She is Zero, the origin, the end, the only creator and observer of the universe we inhabit.
And all she wants is to be an ordinary little girl, quietly admiring the scenery.
One unconscious roll sent a speck of her “dust” tumbling into the mortal realm. The Seventh District hailed it as a “Star Sign” and brought it to life under the alias Lingling. Her awakening inadvertently ushered in the Age of Psionics, and with it, the twilight of civilization.
Now she sits on a hundred-meter-high broken beam in a city at the end of the world, swinging her legs as she watches the sunset.
Below her are howling mutants, a crumbling civilization, and five corporations locked in a frenzied struggle for the power she accidentally scattered.
Lingling merely covers her ears in annoyance.
“The noise down there is so loud.”
So when the “Rotten King,” whose power can corrode the laws of reality, roars at her, she simply says, “You sing terribly.”
When the “Will of the City,” bearing the pain of millions, wails to her, she opens her arms. “I know. It hurts.”
When a treacherous god-slaying weapon tears through space, she lifts her eyes at the sight of a streak of silver blood at her guardian’s mouth and declares coldly, “You’re filthy.”
Then she “silences” the attack, “accepts” the pain, and “resets” existence.
She doesn’t want to destroy the world. She just can’t stand the “noise” and wants to clean up her “garden.”
But when she starts tidying up, the laws of the entire universe tremble at her displeasure.
“The Primordial Creator doesn’t want to destroy the world. She’s just a little bit of a neat freak.”
And the greed and madness of mortals are trying to dirty the only paradise she has.
