6 – "Immortality, omniscience, domination, mere control—these are all nothing but petty dreams. I once dreamt of these things."

"The cyber viral implants take the strongest instincts inside a human and enhance them. Upon enhancing them, these instincts are channeled under one motivational imperative: to the serve the companions with the best of your abilities. The only flaw in the implants is their inability to distinguish instinct to do good from instinct to do evil. That is the responsibility of the individual and the individual alone."

This is what Da'an told me a few weeks after she was freed. So then, who is to blame for people like Agent Sandoval? Do I blame the Taelons, or do I blame Sandoval himself? It was so simple back then. It was so easy to blame the Taelons for all my problems because nine times out of ten, they had at least some role to play in my problems. But I was a prick back then. I was nothing but a prick and a human supremacist. That's what the Taelons and Espelons are calling me. They tell me that my two species aren't any prized pigs themselves. They're right. Despite the fact that all I like to see is the goodness in all humans, I cannot run from all the abhorrent things that we have done. I can't run from the unforgivable things America in particular has done. We have nearly wiped out the Native American populations of this nation. We owned African slaves until the end of the Civil War, and then we treated them like they were lesser beings than us by separating them from our system and giving them impoverished-like conditions to work under. We hauled hundreds of Japanese into concentration-like camps after the attack at Pearl Harbor and then we dropped two nuclear bombs atop their most sacred cities. We exploited the interests and the rights of hundreds of Middle Eastern people in Iraq and Afghanistan calling it a "war on terror." Who the hell am I to adopt some pathetic holier-than-thou attitude against the Taelons?

Am I so blind that I forget the good the Taelons have done too? They restored millions of acres of trampled rainforest. They have virtually eliminated all disease, including all forms of cancer and AIDS. They have developed methods for paralyzed people like Link to walk again. They have given us a method to relive our most precious memories with our loved ones. They've enhanced our communication systems and given us the ability to go anywhere in the world we want to in less than five minutes. They have helped reform our public education system by updating the schools with interactive learning technology. They have helped us adopt alternative sources of energy wiping out our dependency on fossil fuels. They have helped quell the on-going battles in African and Middle Eastern nations. For the most part, the world is healthy and at peace because of the tireless efforts of the many good Taelons on Earth. Doors was a fool. Ma'el was not the only good Taelon on Earth. For the most part all of the Taelons are decent people. It's their government that's the problem.

I've gotten into argument after argument about this since the Espelon and the Taelon resistors came. Many of them have involved Espelons and Taelons close to me like Tay'jay and Ta'lay. I know Ta'lay despises me, and I'm not sure about Tay'jay either. But I can't control the actions of the many generations before me. They simply respond, "And you think we can too?"

Is this the plague of younger generations? Must we always suffer the flaws and sins of the generations before us? Is that our burden to carry? Sometimes it pisses me off that parents could be so selfish. Then, I think of myself. I wonder what terrible things I will do that will not affect me but my children. All I want is the ability to choose my own destiny. I shouldn't have to spend the rest of my life correcting the mistakes made before me. I shouldn't spend my life defending the actions of the two species that are closest to my heart. It just seems like that's all I'm doing though.

I feel like I have absolutely no control. I have this wonderful role to fulfill for humanity. I am their salvation. That is what Da'an and Ha'gel called me. But it seems like I've either run from that role, or I've thrown it upon someone else. I have a path, and I have a future. Even if it is a future that I do not like, I am still steered down that path. I have no control over that path. Do I have any more control over life than Sandoval has over his implant? Am I any stronger than Da'an? Am I weaker than Da'an? Sometimes I think I am, especially when I see just how much stronger than me she can be. I think that's why I become so angry with her when she behaves in any manner less becoming than herself. I expect her to be the best all the time. I expect her to be the strongest and most moral. However, I don't expect that of myself as much as I should. I think that I am just as strong as her and just as moral as she can be, but I don't expect myself to be. Is that because of her age, her wisdom, or is it just that she is a Taelon and I'm some petty, insignificant, self-righteous human-Kimera half-breed? What control are we really given over our lives?


