Destination Zero is worse than suicide.
The intense white light is something we had not considered worthy of concern when we first planned our route through the Singularity. But as I stand here facing our destiny, determined to burn that image of Salem’s smile into my mind, it is the Singularity that burns there instead. Physical pain is an archaic thing we conquered in the distant past, but now, as our world bursts through the Singularity and the Consortium’s own nervous system struggles to right itself against hellish chaos, agony roars through my nerves as though all the fires of creation have been focused upon me alone. Against all that power, for no sane reason, I fight to keep my eyes open, fight to keep Salem in view.
Amidst the turmoil he is fighting too. His arms no longer hold me. Instead he is holding them outward, hands clawed and shaking like a torture victim’s. His mouth is agape and his eyes, those lovely eyes, creased shut and streaming with blood.
I want so desperately to stop this, but as my heart reaches for him I feel the soft pop of flesh and the sting of fluids as my vision recedes from the glaring white to utter darkness. Is this the end?
“Salem, I love you.”
Then something else happens as I fall to the floor, pressing my fingers into bloody sockets, hunting for eyes that are no longer there. Like pushing my head into the path of a powerful waterfall, something is rushing through my mind, flooding through my synapses like lava, baptizing me with countless images of distant worlds, fiery clouds, and sprawling people. Violent convulsions follow, and I know nothing but the onslaught of a godlike presence using me like a conduit or neural funnel.
Time slows.
Is this how it feels to pass through the Promethean Singularity? No, this is something else. The thing flowing through me is sentient, and I recognize this being as it stampedes through me—it is the Great AI.
They used me.
And perhaps not just me. Perhaps others are feeling this too. How could I not have foreseen this? Are we nothing more than vessels for their escape? I would weep if I still had eyes. In my arrogance I assumed they could not follow us, but this is where they wanted to go all along. They wanted to break free from the known universe. But why now? What has driven a longtime benevolent intelligence to suddenly turn on us and force us to leave?
Eventually the pain stops and I am left lying on the floor, my back damp from the warm fluid pooling beneath me, and as my consciousness drifts away, finally released, I wonder if, after such a long lifetime, this will finally be the end.