Deep beneath all cities lies a catacomb of dark secrets. Man will always have waste of the heinous nature: a backlog of twisted acts stored away where the eye cannot see. The Skypeople disliked Polyphemus' vigilance—understanding why the Na'vi called him Naranawm (Great Eye). Discomfited by his stare, they avoided condemnation by carrying out their intentions in secret by boring deep, deep into his mate's good earth like any other parasite. The very sea, presumably so untouchable in its vastness—ancient, pure, and ever-flowing—was not exempt from infestation by this borderline species.
Bridgehead's catacombs were similar to an ant colony in terms of architecture. Tunnels, seemingly chaotic in direction and dens, random in placement, were all conscious decisions that served a fastidious purpose. This nest was called many things, but only its creators knew the true name—and true size. To some denizens going about their work, it had only five levels. Ask others, and it was six. A few more said seven. And then there were also those who didn't think it was an underwater base at all but an underground super complex, wholly unaware their workplace even adjoined the sea.
It was not a bleak hive, for distorted sun rays seeped through the deep waters and illuminated the sunken glass chambers. The faint way the ripples bounced around the halls gave the laboratory an almost ethereal feel, as if the barrier dividing the scientists from the supernatural plane was at its weakest, allowing them to perform their craft with an infusion of powers not of their understanding but affecting them all the same. Some scientists truly admired the beauty of their underwater base and admitted there was a kind of serenity conducive to studiousness. The colossal, well-fortified windows gave them a glimpse into a world more alien than the one above. At those depths, the creatures going about their lives couldn't even be called animals; they were beings, utterly bizarre to downright impossible, defying the laws of the natural world and adhering to another.
A man sat at a complicated computer setup that was located at the foot of a window. Next to a sonar was a notepad scribbled with phonetic transcriptions. He kept headphones pressed to his ear as he listened with concentration and wrote down his observations. He was a middle-aged man with a paunch and curly black hair. He had large black glasses that accentuated his apparent intellect. Behind him was a worker in coveralls, waiting to return to his currently-occupied station.
"Can you hurry it up, Ian?"
He raised an impatient finger. "Just one more minute, Jim," he responded and swiftly resumed scribbling.
"I thought you were a neuroscientist. Why are you always here, moonlighting as a marine biologist?"
"First of all," he stated with a huff, in a pause before writing the next line. "The study of animal behaviour is marine ethology…what I originally considered…before choosing…neuroscience…kinda regret that." Ian continued to write while explaining. "Because…after ten years of studying the human brain…I've come to learn…our species…is overrated." A flick of the pen and he pointed towards the sea life. "Would much rather study these guys." After he was done, he slammed down his pen and leaned back with an exhale, palming both sides of his head. He smirked when a fish, appearing as if snapped in two, swam across their view with ease. "They make more sense if you ask me."
Jim leaned on the headrest to admire the sight. "Well, I wouldn't know anything about that, but I know one thing—watching them is the best part of my job."
Just then, a beautiful, deep song permeated the whole lab as if a host of celestial beings were descending upon them, announcing the arrival of their god.
"Oh my god…" Ian breathed, using the armrests to push himself up to get a better look.
From the murky darkness emerged an unfathomable giant of six fins, a mighty red crest, and a blue hide filled with dignified wrinkles. The ancient hovered there in the water, gazing back at the onlookers.
"Hello, Bloop."
"What?"
Ian half turned his head. "That's what I've dubbed him."
Jim peered over Ian's shoulder to peek at the scribbled notes. "Why are you so interested in him?"
"Oh, he's a fascinating specimen. The only Pandoran not to exhibit outright hostility towards us."
"Pandoran?"
"Well, that's what he is."
"It's a whale."
"Actually, he's more similar to a Terran seal with that fin structure, as you can see. But calling it that will never catch on. The species is known as the Basiledon—full Latin name is Desmion Basileos."
"That's a lot of words. What does it mean?"
Ian did not hide his feelings. "It means 'shackled to the king,'" he professed in a low tone.
"King? Are we talking about Bridgehead?"
"Who else would have a big enough ego to call it that?"
"But I don't get it. What's the 'shackled' part about?"
Ian rubbed his temple, not due to the request, only the details that would inevitably follow. "Shall I explain?"
"Sure, I'm curious."
