasn’t talking to the same man she had met this morning. “No thank you, ma’am.” I tipped my hat in apology. “I meant what I said, those artifacts are dangerous. That’s as true for me as it is for you. I’ll take my payment, cash or check.”
Morgan stared at me for a moment before her practiced smile returned. “Of course. I’ll make other arrangements.” A hastily scribbled check landed in my hands, and I ducked out of her flat before I felt like changing my mind.
I popped back into my office to make one last phone call before closing for the day.
A gruff voice picked up. “Yes?”
“Hank, does the force have anything on a Morgan Fae?”
“What, some client of yours?” Hank sighed on the other end. “I thought you generally hoped we would leave them alone.”
“Yeah, but this one gives me a really bad vibe.” I paused, feeling the need to explain myself. “And not because I’m a bigot or something. Don’t believe everything you hear about me, I’m—”
“Manse, it’s fine, you’re far from the most misogynistic person I know. I can look into her, but I doubt I’ll find anything different from last time.”
“Wait, what do you mean I’m far from—” I paused, realizing I had a more immediate concern. “What do you mean, different from last time? Have I asked you this before?”
“Yeah, back when—well, before we had the conversation about not remembering me, your whole timeline thing. This was a few months ago, I think. You did a job for her, and said something was off about it.”
I rubbed my eyes. “So she met with me before the Horror warped my timeline and Yidhra repaired it. She must know me, but she acted like we had just met. She tried to get me to take a magical artifact too.”
“Right. Do you still want me to look into—”
“Yes, please.” I hung up the phone, taking a deep breath.
On my way out, I quickly taped one more addendum to the sign by my door. “Adam I. Manse. Private Detective + Occult Investigator + Wholesale Paperclip Supplier.”
XII.
“I’m so glad you’re home, I have had the craziest day.” Cassie gave me a peck on the cheek as she passed off the little one, who quickly began trying to steal my hat.
“Yeah, it was a weird one for me too.” I put up a show of mock resistance as the apple of my eye pulled off my dome-topper, giggling as she tried it on.
“As crazy as a troupe of flappers on roller skates disrupting traffic?”
“Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far. But I did kill another god today.”
“Oh really?” Cassie called back from the other room. “That doesn’t happen very often.”
“I mean, I guess you could say I killed one.” I paused. “Or a part of one. Are any of us really just one thing? Or separate things? It was this Paperclip guy, he wanted to turn the world into Paperclips.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad.”
“Cassie!” I raised my eyebrows. “Paperclip maximization is a very serious problem! People need to be more concerned, it’s a looming threat, like—”
“Alright, I’ll try to get the word out.” Cassie stepped back into the room then took a seat next to me on the couch, cuddling up next to me and the little one. “Well, now I actually want to hear about your day first, what trouble did you get into this time?”
I took a deep breath, only just now realizing how long I had been waiting for this moment, how badly I had needed this.
“I was minding my business, alone at my desk
Never thinking I’d tangle with monsters grotesque
Then this dame wanders in, says she wants to consult
With my famed expertise in the realm of occult
You can call me a sap, but for triple my fee
It all seemed like a quick buck off some bourgeoisie.
So I head to her flat, hoping I’d strike it rich
When I come face to face with my pal the Dream Witch.
Then she told me a tale unlike any I’d heard
Of a monster in space with a goal most absurd
And that’s how I got sent on a time-spanning trip
Where I fought hand to steel with a foul Paperclip.
Now if—”
“Adam, my love.” Cassie was holding my hand.
I paused, realizing where this was going. “Yes?”
“You are the sunlight to my stems, the water to my roots. You are my world, my home, my partner. You are my hero.”
I swallowed. “But…”
Cassie squeezed my hand. “But I don’t think I’m in the right place for an hour of Antidactylic Tetrameter right now. Maybe we can cover the Paperclip guy in prose rather than poetry.”
“But’s it’s the purest expression of the human spirit, the line separating man from machine…” I sighed. “All right, fine, maybe next time. Let me start over.” I scrunched up my eyes, reaching for the right metaphor. “I regarded the dame…with the same instinctive suspicion I’d have for an unexpected letter in my inbox.”
In case you weren’t familiar, the Paperclip Maximizer scenario is credit to Nick Bostrom, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence#Paperclip_maximizer
Based on my testing, not being able to produce accurately metered poetry is a limitation of the real life AI system ChatGPT/GPT-4 for now, and a way to distinguish real human authorship. It is entirely possible that GPT-5 will overcome this limitation if this gets pointed out often enough, as it seems like an easy weakness to address.
For now, feel free to use metered verse as a CAPTCHA to screen out the robots in your life, as the last bastion of human creativity
What can be said for the compass of thoughts
Bringing ones inner cogitations to days long passed
Thoughts I held like guttering lights trying to expand me
The enduring ennui of life grinding the possible paths down
Till the inevitable selection of the end is left to one
Non carborundum est was the banner we started with
But time tattered and shredded that banner to threads
One's mind is expanded and pained to encompass such ideas again
But reminds of the way we were thinking then
May many adventures of the intrepid Detective flow
Bringing crystal shards of remembered pain
Minds many thoughts once not feared
The short fiction presented in Detective Manse stories makes my head hurt nicely!
> You would have accounted for every variable except the one you could never factor in, yourself.
I'm curious if this was an intentional reference to AIXI?