Months passed. Trillion was still deep inside of the cloud.

Her brain, even though it was digital now, was still a pattern-finding machine. Through millions of years of evolution, her mind was optimized for finding trends, colorations, meaning. Even when there was none to be found.

Trillion knew that eyewitnesses were the most unreliable sources of information. The human brain would happily make up a narrative that wasn’t true. And humans often had no way of disentangling the truth from the make-believe.

Yet she believed she was making progress. She wasn’t simply hallucinating. It felt like there was another intelligent being on the other side reaching out trying to make contact with her.

It reminded her a lot of when she was younger. She’d visited China, back before the AI revolution had occurred. Back before translating words from another human language was as easy as using an app on your phone.

Traveling through China wasn’t like traveling through Europe. In Europe, a good chunk of the population spoke English. But from her experience, traveling through China for a month, it was the first country she had ever visited where no one spoke English. There was small text on the menus translating them for foreign people. Out of all the countries she’d visited, this one was the only truly immersive cultural experience.

She was a minor celebrity as she walked the streets of Xi’an, near the terra-cotta warriors. Her red hair stood out brilliantly, and people constantly came up to her asking to take photos because they’d never seen someone with hair like hers before.

At first she’d struggled—who wouldn’t when there was no means of communication with the locals? She’d found it no use trying to memorize sentences to use with locals—she could never get the accent right and ended up repeating herself while the other person looked at her in frustration. But after a while she’d learned to use hand gestures and actions. When she needed a drink, she would mime drinking some water. When she wanted a bathroom, she would mime that. It became easier the longer she was in the country—almost like a game.

The thing that made that possible was the fact another human was trying to communicate back, another intelligent entity attempting to have a conversation via hand gestures and movement.

This is what it felt like to Trillion in that cloud. It felt like someone was trying to have a conversation with her, and she was collaborating with them to build a mutual language. The longer she spent in that cloud, the closer to a conversation she felt.

Who’s to say a universe, given the right conditions, couldn’t create a brain inside of a cloud? Her brain was once made of meat; it was a collection of cells arranged in a particular pattern that gave her the feeling of sentience. Then her brain was scanned and a replica of it was reproduced inside of a large beer-can-shaped object. She wasn’t anything unique. There were billions of other humans that had gone through a similar experience. And if you went back in time, there had been hundreds of billions of species that had a brain that thought. Go back far enough in time, and there would have been a creature that was the first to think. The first ever brain.

Trillion thought about this some more. If the universe was infinite, then there had to be at least a possibility of a brain like this emerging. Some sort of Gaia-based life-form. Something that had evolved on a planet where the atmosphere was such that particles in the air could coalesce into some sort of thinking machine.

Trillions body recombined in front of Ship. “Do you think it’s possible for this cloud to reverse entropy?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve heard people say that the universe progresses toward increased entropy. That the matter and things in the universe slowly move toward being spread farther and farther apart.”

“Aren’t we proof that entropy doesn’t always win?”

“That’s what I mean. Life like us”—she pointed up—“and perhaps that cloud there defies entropy too. We bring order where there isn’t any. All life does. If entropy is a virus infecting the universe, and life is the solution to that—the white blood cells—then it makes sense the universe would find other means of creating life.” She paused trying to find the right words to describe what she was thinking. She didn’t have the science acumen of Atlas, so didn’t know how accurate her thinking was. But what it came down to was she didn’t believe there was something inherently magical about carbon-based life-forms like her. Yes, carbon was one of the most flexible elements on the periodic table. And that flexibility gave life on Earth an infinite number of possibilities. But simply making a mind that can think must not require anything too fantastical. “What I’m trying to say is a thinking brain isn’t that hard to create. On a computer, it’s just ones and zeros. In Earth life, it’s energy potential between neurons. I can imagine a world where a small set of atoms in that cloud clumped together to create a pattern—a switch. On, off, excited or not. Then over time the seed grew, gathering more of those atoms together until it created a spontaneous thinking brain.”

“Maybe I should join you in there next time. I’m keen to experience this.”

“Want to join me now, Ship?”

“Before we do, I want to show you some …thing?”

Curious, Trillion eyed him suspiciously. The way Ship said that last sentence made her think he was up doing something he shouldn’t be, as if he was doing something she shouldn’t approve of.

“Lex and I build a small dome habitat on the other side of the planet. Can I show you what’s inside?”

