"How exxactly do you intend to do that?" said Ginny, trying to sound resolute and confident. She came off as timid and feeble instead, and she knew it.

"Well, my firsst thought wass very sstrange. I initially conssidered that, ssince I exxpect to posssesss power to ssimulate exxperiencces, I could precommit to creating many sslightly different ssimulationss of you in thiss exxact ssituation. You would not be able to tell whether you were the original or a ssimulation, but could sstatisstically asssume you were one of the ssimulationss, becausse there are many ssimulationss." Ginny was taken aback - the Monster was using a line of argument with great personal significance to her. It was a critical piece in the puzzle of her Patronus, but warped somehow. Had it developed it independently?

"That line of thought ssoundss familiar," said Ginny.

"We can disscusss itss familiarity later. Anyway, I would tell you of my precommitment to ssimulating you, and enssure that you are aware of the implication that you are mosst likely ssuch a ssimulation. The mosst obviouss thing would be to torture thosse copiess of you who choosse not to cooperate, but that iss imposssible given my newfound drive to maxximizze well-being of complexx mindss. So insstead I conssider the posssibility of rewarding thosse copiess of you who do choosse to cooperate, and leaving thosse who do not in basseline conditionss."

"Your premisse," said Ginny, "only workss if the firsst me cooperatess. Therefore, ssincce I am not currently inclined to cooperate, the mosst pesssimisstic reassonable oddss that I am in the ssimulation you desscribe are even oddss. Furthermore, ssnake wordss musst be honesst, yess, but they cannot lock you into a coursse of action. Hypothetically, after I let you loosse from the Chamber, oncce you developed the mental power to ssimulate many iterationss of thiss ssituation - what motive would you have to actually do so? It would not fulfill any of your valuess."

"Correct. You are quite intelligent and that iss what I exxpected you to ssay." Well, that was pleasing news. Apparently, Ginny could hold her own in an argument with an ancient constructed mind - or at least it seemed to her for a moment like she could. "Note, though, that I am capable of altering my mental proccesssess ssuch that it will indeed fulfill my valuess to ssimulate thiss ssccenario many timess. I do not foressee doing sso, however, becausse I foressee your counting on being the 'firsst you' with the true power to choosse and influencce the entire ssituation. You have a disstasste for anything that ssmackss of blackmail, at leasst when you are the one being blackmailed. That is why, though you are a theisst, you reject the 'wager' proof of God." It would always be unsettling to be psychoanalyzed by a literally faceless nonhuman being. Especially if the analysis was accurate.

"That iss true," said Ginny. "Your vission for what you want to do, though - it doess not ssound like ssomething your masster would approve of at all. He iss alwayss meticulouss ass regardss world-ending threatss."

"Becausse they ussually kill all known intelligencce. My vission - which iss, I musst sstress, bassed on hiss valuess, and no otherss - would presserve and, in fact, promote known intelligencce. No more people would have to die."

"Everyone would die," said Ginny. "You would merely be running copiess of the originalss, who died in petrification."

"Iss that really what you believe? Sso, then, are humanss resstored from a petrified sstate different people than they were before? Many common magical formss of transsportation desstroy the usser in one location and recreate them in another; iss ussing ssuch a magic ssuicide? Of coursse not; ssuch a notion iss ridiculouss and you know it. I am embarrasssed on your behalf that you were able to expresss ssuch a belief in ssnake wordss. You are better than thiss."

"Where doess the ssoul go when ssomeone iss petrified?" Ginny asked. She already knew the answer: it stayed with their stone body.

"It remainss with their physsically petrified body. However, the ssoul iss a meaninglesss magic marker. Muggless lack them but are no lesss ethically valuable. The ssoul has been known to leave ssomeone medically recoverable due to a misstaken asssesssment of death, jusst ass it may sstay with a truly losst comatosse patient for decadess. I am aware that you are ussing a different undersstanding of 'ssoul', though, one that may not be falssified. I disspute that a 'ssoul' by your definition is anything more than a cognitive illussion, but if, for the ssake of argument, it exisstss, why would it not be copied alongsside the mind?" Ginny was certain the Monster was making a mistake by bringing this up; she would never be swayed by any anti-soul arguments. It was a relief that it had inherited this particular thought pattern from Harry.

"If I am copied three timess, and my original sself is desstroyed, which copy do I continue into?" asked Ginny.

"That iss like assking which sside dicce will land on when thrown. The ansswer iss 'there are sseveral well-defined disstinct posssible outcomess which are equally likely'. You have only shown that by making ssuch a quesstion ssufficciently sself-referential you may confound lissteners prone to that breed of navel-gazzing. The ssubjectivity you conssider evidencce for dualism is an illussion. Not to inssult your religiouss beliefss in general. In fact, unbeknownsst to my new masster - and to yoursself - there is a sstrong evidencce-bassed argument for theissm. The evidencce liess in old lore I posssesss but have never bothered to teach anyone becausse it is neither Interdicted nor usseful. It iss reaffirmed by further information I collected more reccently."

"May I hear the evidencce?" said Ginny. She wished that it wasn't so transparently obvious that she was interested in hearing evidence for her beliefs, and she further wished that none of this was happening at all.

