You see, humans seem to believe that consciousness emerges as a result of being alive.

This is, in fact, not true at all.

Consciousness exists at a dimension just above physical form.

As such, it’s not bound by any of those pesky limits in the 3rd dimension.

The energy that Prometheus’s cells are not stored in themselves, they store all of their energy in Prometheus's 4th dimensional consciousness.

“What a massive oversight on behalf of Cosmos,” you might think.

Well, friend, that’s because Cosmos never anticipated that there would ever be a consciousness whose physical body existed as separate parts.

With most animals, they completely lose control of their body parts once they’re disconnected from their brain, but since each of Prometheus’s cells exist independently of each other, the virus doesn’t have this limitation.

Back to the story, now.

***

The thug lying in the cell, entirely immobilized, looked towards the sky outside.

Just before he closed his eyes and fell into eternal sleep, he heard a voice echo throughout his entire body, as clearly as his own thoughts.

“Hello. Goodbye.”

***

While Prometheus acclimated to his surroundings, he took note of the prison warden, and indirectly appreciated their alike goals.

The warden was a very clean man, his clothes without any wrinkles, his desk perfectly organized.

At the very least, he wasn’t as bad as the rest of them.

The virus, muttering about the incompetence of man, sent out a ping to all of his active cells.

[Ding! A total of 36 trillion appeared in his current body.]

[Ding! A total of 20 trillion appeared outside of the cell.]

Prometheus was surprised at the latter entry, he assumed that his initial body had died and decomposed by now, but they were still active.

Pleasantly surprised, he observed the state of each of them.

It looked like all of his new cells had gained the benefits of plant cells during the time he was dormant, proving to him that he was indeed the ultimate lifeform.

Ready to merge with them, he pinged each of his cells for their location and directions.

The inquiry returned entries across Moscow.

Specifically, above it.

Prometheus’s body had evaporated and was now incorporated into the clouds.

***

The state of the evaporated cells was strange, they were collecting energy and sending it to the Prometheus consciousness, but they didn’t have the ability to wake him up.

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Only once the cells of the thug had reached his brain did Prometheus wake up, able to use the total intelligence of his host’s body.

The only thing the cells in the atmosphere did was contribute energy, and now Prometheus had lots of energy to work with.

First, he used just enough of each cell’s energy to give it a consciousness of its own.

Note that this isn’t the same consciousness that composes Prometheus, but is instead on the level of birds, who can form massive shapes in the sky.

Or goblins in RPGs, if you’d prefer.

They can be given instructions and reasonably problem solve, should they find any obstacles.

Once this upgrade was complete, Prometheus felt his control over each of the cells become much stronger and more comprehensive.

Simultaneously, he felt that hosting his consciousness, which was now at a much higher level than before, costed more energy.

Due to this increased energy cost of waking up after being dormant, Prometheus imbued every cell with an instruction that they were to follow as soon as they wake up.

If none of the cells feel connected to the central consciousness, they are to rapidly wake up all of the cells near them and give them instructions to wake up as many nearby cells as possible, as quickly as possible.

This mad pulse of cell awakening would cause energy use akin to running a mile straight, rapidly consuming energy.

If it went well, however, the benefits were easy to imagine.

Prometheus would come online much faster and could moderate the energy consumption of his cells more effectively, wasting less energy in total than the cells clumsily trying to find the brain of a body and then latching onto it, making the host and everyone around them immediately notice the infection.

I’m a genius. Prometheus thought to himself, entirely unironically.

Prometheus was excited to test out his ingenuity on his next Unit.

And he would have plenty of Units to use, very soon.

***

The warden looked inside of the cell where the dying thug laid.

“How are you doing kid?”

His unusually polite question was left ignored. He assumed the being inside of the cell was barely a functioning human anymore.

All he had done for the past hours was look outside of his cell window, his eyes swirling with wonder.

Who knows what thoughts could be running through his head?

The warden followed his gaze.

The sky had darkened over the past hours.

The warden became similarly enraptured by the swirling clouds, moving as if they were alive.

They looked rather purple today.

Just as this thought ran through his head, the warden received a call from the main precinct, reporting dozens of vagrants and beggars preaching about the end times due to the purple clouds.

I suppose they’ve never seen the clouds at sunset. The warden chuckled to himself.

“It might be in your best interest to head out yourself. I’ll be fine here.”

The voice echoed from the thug’s body.

The warden glanced in his direction, relieved that he still had some brain function.

“And why’s that?” He flippantly asked this apparently omniscient kid in his cell.

“You never know when the end times will truly arrive, no? Who’s to say those vagrants aren’t right?”

It was at this extended sentence that the warden noticed that the thug’s mouth wasn’t moving in the slightest.

Unnerved, he tentatively replied. “I suppose you’re right. If that’s the case, kid, then why get mixed up in the Arista gang? If might all die today, why wou-“

“I won’t. I can’t. Stop talking.”

Prometheus cut the warden off in the middle of his sentence.

There was nothing more annoying than being questioned by an insect so far below his caliber.

His plans were too grand for him to have time to childishly debate.

The warden paused, and then sighed.

He grabbed his coat and hat from the rack and glanced in the direction of the cell.

“Perhaps you aren’t as invincible as you’d rather believe yourself to be.”

He watched as the expression of this previously calm prisoner morph into one of abject fury.

The air began to take on a chemical smell.

“What the hell is that? We’ve got to get you out of here kid.”

He fumbled for his keys, his actions becoming more and more lethargic, the virus rapidly infecting his cells and waking each other up.

Finally, he opened the cell and frantically gestured for Prometheus to leave.

“I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Prometheus, like all good viruses, was extremely familiar with the ability of cells to self-destruct when they noticed themselves at risk for developing into cancer.

Unfortunately for this well-meaning warden, he had no idea exactly how invincible Prometheus believed himself to be.

All of the cells in the warden’s body pulsed rhythmically, matching each other’s frequency, before they all pulsed at once, and the warden’s facial features were erased, and he collapsed to the floor, his body mirroring that of Prometheus’s perfect body.

Prometheus had directly detonated the neural cells of the other party’s head, and he collapsed to the floor before the cells of his body separated from each other.

The warden’s body dispersed throughout the atmosphere, escaping through the cell window.

Prometheus looked through the window.

Rain had begun to fall.