“Okay … What are you not telling me?”

“It’s hard for me to explain without showing you,” Ship said. “I haven’t installed a hapticgraphic projector in the room yet. But if you come over, I’ll show you where we’re at.”

Trillion wasn’t sure why Ship sounded so weird. He was hiding something. Maybe it was a surprise for her.

Then Trillion had a sinking feeling. She remembered back to her first world—the Tac system. She’d made the mistake of going to sleep for a few years while Ship and Lex were tasked with mining resources. Lex got a little too carried away with the process and ended up strip-mining an entire solar system. “You haven’t done something bad to this planet? You haven’t turned it into a resource planet?”

“No way. I wouldn’t do that again.”

Trillion looked up at Lex, who turned red and moved side to side in a gesture of no.

“Just checking,” she said. “I’ve been in the clouds for a few months now, so I had to be sure.”

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“It’s almost been nine months, Trillion. You’ve been in there a while; we’re worried about you.”

Nine months? Had it really been nine months since she was last with them? She really did lose track of time while in the clouds.

“Don’t worry, Trillion.” Ship took hold of her hand. “I’m about to show you something good.”

Trillion felt Ship teleport her. It was a slow teleport, not the instant one she was used to. It was as if the travel between two points wasn’t direct. Like they had gone the long way around, taking a quick detour up to the spacecraft in orbit then back to the planet.

Then Trillion remembered what Ship had said. They hadn’t installed any hapticgraphic projectors in the room where they were headed. So it made sense that she was going through a different experience than she was used to.

She found herself at the center of a very small glass dome-shaped habitat that sat on the planet’s surface. In front of her was a small door. She looked up and watched as waves of sand flowed over the glass, giving her a feeling almost as if she was underwater or in some sort of quicksand sinking down deep.

The gold sand scattered the light and gave off an angelic appearance, the light in the room both softened and made more brilliant at the same time. It reminded her of a very expensive foyer in a very expensive hotel—one of the ones with a waterfall or an ice sculpture in the middle of it so that light bounced off it at different angles.

Ship guided her several steps forward. Right in front of her she saw a little door. She recognized the type of door it was. But she didn’t want to believe it. It looked like a hospital door.

Without thinking, she felt her heart begin to race. She found her legs moving quicker too. She raced toward the door, pulling Ship behind her. She felt an urge to open the door and confirm what she was thinking. Ever since she’d left Mars that day many, many years ago, she’d had something inside of her driving her toward bringing children into this world. And at that very moment she could feel it finally happening, then a moment of worry as the logical part of her mind kicked in and told her that Ship wouldn’t have seeded children on this world without her approval—would he?

She would forgive him if he did because, truth be told, she really wanted to seed the world with children. And the worst part of having that code in her mind was feeling like she was so close to her mission.

She faded through the door; she was a hologram, so she couldn’t interact with anything in the room.

She felt a mix of emotions as she saw what was on the other side, like someone had just put all her different emotional states in a bowl and mixed them all together. Or as if someone had given her a cocktail of psychedelics, antidepressants, and mood boosters. Relief, dread, panic, and euphoric pleasure. Many different emotional states passed over her one at a time, then all at the same time. “Is this …” She trailed off.

Right in front of her was the artificial-womb machine. She saw it was active, too; inside of the murky liquid was a brown outline of a baby. The machine that was the very center of so many of her dreams. She’d always hoped this day would come. She didn’t think it would happen like this, but she wasn’t unhappy about this version.

Ship put his arms around her. “Trillion, I know you wanted to find out more about those clouds before we seeded the world. But I’ve thought through it. We can build a small colony on these artificial habitats. Angelique’s Ship shared a lot of blueprints for how to make this world.”

“It’s okay, Ship. I’m glad you made an executive decision on this one. Thank you, Ship.”

Lex popped into existence, floating right above Trillion’s head. She smiled warmly at the orb. “And thank you, too, Lex.”

The baby inside of the womb kicked, and Trillion got goose bumps.

“Any day now,” Ship said. “The baby’s vitals will tell us when it’s ready to come out. And we’ll be ready to see your first human on this planet.”

Trillion felt overwhelmed with joy and pleasure. She felt like her greatest accomplishment of her entire life was moments away from being completed. She wondered why she wasn’t feeling sad. Both Atlas and Icarus were overcome with despair when they’d seeded their first kids. So she wondered why she felt different. “Are you giving me antidepressants?”

