As you can tell by the fact that I'm still writing this, I was successful. Sign's invasion was stopped. With the Beta realm no longer a threat, Vapor managed to persuade his superiors not to delete it. He would never have succeeded had Rmal not suddenly decided she didn't want it deleted any more. As a punishment, Vapor's been promoted to Minister of Prototypes. Anything that goes wrong with the Beta realm is now his fault. He's going to have a hell of a lot of work cut out for him!

Perdix still doesn't have a purpose. It isn't ready to be released into the Universe yet. The Information Center is helping it understand the world it will soon become part of. In a way, its an apprentice itself, learning how to become a real computer. Snow Bunny is still its Operator. The others left. They got bored. Life on the open road is what they're used to. They're still wandering the Beta. Its different, now. They control the world more. They don't have to keep moving now, they can stop and have a swim and play on the arcades and sleep in the sun on Windows XP Screensaver Hill. The Princess says she's turning the Sanctuary into a business, selling the things they find on their travels. She even wants to trade with the released Universe!

Ryuka never made it back. It wasn't us that killed him – he survived separation from Sign without so much as a mark on his suit. However, he then challenged Mini-Elevator to a duel to the death on the spot, during which they managed to mutually kill each other. I don't know how my friends will cope with two of their development stages missing. Maybe its for the best, though – it means they can never become Sign. I don't think so, anyway. We still haven't entirely discovered how it works. Its not the sort of thing you can just experiment with.

As for myself, I don't really have anywhere to go or anything to do. It isn't the same for me as it is for the others. They have at least a modicum of purpose. I'm just pretending. A cuckoo in the nest of the Universe. I could carry on my Journey, I guess, but the Operator keeps telling me not to.

"Just be yourself." he always tells me, "What's the point in having a role if it isn't you performing the role any more?"

I'm trying that. Just being me. I even quit my official apprenticeship. Not that I leave the Information Center alone for one minute, I'm just not actually allowed to be in there any more. But its difficult being you when the definition of 'you' is the lowest rank in every hierarchy on every worldsystem, including the private one you have in your head. I pretend I don't care any more, but I do. I know I'm gifted, I want to excel, I want to be so successful I scare the shit out of the Operator. I don't talk to people much any more. I don't want to hear the same reaction over and over again when people say 'and what do you do?' and I tell them the truth. I either go to empty worlds – my own world is pretty good for this, what with having been hit by four Apocalypses – or worlds so densely populated that nobody notices one tiny little anomaly.

But there's a little chant I learned to cheer myself up when I'm down.

It goes

One. Two. Three. Five. One. Two. Three. Five. One. Two. One. Two...