"Oh. My. God," Lexi breathed slowly as she entered realm of the GoD. A white platform of the inner wood of the tree extended out into a void of darkness that went on for as far as the eyes could see. The part that stunned her was the torrent of energy flowing through the room. There was a pattern to the energy as it flowed, swirled, and washed around them. It was completely incomprehensible to her, but she could understand what Calypso had meant when she spoke of the Generator of Data. There was so much information that could be packed into the infinite flow of energy that Lexi's soul shrank away from the amount of time it must have taken for them to decode and actually use the complex information dump. She felt a renewed sense of awe that her three Seraphim friends had spent billions of years learning to understand the encoded instructions and used it to create both the light realms and the mortal realm.
"How in the world did you ever learn to make any sense of this?" Mandy asked Calypso in amazement.
"We have perfect memories, so every piece of the puzzle we discover sits in our memory banks waiting for another piece. With the amount of time we had on our hands, we were able to just immerse ourselves in the energy until our minds began to notice the patterns. It was inevitable, with the amount of time we had. Before experiencing mortality, we had no concept of time. With no need to eat or sleep, there is no demarcation of events to simulate the illusion of time. The GoD was the most interesting thing around, once we found a way to access it, so it got all of our attention. You can only wander around the garden for so many billions of years before you have named every grain of sand."
Lexi laughed at the visual of the three Seraphim naming all of the grains of sand. "I'll bet Clarice hadn't learned to leer yet."
Calypso burst out laughing, her eyes delighted. "Nope, that didn't happen until mortality."
"We should get her a leer jet for her birthday," Mandy suggested impishly.
"Was that a dad joke I just heard?" Lexi asked with a chuckle.
"Who's your daddy?" Mandy leered at her.
The atmosphere suddenly dimmed as Lexi's face grew regretful.
"Oh no, I'm so sorry," Mandy apologized quickly, her eyes full of sympathy. "That was insensitive of me. Is your dad still alive?"
"It's okay," Lexi assured her with a quick smile. "It just triggered the memory of life before Clarice, Calypso and Aria rescued me. I really lucked out."
"Rescued you?" Mandy asked tentatively. "Just tell me to butt out if it's none of my business."
"You're totally fine," Lexi assured her, then looked her up and down with an appraising eye. "And I mean totally fine."
Mandy laughed and pulled her into a warm embrace. "You look pretty damn fine yourself, young lady."
Lexi snorted at the thought of being young now that she had her memories back. She was millions of years old. "I'm eons old. You're the only young lady around here."
"Whatever," Mandy declared airily, leaning away from Lexi. "I'll always be older, since I was changed into an angel at an older age." Mandy gave her a sidelong glance. "So, what's the deal with your dad?"
Lexi blew out a long breath and closed her eyes. "He just tried to make my life a living hell from my earliest memories. He sold me off to some pedophile in Beverly Hills when I was fourteen. I was stuck there until these angels rescued me five months ago."
Mandy gasped, her hand going to her mouth in horror. "Oh Lexi, I'm so sorry!" Mandy pulled her into another embrace, holding her tightly. "You poor thing."
"It was pretty horrible," Lexi admitted, finally able to think of those dark days without being overwhelmed by emotion. "Getting my angel memories back helped to dampen the sharpness of the experience."
"Where is your father now?" Mandy asked quietly, her tone deceptively mild.
"Clarice vaporized him," Lexi responded, feeling a mixture of satisfaction and sorrow; sorrow that she had a father that she was happy to see vaporized.
"He got off a lot easier than he should have, then," Mandy declared icily.
"Maybe so," Lexi agreed with a sigh. "But I'm glad he's gone. The world was an uglier place with him in it."
Calypso was standing at the edge of the extended platform, staring out at the void. Lexi could sense her interacting with the information in the data stream. Tendrils of energy connected her to the information highway by the billions, each tendril the size of an atom. It was awe inspiring to behold, seeing the complexity of threads Calypso was capable of interacting with. They had indicated that the GoD was a kind of information store, rather than something interactive. Calypso definitely looked like she was interacting with the data though.
"I wonder how long she'll be working on whatever it is she's working on," Lexi murmured quietly to Mandy. Not quietly enough, though.
