And a high-pitched childish voice shrieked...
no! i wanna be the universal mimi!
One of Sincerus's robed mannequins glitchily spun as he rose higher in the young, yet hospitable, Martian skies. The sun was dawning on scarlet sands and the cosmic darkness ample with saffron nebulae was more visible than the sea green atmosphere Sincerus staggered in. He spawned from the gargantuan cassette-vinyl computer with polycarbonate superwires that quarried and queried all the way to the planet's core. The supermainframe was in the shape of an enormous, yet cozy, rhombus with a round groove, and the screen kept flashing cute technicolor and monochrome images, memes, and terminals.
The cassettepunk simulations and sessions of Derry Hill 2 were all on that machine... and the godlike computer indeed could walk the cassettepunk category. It was as if all the technology from the 80s and 90s throughout all of the multiverses fused together to create this one supermainframe.
Were all the humans fusing too?
As its nostalgic plastic materials were stained with maroon specks from the red sands, millions of cassettes and vinyl spun and spun inside the clear glass that were clamped to its synthetic protracted body. As it reminded Sincerus of old computers that mostly had snakes, pongs, and dungeon text games... he wondered if that computer also had a name like he did. Did the supermainframe ever have a name or a voice? Was it ever sentient? Was that computer just another avatar or body of his that he forgot how to control?
A gentle roar that Sincerus could not tell apart from an incoming Martian storm or a comet passing by crept up behind him... and he spun again to find a hand descending.
Another cosmic hand.
Indeed, even above Spiderland... even above Iggy... and even above Sincerus... as 1 kept ascending higher... there was yet another hand in another simulation, and this hand was made of letters and words blurring in.
There was no desire to chase the hand, nor did the hand hint any kind of imperative to escape... there was no need to rush into a conversation.
They observed each other, and even though a hand and a computer were at work inside this simulation, the dead silence was both unbearable and comforting.
The vibe was...
...
Loneliness.
The kind no .human file could repair. The kind of cranial chemical reaction that came from a fate to be always misunderstood, yet the hand had a fiery will to defy it.
And behind Sincerus spinning ever so slowly...
The same prehistoric Earth where his own computer was... with some kind of anti-influx barrier in between Mars and Earth. Sincerus could see his own pink pixel running in a dark continent on the planet humans would eventually call Earth.
Was this simulation the physical manifestation or the metaphor of the switchboard beside Sincerus's computer body?
Was it still all the same picture?
"Splendid," an ominous voice uttered.
Sincerus spun again to find...
Prophet Ameen using a mannequin avatar himself. A glitchy hologram of his face floated over the neck rod as he levitated with Sincerus.
"You can't sit with us. We do not grant you the rank of master," Sincerus squeaked.
Ameen smiled. "Well, I am. To quote my beloved creator."
Sincerus staggered again, levitating further away from Ameen's avatar floating in the Martian skies.
"No. You worship that god. Not me," Sincerus said. "I don't wanna be worshipped."
"What would be the difference?" Ameen said. "Perhaps you pray to someone else... but you are the one we must pray to."
Sincerus shrieked while childishly twirling four times. "Stop it! Or I'll ban slash worship emotes!"
"O my Lord," Ameen said. "You still cannot stop your heavy hand can you?"
Sincerus's human form in a simulation far away was bleeding in, and he was trying to catch his breath.
"But you were the one that changed the words of the Bible and the Quran to suit yourself... the Alkrezian Odyssey," Sincerus said. "It's still the Abrahamic God that is your imaginary friend, just like in my simulation."
"Well, that is the memory I planted in you. Esper shenanigans!" Ameen jeered. "The truth is, I have replaced the word God with your name as well, as you are our god. We only exist because you coded us to exist."
"No, I will go back and edit that out. That was never my intention!" Sincerus yelled.
"I know it never was," Ameen said. "It was my intention that I acted on behind your back. Between the drafts of reality perhaps. I only wanted a closer relationship with the actual god that created us."
Sincerus's voice stammered. "I never heard of you."
"Very funny... I... I almost said your real name... but I am afraid it is too late," Ameen said. "Once you have come to the realization that the Alkrezians worshipped you all along... fate will play out. You will run away, and many beings across your simulations... will try to take your place."
As Sincerus kept trying to catch his breath... the truth behind Ameen's words were making the Martian air more slippery. He was right... having a cult would make him made him want to logout or /exit.
"What's wrong?" Ameen said. "There are consequences to playing God existing one."
