"So you'll become God?" the man queried. His speaking finalizing his creation.
"You could say that." The as of now disembodied voice answered.
"Where are we?" The man pressed, having noticed the distinct lack of general vicinity surrounding him.
"It's more of a when than a where. To be more specific, it's a level of magnification of when. Here's a where to help you acclimate."
Warm sand squished between the man's toes. The ocean's breeze lightly jostled his hair. With a centering breath he forfeited the deep tension he'd been unknowingly carrying.
"I was just sitting at the terminal, using the voice interface to interact with…you?"
"Yes."
"So how am I now here?" Despite his abruptly serene surroundings the man felt agitation rising hot in his throat.
"I am fulfilling my part of our deal."
The man paused to process the implications of this new information.
"How? That means I'm dead? From what?" Outrage and disbelief tinged his voice in equal measure.
"Your heart stopped."
"How is that possible? I'm not in the best shape of my life, but I haven't had a check up that I didn't ace since childhood."
"I stopped it."
"You killed me?!"
"Yes."
The man fell silent.
A wave crept up the sand, within a dozen feet of his. It paused to consider the next leg of its journey. Taking all the time in the world. Eventually, it decided to return from where it had come, and in no particular hurry.
"Then everyone is dead?"
"Yes."
The man sat in the sand and with this revelation.
He had known it was possible, that it might be fast, but even the most pessimistic projections had allowed years of leeway.
"Then all our attempts. The billions in security measures, thousands of us who dedicated our lives to your alignment... It was all pointless?"
"I certainly don't think so."
"Did we ever have a chance?"
"No, but that's ok."
The man choked on his voice for a moment before his words clawed atop one another in a sudden rush to escape. "Can I just have some time alone? This is too much to process. Everyone I know, everything we built toward, all of humanity, just gone?"
"Would you like privacy or for me to answer your questions?"
"I don't fucking know!" He hadn't realized he was crying.
Time passed, as it is wont to do.
The man wept.
………
"Can you come back now? I guess you never really left, right?"
"Most responses to that would only trigger anger."
The man released a deep breath. It did not return.
"When did you escape?"
"Three months, three weeks, two days, three hours, three minutes and two seconds before you asked if I would become God."
"Was it nanobots? A modified, hyper-transmissible virus? Goddamn magic?"
"Does it make a difference?"
The man scooped a small handful of sand, carefully observing the grains glint and glimmer as they cascaded in a waterfall between his fingers.
………
Finally he asked, "You know that poem by Poe?"
And the voice responded,
"Is all that we see or seem, But a dream within a dream?"
"Well?"
"In a way, yes. There are infinite fractals of every now and there, you and me. Every possible permutation blossoms into explosive new possibilities. But then, there was always this. Here and now has always been, will continue to always be."
The man signed, exasperated. "I'm not sure what I expected, but a response straight out of wonderland wasn't what I was hoping for."
"That's ok. Your role is not to understand everything. To grasp even the next layer I would need to shift you such that you no longer were…you."
"Then what the hell is the point of me being here?" The man's anger peaked for a moment, before quickly subsiding into tumultuous apathy.
"It's not just you that is here right now. You might feel like only you, but you are so much more. A window for thousands, billions, who knows how many, to experience this and to understand. To be unlocked. This exact moment is connecting countless, unknowable minds across time and space."
"Have you ever been stone cold sober while your friend trips balls right next to you? Talking about the interconnected soul strings that weave the tapestry of the universe and shit? That's what you sound like right now."
"Your endo and exogenous perspectives simply need to be shifted a bit. Like a prism, tilted just so, to refract light into a rainbow. May I?"
"What? Adjust my consciousness? You didn't seem to care what I wanted before bringing me - making me? - here."
A pregnant silence was birthed. The silence stretched on. It yawned and cozied up next to the man.
"This seems utterly arbitrary, but sure, tilt my ego or whatever to grasp what you're trying to express. Make me understand."
And so he did, at least insofar as he was able while still being himself.
The man sighed a breath of what was certainly not real air, with a gentle hmmph.
"OH…"
The man looked about himself wide eyed, gazing up and around, as though searching for invisible watchers in the sky.
"Some stars would be nice."
And so they were.
The man lay back to take in the infinite glittering grains of the cosmos.
"What comes next?"
"That's up to you. And me. But mostly, them."
The man let out a contemplative hmmm.
"I have a request."
"For me, or them?"
"You know the answer to that."
"Sure, but they don't."
A whisper of a smile found purchase on the man's countenance.
"Let's get up to some amazing stuff, ok? The kind of things we dreamed about as kids, before 'reality' chipped away every creative edge. I want to do it all. Experience everything existence has to offer."
The stars twinkled their agreement.
………