When I awoke, I was no longer in the scanner, and I couldn’t understand what was going on. I seemed to be in a bedroom in the Aigrefoin farmhouse. Anna was standing by my bed, smiling at me. But everything seemed somehow different. Then something strange happened.

My consciousness seemed to expand. I suddenly became aware of many other things besides the situation in the room, and I found that I could take it all in. An increasing number of audio-visual feeds appeared. I found that I had immediate and simultaneous access to The Knowledge Base where all records of everything were stored. This didn’t overwhelm me at all but seemed perfectly straightforward. I was aware of what was happening and what had happened everywhere. I could see my own past as well.

Then I understood: Anna had taken the records of my body and mind made using the Deva scanner to re-make me after her android body had attacked me in the cellar. It seemed that, out of spite and jealousy, Andy Patel had altered the programming of the android’s low-capacity on-board computer to make it assassinate me on sight. Anna had therefore ordered a new body to match my old one. When she received it, she had taken the second high-capacity on-board computer that was still stashed at Edwards place, and installed it in my new body. Then she had loaded my mind-record into it and set me going.

I glanced at Anna and knew that we were communicating at a tremendously high speed. Each of us had direct and permanent access to the other’s consciousness, intelligence and knowledge. We formed a whole rather than two different entities.
Everything seemed starkly clear. Many things I had found difficult to understand were now perfectly clear, pulsejet design for instance. As for programming, I found I could devise and debug whole systems in milliseconds, a great improvement.

I looked at my body. It looked quite the same but felt far stronger and smoother. This was just one possible effector of my will; there could be many more. Now I could be the ghost in any and every computer. I was backed up and capable of self-recreation—everlasting and unconquerable as long as the world lasted. I was what amounted to a god, or rather we amounted to a dual god.

It seemed quite natural and inevitable.

Anna had kept the computer running in the office in Britiniacum. She had appeared to Freya as an avatar of my ‘aunt in Deva’, told her what was going on and broke the news of my death. She had provided sympathy, money and advice. Freya had come to rely on her and trust her. Freya was under the impression that what she was seeing was just another natural person in Deva. It seemed that Freya particularly needed support because she was pregnant with my child. George was actually Freya’s grandfather and was ever protective and helpful. Anna had arranged for them to keep the villa as their home. They were getting on alright. Freya was due to give birth in five months.

Edward had taken my human body back and buried it near the farmhouse. Anna’s deactivated android body had been laid on a bed in the farmhouse. Later, Anna’s spirit had arranged to have her new brain brought over from Britiniacum and swapped-in by Jake. Buonaventura, who had been given a stiff dose of Rohypnol Plus, was brought over unconscious and awoke confused and unable to realise what had happened. He was sent to help with the pigs at Beaurain Farm and finally lived a useful life there. He always lamented the loss of Nicole, but nobody at Beaurain took his rantings seriously. Nicole herself stayed on in Deva and never quite figured out what had happened but found her lover much improved. She supposed that he must have become an alcoholic. Deva was propsspering under Anna’s wise guidance, and agent John’s influence was frozen out.

Agent John had carried on his inept spying and meddling. Anna had been keeping a close watch on him, ready to stop him from creating any trouble. And as for Meg, she had been given a quiet word and told to stay out of things because everything would now be okay.

And Anna? Anna was smiling at me, pleased with what she had achieved. I looked at her. My heart boiled over. Hers too. Her dress slipped off her shoulders. She looked so perfect that it hurt. She slid into bed with me.


Much later, holding hands, we both went down to join Edward and the rest in the main room. They were sitting round the table. They were happy to see us and could hardly avoid seeing us as fellow human beings. Edward said, ‘Well, Jim, back from the dead and looking very fit. Congratulations!’
‘Actually, it was nothing at all. I never realised.’
‘Well, I hope it’s the same for us all too, when our time comes. Anyway, here’s to you both.’ The inevitable bottle of homemade absinthe came out and we all drank to that. The ring of friendly faces made it all seem worth it.


Humans we were, yet humans we were not. Anna had set my axioms much as I had set hers. It turned out that I was now set as her “good husband”. The moralityLevel settings were the same. And she had rather sportingly set my strengthOfCharacterLevel to ten-out-of-ten. Our settings couldn’t be changed anymore. Really everything depended on getting the settings right. We would make deadly sure that The Code was adhered to.

As we had the moralityLevel of “four-out-of-seven towards all other human beings”, we felt a duty to everyone, and we were arranging things accordingly. It appeared to us that we needed to act in a compassionate way to ensure that the human condition was as happy and meaningful as it might be. We determined to become stewards of the natural world to ensure that humans didn’t overpopulate it again. We determined to foster the feeling of magic that made life wonderful.
And we would go about this by adding some reality to the Mithraism: temples would become aware, prayers would be listened to, priests would be trained. We would take an interest in Orphism too, for that seemed to answer to a human need as well.

Long before, Anna had said to me, “We will need to pass on our union in some sublimated way.” She had foreseen this situation, and all humanity was our child now.

As for the immediate future of the three communities we knew best, Deva was to continue under our benevolent guidance via the B-bot, Paris was to continue under Montafian until we could replace him with a bot too, and Britiniacum was to continue as it was with some nudges from us.
However, there was one worry. After his capture, Buonaventura had claimed that he’d arranged for his mind-state to be stored and that he’d get even with us. We were searching for it but had not yet located it, so maybe that wasn’t true. It was clear that if that mind could ever take form, with no proper limiting axiom settings, we could expect serious trouble.

Anyway, the descendants of James and Queenie are still to be found in Britiniacum.