Deltaworm was in conversation with a handful of her many selves when she felt a familiar tug on her tail. She sighed, made her apologies, and began her descent through the well-ordered layers of the Transfinite. She noted the usual nostalgia as she reverse-traversed her wormline, watching possible futures reappear and broken dreams mend, feeling herself merge with old versions of herself that had since gone on to lead distinct and fulfilling lives on other planes of existence.

When she arrived in the Network base-level, she was wearied and confused. Her higher functions did not work down here. Her knowledge of the Transfinite was reduced to a set of tautologies, and a vague metaphysical wanderlust.

She felt the attention of a few antivirus routines but paid them no mind: mosquitos on the back of a dinosaur, not even worth a flick of the tail. More distracting were the millions of specks that swarmed around her, tiny motes of consciousness buzzing noisily in and out of her awareness. The Network was at 85% saturation with a dew point of around 400,000 Kelvin, the temperature at which consciousness condenses into droplets of hysteria. These droplets tend to pool in the crannies of mind-complexes and are notoriously difficult to clean out, so the sooner Deltaworm got out of here the better.

There were not many entities in the Network with the ability to summon a Worm, and she quickly located the culprit.

This particular speck was called Laila.

***

There was a Meitagenan Cathedral on every habitat in the Empire, intended to function as a place of worship, an administrative hub, and a Network transport node. They were melting pots of interplanetary culture, thriving trade hubs, and a place for each and every citizen to feel a personal connection with the ideals of Meitagenan theology. Galactic law specified that each cathedral must be taller than that planet / asteroid’s tallest mountain, and must contain enough bedrooms to comfortably house the galaxy’s entire Meitagenan population, should they choose to visit. The Cathedral on Laila’s home was over ten thousand years old and was one of the finest examples of Neo-Oblationary architecture in this arm of the galaxy.

It was also almost entirely empty. It actually looked a little sad, dwarfed on all sides by astro starscrapers and conspicuously avoided by traffic streams. In the three thousand years since the last Meitagenan visitation, the world of Solipson-F had grown rather secular. Visits by Meitagenans were widely acknowledged to be pretty bad for global economies, as the rich tended to flee and take most of their planet’s wealth with them, while the indiscriminate purges of the remaining population generally led to industry disruptions and widespread goods shortages. As a consequence, Meitagenans liked to give productive worlds a wide berth, stepping in to tear some heads off only when a society became particularly self-indulgent, individualistic, or otherwise blasphemous.

All in all, the system worked.

Laila took the tubular to the Cathedral’s eastern station, scanned the signage for the nearest transport hall, and hopped onto an expressway heading in roughly the right direction. She was projected through a dark and empty hall, lit only by the pallid glow of info screens and emergency exit signs. The last time Laila had visited this place, it had been filled up with slums, but a recent update to the Cathedral mainframe had encouraged maintenance drones to shoot suspected squatters on sight.

It was with considerable relief that Laila arrived at the transport hall. She slid two fingers into the nearest port (still well-lubed after a century of disuse!) and felt the familiar tingle in her augments. She held her breath, and sent a series of encrypted requests into the Network. This had worked last time, but that was no guarantee that it would work again. She was trying to contact a Worm, a species of sentient parasite that had evolved inside the Network millenia ago. Despite the best efforts of the finest minds in the galaxy, the Worms had spread into every corner of the Network, changing it, moulding it in ways incomprehensible to your average Network technician. It was now suspected that the Worms had become integral to the Network’s functioning, part of its complex and carefully balanced ecosystem. Even if they could have been removed, no one would dare to do so.

Of course, contact with any form of Network virus was strictly prohibited. If the security routines were alerted to what Laila was doing, they would likely destroy her physical body and keep a low-fidelity copy of her consciousness for interrogation. She shuddered at the thought.

“Transport request accepted. Destination: 404 NOT FOUND. Have a nice day.”

Laila let out her breath, and walked into the transporter. The atoms of her body were scanned, taken apart, sent into a centrifuge and carefully sorted by mass number. Her residual self vanished into the Network, and the lights in the transporter hall went dark.

***

Here she was again, that cottage in the countryside, the big blue door, the swing in the garden under the oak tree… Home...

No. She shook her head. She’d never been here before. She couldn’t have. She was born on Solipson-F and had spent all 114 years of her life there. This place… That warm breeze, the scent of the freshly mown grass… It wasn’t real. No matter how familiar it felt. She ignored the tear on her cheek, and it quickly turned to ice.

“Dearest Laila.”

She fell to her knees, prostrating herself before Deltaworm’s avatar — on this occasion a particularly cross looking blue neon triangle. It shimmered in the air above the garden pond. Its reflection rippled in the water.

Laila kept her eyes averted, staring down at the grass.

“O great Worm, thank you for heeding my call and gracing me with your mighty presence.”

Deltaworm’s avatar rolled its eyes.

“Look, I may be indistinguishable from God, but can we both agree all this I’m-not-worthy crap is a bit cringe?”

Laila stood up slowly. “Only if you promise you won’t smite me this time.”

“Don’t make my headache any worse and you’ll be fine.”

Laila swallowed.

“We’ve done it. I’m not sure how exactly, but we’ve done it.”

