Chapter Text
The agony only lasted a moment—then she passed into the light.
Her body had been a fantasy. A projection of Trismegistus’ unfathomably complex calculation engine, a simulation of the person who had been Olga Marie Animusphere. When the ruse was revealed, she had no choice but to disappear like all entities whose existence is a paradox—like she was her own little Singularity.
But, then again, isn’t that what Rayshifting is? she thought. A projection of a person into the past… A fantasy with no power to change history. Isn’t that right, Father…?
Her body was losing all form and substance. Call it a black hole, or a star; not even the Animuspheres fully understood what constituted the interior of the Simulated Global Environment Model. The observational lens she and Professor □□□ had created could only make sense of the outside—nothing could penetrate beyond the surface. Not without the power of a Holy Grail.
Even Marisbury wouldn’t have been crazy enough to insert measuring equipment into the miracle that was his life’s work.
And yet, the mages who followed the Animusphere creed did have their theories. Kirschtaria Wodime had informed her that he and her father had often discussed such topics over working meals, a confession unbecoming of a mage, but one given as a funerary condolence nevertheless.
Upon taking up the Directorship, she had read their notes—the ones that hadn’t been deleted.
□□□□□□ was right, she thought absentmindedly. This is… cyberspace?
…No, not quite.
The process she was undergoing was similar to digitization, but not the same; this environment was like cyberspace, but different in one fundamental way.
Digital space is the product of a calculation engine—a computer.
But mere physical calculations are insufficient to simulate the soul of a star.
Calculations were being performed, of course, but the stratum was not that of a physical engine. Any mage educated at the Clock Tower knew that deep within Earth was a layer known as the Reverse Side of the World, the planet’s “inner sea,” nested firmly inside a realm not unlike cyberspace—an ocean of information.
Ah… This star is so much kinder than we imagined...
She reached out—reached out with her mind, or what was left of it. Not just reality… even fantasies are inscribed in its soul. Impossible futures, futures that I refused to imagine. All of it, so neatly recorded…
She was falling, endlessly falling through blinding white light, but as her eyes adjusted—as her body disintegrated, breaking down into atoms, then quarks, and finally into pure void—she thought she could almost see something.
See—no, at this point, she could only sense it.
A ripple in the flow of information.
A disturbance. She looked—she felt closer, and saw that the data around her had been agitated. The calm blue hues she had observed as she entered began splintering into fiery reds, as if the incineration displayed on CHALDEAS’ exterior had penetrated inside.
That shouldn’t be possible, she thought.
That would be like a video of a forest fire causing the monitor to burn up.
So—what was wrong—?
……
Her, of course.
Here she was a foreign entity. A fantasy created outside and forcibly inserted into this sacred space, this medium that housed the Earth’s soul… or a copy of it, at least.
Even turned to void, she had refused to dissipate. Leftover emotions from when she had the capacity to feel them, perhaps. Instead, like a fool, she had reached out for a glimpse of another possibility.
The information grew more irate at her presence. Wait—wait!
All of a sudden, her forehead burned white-hot. She could feel its incandescence throughout what was left of her existence.
Forehead? Why would a being of void have a forehead?
Why is my—magic crest…?