“No shit!” she barked. “You said yourself you’ve never seen the real me. Well now you have. You’re a dead man walking, Jason, so I can finally—finally!—drop the act. You’re so pathetic. So easily fooled. I’ve been dying to tell you the real situation, not the carefully scripted lies that I’ve been delivering.”
The room began to spin around me and I barely managed to stumble to the couch nearby and crash down onto one of its cushions. I looked up in horror at a woman I no longer recognized, and forced myself to suppress the biting pain I was feeling. If I only had a few hours to live, at least I could go out understanding how I had been misled. Why I had lost.
“Congratulations,” I spat. “You fooled me. I fell for your act hook, line, and sinker. But since you wanted to throw out your script so badly, why not do that now? Why not tell me what’s really going on?”
She considered this request for several long seconds. “Why not?” she said at last. “We did have a few good moments you and I. So if these are the last wishes of a dying man, I guess I can honor them.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled miserably. “That’s very big of you.”
35
“Is there really a Galactic Federation?” I asked.
“Yes. Most of that is completely true. In fact, most all of what you’ve been told is true. There are twenty-two species—and so on. Nari is from Zeta Reticuli, and he and his Earth coalition are living in a hollowed-out, fifteen-mile-diameter asteroid with multiple inner levels.
“The Zetas—previously known as the Rho—are the closest to Earth, and are also the de facto leaders of the Federation. Most of the galactic species are on the docile side. But not as sheep-like as Nari would have you believe. And the Zetas are much more aggressive than he let on. Say, about three-quarters of the way between the rest of the Federation members and humanity.”
“So able to kill if necessary, after all,” I said.
Tessa nodded. “Especially the ones in charge, like Nari. These are already the most psychopathic representatives of the Zetas, just like powerful human governmental leaders tend to be. And then their genes are further modified to ensure they aren’t too tame to make the tough calls that will benefit their people.”
I blew out a long breath as I digested this new information. “Go on,” I said.
“What I told you about my upbringing is also true. I know it must be painful for you to learn that I’ve never loved you, and that you’ve been manipulated in multiple ways from the very beginning. I get that. But the stakes are too high for me to worry about hurt feelings. Nari deployed me because he knew I’d be irresistible to you. Like a character out of your own novels, except even more physically appealing. Selective breeding and genetic engineering can do that for a girl.”
“Why? Why go to the trouble? Why me?”
“Because Nari’s AI suggested you were important. That part is true. And also the part about us having no idea why.
“What isn’t true is that Nari and the Zetas aren’t nearly as benevolent and well-meaning as you were led to believe. Not even close. And they aren’t grooming humanity to lead them. They will help us survive, but also make sure we’re under their complete control, so we can’t get out of hand.
“Not even I am privy to exactly how they’ll manage it, but they will. I’m guessing something similar to the Jurassic Park strategy—but much more sophisticated.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Fail-safe mechanisms that keep us under their thumb and completely dependent. Like the ones the scientists put in place to contain their dino friends in the first Jurassic Park movie. Remember, they had two contingency plans. First, all the dinosaurs were female, so they couldn’t reproduce if they escaped. Even more insidious, they engineered them so they were unable to produce lysine for themselves, an essential amino acid, so were reliant on their human masters to provide it.”
“I remember,” I said. “But do you remember how well these containment strategies worked out? Not at all.”
Tessa smiled. “Life finds a way,” she said, repeating a famous line from the movie. “How could I forget? Which is one reason I referenced it. I’m still human. I still want what’s best for us. You may think I’m selling humanity out by helping the Zetas, but I’m not. Because I know that humanity will find a way—eventually. No matter how tight a straightjacket they think they’re putting us in. And Nari has no idea that this is my real end game.”
I paused to consider what she was saying. “Anything else I should know?”
“Yes, there is no Swarm. The Zetas had been looking for an ideal villain species to help them manipulate humanity for some time, and they thought your fictional one was perfect. So they adopted it. And then convinced you that they gave you the idea. Which I have to admit was a nice touch.
“That being said,” she added. “There is an intelligent species coming this way. Just not the Swarm. A species that has reached out to the Federation many times, trying to communicate. But the Zetas make sure their calls are never answered.”
“Why?”
“The Zetas have managed to analyze the nature of this species. They aren’t marauders. They aren’t driven to march. They’re just gradually spreading out as you’d expect any healthy, thriving civilization to do. Turns out the newcomers are an exceedingly rare find, a wolf species that made it through its turbulent adolescence and out the other side. Given the inherent genetic advantages of this new intelligence, which have been discussed—determination, refusal to take no from the universe, and so on—there can be no doubt they’ll eventually obsolete the Federation.”
“And the Federation doesn’t want to be obsoleted,” I guessed.