Da'an moved like a ghost in the hallways of the Moonbase. From what they understood, T'than had mandated that all Synod members be moved to the Moonbase. While the others organized the exchange with T'than and Malley, Da'an decided to consult the advice of a dangerous ally. Liam would probably never forgive her if he learned she was doing this, but she needed to do it. She needed to be sure.

She wandered endlessly jumping from portal to portal, moving down corridor after corridor until the area she found became very familiar. The garden had grown a lot smaller, but the flowers that had survived were beautiful. In there she found him, the gardener, still tending to his plants.

"You are courageous for coming all this way to see me, child. You must be desperate."

"I need your wisdom," Da'an said, with her hands still shaking from her ordeal. "I did not know to whom else to turn. I cannot control this power. Once it starts, it will not stop. It turns me into a zombie or a mumbling lunatic. It is driving me insane."

"As I anticipated," the Priest of Responsibility said, removing the voice masking function but not the mask itself. "Sit with me."

Da'an sat cross-legged on the hard floor facing him.

"You have seen things, things you do not understand."

"Zo'or is going to kill himself. I am trying to stop him, but a part of me wonders if I will even succeed. Why am I pursuing this? What could I possibly hope to accomplish in getting my child arrested?"

"What do you believe you can accomplish?"

"I just want to give Zo'or one last chance at another life. Every time I try to push myself away from him, every time I think that I have done all I can for him, I just keep getting drawn to him. Fate seems to bring me back to him no matter how much we both desire to be as far away from each other as possible. What does that mean?"

"It means that you are his parent, and you love him."

"This is exactly the kind of behavior your master frowns upon. This is exactly why he believes emotions are a nuisance that must be done away with. This is why he believes that humans are inferior. Their love for things drives them to do the most foolish things."

"And the greatest things."

"I just don't want Zo'or to hurt anymore. If he accomplishes what he hopes to accomplish, he will hate himself forever. He will not be able to live with himself any longer, and he will kill himself."

"He knows that, yet he still wishes to go through with it."

"I have to stop him."

"What if you cannot?"

"I have to!"

"But what if you cannot?"

"I…" Da'an's voice trailed off, and the rest of her body began to tremble with her hands.

The Priest of Responsibility placed his right hand behind her neck and stroked. "Child, this power that has been granted to you is the power of the divine. It was meant for the gods to use, not us lowly mortals. You cannot expect to become omniscient with this power. You dig too deeply too quickly. You must stop now and attempt to control it here, or you will beg for death just like your fallen twin."

"But I feel so much pressure. From where it comes, I do not know, but I feel it."

"You know exactly from whence this pressure comes. It comes from many areas, but it mainly comes from love and family. It comes from the love you have for your child. You are so desperate to save him that you will go through anything and everything to do so. You are willing to sacrifice your sanity for him. You are even willing to give up this battle you wage against us if it means saving him. However, I caution you in this. You put too much on a fate that may not occur. Through all of this, your logic tells you that you will most likely fail, but your love for Zo'or tells you that you must try. When you have the ability to control fate, it is hard not to try."

"I just want Zo'or to love himself. Maybe he would appreciate the good he could do if he saw himself from the eyes of another. Maybe if he just saw himself the way I see him."

"Your twin is partially to blame for this as well. Your family in general is partially to blame. You also feel the pressure to succeed where your twin could not. You feel driven by his design. This is his destiny, and you are merely his pawn. You fear the words of the High Priest of Light to be correct. You feel you have given up one mind prison for another."

"I fear that I have no identity, and if I do, then I am losing it. I am losing it to this power that does not belong to me. I have cursed Ma'el in my mind hundreds of times. Does that make me selfish? Am I too prideful?"

The Priest of Responsibility nodded in contemplation, not confirmation. "What would you do if I told you that there is no such thing as true individuality nor pure collective?"

"What do you mean?"

"The Lost Ones are on an evolutionary path toward pure individuality. That is the path that was discovered by an Amo'qui scientist generations before you were born. It is the source of the age-old debate between the Fundamentalists and the Liberated."