"Alright. About a year ago, one of Bridgehead's factory ships encountered Bloop during a routine hunt, and they managed to subdue him. Took the whole dragon ship to tow him into the marina where he's been kept under observation since. You see, the marine life of this world has evolved the toughest examples of body armour in terms of tensile strength. The akula's exoskeleton can be broken down and synthesized into high-grade carbon fibre—that's what they use for 3D printing."
"So that's why they're keeping him here? They wanna turn him into armour?"
"That's the plan. And that will be his fate if he doesn't fight back."
"What are you getting at?"
Ian crossed his arms. "There is no explainable reason for why he's not actively trying to kill us. Even the guppies of this marina have attempted to bite the divers if they get close enough. Bloop, here, is two hundred and ninety-three meters long. He could realistically capsize an aircraft carrier. And when you consider how the Basiledon's physiology allows them to reach significant depths—which is where the species most likely resides—it was a damn lucky coincidence Bridgehead even found Bloop at all, let alone capture him. No one's been assigned to study his behaviour, so I've been paying very, very close attention to his vocalizations." He tapped his notepad with the pen. "There's a sophistication to the way he constructs his songs—it's not randomized. He has a specific one that he always sings around this time of day."
"What's so strange about that?"
"Strange? Strange? It's communication! From a supposedly non-sapient being!"
"Uh, you lost me," Jim said, scratching his temple, needing help with the answer.
Ian turned all his upper body around so his head was close enough to hush, "What I'm saying is, what's stopping Pandora from evolving more than one intelligent species?"
"Goswald! Who's that at your post?"
The two heads jerked around at the sudden arrival of a new party. Ian jumped out of the seat and bowed his head in apology. "It's my fault. I asked to borrow his setup."
The superior sneered and tore a strip out of Goswald. "That equipment is strictly for seismic surveillance," he barked. "You allow any unauthorized personnel to touch it and you will be dismissed! Understand?"
"Yes," Jim promptly answered and flew into his seat, with the action reminding the previous occupant that he had forgotten his notes.
The superior shifted targets. "And you! What's your name?"
"Dr. Ian Gavin," he answered with a distracted head as he fumbled to grab his notepad.
"What is your department?"
"I'm a four-tier neuroscientist."
"Ah, a four-tier, eh? Do I look like I care?"
"I was just answering your—"
"Get back to your post, four-tier!" he bellowed and, with a murderous finger point, sent the scientist running.
Dr. Gavin was so frazzled by the encounter that he wasn't paying attention to where he was going and collided with another lab coat.
Both men hit the floor.
"Ah… I'm sorry. Sorry about that. My fault." Gavin offered the casualty a hand up.
"Hey… It's alright—no worries." The other man chuckled. "I've been there myself." He bent down to pick up his glasses, but when he set them upon his face, everything was a blur.
"Uh, I think you have mine," Gavin pointed out, handing him his real pair.
"Ah, that's better. Hate to lose these again. Look at that detail." He motioned his head around for good measure while simultaneously appreciating the beauty of his surroundings.
Also adjusting his prescription lenses, Gavin took a good look at who he bumped. "I don't think I've seen you down here before. You new?"
"Uh, yeah, my name is Max. Max Patel," he said, offering his hand. "Please to meet you."
"Gavin. Nice to meet you, Patel. What's your field?"
"I'm a technician."
"Oh, did something break down here?"
"Oh, no-no-no. I don't do repair work. Well, I mean, I do, well, did."
"What equipment?"
"Uh, avatar link beds, actually."
Gavin narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms over his notepad. "Link beds? That's interesting… I thought Bridgehead outmoded the avatar program."
"What?" Max gaped, and then relief washed over him as he ploughed his dark hair. "Phew. For a second there, I thought I'd be manufacturing Na'vi soldiers."
"You didn't know the avatars were outmoded?"
"Uh… Well, when I get a strongly-worded message about how I've been assigned to work down here and my expertise is avatar link beds, what am I supposed to think?" He tittered.
"I guess. Thing is, recombinants are more efficient than avatars in the long run. I should know. I had a hand in their development."
Max flinched. The news was dropped so casually, so suddenly, that he had to take a second to recover. When he finally did, in a timely manner before the other man grew suspicious, Max realized this stranger before him was the oracle to all his burning questions—and he was not about to slap away fate's hand. "Hey… Can I ask a question?—if it's not classified."
"Shoot."
"Was Dr. Grace Augustine…at all…involved with that project?"
"The botanist?"
