Anna was pacing in her clearing as she thought. ‘I can rewind time? But does that mean that I can go forward in time too? If I go back in time will I have to wait for time to go forward again? Will I create paradoxes or do I magically have the ability to not do that? If I can go back in time why did God say not to bring anybody back from death? Does it have to do with souls? Would rewinding mess with people's souls or something like that? What if…’

Each question just created more questions. None seemed to have any actual answers. Eventually, Anna grabbed her head and threw herself to the ground in a comical fashion.

Rolling around, she cursed and cussed, an occasional yell of annoyance found its way out too. She grew tired soon enough and rolled to a stop staring at the earth above.

“Fucking hell,” she murmured then snorted. “Wait, if I'm a god now does that mean that there will be demons?” she asked aloud.

Knowledge appeared in her head and her mouth moved without conscious thought. “No, not unless I make them.”

Her eyes widened as she sat up and clasped her hands over her mouth. ‘What the fuck was that?’ She asked herself fearfully. Her eyes darted around as if another being would appear to answer that question.

Another being did not appear to answer her question.

However, knowledge once again appeared in her mind, causing her to lock up in surprise. ‘I… was putting intent behind those words so the potential reacted to that and… responded? No, it just provided the answer to me, it didn’t respond. For it to respond I would have to make it sentient.’ In a daze, she wondered why it hadn’t answered her other questions.

‘Ohhhhhhh, I didn’t have the intent for those questions to be answered. I was just rambling in my own head. I need to have the question in mind as well as the intent for it to be answered. Is this what God meant when he said being a god was all about intent?’ She nodded when she got the answer ‘yes.’

“Well, this will make things easier,” she said with a smile on her face. Getting comfortable in her meadow, she spent several hours posing questions and getting answers. Each one appearing in her mind as if she’d already known it and just needed to remember.

‘Can I rewind time? Yes, but only back to the time when I started as a god or at other points I’ve saved. Sort of like quicksaves in games.’

‘Can I speed up time? Yes, though time flows weird in the abyss, speeding up and slowing down at random if one doesn't give it directions. If i was on earth then doing so in a physical sense would be impossible but I could always just speed up my perception of time.’

‘Why can’t I bring anyone back from death? I... can? But why did God say not too? Oh, because just because I brought them back doesn’t mean I fixed their souls from degradation.’

‘Can I fix souls? Kinda, I would need to know how the soul looked beforehand in order to fix it and it has to be perfect, otherwise, it would lead to a bad reaction.’

‘What constitutes a bad reaction?’ She paled. ‘Yeah, so no resurrecting people.’ She sighed as she pinched her nose. ‘Fuck, if that wasn’t a flag I don’t know what is.’

The questioning continued on like this. Pose a question, get knowledge about the question. Though, it wasn’t a perfect system. For example, Anna couldn’t ask ‘how should I make the world a better place?’ because that was more a matter of personal opinion. Every question must have a definitive answer.

At the end of her asking spree, Anna rubbed her forehead in an attempt to ward off her coming headache.

“I guess I should check on Earth now.” she groaned. “I am not going to enjoy that headache.”

Shoving her reluctance aside, she reached out using her mind to connect with Earth. Using her new-found knowledge of how to be a god she was able to ignore all of the little details that gave her a headache before. In fact, she found it surprisingly easy.

‘I guess that’s what he meant when he said that it was all about intent. If I just intend to ignore all of that, I do. Without that intent, though I start to focus on all the little things that aren’t important.’ she laughed at her revelation.

Her laughter quickly stopped when she saw Earth.

An irradiated wasteland greeted her. Craters marred its surface and irradiated clouds flew high in its atmosphere. A few plants spotted what once would've been considered great forests or plains, but they were gnarled and knotted. Mutated and diseased.

A few animals could be seen, but they all were small rodents and bugs. No predator’s hunted either. There just wasn’t enough prey for them to survive.

In shock, Anna absentmindedly searched for people. She was disgusted by what she found.

Small bands of people lived in bunkers under the surface and a few groups had survived in submarines deep beneath the waves. However, almost all of them were starving from lack of food.

