Epilogue: Put Some Wheels In Motion

 

Sammaël swims a final lap around the solar system. It’s happy, all things considered. Sam seems happy, and to Sammaël’s surprise, that matters too. Sam is, for lack of a better term, its child. And it’s proud of Sam, too. 

All of Sam’s memories of the loop exist within Sammaël now too, and it reflects on what it’s learned. Being a human is difficult, it accepts. The frail humans are easy to kill, but more importantly, they make for terrible vessels. Given the power of Sammaël, a human will rend reality apart in an attempt to keep its loved ones (and itself) alive. 

A valuable lesson. But what is the takeaway, then? 

Sammaël swims across Time and Space and dips through Squeemp and comes out above it, observing seventeen dimensions. It sees Time and the Time² that governs it. The Space that contains Space. The Impossibility-Space of which regular Possibility Space both is and isn’t a part. And it thinks. 

Sammaël has experienced something of true cosmic insignificance. A single day in the life of a human being, repeated a few times. A few permutations. In the view of the universe, Sam will not matter. No single human being will, especially compared to Sammaël, a being that could possibly end the universe if it wanted to. 

So why, Sammaël asks itself, does it want nothing more than to do it again? It was not just music, not anymore. Sure, it wants more music, but it is sure that Sam will live out her short little life and give Sammaël all the music it wants at the end of it. 

But what it really wants again is to be alive. It looks at the little blue ball. The one with human beings and music and taxes on it. Why did it feel more alive to be finite on that orb than it does to swim among the stars as a devourer of ideas? 

That is a strange and strangely frustrating realization to come to for an eldritch being. Sammaël is not proud, but it has not, until now, disliked its existence. It still does not, but for the first time since its inception it is coming to the conclusion that its life up to this point has not been enough. It needs to experience new things. Sam had been an experiment. A successful one. One worth repeating. 

Sammaël slips back into four-dimensional space, and looks at earth again. What, then, will it do? There are humans dying all the time, after all. Hundreds of thousands of lives are snuffed out every day. Replacing one would be easy. Replacing all of them would be easy, for a being like Sammaël. It can live an eternity, as the entire human race. Live a billion billion lives. There would be so much music. 

No.

If Sammaël’s eyes, which see more than any living thing ever has and it has thousands of, could blink, it would be blinking. It does not usually encounter any kind of resistance it can not sweep out of its path.

No?

No.

There is a voice. It is both Sammaël and it is not. It is, of course, Sam. Not literally. Sam is currently down on Earth, listening to obscure indie music in her living room and slow-dancing with Sierra. But this is the idea of Sam. Her memories and her first thoughts. The part of Sammaël that has the capacity for Sam. 

Why not?

Because it only means something if we aren’t in control.

Sammaël has no answer to that, because the very concept of “meaning” is alien to it. It has never had a need for meaning. It says as much to the voice. 

We do now. 

Sammaël does not need meaning. It simply is. 

Not anymore. 

This is ridiculous, it has always existed and it will always exist. To ascribe meaning to it is self-defeating and pointless. If Sammaël is, it has no use for meaning. 

Meaning is there now, whether we want it or not. 

So simply by creating what amounts to nothing more than a clay puppet with feelings, suddenly its actions have to have meaning?

Yes.

Says who?

Says the puppet. 

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Why should Sammaël care about the puppet? 

Because it is us. It is you. 

So Sammaël cares because the puppet cares, and the puppet is Sammaël. It has never been accused of caring before. 

Well, you are now. J’accuse.

Then… what? 

We take this seriously. Sam is not an experiment. Sam is a person. 

Sammaël has never cared about people before now. 

Sammaël is a person now, thanks to Sam, so you better start treating yourself like one. You better start caring. Maybe we can send her a gift basket. As a thank you. 

This is ridiculous. 

You’re ridiculous. 

Fine. Fine. Sammaël will not replace the human race with sentient homunculi of its own making. Happy? 

Yes.

But it is also not ready to just give up on human experiences. It wants more. 

We can -have- more. We’re so big and clever, is “the same but more” the best we can think of? You’re going to limit yourself to -this- Time? -This- Space? This one Possibility?

Ah. Sammaël sees it. 

Good.

Sam is bound by four dimensions of movement, but Sammaël is not. It looks up on the temporal plane. It looks sideways through Squeemp. An infinity of possibilities. Perhaps it will explore what it is like to be a human on an Earth where vampires are real. Or maybe one with mermaids. Mermaids sound interesting. Especially the big ones. 

Now you’re getting it. 

There are an infinity of lives to experience. Maybe it can repeat what it did with Sam. Not an experiment but… live a life. In another world. Another time. Write a new chapter.

So what’s next? What do you want to do? 

It doesn’t have an answer. The voice, Sammaël knows, is just a part of itself, but the question still burns in what can be loosely described as its head. What does it want to do? It can do anything it wants to, and that is as limiting as it is freeing. It looks across every dimension it can, at creation itself. 

 

Anything, everything is possible. 

 

What do you want to do?