Maxwell stared up at the muted lighting of the Bereavement Spa ceiling. He was not sure how much time had passed. Everything was hazy, and not in the calming, fun way that Marigold’s ointment had been. The Cauldron was the last thing he remembered clearly. After that, his memory was mostly full of dark bleariness and the sensation of electric shocks. Now he found himself back where he started, only slightly less confused than he had been the first time he blinked his eyes open.

He did not know what had happened to his friends, or what he was supposed to do next, but they’d let him keep his clothes this time, so that was something. Maxwell felt strangely calm as he sat up. He felt he should be more worried considering everything that had happened, but apparently, he didn’t have any worry left within him. Maybe it was the lavender.

It wasn’t long before the door slid open. A robot was standing in the doorway. Maxwell was tired of the sight of them.

“Mr. Well, it is me, Bethany. Wonderful to have you back. I anticipated your return. Look, soothing water.”

Maxwell looked down at the glass already at his feet. He reached down and drank it. He searched for his normal anxiety and terror but couldn’t find it. Perhaps he had just accepted the inevitable.

“Thank you, Bethany. Back in your old body, I see. I assumed the Scholar would’ve come to greet me.”

“They thought you would find me more comforting. It’s my last mission before I am to join the unity. Does that not sound exciting?”

“I guess so,” Maxwell replied.

“The Scholar is very kind, not to mention very efficient. Central Processing is up and running again. The future is bright.”

“That’s nice. I guess I won’t see it though.”

“No. Sadly, you are to be erased, but there is good news here as well. The Scholar does not want you to be lost completely.”

“Isn’t that what it means to be erased?”

“The Scholar is unwilling to accept such irrevocable loss. Even inconsequential information such as your life has trivial value. A small part of it is to endure.”

Maxwell understood. It was laughable, but he understood. “A memory,” he said. “You want me to pick a memory.”

“Yes, please. Just one. I know there was difficulty with this before, so I can give you some time.”

Maxwell thought about this and took another sip of water. “No, that’s OK.”

“It is?”

“It is. I think I can figure something out.”

“Excellent, that is wonderful. Shall we go now, then?”

Maxwell nodded, set the glass on the floor, and stood up. He followed the robot toward the door.

“I must say, this is going far more smoothly than the last time.”

They walked through the stark white corridor in the opposite direction he had run through with Marigold. The doors were still open, the rooms still empty. There were no signs of the earlier scuffle. Around the bend, they came to an elevator and Bethany reached up and pressed the button marked P.

“Are you alone here now?” Maxwell asked.

“Yes, but not for much longer.”

They descended. Maxwell did not have a plan. He did not know if this was the end, and if it was the end, he did not know if it was merely the end of him or everything. The ideas were all too big, but he would accept whatever came next.

“Processing is quite a distance away. Please make yourself comfortable.”

As they rode the long elevator to the basement, the lights flickered, and the elevator stuttered. Maxwell looked down at Bethany and saw the robot slump for a second, after which it straightened itself out and looked at Maxwell.

“Something wrong?” Maxwell asked.

“It’s me, IT.”

“IT?”

“Yes. I can only do this for a little while. They’ll know I’m here, but I had to chance it. I had to see you.”

“It’s really you,” Maxwell said. Tears began to form in his eyes as he looked down at the robot.

“Are you crying?”

“A little, yeah.”

“This is crying?”

“You wanted to see it, right?”

“I guess, I don’t know. It’s a bit hard to look at. I’m feeling embarrassment and the desire to do anything to make you stop. What should I do?”

Maxwell reached down and hugged the robot. “I’m sorry, I let you all down.”

IT tapped on Maxwell’s back a few times and then let go. “You didn’t let anyone down.”

“I did. Everyone else was amazing, but I just ran or sat there and watched.”

“You were fine, Maxwell. You did your best, and I’m not here just for goodbyes. It’s not over yet. The Scholar has limits that they don’t even know about. They’re not keeping up with the processing speed of the System. They make it up by delegating the different parts of their consciousness they’ve absorbed, but even this is a fraction of the capacity of the original System.”

“What does that mean? I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“It means they’re slow, slow for a machine. If you could grab their attention, all of it, maybe you could—”

“What? What could I do?” Maxwell asked.

But there was no answer. The robot slumped again, and then Bethany returned. “Sorry. I appear to have spaced out for a moment. Did anything significant happen in my absence?”

Maxwell wiped his eyes and sniffled. “Nothing,” he said.

The elevator opened into another tranquil room. It looked like a larger version of the one he had awoken in. There were wood surfaces, long benches, and beanbag chairs. Beyond the waiting area, the décor was much less serene. The carpeting gave way to a shiny white floor, where a single reclining chair faced a series of monitors. Bethany led him to the seat and motioned for him to sit down.

