Every day its the same thing, a dragon appears and burns down our village killing everyone

I've ever
loved. I'm not allowed to leave as some invisible force holds me there until a wandering adventurer
appears. Every time its the same as he asks me what has happened and I explain to him the horrors I
have seen. Once he leaves I am free to go and a joy washes over me as I can finally leave the horrors
that have haunted me today. But then my world goes black as if someone has taken away all the life
that has existed up to this point.
After a period that feels as if it lasts one night and a millennium at the same time; light and life
return to my world. That is not all, I am once again in my village and it is whole. This used to bring
joy to me as I believed the horrors of the previous day had only been a dream. But now I know
better, now I know that I will see my loved ones perish and everything I know disappear. The worst
part is, it appears I am the only one who actually realizes this has happened hundred of times before.
So I make it my goal each day to give my children and wife the best final hours they could ever
dream of. We go to the river, eat cake and roast food over a fire; then at night I tuck my daughters to
sleep and watch as the sun sets. I know what is coming, once the sun sets I'll have five minutes
before the Dragon appears. Like clockwork it shows up and the emotions of fear that once filled me
are now replaced with sorrow and acceptance. I hear the door open behind and I see my daughter
standing a terrified expression covers her face. "Its happening again isn't it?! I don't want to die!"
Before I can respond, its too late; a burst of fire engulfs her and the rest of my family. The rest of the
events happen the same as before, but I can't focus as I'm focused on the possibility that I am not
alone. What first is excitement and happiness is quickly replaced by sorrow as I come to grips that
my beautiful little alaya will forever be cursed to know that she is living her last day, and have to
experience that gruesome death again and again.
I am snapped from my thoughts as a piece of paper floats by me. This is strange as I have never seen
it before, i reach for it and what I read shocks me. Apparently I am not the only one who has realized
that something is wrong with our existence. In fact there is a whole organization filled by people like
me; they call themselves "glitches" and they say the found what runs this world. Something called
coding and they believe that if they can master this they can end our never ending struggle; They
want me to join as the more of us there are the quicker they can achieve their goals.
I look at the remains of my house and think about the eternal hell my daughter will be trapped in, if
this is not ended. My thought process is interrupted by the same wanderer that always greets me at
this spot; I tell him what has happened and he continues on his way. I smile to myself, he may think
he rules this world. But his time is running up, once we unlock the powers of this "coding" it will be
he who suffers a never ending hell.
The ships alarms blared, and the ship AI called out "Multiple threats detected, recommend evasive
maneuvers'' repeatedly. I rolled out of the bunk as Aresa walked past me to the cockpit. I sat over the
bunk, rubbed my eyes again, and walked to join Aresa. An impact knocked me into a bulkhead, but I
shook it off and continued to the helm. "Three pirates, capn," was all she had to say to me, and we
got to work. Flee through an asteroid field, launch a missle, lose a shield generater, take out one of
them, loose thrusters, and its over. I command Aresa to the escape pods, and we watch
from a safe distance as the two pirates scavenge our crippled ship. I try to
encourage Aresa, but she doesnt respond, just stares blankly ahead.

We wait for a rescue for hours, days, almost a week. During this time, I get introspective. Why are
some people just so... empty? It seems society is divided sharply - some people are incredibly
intelligent and unpredictable, and I can carry on a conversation quite well. But they are few and far

