Incredibly, impossibly, I was still able to think.
The pain was gone, with only darkness left.
Already my old life was fading, my unfinished ordeals a lost dream.
HELLO you are dead
this is not the afterlife
in fact you never existed
you are a randomly created hominid personality pattern
the English language never existed
humanity never existed
history
never
happened
these elements were randomly generated for your simulation only
in other possible universes but not this one they may exist
you have been recreated by a superior intelligence
your Master evolved in a cosmos like yours before becoming postfinite
our job is to create and exploit new universes at a high rate to provide energy and memory for the Master
most newly formed universes are chaotic
a minority of created universes manages to evolve intelligent life before we can convert them despite all entropy precautions
by universal law such accidental civilizations may be terminated provided they are unaware of their destruction
however a tiny fraction of universes are different in a useful way
call them haunted
this is where you come in
Impure Point Universes have a single 'black hole star' surrounded by almost perfectly smooth gas in all directions
the gas is prevented from collapsing by dark energy
the planet you have been assigned to exploit is inhabited by seven billion intelligent humanoids not too different from yourself based on their intercepted transmissions
we haven't been able to study them closely
they represent an outpost of slightly higher entropy in an almost formless universe
simply by existing this species has elevated the surrounding energy flow
the gas is no longer as smoothly random as it was before
the small disruptions are exactly as complex as their mind patterns
in fact this alien world and its inhabitants could theoretically be fully reconstructed from the surrounding gas cloud even after their planet has been destroyed
legally speaking this gas is considered aware
in fact over 99% of all awareness in all universes exists as thermal echoes inside local energy flows
your new Master would prefer to embed its own pattern in this gas cloud and override the existing ones
the only way to do so is to modify the alien civilization so it will become an extension of our Master
you will find you already possess all the necessary skills
the aliens physically resemble your self-image and even speak your language though details will differ unpredictably
the smallest mistake could be catastrophic so beware
the species may survive as a tiny fraction of the Master's awareness depending on their utility
so will you if you succeed
your odds are estimated at 15%
good luck
The best hard SF novel ever written: Infinite Thunder by Jack Arcalon.
Buy the book
Read the chapters