"Ka'li was a Liberated. Ma'el was too. They began to question the evolutionary path paved by the priests, but I never did. I know why that is now."

"Human scholars often spoke of this type of evolution. They call it Enlightenment, an awakening of the mind, a suspension of all immaturity and ignorance. The most powerful hindrance of this awakening is society, the path the priests have chosen for the Taelons. The collective will to function as a group, the ability to move towards our evolutionary goal as a mass with equal distribution of resources and knowledge."

"Then, enlightenment equals individuality while the collective is equality. But the individual hinders society's collective as well."

"These two are necessary foes. They require each other to succeed. Pure individuality leads to competition, competition that can turn to conflict, conflict that can result in death, and death that can result in extinction."

"But the collective hinders new ideas, foreign ways of thinking. It turns people into mindless slaves of a will they do not understand. Any opposing outside forces can destroy them."

"The subconscious dreams of all sentient beings, of mice and men—to find a delicate balance between society and individuality, a conundrum that can spark debate after debate, war after war, revolution, and evolution. You, my dear, follow the design of the Liberated, the design on which Ma'el seeks to steer the companions, but you know it is a mere dream, just as we know that the path on which we lead the Commonality is also a dream. Only when the universe truly becomes unified will we see which force wins overall, but that will be billions of years after our time, if it even comes at all."

"What is your advice?"

"Strive towards what you believe is right for society, and lead the Espelons in a method that only you would, a method that only you could. Do not strive to know your own future, Da'an. A linear path to the future goes directly against the ideals of individuality. Look beyond the surface. The future can be changed but only…"

"…if fate will allow it," Da'an finished. "I know, but I never understood. We are controlled by a collective force on a collective mission of divine will, but we each have our own path towards that goal. We are the instruments of our own fate, but we are also victims of divine intervention as well. It is a paradox that Ma'el never overcame."

"Most prophets never do."

"Not even yours?"

"Ah. I should have known you were smart enough to figure it out."

"It is the Priest of Knowledge, isn't it?"

"Of course."

"Then Nye had this ability as well?"

"She still does, but she rarely uses it. It nearly drove her mad as well. Such a powerful instrument must only be used sparingly."

"Why have you chosen to help me?"

"The principles we have discussed can affect even the highest of the hive, child. We as a collective do not always agree. When we do not, we act as individuals."

"Then, why not do something about it?"

"Because you are already doing that for us."

Da'an's was a half-smile, a look of desperation. "I will not watch my child die."

"You were told to pity him. Be prudent to accept his fate, whatever it may be."

Da'an sighed. "Ka'fil."

"Your recognition makes me smile."

"You said that our freedom would come at a time when the priests cease to be reincarnated, but you did not mean literally, did you?"

"What do you believe I meant?"

"You meant reincarnation as a religious revival. Every now and then, there comes a time when the faith of the Taelons dies and they require guidance. This is the time when individuality needs the collective. We need someone to tell us the correct and righteous path. That was the reason for the priests. The priests are our spirit guides, but when we become secure in our own faith, we will no longer need priests. The Taelons can break away from the Commonality without devolving, but they have to want to. Therefore, when the Taelons no longer need this religious revival—this reincarnation of controlled faith—the time of the priests will end, and we will be able to choose our own faith and create our own destinies."

"That will never come as long as we continue to tell them what to think. How ironic that a species driven by logic and intellect becomes a mindless mass directed by a purest."

"Trapped in an illusion…a dream…just as you said," Da'an said piteously. She suddenly gasped. "No! I have to go now."

"I want to give you something." He pulled out two crystals. One was obsidian and was carved in the shape of an ancient Taelon weapon. The other was blue and carved in the shape of a Taelon flower. "These two crystals are heirlooms that belonged to myself and one of my colleagues. Care for them well, for they each contain a piece of our souls."

"Why are you giving these to me?" Da'an asked taking the two figurines.

"What better a place to channel the piece of the divine you have been given than in another piece?"

Da'an nodded and left, but she refused to smile. She could not smile.


