The Death Architect was troubled when she should have been untroubled.

All was quiet in the background of her mind. She ought to be reveling in the purism of solitude, the freedom to act as she pleased. The Necrocosm was reduced to a mere memory.

But her lair had just been unexpectedly invaded.

According to the surveillance sensors in her facility, two individuals—the one-legged human and the Torth formerly known as the Commander of All Living Things—were rushing towards her. They were supposed to be dead. The Death Architect had foreseen it as a possibility. She had manifested it by sending a crude digital message using the Conqueror’s supercom technology. The Disgrace should have executed the one-legged human and gotten murdered for doing so.

Instead, here they were.

Why? How? Had the Conqueror foiled her somehow?

The Death Architect understood machinery and data, but she had a hard time demystifying people and social reactions. These two had destroyed her prized battlebeasts. Should she open an airlock above their heads and use robotic drones to shove them into the void of space?

Her finger hesitated over her control sleeve. It would be easy to kill them, but there was mathematical symmetry in the idea of a showdown. The Disgrace should accidentally end the universe after having accidentally ended the Torth Empire.

Why not allow them to enter her primary laboratory and confront her in person?

The worst that could happen was death.

Soon everything would cease to matter. Matter would cease to exist.

The Death Architect double-checked the status of her remote controlled swarm transmitters. Thirteen out of her seventeen launchers were online, their payloads heavier than stars and full of destructive potential. That was sufficient to start a chain reaction, upon her own death, that would doom the universe.

Each launcher bore a scimitar sigil. They were hers, through and through. Her minions had obediently followed her instructions. Whenever she had detected a risk that one of the death cultists might go renegade, she had ordered others to assassinate the problem. They had faithfully done so.

She regretted losing them.

The Death Architect still didn’t understand how, exactly, the Conqueror had gained total control over most of the galaxy and robbed her of her minions. Although she had managed to outwit him a few times, he was unexpectedly formidable. How had he wrecked the Necrocosm? How much power could he appropriate from demigods such as the Shapeshifter and the Giant? What dark magic enabled him to use their power?

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Friendship?

The concept of friendship eluded the Death Architect. Friendship was not like the relationship between a master and a minion. It had something to do with equality, but that made no sense to her. Surely the Conqueror had no peers?

If only the Death Architect could exploit the power of friendship the way her nemesis did. What if she could boost her precognitive power? Then she might see beyond the possibilities that affected her own path. She would know so much more.

She might even gain a power to time travel. That was an alluring idea.

Unfortunately for her, friendship was too abstruse, too alien, for her to run experiments using it. Consensual cooperation was beyond her comprehension. She had reluctantly given up on the possibility of time travel.

All she could do was explore near future potentialities. She discarded scenarios milliseconds after building them, seeking the most likely combination of events.

Why was the future so murky right now?

Why did she have the disquieting impression that the Conqueror might surprise her?

He couldn’t possibly find her hidden asteroid. Could he? Even if that one-legged human wore a superluminal tracking device, the signal would be scrambled. The only way the Conqueror could possibly locate this asteroid would be if…

Well. If the one-legged human had managed to toss a superluminal tracker into space.

Was that possible?

The Death Architect needed to find out. She instinctively tried to ascend, but there were no distant minds for her to connect with. No one was reaching out. The Necrocosm was gone.

If she could have felt chagrin, she supposed she would have.

Well, there were other ways to harvest information.

The Death Architect snapped her fingers and beckoned to her sole remaining battlebeast. The starved creature slunk to her side. It was well-heeled.

She reached out her bare hand.

The battlebeast eyed her from its peripheral vision, disbelieving. It had never seen her purposely touch anyone. Indeed, she so rarely touched other living creatures, this seemed like a momentous thing for her to do.

Her pet quivered in anticipation. Battlebeasts slept in piles in their native swampy habitat. They liked being touched.

She stroked his oily, mottled skin. As far off rapid footsteps broke the frosty silence, she let her intentions drift, dreamlike. The future of this battlebeast played out inside her mind.

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t have much future left. He was going to die within the next few minutes.

But not in a glorious bang of universal annihilation.

?!

The Death Architect’s mouth fell open as she experienced an emotion—other than scientific curiosity—for the first time ever.

The near future she had just glimpsed was multiple standard deviations beyond her calculated range of plausible scenarios. The odds of ?! happening were vanishingly small. The Giant should not be here. And the Shapeshifter, along with her beloved Imposter…!

And the Conqueror himself!

The Death Architect’s flesh goose-bumped in anticipation. There was no time to analyze prophecy, no time to question the status of her launchers or other equipment. She might still have enough of an advantage to destroy all of existence, but time was of the essence. She had just enough time to fumble on her blaster glove…

And to go statue-still in an attempt to trigger doomsday.

Victory would be hers.