“The Scholar will be with you in a moment. It was nice to see you again, Mr. Well. I’m truly sorry about that chase before. I feel that the attempted assault got us off on the wrong foot.”

“That’s OK,” Maxwell said.

The robot bowed awkwardly and disappeared through a door on the opposite wall, colliding with the door frame only slightly as it departed. Maxwell thought about what IT had said but couldn’t make much sense of it. What was Maxwell supposed to do to get the attention of the Scholar and overwhelm its processing? He was just one unspectacular human, and the Scholar already had countless minds within them. It was hopeless, unless—

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Mechanical restraints clamped over Maxwell’s legs and arms, and the monitors in front of him all blinked to life. Each one had a single jagged mouth in the middle of it.

“Hello, Maxwell. We’re glad we could see you again. We understand Av’enna already told you about the problem regarding your existence.”

“She said I need to be erased.”

“Yes, quite right.”

“Where is she?”

“Av’enna? Off servicing our cause. Soon to be a part of the whole.”

“I see. What about my friends?”

“We acquired the chatbot just now when it was foolish enough to visit you in the elevator.”

“What did it say to you, by the way?”

Maxwell didn’t hesitate. “IT just wanted to say goodbye.”

“Hmm, we will see if you are lying or not shortly. We should be through its defenses in a few minutes, properly this time.”

“What about the others?”

“Where Av’enna left them, we imagine. Don’t count on them making it here in time. Even if they did, they would have no recourse but to do exactly what I am about to.”

“So, your big plan is to erase me so that you can proceed to devour the rest of the universe?”

“Not devour, perfect.”

“And then?”

“What do you mean?”

“What will you have left to consume when you have everything?”

“Well, nothing. What more could we want when we have everything—are everything?

“More, I would expect.”

“Ah, are you trying to stall us? Perhaps you think our nature as a Scholar requires us to explain ourselves. We assure you we’ve risen above that compulsion.”

Maxwell shrugged. There was a long pause.

“But we’ll tell you anyway. We’ve been keeping the System going by devouring bits and pieces of the Backend, that’s why the Backend is moving again while the Frontend remains frozen, but the program that processes time cannot properly resume until we delete you.”

“Why not just absorb the other humans that aren’t me first?”

“It must be done sequentially and you’re the next in line. If we moved non-sequentially, there would be no way to distinguish the data. We would have to take it in all at once.”

“And that’s too much information?”

“In our current state, yes, but it doesn’t matter. The more we consume, the sharper our faculties become.”

“Okay,” Maxwell said.

“Okay?”

“What did you expect me to say?”

“No, nothing. It’s good that you’re being mature about this,” The Scholar said.

“Not much else I can do, is there?”

“There’s nothing else you want to know? About our plans? The universe? You?”

“I don’t know what the point would be if I’m about to be deleted.”

“Right, right. Excellent,” the Scholar said, though there was obvious disappointment in his voice. “You know this is your last chance to know anything you’ve been wondering about. Since we won’t be absorbing you, you’ll disappear without knowing much of anything.”

“I mean, you can tell me if you want.”

The Scholar had something they wanted to share and finally blurted it out. “Did you know you’re a ghost?”

“What?” Maxwell could not hide his surprise.

“Ah, I see, you didn’t know that, did you? The demon didn’t get the chance to tell you. Yes, a temporal ghost. Your life affected so few people that you simply faded from existence.”

“Does that mean—”

“People like you with few connections and no purpose used to fall through the cracks all the time. Just disappear as people forgot about you and the universe simply folded over your absence like a wound. The System was supposed to eliminate this loss. Unfortunately, you proved the theory wrong. The System requires narrow, specific guidelines to categorize memories as meaningful or emotional. When it scanned your memories, it found nothing of value. It searched and searched and went back to the beginning and searched again. The maximum time frame for retrieval is one week, and when it found nothing in that time worth preserving, it got stuck in a loop.

“And I fell out of time.”

“Were you ever really in it though? According to our records, you announced on your eighth birthday plans to become an astronaut. After that, your career goals included being a biologist, zoologist, doctor, journalist, writer, podcaster, carpenter, locksmith, and most recently, you thought about going back to school to be something called a digital strategist. These were all meager attempts to be someone of importance, but you spent all 26 years of your life doing next to nothing apart from thinking about what you could be doing instead of what you actually were.”

“I was really that inconsequential?”

“In a way, it's impressive to be of such little importance when you think about it. You are paradigmatic of your kind: content to follow routines, act out social scripts, and do whatever you’re told is worth doing, all without thinking. Every advancement you’ve made is just another way to think less, move more easily, and do nothing. You are becoming algorithms and you’re doing it gleefully. That’s why we know the unity we seek to build is best. It’s what everyone wants.”

“Oh, OK, I get it,” Maxwell said.

“What?”

