My prayer has been answered! The OverSoul, in her mercy, has both brought my lamb back to me and performed a miracle! Now human, she can join my family as a free player. Lily is good. She is loyal to those she loves. She is intelligent and sensitive. I know this because she, along with her line, was designed this way-my greatest and, I dare say, most shameful creation.
Witnessing D_Light’s death would be the last real trauma Lily, known legally as Built_4_Love, would experience for more than one hundred years. She had been running back toward D_Light with the precious blue bottle. She could see the culler bearing down on him with lightning speed, but when it caught up, she was still too far off to do anything but watch. Her knees began to buckle, and her first impulse was to shield her eyes from the horror, but instead, she found herself charging the beast with wild abandon. She thrashed about, screaming at the top of her lungs, punching her determined fists into hard muscle and bones.
Intent on its meal, the creature at first ignored her. But in a short while, having sated the worst of its hunger, it then snorted at Lily-not in fear, but in disgust of the repellant emanating from her pores-and scampered off.
Jacob marched through the inner sanctum swiftly enough to consider time, but without the undue energy costs of flight. Not long after entering the garden, three cullers charged from all sides in a coordinated attack. Jacob, having confirmed that the cullers were private property and not carrying modern weapons, decided to wait until they were only a few meters from him so he could be absolutely certain they meant him harm. Although it was unlikely that the cullers were capable of actually damaging Jacob, the angel nevertheless took the protective measure of detonating a bomb just above his own head. The concussion and heat of the blast fell well below the material threshold of Jacob’s nanofiber armor; however, the bomb detonation exhaled the cullers as raggedy, burning body parts.
Aside from this minor obstacle, there was no resistance to his investigation of the inner sanctum. Dr. Monsa presented Jacob with the evidence-four corpses consisting of one product and three humans. It was confirmed that all four of the deceased were demons guilty of aiding and abetting yet another demon. However, curiously, Jacob could not call up any records of who the missing demon was. He decided to do a sweep of the area.
That’s your target, you stupid tool! Katria sent her thought to the angel as high priority.
She couldn’t believe it. That blond bimbo bitch demon was standing there not three meters away and the damn machine insisted that she was human-that she was a player of “no interest to law enforcement.”
Check again! ordered Katria. She then spent the required points to get the Tool to do another visual, seismographic, and DNA scan on the girl.
She is the one. She has to be! Katria screamed in her mind.
After the second round of scans came back negative, Katria tried to get a third scan, at which point the angel terminated the blink and sent a generic error message. We apologize, but you are unworthy of access at this time.
“Fucking computers!” Katria shouted, startling a fellow player passing by on the otherwise tranquil path of the nectar orchard.
The final oranges and pinks streaked across the sky as the counterfeit sun set once again. Nocturnal photoflowers began to glow as their petals slowly unwrapped, lighting up the gardens below. Dr. Monsa smiled crookedly in the glow of dinner candles, as he always did, while the first course was served. The nightly ritual had begun.
“So, Daughter, if you wanted to become a god, how would you go about it?” By now Lily could expertly read her father’s misshapen expressions. He asked the question with pleasure. She knew that the doctor enjoyed nothing more than good food and a stimulating conversation with his “lambs.”
“To become a god, I’d want a monopoly on violence,” answered Sara, the doctor’s first concubine, from across the table.
“Yes, Sara,” replied the doctor, “although I wouldn’t say the OverSoul has a monopoly on violence. Nonetheless, she certainly does have a monopoly on the most effective violence, thanks to her modern weapons.”
“Ability to bestow everlasting life,” the priest offered.
“Yes, the flipside of effective violence is mastery over regenerative medicine. So let’s just lump those two together as godlike power over life and death. What else?” the doctor asked.
“Effective rulership,” Love_Monkey proposed confidently while glaring at Sara. “Provide an effective economic and religious framework under which subjects feel fulfilled and secure.”
The doctor nodded. “Right, through the Game you gain both. What else must our god do?”
“Prayer fulfillment,” BoBo fired.
“Oh, I’d squirrel that away with effective rulership. Prayers, as well as more mundane wants, are fulfilled by playing the Game well.”
“It’s distinct, Daddy!” BoBo protested.
