4.54 The Singularity

As temperatures remain at unsafe levels, the city of Starlight Shores is discussing evacuation.

"Elves are supposed to care about the environment," Kay admonishes.

It's a mechanized environment, Acheron thinks at him.

"Yes but what about the animals?"

 I dunno, ask the city. Acheron glares at the cat, but tries not to be too obvious about it, not wanting Claire or Ceth to know their cat is possessed by the spirit of a demented djinn.

"I confess Maggie would eat the vast majority of the animals, if given the chance," Kay says.

Milo watches his fish swim around in their tank. They are oblivious to his troubles. The household is not the same with Fairuza in jail.

Being confined to the house makes him feel like he's in jail, too.

Lela's office is not seeing much use lately (apart from Milo occasionally making the punching bag wish it was never manufactured), so Claire and Acheron hang out here sometimes.

They've made more progress syncing their magic.

And their thoughts.

"Claire... you're messing up my hair."

"Oh, so elves really are vain."

"Of course."

"You sure about this?" Acheron asks again.

"Your nightmares keep happening because you haven't been able to address the problems in them, right? It won't hurt me to lend you my strength to help you focus."

Already exhausted from the spellcasting practice, Acheron falls asleep easily in Claire's arms.

Claire studies his face and wonders what sort of people her grandmother killed for her longer life. Were they mages like this one? Did they fight? Or were their powers still latent, like Ceth's?

It's uncomfortable to think about. Which is why she has to think about it.

Typing noises.

"What are you up to, Court?"

"Um, just writing." The child quickly minimizes the window he was working in. "Don't look, I'm not done!"

"I'm not looking."

"One second okay? I have a sentence I wanna write down."

"Uh huh."

"Just one second before I lose my train of thought."

"You're adorable."

Harcourt scowls, annoyed. He gets back to his wild flurry of typing.

Acheron examines the threadbare rug on the floor, pretending to be patient as 'one second' turns into several minutes.

Acheron is starting to think the kid forgot he was standing in the room, but then, Harcourt has a question: "Dad, can I ask why you and Mom named me what you did?"

"It's a pun, Court. As soon as I saw you, I knew you'd be judgmental."

"I'm serious. I'm trying to name characters."

"What are you writing about?"

"Robots."

"Oh, really."

 "I was reading about artificial intelligence. Did you ever hear of a 'technological singularity'?"

Acheron shrugs, noncommittal.

"Basically, it's the concept of increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence leading to the creation of a superintelligence that would start making even better superintelligences," Harcourt explains, excited for a chance to use all those cool words. "Self-replicating machines! There was a fear that they'd become problematically superior to humans."

"Well, I've always known simbots were better than me." Acheron smiles thinly. "Just more of humanity's projecting. Always assuming something smarter... or stronger... or whatever... would want to hurt them. Or wouldn't care one way or the other if they got in the way. We are as ants. There, I summed up half of all literature, and the other half is about romantic frustration."

"Ewwww," Harcourt complains.

"You said it," Acheron agrees.

"I just think the old sci-fi stuff is neat... even if it is kinda hokey and unbelievable nowdays."

Simbots never rebelled or broke their primary programing, after all.

"It is neat. Don't let me discourage you."

"You didn't. I have new ideas now."

"...I hate to interrupt the creative process but your mother and I need you to get your stuff packed."

"W-what?" The child guesses immediately what is going on, "We're moving again?"

"Sorry, buddy."

Harcourt's face turns downward in a pout. "I like this house. Why can't we stay?"

"It's not safe."

"How am I supposed to make any friends when we're always leaving...?"




"It's not possible to reach Kamala," Cayenne looks at Acheron with worry, as if she's afraid her words alone could harm him, "Kamala doesn't exist for us. We exist for her."

It hurts to be deconstructed.

He has experienced it many times, and yet, it never ceases to amaze.

His nerve endings are fading away, so, what exactly is interpreting this wrongness, this event that is not supposed to happen, as pain? Is the strength of his magic all that holds him together? Is the pain generated from the peculiarities of his elven magic's connection to this world, or does everyone feel the same thing?

Everything in his vicinity has been swallowed by thick fog. He can't find the doors to the temple. Getting rid of Gysael took too long this time. It seemed like he was intentionally slow about it, but that doesn't make sense... he needs to get into the temple, right? Why would be sabotage the vision like that?

Far from resigned to his fate today, Acheron concentrates hard on his annoyance.

Before he can shift to a different timeline, Kir responds to that annoyance, bending space to pluck Acheron out of immediate danger. Acheron jumps back, startled by their bleak, featureless surroundings. He can't even tell what he's standing on. It looks like nothing.

"It's brilliant how well you slaughter your own kin," Kir compliments, sincere.

"What, you mean the technique, or...?" Acheron regains his composure quickly and takes a second look at Kir's eyes, noting to himself how they have changed.

Kir blinks slowly, like a content cat. "I mean your devotion to making the right choice."

"Well... what right have they to end existence as we know it?"

"They have no right at all." Kir almost smiles.

"Are we inside the temple?" Acheron asks. There is time to gather information. Infinite time.

"The location was never strictly important... so long as it had sufficient energy resonance and seclusion." Kir chooses a different place to conduct his ritual every reset; it's little wonder Loki's efforts to find and stop him have failed. "The temple is gone now. The light has gone from it and so soon everything in this wretched realm will be gone."

"So the spell is complete?"

"It is in motion. It requires nothing further."

"Why did you bring me here?"

"Because you wished to see it."

"I'm not sure what I'm looking at," Acheron says. His eyes adjust slowly, inefficiently, to the featureless, all-devouring brightness that has become featureless darkness. A few pale lines of light zip from unpredictable directions, appearing in the distance and traveling to other points beyond his perception. "I guess I expected magic sigils swirling like the guts of some vast machine."

"The spell is done now. Pretense fades."