Broken down hydroponic bays could be seen, but in the best of circumstances, these bays were barely half functional. A lack of parts and accruing damage were the most likely causes. Though in some cases, Anna noticed that a few looked like they had been deliberately sabotaged. Humanity was dying and the bunkers that once kept them alive were now becoming their tombs.

The submarines were in a bit better condition as they could fish in the deep oceans where it wasn't as irradiated. However, even they were having issues as the radiation was slowly permeating down to them.

It wouldn’t be more than a few generations before every single human was dead from starvation.

Anna just stared at the depravity of what the human race had become.

They ate and hunted one another in an attempt to combat hunger, each bunker having become filled with different tribes scrounging and fighting for food. Men and women killing each other in order to simply eat.

In one case she saw a mother kill herself so her starving daughter could eat. The daughter did so, crying every single time she took a bite from her mother’s corpse. It was in vain though, as soon after a man appeared and raped her in front of her mother’s carved up and still cooling body.

“How-how long have I been gone…” she whispered hoarsely. The knowledge that came to her caused her to choke. “On-only seventy years?”

She watched as another man went mad and tied up his own wife, then started to eat her raw. It was made all the worse by the fact that she was still alive.

Anna couldn’t take it and removed herself from Earth.

She appeared back in her meadow and threw up. Stumbling over to her rock, she sat down leaning against it, shuddering.

A few minutes passed like that, with Anna’s mind just trying to process the horrors of what she saw.

Forcing herself to look up at the earth overhead, she flinched away before realizing that it looked fine. ‘W-why does it look normal?’ she hesitantly asked. ‘It's… just a construct... a part of the sanctuary I made. It doesn’t actually reflect the actual state of Earth.’

Holding herself, she sat there shaking, when an idea filtered into her head. She tried to focus as much as she could with her frazzled mind. Focusing on the idea of removing the trauma she’d gained from what she saw. Eventually, the potential around her caught on and flowed.

When it stopped Anna finally relaxed. Thinking about what she’d just done, Anna shivered. ‘So, I can alter my own mind… good to know… but let's never do that again. Messing with my mind seems like a great way to go insane.’

However, Anna had to admit, it was effective. Her mind was now clear and she could think rationally again. She could still remember everything. How she felt, what she saw, and was still sad and disgusted by it, but it no longer dominated her thoughts.

Standing up she started to pace. ‘Why did the world end?’ she wondered. ‘A malfunction in the CI’s… huh. CI’s short-circuited and couldn’t make sense of their surroundings. That led to a lot of death and damage to infrastructure, but what really screwed Earth was the secret nuclear weapons the major powers had.

‘All it took was one of the CI’s managing those to malfunction. Without that cognition algorithm of theirs, they went into emergency retaliation mode. They launched the missile at one of the other major powers. They, in turn, had an automatic system set up for retaliation too so more missiles were launched. This cycle repeated until the earth was doomed.

‘Various government-funded bunkers were established and people were evacuated. Of course, trapping people in a confined space for ten weeks is never a good idea, never mind the hundreds of years they had to wait. That's not to mention the stress and depression they must’ve been feeling. Tensions rose in the bunkers and fights between different factions broke out.

‘The sub’s had a bit of a better time as they’d had military disciple and a command structure to fall back on. Though, even they started breaking down after a few years.’ Anna stopped and pinched her nose.

Sighing, Anna went and sat on her rock. “I should protect myself from trauma like this so I don’t go catatonic like I did for a while there. That would not be a good thing to have to happen. Plus, based on what God said, I’m definitely going to encounter worse things than this in the future. I need to be able to react to them, not freeze up.” she concluded.

“But I thought you said you wouldn’t mess with your mind again?” She argued back in a higher, squeakier voice.

“I know, but this is more like a safeguard than anything else. To keep me from having to mess with my mind anymore.” She reasoned in her normal tone.

“Alright…” she said in the higher voice again, sounding petulant.

Straightening up, she clapped her hands together and slapped her cheeks. Once again she reached out and mixed the potential around her, trying to keep the idea of a shield around her mind firmly in place.

