The world is full of once in a lifetime opportunities. Most of them lead to your death. Don’t focus on the rarity of an opportunity. Instead, focus on getting what you actually want.

  -Iatian of Pertansa

  ==Caden==

  For a moment I stared blankly at the message, reading it again before my mind started to resume function.

  The deep weariness from staying ahead of the wall of power was not helping my state of mind.

  Still, there was no universe in which any response besides ‘getting more information’ was the correct choice.

  I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to interact with this new interface, but figured vocal responses were a good bet.

  “More information,” I said.

  Well, that’s open ended…

  I grimaced for a moment as the world went fuzzy and my focus wavered.

  “Can I rest for a bit, then deal with this?”

  At least it is to the point.

  So, I did exactly that, laying on the non-existent floor. I didn’t sleep so much as zone out. My strained attention gradually relaxed as it had time to recover. My willpower returned drop by drop, gradually filling me back up. Finally, I recovered enough to get back to my feet.

  Ugh, my soul feels sore.

  “What are you able to tell me?”

  Well, at least I can get something.

  “Tell me about yourself, then.”

  That raised two questions…

  “You are only responsible for repairing the outer soul, how does that work? What happens if the soul vault, uh… core, is damaged?”

  Good to know I guess. Lends credence to the whole immortal soul thing.

  “You called me a facet before, what exactly is a facet?”

  I briefly recalled seeing the “Past Life Gallery” label on a hallway as I made my way here.

  Maybe not the most urgent information, but still amazing.

  “What can you tell me about my past lives?”

  For a moment I just sat there, stunned. Those kind of time scales were… beyond me. I wasn’t quite as old as the Earth, but I was ancient by any reasonable definition.

  And, considering how long humans had been around, I had definitely not spent all that time as a sapient being on Earth.

  Unless there are strange time shenanigans. Then all bets are off. And that would actually be only a tiny fraction of all time experienced by individual humans, from a cumulative perspective.

  I cleared my throat before speaking again.

  “What is the goal?”

  “Wait, I’m supposed to eventually become a God?”

  Sure, why not?

  Even at the closest estimate I am more than ten million years away from that. Not exactly an urgent issue.

  Guess that answers what a soul is for… Sort of.

  I struggled to focus, taking deep breaths in and out until I was calm.

  I asked other questions about the soul and about my soul’s AI administrator, but all the answers were restricted.

  I did get to name it, at least.

  I called it, ‘GAIA,’ short for God’s Artificial Intelligence Assistant.

  All I was able to get out of GAIA was that the settings for how much each facet could learn from it, assuming they managed to get access, were chosen before each incarnation began.

  Yeah, but who is doing the choosing?

  Apparently, an emergency could override that, as could a scan of a sufficiently developed individual, but it was still limited.

  Eventually, I sighed. Getting more information in that direction was a lost cause.

  It’s like meeting God and then having them pat you on the head and tell you that would wouldn’t understand.

  No… more like meeting God’s secretary, and getting the same treatment.

  “God is busy, honey. Now run along and play.”

  I took a brief moment to settle myself, relishing the slow decrease in the soreness I could feel at my core.

  “What can you tell me about the situation with the system? Is it a… god, deity, unification thing?”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “Continuous incarnation…” wait, that is just me being alive, right? Ha, and “only” 2.84 million years.

  “Wait, removal of the entire system? And what do you mean about the length of time I am allowed to be alive?”

  Okay, not exactly an urgent lifespan issue.

  “What would that even do to everyone living on the planet?”

  I just blinked for a moment.

  “Why the hell would you consider that an acceptable outcome, GAIA?!”

  I mean… technically, this is a better solution. I wouldn’t consider my own death a good solution, but it is a hell of a lot better than just killing everyone.

  It doesn’t have any morality of its own though… Is that a soul thing? Or is that just a programming thing?

  I suppose if you look at it without any morals, and see the system as the problem, then destroying the system is the simplest solution.

  And the system sounds a bit broken, which is less than ideal.

  “From both a moral, and personal preference, standpoint, I would prefer a solution where no one dies.”

  “Why not just fix the system instead, if it is broken?”

  Guess there are some fail-safes built into GAIA. Honestly… that is probably a good thing.

  And… its an AI. I mean, I suspected, but… now I know.

  “Negotiating doesn’t violate that?”

  “Right…”

  I paced for a moment, just letting my body act so my mind could think.

  “Okay, tell the System that you are capable of destroying it. Ask it to change so the cycle stops and that it stop storing souls after death.”

  “Well, that was fast.”

  Okay, I deserved that. Don’t think it understands the nature of a rhetorical statement.

  “Wait, the system can be changed from somewhere? Just teleport me there and I will give it new instructions.”

  “Wait, the system’s core is off the planet somewhere? Where? Could I even get access, or change anything?”

  Wait, this is a trinary star system? Is it using a dyson sphere as a power source?

  I mean… admittedly, I originally thought the System was just a facet of this universe. It’s artificial though.

  Who the hell could even build something like that?

  Is the cycle GAIA mentioned just a result of bad programming? Maybe something broke down…

  Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to even do about it.

  Just another problem.

  For the moment, though, it wasn’t really my problem. There were limits to what I could manage.

  Guess the System interferes with the world on some level, though. Probably should ask for it not to mess with me.

  Should make sure it can even let my soul go. If it cannot do even that… I suspect GAIA would force the issue in some fashion.

  “Is it able to let my soul go?”

  “So, the minimum you would accept is freeing my soul on death, no matter what the system wants?”

  “What would the system give me for keeping things to this level?”

  Mess with things you don’t understand and you are liable to break something. Why the hell did I mess around with what the System was doing?

  Well… I wouldn’t even be negotiating with it otherwise.

  Have to take what I can get.

  “Is this the best it could do?”

  Honestly… I wasn’t sure what to make of all this.

  The way there had been errors and calls for a higher level of authority had felt somewhat mechanical, but it had hardly been conclusive.

  Even if someone had designed it, using an automated process to handle everything had seemed perfectly reasonable. Now I was asking questions, trying to understand my own feelings.

  And who, exactly, did you think was at the top of the system?

  Did you think some god was operating everything?

  I… probably had, on some level. Or thought of the System itself as a god in its own right.

  “If I accept the deal, what happens?”

  “Would I be able to get back in?”

  I waited for a moment.

  This was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

  I considered that phrase for a moment…

  Probably a once in a great many lifetimes opportunity, given my own nature.

  However, I couldn’t force anything here.

  I had felt such a strong connection to my soul, outside of the core.

  Here…

  It wasn’t the same.

  The shining orb in the center offered me no details.

  I could feel, on some level, that my true self was waiting within, but the sensation was distant. That true self wasn’t just me. It was everything I had ever been, and would hold everything I would ever become, in this life, this facet, and all that I would ever be, and I was only a tiny shard of it.

  No, here I didn’t feel that strength.

  That was waiting for me outside. That soul was me, my present incarnation.

  And there was nothing left for me to do here.

  “Okay, I accept the deal. Goodbye GAIA.”

  The door opened and I was pushed outside.

  The door sealed behind me, likely to never open again.