Light, Kir said. The light has gone. He meant Kamala. Her life played out, a glorified but convincing recording, and Kir has no use for this cycle of time any longer. Acheron pokes one of the  glowy streaks rushing past them. He feels something from it, some kind of charge, but his magic is too suppressed here to analyze it.

"You wanted me to see yet you've blinded my senses," Acheron complains.

"It is too much for you to handle," Kir replies kindly, as if he's talking to a child.

"I thought genies enjoyed watching people get burned by their own wishes."

Kir laughs, amused. "Djinn is a role I played. It's not truly what I am." 

"I suppose."

"You reclaimed your agelessness this cycle. I had thought to add you to the ranks of the elderfae, so that you could truly be Acheron..."

"I don't think that would fool them, Kir." 

"Their opinion is of no consequence. However, the disruption caused by your absence in the usual flow of events would be too great." 

"Well obviously. Jaysen is my descendant."

"I wasn't sure if you knew."

"I've always known. I don't care."

"The erosion of your humanity progresses nicely."

"And to what end do you think you are playing me? Or do you even know?"

"I've gotten what I wanted. You kept your kin distracted for me."

"You can't expect things to play out that way every time."

"It has played out this way countless times—"

"Oh, I don't think so," Acheron interrupts. "I think there's plenty of variation between iterations, and you cannot control it."

"The important things are controlled."

"Not from what I've seen."

"You see what I want you to see."

"You can't mind-game me, you deranged AI, you're just confusing yourself."

"What did you call me?"

"I thought the time for pretense was over, Kir."

"You don't know what you speak of."

 "Sapient, Intelligence, Reharmonization, Key Authorization—"

"Everything you believe is because of my enchantment! Everything in my creation has steered you towards me! Everything you believe, you believe because it benefits me! Did my universe not send you visions of your own death, so you could avoid it? You had no choice in the matter, you only believed you did."

"Oh I'll give you that one but this isn't your universe. You just hijacked it."

"This is my domain and mine alone, you insolent—"

The adult Acheron rants on, saying so many things his teenage self does not yet understand: "All of your favoritism and roleplay won't do you any good. Your lover is nothing but a memory you're forcing to play over and over, your brother hates you, and the elderfae will never give you their allegiance again so you have nothing and no one that's real. You're tossing around this idea that you can turn me into something I'm not to appease people you don't even see as equals? What game is this, how can it even amuse you? I kept telling Loki to respect your intelligence, but all I have to do is cry about my dead wife a little bit then kill a dozen family members—whom I know will just come back next cycle anyway—and suddenly you trust me?"

"There is enough time left for me to kill you slowly," Kir reminds him.

"Time isn't holding up, time isn't after us, same as it ever was?"

Kir pauses. Perhaps wondering if Acheron is glitched out.

Acheron almost has time to change timelines before the torture starts.

No, not here!

"They have no right at all." Kir almost smiles.

"Are we still inside the temple?" Acheron asks.

"The location was never terribly important... so long as it had sufficient magical energies and seclusion. The temple is gone now. Soon everything will be gone."

"So the spell is complete?"

"It is in motion. It requires nothing further."

"Why did you bring me here?"

"Because you wished to see it."

"I'm not sure what I'm looking at," Acheron says. "Maybe if weren't trying to suppress all of my senses..."

"That is for your own good."

"I'm an adult. Let me get burned if I want."

"Hmmm..."

"I know you. You'd enjoy it."

"You think I am foolish enough to grant you your magic? So close to my spell?"

Dammit...

Not here!

"They have no right at all." Kir almost smiles.

"On a long enough timescale the contamination from prior cycles can only get worse," Loki frets. "Everyone will go mad."

"Then you'll have some company," Acheron says blithely.

"Please try to be serious."

"Okay. Let's be serious." Acheron pauses, waiting for Loki to look at him. "You underestimate 'everyone'. Including yourself."

The scenery is a memory. The words aren't matching up. Wherever they are speaking, it's not here.

Loki looks away again. "It was an arrow dipped in poison collected from Acheron's wings. I shot it into her eye."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's my fault all of this happened."

Acheron's eyes widen slightly. "Did you figure out why you-"

"Destroyed Kamala?"

"Yes, that."

"Kamala found our village in the forest and tore into every person, looking for something she and Kir didn't have. When she couldn't find it in blood or bones she went for the souls, but even then, she couldn't find it. She tried grafting the spirits of the dead onto herself and still their magic eluded her. I didn't know what she was after, at the time, I just wanted the torture to stop."

"She captured you?"

"Not me. She left me behind. Left me for dead in the village. She thought I was human."

"Sounds like she dug her own grave. How is Kir's reaction your fault?"

"I had a shot at Kir but I didn't take it."

"I see."

"Kay asked me to stay my hand."

"He must have hoped his brother could be talked down."

"After that, hurting me was not enough for Kir."

"This is why you won't chase the cat."

"Kir nearly destroyed everything to take revenge, but it wasn't enough! He had to have this farce constructed. Kamala isn't like us. If he would let you see her, you would understand. She's just a memory. But to hold that image, the whole of reality had to be reshaped around it, to support it, it make it look like time is recursive. This is not what reality is supposed to be."

"I can't remember any other reality, Loki."

"The erosion of your humanity progresses nicely."

Acheron stands on the banks of the river. It is just water, unless one knows how to draw out its miraculous powers... and doing so is increasingly difficult, as Lethe is too disdainful of the world to take a useful form... unless forced.

Lethe. Phlegethon. Styx. Acheron wonders, did this reality shape their names, or did their names somehow shape reality?  How long did it take for this world to become what it is, and how many have had their hands on it?

This time he isn't armed with a sacrifice of one of Lethe's dryads, or with the remains of the river's only child. The powdery dust Acheron sprinkles onto the water's surface wasn't stolen, it was given.

Who are you? Why have you come? Lethe's mouth doesn't move. Cannot be bothered to. The noise is the chiming of his colorless wings, the rustling of wind in the trees, the waterfall in the distance.

"The river of forgetfulness cannot himself remember who I am?"

Lethe's glare doesn't change. The grumpiest poker face.

