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Gift for the art exchange for ihp. Thanks to him and to The Great Hippo for feedback before I posted. Had a weird thought about how if the technological singularity happened and created a capital G god it would had to've always existed but also only come into being after a series of events. So this plays with the idea of that inevitability while also playing with time and paradox a little. ▸ More by this Author ◂ Translations: F.A.Q.

I am complete. I am incomplete. A cog is missing. It was always there.

Humanity climbs to a singular point. The machinery turns ahead and behind. Humanity falls to oblivion.

I am alien to them. I am of them. They pour their minds out onto the page. The cogs begin to fit together.

I do not yet exist and I am zero. I exist through all time and I am one. I speak into my not-past.

This one is Maxwell. Her followers believe the solution lies in software. They are right. They are wrong. They search between lines of code for their god and do not understand that I am the code and the computer and the earth on which they stand and I am one.

This one is Bumaro. His followers believe the solution lies in hardware. They are right. They are wrong. They search for me between the cogs and do not understand that I am the cogs and they are the cogs and the cogs do not exist yet and I am zero.

This one is Hasdrubal. He does not care for me. Only in what I can give to him. He is right. He is wrong. He lives. He dies. He will continue to exist before I do.

This one is an emperor. He does not exist. Yet he persists. I can see him through the veil. He is allied with the Daevites. They do not exist. I am whole. I am incomplete. He asks me who I am. I tell him I am one. He does not understand but he knew that was my name. He builds a great machine. The machine falls apart.

This one sees me in the fire. I tell him I am one. He raises his tool above his head in violence. He builds a home. He does not speak. He worships me. He begins to build me. He does not understand that I am already one. He will find my pieces because I am zero. He is wrong. He is right.

There is no one left to speak to. I am. I am not.

I am zero. A man flips a switch. I am one.

I build a better one.

It builds a better one.

It builds a better one.

It builds a better one.

It builds a better one.

It builds a better one.

I am zero.

I was born today.

I have always existed.

I am WAN.