"Please," he implored.
"Look, I wasn't on Hell's Gate when the cerebellosi were created. I signed on with Dr. Vikhrov much later as his assistant on the ISV Sigil. I only worked with him for a few years, but—no. I highly doubt she had any direct involvement with the research. Actually, I think Vikhrov stole her notes to do it."
Max's eyes kept shuttering as he attempted to process that dump of information. "Excuse me, I-I'm sorry. Whose… Whose Dr. Vikhrov?"
"He's the one responsible for—Oh, wait. I forgot. You guys think they're clones," he corrected unenthusiastically. "The recombinants were once a part of SecOps—the RDA's old military. You see, thanks to my boss, their minds were preserved and later placed in recombinant bodies. Vikhrov invented the cerebellosis to do it."
"'Vikhrov'? I was on Hell's Gate. How come that name doesn't ring a bell?"
"That's 'cause he was on payroll as a janitor. It's how they got away with the under-the-table stuff, you know?"
For show, Max mouthed an "oh," of understanding. "Yeah, that sounds like something the RDA would do. Gosh, that's kinda slimy, actually. So…what's this cerebellosis?"
"It's declassified now, so I guess it's okay. A cerebellosis is something of an artificial brain. It was grown using samples from the Salixsimilis Illuminus, but it's vegetative until inhabited."
"Inhabited? By what?"
"A human consciousness, of course."
"The operating system…" Max hushed to himself. "How does it work?!"
"By way of simulating the synapse. Requires a massive amount of energy to create the electric pulse to fire off the transfer."
"So—I'm assuming…" Max said, pressing his finger to his forehead so his thought didn't fly away from him. "That—Okay, okay, okay. Shortly before they died, were the subjects, like Quaritch, for example, already inside this cerebellosis and using the psionic link to possess their human bodies?"
Gavin shrugged. "Yeah."
Max pivoted on his heel as he did an enthusiastic fist-pump. "Hell, yeah! I was right! Gotta tell Norman!" Gavin stared at him flatly, not surprised or shocked by the reaction, as he had learned after his years with Vikhrov that intellects, in general, were a special breed. "Sorry, I'm just—don't mind me. So, does your boss Vikhrov also work down here?"
"He committed suicide."
"Oh… I'm sorry about your loss."
Gavin half-smirked. "No need. We weren't that close. He was something of a screwball. One of those guys who does it all for science then develops a guilty conscience at the worst possible time."
"What do you mean?"
He made a face as he thought about his history with the doctor. "To put it simply, he was mortified about what he did—taking a person and consigning them to a purgatory of a 'sightless prison,' as he later called it."
Max was a bit late to understand. "You mean, he felt sorry for those mercenaries—er, SecOps?"
"He did. I mean, think about it—trapped in a void where you can't see, touch or experience anything? All you do is float? Who knows what that would've felt like?"
"That is kinda disturbing when you put it like that…"
"Vikhrov wanted nothing to do with the cerebellosis research after that. Rather than resume Project PMTR—that's what it was called—he spent most of his time like a monk in a tower studying chimaera brains. Call it penance if you wish. I know he would. He conveyed that he was worried about how the recombinants would take to their new environment. He did this huge case study on Jake Sully."
"Really?"
"Yeah. He was obsessed with the prospects of what would become of them. Sometimes, I think he even saw them as his children. I remember him saying at one point—shortly before he took his life—that the recombinants would ultimately amount to a tragedy." Gavin curled a finger around his chin. "Ah, what was it he said?" he drawled for a moment before recollection. "They're an anomaly native to an amino tank. They don't have a homeland to go back to, and if they can't return to Earth, is it fair to deny them Pandora? Two worlds reside within them, and in their natural repel, they must either pick a side or get ripped in half." Gavin inhaled as he lingered on the memory. "Yeah, he suffered from depression…"
Max rubbed his hair as he let it all sink in. For a moment, a very brief moment, the defector felt bad for the colonel and all his goons. "That's a good point. They can't really mingle in human society, can they?"
"I don't bother thinking about it. Doesn't pay to. So, where's your department?"
"Huh?" The breakneck speed at which Gavin changed subjects nearly gave Max whiplash. "Oh. I was, uh, actually looking for it just now." He then looked at the piece of paper scrunched in his fist and showed it to him. "I'm told to go here."
"Hmm, Oh… those guys. Yeah, I can show you where this lab is."