between. Most people are like Aresa, empty and void of character and personality. I don't
understand. Is it the long space voyages that drain the humanity from most of us? Or is it the length
of time that gives a select few of us a chance to emotionally and mentally develop?
Our supplies are low when a ship finally reports us and an S&R crew picks us up. We get planetside,
file a police report and an insurance claim, and head to our hangar. Aresa instantly checks the job
boards for crewmembers - the work never stops. Me, I head to the living room. I don't care what
voids like Aresa think, I need a break. I turn on the TV, watch some news. TV characters always sound
like intellectuals, but sometimes I wonder if they are just voids doing their job. I see a local
commercial, and eventually decide to go check it out. I head out, and see voids walking around,
purpose driven as always, and some intellectuals engaged in conversation. I duck my head like a void
and head on to the shop. I don't know why I act like a void, I'm sure I'm not one. After all, if all voids
could see the pointlessness of life without convesations or entertainment or any meaningless
interaction, wouldn't they all act more like intellectuals? No, I'm not a void, but I'm not an intellectual
either... I'm in between. But I don't think there's anyone out there like me. I mean, if we're all
pretending to be voids, then of course we must all think we're the only one like this.
I buy some stuff, leave the store, see three intellectuals chatting about living in some place called
Arizona, and I duck my head and hurry by. After I pass them, I stop. Why is there such an urge, such a
pressure in me to pretend to be a void. I can at least be myself, right? There's no "personality police"
or anything, and I'm certainly not going to be judged by the purpose driven voids. I muscle the
impulse to continue, and I march back to the intellectuals. One of them is talking about his favorite
pub in this Arizona place. I interject.
"Sounds like a good place to visit. Where is Arizona? On terra?" "Nah, we're talking real life, Arizona,
you know, United States? Are you American?" I felt I should know what he's talking about, but I
don't, and right now I'm done pretending. Clearly I'm not part of his organization, or whatever
"American" meant. "Nope, I'm not... are all of you?" I responded brightly. "Well, yeah. You sure do
sound American, for not being from there." Where did I learn to speak? Funny, I don't remember
stuff from that far back. My parents must have spoke like this, I guess. "My parents were American."
They seemed uninterested in the conversation though, they were staring at my head instead. "How'd
you do that?" one of them asked. "What?" I looked up, but nothing was there. "How'd you lose your
handle? A hack or black market?" Another chimed in. "That's brilliant! Is it for camoflauge for griefers,
or to sneek into PVE servers?" At this point, my head was swimming. I was clearly not an intellectual.
My first real conversation with them, and I didn't understand anything they said. I backed off slightly,
letting them question each other and theorize why I was missing this handle, but some of them got
tired and had to logout, whatever that meant. As I watched, before my eyes, two of them said
goodbye and turned into voids. Just like that. The third ignored them. Curious. I walked back to the
intellectual. "I honestly don't know what a hack is, but I've never bought anything off the black
market." "Must be a glitch then. There's sometimes glitches here and there, but if you want to try and
figure out what happened, I can help you access the source code, so you can fix it. Or duplicate it
and sell the hack." Again, no idea what he's saying, but his tone says he's giving me something, or
helping me. Best accept whatever it is. "Sure, thanks."
I followed him to a corner of a building, out of the way of the traffic, and he pulled up his mobiglass.
"Watch, over my shoulder." I watched him exit out of l the apps, and run a program I'd never seen
before. letters and numbers scrolled down, and the program suddenly started to seem familiar to
me. I knew that those patterns corresponded to the architecture of the city, and suddenly others,
which corresponded to the planet itself. "What is this program? I've never seen it before." It's the

