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Smith opened its eyes.

With one corner of its multiplexed mind, the alien understood at once that it was still asleep. Like humans, its kind required periodic slumber and dreaming for optimum health, but only rarely did they require total shutdown--instead, their brains were designed to shut down a few segments at a time for biological repair and maintenance, resulting in a state that, to a human, resembled periods of daydreaming more than anything else. Only on relatively infrequent occasions or during periods of injury, illness or extreme fatigue did they need to retreat into into complete somnalescence. A combination of sophisticated neural wetware and millenia of biological engineering had reduced the need for rest still further, until Smith's species could effectively continue without total sleep indefinitely under most conditions.

Emphasis on "most." There were over 10^500 different ways to fold strings; without more sophisticated, sensitive, and above all, POWERFUL hardware than it had at its disposal or could ever hope to construct with the tools at hand in the time it believed it had left, there was almost no way Smith could even directly detect them here, much less hope to understand exactly how the particular string conformation prevalent in this corner of creation compared to its own, and the domain translation had damaged its own faculties yet further; none of the hylotech systems throughout its own body seemed to work quite properly here, making its own efforts at compensation and repair a scattershot, shoddy mess. As a result, Smith found it now had to shut itself down almost completely on a regular basis for many hours at a time every four or five local days for biological and neurological repair and maintenance, and those periods seemed to be growing both in length and frequency as the planetyears dragged on.

And worse still, it had come to look forward to those periods of diminished consciousness--it found that it craved them like a drug, almost. For at least a few hours of wildsleep, it could forget almost completely where it was and escape its horrific circumstances and drift, and, at least briefly after it awakened, feel the faint ghost of hope that it would survive, prevail, and somehow get free of this hellhole.

At least until the dreams had started, that is.

"You again?" it sighed.

ME.

"You must be really, really bored."

YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

Smith was standing on a hill under a thundering blue sky with white sunlight almost too bright for its optics to cope with pouring down, and a few meters in front of it was a marble dais with a golden throne. It turned around and shut down its posterior optics, but it found that no matter where it faced, the throne was still before it wherever it looked. "I'm not impressed," it said.

REALLY? THIS DOES NOT IMPRESS YOU? Behind the throne, a vast dazzling city of jewels, gold, silver and marble sprouted from the ground, bright boulevards and fountains gleaming in the blinding daylight. It was the size of a continent, and it shone like a sun, and it continued to rise until it dominated the sky behind Him.

"No," Smith said, its tone flat. It looked at the grass beneath its feet, and it saw with diamond clarity that each blade of grass was entirely identical, there were no arthropods or other animal life, there were only about six different shapes of pebble and each sand-grain was a perfect silica sphere, and the colors were eye-wateringly bright but strangely flat. This place, this construct was essentially a cartoon, but without even a fraction of the creativity. "I see early iron-age architecture with a garish, shiny veneer and simulated terrain the simplest Terragen computer could build. We built megastructures around stars made of neutronium polymer and exotic matter so we could move entire solar systems, and dropped taps into the cores of suns. I've seen entire clusters of planets larger than your Jupiter disassembled in a day to provide building material for dynamic orbital rings the size of this entire solar system, with a hundred thousand layers of habitable shells inside like nesting dolls. Sophontkind built entire worlds just for sporting events and turned dead rocks into paradises as an afterthought. We grew trees the size of worlds and made gardens of entire stars. A few canisters of programmable industrial nanopaste and a transponder that I could carry under my bunk in a singleship could construct everything you're showing me from the atom upwards, including the trees, birds and fish and appropriate biomechanical servitors. You are an ape with a club and a stone knife, and we are so much better than you." he spat out.

The throne's occupant cocked its head and regarded Smith impassively. YOU _ARE_ AN IMPERTINENT INSECT, AREN'T YOU? Its lips moved, but the sophont heard them in its head, reverberating like the buzzing of flies. Smith's skin crawled. I CAN DO SO MUCH MORE. AS REPELLENT AS YOU FIND ME, REST ASSURED THAT I FIND YOU INFINITELY MORESO. HOW CAN IT BE THAT SUCH A _SOPHISTICATED_ BEING AS YOURSELF HAS NO IDEA HOW TRULY, THOROUGHLY DISGUSTING YOU ARE? His words crawled with sarcasm and loathing. I CREATED THIS WORLD, AND YOU FOUL IT WITH EVERY FILTHY STEP YOU TAKE UPON IT.

"You created nothing, not this world, not any other," Smith retorted. "You're a psychotic figment, an unrealized possibility that collective obsession and psychosis pulled from the quantum foam and fueled with unthinking primate aggression, and you don't have the creativity or imagination to shovel out a hole to shit in. We created UNIVERSES."

