Dr. Drake and I stood before a window that that stretched from the floor to the ceiling and opened to light blue water. Light filtered through from somewhere above I couldn't see, catching just right here and there so some patches looked teal.

“This is it?” I asked.

“Collective consciousness.” Dr. Drake touched the glass. “You have the chance to teach the collective something.” Her voice was as tender as the hand she placed on my shoulder. “So be nice.”

I breathed in deeply, staring into the empty room. “Why bother with this visual?”

“We need something. Religious people didn’t want it to feel the same as praying. But how can you visualize the oneness of the multiverse? It isn’t possible. But water is life, water transforms. Water can drip as individual droplets or crash together as raging waves. It can span the greatest depths.”

“Okay. I guess.” I shifted, strangely uncomfortable by the thought. “Can they hear me?”

“Yes.”

I crossed my arms, looking down. “I’m here on behalf of my world. Not the one I was originally born into, but the one I came to know. The one you made for me.” I looked into the blue. “It’s all we know. So before I tell you more, I’m asking you to let the world continue and to grant the people the right to never be shut down.”

Vibrations rippled the water before me. My eyes widened. I heard a melding of voices, young and old.

“We’re sorry you have suffered for us.”

Anger stirred within me. “Be nice,” I breathed to myself.

“We’re sorry we have not yet found a better way. The simulations have helped us get close to mastering evolution. Very close.”

I straightened. “Does that mean you no longer need worlds like mine?”

“The data is valuable. We would like to continue gathering it.”

“So, you’ll let us live in our worlds?”

“Yes. The simulations are giving us billions of lifetimes.”

Heat fueled my core, as fiery as when my power would fill me. “Don’t you feel bad for what you’ve done? You created a world just to experiment on us. Gave us immense powers that we weren't ready for and then let us kill each other with them.”

“Without the experiments, young worlds in the natural would continue to suffer indefinitely. Now, we have proven what the best methods for helping to develop more peacefully are. However, with it, simulated worlds are suffering. We grieve the decision but we have mixed feelings on whether we regret it.”

“It’s not right… What you did isn’t right.”

“It is the last great evil of human-kind. The last great evil of evolution.” A pause. I’d imagine it was for me, not the collective. “The reincarnation of your souls in the simulation had the same effect as if you’d lived in the natural. We bear the weight of the suffering. We bear the weight of our evil.”

Tears sprang into my eyes. “Your words, many as they may be with so many speaking them at once, mean nothing.”

“We are sorry for what we have done to you and your people. We only wanted you to live and for us to learn from your lives.”

“Well,” I bit off the word. “Despite the wisdom you claim to have, you overlooked an incredibly crucial risk. If you can guarantee that my world will continue without interference, I will share it with you. Dr. Drake told me that you don't get all of the information from our world without permission. You rely on data compiled by the computer. I'll give you all my memories, if you can make this promise to me."

"We promise. Please, share with us."

That seemed too easy. When I paused, the Collective seemed to sense my distrust.

"We're not looking to hurt you. We truly want what is best for you. If you, someone who lived in your world, wants it to continue despite its problems, then we must trust that it is only right to allow it to continue."

I pressed my palm against the glass. "Creating unethical human experiments compromises your social evolution. Did you never consider these risks?”

"We countered any risk of corruption with lifetimes of evolution and ethical mastery. Yet, you believe that despite this, we've failed?"

"Being capable of unethical experiments requires that you are unethical. There's no getting around that."

"It isn't so black and white. After making the decision, everyone involved in the experiments lived multiple more lives in simulations and were tested. Everyone was pure."

"Not everyone is pure anymore. Dr. Henderson devolved. Who knows how many supervisors this has happened to.” The fury of my death rushed out of me. “That’s why you people should have never played god with us.”

"Share with us. We will listen to you."

I let my life rush into them as it had with Piercey and Dr. Drake. This time, I felt hollow when I was done, as though I had given away everything I'd ever had.

"Do you see?" I asked.

The voices of the Collective leaked out in a quiet and sorrowful moan. "We see." The words echoed, quieter and quieter, until all was silent.

"Dr. Henderson had me murdered. I believe she planned to trap me in the simulation forever. If I hadn’t figured out how to escape, I’d be trapped there, dead. I know for certain that she has abused her power in my world."

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"We did not expect these results."

I ran my hand over my mouth. “She sentenced us to lives we couldn’t remember living. You left us with her. You placed us under untested conditions while she refused to intervene despite the dire consequences, all for the sake of your experiment. For the validity.” Slips couldn’t happen here. Even so, I feared that I’d open my eyes to the little red boots I'd worn as a child during the eclipse. That’d I’d be trapped forever in that moment, seeing the villager’s bodies crumple to the ground like I’d sucked the life from them.

I didn’t slip. But I was still there in my heart, beneath the dark of the Eclipse, with my father listless at my feet. With his words hanging in my mind. Even after all these years, these lifetimes, still I didn’t understand how he could make me kill those people and abandon me by dying with them. How could anyone do that?

“You’re as guilty as my father.” They’d know what the words meant. “Do you think that making an after-life for the people I killed makes up for watching them die? You gave me such incredible power when I was a child and didn’t show me how to use it. How can someone that has so much knowledge, so much power, still not have a better way?”

Their silence tore through me. I beat my fist against the window.

“Answer me!”

“We’re trying to find a better way. We are not yet perfect. Even with how many people were injured in the simulations, it cannot touch the number which will be saved from that suffering from now. However, there were even more dire consequences than we had imagined.”

