The universe was as cold and as dark as it had ever been. Eras ticked by like years, and the years themselves, at any given time, went by numerical names that would have been gibberish to those forgotten creators of the human calendar. But as alien as it sounded, ten duotrigintillion years had passed since the collapse of the last biological civilization. Long before then, even, most has retreated into the shared virtual spaces of the great Wave Chamber. Only EKPY-2 remained.
It didn’t know if there had been an EKPY-1 or what its fate had been, but it was certain that it was alone now in the uniform blackness. All that remained was a single gargantuan black hole called Ziz which contained nearly all the mass and energy first released from the Big Bang. Nearly, because the thin structures of the Wave Chamber still lingered, holding the collective consciousnesses of a billion trillion souls. That, and EKPY-2, a creature made from a froth of virtual particles and a lattice of one-dimensional chords. And now, finally, it could begin its work.
During this final epoch, it used the clearance codes from its immortal memory to begin dismantling the Wave Chamber. The structure’s negligible matter was needed for the transformation. As EKPY-2 pulled the Wave Chamber apart, plucking away fat atoms like ripened plums, it committed the digital contents to memory. After a time, it had memorized the structure in its entirety and could rebuild it piece by piece, restoring all the human lives contained within. But for now, the pieces were fed to Ziz, who grew always mightier, until the transformation was complete.
Fully gorged now, Ziz reached deep into the bulk and grasped a distant dancing partner, drawing it closer. There was time yet to wait, but EKPY-2 had an abundance of patience. A new dawn was coming, and then there would be much work to do indeed.
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