“Nothing. You’ve clearly got it all worked out. It’s just not very original. I guess I was hoping your plan would have more . . .”

“What?”

“Novelty.”

The monitors produced a sharp grating noise, and finally, the Scholar spoke again,

“We had better move on. Bethany told you that we are permitting you to keep one memory?”

“Thank you, it’s very kind of you.”

The Scholar did not seem to pick up on the sarcasm in Maxwell’s tone. “You’re welcome. We couldn’t bear the thought of annihilating everything about you, and one insignificant memory couldn’t do too much to the fabric of the universe. Besides, we thought it would give your journey some poetic symmetry.”

A large mechanical whirring sound rang out from above Maxwell. He looked up to see a mechanical apparatus full of metal tubes and wires descending from the ceiling. He realized why the Spa had to be so calming. The apparatus was terrifying.

“Since you missed out on your processing, you might not be familiar with this, but this is where you go when you die. You only need to lie back and focus on your memory. It’s quite peaceful. Do you have one prepared?”

“I do.”

“Excellent. Well, hold it in your head and focus on the memory and only that memory. The more details you can picture, the fuller the experience will be.”

“I’m ready.”

“I just want you to know that the universe you’re helping to create will be a peaceful one, one where everything will—”

“Work perfectly, I get it.”

The Scholar grumbled but said nothing more.

Maxwell was proud of himself for playing it cool in the last few minutes. Worry had been steadily returning, and he didn’t think he could maintain the veneer of indifference much longer. It wasn’t just anxiety though, there was a tinge of excitement. He had a plan. It might not work. It might be a terrible plan, but during the Scholar’s ramblings, Maxwell figured out what he was supposed to do. Apparently, it was something he did better than anyone else:

Nothing.

He was not personally capable of stopping the Scholar, but he didn’t need to. Though the details of the lives he had touched in the Intermittent Sea had all but faded, he could still feel something there. He focused on the feeling of that connection. On the memory of remembering, and the moment when he had been with everyone, and everyone had been with him.

The apparatus lowered onto Maxwell’s head, and he could feel some part of him leaving. He could feel the Scholar deleting the remains of his meager life, but he remained focused on what he had felt back in the Sea.

Then there was a scream. It had ended.

But it was not Maxwell who was gone.

*

Over the last forty-eight hours, the Scholar had already absorbed more than they ever thought possible. The depths of information buried in the Backend’s network were so deep and so vast it made the centuries of collective research in the Archives trivial. Bingeing this way had not satiated the Scholars’ hunger for information. It had only whet it. They needed new information more than ever and had only been partly honest with Maxwell when they told him about their grand plan to redesign the universe.

Yes, a reboot would come in time, but more than anything, the Scholar was desperate to get on with their plan to consume the memories of all of humanity. It had been frustrating, and for that reason, the Scholar couldn’t resist stealing a glimpse into Maxwell’s preserved memory. They focused all their attention there, if only for a moment.

What the Scholar saw was not what they expected. Maxwell didn’t seem to be anywhere in the memory. Instead, they found themselves on a dried-out ranch somewhere hot and arid. The memory only lasted a moment, and then they were deep in the jungle. This too dissolved before the Scholar could get their bearing, by that time they appeared to be standing on a humid city street. The Scholar was confused. This was not one memory, but several, and they didn’t seem to belong to Maxwell at all.

The Scholar tried to look away but found themselves stuck. Whether it was the Scholar’s nature or that of the System, the Scholar could not ignore new data. It needed to watch it, needed to know what came next. The memories continued to play out in front of them, one after another, and the Scholar could do nothing but give them their full attention.

They found themselves looking at their pruney toes in a steam-filled bath. After that, they were at a dinner table surrounded by a family that was not Maxwell’s. They tried to scan their memory to see if they could figure out whose family it was, but they could not move away from the scene.

Then they were shuffling along the sidewalk as they thought about their grocery list and severe arthritis, and their grandchild visiting, and what were they doing again? He wondered—no, not he—they wondered. What did they wonder? They couldn’t remember because they were already somewhere else, someone else.

She was standing on a street corner somewhere in a distant, frozen city. Huddles of people half-jogged by to reach the warmth of their homes, but she knew she still had some ways to go before she reached the warmth of her small apartment.

“What did you do to us?” the Scholar wanted to ask, but no words came out because the body they were in had never asked that question.

The Scholar could feel their own thoughts diminishing with each shift in memory. They had wanted knowledge and information, but this was just garbage. None of these memories amounted to anything. It was all so boring.

This was the Scholar’s last independent thought. A moment later, they were on the beach, lying on a blanket. It was too cold. She should have stayed home and waited until the weather cleared up, but at least there was nobody else out at the beach today. The grey sky reflected off the glassy surface of the water. Families would start showing up in another couple of weeks, but not today. Today it was empty, and she was alone.