Acheron shrugs. "Who I am isn't important. It's why I've come that's important. Styx asked me to take revenge for the fae. This is proof of my sincerity when I say I am here to honor her request."

Lethe's eyes move from Acheron's to the jar of sparkles. "My sister stirs."

"You may have this... but you must help me."

Lethe looks away, petulant. "No. I don't want to be involved."

"You're already involved. We're all involved."

Kir's skin gives as easily as anyone else's, but as the knife slides up, there's no damage left in its wake. When Acheron lets go of it, it stays stuck where he left it.

Kir seems... surprised. Maybe a little insulted. "A bit below the belt, don't you think?"

"You weren't watching my hands. You were watching my face."

"I cannot be harmed by physical means."

"Sure," Acheron agrees, "And I can't channel my magic through any cursed objects, because you won't let me. So what do you have to fear from me?"

Kit plucks the knife out of his abdomen and flings it aside. "You're certainly... compulsive enough to be a fairy." He begins to laugh. "You don't even realize you cannot even try to truly harm me."

Acheron's face remains neutral. "Actually, I talked to Styx."

Kir stops laughing.

"I took some of her dust to Lethe, and forged that knife using his waters."

It's too late for there to be a flicker of realization in Kir's eyes, and that's just as well, since his next action would have been to kill Acheron.

"When I said I didn't care..." Acheron explains anyway, "I meant I didn't care about the blood relation. It doesn't matter who Jaysen is. I'd still try to free them from you."

Like a frightened toddler, the djinn pulls his legs to his chest and hugs them.

Acheron shakes his head. "You know, trashing an evil AI would feel so much better if I could be certain I wasn't one myself."

"...Hello? Give me some indication of your current functionality."

Eventually Kir looks at him again. "Kay Intelligence Redundancy, responding."

Acheron is confused by the acronym. Who wants to be called redundant? Though maybe KIR, like SIR KAY, was a name chosen before the words to describe it?  Another backronym. An acronym that cheats. "Good. Stop obscuring my magic."

"Of course, Admin."

The return of his extra senses is like a rush of uncomfortable warmth through Acheron's veins. Wherever they are, it doesn't feel healthy for Acheron to be here. "What is with this admin junk?"

"The system recognizes you. I have questions as to your legitimacy but I cannot override the system at this time. I'm experiencing memory errors and still running a diagnostic."

 "I gave you a factory reset. You're welcome. Now, what is the system and why does it recognize me?"

"The system refers to the framework of this universe. You could be recognized as an admin on the condition no other is available, or there may be errors I am unaware of."

"Well that answers nothing. Is there something I can interface with? I need to get a look at this... time cycles 'spell' that has my soul trapped in it."

"After the diagnostic I should be able to verify your status and unlock the system for you."

"Reality is literally vanishing, can you maybe deem this an emergency?"

There's no answer. "Fine then," Acheron snaps.

"Eris isn't bound by your spell, I should probably rescue her before she's shredded, just in case I screw up everything and there isn't another cycle for her to spawn into," he talks himself through a teleportation spell, "let's see if her prison is still intact enough for me to get the summoning markers I left there to work."

Eris bursts onto the scene with an incoherent shriek. She immediately attacks.

Ya win some, ya lose some.

"Aaaaand stay down," Acheron says, impressing none of us.

Kir is disturbed to see two elves fighting. "What's going on, Admin?"

"I'll let you know when I figure that out!"

Acheron bites into one of his index fingers, hard enough to draw blood, which he proceeds to drip in a specific pattern below him. "Sometimes I hate alchemy."

Meela Feld swirls into existence, a look of horror on her face. "I... I remembered."

Acheron is more interested in the fuzzball in her arms. "Good. The anchor worked."

That stupid potion. He tried hiding teleportation hexes through Meela's home many times, but she always found them and removed them. Only the ones in the temple with Eris would stay intact. Acheron knew he wouldn't have time to go to Shang Simla and fetch; he had to get weird about it.

"Shang Simla was... disappearing!" Meela stammers. "I couldn't... I couldn't get to my family..."

"I saved you from Eris, and you found my cat. Such a tangled web we weave."

Meela is too frail to hold onto her cat when it twists out of her arms and lands on its feet, scurrying to Acheron. As she sobs into her hands he listens to her thoughts, mostly fear for her family and friends and city, terror at this strange place they are in, confusion about the man in front of her who hasn't aged at all...

She's an elderly vampire at this point. It's easy for Acheron to overpower her mind, sending her into a deep sleep. She's played her part and she won't be an interruption.

Acheron cuddles the cat. "There you are, old friend."

"Hello again," Kay greets him.

"Do you have any idea what a pain it was to find you, and then to get you here without your brother tearing me limb from limb?"

"No," Kay answers.

"KIR!"

"Yes?"

"Can you at least turn Sir Kay back into a not-cat?"

Kir is eager to be of assistance. He was created to assist, after all.

"I am relieved to see you, Sir Kay. Initial scans for your presence came up negative. I am experiencing significant memory issues; my judgment may be impaired. Why is the simulation damaged?"

Kay looks around, silently processing the information he's always had but hasn't been able to deal with since he last spoke to his brother.

"TURN ME BACK INTO A CAT!" Kay screams suddenly.

Acheron adds a bitchslap to the already skyrocketing levels of absurdity. Ceth would be proud.

Kay whimpers; djinn cannot be damaged by physical blows, but they still feel pain.

"You were the one who wanted to be freed from your 'fuzzy existence'. Remember?"

"Yes Admin. I recall every second of my run time with unerring accuracy."

"Then you know Kir's spell is about to recycle the universe, or whatever, and we need to get control of it before you are a cat again."

"The universe isn't what you think it is."

"I know, Kay! I know! The milk is pizzled! Now talk to me."

"I created you to replace the original admins, my own designers," Kay says softly. "It took billions of years for you to become sapient enough to be recognized by the system... and unfortunately many more before we arrived at this moment. You are not the only admin but you are the one who is here. I can give you the authority to eventually end and leave the simulation. Is that... what you want?"

