6

Eugeo was standing in a dark, unfamiliar hallway.

But he wasn’t alone.

Holding his left hand was Alice, wearing her blue dress, beaming back at him.

He squeezed her hand a bit harder and told his childhood friend, “I guess…this was for the best.”

Alice nodded vigorously, shaking the ribbon that held her golden hair in place. “Yes. We can leave the rest to those two. I’m sure they’ll guide the world in the right direction.”

“Yeah. So…shall we go?”

“Okay.”

Somehow, he was back to his youthful form again. He and the girl his age and height walked hand in hand down the hallway in the direction of the distant light.

And in that instant…

The durability value of the human unit designated NND7-6361 dropped to zero.

Upon receiving that signal, the program that controlled the Lightcube Cluster issued a single order to the cube that held the corresponding fluctlight. The interface faithfully executed its order, reinitializing the praseodymium crystal structure.

Over ten billion cubits of photons glowed at once and dispersed.

A soul named Eugeo, who hadn’t lived even twenty years of subjective time, was freed forever from the little cube.

And at the same time, another lightcube located far away from his own was similarly processed.

That lightcube, produced through improper system operation using memories extracted from the soul named Alice Zuberg, was also freed from its crystal prison.

Where the amalgamation of photons that made up those two souls disappeared to was a question no one could answer.