Stephen Baxter - Timelike Infinity

Soon there was little of the human left in him.

Then, at last, he was ready for the final step.

Human consciousness was an artificial thing. Once humans had believed that gods animated their souls, fighting their battles through human form. Later they had evolved the idea of the self-aware, self-directed consciousness. Now Michael saw that it had all been no more than an idea, a model, an illusion behind which to hide.

He, the last man, need no longer cling to such outmoded comforts.

There was no cognition, he realized. There was only perception.

With the equivalent of a smile he relaxed. His awareness sparkled and subsided.

He was beyond time and space. The great quantum functions that encompassed the universe slid past him like a vast, turbulent river, and his eyes were filled with the gray light that shone beneath reality, the light against which all phenomena are shadows.

Time wore away, unmarked.

And then -

There was a box, drifting in space, tetrahedral, clear-walled.

From around an impossible corner a human walked into the box. A rope woven of bark trailed behind him, out of sight. The human was dressed in treated animal skins. He was gaunt, encrusted in filth, his skin ravaged by frost.

He stared out at the stars, astonished.

Michael’s extended awareness stirred. Something had changed…

History resumed.