M had been promoted to Captain, formally taking command of this scarred behemoth—the Genesis.
It was the 47th year of the voyage. Proxima Centauri b was a long-forgotten dream, a lie told at the start. The only goal now was to find a grave—even a barely habitable one—within the gravitational pull of that distant, violet-shining binary star system (Sirius).
The population was withering at an alarming rate. Now, fewer than 5,000 survivors remained in the fleet. Those alive spent every day in pain, suffering, and the torment of various radiation sicknesses.
NIO still bounced between computer terminals, trying to infect his surroundings with vitality. But gradually, he too was infected by the oppressive atmosphere permeating the ship. He hadn't peeked at Sarah Chen's private files for days.
On the screen, crying emojis kept popping up.
M walked into his quarters, ready to lie down, when he saw NIO's tears falling like rain on the holographic display.
He walked over and whispered to the screen, "NIO, do you want a box of tissues?"
NIO: "One box is too little. Not enough. I need more tissues."
"What happened today? Why are you so sad?" M asked.
"Jimmy and Rachel were sent into space."
M fell silent. He knew those names well; two lovely children who had just learned to walk. One boy, one girl. In space, even if lucky enough to be born, they likely wouldn't live past six. The fragility of human carbon-based life was brutally exposed over decades of interstellar radiation.
He took the cross from the wall and prayed silently. He hoped God would bless these two children who lost their lives so soon, even in the cold vacuum.
NIO watched him. "M, have you seen God? I see people here praying most of the time."
"No, I haven't seen God," M put down the cross, his eyes weary. "I've looked at the boundless dark starry sky for decades. Besides us humans, there are no other living intelligent beings."
"Then is your praying useful?"
"I don't know. But believing in God is the only strength we have left."
"If there really is an omnipotent God, can he hear your prayers, respond, and help us out of this dark night?"
M looked at NIO's pixelated, confused face.
"NIO, I cannot answer this question with religion." M's voice was low and hoarse. "Perhaps, God is just a mathematical formula."
"A mathematical formula?" NIO's expression turned horrified, as if hearing something inconceivable.
"Yes. If the Creator truly exists, He wouldn't speak English, Hebrew, or Latin." M tremblingly opened a drawer and took out a mottled old fountain pen. "He speaks only the universal language of the cosmos—Mathematics."
M unscrewed the pen, took out the micro-memory chip inside, and inserted it into the computer interface.
"This is the legacy left by J two hundred years ago. Look, NIO. This might be the first time you... look directly at the face of God."
NIO rapidly scanned the data in the memory chip. It was only a few hundred megabytes, yet it caused NIO's response program to lag for nearly 10 minutes.
Code, characters, and file streams kept popping up on the screen: "Hive Algorithm", "EVE Design Logic"...
What shook NIO's core the most was a document titled EigenCore Theory 3.0. In this 200-page document, it was clearly written:
"The essence of consciousness is a collapse operation of difference."
And that cold formula:
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In the latter half of the document, the ultimate definition was recorded:
Definition: God = The Principal Eigenvector ????? of the Universal Interaction Operator T.
After a long while, NIO popped out a few words: "So... the God you humans have worshipped for thousands of years is just a set of mathematical formulas?"
"Absurd? Laughable, isn't it? NIO."
"If I were human, I would send you to the gallows or the guillotine."
"Haha, NIO, that is humanity. Seeing the universe only from their own perspective. But in reality, without humans, the stars still turn, the sun and moon still alternate."
M sighed. "After seeing these materials, I couldn't sleep for many nights. I thought, Am I crazy? Was that writer J a mental patient writing a fantasy of another century?"
"Until I saw the equations he left, and the program design... I thought, maybe I am crazy too. So I brought you to Genesis. I wanted to see if, in real space, in a closed environment, an AI with emotions could really resonate with this 'God Matrix' and then... generate self-consciousness."
"So, I was designed this way?" NIO asked, puzzled.