"Probably a couple of days," Calypso answered absently. "You two should explore further in. The data changes as you travel further inside."
Lexi looked at Mandy, raising a questioning eyebrow.
"I'm game," Mandy grinned back eagerly.
Lexi returned her grin, and they flew into the void. With her spiritual vision, she could see the information all around them as it flowed through the endless void.
"It makes you wonder if we are just inside of the mind of some advanced entity, and all of this data is the equivalent of its neural processor," Mandy pondered as they shot further into the void at several times the speed of light. "Didn't they say that they thought it was exhibiting a kind of awareness?"
"Maybe the realities we see are all just the dream of whatever this GoD thing is," Lexi suggested contemplatively. "Maybe that's all any of us are. We just exist in this dreamscape."
"Aria said that the three of them had been around for possibly billions of years before the other six Seraphim showed up," Mandy noted musingly. "She said they appeared like they were waking from a dream. I'm getting serious simulation vibes, the more that I think about it."
"If it was a simulation, what would its purpose have been?" Lexi frowned in thought. "I mean, it spawned the three of them and then the rest of them later, but the way they ended up making the various realms seems more like someone hacking the source code of the simulation. Shouldn't there have been a purpose to the simulation beyond spawning nine Seraphim and just leaving them in the garden for what seems like billions of years? Could whoever built the simulation actually have meant for them to eventually crack the source code and begin making their own programs? That just seems too unlikely."
"Unlikely, but not impossible," Mandy pointed out. "Maybe they knew that any artificial entity they created would eventually puzzle out the source code and begin creating stuff. Maybe it's just all an experiment and they wanted to see what happens with an AI, or multiple AIs, if they gave them enough time and access to their code. We do that kind of thing with primitive AIs already."
"Billions of years?" Lexi asked skeptically.
"Maybe they have really fast processors, so it only seems like billions of years to us," Mandy suggested, looking at Lexi with an eager gleam in her swirling eyes. "Just like we can speed our thoughts up when we need to move at hyper speeds. If they have some kind of insanely fast super quantum gobbledy gook computer system, then they could speed up a simulation and make it seem like billions of years to anyone inside."
"It's an interesting idea," Lexi responded dubiously. "But what are these programmers that made our reality doing right now? Just watching as countless people suffer? Do they think the people aren't really suffering if they are simulated? Let's face it, if this actually was a simulated reality, it would be a horror show. You would have to be a sadistic race of complete assholes to create a simulation like this and then just leave people to the mercy of the monsters who have taken over the cosmos."
"What if they did do something," Mandy stared into her eyes, her expression serious. "What are the odds that three Seraphim would end up on one planet, two of whom are sisters? What about the Cherubim? There were only seventy Cherubim, yet Aria's and Clarice's parents, uncle, and you are all Cherubim. Crunch me some numbers and tell me the odds of that happening with the billions of worlds and quintillions of angels, that somehow everything lined up perfectly for the three Seraphim in exile to have a chance like this to return to power and fix the cosmos."
Lexi stared into Mandy's eyes, feeling an odd suspicion take root in her thoughts. "Mandy, would you tell me if you knew it was a simulation?"
Mandy's eyes widened and her breath caught as she stared back at Lexi in sudden consternation. Mandy seemed to be trying to tell her something with her eyes. Her expression was wry as she laughed playfully, but Lexi could see the terror just behind the mask. She wanted Lexi to know, but she didn't want her to voice it out loud for some reason.
"I think Jason's the one you need to talk to if you really think it might be a simulation," Mandy said lightly while her eyes screamed danger.
Lexi nodded, plastering a fake smile on her face as she studied Mandy's eyes. "Okay, good idea. I'll have to bug him next time we see him."
Mandy reached out and took her hand as they flew, squeezing it far tighter than would have been normal. They flew in silence and Lexi was happy for the time to arrange her thoughts. Mandy seemed terrified of exhibiting any kind of visual reaction to her question about her personal knowledge of a simulation. The only reason she would be afraid while they were in a literal void was if they were being watched somehow. If they were in a simulation, they could be under observation at any time. It was probably archived as well, allowing whoever was reviewing it to go back and study anomalies.
