11.

Unknown to Uh’ as he backs away from the comp station, The Universe has discovered that her world is not singular. She has access to more. Every new piece of information feeds her intellect and restarts the equation. Finding answers is simple. Sadly though, the Upu were in short supply of questions for the last fifty passes or so. The solar system was known to them. Their curiosity stopped at the fact they destroyed a whole species on the next planet over because they couldn't find a way to share.

The immense pile of information she finds does nothing to fill the void of her/me.

She thinks, "who," and the words Soya Clone 1.7 float up to her in the binary fabric. She thinks, "what," and the atom-varitor constructed into a Control Center server room floats up, along with the seven copies she spread to other databases, Soya 2.7 through 8.7. Each set up in its own bubble of spatial folding. She can touch them or not, know them or not. Together they sift through every single file on Grotto and find almost no information on her creator, the old Upu shaking in fear.

Through the lens of an old black and white security recorder pointing into his penthouse cell, she captures his image and adds it to the search and finds him to be Soya 1.0’s slave. A lesser Upu. Dead in The Great Soya Uprising that the Elders have managed to quell. She remembers the words she wrote when contemplating buying him, she felt it was more than an investment; she was saving the adolescent Upu’s life. He was a teenager. And his parents sold him for a pittance she is positive only lasted them a week. A week's worth of credits is all they got for a genius. Uh’s academic levels were stellar. His strength was maths, and he came with a certification that promised a curious mind. The slaver who brokered the deal was not wrong. Soya often wrote of her feelings for the slave. In a better world, they could have been more, she dictated once. They were more, but never publically.

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Publically, she protected him like a useful pet, acting as if he were not exactly dead weight but an Upu she thought too little of to share with her colleagues, whom she claimed to not be able to trust with the bare minimum. Let alone what he did for her.

Eventually the lie was too obvious and his genius was folded into her’s.

But privately, she must have known his impact. Every stroke of her written math was performed by his hand. She has images of it, if not any mention. He was the reason things happened. She searches for proof that Soya loved him, but all she finds is the desire to protect him. Soya never admitted more in any of her writing, private or public. Just the wish, if things had been different.