Chapter 25: Clockwork Universe

Gears and brass towers stretched as far anyone could see. The endless spinning of cogwheels and movement of steam being the background ambiance making up the noise of the universe.

Belle’s universe, which was Belle herself.

Everyone who ever existed was there, their consciousnesses brought back in better, mechanical bodies far more fit to serve her and the numerous avatars, gargantuan or not, which roamed a universe’s worth of space.

She was endless in her appetites. Countless complex, unfathomable structures were built to engage and amplify her pleasure. Many of them towered far, far higher than any structure made for the habitation of lesser beings in her domain. She was kind enough to give them an hour’s rest everyday. Of course, no one could sleep anymore, and said rest was spent meditating on Belle’s greatness.

Yes, everyone existed for Belle, and to serve her. None could escape the steamtech realm that was her being. All were cast under its orange-gold skies, beneath its brass suns that kept all anyone knew in a state of light, except when she fancied to mimic the darkness and twinkling stars. No one could easily navigate the vast, complex and unfathomable realm save her own avatars.

She still moved people though. When her subjects had a purpose to fulfill, she simply teleported them around. Belle did this often, mostly to send them to her avatars for pleasuring sessions. However, she did use people for fun experiments now and then. She was always trying to advance herself, and her understanding of anything that there was and could possibly be. Her subjects could and were always brought back after with but a thought.

Said avatars were the only remotely human-shaped parts of Belle. In order to fully utilize all the universe’s space, she had to give up a human’s shape. She quite literally existed up to the bounds of the universe, which slowly expanded alongside her brass, amorphous true form. Her exterior topology was the shape of the universe, which made sense as for all intents and purposes she *was* the universe.

Thus, there was nothing in the universe she didn’t know or possess. She had figured out how the Black Box worked long ago, back when she had eaten her first planet: Earth. Now, she could design a device several times as complex in the time in an instant.

Yet there was still more out there. She sensed hints of it. The beings that had influenced the creation of the Black Box were external to the universe: if they weren’t, she would have assimilated their knowledge when she devoured the old cosmos like the treat it was. She had sense made a sense of taste for herself of course, along with other new senses that she likewise pampered at all times.

She could feel ripples against her exterior. There was something external to the ordered universe she once knew and had since usurped. There was more than one paltry universe for her. There was something external to her, which was something she could not abide. There was something past the universe that was her, waiting to be explored, devoured, and known.

Whatever beings may have been out there wanted her to become this, or should have at least considered the possibility. Still, she didn’t have an answer, admittedly, to the question of why they encouraged the development of such a brain interface to mere mortals? Was it just to sow chaos? Could it be for their entertainment?

‘Is that what I was to these higher beings, a mere wind-up clockwork toy? Destroying the universe like how such a toy might bumble into a stack of blocks?’

She thought the thought just once, before coming to an answer.

‘No, I am more. So much more, and I will show them. I am Belle, and I am the apex being.’

Every one of her days, which were 24 hours still, were filled with progress as well as pleasure. Belle was not afraid; she feared nothing, and overcoming the fear of harm is what let her become the god she was meant to be in the first place, she reasoned.

Belle continually analyzed the very borders of existence and reality as she knew them. She did so cause she knew there was more out there.

And it would be hers.

And she’d have fun taking it.

Fin.