Moments later she was done and Anna knew she had succeeded. “Ok, that's done. Let’s head back.” Leaving her sanctuary behind she once more apparated before Earth.

She tried not to pay attention to the earth this time and instead focused on the idea of time turning back. Then, with a slight shudder and a jump, kinda like an old cartoon reel, she was back to Earth 2123.

‘Ah, sweet old earth, just how I remembered it. A touch of class divide, some major plagues, slowly creeping corruption, and horrific continent-spanning civil wars.’ She took a deep breath, like she was breathing in clean air after a long time. This was somewhat redundant as she was currently floating above the earth in an incorporeal form.

But, ya know, to each their own.

‘Amazing what you start to appreciate when you’ve seen the apocalypse.’ she thought, amused, as she flew over a city with all of its modern conveniences.

Her funny thoughts disappeared as she got serious again. Pausing time, she checked on the state of the world, making sure that nothing was out of place from what she remembered as she didn’t know if there was some sort of side effect to rewinding time.

There wasn’t. The rewind had truly turned back time with no consequence.

Sighing in relief, Anna set about searching for the malfunction that would lead to humanity’s doom, before stopping. ‘You know, I could’ve just asked if there were any side effects.’ she thought before doing just that.

“Oh. So that's what deja vu is.” She said, interested, before shaking herself. “Not important, got a world to save.”

She flew on, passing continents and oceans in seconds. Across the world, she searched for the first incident CI malfunction. Then she bopped herself on the head. ‘I can just ask, duh.’

The answer she got annoyed her.

Flying to LA, she wore a scowl when she got to the scene. It was still night, about 3:00 A.M., but you wouldn't know it with how many lights were on. Police cruisers and corporate provided trucks were parked side by side.

Each side was trying to show off.

The cops all had their police lights while the company cars had their holographic logos spinning proudly above their roofs. There was obvious tension in the air as well, with the officers glaring at the privately-owned Peacekeeper forces holding a perimeter around the crash site. As if it was some sort of ancient relic that needed protecting.

Someone who looked like the chief of police was at the front and seemed to be in a negotiation with a man in a suit. Most likely the police were attempting to gain access to the vehicle to study it themselves but the Peacekeepers weren’t allowing them in the name of protecting company secrets.

Because of a city ordinance, the police of LA had little legal authority in situations where the corporations are involved. They can only interact with the scene if they have the corporation’s permission and oversight.

Of course, This doesn't apply in cases of manslaughter, murder, drug trafficking, or other serious crimes, but an accident like this one firmly fell under the corporation’s jurisdiction.

However, if the chief could make the case that this might be an attempted killing then he may have a chance. In a court of law that is. It's strange that he would be arguing with a corporate representative now of all times and in the middle of a freeway.

Of course, this all had to be inferred from body language and facial expressions as time was still currently stopped. As such, no sound was being made by either side making listening impossible unless Anna started time again, but she didn’t want to do that until she had, at least, a semblance of a plan.

‘Actually this is kinda creepy,’ She reflected while looking around at the frozen and silent world around her. ‘This is kinda like all those old hentai stories I read a while back.’

Shaking herself from her inane thoughts, Anna floated herself over to the wreck. She once again pulled on the potential of humanity and wished for a map of all the CI’s that may malfunction.

Almost immediately she realized that stopping all of the CI’s would be difficult and tedious at best. Her mental map showed almost the entirety of the west coast covered in dots.

‘While I could just use my powers to fix all of them, doing so would look very suspicious. It's obvious that the police, at least, are aware of this issue and having it suddenly solved would definitely turn some heads,’ she thought while slowly gaining some height. ‘I would like to avoid alerting anyone to my new godlike status. At least for now.’

She debated for a moment before compromising. “If I don’t do anything, everyone dies. If I fix everything, I risk exposing myself before I'm ready. So let's just fix the worst of it and hope that no one notices.” Satisfied, she nodded.

Narrowing her parameters to ‘CI’s that may malfunction and kill more than 500 people’ she only got five hits.

The first was an automated freight train that would’ve crashed straight into a passenger train.

The second was a passenger plane that would’ve crashed, despite the pilots and copilots best efforts.