Ship raised his hand up in the air, then made a gesture that told her maybe a little.

Lex bumped into Ship’s shoulder.

“Okay, it’s a lot,” Ship said. “We’re pumping your simulated mind full of things that will make you feel good.”

Trillion didn’t mind. She felt good. And she had never been opposed to trying things at a festival. She just hated the hangovers the next day. But things felt too good to think about that.

“Trillion, we thought you might want to do a bit of meditation.” Ship looked up at Lex. “We thought it might be less emotionally traumatic that way.”

Trillion was feeling good. She lay down on her back on the ground and closed her eyes. Then she slowly began to float off the ground, with each breath moving up then down again slightly. She felt herself calming the excited tones that kept bubbling up inside of her mind. If she tried to move her emotions toward a more neutral position, she might have an easier time dealing with the sad emotions she felt when the baby arrived.

Trillion began moving her mind toward stoicism.

In and out she breathed.

Then a baby’s voice. Crying.

Trillion’s eyes shot open. She bent forward and saw a nurse holding a little brown-skinned baby.

Everything in Trillion’s mind disappeared. She reached forward, moving toward the child. Her hand passed through the child, and then she cried. Tears came thick and fast. She wiped them away from under her cheeks.

Trillion curled up in a ball. She hugged herself harder. She felt Ship’s arm over the top of her and noticed the glow of Lex, and it came closer toward her.

All the while the baby cried.

“I didn’t think it would feel this bad. This is worse than pain. My brain is literally being rewired for depression.”

Trillion didn’t mind the occasional sad movie. Every now and then she actually looked forward to having a good cry on the couch. But this was different. This was more pain than she had ever felt before.

She tried in vain to yank her mind toward stoicism. She screamed. Then she tried to calm herself by lying back and meditating.

Nothing worked.

“It’s okay, Trillion. It’s okay. Lex is reading your matrix. The behavioral modification is being deleted. It will all be over soon.”

She got angry. Mad at Ship for something, anything.

It didn’t work.

Deep down she knew what she had to do. She simply had to go through it all. Feel it all. Get to the other side. She gave up on trying to change what was. She let the emotions rush over her. She let them all come.

She closed her eyes and thought about holding her baby eventually.

It was a long time before Trillion was able to speak again. It was a strange sensation, not only because her matrix was being transformed as a piece of code deleted itself, but because she could tell Ship and Lex were elsewhere. Their minds at least were focused on something else.

They weren’t focused on the baby either. By the time Trillion finally grabbed her composure, she noticed something else was going on. It was a comment from Ship that made her pause.

“You’re one hundred percent certain the code has been deleted?”

Trillion opened her eyes in time to see Lex flash green.

Ship whispered the next question. “And no chance it’s coming back?”

The orb flashed green.

Ship took hold of Trillion’s hand. He walked her toward the baby that was currently being fed by the nurse. “Trillion, we’re not sure how best to tell you this. So I’m just going to say it.” He waved his hand in front of the baby and nurse. They froze in time. Just stopped. Trillion got a headache and had to close her eyes again. She didn’t feel like her perception of time had changed. She shook her head and focused her eyes back on Ship.

“I’m sorry, Trillion. This is just a simulation. We didn’t seed the planet. It was the only way to help you remove that piece of code from your matrix safely.”

Trillion had to process what Ship just said in her mind multiple times. On some deep level, she logically knew it made sense. Ship wouldn’t have seeded a world without her permission. But the ruse had worked. She was in so much mental pain at that very moment. But there was a spark of hope. She gained a minute speck of happiness from the fact she was now free of the behavioral-modification code in her matrix.

She knew when all was done and she was thinking clearly again she would be happy with what Ship and Lex had just done. She knew they only wanted the best for her, and they wanted her to be free to make her own decisions with a clear mind.

Although that wasn’t the dominant feeling inside of her mind. At that very point in time, she was jumping between utter depression and anger that Ship had caused the depression. But she’d had friends that were depressed before. She’d watched Icaurus and Atlas go through the same thing. She knew it would pass. She knew in the end she’d be happy again.

She went to smile at Ship, tell him it was okay, and give him the reassurance she would have wanted if the roles were reversed. But then she closed her eyes again. She couldn’t escape the pain. She curled up into a ball and cried. Then feeling the embarrassing hug of Ship, she felt happy knowing he was there for her.