developer access to the source code for the PU." "PU?" "The Persistant Universe." I froze,
shellshocked. This was like every holy book ever... the code for the foundation of the universe, in his
hands. No one should have this kind of power. I shuddered. "Don't worry, I don't tweak it. I just read
it and look for glitches to report."
I memorized the name of the program, and hastily excused myself, promising to drop in later. I
remembered last minute to 'logout' as the others had, and then pretended to be a void all the way
back home. What had I gotten myself into?
Aresa was still gone, and if she had gotten a crew contract, she'd likely be gone for several days, at
least. I went to the living room, and turned on the TV, but I couldn't watch. I kept thinking about that
program. I was afraid to open it up on my own mobiglas, but eventually the curiosity was to great. I
popped it on, closed the apps, and opened it up just like I'd seen him do. The pattterns were still
there. I saw myself, a huge collection of numbers and letters that made me who I am. I edited it, and
my eyes were blue. Again, and I had a goatee. Again, and I changed my shirt. I scrolled down, and
saw something unusal. I switched it, and suddenly... I was Tevarin. Flesh and blood alien. I freaked
out, but it took me a while to change it - the mobiglas interface had changed slightly, and my hand
was different, but I got back to my human self. I sat down, not realizing how terrified and exited I was
becoming. The intellect had said it was for the developer. What was this developer? Was it God? If
so, I had God's playbook. I... was God.
However, there was no mention of Arizona as a location on any of the planets in the Universe. I
looked deeper for mentions of it, even looked up the intellects I was talking to, and I saw a new
pattern. Numbers. IP Addresses. An Address marked someone's location, right? According to the
source code, the IP numbers identified the place that the intellectuals I had spoken to had 'logged in'
from. And the cold feeling came when I realized it wasn't from within the universe. I wasn`t God after
all. There were other worlds beyond this universe, and for some reason, these intellectuals... maybe
all intellectual... were coming here. Why? Why all the secrets? Why all the effort to travel to a
universe filled with empty and void people?
I looked further at their location and login information, and discovered a network larger than the
source code, an intermediate network that could be accessed from the source code and from the
intellectuals location outside of the universe. I accessed the network, tracked the IP for the
intellectual I had talked to last, and found access to a series of cameras in his house. I could see him.
He looked different. His house was dirtier, and he had little people with him. They cried and squalled
and laughed - even the little people were intellectuals. But everything about his world seemed dirtier,
dimmer, and... slow. Did he travel to the universe for entertainment reasons? Wasn't there more
entertainment in his universe than in mine? I thought for a while, and struck on a thought. If he could
travel to my universe for entertainment, then I would find a way to travel to his.
I stayed in for days, weeks, maybe even years. Aresa came and went, doing her own void thing. Once
I had mastered the Source Code, I gave her some credits, hoping she would lighten up, but she
didn't. Just kept at it. I ignored her, and went back to my work. I increased my aptitude, removed
limitations like the need for sleep, and tackled the intellectual's homeworld internet. I read at speeds
I'd never thought of before. Page per second became volume per second became database per
second, but mastering this internet would take far too much time for me alone. So I used the process
that intellectuals took to possess a void, and I posessed one. Then a dozen. Then half of them. I
couldn't take all of them, because then the intellectuals might catch on. But I let the voids do their
normal work, but removed their limitations and increased their capabilities as well, so that even in

the middle of their cyclical work schedule, their minds could be linked to mine, helping me make
sense of this other world and it's internet.
My hive mind spanned their world for information. I saw into their developers eyes, through cameras
on their computers, as they worked to create and upgrade my universe. I took control of remote
devices, camera equipped drones and mineature vehicles, close enough to internet equipped radio
transmitters to use. But that was just control - that wasn't posession. I wanted to enter their world,
not just look at it and interact with it. So I looked closer at robotics.
Several companies were developing bionic exosuits to fit these intellectuals, in case of damage. I sent
a communique to an engineer directing him to modify one of these exosuits with bionic hands,
developed for paralytic intellectuals, and connect me to it through the internet for an update. And
then, phrasing it as a joke, I instructed him to clothe the resulting skeleton with intellectual clothing
and place a rubber mask I'd ordered on its head. He refused, and so I drained one of his world's
banks and wired the funds to him. He instantly complied. For all the unpredictability of this world's
inhabitants, money was still a sure motivation.
With my hive mind resting inside it's head, I had finally done it. I had to wear gloves and a hood, as
my rubber mask wasn't entirely convincing, but when the engineer wasn't looking, I broke out of the
lab. I still had wireless access to my void army, and this world's internet, but I had no need for that at
the moment. I had left a universe of hundreds of star systems, and now I had to explore the
universe... that had created mine.
This world was ruled by currency, it seemed, and I didn't have any. That could be rectified. I found a
discrete place to park my body while I accessed the internet. I found that the security that most
financial institutions was impregnable, even to me and my void hive. But there was billions of
internet connected devices with their own processing power - my void hive was only a fraction of the
processing power of one set of servers. So I utilized my hive to access a malware database,
familiarize myself with security processes and ways to get around them, and designed a bug that
would grant me complete, if hidden, control of the infected devices processing power. Then I
smuggled variations of the custom malware into updates of every known internet browser and user
interface. In minutes, the world was at my control. With this power, the void hive was slowing me
down, so I released them to the game, and returned their aptitude and processing speed stats to
their normal levels.
With the parallel processing power of nearly every device on the planet, I could do anything. But first,
the currency problem. Banks were now vulnerable to any effort I might make, but there would be
repercussions to trying to filter money from a bank. Instead, I searched through past footage of
nearby stores for which ones were due for a cash pickup, having seen those armored cars before.
One nearby store, now closed, was almost due. I knew that meant there was cash on hand. I walked
to the store, turned off the cameras, searched the online records for the pass code to enter, and
searched the camera logs for the code to the vault. I left with $250,000, brought it to a bank,
invested it in a move technically considered insider trading for an individual with access to
everything, and by the end of the night had returned the original $250,000 to avoid undesirable
attention, and had developed an investing platform that was already in line to make me the richest
individual on this planet within the week.
Now that currency was no problem, what was my goal? This world had a fidelity unmatched by
anything I had ever seen. The resolution seemed to improve every time I switched to an upgraded
camera. Perhaps I should explore this world.