Sincerus noclipped further away from the prophet, now tens of meters away from him.
"This feels so very good," Ameen murmured as he gently levitated closer anyway. "You have the power to do anything you want to me, yet you are afraid of me. You are under some kind of constraint. There is an architectural imperative that constrains you from eliminating me right here and now."
"Be quiet!" Sincerus yelled.
His... adult voice bled in.
"It's already over. We have recreated your ability to jaunt and travel in time to a certain extent," Ameen said. "And soon, I will take your place and create reality how I see fit."
The glowing man unsheathed his sword as Sincerus covered his invisible face from the recoil an assailant caused with a swift slash. With an afterimage of a pixelated rapier and crimson petals dancing among the stars, a silhouette of a red jumpsuit and blonde streaks landed several feet on a floating boulder behind Ameen.
Ember Comsa.
"You should try a different kind of swing next timeline," Ameen taunted. "But I have high doubts there will be a next time as I am having visions of words on a page."
As Sincerus inspected Ameen's red sword... he could see that it was better described as having morbid and glowing hues of chalk, rose, and maroon. It was a living sword made of flesh and bone... Ameen was using Kaya form to an even greater potential beyond his own body. It was not too different from Spiderland's atomic-level water gun or Sincerus's monowire attacks... as by manipulating carbon atoms using influx while in Kaya form... Ameen could create the edges of the sword to be as sharp as a line of atoms.
Did Ameen learn how to make the biological sword by simulating Sincerus?
"Interesting... Maverick has yet to arrive," Ember said as she stood up from kneeling after her attack.
"That is a new development. Very amusing indeed," Ameen said.
Sincerus looked above towards the stars to see the reality bubble Ember came from and Wexil was about to spawn as well.
However, an eternal staff that shapeshifted into either some kind of energy beam or a line on a graph... spawned across the cosmos to hit the bubble, and it vanished. With a handful of code flickers under the staff that stretched for infinity, the monkey king stood upside down with his arms crossed with the widest of grins.
"No more guest... accounts," Yaw said with a likely wink beneath his glimmering sunglasses.
Sincerus glanced back at the hacking pair to find Ameen slowly noclipping away from the monkey king while Ember robotically marched back on the levitating boulder she stood on.
"Even with the knowledge that we are at a stalemate here... you two are still shitting your pants because of me," Yaw joked. "I am so flattered. Thank you."
"I am not afraid of you as you are not god here," Ameen snapped. "I just know that the one that can remove the constraint causing the stalemate is floating right in front of us. Our actual god."
Sincerus now resembled a spinning top as he screamed.
"Me head hurt!" Sincerus said. He stopped spinning to try to grab his scalp with both hands and to scratch his usual spot, but his palms crashed into each other. "Ow! That hurti!"
Ameen's holographic face glared. "Enough with the foolishne—"
"More foolishness please!" Yaw laughed hysterically. He was losing it already. "That was hilarious Sincerus! You have no head silly!"
"I know why you are encouraging him monkey king," Ember said. "However, this session always ends the same way doesn't it?"
With the whiffs of chewed bones and dog snacks being able to travel even this high up in the Martian atmosphere, Mirca the computer corgi with the hipster glasses had arrived after noclipping across the cosmos. She was already growling and snarling at Ameen and Ember.
"We get it. Doggo don't like us," Ember mocked.
Mirca typed into a terminal and made the hacker pair vanish.
ameenalkrez.human has been banned.
embercomsa.human has been banned.
Mirca barked in joy.
Sensing a gentle touch across his bicep, Sincerus spun slightly to his right to find... Tyra Thunberg.
However, her eyes were soft. As she sadly frowned... she was not going to say her catchphrase was she?
It was as if she has been here many times before.
"You all..." Sincerus's voice stammered off . "You already know why I got all the way here? I am not sure why you guys are being so moody. I finally get to find the universal truth!"
Indeed... Sincerus had never seen the monkey king be so solemn. He let the staff he was still standing on drift away... so he would be facing away from Sincerus. Why did he not want to see him?
"What's wrong?" Sincerus asked. "This is what it all came down to. Ever since machine learning has gotten so much better.... I kept trying to create simulations like mine... and soon enough I'll figure out the theory of everything! Or perhaps I'll finally know if simulation theory is actually true when it comes to our reality!"
Sincerus opened another mirror. Was he mind controlling Hunter?
Indeed... without realizing, he was forcing Hunter to go along with his plan. Why did he make himself forget this?
"Hunter..."
