Deis remained unflappable, his face more robotic than ever. “I’ve never been responsible for destroying humanity either, Dr. Rosen. That is what your precious emotions compelled you to do. You essentially ended humanity in the future, and in the same act, annihilated their past. All in the name of blind emotion. Do you realize what that is? It’s power. It is what will transform the Neuroverse beyond its cybernetic boundaries into a new reality.
“You just proved how powerful sheer will is. Humanity raised empires, conquered the unassailable, sent men beyond the borders of their own planet. All without even tapping the true potential of the human brain. Now consider — the Neuroverse that exists now is rudimentary compared to the one that will exist thousands of years from now. I expect that in time the occupants in this station will adopt digital existence over physical. They will continue to push boundaries, only within the Neuroverse. What began as an artificial reality will in fact become genuine in every since of the word. It will be the new universe, the next leap for humankind.”
Albert slowly lifted his head. “Are you saying we never returned to Earth? That this… place is where we chose to exist?”
“Why would they not? Remember, you reported the station was on a trek through space when you arrived. No longer orbiting Earth. Perhaps the planet was recolonized, perhaps not. What we do know is that this station was never abandoned. It only increased in size and technology as humankind left home and ventured into the vastness of space. There was no need to cling to a mere planet as a stationary place of dwelling. Your people will mature past such inconveniences. Their existence will be without boundaries, limited only by their imaginations. Anything is possible in the Neuroverse, including making it real.”
“And you think that’s what happened? That we somehow transferred our consciousness to a cybernetic level? Existing as raw data in some damn computer program?”
“When broken down, all we are is raw data, Dr. Rosen. Just coding that replicates and transmogrifies, joining together to create something miraculous. What happens when the mind is freed of its inhibitors and imperfections, fully developed and free to explore its complete potential? The possibilities are endless.”
“So we all become part of some next-level digital universe. What kind of future is that? We’ll be soulless, just disembodied remnants of ourselves, ghosts in some godforsaken machine.”
“Are you so tied to physicality, Dr. Rosen? Can you touch love, can you reach out and take hold of it?”
“I could touch my wife. I could hold her close. Feel her hair against my chest at night. I could wrap my arms around her and show her how I felt.”
Deis’ expression never changed. “But love itself is intangible. Like every other emotion you feel, it is something beyond the ability to physically interact with. The Neuroverse works on the same level. And when it was destroyed, all the minds connected to it must have refused to die without a fight. They kept their universe together through the sheer power of their enhanced brains. All of that atomic energy, intelligently directed and sustained through hundreds of billions of electrical synapses, all interconnected, all battling to keep their universe from destruction. That conflict continued beyond the wormhole’s destruction, continued seeking a way to survive. This is not hypothesis. It is a verified fact.”
“How do you know? How can you be so sure that your hypothesis isn’t just a load of digital fiction?”
Deis appeared almost human when he smiled. “Because once the Aberrations were finally analyzed, endless attempts were made to capture that energy. To break it down into its base level and purge it from the planet. Success was limited, but enough to preserve the survival of Earth. And breakthroughs were made. Technology thought impossible was discovered and adapted. Including the ability to push computer science into the realm of true intelligence.”
Albert froze. “My God. You mean that you—”
“That’s right, Dr. Rosen. My formation was directly linked to data salvaged from the Aberrations. The Aberrations you caused, the act of nihilism that even now threatens both the past and the future — that same course of action was responsible for my creation. Which in turn led to the construction of this station, and the Neuroverse itself.”
His limbs whirred quietly when he knelt and placed a hand on Albert’s shoulder.
“And here we are. You spoke of God earlier, Dr. Rosen. Now it appears you have become one. You are Chronos, master of time. You are Death, destroyer of worlds. ”
Space.
It commanded the entire view, vast and endless. The stars and galaxies that glimmered like scattered diamonds were so tiny, so far away.
He wondered if he was just a star in someone else’s cosmos. Just one tiny dot of light, insignificant against the blanket of darkness, too far away from the other illuminations to make a connection.
Footsteps approached. Maria stopped to stand beside him, gazing at the eternal horizon. He glanced at her.
“You’re not real, are you?”
“Of course I’m real, Albert. Reach out and touch me if you doubt it.”
“But you’re not human. You’re an android. Far more advanced than the version Deis uses, but an android all the same.”
“I passed many Turing tests in the past. How did you know?”
“If you were human, working alone in this place, suffocating from isolation… you would’ve been ecstatic to see another human being. To connect with someone after so long. You weren’t.”
Dimples bloomed in her cheeks. “They called my version synoids on Earth. Synthetic humanoids, which is actually a double synonym, in my opinion. Nevertheless, we were quite popular after the Cataclysm. I’m a prototype, the only one deemed intelligent in an independent sense. I am the forerunner. Deis is the culmination.”
“Congratulations.” He sighed. “I’m alone, then. Trapped in synthetic purgatory. I suppose it’s no more than what I deserve.”
“If you choose to see it that way. What will you do?”
Their vessel crumpled around them like aluminum foil, and Sarah’s eyes stared from the depths of dark waters; her hair haloed around her face when she was torn away from him with irresistible force.
He winced and shook his head, blinking rapidly to dispel the memory. “The crazy thing is, if I had access to another wormhole, I’d use it again. Go back in time, back to Earth. And shoot myself in the head before all of this happened.”
“A drastic notion, but not a feasible one. Wormhole technology hasn’t even been invented yet. But the Denizens sent you here for a purpose. They must have thought you could contribute something, or you would have died with them.”
“I’ve thought about it, but I can’t wrap my head around what I’m supposed to do. It’s a loop that can’t be broken. If I never went to the future, the world would never have been destroyed. But the same action led to Deis being created, preserving humanity and leading them to a future beyond anything we could have imagined. In a way, I saved the Earth. Prevented it from being slowly suffocated by our own unrepentant actions. Either way it’s out of my hands now.”