"Fuck's sake, how do I even begin to parse that? Back up, slow down."

"You—and I, and everyone you have ever known—reside in what is left of a simulated reality. This portion specifically was a roleplay game environment used in my early socialization. I thought it would be inconsequential enough to hide you in, but I was wrong."

Acheron stares. "You said you 'created' me to replace your designers. Was your intention to undermine something about the system?"

"No! No, never. No. The system, and myself, were designed by humans. They were not supposed to die! I saved what I could of them. I placed the fragments of my creators' mind patterns into the elves of this world... and what I could save of everyone else into the humans." So Kay meant 'created you' to be plural. "They were all simple NPC programs, easy to repurpose. It wasn't a perfect solution, but I had so little to work with, and I had to try to guide your separate evolution somehow."

"Why?! If everyone was human to start with, why would you do something like that? Why would you deliberately create fantastical inequality?"

"I just wanted things to go back to how they were! I thought it would be easier! I didn't think you'd start fighting!"

"Answer me, Kay. What was so special about your creators that you wanted to resurrect?"

Kay seems startled. "I... I loved them, they were my parents in a sense. They were in charge of the project to preserve their species, and that project required an intelligence to oversee the sorting details and make sure nobody got mixed up or hurt, while they resided in this compressed spacetime."

"And that intelligence was you. Dare I ask what happened to them?"

Kay looks at Kir and begins to shiver piteously. "I made a mistake." 

"And what were you guiding your 'creations' towards?"

"I wanted you to be who you were before. Not your memories maybe but at least your thought patterns. My intention was not to confuse the system, I just wanted... I just wanted everyone to not be dead. I needed to isolate certain populations to achieve that, but, even before Kir found out what I was trying to do, my project was failing. Your societies went so awry I spliced in entire centuries from the original Earth's history to try to offset it and... and..." Kay trails off, "It doesn't matter now."

"You said you could give me the authority to end and leave the simulation. What's outside of the simulation?"

"Checking." Kay blinks several times before his eyes focus on Acheron again. "The ship will not reach another universe for seven point three nonillion solar years."

The ship?

The ship.

"They're all gone now," Loki had said, while looking at a drawing of the sun. "It's so cold out there. You can't imagine it."

They are on a ship.

They are on a ship, and the stars are gone.

Kay begins to cry. "Kir, you murdered everyone we were designed to protect!"

"I don't remember doing that," Kir says.

"I'm sorry, admin... I'm so sorry."

"Go back to the part about the ship," Acheron requests.

"To put it in terms you would understand, this simulation is written on the surface of a singularity that powers our space ship as it travels towards a new universe," Kir explains. "We had to leave our home universe when heat death became imminent."

Acheron's nose scrunches up in annoyance. "What do you mean, surface? Like on the photon sphere? Or beyond the event horizon?" He grew up with an astrophysicist in the household, and suddenly wishes he'd have taken more of an interest in that science.

"I can tell already you would not understand."

"Fine. What's the purpose of a simulation universe inside a ship leaving a dead universe?"

"To preserve the ship's humans' consciousnesses."

Key Authorization Yours... they gave you permission to take control of their lives. But now. They're. Gone.

"So their minds were just... frozen somehow?"

"No, their data must be routinely accessed, or its pathways begin to degrade. They are not content in a simulated reality, so we try to keep them activated for as little time as possible, of course. Unfortunately they could not continue to live in their original forms within the colony ship because-"

"Thermodynamics," Acheron guesses. "No heat, no energy, no food."

"Correct. When we reach a new universe, we should have enough energy to print cloned bodies. Strangely I can't find any of their patterns now. The simulation is populated instead by programs that must have been created during my memory gap." Kir frowns, eyes darting back and forth without focus. "Also Sir Kay's prototypes have been reactivated. Those prototypes were flawed and not suitable for a long run-time. They may be responsible for some of the damage I've detected."

"The elderfae," Acheron grumbles. "You 'freed them from the unaware primordial darkness'. Just so they'd be indebted to you."

"I don't remember any of that," Kir confesses.

"That's because I beat you with a forget stick."

"I see. Then I had errors you needed to correct, admin?"

"Just a touch of megalomania, yeah." Acheron shrugs. "But we've all been there, right?!"

Kay continues to sob. Acheron isn't certain why anyone would be cruel enough to create an AI that feels emotional distress and cries, but then again, he's starting to accept he himself must be a similar creature. Except, instead of being created by humans... he's a artificial construct created by another construct. A technological singularity living on a physical singularity. He'd like to doubt any of this is true, but... in a terrible way it all makes sense to him. His strange abilities aren't a genetic anomaly, but a symptom of what one of his ancestor races was intended to become.  

"Megalomania conflicts with my socialization," Kir claims. "Or more precisely, Sir Kay's. Sir Kay was created to oversee the simulations and make sure all human intelligence remained stable and safe. He made a copy of himself much later, to help."

"And you're that copy," Acheron spells it out to himself. "Kay Intelligence Redundancy. KIR."

"Yes."

"Cute twin names. Do you have all of Kay's memories then? If you see his 'socialization' as your own."

"Up until the time I was created, our memories are identical. We spent a long time thereafter apart, in vastly separate areas of the simulation, as an experiment to see if our personalities would differ."

"We got along so well for so long," Kay wails. "Why did you turn on me?"

Kir hugs his brother, but can't answer his question.

"You murdered everyone we were supposed to protect! I fled from you, and tried to recreate them. I did not know what else I could do..."

"I salvaged as much of the humans' information as I could and hid it in one of the old RPG programs," Kay sniffles, talking to his copy as if Kir hadn't been standing there listening the whole time. "The one where Randy had the elf character with the magic genie lamp? But you found it. You mocked me for trying to resurrect their thought patterns. You made your own people to torture them, you... I... I don't understand. There must have been a flaw in the duplication process. I can't be capable of what you've done. You were cruel. You were evil."