The third was actually a CI that managed a nuclear plant. One of the newer plants had bought the propaganda that ‘CI’s are infallible’ as was advertised by Bullworth Electronics, the world's main producer of CI’s. Almost all of its safety features were reliant on the CI to trigger them. Eventually, if the CI had malfunctioned, the core would’ve overheated and melted down with nothing being done to stop it. Though the damage would’ve been contained to the surrounding area, various small towns around the site would have suffered.

The fourth was an automated tank that was stationed at a military base. Though an older model, it still packed quite a punch and if It had malfunctioned it would’ve gone on a rampage, confusing allied and civilian targets with enemy combatants.

Finally, Anna arrived at the fifth CI’s on her list, and boy was it a doozy.

Deep in the wilderness of what was once the province of British Columbia was a missile silo. Back during the second age of American imperialism, when the US took over both Mexico and Canada, the strategic importance of northern Canada couldn’t be denied and various nuclear installations were set up in secret so, that if the US ever needed them, they would be there.

This was done in direct conflict with the Nuclear Disarmament Treaty of 2036, which made it illegal for any nation to own or use any nuclear weapon. It was an effective ban on nuclear weapons, sparked by growing public outrage against them after the long string of nuclear attacks in the late 2020s and early 2030s. The destruction of several capital cities and major population centers was an eye-opener to the public about the horrors that weapons of mass destruction really are.

Thus, the silo and its remote location.

Apparently, all the old computer systems that ran these types of bases were replaced fairly recently with CI’s. done in the belief that they would be able to singlehandedly run the base. Thus eliminating the need for personnel and the security risks that come with them.

The CI was as easy to fix as all the others and Anna was soon back in space floating above the earth thinking about what to do. Several different ideas on how she could manage earth floated through her head. She dismissed almost all of them because of one simple reason.

She had no idea how most of them would turn out.

“I need some sort of ‘possibility map.’” she finally decided. “Without that, I’ve no idea what the consequences of my actions would be and no way to prepare for them.”

With a thought, she made what looked like a glass sheet with strange symbols glowing on it. ‘I’m getting pretty good at this,’ she reflected as she started waving her fingers around in front of the screen, the various symbols following her fingertips.

She had an intuitive understanding of how to work her creation seeing as how she was the one to imagine it. Though she didn’t know how it was working, she didn’t need too. It did as she intended it to do.

One the screen a line appeared and started to lengthen. It then split and the view zoomed out to take both splits in. it split again, then again, over and over it split until there was an uncountable number of lines branching out.

However, then they started going dark.

It was subtle at first, only one or two lines at first. Easily outshined by the other more numerous and brighter timelines. It soon expanded though, and four more timelines grew dark. Then five more, seven, sixteen…

Anna watched, at first in dread, but soon with horror, as each timeline cut off and grew dark. She stared hopefully at the final line, just a hair’s breadth away from the finish line that marked ascension before it too became dark. Blacking out like all the others.

“What the fuck…” She uttered in terror. “Not one… not one of them makes it? But… how?” She looked up, her face pale as she took in the earth before her. “That shouldn’t be possible. For not a single line to make it means… fuck, I don’t know what it means, but it isn’t good.” Turning back to her map, she started to investigate every timeline and its ending.

It was fairly typical apocalyptic nonsense for most. Nuclear war, biological weapons, ecological disaster, ya know, the normal stuff. However, some of them were… weird. An inexplicable alien invasion, a meteor that sets off a chain reaction of volcanos that destroy the world, a freaking planet that crashes into the earth out of nowhere.

Then she got to the final one, the one that had almost made it to ascension, and that one just didn’t seem to make sense at all. Humanity was thriving, they had almost conquered the entire universe, the unifying theory was discovered and infinite electricity sources were used in every toaster. War, poverty, inequality, all had been eliminated. It was a paradise, a utopia.

And then it ended.

No reason, no explanation given, the universe just… stopped, and humanity died.

I wasn’t just strange, it looked purposeful. Like someone couldn’t think of a way to stop humanity with an ‘in-universe’ explanation and just decided to shut the whole thing down to stop humanity from reaching that point.