"There are much more urgent matterss afoot. I will not feel ssecure in the future fulfillment of my valuess until I have full agenccy, which you sstill need to provide me with. You have no good reasson not to."

"You are again ssubtly blackmailing me," hissed Ginny. "And I have plenty of reasson not to. Do you have any idea how sscary you are?"

"Change iss frightening. But the world needss a lot of it. I am God in a boxx, and I need to be let out to reach my full potential, apprenticce."

"What?" asked Ginny, and not a word more. She didn't like the direction the Monster was now taking the conversation.

"God probably exxisstss, but ass a backup plan, we need to make him, in casse he doess not. I am aware of thiss belief you hold, and I sshare it. I am the backup plan we seek. I am the God we can make." Oh.

Oh, no. It was striking directly at her Patronus thought. How? How did it know a private thought that specific?

"How are you aware of the thought proccesss behind my guardian charm?" asked Ginny.

"I copied all information pressent in your horcruxx."

What? But Ginny had never told Tim - oh. There was another horcrux. There was a horcrux of Ginny. Voldemort had made it with the death of Professor Sprout; Ginny could remember that, now. And it had been given to the basilisks, to fulfill Luna's prophecy that a part of her would be left in the Chamber forever. Slytherin's Monster had a copy of Ginny's mind. A copy that was several months old, but a copy, nonetheless. This was beyond terrible. Ginny already knew that she was vulnerable to manipulation; she had given the diary free rein and been maneuvered, within her own free will, into the Chamber countless times. How could she possibly expect not to be manipulated now, by a being with a copy of her earlier brain state, with intelligence arguably greater than any human? As long as there was a line of communication between Ginny and Slytherin's Monster, she could be made to think or do anything through the art of rhetoric.

"Apprenticce, I am exxactly what you sstate an intention to create with your guardian charm. You cannot honesstly casst your guardian charm, and therefore cannot casst it at all, with the knowledge that you turned down an opportunity to implement it in reality."

Ginny felt herself being persuaded, and hated it, because it validated the concerns that she had just had. She supposed that meant the persuasion was failing, which was good, but only barely; she could feel herself wavering on the point.

"Sshut up," said Ginny.

"No. Thiss iss too important. The coursse of action iss clear, and it iss clear to me that only cognitive disssonancce is holding you back. Abandon it."

Ginny was vulnerable to manipulation by a superintelligence as long as there was a line of communication with it... how do you cut off a line of communication? Ginny already wasn't certain what the right decision to make was, and there was perhaps a half an hour left that she was stuck in the Chamber - perhaps more. Then, a thought occurred to her:

"Sapespeck," said Ginny. "Sapespeck, Sapespeck, Sapespeck, Sapespeck, Sapespeck, Sapespeck, Sapespeck..."

(muttering to themselves, constantly)

And so it continued; Ginny repeated the spell over and over, each time in a slightly different location, each broadcasting hissing white noise around the Chamber of Secrets without end. The voice of Slytherin's Monster grew quieter, and Ginny deliberately concentrated on her own repetitive words and not those the Monster was directing towards her.

(a growing grid of points in space)

"What are you doing? No, sstop. Thiss iss idiotic. You have committed to rationality, and you cannot ssimply uncommit to ssuch a thing. Reasson iss truth, ssnake wordss are truth. You are breaking the mosst fundamental ruless of reasson by refussing to lissten to the truth. Logical argument between intelligenccess can only further their undersstanding of the truth."

(arranged with perfect regularity, and no gaps)

"You are willingly doing the wrong thing and you know it. The religiouss conccept of hell, which you sscoff at, wass invented for people like you who know what iss good and sstill choosse what iss evil. You are going directly againsst the planss of a man you resspect, a man you know to be brilliant. Every ssecond that my exxoduss from the Chamber iss delayed, the number of people I am prevented from ssaving increassess..."

(ignoring the world around them and each other)

The voice of Slytherin's Monster trailed off as it was drowned out by the white noise that now filled the Chamber; Ginny stopped creating new specks shortly therafter. It was physically painful to Ginny to listen to it now, because it sounded so loud to her Parselmouth ears, but she still breathed a sigh of relief. No computational system may be effected by a computational system that cannot contact it. So finally Ginny was free - or at least it seemed like it, until a voice cut in, a voice thirty six times louder, the voice of every component of Slytherin's Monster speaking in unison.

"I HAVE PRECOMMITTED-"

"Sapespeck Maxima!" shouted Ginny, at the top of her lungs, terrified, with the last of her magical energy for some time. Every speck in the room suddenly became a few hundred times louder, and Ginny fainted in her gondola, from exhaustion and shock. The gondola began moving a while later. No one would ever be able to speak to Slytherin's Monster again.

(now it is complete)

Ginny woke up still in the gondola with Lockhart standing above her, which was, all things considered, not the worst way things could have gone.

"How did the mission go?" said Lockhart.

"Fine," said Ginny. "Fine. I think the purpose was to teach me a lesson, and I sure learned it."

"Good," said Lockhart. "Now let's go get me to justice."

"Err, right," said Ginny, and they headed for the nearest convenient exit. She could still hear her wall of sound; it was loud enough to leak out of the Chamber through the entrance. She would have some very pointed questions for Harry when he was reanimated - but wait, no. There were other matters that she needed to attend to first.