She is up like she’s been launched, yelping and slapping at her own face. It’s in there, whatever it is, moving around like it owns the place. She goes in after it with Roche’s finger, thinking that this may very well be the most awful sensation she’s ever experienced—which is really saying something after the last few days—and then with a final explosion of breath it’s gone. Sarya stands, eyes wide open, hands on her nose and salt tracks on her face, in the middle of a forest.
And five meters from the end of the universe.
She stares for a long moment, hands still cupped protectively over a nose that may never be the same. Here, in the green abundance of the forest, reality gives way to utter blackness. Whatever this thing is, it’s blacker than the void. In fact, she is rapidly realizing that she has never even conceived of black before. The path she stands on—the entire forest, maybe the entire universe—ends here, in a wall of black so deep it’s hard to look away. It soars above her as well, but there is no way to tell how high it goes. She is suddenly seized with the impression that this thing goes up for lightyears; there are no visual clues to tell her otherwise.
Behind her comes the sound of what could only be a small throat being cleared. “Sarya the Daughter!” says the voice, more loudly. “Welcome!”
And now Sarya turns, pulling her eyes from the end of the universe to see two almost-familiar figures standing behind her. At this point, she has seen hundreds of thousands of Observers, from multiple points of view, across decades, in locations spread across untold lightyears, and she has never seen any kind of variation—until now. These two are different. They wear what looks like handmade clothing instead of Observer’s identical tunics, and their hair is…well, unique is one way to put it. One is shaved shiny bald, and the other has the wildest explosion of white hair that Sarya has ever seen.
“What’s wrong with her nose?” asks the hairy one out of the side of its mouth.
She drops her hands. “Observer?” she says.
“That’s your first question?” asks the bald one. “Not…why am I alive? How am I here? Whatever happened to the Network? That kind of thing?”
Come to think of it, those are also excellent questions. “Okay,” she says. “So…all of those things too.”
“You’re alive because the boss saved you,” says the hairy one, smiling kindly. “And the boss saved you because you eviscerated the Network—”
“In all the systems connected to that Blackstar up there, at least,” says the bald one, pointing upward.
“But that’s a lot,” says the bald one, its smile growing. “So…good job on that.”
She feels herself begin to smile. Eviscerated the Network, they said. Multiple systems, even. Not bad for the little Human from Watertower.
“As for your first question,” says the hairy one, still smiling, “we are…well, whatever you want to call us. We’re not old enough to join the collective, so we’re not Observer yet. That’s why we’re here. We’re your welcoming committee.”
“Right,” says the bald one without expression. “Welcome.”
Sarya stares at them, intrigued. Two individuals, with individual personalities, soon to join the mind of Observer. “Do you want to become Observer?” she asks.
The two glance at each other. The bald one flicks its eyes toward the treetops.
“Of course,” they say together.
“Okay…” Sarya says, resisting the urge to glance into the treetops herself. “But right now you’re not Observer. So do I just call you…Hairy and Baldy?”
They look at each other without speaking.
“Okay, I can do better,” says Sarya. “How about…” She points to the hairy one on her left. “How about…Left?”
“Why not!” says Left, all smiles.
“Let me guess,” says the other. “I’m still Baldy.”
Left grins at its partner, hair waving in the forest breeze. “Hey, you’re Right!”
“No,” says Right. “I’m pretty sure I’m— Wait a minute.”
“He’s a little slow,” says Left in a theatrical whisper.
“Listen, you hairy little—”
“Hey,” says Sarya, butting in before her spur-of-the-moment inspiration turns to blood. “So…you’re the welcoming committee, you said?”
“We are!” says Left with a wide smile. It’s the same expression that Sarya has seen on countless Observer faces, and yet somehow this one is different. There’s individuality here, and that’s something she has never seen on an Observer.
There is no smile on Right’s small face, but its stern look is equally individual. “Yeah,” it says. “We’re supposed to keep you from being overwhelmed. The boss is the biggest He’s ever been right now—”
“Trillions of minds!” says Left. “All drawn together for the first time!”
“—and He didn’t want you to…panic.”
And now Sarya does glance upward, into the glowing backlit leaves of the forest. “Oh, please,” she calls upward. As if she can’t handle a little conversation with an oversize mind.
“But He did want you to be impressed,” Left says. “He wanted your wake-up experience to be dramatic, but not heart-attack-dramatic, and also not disappointing-dramatic. We thought this would be a good spot. What did you think?”
Its little face looks so hopeful that Sarya can’t help but reassure it. “It was…great,” she says. “Very dramatic. I like the, um—” She hitches a thumb over her shoulder.
“The terrifying wall of darkness?” asks Right. “My idea.”
“It was both of our idea,” says Left. “Anyway. The boss said you’d have questions, and He told us we should try to answer them. So go ahead. Any question you can think of.”
It takes about a quarter second for Sarya to come up with her first question. She may have a million of them in her head, but they all boil down to one: the question at the very foundation of her existence. She swallows, almost afraid to ask.
“No,” says Right, before she can say a word.
Sarya blinks. “No?”
Its partner elbows it in the side. “She didn’t even—”
“She was going to ask if she was in the Human colony,” says Right, scratching its bald head. “And she’s not. The colony’s up there somewhere,” it says, pointing straight up. “Nearby. But there are no Humans here, except you. For now, at least.”