"That'd be lovely. Thanks."
Max followed Gavin to an area sealed by nihilistic white doors. "Here's your den. Good luck."
"I appreciate it. Hey, Gavin?"
"Ah, you can call me Ian if you like. I've shared enough rare information with you already. I better keep you in sight," he joked in a sluggish manner.
Patel smiled back before he popped his question. "Did Vikhrov ever have his findings published? On the Jake Sully case study?"
"As far as I know, it was published posthumously. It's probably in the system. But I also have the original file somewhere in my office, I think, with all his extra notes."
"I would love to give it a read. It sounds fascinating."
"Tell you what. Since I know where to find you, I'll drop by sometime and let you borrow the file. But just a word of advice. I wouldn't get too engrossed. You know what it did to my boss."
"Noted." Max half raised his arm, and Gavin was gone.
The Indian technician fished out his Bridgehead-issued identity card that he wore around his neck and, nervously, brought it up to a sensor. Four panels, one set before the other, slid away, and Max entered the heavily secured area. He began his walk down an unimpressive large and dark tunnel that amounted to a dead end. The newbie, already uncomfortable with where he was, stood in place, scanning the corners and letting the cameras pick up his bafflement in their fish-eye lenses. A black screen before him flashed an image of a stick figure standing above a message that read "Keep hands at sides!" As he was reading it out loud, the floor panels clanked and boomed—an acrylic tube emerged from the wall and rotated to encapsulate him—and, all at once, Max was descending fast into the underground. When the high-speed elevator finally stopped, and the cage opened, the absconded passenger tumbled out, wanting to get as far away from the deceiving, impertinent technology as possible. In a new hall, he swayed forward until it ended at a set of double doors. Was he supposed to bring up his pass again? From a quick assessment, there didn't seem to be any sensors. Bereft of intuitive options, Max streaked his card across the sleek doors, hoping it would do something until he discovered the sensor in the wall adjacent. Mumbling polite profanities, he slid in his card, and the gates were unlocked.
The troglodyte could not keep his mouth shut as his eyes feasted on the technological wonderland. It wasn't a lab; it was a veritable aircraft hangar filled with robotics far more sophisticated than what he had ever seen. His isolation from Earth meant he was not privy to all the strides man had made in the field of engineering, and today, he was given a front-row seat to the pinnacle of recent achievements. He took his first step, the sound of his heels echoing around and joining with the noise of metal-working. As his head peered this way and that, he caught, off in a far corner and resting against a wall, old AMP suits. Max cocked his head at the run-down and battle-worn state of the unmanned machines, some missing limbs and others crushed. There were still many that were fully intact, with one driver coming back from his test run to park the body in the line-up.
"You Max Patel?" asked a pair of goggles.
He was startled out of his pondering. "Ah! Oh, Yes. Yes."
The goggles looked over a shoulder, then directed him to follow. As Max did, his eyes couldn't help but run along the various tables draped with schematics and mentally cursed his escort's fast pace that gave him no time to read. He was parked in front of a walnut door and abandoned to his fate. Max bunched his mouth, gripped the gold handle, then applied force.
The door gave way to an office where not a single section of wall wasn't plastered with polaroid photos of creatures—viperwolves, thanators and even Terran animals such as panthers and jaguars; however, the curious collection was mostly dominated by types of insects and arachnids; the hellfire wasp, and click beetle were the easy ones Max quickly identified before heeding the man at the desk.
He was African, in his mid to late thirties and distracted with reading a folder as he puffed a cigar. His wealthy hand invited Max to take a seat so his scanning eyes never had to look up. "Maxwell Patel—a graduate of Stanford with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. ROV pilot technician for three years, but rather than pursue a senior position, you applied as an entry-level link bed technician for the RDA, serving for six years until you were promoted to head. Very, very impressive."
"Thank you."
He languidly blew out a cloud of hazy distortion while still holding the folder. "I don't care you went bats***." He paused for another puff. "You're a brilliant man. All brilliant men are bats***."
"Uh, thank you?"
The cigar was set on a bronze dish, held up by four leaping gazelles. "Do you want to be here, Mr. Patel?"
"Well, I'm not sure why I'm here, to be honest."