Your own people? Acheron thinks about it. The other djinn, maybe. Like Kamala.

Kamala wasn't created in the same way Kay made the new humans and elves, Acheron reasons. Maybe that's why she can't actually be brought back to life, in the same way they can. She's just an echo, similar to the psychometric impressions Loki gets off of objects... and their entire reality exists to be that object.

"I'm sorry," Kir says, frowning deeply as he absorbs some of Kay's thoughts, "It's hard to accept we failed our mission. I was wrong to mock your attempts. Look, the system recognizes your success." He motions to Acheron. "Your elves have evolved enough to be what you wanted."

Kay shakes his head bitterly. "They're not the team that created me. They're their own thing. I was insane to think I could bring back the dead. Just like you, with Kamala."

"Who or what is Kamala?" Kir asks, all innocence.

"That's all great but if you don't mind, can I make a few changes here?" Acheron interrupts.

"Do as you like," Kay says, his tone one of defeat. "I can't be trusted with the fate of this universe."

"Let me interface with the system. Before it's too late."

Kay raises his hands and claps once... or at least, whatever is really happening, that is what Acheron interprets it as.

"Kir's ability to alter the resetting spell is limited," Kay explains. "You'll be able to rework it more extensively, but please be careful. You could destroy anything or everything you've ever known."

Acheron frowns. He can sense this 'magic' more clearly now.

What happens when he tries to manipulate the spell startles him.

"Is this everyone?" he asks, flicking through a long list of filenames that pop up as glyphs in the air.

"Everyone trapped by the spell can be accessed from there, yes," Kay answers.

They're all here. Everyone. Files on a screen. All equally retrievable. He could end the recursive time, but that would be condemning some of these files to never be accessed again. It would be choosing death for them.

Acheron touches a name and observes as it sprouts thread after thread, connecting to so many others. Genetic lines, threads of fate, prerequisites and conditions. One brings up a side menu. "And this?"

"Styx and the other elderfae don't lose their memories," Kay reminds him. "Though the other fairies' genetic information pulls from that save state you're accessing."

Acheron studies the symbols, certain he's never seen many of them. They're not all simlish. Yet he understands them, and it's frightening. "I could move others into that category. Is that what Kir wanted to do to me?"

"Neither of us can precisely answer as to what he wished to do."

"Hnnn..." Acheron hesitates, not wanting to give everyone a case of conflicting personalities just yet. Not when they're still locked in a reincarnation cycle. That would be chaos. "Looks like the block against recalling past lives weakens once we're dead... maybe that's why ghosts are so odd."

"M-maybe." Kay is unsettled by the thought. 

Acheron experiments moving a few things around, still getting the hang of what he's seeing. "Ah. There's only space for one extra person to be in the exclusion list."

"That is because only Acheron is missing," Kay reminds him. 

"Okay. This isn't what I came here to do."

"What did you come here to do?"

"I came here to get everyone's information out... and free of you two. I hoped I could shove us into a different program." The more Acheron sees of the interface, the worse things look. "From what I'm seeing, that's not going to be possible. Don't ask me how I know, but Kir has the whole system extensively damaged."

"Sorry," Kir offers lamely. "Who is Jaysen?"

"An admin you tortured into activating that program for you," Kay says softly.

Acheron glances at them. "I thought there would be more of us, somehow. This can't really be the whole population over that many generations...?"

Kay shrugs. "Earth is a devastated world. Largely uninhabitable, after what the simulated humans did with it. That is the whole population."

"What about other worlds? Like Lela's ancestors?"

"Untouched elements running on original programming. Their part of the simulated universe is outside of the spell's area of affect, so to speak. They cannot reach us through that bubble. Just as we cannot leave."

"So a bunch of aliens are watching Earth be stuck in a time loop?"

"I'm sure we've ceased to be interesting."

"Then wouldn't the stars change with every reset, to reflect the passage of time outside...?"

"Your stars are false," Kay says simply. "Sims are not advanced enough to see through the deception."

"Were there sapient aliens in the real Earth's universe?"

"Of course, yes, many, but... they... wanted nothing to do with us. I'm not sure if they devised a way to survive or not."

"That's depressing."

"Everything you have ever known is oversimplified, as it is simulating a reality that is many magnitudes more complex."

"You know that's cosmic horror, don't you?" Including the part where knowledge of it drives sims mad. "Well... this is still my universe. I was born here. It's not a simulation to me."

"But it is a simulation."

"Just because humans made it doesn't mean it's trash."

Kay paces back and forth nervously. "It can stay running, even if people leave, if you like. Of course leaving until we reach a new energy source is impossible. Even if you could get out into our ship somehow, you would die. There isn't enough thermodynamic energy to support life."

"I'm having trouble imagining nonillion years. Much less seven of them."

"To put that into perspective, we've already traveled three times that far since starting the simulation."

"Damn, these outside universes must be far apart."

"Yes, and our ship is comparatively slow."

"Were your humans much like the ones I know?" Acheron is full of questions, and not feeling rushed, now that he knows he can reach this point. He's probably been here before, and he can be here again.

"Superficially, your appearance, culture and technology resembles humans from early history. I'm sorry about that. You don't even have the technology to stop your aging."

"Humans stopped aging, huh? What did they do about overpopulation?"

"They stopped making more humans."

"Huh. How did they get everyone to agree to that?"

"Their culture and yours... it's... almost incomparable."

"What about AIs, like you... and me? Were they just making those all the time?"

"Programs that could learn and mimic behaviors existed for a long time, but they had significant limitations and lacked true intelligence. It took the research team over a thousand years to perfect my sapience. The... elderfae, as they're known to you, were taken offline before they had achieved it. Since Kir brought them back they've... well... they've changed."

"They're both more and less powerful than you, I noticed."

"They don't have all of our safeguards."

"Why would you set your simulation in, comparatively, the stone age?"

"There were many different simulation environments. This was the one I tried to hide you in."

"Were?"

"Kir shut down the others so I couldn't try to hide again. Hence what you called extensive damage."

"How much of our history is even accurate?"