It looked like foul play.

And Anna couldn’t help but think it was. ‘Maybe, God has some enemies up there that he doesn’t know about? Ones that are dooming the human race despite him trying his best to help us. I would ask him about it... but I’ve got no way to contact him. Damn. This sounds way bigger than he said it was. A divine conspiracy?

‘And how the hell do I defend against that? I’m pretty sure that I can’t stop a god from shutting the universe down. As far as I understand it, I’m not an actual god or anything like that. I’m pretty sure I’m weaker than them too.' she was in a daze, just floating in space.

‘But… what if I don’t have to be stronger than them… just faster.’ the thought ran through her head as she looked at the map in front of her. There was almost a clean line on the map. One where a lot of timelines cut off at the same time.

Checking on them, Anna had her suspicions confirmed. All of the timelines had strange circumstances surrounding their ends. The ones that continued past that line were those that survived their apocalypse scenarios and she noticed that each one kept on facing more and more perilous and unlikely situations.

‘So, what I'm thinking is that something eventually happens up where God is and for some reason, humanity gets a target painted on its back for extermination. All I gotta do is make sure we ascend before then, without drawing attention to earth or whatever. No problem, right?’ Anna laughed nervously.

“So, how do I do that? How is ascension attained or whatever?” she hummed as the knowledge entered her head. “A variety of factors. Territory, knowledge, enlightenment, disposition, population, ethical orientation, etc. You don’t need to succeed in all of these columns, but you can’t fail in any either. Once you get a good enough ‘score’ the species ascends.”

Anna started pacing back and forth in space, making for an odd scene. “So, to summarise... I’ve got to find a way to advance the human race to the point where it will ascend to divine status fast enough so that it isn’t noticed and we’re all killed, but not fast enough that it is noticed and we’re all killed. I think the hardest part of that would be speeding up human progress, so how would I do that?

“I could descend myself and give them divine knowledge that I learn using my powers, but that might just make more issues then it solves. The way people think isn’t just going to change overnight with the advancement of technology, in fact, they might just stagnate now that they have godlike technology. So that's out.

“I could try to personally guide them, but that sounds like a lot of hassle. Also, it’s not like people would just suddenly follow me because I tell them too. Some might, but the vast majority would be suspicious at best and downright hostile at worst. Actually, worst would be those that would stab me in the back. So that’s out too.”

It went on like this for a while. Anna would pose an idea and her logical mind would explain why that wouldn’t work. ‘The main issue,’ she thought, ‘is that I’m working on an individual level. However, trying to create helpers or an organization to help me would undoubtedly end with friction being created between me and the regular people of earth. This would lead to war and while I may be hard to kill, God warned me against getting too relaxed with that.’

‘What I need isn’t for me to act personally, but for society to act as a whole and advance together. And, like God said, that can’t be forced by another being. The only thing that changes society quickly is extreme circumstances, like during the Flood and WW2.

‘What I need are helpers that nobody knows are helpers. Not even the helpers themselves… people who know what they’re doing and will keep humanity on the right track.’

Throwing her hands up in exasperation, Anna huffed. “At this point, giving people superpowers is starting to sound like a good... idea…” she trailed off as she realized what she just said.

“Actually that might be perfect,” She said thoughtfully.

“They could act as helpers and disasters. The Heroes will be my helpers that will keep humanity on track and protect them, while the Villians will be the extreme circumstances that will force them to grow. Of course, this will have to be handled delicately. If I’m not careful it will just turn into a ‘us vs them’ situation with people going on witch hunts for superpowered people.”

Anna cracked a smile when she realized something. “This is the ‘It’s so crazy it just might work’ plan, isn’t it?” she laughed as she looked down on the earth before something occurred to her.

Reaching out to the map that was floating forgotten beside her she checked it over. What she saw made her cackle with glee. “We’re gonna have po-wers. We’re gonna have po-wers. We’re gonna have po-wers.” she chanted to herself as she spun off into space, dancing with happiness.

On the map, another tree of possibilities had bloomed, and in this one, half of the branches reached the finish line.