Excerpt from the fifth draft of An Earthling’s Guide to the Larger Universe

Subsequently revised in the following edition (revisions not shown)

Deities

Gods are a difficult topic, especially in areas with monotheistic religions, but it’s still the best word I have for “very powerful beings”. Using a similar word from another language would help, but it would probably imply things I’m not aware of, so I’ll use the English term despite its inaccuracies.

I do not know if there is a single Creator deity. What I can say is that there are faiths all over the universe that believe in something beyond what they can see.

There are also faiths that believe in the gods they can see and interact with. This sort of lowercase-g god is fairly common. Tales of beings like this are common on Earth, whether you call them gods, devils, daeva, asura, djinn, demons, angels, Great Spirits, Giants, Olympians, Heroes … the list goes on and on.

Deities come from a number of sources. The most famous tend to be ascended people, but there are also those who are created from belief. For example, belief in Luck may gather enough power to actually manifest as a force able to act in the world, often with its own personality. Many animal spirits have this level of power; it’s hard to say if they are formed from belief in the animal or if they are ascended animals.

They come in all sorts of levels of power, especially the ascended humans. What would be considered godlike power here might be normal in another place, and some people would rather be the big frog in the small pond. There are tales of the tragedies some of these people have caused.

Regardless of the origins of a deity, the one thing that seems to be common is that - like a person - they have their own goals. If you know where a deity comes from or their legends, you may be able to guess their purpose and determine if it’s something you want to support.

Whether it comes from a god or not, always be wary of things that seem too good to be true; more than that, be wary of people claiming to be gods, for many are simply the powerful putting on a show.

This is not to say that there are not real gods who do valuable things; there are. The problem is the beings who say that is what they are when they are not.

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It was 5:17 AM when Serenity came back to himself. He understood his phone in a way he’d never known anything before; all of the pieces that made it were clear to him, and if he wanted to, he could know each calculation it made.

He didn’t want to. Observing it on that level gave him a headache. He could, but it wasn’t necessary. He could simply use it as he always had without paying attention to how he knew.

Well, use it as he always had except without the need to touch it to-

Serenity looked down at his hand. For a moment, he was surprised he was seeing in color; wasn’t he in chimera form?

That surprise was replaced by an even bigger one when he saw his hand resting on an empty phone case. He was interfaced with his phone; he could tell what it was doing. Where was it? He stared at the empty phone case for another moment before realizing that he was looking at a hand with claws instead of nails.

One problem at a time. He knew his phone wasn’t lost; it was right there. All he had to do was use it. It was just like it had always been, except that he didn’t have to touch the phone and he could vaguely tell some of what was happening in the background. He couldn’t tell where it was, even though he could use it - was that his Technology Affinity coming into play?

The GPS definitely pointed at the hotel, but that didn’t help him find it in the room.

With a sinking feeling, Serenity walked over to the bathroom. The phone’s GPS moved with him.

He doublechecked his pockets. No phone.

Well, it could be worse. Rissa always did say that I was inordinately attached to my phone. And if I’m right about my eyes, it’s worth it anyway.

Serenity looked at his eyes in the mirror. He seemed to have black pupils again, but there was an odd multicolored sheen at the center, almost like the way glass would catch the light.

At least I can see again.

It wasn’t what he’d expected, but he supposed he had gotten what he wanted. He could see again.

A buzz ran through his mind and Serenity winced. He was going to have to figure out how to lower the distraction of phone alerts; incoming texts hurt.

Serenity suddenly noticed he was really hungry; he’d missed a day’s meals and somehow run his healing reserves down to essentially nothing as well. He didn’t want to wait to eat, but he knew that visiting the ley line would be just as good - maybe better. He could go follow it to a larger one and eat on the way. It would be good to get out and run anyway.

The odd pupils disappeared when he shifted into his human form to leave the room.

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While he jogged over to the ley line, Serenity pulled up his texts. There were a couple from Rissa, but all they said was that things were going well. Serenity replied that he was doing fine too, making progress at figuring out Tek’s thing.

The last text wasn’t from Rissa.

Woohoo! You’re conscious! It worked! How do you feel? ~Tek

The text even said it was from Tek instead of numbers. She’d clearly added herself as a contact, but Serenity didn’t think “Tek” was a valid texting address.

Tek? What the hell?

No hell here, just heaven! Seriously though, how are you feeling? I really do need to know. I had to try some new things to get you running again.

I’m fine, just hungry. On my way to get food now.

What did you do???

