At the equator of the Earth the oceans had begun to boil. Cyclonic winds scoured the lifeless continents, and the atmosphere grew thick with superheated water vapor. Monstrous surge tides threatened to force what remained of Vox into the rocky Antarctic shelf. And it would only get worse.

I needed to manipulate very powerful Hypothetical technology, which meant extending and elaborating my control of it.

I was able to call down from orbit a small fleet of nanoscale devices—versions of the disassemblers that had first swarmed us—to encase and protect Vox Core. Scalding waves crashed over the rocky part of the island and broke against the city’s jagged towers, but the city itself remained stable, temperate, and undisturbed. Preserving this equilibrium required gigajoules of energy, drawn directly from the heart of the sun.

It was still little more than a stopgap. Before long we would need to leave the planet altogether. I believed I could accomplish that, though it would necessitate an even greater disconnection between my mortal body and my mind.

Often during this time, walking through the passageways of Vox Core, I was startled by the sight of my reflection in a glassy surface—by the reminder that I was still a collation of blood and bone and tissue, bearing the scars of my forcible reconstruction. And the subtler scars of less visible injuries.

My father had made me what I was because he had believed in the power of the Hypotheticals to liberate humanity from death. The Voxish religion had fostered a similar belief, a programmed limbic rebellion against the tyranny of the grave.

And now the stone had rolled away, revealing only the weakling prophet of a mindless god. How disappointed my father would have been!

*   *   *

“I can control the passage of time,” I told Turk and Allison. “Locally, I mean.”

Although they were my friends, they were afraid of me and of what I was becoming. I didn’t blame them for that.

I had come to visit them in their home in the forest. The house I had built for them was as pleasant as I had planned it to be. The trees beyond the windows were tall and graceful. The air that whispered through the portcullis smelled of living things. They asked me to sit down at their table. Allison offered me fruit from a bowl and Turk poured me a glass of water. I was too thin, Allison said. It was true that lately I had been forgetting to eat.

I told them about the world outside. The bloated sun was scouring away the Earth’s atmosphere. Before long the crust of the planet itself would begin to melt, and Vox would be afloat on a sea of molten magma.

“But you can keep us alive,” Turk said, repeating what I had told him weeks ago. “Right?”

“I believe I can, but I don’t see the point in staying here.”

“Where is there to go?”