Ein_Ich ceremoniously wrote the final iteration on the neuroboard. He straightened and nodded to Ein_Stein, then positioned the cursor upon the icon that would launch the program when he would click it.

The moment was solemn, but there was no point in saying much, as no one would be listening. The universe's boundless expansion had taken its toll on energy renewal: old stars had slowly died out, new ones had stopped forming, and entropy had set in. Life had had too hard a time adapting to that, and had soon followed the stars' extinction.

Ein_Ich and Ein_Stein were the last carriers of consciousness in the whole universe.

They had, however, managed to carry out the last task humanity had set for itself: a quantic computer program that would simulate the creation and evolution of a universe entirely independent from the one that was dying right then.

"The most complex self-evolving program ever conceived," Ein_Ich said nevertheless. "Everything we know is potentially included. In time, even consciousness will be simulated in an interactive way."

"And in time, that simulated consciousness will in turn be able to create a new, independent universe that can be experienced from the inside," added Ein_Stein.

"It's just sad…" Ein_Ich said after a moment of silence. "The necessary independence constraint induces that they will never be able to know about us."

"What good would it do us anyway?" Ein_Stein shrugged with a sad smile. "We'll have ceased to exist long before the first consciousness is simulated in the program."

There was another moment of silence. Then Ein_Ich muttered, "They'll never be able to know about us… Or will they?"

Ein_Stein frowned.

"Whenever they create their new universe," Ein_Ich went on, "won't they just have to deduce that if they were able to do it, then they were most probably created the very same way - by entities so similar to them that it might just as well have been themselves?"

Ein_Stein's frown slowly turned into a smug smile. He held a hand up, which Ein_Ich resolutely high fived. Then Ein_Ich clicked the icon, and the program was launched.

Ein_Ich and Ein_Stein laid back in their seats, savouring their last moments of existence in silence. For humanity's last and oldest question was finally answered, and there was nothing more to say.