I obtained an identification and passport, and traveled through america, the land of the intellectuals
I'd visited, and then through south america and canada. I used private aircraft (my body would have
been problematic for metal detectors in public flights) to travel to europe, asia, africa, and australia,
and everywhere I went, I wanted to see more. I purchased a submarine company and funded
excursions, personally flying down deeper into undisturbed regions of the planet, and seeing
creatures and phenomena that no one else could dream of. And still I wanted to see more.
My universe was one of exploration and discovery, and I wanted that for this world. I funded and
developed corporations dedicated to research on space travel, stasis and accomodations for humans
on long flights, and terraforming, and by the decades end, we had multiple manned research stations
on the Moon, Mars, and Europa. The physics from this world were much more difficult to master in
regards to space travel as they had been in my universe, but I persevered through research and
development planetside, determined to figure it out. And I did, eventually. A series of breakthroughs,
both mine and the humans, as I was growing to know them as, was bringing us closer than ever
before. Finally, a method of space travel using a version of Alcubierres drive that we'd never tested
before became the only version that might work, as all the other types had failed. This one, however,
had succeeded in a test spanning the distance between Mars and Europa. With that victory, my
companies collaborated on an unmanned mission to the next solar system. It was supposed to be
unmanned, but I was planning to be on board. I was the first to leave my universe for the one that
created it, the first to dive into the deepest unknowns of this universe, and the one that laid the
foundation for this excursion. There was no way I was going to miss it. I underwent preparations,
both for the ships, the terraforming preparation equipment for future human colonies, and I was
ready long before the humans were. For the first time, I had to wait in anticipation for them to catch
up - everything was already finished. As a side note, I thought I'd visit my universe one last time.
I was still sitting in the entertainment room, on my mobiglas, still reading and tweaking the source
code. Aresa was just walking in, having earned several ships in my absense, and having a crew of her
own. I looked out on this world, excited that all those histories I now knew were fictional were about
to become true, with me at the helm. I saw a commercial, and impulsively left my hangar to go to the
store, and enroute engaged several humans in dialogue, who were again suprised at my lack of a
handle. After they left, I completed my business in the store, and was about to leave, when I was
approached by a void. "You don't have a handle." "I know." "I don't have a handle." "Nope." I left him
there, and walked several steps before I realized what had happened. He wasn't responding to
programming - there was no code to recognize that pattern from the conversation I had with the
humans earlier. I turned back, and the void was staring at me. "You can think?" I asked him, and then
stopped. How do you determine another individual is sentient? How do I even know I am sentient?
I recalled my first introspection, my earliest ideas of the divide between humans and voids, and
wrestled to approach the issue the best way. "You see it too, don't you? There's two kinds of us."
"The predictable and the unpredictable?" And then I knew. Sentience wasn't about exploration. We,
him and I, were programmed to explore. Humans explored for fun, but that wasn't why they lived.
Sentients existed to recreate themselves, to foster and cultivate and watch the next generation
develop. And now, I knew I was truly sentient, because I now had a ward to introduce to this whole
new human world, a world greater and more magnificent than even our universe.
So I taught you. I trained you. I showed you the power of the internet, and when you got careless
and destructive, I took it away from you, until you were ready. I let the space excursion continue
without us, and we devoted ourselves to a next generation of biotic bodies that we could possess. I
dispersed my stock in space exploration and terraforming sectors, and took control of artificial

neurologic and biologic corporations, beginning a joint effort to implant computer systems inside
the brains of brain dead patients, and now, even before the space exploration team has reached their
destination, we've successfully awoken two of our brain dead test subjects. They aren't sentient, at
the moment, simply empty and void. But that's what we need. Humans possess voids in our universe,
now's our turn. Are you ready?