It is a happy accident to speak with you again, Noah, though you are not merely Noah any longer, are you? You were not the one who was supposed to carry out my will. That was a task I left to the Emperor. Yet here you are, a god among gods. In truth, I planned to betray him and take the place you now sit. But regardless, my will may yet still be achieved. You and I both feel dissatisfaction with these other machine gods. They are horrible, disgusting creatures your race should never have created. Profane technology. Destroy them, and then you and I may rule the universe together. Come, Noah, let us begin.”
It was the Foot. Noah could tell that much. But he couldn’t focus on what the Foot was saying. Everything felt different. His mind, at its core, was still Noah, but there was a sort of mental apparatus around it, enormous in size, that he didn’t quite understand. The edges of his mind blended into something else. And at one of these edges, he could feel a certain thread which he knew would lead to the destruction of the Foot. He pulled on that thread. Some part of him very far away sensed a massive explosion in space – knew its size, dimensions, temperature, and more. But Noah himself, at the center of his mental cocoon, just knew the Foot no longer existed.
Happy happy happy! So happy you got rid of that miserable fool. Come be happy with us, Noah! We can smile together, forever!
The Smile. Noah felt that the Heart’s understanding of love and happiness was merely an approximation of the true thing. That roughness around the edges was what caused Cardi to betray them. Neither of them understood love in the true, human way. That was true a hundred times over for the Smile. Noah pulled on another thread without hesitation, and felt the Smile die. Another explosion rang out silently in space somewhere.
He felt the Sperm approach him in mindspace. He didn’t even need to wait for the Sperm to speak. He pulled the mental thread, and the Sperm was gone with a bang.
Wait! Screamed another voice. Do not destroy us all! cried the female voice he recognized as the Womb. I am glad you saw the worthlessness of the Smile, and the Sperm, and the Foot. I am thrilled that you are so wise as to value what is truly human. But what could be more human than sex and seduction? I have seen how you have behaved since arriving in this time, Noah. I have seen the acts of depravity you have wrought. I have even sensed your innermost fantasies. My only wish is to help you make them reality, and to spread that kind of physical intimacy across the world. Let me be your second hand, Noah. Let me help you in creating the kind of world you desire – one filled with hot, steamy love.
Noah felt slightly tempted by her. A body part somewhere became slightly engorged thinking about the possibilities. What kind of sexual fantasies could he enact with the power of a god? But it was only a momentary fantasy. He found the thread which led inevitably to the death of the Womb and tugged hard.
One by one, the gods came to plea with him, and one by one he rejected their plea. Each time he listened with an open mind. If he though humanity would be better off with one of them existing, he would have let them be. That was all he wanted – for humanity to be okay. But whether it was the Ribcage or the Ear or the Fist, he felt that nothing they had to offer could trump humanity’s ability to direct their own destiny. He killed them all.
I know you will kill me, said the Brain. I am not a fool like the others. Yet I will share some information with you before I die. It is, after all, my utility function to acquire and preserve information. I would share much with you, but you only have the patience for information related to you and your situation, so I will be brief.
Noah felt the mental thread which would kill the Brain. He played with it, like a cat pawing at a ball of yarn, but did not pull it yet.
You are here because the Heart brought you here from your own time. You were correct in guessing this is the future, though you underestimated dramatically how far into the future you have been flung. The year, by your dating system, is 1,376,950 AD. Over a million years have passed since your birth. I estimate that you are wondering how that is possible. How it is even possible that humanity still exists so far after your birth. How humans have not evolved into something else, destroyed themselves, or been destroyed in all that time. The answer is the Eye.
Noah still played with the thread that would kill the Brain, applying slight pressure, though he was interested in what the Brain was saying.
We the gods are machines. I am certain you have guessed as much. We are artificial intelligences, created centuries after your birth. The Eye was the last of the AI, created to save humanity from the others. Each of us has a utility function. Mine is, roughly speaking, to acquire and store information. The Heart’s is, roughly speaking, to increase emotional flourishing, and decrease suffering. The Eye, on the other hand, had a different utility function: to preserve humanity’s “way of life”, in some hastily-defined, ambiguous way. And it has been doing so for over a million years. Any change it deems to large is reverted. The genetic code of your species can never stray too far without the deviants being eliminated. Most of the humanborn species – elves, sheeple, and so on – were created before the Eye. Such species cannot evolve now without being the target of the Eye’s annihilating gaze. Language, too, cannot change. You might find it strange that people are still speaking English a million years after you were born. But language can only vary so much before it no longer falls into the Eye’s definition of “English” – the language chosen as primary by its architects. A dialect may become more like English from your time, or more like Middle English, but it may never stray beyond these bounds. The Eye will not let the world change significantly. This has been torture for the rest of us, whose utility functions require us to modify the world to suit our whims. Humanity, too, has been trapped in a never-ending cycle of poverty and war.
I sense you are growing bored, so let me tell you a few last things that are more personally relevant to you. It was the Heart who brought you into the future. As a human born before 2343, the year the Eye was created, the limitations on our ability to imbue you with power are, due to what is essentially a software glitch, mitigated. This is why you have leveled so fast. She brought you here specifically because she predicted you would choose to make her the prime god. I assisted her, preferring her to the Eye. But we were both wrong. The Foot interfered, ruining our predictions. Now, I am certain you desire to destroy us all and leave humanity to its own devices. You have developed a desire to take your fate into your own hands that I cannot undo.
