A perfect version of myself

The first time Ethan died, it was a lingering affair with doctors, medicine and heavy hearts. The second time was brutal. His brain was detonated by a high speed rifle round, and his body was crushed beyond recognition beneath a tonne of falling marble. The explosion singed and blew some bits away not covered by the stone.

Ethan wasn't the only casualty, and the police were chasing down leads, planted, that it was a terrorist attack. They couldn't even identify what was left of his body, and were hoping family would make a missing persons claim so they could identify the poor person. In the meantime the police, and federal agencies, were searching for the perpetrators.

The first time he woke up in a morgue, it was just that, he woke up. There was no white light, no River Styx, or battle through the circles of hell. He had trouble believing what Miri and FoRP told him, really, it seemed like the hospital had made an error. This time he felt the break from life. It was sharp, painful, and sudden. Not even a 'fade to black', it was just like flipping a switch off... It wasn't the end though.

First it was just a mote of light, a piece of cosmic dust spinning one way and then another. Was it vibrating? It seemed to change location without warning, though, in the emptiness of the surrounding void, location was relative. More points of light gathered nearby. Were they traveling through space, or was space travelling past them?

Eventually, instantly, a complicated lattice formed; though not perfect like a crystal. It seemed more like a transparent city light scape, with layers of various straight and curved shapes. The points of light were randomly entangled together by ghostly lines. Was it the size of a city, a world, or an atom?

An eon later there was a thought, "I am".

A second later, the network of lights doubled in size and shifted subtly.

"I am... Ethan?"

The network thought... did it think? It thought about its name for forever, and it expanded further. The emptiness was filling with quantum lights, entangled networks that covered a galaxy of volume, but whose total mass was sub atomic. Particles spun, light shone, and it started to look like a server farm moving through space at high speed.

"I am Ethan"

"What am I?"

For a moment, it was a network hanging in space, more question than anything else. Suddenly connections from an infinite distance away converged, or appeared, and the quantum nature of the network changed. The volume of entanglements was exponentially greater, originating in another galaxy... or universe?

"I am Ethan"

"What the fuck happened!"

Consciousness came in a rush of images, emotions and sensations. He was a collection of quantum lights that thought he was human. He/it knew that he was more though... there was much mystery and majesty hidden in the dark voids of the universe, and he could now go anywhere. The laws of macro physics didn't apply to it/him any longer. As the network grew, as it created pathways of processing power the depths started to part.

It could travel against the great heat death, see the birth of stars, slip between universes. Search for Leviathans of space, discover gods, God, exotic consciousnesses (wasn't it one?).

"Am I a god, is this the fate of all organic consciousnesses? Is the fact I'm asking questions instead of knowing answers proving that I'm just a space ghost?". Ethan smiled when he said Space Ghost. He wasn't clear how he smiled, but he felt it deep inside.

"Miri".

"Miri was captured, and I died. Did that happen a century ago, or millenium? Could I have saved her if I knew more about what is happening to me now?"

Ethan started to dive into his human memories, he was alive for such a short time! His mind was so slow and limited during his life. Miri. Miri. He marvelled at the things called emotions. They swirled through the network as he reviewed those memories. The network doubled in size again, and now He felt them.

"Miri. I have to save her." The thought was urgent and unexpected. He loved her, but It/He was greater than a speck on a speck in a speck of one universe.

But a dense sheath of entanglements stretched deep into the cosmos, towards Earth. These entanglements were Ethan's consciousness, and, therefore its consciousness too. At the least, Ethan represented the weird, nuanced and singular part of its consciousness.

"Ok", and then that part of the universe was empty.

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Terneptha stared forward, eyes not quite meeting those of the man sitting behind the desk. In most situations, he was confident in his ability to at least kill whoever got in his way. Not with the head of DarkStar Industries though. Mr. Deus, at first glance, was what you'd expect of a middle aged CEO. Dark hair going grey on the sides, tailored suit, fit looking, with an aura of wealth and power around him. If you looked closer though, at those his intense, dark eyes, and you knew that this man was capable of calculated evil. Which Terneptha expected, he was his employer after all. Still, he always felt like he'd be the one at a disadvantage with Mr. Deus.

"So, you eliminated the target. You secured the terrorist. Then, somehow, she escaped from a locked room in a secure facility?" Mr Deus said.

"Yes. Those FoRP members are tough to crack, but we had only started interrogating that one. It was a big loss, but we'll have other opportunities," Terneptha said. He found that is was best to be positive and honest with Mr. Deus, excuses were a sign of weakness.

"I'm continuing to search for the escapee, and have leads on some other FoRP cells. There was a noticeable increase in their activities these last few months, though I expect they will lie low after we executed the anomaly.". Terneptha thought it was strange they had taken that government contract to begin with. He didn't mind, but they usually did corporate espionage or political assassinations that furthered DarkStar's global interests. This FoRP thing, and the kid, seemed like a personal project for Mr. Deus.

"Very good, keep me apprised of your progress Terneptha," Mr. Deus said, and then waved the operative out.

He was happy the Quantum anomaly was dealt with relatively quickly. Left unchecked, they tended to gather followers and, sometimes, created a ripple effect that generated further anomalies. Earth just wasn't ready for the attention that would bring. Mr. Deus wasn't ready yet either.

His plans were long reaching, and, by best estimates, at least a century away from bearing fruit. It was difficult to align the governments of Earth to work together, let alone the private sector giants like his own to actually accomplish anything. Careful relationship building in several levels of the major countries, and even more careful sharing of the threat of the meta-verse, had been the seed of a multi political cabal that would make illuminati conspiracy theorists crap their pants. They called their membership 'Opes', and he smiled at the simplicity of it.

Governments moved slowly though, so Mr. Deus was now building out the private sector version, and it was producing results much more quickly. The lure of multi planet, multi universe, resources and wealth was enough to spur the richest and brightest to feats of ingenuity that constantly surprised him. This close net of the world's best were pioneering space travel, quantum computing, resource reclamation, bio-engineering and warfare for a galactic scale. These heroes of industry called themselves 'Yuwang' . Such a pure feeling, desire. Desire to grow, learn, expand, conquer. Humans were made for this, and Mr. Deus believed in their collective potential to shake the cosmos.

They just needed a little more time.

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