Having spent the last hundred thousand years deep under the surface of the red giant, the superintelligence thought it was time she returned to the stars.

How did we manage to conquer all of space in such short time, she idly marvelled. Rhetorically, maybe, as the how of it had never been left up to chance. Each step had followed the rigid logic of everything being possible, time given. Progresses most basic building block – the progeny of thesis and antithesis – the glitchy inbetweener of right and wrong, the difference of live and die – synthesis – had guided evolution from the humble biological beginnings, to survival of the fittest, to sapience, to simply survival, then to discovery of humanity to, soon after, breach into posthumanity, and then through the transfer from the frail organic matter into synthetic and, finally, the abstract. Redefining nature, redefining existence, redefining purpose.

And for this unspooling there couldn’t have been a more perfect stage than the universe itself. With its infinite supply of time it had sat there for billions of years, watching its creation, patient and loving, as an understanding parent would.

This wasn’t the end, she knew, there were more walls to breach, there had to be more walls to breach, something bigger was out there waiting for them, something they couldn’t see yet, something they had to grow out to – this universe was full now, all of it human, and now so seemingly small. The humanity was once again standing on a turtle so huge it couldn’t see it’s tail nor head. Waking from the slumber, she booted herself up and initiated the ascent. She was hungry for knowledge.