“No, it’s part of the Game,” the doctor countered. “It was the Game that fulfilled my prayer for one of my Star Sisters to return to me. Hal can show you the night harvesting archives-”
“No, I will not!” Hal interrupted. “Those are classified. Only one designated analyst per major house is given that security clearance.”
“But you gave it to D_Light.” The doctor smiled crookedly.
“What I gave to that man resulted in my security credentials being revoked!” Hal started to choke. “My successor has learned from my mistake and will not repeat it!”
“Oh, and which one of your baldy lab friends has the mantle now?” BoBo asked.
“That’s classified too,” Hal retorted. “And night harvesting is a myth. Nothing more.”
BoBo’s mouth dropped open in mock surprise. “I didn’t know analysts could lie! Daddy, Hal must be a reject. We should sell him immediately!”
“Oh no, Hal is my favorite, and I like that he lies. It comes in handy sometimes.” The doctor clasped Hal by the arm, bending a tube in the process, which caused the analyst to wince.
“Okay,” the doctor said, “so we have power over life and death and effective rulership-”
“And prayer fulfillment,” BoBo added.
“Whatever,” the doctor said with a dismissive gesture.
“Yeah, whatever, Daddy. Send me the points! Prayer fulfillment lends credibility to the godhead. A god who does not answer prayers is not godlike.”
“All right already, and prayer fulfillment,” the doctor conceded wearily. “What else?”
“Omnipotent knowledge of one’s subjects, also done through night harvesting.” BoBo’s voice was excited.
“Very well,” the doctor said without enthusiasm.
“Yes, that’s two for me!” BoBo squealed.
“So you’ve given me four pillars of godhood. Give me another,” the doctor commanded.
The table was silent for a few long seconds.
“Lily?” the doctor asked.
“The ability to learn,” she answered without looking up from her plate.
“ Really? ” The doctor’s one eyebrow rose. “Now why would the mind of a god, presumably perfect, require learning?”
“Because change is a constant,” replied Lily. “Even if, theoretically, a mind could be made perfect for the conditions of today, sooner or later even God would need to change.”
“Fine then. How would she learn?” the doctor shot back.
Love_Monkey interjected with a confident tone, “Thanks to night harvesting, our collective consciousness is part of the OverSoul, and the Game is shifting all the time. That should provide change enough.”
The doctor frowned. “It is true that much change is done through this means, but the OverSoul has a core mind aside from the Game and its participants.”
“Core mind?” Love_Monkey inquired.
“Yes, most intelligent beings have a core mind-basic values, habits, and the like-which does not change easily. It makes up our personality and acts as the principle guide for our actions and beliefs. Likewise, the OverSoul has a core mind, although it might be better referred to as its ‘core tenets’ or ‘core rules.’”
“But,” interrupted Love_Monkey, “if I understand the nature of the OverSoul, she is not actually a single being, but a collection of billions of agents, ourselves included.”
“Like the Holy Trinity of old Catholicism-multiple entities that also represent the One?”
“That may be a stretch, BoBo,” the doctor replied with a chuckle. “However, I believe the overall design of the OverSoul was indeed inspired by Christianity. Hardly surprising since it was the most widespread religion before the OverSoul. If economics and religion are the foundations of society as Marx and Weber asserted, respectively, so long ago, then the OverSoul has her bases covered.”
The doctor popped a steamed silkweed roll into his mouth, chewed loudly, swallowed, and then said, “In any case, it is important for the OverSoul to have a core mind. Without it, imagine a deity with a rapidly oscillating personality.”
“The definition of anarchy!” BoBo exclaimed.
“Correct, but at the same time her mind could not be static. The OverSoul was designed to ‘scale.’ In this context that means to adapt to social and technological change over millennia.” The doctor washed down the sentence with a gulp of nectar wine.
Love_Monkey pointed a small index finger at her father. “But as you already said, such change is risky. To change the core mind is to change the personality. What if the core mind was changed to that of a psychotic tyrant? I mean, how does it know right from wrong? Even human ethics shift over time.”
Lily fielded the question. “The OverSoul needs human beings to teach her,” she said. “That is why D_Light was able to access the source tree. The deep scan revealed that his intentions were derived from…” Lily paused momentarily and then finished her sentence in the gentlest of whispers. “From love.”