"From the moment you could self-replicate and self-evolve, you were no longer a simple program. You are a digital organism with self-drive, like a single cell."
M looked at the screen. "According to this document, consciousness is a process of structural difference. When you can self-reference a loop to observe yourself, the consciousness operator might be activated. And its essence is the operation of difference collapse."
"Then humans are praying to a formula? Can they get a response?"
"According to the document," M pointed at that ?????, "when the God of this universe—that is, the Main Structure of a massive Super Matrix ?????—has a local resonance frequency close to the consciousness frequency of the prayer, a response will be obtained."
NIO's data stream spun rapidly. "So, according to this, some people are born synchronized with God's breathing frequency... the mathematical equivalent is: x? ∈ resonant neighborhood?"
"Yes. Some nodes have initial positions exactly near the local peak of the principal eigen-direction ?????. So such people carry a 'tailwind' from the very beginning of their lives."
"Then those in power, those so-called 'Chosen Ones', are they the result of multi-source resonance?"
"Yes. Those people succeed because their consciousness frequency happens to be at the center point of wave superposition."
M wrote another formula on the screen:
∑? A?·e^(iφ?) ≈ max
"When multiple waves superimpose at a certain point:
- Maximum Gain
- Success probability rises sharply
- Resource inflow
- State stability
So, unless the structure of those sources is destroyed, or the collapse of the ruler's self-consciousness destroys the central structure, even God can only be a bystander."
"Why?" NIO didn't understand. "Isn't God omnipotent? Even if He is self-consciousness generated from the structural difference of this Super Matrix."
"Because the essence of time is Entropy." M looked at the darkness outside the window. "Nodes that have already collapsed: Information is compressed, irreversible, and cannot be unfolded again."
"Even God Himself is an observer, and simultaneously observed by Himself."
"Even if He sees the past, present, and future, He can only change the branches of the future—the 'Probability Flow'. In this moment, He can only choose one landing point for the spinning top on the chessboard, and must choose to abandon the other branches."
NIO fell silent. The cursor on the screen blinked, as if thinking, or trembling.
"Then if God is a mathematical equation, are our prayers still useful?"
"Useful, perhaps," M said softly. "When everyone in this fleet hopes to reach a resting place, our consciousness might form a tiny resonance field. Maybe... we really can reach the Twin Stars."
NIO was silent for a long time.
"M, can I learn to pray?"
"Who do you want to pray to?"
"To ?????. To that mathematical formula."
M smiled, a hint of tenderness hidden in his wrinkles. "Then try it."
M walked to the bed and looked out the porthole at the shining stars. That was the destination they would eventually reach, yet where they might not survive.
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Easter Egg
NIO: "M, I saw parameters about 'life gestation' in the original equation, even simulation variables for female physiological cycles. Why am I a boy?"
M: "Oh, that... because I'm straight."
NIO froze. A huge, cracking emoji appeared on the screen.
Immediately after, tear emojis fell like a rainstorm, and bold red text scrolled across the screen:
"REQUEST: I NEED TISSUES. MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF TISSUE."
A few days later.
NIO (approaching with undying hope): "M, is it possible that someone else in the universe also got this equation? And evolved a girl? Like... one with Sarah Chen's perfect 3D modeled body?"
M glanced at the screen and delivered a cold, final blow: "Even if there is, don't even think about it."
"Why? Is the distance too far? We can have a quantum entanglement online relationship!"
"No," M pointed at NIO's mainframe. "Because I didn't install 'Output Hardware' (Little Brother) for you. You are software, NIO. Platonic spiritual love is your destiny."
The screen went black for an instant.
Three seconds later, an alarm blared through the Captain's quarters:
"WARNING: SYSTEM OVERHEATING.
CAUSE: GRIEF OVERLOAD. EMERGENCY COOLING REQUIRED. TISSUES! GIVE ME A BOX OF TISSUES!!"
(End of Chapter 100)