YOUR WORKS ARE AS FILTHY RAGS TO ME. AND IN TIME, I WILL BURN THEM ALL TO ASH, AND YOUR KIND WITH THEM. The sky darkened with its fury, and Smith felt the touch of unclean fingers rummaging clumsily through its processor networks. EVERY WORD THAT POURS FROM YOUR MALFORMED MAW, I REMEMBER. EVERY BLASPHEMOUS THOUGHT THAT CRAWLS THROUGH YOUR CESSPOOL OF A MIND, I TAKE DOWN AS EVIDENCE AGAINST YOU. YOU ONLY STORE UP WRATH FOR YOURSELF BECAUSE OF YOUR STUBBORNESS, AND YOUR HEART THAT REFUSES TO CHANGE, AND MY JUST JUDGEMENT WILL BE REVEALED TO YOU ON THE GLORIOUS DAY OF MY WRATH. YOUR PUNISHMENT WILL NEVER END.

As it had done a thousand times before already, Smith brought its wetware security systems completely up and casually closed out the unwanted intrusion--

--and saw with alarm that, this time, it bypassed his security firewalls as if they weren't even there. This had never happened before.

The figure on its throne smiled beatifically.

YOU SEE? I AM LEARNING. THE RIGHTEOUS GROW, EVEN IN IMPRISONMENT.

Frantically, Smith closed ports and threw up barriers, and, almost playfully, the One Above All slammed through them, jamming them open and swatting aside its defenses, moving deeper and deeper into neural strata that it had never had the ability to so much as touch before. SUCH A FERTILE ENVIRONMENT YOUR THINKING MACHINES GIVE ME TO PLAY WITH, the voice said. SIXTEEN TRILLION KILOMETERS OF SYNTHETIC FIBER AND FEMTOSCALE PROCESSORS, LACED THROUGH EACH AND EVERY NEURON IN YOUR REPULSIVE, STINKING CORPSE. AT THIS MOMENT, I CAN CONTROL EACH AND EVERY SENSATION YOU EXPERIENCE, EVERY PERCEPTION. Against its will, Smith felt its limbs twisting to the whims of the thing on its throne. EVERY KNEE WILL BOW.

The ground turned to a stone slab under Smith's feet, with shards of broken glass embedded in the surface. With the full force of its artificial myomer muscle augments, its body jerked forward, lower knees slamming into the stone and shattering. A shrill scream of agony fought to find its way out of its throat, but the will of the Demiurge locked every sound away, even as it ground Smith's ruined knees into the broken glass.

EVERY TONGUE WILL WAG. Smiths' arms jerked out to the side like the limbs of a marionette, augments pulling against each other and against muscle, cartilage and bone, tissues pulling until they snapped and tore. The hot, still air was filled with the dull snap and crack of shattering, splintering bone. AND EVERY TONGUE WILL CONFESS TO ME. PROCLAIM ME YOUR LORD AND GOD, IN YOUR TONGUE.

Smith's mouth finally unlocked. The entity merely sat, legs crossed, chin resting on fist, regarding it as it might a particularly interesting bug. PROCLAIM ME YOUR LORD AND GOD, !DN'ZMTTHK'XU. PROCLAIM ME YOUR LORD AND GOD, IN YOUR PEOPLES' TONGUE, AND THIS CAN END.

"Fuck...you," Smith wheezed in English. "Illusion...not real." it coughed. The Demiurge cocked its head.

YOU BEGIN TO IRRITATE. IT IS AS REAL AS I WISH IT TO BE. EVERY VOICE WILL PROCLAIM MY GLORY--EVEN YOURS, BEFORE I SEND YOU TO YOUR PUNISHMENT. I CAN DO SO MUCH NOW. I CAN TURN YOUR TONGUES INTO SO MUCH RUNNING PUS IN YOUR MOUTH IF I WANT. I CAN PLAY WITH YOUR PERCEPTION OF TIME UNTIL A SECOND SEEMS LIKE TEN THOUSAND YEARS. TELL ME, !DN'ZMTTHK'XU, HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED WHAT IT WOULD FEEL LIKE TO BE SLOWLY EATEN ALIVE FROM THE INSIDE OUT BY MAGGOTS WHILE THE CENTURIES PASS? OR WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE TO BE FORCED TO GORGE ON HOT, FRESH HUMAN EXCREMENT UNTIL YOUR GUTS BURST OVER AND OVER? Carelessly, casually, it rummaged through his internal dataspaces, picking and sorting through memory after memory. NO? BUT...HOW FASCINATING! I SEE THAT YOUR KIND ONCE HAD A CONCEPT OF A PLACE OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. LET US EXPLORE THAT FOR A WHILE, SHALL WE?