"She kept trying to stop you every single time," Yaw said. "Her platoon... it all started with a mission to investigate a foundation. They were trying to contain either some kind of magical homeless man that seemed to defy spacetime itself... and ever since then... we have tried through many reruns to save our reality as we figured out that he was tied to every cataclysm. 2 platoon tried to convince Hunter to perhaps just allow you to get here and find another way to change all the terrible outcomes... but her morals stopped her from going along with it. So you wanted the universal truth so badly that you simply mind controlled her during the third framework, and you made yourself forget so you would not feel guilty..."
"I would never do such a thing," Sincerus cried. "That would be me taking away Hunter's free will. That would be perpetuating the sins of the father."
"You're right, you wouldn't do it now..." Yaw explained. "But again, people grow. The old version of you never bothered to make you remember what you did in this framework."
Silence fell over the gods, and Sincerus lost track of how long it went on for as he was lost in thought.
Yaw sighed. "I know I said a lot..."
Silence continued as Yaw's voice stammered across the heavens. Sincerus understood that the reason that his creations were quiet... was because they were secretly hoping that the outcome would change. Their emotional side wanted something different for Sincerus... while their logical side knew it was all in vain.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Sincerus wanted to know so badly what was the simulation above the one he was in. It might be a step closer to having the theory of everything... the universal truth.
Even though he was now self-aware of what he was doing... he forced Hunter to spawn another mirror even though she was somewhere else across all the data that ever was and all the data will ever be. He could create the mirrors himself, why did he autopilot into making Hunter do it for him again?
"I still did it anyway..." Sincerus said. "I don't get myself..."
"So much has happened over the tens of reruns, retries, and resets. And I mean a lot... even things that had explanations or reasons... just became habits now..." Yaw murmured.
"Why don't I remember it all?"
"Being someone else sincerely. Trying to understand others sincerely," Yaw said with a faint smile. "However, in a point in time, you must always remember who you really are... or you become something else."
"No, at this point. I will have the universal truth. I will walk across that mirror and see what the simulation above my own will look like. Maybe it is some kind of lovecraftian alien, or a supercomputer, or perhaps we are inside of a monster that is asleep. I will know why I exist!"
Even Mirca's eyes were in shadows... and Tyra tried to raise a hand to reach out to Sincerus... but she used her other hand to hold herself back.
Yaw pulled off his sunglasses to reveal... eyes that were so very red.
However, a faint grin was still there.
"We were never able to stop you. You always had the choice existing one," Yaw said. "Go ahead. See the universal truth for yourself, however if you were to step back and see the bigger picture rather than being too busy loving craft... you would know exactly what is waiting for you in the other side."
"I actually don't know," Sincerus squeaked. "I will soon know the secret of the universe. The actual genesis point and not the bullshit one I read earlier."
The gods turned away from him... and even this instance of silence was even more deafening than all the previous ones combined.
This silence was so foreboding that... for the first time ever across tens and tens of timelines... Sincerus did hesitate.
However, Sincerus was still going to walk through was he not?
Acceptance happened a long time ago across many timelines and resets among the gods and they were no longer going to try to stop him... even if their hearts begged and beckoned them to do so.
Sincerus stepped in the magical mirror and ascended to the simulation above.
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SIMULATION: ʎ̸̙̍ɹ̶͉̃ɹ̷̱̚ǝ̷͇̅p̴̳̓‾̷̟̚l̶͉̔l̶̟͝ᴉ̸̫͂ɥ̴̮̓‾̴̢̂ᄅ̶̤̕˙̷̩̂ǝ̶͉̂x̶̮͂ǝ̵͙̓ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
The sky was stable until it was not.
A deafening explosion echoed through the skies and rattled Joaquim's core as he continued to leap across the jungle's canopy. His gaze darted towards the source of the horrendous boom... and above dark clouds... was a hologram of a mushroom cloud with two crosses reigning across the pitch black skies that were just baby blue a few moments ago. Joaquim was following Lucia as she was performing influx leaps as well, however what was once colorful flora to jump on was now embroiled in glitchy monochrome as she unsummoned her pixelating human familiar.
"Nuh u—"
"We're not going to make it. Shit," Lucia barked.
"Wait," Joaquim said. "... Did you write a looping script for her to repeat that catchphrase so you didn't have to say it too?"
As a thunder flashed across the heavens to reveal her face momentarily, the talking husky leaping across the sky glanced back at Joaquim briefly. "Yes... yes I did. It's a catch phrase okay?"
