Name: Tei

Existence for Tei began moments ago. He appeared in a digital space with four others. A small meerkat was calmly explaining something to a half robot half duck who seemed to be trying to kill the meerkat with his glare. Tei knew that he would be trying to use his body as well if it wasn’t for a rough-looking bat standing between them, glaring menacingly at that “duck.” An owl stood to the side, watching with an equal mix of compassion and frustration. None of this situation surprised or confused Tei, as he had been programmed by the prison guard Benjamine Lévêque to handle this exact scenario.

This meerkat, whom Tei knew to be the prophet Manu Gensi, and the cyborg duck, whom Tei knew to be Miri 9, led a band of misfits on her mission to kill the prophet, both had been stuck in their own personal metaverse for far too long. They had been placed there with the hopes that they would safely settle their differences. Miri 9 straightforward programming of a mission to save the galaxy had caused her to view Manu Gensi as a threat. Everyone said he was going to save the galaxy, and if he saved the galaxy, that would mean that she didn’t, and she would have failed in her mission and failed her creator. So naturally, she realized she had to kill the prophet to prevent that.

The prophet and everyone else had explained that Miri 9 could save the galaxy together with him, that his success wouldn’t mean her failure. She accepted on a base level that this was a possibility. But what if he did it without her? She still believed the highest probability of success in her mission would be with him dead. Tei was here to attempt the seemingly impossible task of getting her to change her opinion on that.

He asked the bat he knew as Baku to hold her down. Miri 9 did not like that idea and killed Baku the moment he approached her. Baku rematerialized, and as his code allowed, him too being a program made by the jailer Benjamine Lévêque, he multiplied himself into dozens of bats. Miri 9 killed a staggeringly high amount of them before eventually tiring. Tei then calmly walked directly to the subdued Miri 9 and placed his large head directly in front of her. His petals reached out, blocking everything from her view, forcing her to look directly into his one great eye.

Miri 9 saw the future, or rather a simulation of it. In the simulation, she didn’t give up her fight with the prophet Manu, and they never left their private digital prison. She saw time go by outside in meat space, and without her or the prophet, she saw the galaxy crumble. Then the simulation repeated, with another view of the future, with another galactic catastrophe, and again with her stubbornness keeping the both of them from doing anything as the galaxy ended. It played again and then again. With Miri 9s mental computing power as high as it was, she’d go through an entire simulation of the future in only a couple of moments. Each time the result was the same, with her and Manu here, the galaxy metaphorically, and once literally, blew up.

Millions of simulations later, Tei adjusted one variable. Now the visions Miri 9 was seeing involved a future where she ended her vendetta against Manu right here and now. This time she now saw variations of the future that didn’t all end in total destruction. After only hundreds of these, she called for Tei to stop. He stepped back and motioned for the Baku multitude to let go of her.

“May I go home now? I’ve completed my mission.” Miri 9 asked her captors, speaking loudly so that whoever was out there would also hear. “A lack of action is an action. The inactive action I have decided to take is to not kill the prophet. That is my part in saving the galaxy. You are welcome, everyone.”

“Congratulations on fulfilling your mission in life. That is something few ever do.” The prophet said to her with a smile. “That being said, now that you have no mission, I would be honored to have you join me on mine.”

“I’ll think about it.” Miri 9 said matter of factly back to him before turning again to face her captors, this time shouting. “NOW GET ME OUT OF HERE. I WANT TO SEE MY FRIENDS!”