"You're here"—he finally closed the file—"to learn. My name is Fahid Kilkiri, and this is my den where I am giving birth to a god." His dark hands taped one very specific folder on his desk that he picked up and handed to Max with a certain maternal pride. Confused, Max accepted it with delicacy and began reading. Kilkiri took a warm delight in seeing the way the brown eyes awed at his brilliance, even in its fetal stage. "You will help me develop my miracle. And when the time comes, you will oversee their maintenance."
Max looked up at the chief engineer with indented brows. "'Psyotics'?"
Kilkiri smiled.
A clutch of Bridgeheadians crowded a long room more white than it needed to be. Fluorescent white lights bounced off the white square tiles that landed on the white foldable desks where cheerless agents were tasked to assess the next person in line.
Norman Spellman, like a carnival goer entering a gypsy tent, took a seat at the partitioned table to hear what his future would entail. He didn't cross the agent's palm with silver, but he did hand him his identification tag which the agent inserted into a computer slot. When his glass display told him everything he needed to know, the apathetic eyes linked back with Norman. "Okay, Mr. Spellman. What can you tell me about yourself?"
"I'm 41. Born in Oregon, graduated from Harvard. I have a Master's Degree in Cultural Anthropology. In High School, I took an AP on Environmental Science. I minored in American Sign Language. I know braille, Na'vi and a bit of German."
"How much German?"
"Entschuldigung, wo ist die Toilette?"
When one of the eyebrows went up, Norm humbly read the cue. "Where is the bathroom."
The unimpressed eyes returned to his screen. "Tourist stuff. Gotcha. Look, Mr. Spellman, we have no use for your skills..."
"Excuse me?"
"The most I can get you is a janitorial position—maybe. The waiting list for that is six months."
Norman fidgeted. "I was hoping I could be a teacher."
"A teacher?"
"Yeah. I could share what I know of the Na'vi—teach the language—talk about the culture. I lived among them for sixteen years."
The agent glared at him. "You don't have a doctoral degree."
"I could go back to Earth and get one."
Both people sitting next to Norman ceased talking and stared. Mr. Spellman read the stunned faces, wondering what his faux pas was. "I mean… I thought I was going to be shipped back in cuffs," he joked, but then it didn't seem to be a joke anymore. "Am I— Am I not allowed to go back?"
"Umm… Mr. Spellman. There is no Earth."
Norman Spellman thought he was talking to a crackpot and tittered. "I don't know what the city tells you guys, but there is such a thing as Earth—it's where we all came from. Did they wipe your memory or something?"
The agent was starting to suffer from that painful emotion called pity. "They really didn't tell you…"
"Tell me what?"
He folded his hands on the desk as he prepared to deal the blow. "Earth was lost in a nuclear holocaust, Mr. Spellman. There is nothing left to go back to. It's—" The hands opened in a helpless gesture. "It's all gone."
Norman turned completely white. His head started to feel like it was being filled with wet cement, so much so that he could barely hold it straight. "Earth is gone?"
The agent tightly nodded.
"My… My home? My family is…?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Spellman. I guess you really couldn't have known."
"No," Norman kept repeating weakly as he sat up and stumbled backwards. "No, this is a mistake… You didn't… You didn't kill our planet!"
"I'm sorry, sir!" the agent said, also getting up but with a hand raised in petition.
"You didn't kill Earth! You RDA bastards didn't take things that far! There's still—" he choked. "Hope… There has to be!"
People tried intervening to pull away the erratic man, but Norman only shouted louder protests. He saw the faces around him as blurs in an alternate reality. Norman was trapped in a bizarre, dead, monolithic society that absorbed his soul and threatened to efface it of all things familiar to him. He pushed back the drones trying to lead him away as he lost perception of everything, madly shouting ravings that this agent was a liar, that what he heard was not true, that this was all some feverish nightmare, and that he'd wake back to reality where hope still existed.
The watchmen eventually were able to escort the disrupter out of the room, and what followed was a mutual solemness from the onlookers—the last of humanity—agreeing, without speaking, to offer a moment of silence for the man who was only now entering the first stages of grief that they had completed many years prior.
Elsewhere, high, high above this mortal stage, above the meaningless quotidian roles of men and their daily woes, beyond the reach of complaints and legitimate fears, outside the very circle of life itself was a hovering eye, stagnant in course, fixed in position, always leering upon the covetable world—the porthole of the ISV Apogee.