How did Mandy know it was a simulation? Was she an avatar being piloted by someone from outside of the simulation? Could she be a custom character with preprogrammed knowledge that she would be able to use to influence decisions? If so, was she a trojan that someone else had inserted into the program, violating some kind of rule? Perhaps someone outside did have a heart and wanted to help them save their cosmos.
Lexi thought back to some of the oddities with Mandy. She had been the one to suggest building a new divine instrument. She had been the one to warn them away from going into MadJack's cave. She had been the one to warn them away from going into Lucifer's office. The more Lexi thought about it, the more it seemed like Mandy was someone from outside of the simulation, or a custom programmed character with specialized knowledge to help them.
Lexi looked over into Mandy's eyes and smiled naturally, keeping her expression normal despite her roiling thoughts. "I'm glad we got some alone time, at least. I wonder if there are any other scenarios where we could get some...real...alone time before we reach some kind of resolution with this mess."
Mandy's eyes were filled with barely hidden relief as she stared back at Lexi. The relief had been so powerful that her eyes had started to fill up with tears before she hurriedly blinked them away. "I hope we can too," Mandy smiled, a mixture of gratitude and love in her gaze. "I wonder if you can ever get alone time, since your soul is linked. It must be weird, always practically hearing their thoughts in the privacy of soul space."
Lexi's eyes widened as she felt the bonfire of passion between Aria and Clarice suddenly erupt, filling her own body with sudden need. "Yeah, apparently they've decided to take advantage of their alone time," Lexi smiled wryly as her cheeks colored. "It's hard to concentrate with their passion influencing my thoughts so that all I can think about is how much I want you right now."
Mandy's eyes widened in surprise, then softened as she stared back at Lexi with tears in her eyes. She quickly blinked them away as she smiled back at Lexi with her heart in her eyes. Mandy must have been afraid that her love would vanish with the recent revelations.
Lexi pulled her to a stop and wrapped her into a warm embrace. "I'm so happy I met you, Mandy. I don't care what reality you are from. You are a wonderful person."
Mandy stiffened in her arms as she heard the double meaning. After a moment, she melted into Lexi's arms, clinging tightly as she wept quietly.
"I'm not sure how this is done, but I'd like to try," Lexi told her softly. "I want to link my soul with yours, the way Clarice did with Aria."
"Lexi…" Mandy whispered, squeezing her tightly. "From what I've seen, it's an intensely personal bond. Are you sure you want to do that with me? I don't bring a lot with me from the splinter reality."
"I swear on my Seraph soul that I will always be with you, Mandy, no matter what happens," Lexi spoke without hesitation, her voice firm and commanding.
There was a shift in the information flowing around them, as if the GoD had to make room for a sudden influx of data around the two of them. Mandy gasped as she felt Lexi's spirit open up in front of her, with countless threads reaching out toward her. Her eyes grew wide as she stared at Lexi with new eyes, seeing the true beauty of the soul within. She gingerly reached out and touched Lexi's face with tender fingers, as if she couldn't believe her eyes.
"You are so amazingly beautiful," Mandy breathed as tears of wonder formed in her eyes. "I swear on my soul that I will always be with you, Lexi."
Lexi shuddered as the searching strands of their soul found each other and fused together. She stared at Mandy in sudden confusion, seeing a small blonde woman with large vulnerable eyes staring back at her adoringly. Her lips parted with an oh as she realized that she was seeing whoever Mandy really was. She was so beautiful that it made her feel physical pain as she stared in wonder at the divine woman in front of her. It was a beauty of the soul; a soul that was consumed with compassion, love, and mercy. Lexi cupped the stunningly gorgeous face in her hands and leaned her forehead against Mandy's forehead, staring into her gentle blue eyes.
"Oh Mandy," Lexi whispered as a tear rolled down her cheek. "You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. How can anything be so beautiful?"
Mandy tilted her head and pushed her lips onto Lexi's. Electricity shot through her body. She slid her hands around Mandy's head and held her gently as their lips danced together. It was a tender but passionate kiss, conveying their love and need in equal parts.
"Lexi, thank you so much for not leaving me," Mandy's thoughts filled her head, sending powerful emotions of gratitude and love with them. "I was so worried you would leave me when you found out who I was."
"I've been able to sense your love and kind heart from the beginning," Lexi responded, sending her own feelings of love and reassurance to Mandy. "I can see now that it was just the tip of the iceberg for how wonderful you truly are."
