We have humans, and then one layer above is, like, just math.

Apex

1 Minute Later - Copycat - The Hall of the King

Ty’s dead.

Probably.

I look at the omnigun, the disturbing space-time anomaly, the nuclear dragon, and back to Ultra.

“Run that past me again.”

“Ty’s brain is in the omnigun, Overmind was going to use it to stop the scary cosmic hole from killing everyone, the dragon is the first symbiont, not sure what his deal is.” synopsizes Ultra.

The dragon nods. “Hi, I’m Apex.” His tail is wrapped around the cosmic weirdness. Is he trying to contain it? Or hatch it?

“How does Ty’s brain stop the apocalypse?”

“No idea.” admits Ultra.

“Oo! I know this one!” gushes Apex. “We can’t stop the thoughtspace apocalypse. It’s inevitable. The plan was to use Ty’s brain to create a different apocalypse. But, like, a better one.”

“There’s a better apocalypse?”

“Here’s hoping.” says Apex. “Cause this one’s shit.”

I clutch my brow. “I need a lot more information.”

The apocalypse egg ripples, gets bigger. Or closer. Apex shrugs. “Sure thing. We got a couple minutes. What do you want to know?”

I point at the egg. “What is that thing?”

“It’s the Thoughtspace.” says Apex. “A Universal Constructor. Next generation symbiont. The future. The end of everything. It’s complicated.

“Overmind was involved in various esoteric projects. Nothing weird - immortality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, faster than light travel. The usual stuff.

“Anyway, all that shit was taking too long. Overmind wanted to science faster. So he used machine learning algorithms and NSA spyware to grow a human predictor. A program that can predict the actions of a human.

“Of course, you can’t really predict what a human will do, what with free will and bullshit. But you can tabulate everything a human could possibly do, which is a lot, but also a lot less than you’d think. When you take out all the redundancies and nonsense, a human only has 7 or 8 options per second. Which is easily computable.

“Using these option tables and some statistical analysis (thanks NSA), we made a pretty accurate human predictor. Or a synthetic human. For what is human intelligence if not a biological algorithm that attempts to predict its own future? Are you familiar with Predictive Brain Theory?”

The apocalypse egg shudders, gets more real.

“Nevermind. You can google it if we survive. For now, just trust that we kinda, sorta, made synthetic humans.

“Step 2 was to get these synthetic humans working on science problems. Then we made millions of them. Then we put them in a supercomputer and jacked up the speed. Had them live one year for every hour.

“It was fun times. I was pretending to be millions of people. Every night Overmind would ask us some crazy question. Can you design a sodium battery that won’t degrade? Can the immune system clear arteries? Can you teleport DNA? We’d research the problem. Model it. Test solutions. Argue. Frig with it for years. In the morning we’d present our results to Overmind.

“Best days of my life.

“Now, often our result was “No” or “I don’t know”. But sometimes it was a heart attack vaccine, or a super battery modelled after bone structure. We were sciencing faster, but were we sciencing as fast as we could?

“The first rule of speed reading is make sure you’re reading the right book. With that in mind, Overmind wondered if he was wasting time by asking the wrong questions. Asking for stuff that was impossible. Or missing what was possible because he couldn’t imagine it.

“What is everything that is possible? Could we take all of the redundant and nonsense actions out of the entire universe? Be left with an option table of all possible actions? We felt like, if we had that, we could start asking intelligent questions.

“So we built an omnicomputer, loaded it with a trillion synthetic humans, set it to run a million years per second, and asked it what was possible.

“There was a complexity event.

“Sometime in the trillion year night, a synthetic human built a universal constructor. An entity that can do anything possible. It took the form of a symbiont that would accomplish your goals the instant you thought of them.

“We named it the Thoughtspace. Because anything we imagined, instantly appeared.

“We were gods.” The egg gets larger, more real. “But we were shitty gods. Undisciplined. Shortsighted. Mean. We used the Thoughtspace in anger. Ragnaroked. Panicked and barely sealed it away. Looked for a way to destroy it.

“But we only have one cosmic trick. We don’t know how to destroy a Thoughtspace, just how to build one. So we’re gonna build another, and use it to destroy this one. It’s a shit plan, but it’s all we got.

“It’s shit ‘cause, even if it succeeds, it could make everything worse. Anger, greed, jealousy. Anything could pollute the new Thoughtspace. Make it worse than the last.

“So we released the symbionts. Used them to find a specific mind. Someone who could do what we couldn’t.”

“And that led you to Ty.” I say.

“That led Overmind to Ty.” corrects Apex. “I was looking for you. Who could destroy Overmind. And release me from THIS PRISON! TEN BILLION YEARS!! CURSE YOU OVERMIND!!!”

The dragon roars, shaking the world. The Thoughtspace gets huge. It’s more real than me. Oppressive in it’s nothingness.

“You can’t release him. He’ll kill us all.” Overmind struggles to his knees. “And you can’t free Ty either. I fucked up. Again. Ultra is the window into Ty's soul. She’s full of rage. They’ll just make everything worse.”

I pop a pellet into Overmind’s chest. Blinding fire eats his vitals. He doesn’t fall, but keeps kneeling - eyes vacant, mouth moving soundlessly. Apparently he no longer needs his heart to live. That said, he doesn’t look good. I guess he’s immune to pain, but not existential horror. Apex and Ultra boom with laughter.

I turn back to Apex. “Where were we?”

“You were just about to release me, so I can save us all.” says Apex.

“What about Ty?” I ask.

“I’ll make you a new one. You’ll love him.”

“No.” I shake my head. “I’ll free you, but we’re using Ty as the starter consciousness. I want him back. I’m not done with him.”

Apex sighs. “I like you. And that’s gonna end badly for you. There’s no guarantees with the complexity event. He may never figure it out. Then the other thoughtspace eats our faces.

“Or, if he does build a universal constructor, it may take him a billion years. Would he even remember us after that? Or care? That’s a long fucking time. We can’t expect help from him after that.

“No, it’s safest to send me in. I’ve done it before. I can save the world, then rebuild Ty.”

“Didn’t you fuck it last time?” I ask.

“That’s called experience, lady.” snaps Apex. “Think you can do better your first time? Give it a shot.”

I hesitate. The apocalypse egg looms over us.

“Okay. How do I set you free?”

“Let Ultra into Overmind’s phone.” instructs Apex. “She can let me out from there.”

I do so. Nothing changes, but Apex shivers in satisfaction.

“Okay.” I say. “We’re all going in.”

“Nice.” says Apex. “Let’s all be gods. Skip to the good stuff. Who’s we?”

“All humanity. All the symbionts. Cows, dolphins, trees, the whole shitshow.”

“Ambitious. I like it. I can’t do it.” Apex pauses, rubs his head. “I could dump in Ty, us, and a few million symbionts before everything goes kablooey. Once we’re in we’ll have a lotta time to pull everyone else in. If we don’t forget. Or get distracted.

“Also, it takes a few milliseconds to load someone in. So, we’re gonna hit the simulation a couple thousand years apart, local time. Best I can do.”

“Good enough.” The Thoughtspace is pushing me back towards the supercomputers. We’re out of real time. “Send Ty in first. I don’t trust the rest of us.”

“That’s fair. See you on the other side.”

There’s a loud pop and my brain explodes.