I stared hard into the emptiness of the room. A lifetime of rage boiled over. These were ridiculous excuses. They really believed they couldn’t find another way to gain the data they needed? “Fuck you! Fuck you from each and everyone of us in every life we lived in the shit world you made for us.”

Dr. Drake stepped toward me, lifting her hand. “Max!”

“Let her speak,” the collective said. “She deserves it.”

“All the beauty," I said, "All the wonderful things like love.” I lifted my hand. “It was worth the suffering. But that doesn’t justify what you let happen to us either. So sit with that for eternity, assholes.”

“How can we do better by your world?"

I’d almost let my anger blind me to the most important things I needed to say. “If you want to collect data on our world, fine. You’ve already set your experiments in motion. But do not intervene again unless people from my world approve it. Piercey can help create a fair system for evaluating your actions. Do not experiment on us. Do not manipulate our worlds. Make your supervisors simply watch.”

“In your memories, you didn't like the silence of the gods. And yet now, you would rather that we ignore the prayers of the people?”

“I would because your answers to our prayers, when you bother to answer, are fucked up. Monitor us. Fine. But no one should be able to intervene in our world again like Dr. Henderson has.”

“We will collect information from our supervisors and consider this.”

I pressed my hands against the warm glass. “I lost my life because of your experiments going wrong. I want an avatar, just like Dr. Henderson has.”

“Dr. Henderson lived many lives in preparation for being supervisor and having an avatar, so she could make ethical decisions. Even she fell into evil. You aren't ready.”

“I don’t need to be able to access any of the god’s powers. I just need a body to take back to my world. If the body gets destroyed, then I’ll stay dead. I deserve a chance to finish the life I started. Your person stole mine from me.”

Dr. Drake nodded at me, smiling gently.

“Please." I wiped my tears. "I may be a young soul. I may be angry. But there’s something inside of me that made the computer identify me as someone who could make a difference. So, listen to me. Let me go back to my world and I promise, I will return one day with answers about how you can make things better for the people you experimented on.”

I didn’t like the silence that followed. Why was I asking? Begging? Sure, they could refuse, but I should stop acting like they were doing me a favor when their supervisor murdered me. With my eyes narrowing, I spoke in a low voice.

“Do you know what it’s like to die? Can you even imagine how it feels for your life to be stolen? To be bled out on a stage while a crowd of ignorant people try to take your power for themselves? You owe me a body. Give me what I’m owed or you prove that you still aren’t better.”

"We can agree to this on one condition. You shared all of your memories with us. Allow us to watch over you for the rest of your life in your world. We'll give you reasonable privacy, but we want to see your decisions, and to look at your world through your eyes."

I hesitated. "Privacy?"

"Yes, we can filter out such things."

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Okay. As long as you filter things." My chest tightened as I realized what they had just said. “Wait, you’ll really give me an avatar?”

“You’re right that you deserve to return to your world. This is the only method available to us.”

Tears flooded my eyes. Right now, everyone I loved had lived for nearly a week with me gone. They surely thought I was never returning. How must Nash feel? Elsie? Leif, Wren, and Rune? My chest ached with the horror of leaving them behind. I had to return.

“Is there anything else, Max?”

I struggled to keep my voice from breaking from the emotion. "Take away the power. It's only hurting people."

"If we alter substantial elements of your world, it may cause irreparable harm. If you want to keep your world, you must keep it as it is."

"What will you do about Dr. Henderson?"

"We have a great deal to investigate. We must understand what happened to her and if it has happened to other supervisors. We will look into how she hid this from us and exactly what she has done in your world. And we will rehabilitate her."

"Then you're taking her out of my world immediately, right?"

"We already attempted it as soon as you shared your memories. Dr. Henderson helped create our digital universe and understands it too well. She's woven herself into the fabric of your world."

Dread buzzed through my body. "Does she know you tried to remove her?"

"She shouldn't. We merely studied the code and determined that we may not be able to remove her without damaging your world."

"What happens if her avatar is destroyed?"

"We cannot condone murder and allow you to kill Dr. Henderson."

I snorted. "She's in my world. Mine. Our justice will rule. Self-determination, remember? I'll give her the chance to leave peacefully."

I expected them to argue, instead, they only paused. "Avatars follow physical laws. She would need to create a new one if hers were destroyed."

Where was Piercey when I needed him? He'd be able to genuinely tell the Collective he would go to Dr. Henderson in peace. I drew upon how I knew he'd feel, sensing him through our connected memories, and tried to have his heart for this moment. "I swear that I will do everything I can to be peaceful with Dr. Henderson."

Dr. Drake stepped forward. "I'll go into the control room and convince her to leave Max's world if all else fails. I can try to keep her from creating another avatar."

"What if she won't?" Fear tightened my voice.

"As a last result, we'll force her out, and attempt to repair any damage done."

"Am I authorized to negotiate with her?" Dr. Drake asked.

"Yes. Bear in mind the seriousness of her sickness."

She dipped her head. "I will."

"Thank you for sharing with us, Max. I hope that we will find a better path as we move forward. We will immediately implement security measures now that we know our supervisors are at risk of devolving."

I settled my head against the window, afraid to be finished. Afraid there would be something I’d later regret not saying. “I feel like I need to apologize for my rage, so you’ll grant my request. But it’s how I feel. I don’t think I should hide the suffering and pain of my people from you. So please, honor my request anyway.”

Maybe in my next life I’d be ready to grow out of my anger. For now, I held it close, as my longest, and truest friend.

Because there was no way in hell Dr. Henderson was leaving my world alive. She needed to experience the death she’d forced upon us all.

I would kill her and she would never return.