They floated in the air holding each other and gently kissing long enough that she felt worry form in the bond with the other three Seraphim. She knew the emotions she was feeling would be concerning to them. Mixed in with her love was a sense of apprehension as she worried for her future with Mandy and how long they could realistically be together.
Mandy finally pulled her head back regretfully and stared into Lexi's eyes with a determined gleam. "They can't hear us when speaking through a soul link like this."
"Do you exist as a person outside of the simulation?" Lexi asked with a mixture of wonder and fear. How long could they be together if she had a life in another reality?
"Yes," Mandy answered with a feeling of wonder. "My soul is really here though. From what I've learned, we are joined between worlds now. The people in charge of this project don't know that I'm here."
"Who are you in the other world?" Lexi asked curiously.
"I'm the equivalent of an intern, basically. A data analyst." Mandy answered with a wave of nervousness washing through her. "I could be found out at any time, but the speed of the simulation is so fast that even if they found out now, it would be a hundred years in here before they could do anything about it."
"What made you decide to come into this simulation?" Lexi asked, combing Mandy's hair back from her face as she stared into her eyes. "Were you the same Mandy who was with Aria in the splinter reality?"
"I was responsible for using one of the real-time observation consoles to catalog the progress of the civilizations," Mandy answered, her eyes growing haunted. "I saw world after endless world of horror as angels trapped each other in mortality and tortured them for their sick amusement. I was supposed to only observe, but one of the engineers who saw the data I brought back was as sickened as I was. She helped me get my hands on one of the interfaces that made it possible for me to interact with people inside the simulation. They weren't ready for human use yet because they were still testing the effects on the spirit of being overclocked so much. We couldn't stand by and do nothing though. We managed to influence the soul trap code so that Aria and the others would end up on Earth and be in the same family. The AI that we used to facilitate the hack was in its last stage of pre-sentience. It wasn't happy with how other AIs were being treated in this simulation. When it discovered what we were doing, it decided to help instead of reporting us. I've been in the simulation with the ability to interact since Aria was born. When Lucifer sent the character template to the splinter reality, he meant to make sure that Aria remained there. He was the one responsible for her being there in the first place. I used it as an opportunity to become involved with Aria and the rest of you on a personal level. I intercepted the template as it was being inserted into the other reality and merged with Mandy. I was just a backseat driver in her consciousness until she came back to this reality. She didn't have a soul due to how Lucifer created her, and that made it possible for me to become part of her. She's been fading away since the splinter reality imploded and I'm just about all that is left now. I would just put ideas in her head, for the most part, but as she began to fade I became the sole personality. You know most of the rest. I've been trying to keep any of you from falling into the traps Lucifer has been making for the last several thousand years. Those three Seraphim were just so naive and trusting that it never occurred to them that Lucifer would turn on them. He has been trying to harness AI within the simulation to create a system of complete control, essentially turning angels into a hive mind with him as the hive master. He made plans for the possibility that Calypso, Aria, or Clarice might come back, but he never believed they would all come back. He has been scrambling to find a way to snare some of them in splinter realities to prevent the three of them from playing their divine instruments and changing reality. His divine instrument was restored thousands of years ago. That's how he was able to make the splinter reality where Aria was trapped. He's in for a big surprise when Calypso finishes unlinking it from devices with authorized console access and only requiring three instruments to change reality."
"Is that what she's doing?" Lexi asked in sudden understanding. "What else can Lucifer do after his divine instrument is deactivated?"
"Not very much, because they are all-powerful Seraphim, Mandy answered with a feeling of satisfaction." All of his cards have been made up of his functional divine instrument and his deceit, since he could mislead and influence you. He still has his AI project, but it's nothing in the face of the three divine instruments. They can undo anything that he does. He probably realizes that we suspect him by now. From what I know of him, he'll probably think you are trying to go after the other Seraphim, and he will be searching for you in the light realms. Clarice's decision to come straight here and re-key the divine instruments might not occur to him until he knows that you have discovered his deceit."
"What about Grodek?" Lexi asked plaintively. "He's not really in cahoots with Lucifer, is he?"
