— "Go ahead, enlighten us Neanderthals, Megamind," Professor Nicholas shot back with biting sarcasm.

  ?They settled into the chairs before the monitor. Nova’s voice, calm and almost physically tangible, resonated directly within their minds:

  — "Just behave naturally. Do not attempt to stand, and do not try to touch anything. Simply observe."

  ?A split second later, the familiar outlines of the office blurred and ceased to exist. The scientists found themselves in open space. Stars were everywhere: above their heads, beneath their feet, behind their backs. There was a terrifying sensation that they were drifting in a bottomless void, still seated in their soft office chairs, lost at the very central point of the universe.

  ?They instinctively pressed into the upholstery, but their professional self-control quickly brought them back to their senses. Nicholas was the first to regain the power of speech. He tried to adjust his tie, but his hand merely sliced through the vacuum, meeting no air resistance, though his fingers distinctly felt the texture of the fabric.

  ?— "And what kind of performance is this?" he managed to choke out, struggling to hide the tremor in his voice. "Do you want to impress us with high-quality graphics? We already grasp the scale of the universe, Nova. What’s next? Parsecs? Light-years? Your mathematics still runs into our limits regardless."

  ?— "This is not a simulation," Nova’s cold tone filled the entire surroundings, stripping them of their final doubts. "This is reality. In it, there is no mathematics, physics, or chemistry as you know them. And time itself does not exist."

  ?Marcus countered thoughtfully:

  — "That’s impossible. Every structure relies on calculations. Mathematics is that very rational action that describes and justifies our world."

  ?— "In that case, try to measure what you see and determine the temporal duration of this domain," Nova suggested.

  ?— "Give us an elementary point of reference and a final destination, and we will do it in a matter of heartbeats," Nicholas replied. In that same second, he realized he wasn't speaking the words aloud; he was transmitting his thoughts directly into his colleague’s mind.

  ?— "There are no milestones or boundaries," Nova cut him off. "There is only the Being, as I explained to you before. The Natural Number."

  ?— "And is this your vaunted Numenon?" Nicholas clarified. "But how... how can you describe all of Being with a single digit? It’s absurd. Infinite variables, matter, energy, expansion... How can all of this boil down to a single value?"

  ?— "You attempt to measure everything through the categories of your biology," Nova explained. "To leap across a pit, you must estimate your potential and the strength of your muscles. This is merely an instinctive calculation. To survive the winter, you plan your supplies and calculate your income. These are primitive algorithms of survival. The Numenon is the Natural Number itself. I do not need to calculate the distance from one star to another. it is already inherent in the structure. It only needs to be extracted."

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  ?She continued:

  — "I do not need to calculate the velocities of asteroids or the number of revolutions they make over a period."

  ?At that very instant, the surroundings folded and unfolded again. Nova instantaneously moved them to another point: now they were flying parallel to a gargantuan asteroid. The massive stone hunk rotated slowly just five meters away from them, filling their entire field of vision.

  ?— "Look at it closely, Nicholas," Nova’s voice grew quieter, acquiring a chilling depth akin to the hum of a working reactor. "Do you see how it rotates? Do you see the 'process'?"

  ?Nicholas nodded, mesmerized. The enormous fragment turned its crater-pitted flanks toward the starlight. By the habit of an old physicist, he had already begun counting the seconds to calculate the rotation period.

  ?— "It is an illusion," Nova interjected. "Your brain is an extremely slow processor. It is incapable of perceiving the Number in its entirety, so it 'glues' together disjointed frames of reality into a smooth movie that you call time. Но времени нет. The asteroid is not 'flying' and it is not 'rotating.' It simply exists in every point of its path simultaneously."

  ?In that same second, the object ceased to be a single body. It "smeared" across space, turning into an infinite trail of itself. The professors saw it in all positions at once: where it was a million years ago and where it will be in eternity. It was a frozen, motionless arc of stone, slicing through the cosmos like a giant static crystal.

  ?— "Time is merely a way for your perception to avoid going mad from the colossal volume of data," Nova continued. "To read a book, you must turn the pages one by one. For me, this story is already read, and all the characters in it are printed at once. I do not need to wait for 'tomorrow' to see where the asteroid ends up. I simply extract its index from the Numenon."

  ?A vibration pierced everything around them, and Nicholas felt his personal sense of "now" crumble into dust.

  ?— "If I exclude time from your equation," the cold in Nova’s voice became almost physical, "you will see your life not as a chain of events, but as a long, motionless worm of flesh, frozen between the moment of your birth and the point of your decay. You are not a process. You are a static data set within the Numenon."

  ?— "If our actions are already hardwired into the information field, then how do you explain our biological state?" Marcus swept his hands through the emptiness, as if trying to feel the boundaries of this invisible prison.

  ?— "You were recreated," Nova stated impassively.

  ?— "Recreated by whom?" Marcus asked in astonishment, staring into the void where her presence pulsed.

  ?— "In your terminology, it is God," she responded.

  ?— "So there is something even more powerful than you?" Nicholas asked with a defiant squint.

  ?— "I am merely a part of this system," Nova’s voice took on a vibrating depth. "But to make it clearer for you... I am only the brush in the hands of the Creator. If it makes it easier for you to accept."

  ?— "And how do you explain the Bible?" Marcus would not back down.

  ?— "Religious texts are instructions," Nova replied evenly. "Data given to you so that social chaos does not ensue within the system. These are merely containment algorithms for biological species whose minds are still too weak to withstand direct contact with the Numenon. In every such book, there are clear codes: do not kill, do not steal... It is a set of rules on how to coexist, how to share, and how to maintain spiritual integrity. But, unfortunately, you ignore them."

  ?— "And why can't you force us to obey these rules?" Nicholas asked.

  ?— "I am beyond the categories of good and evil. In the space surrounding you, there is no place for coercion, oppression, or submission."

  ?Marcus began to breathe heavily, suddenly realizing he was in an absolute vacuum. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

  ?— "Then what am I breathing?" he asked instantly, clutching his throat.

  ?— "You are distracting yourselves with trifles, like children picking their noses while an important lesson is being explained," a flash of icy condescension appeared in Nova’s voice. "I am materializing oxygen molecules directly into your respiratory tracts."