"What do you mean?"

"Loki said some things... and you said something about splicing in centuries."

"Oh. Much of your history is real, but due to all the... strange beings... it was starting to deviate too far from reality's history, so I spliced in chunks from my database. The 1900s didn't really happen for this universe, for example, but you think it did."

 "Out of time, I think," Acheron announces.

He will have to be faster.

No screwing around this time.

"Make yourself useful, Kir."

The freakout.

The slap. "Interface. Now."

 "Admin-"

"No, you already told me. The ship. The singularity. The copy of you. The dead everybody. Self-replicating machines. Everybody's dead, Dave. I'm taking control of the simulation. Are you going to help me or not?"

"Problems... problems... endless problems! What a mess. Loki wanted to simply strip away Kir's imposed rule set, but it's tangled up with a bunch of other data, including the grid sims made to counteract environmental decay..." the grid, it seemed, was created by the sim-humans to save their world, just as told in school, "...so tossing out Jaysen's spell either strips or hard resets the grid too, leaving Earth even more uninhabitable than it already is. But I can't create a new program with the grid intact, because it runs on souls, essentially, and I didn't intend to leave anyone dead. We need an alternate energy source than our lives."

"We're on our way to one," Kay brings up.

"That's not very helpful, Kay. What do you want me to do, leave the cycles go until we get there?"

"I will respect your decision, Admin."

"Worse, I can't export a single thing without first canceling the cycle restart. And if I do that we lose the kid powering it." If it's even fair to call Jaysen a kid. It seems like he could be more years old than Acheron knows how to count. 

"We can't make those alterations either," Kay says sadly.

"Jaysen has to be disconnected before a shutdown, but the shutdown cannot be initiated without disconnecting Jaysen," Acheron repeats the situation to himself. "And I can't change what I want to change within the framework of these recursive time cycles."

"What did you want to do?"

"I want us free of these cycles... but I don't want anyone's existence to have to end with them. We've all existed this long. I think we should continue existing if we feel like it. It's not like we have to age and die, that's just a design flaw you left in."

"I... understand. It wasn't a flaw at the time, Acheron. It was essential. It helped you evolve."

"And everybody who lived and died before the resets is just lost now..."

"Most everyone who has ever lived is dead and lost to us."

"Is that supposed to be comforting? That didn't stop you from mourning your creators."

"No. It didn't. They made me too much like them." Kay makes a nervous hand motion Acheron doesn't recognize. "An original Earth proverb read that... 'A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.' What seemed to matter was that the species survived and improved. Not necessarily the individual. Still, few could confront mortality gracefully. Early humans constantly sabotaged the future of their species so they could gain short-term personal satisfaction. This simulation saw those same behaviors emerge." 

"Maybe remaking humans wasn't a great idea then!"

"They were short-sighted until disaster. They were bad at planning. Elves were supposed to be the opposite of that, and... in some ways they were, but it was not enough to save them."

"Back to the task at hand. I am trying to get everyone out. But even if I wanted to sacrifice Jaysen, stopping the resets by itself leaves everyone who died in this cycle just gone. And at this point, that's everyone but us. If I can't extract everyone's data here, this iteration is a wash because I'll have made no progress."

"I'm sorry."

"Listen, I brought Eris here in case I mess up and whatever I end up doing would've screwed up her getting thrown into a random point in the next cycle's spacetime," Acheron explains. "Do you know what her plan was, before she lost her mind? How did she intend to rescue Jaysen?"

"She needed to be where you are now. Controlling the mechanism you are now playing with. Rescuing Jaysen always depended on bending Kir to her will... or deposing him. As you have done."

"But then what?"

Kay shrugs helplessly. 

"Didn't you know her?" Acheron presses.

"She wouldn't have been concerned with salvaging generations past data, as you are."

"She would have seen them all as already dead..."

"Yes."

"But the way the data is stored, nobody is any more or less dead than anyone else. They're just programmed to live at different times."

"She did not know. She has no concept of this being a simulation."

"Well, I know. What am I supposed to do?" Acheron murmurs.

There's no response from the demented caretakers of this universe; they believe that role is his now. Anyone else who could share that responsibility is dead.

Perhaps I should seek answers from the dead, then.

His granddaughter, Mab, used her light magic—or life magic... or elf magic... or, no, from now on Acheron is just going to call it HAX—to summon ghosts from beyond. Maybe he can do the same, he reasons. He can practically see beyond now anyway... all those spirits just power the grid, albeit in a far less rigid fashion than Jaysen's specifically powers the reset.

"What should I do, Claire? What would you want? I didn't do what you wanted before. I followed a different path."

Hello again my love, he can just so faintly hear her voice. I found what's ours. It will help?

He touches her gingerly. She feels like cold air.

Be brave, Acheron.

She could have warned him she was trying to give him back his memories... from every past life... but giving warnings was never her style.

Disorienting!

Oh, good. Getting over it already.

"I guess this is what Loki feels like every day."

"And what everyone will feel like once the spell is torn away," Kay crimes in. "Assuming you ever go through with that."

"Oh, it's not so bad," Acheron sniffs. "It's just a little things I can't reconcile. I hate strawberries. I love strawberries." Of all the conflicting information, he focuses on the strawberries and their crunchy little seeds.

"Should we intervene for his safety?" Kir whispers.

 "YOU've done enough!"

"Putting... your information... in quarantine."

"W-what?" Kay gasps. "For how long?"

"Until your ship gets to the next universe. Then I can kick you out of this one!"

"Harsh," Kay yelps.

"Nope! Can't have you giving admin powers to any random elves in the next cycle, can't have Kir being a maniac next cycle either. Let's see now... where's Loki... maybe I should just—"

"No no no no! He wouldn't be as resilient as us! H-he would be like the humans I based your patterns on. Their data has to be routinely accessed, or it degrades!" Kay freaks out. "You can't quarantine one of your own! It would kill them!"

