it is not too late

[ending_of]

There is a bar where a bar does not usually go.

In the bar there is a woman, sitting very still in a chair with her eyes closed, not doing much of anything.

Comments

[intricate_engineer]

Glen laughs, then covers her mouth with her hand.
"Sorry. What can't you create?"

[ending_of]

"I am not sure. I have..." She frowns thoughtfully and trails off.

[intricate_engineer]

"Can you create living things?"

[ending_of]

"I have not yet tried, but I expect so."

[intricate_engineer]

Glen's eyes widen and she leans forward.

[disregards_the_lines]

Raiden touches her hand, "Don't."

[intricate_engineer]

"But, maybe-"

[disregards_the_lines]

"How many times have we thought that?"

[intricate_engineer]

Glen slumps back in her chair.
"Yea. I know."

[ending_of]

"What," says the woman.

[disregards_the_lines]

"We lost friends some time ago. We've been looking for a way to bring them back. So far, everything has failed."

[ending_of]

"Oh," she says.

She considers for another couple of seconds, then adds, "It is annoying when things are impermanent."

[disregards_the_lines]

"Yea," Raiden says softly. "It really really is."

[ending_of]

Another pause. Then:

"Knowledge. That's the word I was looking for earlier. I have a vast amount of extremely complete and detailed knowledge about things that have existed in various universes. There is enough of it that attempting to organize it in any way is extremely tedious. But all the things I have knowledge of are things I could create. The difficulty is in deciding which things to create, in what order, under what conditions, and then finding my knowledge of those things among all the rest."

[intricate_engineer]

"How far back does your knowledge go?"

[ending_of]

"I'm not sure how to answer that," she says. "In what sense?"

[intricate_engineer]

"I know time between universes doesn't always match up, but are there things that no longer exist that you don't know about? Or that you don't know everything about?"

[ending_of]

"I have never found that I had incomplete information about any universe."

[intricate_engineer]

"What about the universe where we were born? Can you find it in your memory?"

[ending_of]

"I will look," she says, and contemplates the two of them, tracking them backward in her awareness.

[disregards_the_lines]

"Did you find anything?"

[ending_of]

She doesn't answer for several more seconds.

At last, "Yes. You have been to a large number of universes, but I have found the first one. My knowledge of it seems complete to the usual degree."

[disregards_the_lines]

Raiden stares at her and grips the table so hard his knuckles turn white.

[intricate_engineer]

"Could you-" Glen's voice cracks and she tries again.
"Could you bring it back?"

[ending_of]

"I have no reason to think I couldn't," she says. "If you want the entire thing, that saves me the trouble of deciding which parts to copy. It would be untidy to include the past versions of the two of you, I suppose, and there was that bizarre interlude after the universe was destroyed, from which I might have some difficulty copying things. But if you want a copy of the entire universe from the last moment before it was destroyed, with the two of you omitted, that seems straightforward enough."