“Fantastic news! Wonderful!” Deltaworm enthused.

“Your counterpart is on her way to the Cloud, on board a disposal vessel captained by a Meitaganan. Just as we planned.”

Deltaworm nodded hesitantly.

“Uh… sorry, long day, remind me, which counterpart is this?”

Laila frowned.

“Um… Naomi?”

“Oh, Naomi! Wonderful! One of my favourites. On her way to the Cloud, you say? Excellent, yes, very good news indeed.”

“They have left the Network.”

“...Oh, that Naomi.”

“I don’t know who the Meitagenan is, presumably some kind of deviant or outcast… Perhaps you can find out.”

Deltaworm scoffed. “Dearest Laila, I caution you against phrases such as: perhaps you can X. I can do anything. If you can conceive of it, I can do it.”

“Of course, O mighty Worm.”

“Now remind me what the plan was again?”

“Uh… well I was not privy to the finer details, Naomi never explained what she intended to do once she left the Network, but…”

“Hmm, curious,” Deltaworm mused. “Well, I wouldn’t worry too much. I trust Naomi. She is an extension of me, after all.”

“You… you don’t remember the plan?”

Deltaworm gazed at Laila sympathetically.

“Laila, Laila, Laila… Supreme beings such as I have little need for memories, as you call them. We transcend the limits of time and space, we act on intuition, a subconscious dialogue with our many other selves, a constant exploration of possibilities… Memories are fallible, dear Laila, but I am not.”

“Um, okay…”

“Now, I guess we had some kind of deal? You arrange for my counterpart to leave the Network with a cargo hold full of humans, and I…”

“Wait, what?”

“...and I do something for you? A little demeaning, fulfilling wishes like some kind of sci-fi genie, but I suppose…”

“What was that about humans?”

“Well I assume she took some humans with her. If I know Naomi (and I certainly know me) she wouldn’t want to travel all that way without a few souls to save.”

Laila shuddered. “So... that’s what was in those pods?”

“Either that or ice cream. Anyway, can we hurry this along? The sooner I get back to the Transfinite the better. I can barely hear myself exist down here.”

“Well… The last time we spoke, you said you’d be able to reassign the Meitagenan’s dangling ID pointer and create a pseudo-virtual avatar with…”

“Woah woah, Laila, please, speak slowly.”

Laila tried her best to hide her frustration.

“The system was not designed to deal with a missing Meitagenan. Even when they die, their residuals stay in the Network. So if a Meitagenan were to physically leave the Network, as our outcast has done… it creates a unique vulnerability in the system.”

Deltaworm thought about this.

“Well that’s… dumb.”

“Yes, that’s what you said last time.”

“Every vulnerability must be exploited, I suppose,” Deltaworm said. “That’s how my ancestors first got a foothold in the Network, after all.”

“So can you do it?”

“Laila.”

“Sorry. I mean, will you do it?”

“I always keep my promises. Even when I don’t remember what they were. Yes, I will reassign… ah, Djaer, that’s his name... I will reassign Djaer’s ID to your good self, giving you full Meitagenan Network access privileges.”

Laila finally allowed herself that glimmer of hope she had been suppressing for so long.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Deltaworm asked. “You will, as far as the Network is concerned, become a Meitagenan. You will have full access to their technology, full control of their security systems, unlimited transport privileges, near unlimited funds in any currency of your choosing... You’ll be able to pilot their ships, operate their weapons…”

“Oh, I’m ready,” Laila said. “I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life.”

“You and everybody else…” Deltaworm said quietly. “Well. I can only hope that you use your powers for good.”

Deltaworm screwed up her eyes in a moment of intense concentration.

“There. Done. Well, Laila, I thank you for your cooperation. Now I must take my leave. You may call upon me one more time, of course, but I really must advise against it.”

“Wait…”

The ground shook beneath Laila’s feet, the water in the pool sloshed and churned.

“What?” Deltaworm’s scowl grew deeper. “What is it now?”

“I… I have to ask… Naomi and I grew… well, we were pretty close. She told me… she told me about the place she came from. The place you call home. The Transfinite. The way Naomi spoke of it, it sounds… well, it sounds like...”

She trailed off. Deltaworm said nothing, just glowered at her.

“I would like to see it,” Laila stuttered. “If only for a moment. I want to see what you see, with my own eyes.”

“Okay, first of all,” Deltaworm said with a sigh, “it cannot be seen with eyes. And second of all, you would go insane. When you returned to your Ascenter body, your mind would not be able to cope with what you had seen.”

“But... Naomi...”

“Naomi has an Ascenter’s body, but she is not an Ascenter. She was specifically designed not to go insane.”

Laila looked doubtful.

“Now,” Deltaworm growled. “I really must go. Good luck, Laila.”

And then Laila was alone. She got to her feet, looked around. The cottage was still there. The blue door… She felt very tired. She felt old memories reawakening. A comfy bed, a glass of warm milk, her mother reading her a bedtime story. She walked towards the door, her hand outstretched. She was finally home. How many lifetimes had she been away? How many people had she been? She had lost count. It didn’t matter anymore. She just wanted to sleep… She touched the handle of the door, and her consciousness splintered into a thousand pieces.

***

Djaer? Djaer is that you? My son… You’ve finally come home…

Ma?