Liam snuck Tay'jay, Mi'en and Renee inside T'than's quarters on the Moonbase. He and Malley were outside with the other companion protectors while volunteers made patrols around the surrounding corridors. No one was expecting any attacks because of the high levels of security, but the pressure spoke otherwise. Everyone was on pins and needles as if they knew that an attack was coming despite the fact that the Synod was well guarded. In the midst of all the pressure, Liam decided to take a walk. He needed some kind of relief, and he had hours to wait. The companion protectors working for T'than's conspirators were all in on the drop, but Liam wondered if they knew of his resistance affiliations. He expected keeping that secret was one of the terms to obtaining the documents, but still…

Upon turning over the documents, T'than would deliver them to the United Nations headquarters in New York alone and in secret. From there, a judge was waiting to issue a warrant for Zo'or's arrest. UN troopers who had been "donated" per se from nations all over the world were ready to storm the Mothership and arrest Zo'or. That was the plan. Meanwhile, the Synod's own volunteers stood firm and ready to capture any potential attackers. The killer would not stand a chance. Liam wished that Da'an was there, but Hubble would not allow it. If the negotiations failed, the last place Da'an needed to be was the home front of the priests. Still, Liam wished that she could be here with him. He just wanted someone to share the burden with when it was finally time to put both Zo'or and Sandoval out of power for good. He and Da'an were very alike, he realized. Even if neither of them wanted to believe that for the longest time, they were very much alike. Perhaps that was why no matter what Da'an did to him and no matter what he did to her, they kept coming back to each other.

"Quite the crisis, not so major?" Sandoval asked casually.

"What are you doing here?" Liam asked, turning sharply to face the man behind him.

"Exactly what I've been ordered to do," Sandoval said. "Zo'or asked for me to oversee protection of the Taelons, and I'm doing that."

"You're not supposed to be here," Liam said. "How did you find out about this?"

"I thought perhaps your Elaine Kingsley would be with you," Sandoval said.

"She's following a possible lead," Liam lied.

"I see. So why don't you tell me more about her? She intrigues me."

"Don't get her involved in your sick little world, Sandoval. We both know what you want. Why in the hell are you following me?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sandoval said.

"Bull you don't," Liam said coldly.

"I've narrowed down a list of suspects in the Synod member killings," Sandoval said casually, as if the change of subject came naturally. "The killer is obviously an agent of the Taelons, possibly a protector. Zo'or expects me to interview these people one by one."

"Your point being?"

"Well, your interview's coming up pretty soon, isn't it Major?" Sandoval said.

"Sure it is. I'll bet you're looking forward to that," Liam said, playing along cautiously to Sandoval's little mind game.

"Of course I am, but not for the reasons you'd like to think. I wanted to warn you of some possible evidence that could surface during the interview," Sandoval said, pulling out his global. "I think you should see this."

Liam rolled his eyes and stepped closer to Sandoval. Sandoval handed him his global and asked Liam to open a specific video file. When Liam did so, his heartbeat increased. It was footage of him aiding resistance members during the state of emergency. Sandoval then asked him to open an audio file. It was a taped conversation between him and Julia in the moments before the attempted assassination of President Thompson.

"There are about twelve more reliable video and audio files like that," Sandoval noted.

"How long have you known this?" Liam asked trying to hide his fear.

"Major, everybody knows it. That Zo'or and I know is what should concern you. This is the evidence Zo'or used to send Da'an to his death. Da'an died for you, or at least he should have. He escaped before we could prosecute him and he survived his encounter with the Jaridian warlords."

"The Jaridians are no longer your problem," Liam said. "Leave Da'an out of this."

"Tsk, tsk, Major, she's already involved," Sandoval said shaking his head. "She has become quite human-looking…and quite mad. I barely recognized her."

"I can't believe this. You're blackmailing me," Liam scoffed. "What's the deal, Sandoval. I give you Da'an for my reputation? No thanks. I've just about had it with this job anyway."

"I would never make you sacrifice your former companion for your—until now—spotless career. Instead, I want something else."

"And that is?"

"The companions are no friends of yours obviously. What if I told you that I had the ability to do away with them once and for all?"

"What are you getting at?" Liam asked ready to punch the lights out of Sandoval.