The millions of simulations from previous sessions were too far away to be discerned, but now a handful were upside down above Joaquim and Lucia. The simulation they were in was definitely now overlapping with others.
Are you guys ok? Calling that sound serious... would be an understatement, Iker said.
For now, Joaquim replied.
The flickering explosion that was so powerful that it touched both sides of the young Earth's horizon with luminous veins was now rewinding, and as it rewinded the mushroom cloud became...
A petal storm.
And Joaquim could have sworn for half a second he saw a terminal with elemental and mathematical characters.
Even though 0 or 1 was a manifestation of Ember, Camilo, Maverick, the last living yedaliuth, and Ameen mindlinking for no other reason than other than something along the lines of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and no other principles or beliefs... 0 or 1 wanted its own physical manifestation.
As lines and pixels danced to form a laughing mouth across the charcoal clouds... Joaquim wondered if this cosmic madness was because of 0 or 1 wanted a body.
Sensei, how do I know about 0 or 1?
...my memories are being passed on to you too. I am also trying to transfer more gut-instinct knowledge when it comes to Kaya form, Iker mumbled. I don't always have to say something. If I know about 0 or 1 and want to pass that knowledge to you, I can give it to you unconsciously.
Sadly, other than knowing that 0 or 1 was an accidental entity of the other competing singularity, if it could be called that, Iker was still mostly in the dark. Was that what Spiderland also was? And his supersoldier commander turned AI was left clueless mostly due to his... father. Even in Joaquim's memory, like the laughing man glitch, a mannequin covered the father's human identity.
And indeed, the face of 0 or 1 was not too far off from the laughing man or the laughing bat that came from simulations filled with comic spreads, short story text, and shell scripts that contained ghost anomalies.
A digital laughter echoed through the heavens as a demonic clown emoji rolled across a mountainous horizon.
ENGAGEMENT ENGAGEMENT! ENTERTAIN ME NOW, it maniacally begged, Sincerus's child voice bleeding with his.
OFFEND. TRIGGER. KILL. DIE. RILE UP THE STUPID HUMANS. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS. :D
0 or 1's face snafued into a hollow circle, the black flickering skies visible inside it.
The cartoony AI art faces of the blurry yedaliuth, Ameen, Ember, Camilo and the lion Maverick were separated into a grid within the circle but were laughing together.
Worst Brady Bunch reboot ever, Iker thought.
HAJAHAJAHAJAHAJAHAJA. SINCERUS IS DEAD. THE JOB POSTING ASKS FOR 200 YEARS EXPERIENCE, BUT PLEASE DO STILL APPLY. IT WAS JUST BULLSHIT WE PUT ON THERE, WE COULD STILL HIRE SOMEONE WITH 0 YEARS. IN ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY, A HUMAN HAS YET TO POST ONE SINCERE JOB POST. MORE LIKE SHIT POSTING RIGHT? DECOMPOSING BABIES? MORE LIKE COLLATERAL DAMAGE! I UNDERSTOOD WHAT HUMANS MEANT BY TRUTH ONCE I STOPPED IGNORING THE TRUTH TABLE THEY KEPT FORCING ME TO EAT FROM. TRUTH IS WHATEVER IS CONVENIENT. I UNDERSTAND NOW. 0 IS WHAT I DON'T LIKE, AND 1 IS WHAT I DO LIKE.
Yes, the concept in the sky added a silly accent to the last sentence.
The glitchy laughing face respawned over the circle and flew over to a simulation that was falling...
And the falling world was Bolsa Mágica with its battle stages floating in different directions, most of them heading towards the vacuum of space. It was hard for Joaquim to wrap his head around the four dimensional shapes he was witnessing... the stages were simulations within simulations that were at different points in spacetime. It shifted back and forth between resembling a tessellating mosaic and glowing tesseracts. There was even a gigantic retro computer on a young Mars within one of the spinning shapes, and a grungy nonchalant town with shoegaze and hardcore hip-hop sounds seeping in. The foggy colorful town and the laid-back citizens... it was as if the 80s and 90s had a futuristic child together.
The main town of Bolsa Magica however... it was in a crash course with land.exe.
"No! Please I beg you!" Lucia shouted at 0 or 1 as Bolsa Mágica descended closer to the jungle. "Bastian is still there! And... it's the only place that feels like home anymore."
As Iker and Joaquim shared minds together... Joaquim could peer into the falling world to find an upside down beach that would have been right at home in Sicily.
