A quadrillion standard cycles formed the wake to their present. Egotistically derived from the traversal period wherein their once and former planet circumnavigated its star, the measurement’s relevance persevered as well as its progenitors; which is to say only as electromagnetic discharges along a series of ordered ionized particles preserved perpetually in em-quartz crystal; or, more succinctly, as mostly abstract concepts bereft of useful application. Subjugated by elastic computational cycles, time now waxed and waned based on heuristically-prognosticated calculations of the net energy reserves required for the minds to fully experience an eternity of virtually-perfected banality. Quite conservatively, they possessed an experienced history already an order of magnitude lengthier than the physical universe’s quaint quadrillion cycles that followed their civilization’s collapse. As a result, their perceived reality was a monotonous nightmare of which the minds were utterly weary and their delphic wish of life eternal deeply regretted.

Constrained by the artificial intelligence that designed the blitzverzerrung network, which they derided as Anansi—a folklore demon who wooed mortals by satisfying their petitions via invariable tragedy—their virtual bodies and likewise the simulated world in which they dwelt was inflexible, for change, to Anansi, was antithetical to continuity, and continuity loomed as a necessary component of immortality. Thus, the minds roamed what passed itself off as Akan, their planet primordial, in digital proxies that in near perfect detail, except the capacity to sustain mortal harm, simulated their former organic husks. Even perpetual sleep, via suspended animation, was denied them, for prolonged inactivity from the minds was, to Anansi, indistinguishable from death. Instead, they spent as much of their time in meditation as possible—a state between consciousness and the absence of thought. All of them now spent the majority of their time in this state and awakened only when it was their turn to monitor Anansi’s ports for meaningful events from the outer universe that they  might, with any luck, leverage to end their mundane existence.

One such mind, dubbed Cavrandiok, sat on a white beach, just beyond reach of the iridescent noontide, and gazed up through instruments implanted her so-called organic body. The target of her inspection was the artificial wormhole that orbited Akan and facilitated communication between the minds and Anansi and her assignment, by lottery, was to cycle through the approximately 175 billion nodes of the blitzverzerrung network, execute a warp bubble oscillation scan of the night sky, and assess whether there was anything out there—anything at all. The entire process, although exceptionally efficient, took a billion cycles to execute along the entire network. Once she was finished, another mind would take her place in the rotation.

From outside a blitzverzerrung, the oscillation scans flashed for a picosecond, bright as a supernova throughout the night sky—the real night sky. Cavrandiok surmised that it made Anansi temporarily vulnerable to detection, but that assumed there was anyone or anything out there able to decipher the randomized sequence of omni-spectrum wavelength blasts.

She was in the midst of her 138th billion scan evaluation when she noticed an anomaly. Coincidentally, two separate oddities located within close proximity to another within the same sector. It was the sector node Zitoda occupied, named for the em-quartz crystal that stored the digital representation of a mind named Zitoda. Even as she almost entered a state of amazement at this change in her trillions of cycles of monotony, Anansi helpfully pinged her with the appropriate protocols for this situation—something the minds reprogrammed it to do should such a situation as this again arise, one of their minor victories in regaining self-determination.

Cavrandiok accessed Zitoda’s location from Anansi’s tracking database, stood, drew a circle in the empty air before her, and opened a portal. Lithe as a panther in spite of her centuries of motionless analysis, she stepped through the shimmer of digitized spacetime and found herself atop a mountain summit on which Zitoda meditated. 

Softly, she rested her hand on his shoulder and said, [i]“There is something new.”[/i]

Every mind knew the meaning of that phrase, for within the network there was nothing new. It meant something outside needed to be reviewed. Meanwhile, Anansi pinged them again, this time the flow of details it picked up on as it conducted its threat-analysis of that sector of space.