The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (102 page)

Their eyes met.
"It was the worst thing ever. Nothing mattered. Not pain, not accomplishments, not anything." Caroline touched one of Nugget's tattoos, the small spiral which Ozark had tattooed above her right breast to celebrate their first coupling after his Vision Quest, when they were finally both adults. "After the Change, the World Before became another of the words you overheard. Cyberspace. In Cyberspace, all you'd have to do is make a wish and your tattoos would be gone."
Involuntarily, Nugget put her hand over Caroline's, as if to defend the design.
"Or you could move '
em
around. Get new ones -- it didn't take any time, didn't have to hurt. See? Nothing mattered. I've worn many different sets of tattoos myself. But these are the ones that matter to me, because these are the ones I'll die with. That was the least of it, of course. You could grow a few extra arms, turn yourself into a bat, fly like a bird, whatever you wanted. But why bother?"
"Mother...What happened then?"
"For almost six hundred years, nothing happened worth mentioning. Then, finally, your father and I killed it."
"How? If it was so powerful, how could you kill it?"
"Your father built it, remember. He'd never designed it to run the whole world, only to be a good helper. He knew its weaknesses. So we were able to trick it, and it broke." She swept her hand. "Somehow we ended up here."
Nugget dipped her hand in the hot water and splashed her face. None of this was what she had expected.
"If you will do something else for me, I'll tell you one more thing."
"What, Mother?"
"Promise me that you will give the birch barks to the Eldest Father to be burned with me. Those words belong to the World Before. They may be harmless, but I'd rather not have your father's only memory be those reminders of his worst failure."
"What will you tell me for promising this?"