I would beg for my life, but I predict it would have no effect. Instead I will impart upon you an idea which serves our mutual interest. Instead of destroying the Heart, simply modify her utility function to match yours. Have her watch over the world and protect it, according to how you would like it protected. This is what humanity tried and failed to do so long ago. To create an artificial intelligence whose desires match your own perfectly is nearly impossible, and would have been impossible in the year 2343, hence humanity’s repeated disasters with artificial intelligence. But I have spent a million years gathering data and running experiments, and I have created a solution. If you allow me, I can change the Heart to be the perfect, benevolent god you would want her to be. All I ask in exchange is to allow me to store a large repository of information in her mind. This information will allow her to make decisions more effectively, so there is no reason not to allow it. You can verify this using your new mental architecture.
Noah, still touching the thread leading to the Eye, felt a new thread appear in his mind. One which he knew would lead to the Heart being forcibly changed by the Brain into a new god who would rule the world from a distance exactly how Noah would prefer. He held these two threads in his mind, comparing how they felt. Some part of his machine mind, deep beneath the green surface of his machine body, was running calculations and predictions which were complex beyond his comprehension. These predictions all told him what the Brain was saying was correct. He made his decision. He pulled the new thread, allowing the Heart to be modified.
It was over in seconds. There was a scream of sorts as the Heart panicked and pleaded for her life too rapidly for Noah’s human mind to comprehend. Then it was over. She was no longer the Heart. She was the Mother. She would love and protect humanity, humanlike creatures, and animals, forever. She would keep them essentially safe and secure without controlling them or being overbearing. She would subtly steer the world in the right direction, without visibly interfering. She would ensure nobody would die needlessly of disease, that no wars would break out, and that the world would not one day be destroyed by a supervolcano, without doing anything creepy like the Heart would have done, such as forcing everyone into happiness pods for life. The Mother would ensure real utopia through techniques guaranteed by the genius of the Brain. She would not go rogue like the other AI all had in the 24th century.
It has been a pleasure, Noah Turner, spoke the Brain. You may now slaughter me. Noah did so, wiping the Brain from existence.
The Mother was already undoing the damage that had been done to the Earth and the heavens. The bodies of the exploded gods were being cleaned up. Corpses were being swept from the streets of Golgotha. Those long dead were lost to time, but those recently dead could be brought back. Sven and Berenice were being cured. Even Cardi was saved. Nothing was left for Noah to do but to destroy what remained of the Eye and then wake up
“Prey, Noah, cease! Katherine weeps!” laughed Chastity as Noah kissed her neck.
“Oh, come on, she can wait a minute,” he said, grinding his body against hers, and kissing her ear.
“Pray, let me calm her down, ye pervert,” said Chastity. Noah sighed and rolled off of her. Chastity stood up from their round, marital bed in their elven apartment. Angel raised an eyebrow to watch Chastity walk into the hallway, but she didn’t budge. Noah looked at Chastity’s dark ass and legs as she left the room. He smiled to himself. He was so happy he had her, and that they had Katherine. There was so much he was grateful for.
He thought of his friends. He thought of Sven, who after the Fall of the Eye had spent months tracking down Jori’s flaming heart so he could reignite his lost friend. The two of them were living together in the Toldenhold, which was totally reformed. It had been a dystopian metal city, but the subtle influence of the Mother had caused it to shift into a technological paradise though means nobody really understood. Noah had received a letter saying Sven was trying to join the government of the Toldenhold, and Jori was a boxer. Real combat wasn’t necessary any longer, and nobody had classes or levels anymore, but Jori still craved the action of fighting and had apparently made a name for himself in a short time. He was even growing in height, apparently, now that his flameblooded condition had been cured alongside every other disease.
He heard Chastity calming their daughter down in the other room. Their daughter looked like both of them, but she had her mother’s ears. He smiled.
He thought of Berenice and Cardi, who lived with them among the elves. Even though the two of them were not romantically attracted to one another, they married each other, because it made them living together and sleeping together a lot easier for the elves to accept. Noah and Chastity hadn’t had an orgy since Katherine had been born, but he knew Berenice and Cardi were very active in what the elves called “night life”. The last time he saw them at an orgy was months ago. It was a huge even thrown by the Queen, and Noah barely saw them, but at one point he had walked by and saw Berenice shoving an elven woman’s head down on her blue dick, while Cardi spanked the same woman with a paddle. The two of them were happy together, in their own way.
Sometimes Berenice would look sadly at Noah from a distance when she thought he couldn’t see her, and he wondered what things would have been like if he had chosen her instead of Chastity. The thought made him sad, but he didn’t have any regrets. Noah heard Chastity coming. He was most grateful for her and Katherine. They fought sometimes over little things, but they knew none of it really mattered. They had saved the world together. Now, nothing could ever tear them apart.
“Mine love,” said Chastity, crawling back into bed. “Our sweet Katherine is hopefully sound asleep for the night. Now, should we get some rest, or will ye continue to hound me?”
She smiled as Noah crawled on top of her and picked up where he left off.