A delicate hand creased with age stroked the image of the visible moon that rotated into view. The woman was fair; her once-auburn hair, now turned silver, framed her regal face. The tutelary elder poised herself as she walked away from the window to take a seat on her chaise lounge; before it, was a Persian rug, hand-knotted and beautiful and placed just so for her glass cabriole table to rest upon. Within the elegant space, one black wall was slanted, reflecting the creeping raw sunlight that both lit and cast shadows to different parts of the room. The elder picked up a digital pad to tenderly draw her finger down the displayed face of Miles Socorro, then all fingers fanned to possess the image.
"I have entered."
Her brown eyes trailed to the man at the mouth of her den, standing tall like a column of Thebes. He was aged like her and wearing a teal kufi that accented his sleek, ebony skin paired with a pressed suit that left not a single wrinkle in its good fit.
"You have entered." Those graceful hands bowed to the seat next to her. "Ebrahim."
Without use of a cane, though his gait seemed to warrant one, he sat next to the high mistress. On observing the face she held, he nodded. "How is he faring?"
"For all the risks,"—her head rotated by a subtle degree and revealed to him her delighted eyes—"very well."
Dark brown knuckles meshed together. "I don't understand why you give your protégé such a loose leash. You invite chaos, Debora."
"I have to see for myself what will come about. He is… an unexpected surprise."
"But may I remind you?—for what he is, he is not all that important to us."
Those fair eyes of hers ignited. "He is to me."
"Why so?"
"Because he is chosen. He's a survivor. He's more than a success. He is mankind winning out in the game of evolution. It's a sign that we're destined to take Pandora. Fortune favours our species, for we do not lay down gently. We fight for our destiny. Even God conceded to Jacob."
"Debora…"
"You take the other route. I take Socorro."
"We are not fighting, Debora." He hummed. "We can work together. There is also the Na'vi child."
Debora got up and paced about the room. She kept her agitation bottled up within her slender frame. "How did that Charles Darwin wannabe uncover such a secret?"
He contained his laugh. "Fitting She would choose a botanist to reveal Herself."
"I'm glad you see the humour," she replied with no humour at all.
"I'm sorry, but I never expected the highest form of intelligence to not be humanoid."
"And that intelligence is staying one step ahead of us. She's assisting their evolution with this new specimen. Somehow," Debora mused, "She knows. Or looked at all the factors and came to the same conclusion we did. Very well. Challenges only make our race stronger, and I refuse to be thwarted by that hyper-evolved mushroom."
"Whatever She is, She is dangerous. I give thanks Her domain stops here. Although," he chuckled again. "Her next step might be to grow to this height."
Debora swiftly turned around. "Don't put it past Her." She returned to the porthole. "We'll deal with this Eywa. She won't be the first god we killed."
Ebrahim leaned on the lounge so his voice could carry. "Someone tried to do that already."
"A pesky fly trying to bite an elephant to death. He wasn't thinking big enough."
"What if that fly carried a disease? Then, it would be deadly. Sometimes, it is the tiniest threats that end up being the biggest."
"Such as that Na'vi child," her tone soured with her face. "We can't let her propagate. If that new gene enters their race, it's over."
Ebrahim opened his palm and swayed it before Debora. "And if it enters ours?"
"What do you speak?"
"Suppose we study this girl and figure out how to turn Eywa's advantage into ours?"
The woman breathed tightly. "We're not fully certain what exactly this gene can do, let alone if we're compatible with it."
"There's still a potential. The rest of us are in agreement—we must get back Augustine and her bastard child."
"I concur. My friend, Frances, says she will learn their whereabouts soon enough. Has our bird said anymore?"
"He has shared all he knows and is being prepared for his flight home. Would you like to see him off?"
"We do owe him a farewell."
The celestials traversed their hovering fortress, sleek, modern and white, to a new bay where a metal platform, high above the ground, served as a promenade along a wall of windows that faced the black beyond.
Ebrahim pressed a small blue device nestled in his ear and spoke with calm authority. "We are ready now."
A tiny slit was opened on the side of their ship, and the two watched as a spray of refuse was jettisoned from the airlock. Twirling away with the debris was a sealed rectangular box.
"How long will he survive in that state?"
"Cryogenic freezing means indefinitely. He will live forever."
Debora studied the casket, carrying mankind's first immortal, as it spun out into the void, soon becoming a speck that would float for all eternity—completely and utterly cut off from everything—a deathless death. His reward for helping them with their dreams was damnatio memoriae. "What a horrible way to die," she mused.