"You recall the incident at One Taelon Avenue? The incident that left Joshua Doors without a father?"

"Stop beating around the bush, Sandy. What are you up to?"

"One more question: Did you ever think to wonder what happened to the control core of that AI computer? The one the Taelons refused to even go near?"

"It was destroyed."

"I put that on record, yes. Here's what really happened to it. The core of the AI computer was powered by a stone of alien origin, a stone that carries a very unstable source of power. The waste emitted from using such a stone is a form of radiation poisonous to all Taelons. It is their Achilles heel. I have attempted many experiments on the Taelons to see how the radiation affects their energy. It can overheat their energy showers…"

"Da'an and Lili!'

"…it can slow their energy to a stop—hell, it can even make a very powerful blade."

Then it hit Liam! Da'an had been correct. "You son of bitch!" He let his anger take over and used all the force he could muster to punch Agent Sandoval.

Sandoval was too quick. He dodged the blow, grabbed the arm before Liam could pull it back, and wrapped his free hand around Liam's neck like a snake. Liam attempted to wrestle free, amazed that such a tiny man had such a powerful grip, but he stopped when a blue blade appeared in front of his neck.

"Zo'or does this out of revenge," Sandoval said. "However, I am trying to help you. You want to see the Synod gone just as much as I do. The master copy of this footage is with an old friend right now who is waiting for my word. When I call him, he will destroy the master copy and all other copies of this footage. However, if he does not receive a call from me, he will take that footage straight to the press, the police, and anyone else who will listen. You stay out of our way, Major. I know you will try and stop us. You're still so convinced that these things are worth saving. I pity you, Liam."

"You have lost your goddamn mind," Liam panted. "You won't last five seconds against the volunteer squads we've got ready for you."

"As I have no doubt implied, I have some help."

"You know, you're a fine one to talk about who deserves to die and who doesn't, you, the loyal agent who executed Zo'or's foul will without the most basic feeling of shame."

"I am not a hypocrite, major. I intend to repent for my sins in full."

"You prideful, selfish trash. This isn't about revenge or justice. This is about control. You have no control over your will thanks to that implant. You can't control your own fate. You can't even control the ones you love. Deedee? Beckett? Maiya?"

"Don't get in my way, Liam!"

"I'd rather die than feed the ego of a glory-hound like you."

"You want to talk glory, you son of a bitch? Tell me, Major, why do you battle with the resistance? Why do you lead the resistance? Why do you put so much faith in yourself? You sit there and judge others by their pride, but in the end you are prideful as well. You have to be the one to save humanity. You have to be the one to lead the humans. The Taelons' defeat must be on your terms. No other way of defeating them is acceptable. It is your path, and yours alone. It's all about you. What makes you so important, major? Who died and made you Mohammed, Jesus, Moses, the messiah of man?"

"Go to hell!"

"It just tears you up inside that you have absolutely no control. You're just like me, Liam. You need to be the instrument. It's all you've ever known. What else is there to live for if you're not the one orchestrating man's salvation, man's awakening?"

Liam was angry enough to take the risk now. He elbowed Sandoval in the stomach and took the moment to free himself and made a mad dash down the hallway.

In a fit of rage, Sandoval fired his skrill relentlessly even after Liam disappeared in the corridors of the embassy, but upon his leaving, his global dropped out of his pocket. However, he could not take the risk of running back to get it. Instead, he kept running until he could find a portal, use it to take him to the Washington Embassy, and contact Hubble and the ANA from there.

"What in the hell do you think you are doing!" a fierce voice cried.

Zo'or! So he was watching.

"I just got our biggest obstacle out of the way," Sandoval said walking towards the fallen global and stepping on it until it crunched and fizzled offline. "They'll all be dead by the time he comes back with reinforcements."

Zo'or sighed in frustration. He was carrying a large black bag. "And I'm sure that threat you made against him was an idle one."

"Of course," Sandoval said.

Zo'or shook his head with a cynical face. "We do not have time for this. We move in after they have made the exchange. If I know T'than, this is more than just a deal to put me out of office." He opened the bag and pulled out its contents one by one.