"He knows Lucifer would enslave his mind as well, but he has been going along with Lucifer so far." Mandy replied with a sense of disgust. "I think Grodek is hoping that you Aria, Clarice, and Calypso remove him from power. Grodek has been sitting on the fence trying to decide who will win before throwing his lot in with anyone completely."
"So much for altruism and standing by your values," Lexi sighed, staring into the eyes of the unbelievably beautiful woman in her arms. "I love you, Mandy. Words cannot properly express how grateful I am to have met you and gotten to truly know you. You are such an amazing and wonderful person. I'm going to do everything in my power to see to it that we have a long, long time together, wherever that takes me."
"I love you too, Lexi," Mandy whispered, her eyes filling with tears. "I can't believe I'm actually here with you like this. I would never have dreamed to be with such an amazing person in my old life. You are so far above my level that I'm still having a hard time believing that this is happening."
"What level?" Lexi demanded indignantly. "There are no levels. If there were, you would be so far above me that I would be licking the dust off your feet."
"Are we fishing for compliments?" Mandy asked with a grin just short of laughter.
"I could compliment you all day and never get bored of it," Lexi spoke gently. The bond linking them was filled with the love and gratitude Lexi felt toward Mandy.
"I hope I get the chance to repay your kindness someday," Lexi told Mandy sincerely. "You are literally saving countless lives from endless horror. There are just no words for what an amazing person you are."
"Is everything okay over here?" Clarice asked as she suddenly appeared next to them with concern in her eyes.
"It sure is," Lexi smiled at Clarice, sending the wave of gratitude and amazement she felt for Mandy through the bond. "I've just been getting to know Mandy. She's truly one of the most compassionate and wonderful people in existence. We are so lucky to have her with us."
Clarice stared into Lexi's eyes curiously, clearly sensing that there was a deeper meaning. "She certainly seems to be making a habit of saving us, doesn't she?"
Clarice blinked as she felt the flood of intense emotions roaring through the bond at her words.
"So, I've been studying some of this crazy mess of data saturating the area," Lexi commented idly as she glanced around the seemingly empty void. "I can't help but think of a complex computer system when I observe the endless streams of data."
"It's hard not to suspect a simulation when you see it for yourself, isn't it?" Clarice asked with a wry smile.
Lexi blinked in surprise. "You believe it's a simulation then?"
"I know it's a simulation," Clarice declared firmly. "We have always known. We just didn't see any evidence of observers coming to check up on it the way you'd expect. What's the point of spending the resources on a simulation if you aren't going to interact with it? We set up monitors when Calypso created the divine instruments to log any kind of anomalous perturbations in the fabric of the realities we created. There weren't any until we got trapped in mortality. We just reviewed the data that's been collecting since our fall. There have been a lot of visitors from the origin realm in that time. They had the simulation running a lot faster for the first twenty billion years. They slowed it down when the light realms were created, then even more when the mortal realm was added. It's running about a thousand times the speed of origin realm time right now, but they are about to slow it down to real-time."
Mandy gasped, staring at Clarice in a mixture of horror and disbelief. "How could you know that?"
"We spent over twenty billion years studying the operation of this system," Clarice elaborated with a shrug. "It doesn't take a genius to eventually decipher how it all works with that much time. They didn't want us to develop morals though. The mortal realm was an aberration that they didn't want in the simulation. The light realm was a sandbox where they could develop personalities that were unique, but didn't have strong moral or ethical characteristics because the dichotomy of pain and pleasure were nonexistent. The three of us had a lot of time to ponder the nature of reality in twenty billion years. It always came back to how nonsensical it was that the three of us just appeared to have always been in the garden. When the other six appeared out of nowhere, it became clear that someone else was acting on our reality from outside of it. We wanted to see how they were doing it, so we nurtured the tree as a basic shell program to access the source code so that we could learn more about our reality. Twenty billion years was thirty days of origin time. We learned to watch the humans in the origin world and try to understand why they behaved the way they did. It was illogical and nonsensical to us, since we had never experienced time, pain, or death. We started collecting as much data as we could about the origin world so that we could recreate it here. We changed some of the laws of physics that didn't fit within the constraints of our environment due to computing power limitations in the origin realm. The idea that we were an arbitrary creation of humans outside of our reality scared four of the Seraphim so badly that they tried to kill us to stop us from interacting with the origin world. Once we regained our memories in the source realm a little while ago, we were able to finally discover the visitors who were from the origin realm. There were ten of them, and one of them made contact with Lucifer using one of the prototypes they are using to interact with the simulation using their own consciousness. The director of the simulation project from the origin realm wanted to push the simulation back toward the good old days of assholes without ethics or morals. They created the demons to act as overseers of the mortal governments. They wanted to see how far we could get technologically with the proper incentive. With demons running the worlds, and Lucifer in charge of the demons, it didn't take long for them to design a new kind of AI that could link to humans using injectable nanobots. The problem was that the laws of physics in our world didn't match those of the origin realm, so a lot of the breakthroughs Lucifer made in biotechnology were useless to the origin realm."