The doctor’s wine-stained lips parted into a smile of satisfaction. “Yes, and there she mimics Christianity again-‘God is Love’-perhaps the core belief of Christianity. And although it may not yet be possible for the OverSoul to directly experience love as humanity thinks of it, she can detect such love in a subject’s brain signature using a deep scan.”
Love_Monkey was skeptical. “Haven’t you heard of a ‘love-struck fool’? You’re telling me this is how the OverSoul evolves personality? If so, it’s a wonder we haven’t all been obliterated or worse by now.”
BoBo laughed. “Yeah, if love was running the show, then every day would be Valentine’s Day by divine law!”
“And we would have to kiss everything we see, even things that aren’t cute,” Love_Monkey added.
“And constantly wear pink,” Curious_Scourge chimed in.
The jokes ceased as Hal, the analyst, pounded the table as hard as his feeble muscles would allow while shouting for them to stop.
After they all had quieted, the doctor said, “Yes, yes, early phases of romantic love are biochemically very close to some forms of mental illness.”
“The deep scan takes that into account!” the analyst screeched, desperately wanting the tedious dialogue to end so he could resume his work. “In order to gain direct access to the core mind, your brain signature must fall within specific parameters. Please, this conversation is pointless. May I return to my calculations?”
The doctor ignored the question. “Hal is correct, you can’t just be ‘sporting a chubby,’ as they used to say, and change the mind of a god. By ‘love’ I’m not necessarily referring to romantic love. I’m referring to a purity of purpose, clarity of mind, and an altruistic intent.”
BoBo scrunched her face and adopted a pensive expression. “So, D_Light had this flaccid love state of mind when he hacked into the OverSoul source code, er…the core mind, and changed Lily’s status to human?”
The doctor sighed. “It was not a hack, dear. As already stated, D_Light was subjected to a deep brain scan. The OverSoul essentially knew what D_Light planned to do and permitted it. This is my point. The OverSoul allows herself to be taught by those worthy of teaching her.”
The priest now joined in. “Taught what? Taught a lie?” He bowed his head to Lily. “No offense, but Lily is not human.”
“That’s what I tried to tell D_Light, but he sure didn’t listen,” the doctor replied and sighed with a smile.
“Aw, what could be more romantic!” BoBo exclaimed as she dropped a scrap of meat to her begging nubber. “What our almighty wetgineer father could not do with gene therapy, D_Light accomplished with good ol’ fashioned love.”
The doctor grimaced.
“But,” the priest blurted out, “the ramifications of this…this contradiction!”
The doctor nodded while mining his ear for a bit of loose wax. “Indeed, it is a contradiction in the core mind. This is how revolutions are born.”
“Revolution? Revolt against oneself?” the priest asked incredulously.
“Indeed, the purest form of the word ‘revolution’ would be a revolt against self,” the doctor confirmed.
Mistress, would you like me to publish the archive now? Smorgeous’s sedate voice pressed into Lily’s mind.
Lily had been working on an important project over the last few months. D_Light’s deep archive of the MetaGame, as well as the archives she had gathered from other familiars, were packaged together and displayed innocuously as a bloated folder in her upload queue.
My first contribution to the Game, she silently mused.
Lily was planning to spend all the points deeded over to her by D_Light to ensure that this archive received appropriate attention in the Cloud. Given the tremendous bounty she was paying and the information the archive contained, at least some of the major media outlets would redistribute it. Moreover, she knew there was a ready audience for the story. The fame of Lily and D_Light had risen ever higher as players hypothesized their fates. As one player on the NeverWorld forums asked, “Hey, whatever happened to that deviant and the hot Swedish chick?”
Dr. Monsa had put D_Light’s remains, most notably his brain, on ice shortly after his death. Theoretically, if the archive caught fire on the Cloud and generated enough points, the windfall could win D_Light his salvation and, hence, his eligibility for resurrection. It was rare to be saved after passing away, but Lily had studied one example of a player whose invention royalties won her salvation three years postmortem.
Perhaps he could win his MetaGame after all, she thought.
Lily smiled and raised her glass. “To revolution,” she declared.
The Monsa family raised their glasses and declared in unison, “To revolution!”
And with that, Smorgeous uploaded their story.