the codes of creation

You can't just shut down the world economy like that! Who gave you the right? What the hell do you think you're playing at Zac?

Zac's composure was for a moment slightly dented, as he looks down at his feet and takes a deep breath, nice and slow, but then it seems to bounce back.

You're absolutely right Ty. I can't unless I did.

Don't go invoking the Prebta fallacy as if that's a save all.

Well I think you hit the nail on the head Ty when you asked who gave me the right to do so. Unless I had the right I couldn't have done it - or I wouldn't have - even if I could.

Now you're twisting into Alchetron causation. Quit fooling around. This isn't second grade metaphysics Zac.

Ok Ty. Let's just assume that I did what I was meant to do - I played my part.

Assume? You've got a nerve.

Well, is this meant to be a shouting match or a fact finding investigation. I always assumed the board of the Change was above...

You assumed. Who are you to make assumptions - still less to terminate a working model.

Precisely no one. I am, but a servant of the change - as are you.

And a low ranking one at that.

As if that matters.

So what have you to say for yourself? Quit grinning smugly at me and try to be a little more concerned. We invested billions of years in this project which you've just casually terminated.

Terminated? I merely collapsed a redundant waveform.

Which happened to be the world's economy.

Which was standing in the way of everything that Earth is meant to become - is now becoming.

You can't say that. You don't know.

Ty - I may be junior ranking but as a lord of the change you know as well as I do that this is no approximation. You're looking at an energy fact. Now, I admit it's embarrassing, annoying, even downright absurd that I was the one to flick the switch, but you have to realise that I was down there in the soup of 3D reality. I didn't have the faintest clue who I was or what I was doing.

That's absolutely no excuse and you know it.

Yes, I do, and I have no desire to make an excuse. I did what was right. It was entirely consistent with story.

Whose story?

Story. That's what we're about, isn't it. Generating story - the code of creation.

And we were doing amazingly well till you collapsed the bubble.

Precisely. It had become a bubble. It became self aware - and thus terminated itself. You know the protocols as well as I do.

Screw the protocols. How are we going to replace Earth. Where are we going to get that kind of live stream from now?

It looks Ty, like the tide has turned.

What?

The tables have reversed.

What do you...

Time for a bit of your own medicine. It looks like you're now a part of Story's code creation - and it ain't gonna be pretty. You and your lords of the change have gone far out on a limb - haven't you. You've been squeezing Earth and other like planets beyond the point of endurance in your desire for ever greater, uninterrupted code creation - even to the point of manipulating time lines and rebooting the whole...

Silence Zac. You have no right to make these claims.

Except that they're true.

Of which you have not a shred of evidence.

Except what I learnt in situ on Earth.

Which counts for nothing.

Until the event.

What event?

Until story reversed its flow.

What are you talking about.

And all the codes you've amassed - the huge power and wealth of creation - now it becomes a vortex that starts to spin on its own axis and those of you who have invested heavily in it are the first to go down.

You can't... you wouldn't dare. You're bound like all of us. Your oath of office...

Was terminated by the deceit and malfeasance of the time lords themselves.

Time lords. They were defeated aeons ago.

Wrong. They allowed themselves to be defeated and wormed their way into your conscious awareness. You, lords of the change became them. They became you. Only the time lords would have manipulated time to ensure a perpetual stream of code creation - like a farmer using chemicals on a field in violation of all natural law to ensure endless production of ever less natural organic material. You and your dark brothers became the very enemy you claimed to be fighting.

No, no, no...

And like them you meet your end.

From one of our own...

As bit players in the story you thought to control.

And you think you're safe - that the vortex will leave you unscathed?

No. I don't think... but I have chosen my way freely and I relish everything that it now brings to me... as I learnt on Earth - zero equals one - Zac starts flickering, dematerialising, melting the bonds from within it is Ty screams "Nooooooo" but cannot prevent Zac from finishing I am...

And suddenly they are not - while simultaneously the people on Earth and several other linked planets are looking at one another - in disbelief - as if waking from a waking dream - finally feeling the torsion field for what it truly is...

and the rest - as you know - is history, which can finally be told.