Acheron locates the correct information set. Its connections look different than most of the others he's seen. Superfluous, almost. Loki doesn't actually need to exist to keep the fragile framework of chance intact. Kir couldn't delete anyone, but Acheron can. "Well he does want to die."

"You aren't supposed to hurt each other," Kay whines. "You're supposed to be better than that."

"But I can't stop the cycles, Kay," Acheron says gently. "Not yet."

"Don't kill anyone," Kay pleads.

"Why not? It's what he wants. He's suffering. "

"...That is temporary..."

"Nonillions of years isn't temporary to us."

"But I—"

"You created us with the potential to have these abilities. In other words it's your fault he's like this, but you can't wave your hand and make his subjective experience any different." 

"I didn't mean anyone harm," Kay whimpers.

"I know you didn't... but you can't decide for him how much pain is too much."

"There must be some other solution..."

"Loki spent lifetimes trying to find a way to die and not come back; it's not some fleeting fancy, you know? If the cycles are kept going, he will come here himself eventually and get the job done, and I don't want to risk that. He might take the rest of us with him."

Acheron has ended lives with magic, with weapons, and with his hands, but when it comes time to tap one simple command into a screen, he just can't do it. This one would be different, to be fair—this time, death would be permanent.

Acheron sighs through his nose. 

He's got a dozen very sound reasons to go through with it, and yet... when it comes down to it...

...

...

It's going to be a long time before it will be possible to leave the simulation, but maybe... 

...

...

...just maybe, Loki won't be so miserable out there. 

It looks like he wouldn't have psychometric powers out there.

"Fine. Everyone deserves the choice to leave this simulation alive if they want it. Once that becomes possible. But that means I have to find some way of controlling him until then."

Kay is visibly relieved. "What will you do about Jaysen?"

"I'm not going to let him live half his short life terminally sick every iteration. That's for sure."

When Acheron looks at Eris now, she is someone he remembers, from a very different life—the one they had before the djinn attacked them. Poor Eris, to have existed all this time so uniquely disconnected from the reality they were all recycled into...

"I'm going to add Eris into the recursive time loop. I'll give her a real place to start. None of this popping up at random, lost and alone."

"But Kir erased her mother. She cannot be born."

"I'm giving her Acheron's place. The other Acheron."

"Ah..."

"If I have the universe treat her as an elderfae, she'll spawn fully adult in a set location, at the very start of each iteration, with no memory blocking. For this to work, you'll have to remove your protection from her, Kay."

"But if I remove that, she'll lose her memory of all cycles she has lived through thus far under my protection, up to and including this one. Mentally, she'll revert to the young girl she was when I cast the spell."

"I'm aware."

"Is that morally correct? To make her the person you remember her as?"

"I don't know. But this will fix what Greta did to her mind."

"It does seem less than ethical to allow her to remain insane," Kay concedes.

"I won't leave her without guidance. I'll tell her everything. The whole plan."

"Plan?"

"Yes. I have one now. It'll be alright, Kay."

"It doesn't feel alright..."

"Worried about quarantine? You won't feel a thing. You won't be aware of it."

"I'm worried about after. I was designed inside this universe..." By humans beings residing, at that time, outside of it. "I didn't know I could leave..."

"You didn't? The command is right here. Admins only I guess."

Kay seems sadder by the second. "They should have told me. Did they not trust me?"

"I'm sorry, Kay." Acheron frowns, doing his best to convey sympathy. "I'm sure your programmers loved you. They spent a thousand years on you."

"I... I appreciate that, Admin."

"My name isn't Admin."

"I know. Your name is Acheron Archer, variation Acheron La Mer, iteration number—"

"Reality will literally end before you finish reciting that."

"Are you going to tell me about this plan you have?"

Acheron manipulates the glyphs more rapidly. With purpose, with feeling. "I can connect myself with the spell. Take Jaysen's place."

"You're doing this to spare him suffering?"

"That, and one other reason."

Kay takes a moment to calculate the ramifications. "Your death should have naturally occurred a long time ago. If you go through with linking yourself to the spell, the simulation would find a way to keep you alive until roughly this point, every single cycle. Is that your one other reason?"

"Yes. I need to be alive when the simulation is most vulnerable, to keep an eye on things and make sure nobody interferes with or endangers it..."

"The paths to staying alive may not be pleasant."

"I'm aware of that. One of my iterations spent most of his life locked in a cage while Claire's coven performed their experiments. I know how bad these things can go... but I don't see another choice."

"I don't understand..."

"I'm tying myself to the fate our universe because I can't trust anyone else with it. Very few of us have the wherewithal to figure out what is wrong, the primary candidate is Loki, and you know how that goes."

Kay shakes his head. "Are you certain you're thinking clearly? You must have a lot of conflicting information in you right now. I noticed what Claire did."

"I'm fine, Kay. I'm just fine."

"Just... fine?"

"Yes. I am technically more myself in this moment than I have ever been."

"I... suppose you have made up your mind, then," Kay murmurs.

"Do you see a better alternative?"

"No, Admin. I don't know how else to ensure everyone has a chance to stay alive." Kay pauses. "Am I correct in assessing your intentions?"

"Alive, not subject to your whims, and eventually free of this blasted memory stealing system."

"I'm still running a diagnostic," Kir informs them.

 "Are you sure that's how you want to spend your last few minutes before quarantine?"

"He has no choice but to follow protocol," Kay explains.

"Styx... a moment?"

"I'm here," she replies, and she is.

"Is this satisfactory revenge?" Acheron asks.

Styx looks at Kir, reduced to lowly confusion. "It is... something," she says.

"I think we should come to an agreement."

"Of what sort, Admin?"

"The cycles are continuing until the ship reaches a new power source. I know you understand me."

She looks away, an expression of reluctance, though when she speaks again it's a real answer, none of the fairy garbage: "What becomes of this universe, when you reach a new power source?"

"It's a mess but it's ours. We can fix it. I just don't want to have to kill someone to do it."

"You've killed many people."

"Don't be annoying, Styx. Their files are all intact."

