Or so they said, but I would beg to differ, on account of being a collection of photons myself. No sooner had I taken my chair on the "Science Fiction and Transcendence" panel at the World Science Fiction Convention than I suffered a terrible case of demonstration gone awry by unexpectedly transforming into a purely mental entity that rushed outward into the universe at the speed of light -- to the great surprise of my fellow panelists, who hadn't been expecting much, especially since I was merely a last minute fill-in for Rudy Rucker.
I exploded into space. The planet Earth turned into a speck in the distance, and then nothing at all, as my consciousness expanded in a sphere that encompassed and penetrated everything within it. Things became a bit dull after I had merged with everything within the Oort cloud; four years later I spent an entertaining two days passing through the Centauris, but that novelty didn't last long; I started to appreciate just how little there actually is in the Universe. And then, suddenly and unexpectedly
Well, the rest you know. At the suggestion of little Noel (only three, then, but precocious) we set course for California, where we put those giant redwoods to good use building the floating city of Nuevo San Francisco, now home to a half-million. I've already told the story of the Great Los Angeles Public Library Reclamation Dive, and what we did at Hoover Dam, and I know you're tired of hearing about the Bay Bridge Steel Mine, so I'll just close up by reminding you that you must never misuse a magnifying glass.
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