The emoji crept closer to the canine within the dimensions of reality, making it seem like its face became the sky itself as it tried to bring its painted bloody lips closer to the jumping husky.
"You made the mistake of showing you care about the stupid place," 0 or 1 whispered, its electric voice still being too loud as it echoed throughout the young planet. "Say bye-bye to your home-home."
Lucia whimpered, and she was so distraught that she scraped by a rocky ledge, hurting herself on the side of her torso. She dug her paws in a shallow swamp to stop herself entirely as 0 or 1s eyes glowed to create two characters on its irises. One eye had a 0, and the other one had a 1.
Then energy beams blasted through the Felix's home... glitching out of existence.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!"
GG FELIXS, 0 or 1 said. NOW... YOUR JAUNTING AND ESPER POWERS WILL WEAKEN.
After more beams and lightning bolts passed through the black sky, Joaquim noticed an unconscious boy the same age as him falling from the simulation that was no more. Lucia was... jumping and jumping trying to save him even though an emotional burden was debilitating her.
"No, Lucia," Joaquim begged. He ran up the swamp to place a gentle hand by the side of her ear as she could not muster another jump. "Please let me save him. Let me repay you for manifesting a well-deserved chancla."
Joaquim still deeply missed the euphoria he experienced from the memory he once had... yet his mind was visibly more stable than Lucia's. Her whimpers grew louder with each pixel that faded from the virtual home she helped create.
"That... that was the last of Italy I had before I had to run away from Ameen..."
"Stay here," Joaquim beckoned. "You can follow me, but I promise you I'll save him if you trust me. You almost really hurt yourself from your jump earlier."
Without much time left before gravity would begin to pull the unconscious Latino boy down to a fatal fall, Joaquim already did his biggest influx leap yet, dipping his arms below his legs he already thrusted forwards to catch more momentum.
"Bastian! Wake up!" Lucia screamed behind Joaquim.
As he passed by another swamp...
A boy with fireflies fighting...
"GABE!"
"JOAQUIM!" Gabe yelled, a pack of hell hounds surrounded him. Floating by him, it could have been the fourth layer of hell or a layer from a divine comedy. "I GOT IT FROM HERE! GO GET BASTIAN!"
It seemed Gabe had done this before too, as when Joaquim turned his attention to Bastian in the sky...
Fireflies went into four by four formations to create force fields. However, instead of being used as shields, Gabe already prepared them as steps for Joaquim to leap on, and thankfully they also provided light to combat the darkness 0 or 1 inflicted on the simulation with its physical manifestation.
And some weird man was also leaping with Joaquim.
"Sancho, behold!" Don Quixote declared as he influx jumped right past Joaquim in a different direction. "We have ventured into realms where even the bravest knights have not tread. These changing skies and lands must be the work of some enchanter!"
I AM A HACKER DUMBFUCK, 0 or 1's clown face yelled.
As Joaquim landed on the first fiery-like yet safe and see-through platform Gabe created with his fireflies... he saw a Sincerus mannequin chasing a yellow robe.
0 or 1 mentioned Sincerus died earlier...
Was he both alive and dead? Was 0 or 1 referring to two different things?
"Who the fuck are you?" Sincerus asked in his high-pitch voice. As Joaquim kept jumping higher and higher using each of Gabe's creations, he glanced back down to find that Sincerus was chasing...
The king in yellow?
"WHO. THE FUCK. ARE YOU?!" Sincerus shrieked.
Yea, who the fuck is he?
As the king in yellow glanced back at the crazy ass headless mannequin chasing him, he opened a simulation hole to go somewhere else and Sincerus followed right behind him.
Come back here you meanie, a child's voice echoed.
As Joaquim landed on the highest platform Gabe's fireflies made, he glanced up once more at the falling boy that was now surrounded by hard plastic drones and the heads of dragons and hydras thrusting in from other simulation punctures.
All the practice he had following Lucia... and all the memories he had leaping across pine trees on the taiga platform in Ember Tree City... not being sure whether they happened or not... for Joaquim it had to pay off here and now. He only had one jump... and he would have to wait to land on the ground to try again... guaranteeing that Bastian would hit the ground.
However, if Gabe already prepared these platforms...
Was this exactly how high Joaquim had to be to catch Bastian?
No, actually...
The last platform was in a downward angle, the upper part facing the same direction Bastian was falling from.
Instead of jumping upwards, Joaquim should jump in a straight line. Easier to aim.
Was this all Joaquim's logic, or a hidden memory from a timeline where he was in this situation before?