Oh good. I, er, may have miscalculated when I fixed the interface. It was a little too direct. You weren’t made to handle that. Your - what do you call it? You don’t have a brain. Well, your brain-equivalent is really good at some things, but it’s designed to give gestalt answers rather than so many precise mini-calculations. I think it might be a better computer than I can make, but it works so differently, it’s fascinating. Did you know that it actually works by changing its material properties? That’s what tripped me up the first time, I thought I could use a simple interface, but it picked up waaaaay more than it was supposed to and the noise level outdid the signal I was trying to get it to collect!

Serenity ignored the comment about his lack of a brain. He had one; it simply wasn't organic anymore.

Tek. What did you do to me?

Serenity reached the ley line. As he stepped into it, he realized he’d been even hungrier than he thought. It tasted divine.

Figuratively, not literally. Serenity had actually had “divine” food once or twice as Vengeance. Overall, he wasn’t actually impressed by it. The reason it was preferred wasn’t the taste; it was the mana concentration. It’d probably taste better to him now than it did then, but Serenity still thought it would be better if whoever made it cared about flavor as well as value.

Serenity jogged along the ley line. He didn’t know if Tek would answer, but there wasn’t much he could do to make her if she didn’t.

The ley line wasn’t conveniently laid out along a path; it cut through a field, ran across a street, then went catty-corner through a subdivision. Serenity had to guess which way was the best way to follow it; ley lines were approximately straight, but “approximately” wasn’t “exactly”, and the more the line had to go through, the less straight they tended to be. That was why they had to be fully mapped, after all.

Serenity had come out of the ley line and was jogging down a street, debating which intersection to turn at to get back to the ley line, when Tek finally replied.

Long answer.

I built the neural interface device for myself. I can think at those speeds. You can’t.

I can’t interface directly. That’s where it went wrong for me. That was easy to fix for you.

I can go into the differences between chemistry-based neurology and your really interesting crystalline system some time if you want, but the important thing is that yours processes data more similarly to computer memory than wetware does. So … I skipped the interface step and made it a direct link. That’s where it went wrong for you. First I set the gain too high to try to get more distance, then when I fixed that, well.

You were overwhelmed by the continual calculations. They pushed everything else out of your mind. Basically, you crashed.

I didn’t notice it happened the first time until afterwards; you’d already dropped the phone then, so I put in a temporary block to prevent accidents while I worked out a solution. Only you decided to try it deliberately! That overwhelmed the block, and you’d set it up so you couldn’t drop the phone. And you’d already crashed.

So I needed to give you the background processing to let you handle it. I used the materials that were present. I know you’ve noticed; that’s how we’re talking.

I also gave you an AI, Aide. It’ll manage everything in the background and manage any necessary upgrades. Oh! And you should be able to link at a longer distance now; Aide can manage the filtering more precisely. It’ll still be limited to electronics, since that’s all it can work with, but it should work and with the processing you have - well, you’ll want to upgrade soon. Your phone wasn’t really all that powerful. Aide can help you figure out what the best options are. I’m not sure how it’ll communicate with you, since it can’t talk…

Serenity suddenly realized he’d come to a halt while reading Tek’s message and started jogging again. There was a lot to take in there, but there was still one question she hadn’t touched.

My eyes?

Hm? I fixed them. Did you know the optical nerve was completely missing? And there was something wrong with the pupil, too. It was simpler to just install a camera, adapted for your biology. So that’s what I did.

I owed you something for the mistake that made you crash. That was supposed to be a favor after all! So I fixed your eyes.

Serenity tried to concentrate on the movement as he continued. There wasn’t anything he could do now, after all.

Still, it ate at him. He eventually decided to stop and see if any of Tek’s changes showed up on his Status. They didn’t, but there was a new tab labeled “Aide”.

It was nearly empty. All it said was:

Required upgrades: None

Recommended upgrade: Currently determining best option (please wait)

Optional upgrades: Upgrade requirements will be determined based on request(s)

Aide Status/Request: Indexing. Expected time for indexing exceeded. Recalculating…

Serenity stared at the notes for a moment, then pulled back up his conversation with Tek.

When you said you gave me an AI, what exactly did you mean?

I don’t see what the question is. I gave you an AI. It’s a small little proto-intelligence. As far as I can tell, it noticed something odd and followed it to you, I just gave it the task to be your Aide. If you’re worried about betrayal, don’t be. It’s closer to an operating system than to an actual person. I made sure of that before I installed it on your hardware. Putting it there means I don’t have to manually tweak all your updates to match your new hardware! It can handle that.

It was pretty clear from her answer that Tek knew exactly what he was asking and why. Serenity shook his head as he considered the choices he’d made back on Tek’s space station. “I know better than that. What was I thinking?”

Serenity knew what he’d been thinking; he’d been thinking about seeing again. It didn’t make him feel like any less of an idiot for accepting Tek’s offer in the first place.