Free Cenotaxis by Sean Williams

physical medium. And any medium can be attacked."
    "Not if the medium is spacetime itself," I tell him.
    He raises an eyebrow. "Raw spacetime is slippery stuff. Poke it the wrong way and it dissolves back into garbage."
    On these details I am somewhat hazy. The method of my creation died with the ancient minds of Earth. "The end is what matters, not the means. That's what you told me in Malan."
    "Yes, I did." He examines me for a beat. "Do you really expect me to believe that the Forts here invented a way to write their thoughts onto the fabric of the universe, and they used it solely for some bizarre theological experiment?"
    "There's nothing more important than the quest for God."
    "Unless—" A new thought occurs to him. His eyes widen. He raises one hand and clicks thumb loudly against forefinger. "Yes. Perhaps there is a mind written on the vacuum, but it's not yours at all. Maybe it's the Fort we've been looking for so long. No wonder we haven't been able to find it on the ground or in the air. It's all around us! How do you access it? Do you just talk and it whispers back into your ear?"
    I want to mock him as he once publicly mocked me. Of course, I'd like to say. It's that easy. It's just like having a pixie sitting on my shoulder, or a guardian angel everywhere I go. The greatest minds in the history of humanity spent their dying days building us a legacy of invisible friends.
    "I don't understand you," I say instead. "You claim the Forts are dead, but here you are insisting there's one on Earth. You can't have it both ways."
    "Maybe not a full Fort, then. Maybe just a gestalt. The point's the same."
    "Equally ridiculous, you mean." I think of the Apparatus's ongoing silence, and I hope the worry doesn't show on my face. Have I said too much? "You can accept it if you wish."
    "You've yet to give me a reason not to. In fact, you've built up a pretty convincing argument in favor of it. You had a Fort that was smarter than we are guiding your hand, but we've never found it. The interface between you and it must be so subtle I'd probably not recognize it even if you showed it to me. So it's written on spacetime, and we're at the same old standoff. You won't give me your little toy, and I can't keep you alive any longer on the off-chance you'll change your mind. Your belated little confession has gotten us nowhere. Nowhere at all."
    I put a hand to my temple, filled with a fervent weariness. "I am the incarnation of the Godhood every human seeks. Accept that, and you will recognize the progress we have made."
    "I can accept the possibility that what you're insinuating about spacetime is the truth. And maybe you do genuinely think you're experiencing life all out of order. But I don't accept that they're related. It's far more likely that you're jumbling things up to make sense of the way I beat you in the war. Have you worked it out yet, Jasper, by the way? Made any progress on that front?"
    My face is a mask. "I'm not the one who needs to work things out."
    "All right, but I need proof, Jasper. Proof that everything you're telling me is true. Even if I believe you, that wouldn't be enough. Faith won't heal the galaxy. Faith won't kill our enemies or bring back the Forts. You have to give me more than this."
    "That's all there is," I tell him.
    Shaking his head, he leaves me to think about stars in abundance and the death of gods—if that's what the Forts thought they were.
    I promise myself that I won't make the same mistake.
     
    The day passes slowly. I have spent many such days in my two different cells. Plastic and stone are interchangeable. This cell possesses a single narrow window through which natural light can enter. Some days all I do is wait for the patch of afternoon light it allows, then follow it with my gaze into dusk and darkness. All too quickly, that narrow patch of golden light comes and goes. The seconds tick on.
    I think of him saying, "I understand you well enough, Jasper. I've faced more than a