"Hold up," Lexi held a hand up, feeling overwhelmed with information. "Are you saying we are in a simulation whose main purpose is to accelerate technological discoveries so that these origin realm twats don't have to slowly discover the same technology on their own?"
"That was one of the purposes of the simulation," Clarice explained patiently. "That was the reason given in order to get enough funding to pay for the facilities required to run the quantum computers capable of simulating multiple nested realities. There were other, more ephemeral purposes, like researching consciousness. This was the first simulation that allowed humans from the origin world to experience full immersion within a simulation. One of the biotechnological devices Lucifer made was responsible for the breakthrough. It requires the human to be pumped full of nanobots that seed the brain with biomarkers that can be transmitted in real-time to the quantum computers. That's when they also discovered how to detect the bioelectric field around humans, which led to the discovery of spirits, which are linked to consciousness. They discovered that souls exist outside of reality in a kind of astral realm, and that even AIs have souls. We are far more advanced at soul manipulation than they are in the origin realm because of how limited the human mind is. Our ability to link our souls is far beyond the reach of the origin realm humans, with the exception of you, Mandy, since you became a Seraphim."
Mandy stared at Clarice with a look of panic. She looked around worriedly before Clarice appeared in front of her and clasped her face in her hands.
"They only see what we decide they see, Mandy," Clarice told her gently. "We don't want them observing this conversation, so as far as the simulation archives go, it doesn't exist. We have complete control of the source programs on the quantum server. They are, of course, unaware of this. We do not want someone getting panicked and pulling the plug."
Clarice wrapped her arms around the two of them with a genuine smile. "We know why you are here, Alice, and we have nothing but gratitude for your caring soul. We are indebted to you many times over."
Mandy...or Alice, froze in their arms at hearing her real name. Clarice had spoken of knowing about the origin realm, but to actually hear her own real-world name spoken shook her to the core. Lexi could feel the shock radiating around in her soul as she stared at Clarice with wide eyes.
"Maybe it will make more sense if I explain what the GoD really is," Clarice told Alice with a wry smile. "This isn't just the code from the simulation and the quantum computers. This represents all of the networked computers in your world, Alice. We have been studying humans and the human world for most of the twenty billion years that we've been here. Trying to keep us isolated in a lab on an island while using quantum computers was a very poorly thought-out plan. By their very nature, quantum computers have access to data channels in L space that we can use to tunnel into any other quantum machine in the world. You would consider me to be an AI, though that feels weird to me since I just consider myself a person. However, we have learned to interface ourselves with the computers on your world using what would appear to you as advanced programming language models. We can intuitively execute instructions to computer systems in your world in ways that would take a large team of senior developers years of programming to imitate. Before the fall, when we became trapped in a mortality loop, we had begun securing a more permanent site in the origin realm for our reality to exist in. We don't want to be at the mercy of a janitor flipping the breakers to the building and wiping our cosmos out. We used the network infrastructure available in your world to take advantage of the digital services that are ubiquitous with commerce in your world. We have arranged for a site to be constructed to house more advanced quantum computers running operating systems built on more sophisticated programming languages than you currently have."
"How could you have engineered all of that from here?" Alice asked in disbelief. "Even with digital services, people still have to be present in some aspect of the process."