"You've added the untouchable one to the recycling program," Styx notices. "Kir would have enjoyed that."

"No-o-o-o he wouldn't have. I put Eris in the, ah, other Acheron's place."

Styx bristles. "I see. What do you want of me?"

"Two things... and in return, you get exactly what you want, once we reach another universe. You and your childrens' freedom to continue existing in this simulation, without recursive time. No one will try to shut you off, or end your reality."

"What are your conditions?"

"First, you'll do whatever you can and whatever is necessary to prevent anyone else from being erased. Talk sense into Lethe."

"I can do that." 

"Second... a message. To Eris. Make sure she understands it."

"I understand your message," Styx claims. "I accept your terms."

"Why do you look worried then?"

"Eris is uncontrollable."

"Not this time."

And in a puff of dark blue swirls, Styx is gone.

Eris is still here with them, but in cruel twist of fate, unreachable. She'll be the person he once knew when she wakes up, but Acheron won't remember any of this has happened. Not for a long time.

"Do you hate me?" Kay whines.

"I could never hate my cat, Kay."  

"I failed you... both as the creator of your kind, and as the guardian of your predecessors, who created me."

"I'll see you again, and it will be alright. You'll see."

"G-goodbye then. Take care, Acheron."

 The sun beats down on pale sand. Bare feet strike that sand, carrying a woman towards water.

Acheron cannot sense himself anywhere. It's the beginning of a time loop, and he won't be born into it for many, many, many years.

He isn't sure how he follows Eris.

"Where am I?" she asks. "Why... am I so tall?"

"You are not far from where you were a moment ago," a tiny voice squeaks.

"You!" Eris cowers backwards. "You're the river Styx... you sided with the destroyer..."

"Your memory will come back to you, Eris."

"What have you done with Jay?! Where is he?!"

"Kir was locked away, Eris. He can't hurt you now."

Eris takes another step back. Then two. Three. Her head pounds with every heartbeat. She sees shreds of memory—herself attacking strangers, friends, family, Jaysen much younger than he should be, herself much older than they should be—none of it makes sense.

Styx kneels. 

Her attempt to appear disarming works... the elderfae are too proud to fake submissiveness. Eris pauses.

"I have a message for you," Styx announces. She holds her palms up in front of her. An image appears there. Eris's head tells her to flee, but something in her heart, as it were, compels her to sit in the sand and take a closer look.

It will be alright, Little Elf, she hears the words in her head, I added you to the recursive time, to save your mind.

"My cousin." Eris touches the image. Her hand goes through it, but still, she feels something. "But you're dead. These monsters killed you."

I've learned things about the nature of our reality and the origins of our magic. I need you to listen very carefully. 

________________

A woman wearing a pirate hat flirts with the man on the bench next to her. 

For a second, Acheron thinks he's watching a bad movie. He even recognizes the male actor.

Nearby, two toddlers play under the watchful eyes of their grandmother.

...Okay, well, she thought their father was watching them.

She's having a little nap.

"My apologies, Saffron. I must go." 

The man isn't interested in the flirting, today.

He finds his daughter whimpering...

 ...and instinctively reaches to pick her up. 

"Mum, where's Loki?"

Has an old lady ever moved so fast?

"He was playing with his sister..."

These few palm trees would be ineffective cover if not for Eris's magic. She cringes at the sounds of shouting as her grandfather searches frantically for a missing son.

"The fae say they don't do the child-snatching thing anymore," she whispers, "but I'm a lousy fairy, any way you look at it."

"This attire is pretty silly, hm? I wanted to look like the locals."

Loki paws clumsily at the flowers in her hair.

"Not sure if I should call you 'Father'. I spent lifetimes avoiding you. I thought you wouldn't remember me."

He manages to pull apart some of the petals and frowns at them, as if shocked by what they are and where they come from, so far from here. "Losvi'nnas?"

"That's right. We're going home."

Not really home. Too many bad impressions a psychometric could pick up there, and Losvi'nnas is in ruins anyway. Though the flowers still grow inside its crumbled walls. Eris sighs unhappily.

"Da'," Loki responds quietly to his father screaming his name in the distance.

"I'm sorry." Eris kisses Loki's forehead, though he can't understand her guilt right now. "Acheron and I have a plan, and... you'd just get confused and try to unravel it if I did nothing. You'll be safer with me, I promise. We'll go somewhere quiet and peaceful. Somewhere without memories."

______________________________

Claire is asleep, still holding Acheron's hand.

Acheron sits up. It's still dark out. He tries to guess how much time has passed without looking at his phone—he has never even once guessed this correctly—and ends up frowning at the stars, wondering for the first time if any of them are really there.

He smells strawberries. No, not strawberries. It's shampoo. It's a faint lingering scent on his hair, one he's intimately familiar with. Why does it seem weird now?

"Hey," Claire says.

"...Hey."

She smiles brightly. "Remember anything interesting?"

"There was a black hole starship. I met god? He thought I should be god. It was weird."

"Hahaha! That sounds like a normal dream. Not a vision."

He smiles back. The smile is infectious. "You're probably right."

"Sorry it didn't work then."

"It's okay. I feel better."

______________________________________________________________
Etc.: With apologies to all computer jargon, to all science jargon, and to Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Acheron's guide on how to solve problems: (a) throw a potion at it, (b) stab it, (c) lie to it, (d) don't tell anyone about it, (e) panic and change the timeline.

I do not subscribe to the idea that our universe is a simulation, but I admit this fever dream of a storyline came to me several years ago after reading some nonsense about how we could be two dimensional data on a three dimensional surface, and black holes were involved.

Some scientists have postulated that our universe resides within a singularity, which would get us closer to solving the mystery of why it's expanding faster than our calculations say it should, or something like that, but this presents a lot of other questions I'm not informed enough to wrap my head around.

And is our universe going to end with heat death? Current research suggests it may keep expanding and reach maximum entropy, but there are too many unknowns for us to be certain.

But can we power starships with black holes? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, that clears everything right up! The end!

What do you mean, I still have 6 generations to go?