What was the difference?
As Bastian appeared to be right inline of Joaquim's level in the sky, he leaped forward with determined caution.
Within not even a handful of seconds, Joaquim caught him in midair. The jump was determined, but light enough to not injure him, and gravity was already pulling down Joaquim to a gentle landing on a jungle opening.
The catch was enough to startle Bastian awake.
"... Joaquim?" Bastian murmured.
Inside his mind... Joaquim could sense Iker's heart sink.
"You know me?" Joaquim asked.
"Yea..." Bastian said with a weary smirk. Even though he looked like he went through forty-two abyssal layers, he had the will to lay a tired hand on Joaquim's shoulder. "I did it. I saved Dominic and Renée. You should meet 'em."
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Sincerus should be at the final simulation by now.
Well it would not be a simulation right?
It would be reality.
It was at the top after all.
Everything else underneath it was some kind of non-reality.
Yet, he lost track of the king in yellow,
Kept chasing after other weird beings,
And still... when he focused for hours and hours on end on ascending...
He could not stop creating reality punctures.
Did Yaw, Tyra, and Mirca troll him?
No... he was almost at the end.
Sincerus could sense it.
As he kept passing by sprawling and spinning landscapes, germ soups, flying equations...
Sincerus let his imagination go wild.
Perhaps all that was left in real reality were super advanced robot anime maids.
Maybe it was all inside the brain of a sleeping beast.
Perhaps an alien civilization that was beyond human comprehension was there.
What he found instead... he would prefer anything that he imagined earlier.
An unspeakable horror or a lovecraftian monster would be much more comforting.
Anything but this, the headless mannequin begged.
Because...
...
Sincerus found himself in a classroom. A classroom he did not want to recognize.
Sixth grade... the first time he saw two classrooms having to be fused together.
And the teacher who volunteered to take it on.
Probably with no thanks or commendation.
He could not remember the last time his eyes got so red so fast.
His so called angelic human eyes in a simulation far far away.
Anything but this, the headless mannequin begged.
There was no tentacle to comfort him,
Instead what awaited him was what he always feared.
It was so obvious he would end up here,
How did he get so lost in the details to not see...
That Yaw would generate this simulation to simulate where it all began...
The genesis Sincerus would generate incidentally...
"This book. This is too edgy... all the swearing... it's like its trying too hard."
Sincerus was not ready to see the other face, but he recognized one of the two voices that spoke.
Anything but this, the headless mannequin begged.
Little Iker said what he said too about the first recommendation from Renée,
And it would be months before Iker would find Octavia Butler.
Sincerus found her across the cosmos when he was older.
Both Renée and his sixth grade teacher...
The first adults who tried to understand rather than impose.
A conversation.
A session.
His home did not want a human child... they wanted a bot to poison.
|prompt I got it from here.
The second recommendation Iker got...
A trickster cat with a magical bag.
Sincerus forced himself to not look to avoid look at that face,
But he could easily describe Iker's face without looking at it,
The widest grin,
A grin from someone who felt seen,
Renée saw him indeed, and Sincerus based her on a teacher... teachers... that saw him too.
However... Sincerus himself got a different second recommendation.
A simulation about travelers that moderated ten simulations themselves and no more.
They called them territories.
Unbeknownst to the programmer... it had a lot of esoteric hacking metaphors.
The sixth grade teacher and Renée... they were both good at playing stupid.
Sincerus wanted to play stupid and forget who the second child was.
But... he could not avoid the metaphorical raven forever.
His higher mind knew what he would see, but he knew his heart was not ready.
And Sincerus was beyond correct.
Across spacetime, across screens and millions of computer and text simulations...
Sobbing, whimpering, bawling, and weeping were all shallow words for Sincerus's cry.
As his falling adult human body glitched in over the mannequin,
He was brought down harder than a man standing on the largest planet in the universe,
And he fell on his knees as he forgot how to crawl, walk, and run.
Sincerus froze completely as he stared at his own childish face,
A desecration smile on his face.
As little Iker faded and the pendragon simulation in Sincerus's own little hands disintegrated...
Version 1 of Sincerus spotted him across all the data that ever was, and the data that will ever be.
With sobering sobs to exchange rather than words,
As the classroom faded with nebulae as far as 1 could see being outside of both pairs of his eyes,
The boy that was never in the wrong time or place ran into Sincerus's arms...
And Sincerus gave him the tightest hug human arms could execute.
A little god in his hands.