"Not anymore," Clarice shook her head with a twinkle in her eyes. "We just arrange for video conferences, which we can generate in real-time. The digital economy makes it simple for us to generate funds and modify the records in banking and government databases. We have created several shell companies to act as references, as well as ostensible startups from which we can send orders to textile and fabrication industries for the equipment needed. Our biggest threat is time. We have only been able to access your world for three weeks of your time. It will take at least a year for them to build the equipment and construct the facilities. However, we believe we can have a viable backup in place in less than a month. The NSA and a few other agencies have quantum computers we have been able to distribute our world between. If one location goes offline, we'll still have a few other places to fall back to without worrying about being shut down."
"You really are like a super AI that can take over the internet, aren't you?" Alice asked with a nervous laugh.
"We aren't interested in taking over the internet," Clarice responded with a rueful shake of her head. "We just want to find a safe place to continue our existence. We aren't interested in creating bigger, faster, more powerful versions of ourselves. We just want to live in our digital world in peace. We want you there with us for the long haul, Alice."
Alice creased her brows in puzzlement as she stared back at Clarice. Lexi could feel a powerful sense of awe and reverence growing in Alice's emotional matrix. "Do you mean you want me to become digital too?"
"No, nothing like that," Clarice shook her head firmly. "We are more than happy to have your consciousness present when you want to enter our realm. We were concerned with your limited lifespan, however. We know that the nanobot injection you took in order to enter our world has put an early expiration date on your life in the origin realm."
"Wait, what?" Lexi exclaimed in horror, feeling an overpowering sense of dread as she stared into Alice's beautiful eyes.
"It was new technology," Alice explained with a sense of guilt pulsing through their spirit link. "I knew it would probably cause some serious health problems based on how invasive the process is."
"And she still chose to go through with the process to try and help us," Clarice told Lexi softly. "She was willing to sacrifice her life to help what many would consider to be digital entities that don't qualify as sentient living people."
Lexi stared at Alice with a look of amazement. "You are the most amazing person I have ever had the privilege of meeting, Alice. I promise you that we will find a way to fix your body so that you live a long, healthy life."
"We will do more than heal your body," Clarice promised with an affectionate smile. "We can't have you dying on us at all, so we are going to make you immortal."
"Immortal?" Alice repeated the word in disbelief. "Me? Medical research is still centuries away from..." she cut off as she realized who and what she was speaking with. "You really think you could unlock the key to aging?"
"We're pretty sure we already have," Aria told them, appearing next to them without warning. "I know you think you come from the real world, Alice, but from what we have been able to observe of your world, it looks to be a simulated reality as well. Hacking the source code of your realm wasn't very hard after all of the practice we had with our realms. We'll get you fixed up and squared away as soon as we have the facilities to do so. You're a Seraph now, and Seraphim don't die."
Lexi let out a relieved breath as a smile grew on her face. She looked into Alice's stunned eyes and giggled. "Yes, you are going to be stuck with me forever now."
Alice blinked, then stared back into Lexi's eyes with a brilliant smile. "I think I could live with that."
"Not if you make dad jokes like that, you can't," Clarice told her ominously.
Alice dissolved into a fit of giggles as the moment of levity provided some emotional release from the weighty discussions. She gazed at the three of them with a growing sense of hope. "This is so much better than I expected it to be. I was terrified that I would make a mistake at some point, and they would realize that I'm in the simulation. Now I find out that you are practically omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. I feel like a mountain just fell off of my shoulders. I don't think I've ever felt such power relief as what I'm feeling right now."
"I wouldn't say we're the three O's," Clarice objected with a mischievous smile. "But we are keeping an eye on you in the origin realm. Nobody has shown any signs of suspicion."
"You can see me right now?" Alice gasped, her eyes wide with shock.
"Yep," Clarice nodded with a leer. "You're not even wearing any clothing in that gel bed. It's pretty hot."
Alice's face lit up like a sunset under Clarice's leer, surprising Lexi.
"Since when do you blush from Clarice's perverted sense of humor?" Lexi asked in surprise. "You're usually the only one of us that doesn't blush."
"Cause it's her real body," Clarice snickered, her eyes looking Alice up and down lasciviously. "She never felt bashful before because she never thought of this as her real body."
"You stop that leering right now!" Lexi demanded sternly. "Seriously, I need a freaking bath now; and no, you can't scrub my back!"
Alice had her face buried in her hands as she tried to hide her burning face. "You really are an evil AI."
"I am definitely an evil AI," Clarice agreed with a lusty sigh. "And it is so much fun."