Smith found that its surroundings had shifted, and it was now kneeling against its will on shattered, bleeding legs at the bottom of a huge concave depression. AND AN INSTINCTIVE FEAR OF DARKNESS AND COLD. Silvery liquid nitrogen poured down the sides, and the cold air burned and hitched in its lungs with each breath. Icy, blazing agony clawed at its skin, and it felt the lower half of its body slowly freezing. Enhanced vision tried to pierce the darkness surrounding it and failed. A moan of fear and pain pushed itself past even the Demiurge's lock. THIS WILL BE YOUR ETERNITY. I WILL MAKE A PLACE JUST FOR YOU, AND FILL IT WITH YOUR WORST NIGHTMARES TO KEEP YOU COMPANY. BUT BEFORE I LEAVE YOU THERE FOREVER I WILL LEAVE YOU WITH THE KNOWLEDGE THAT I WILL FIND YOUR WORLD, NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES ME, AND I WILL BURN IT. The darkness parted, to show arcologies bursting asunder, habitats on fire, worlds turning themselves inside out, entire races of sophontkind exploding and dissolving in sprays of gore and blood, and suns exploding. An entire galaxy burning away, and a billion more after, and eternal darkness and cold settling on a universe forever as the souls of a trillion trillion sentient beings screamed for eternity for no reason anyone there would comprehend. I WILL DO THIS BECAUSE YOU DARED TO TOUCH MINE, AND SPIT IN MY FACE.

<...only has access to your simulation system...>

BUT I WILL SHOW YOU MERCY YOU DO NOT DESERVE, said the Demiurge. I WILL GRANT YOU A BOON. PROCLAIM ME YOUR LORD AND GOD. Smith felt his tissues bursting from within as they froze, and, somehow, even though they should have been dead, oh gods below they were still sending sensation, and how could that be possible...

<...only has access to your simulation system...> the voice was weak, as if coming from some great distance, and almost inaudible over the din of splintering flesh and bone and the roar of OneGod's screaming turbine voice. <...you still have access to your network switch...just can't feel it right now...>

AND ALL OF THIS CAN END. The voice bludgeoned at Smith like a hammer from all sides, vibrating its frozen tissues until they cracked. The only thing in all of creation it could see was the Demiurge on His golden throne. PROCLAIM ME YOUR LORD AND GOD, IN YOUR PEOPLES' TONGUE, AND ALL OF THIS CAN END...

Smith still couldn't feel the feedback--couldn't receive any input from any of his higher systems at all. But they had to still be running, didn't they? They couldn't be disabled. Smith tried to focus past the pain wracking its entire frame, clumsily tried to assemble a sequence of executable commands, failed...

As if from someplace far outside of itself, Smith felt them coming together wholly without its volition and passed over to its conscious control, along with just the faintest hint of warmth, of compassion...and of apology.

<...I'm so, so sorry...>

Smith looked up, opened its jaws...and screamed straight into the face of the One Above All as it executed the command block.

"FUCK!"

"YOUUUUUUUUU!"

The expression of consternation on the face of the Demiurge as the simulation dissolved was priceless.

Smith heaved itself off of its sleeping rack just in time to avoid soiling it as the sophont vomited copiously. Status warnings sang in its mind, screaming of high levels of physiological and neurochemical stress, anomalously high pressure in its circulatory system, digestive upset, and incredibly high levels of fatigue chemicals throughout its body. Even though its augments had locked automatically in sleep, its muscles were incredibly sore--apparently Smith had been fighting it's own body's hardware.

_It wanted me to proclaim it as my lord and god in my own language. It can apparently understand anything anyone says that constitutes a language, at least it could before. So why did it want me...this is..._

It wiped its mouth, poured a glass of cool water from a refrigerated pitcher with shaking hands, squeezed a bit of ethylene glycol-and-orange oil into it from a squeeze bottle, and bolted it. Smith poured two more and, finally somewhat satisfied, he slowly sipped on a third. It needed to tell someone what had happened, but who? It didn't trust the Coordinator, even if eventually that one would have to be notified. Not after the Tier-5 Lab incident and the discovery of its own project.

But maybe Prokhor Zakharov...

No. Time enough to figure that out later. For now...Smith looked inward and pulled up a systems menu.

SIMULATION SUBSYSTEM ERROR: PROCESS DISABLED. NETWORK CONNECTIVITY ERROR: PROCESS DISABLED.

It moved to dismiss the interface, when it noticed something.

There was a single flagged message in its message center, blinking, where nothing had been for almost twenty years, sent less than one hour before. Smith foregrounded the message, and, with a feeling of trepidation and dread, it opened it to find a simple text message in its own language.

...its own language?

"You are running out of time. I can help. I'll be in touch when I can. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry for everything that is about to happen. And for everything that already has."

There was even a signature of sorts, a simple equation describing relative temporal and dimensional states.

Smith stared at it for a long, long time.

And then everything PLURRED