I turned my eyes back to the vast manufacturing facility below us, finally unable to suppress a question I had been bottling up for some time. “What about Tessa?” I asked, my expression now grim. “What happens to her?”
“Your call, Jason. Like I said, you’re our only hope. So when you wake up tomorrow, assuming you’re in, you have full authority to make whatever decision you like. How she stays alive. If she stays alive.”
He shook his head. “I just wouldn’t recommend letting her go. You know, since she’d kill you on the spot and ruin all our plans.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I can see how that might be a bad idea.”
41
I awoke the next morning a new man, and not in a good way. The nanites still saw to my physical well-being, but it had been a tough night. I had had one dream I could remember, and several I couldn’t.
In the dream I remembered, I had basically relived the events of the night before, after Nick and I returned from the zip-craft manufacturing facility. Just as he had advertised, once we were back at his undersea Shangri-La, he had spent hour after hour with me, immersing me in the evidence he had so frequently promised.
Drowning me in the evidence might be a better description.
True to his claims, it was as comprehensive, compelling, and conclusive as anyone could ever want, and I became even more convinced than I thought I’d be. Which was really saying something.
So I gave him my word I was in.
After that we spent a few additional hours perfecting the plan, with an AI’s help, and I was given a capped syringe filled with wakeup potion and a bag of blood. The syringe and bag of blood were placed inside a small but thick plastic bag, which could be wadded into a tiny ball and easily buried before I went to work spreading blood on myself.
Finally, Nick gave me a bracelet I could use to communicate with the base’s AI, since my authority over the base and all its personnel suddenly exceeded even Kussmann’s.
It had been an exhausting, never-ending blur of days for me, and I was asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.
But it turned out that I reviewed the evidence I had just been shown in a dream, during which I was asked again if I was all-in on the plan. But this time, instead of Nick Nicola doing the asking, it was some sort of higher power, God perhaps.
I remembered conceding in the dream once again that I was as in as I could possibly be. That I was willing to give myself completely to the cause. I didn’t care anymore. I’d let the chips fall where they may, whatever it took.
It had been a dream, but my total capitulation was reality also. Because I had been won over. Heart, mind, and soul. I would give myself to a greater purpose, a higher power, even if it led to my death—which this mission certainly wasn’t expected to do.
A famous poem I had quoted in a novel came to mind: “And how can a man die better, Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his Gods?”
How, indeed?
I was pretty sure I had had other dreams also, but these I couldn’t remember. I just knew they had been troubling. What a surprise.
What could I possibly be troubled about? The stress of somehow being the only person on Earth with a chance to save humanity, not to mention avert the genocide of an advanced, benevolent species? The knowledge that I might soon ignite a war against twenty-two alien races? Or the tortured, conflicted emotions I had about Tessa that had been attacking me relentlessly?
I felt like a shadow of myself. If I had been in a fog the last time I had awoken it was worse now. Everything felt hollow. Stress would do that to a man, regardless of the tech he might have on board.
I had awoken early, an hour before I had agreed to meet Nick at the base’s zip-craft hangar, where we would commence our journey back to the island with a sleeping Brad Schoenfeld in tow.
No need to shower or shave, as once inside the zip-craft I would need to add filth, to become more unkempt, rather than the opposite. In fact, Nick had made sure the clothing I had worn on the island was largely ripped to shreds, with dirt and explosive residue ground in to better sell my tale. The clothing was already on the zip-craft we were taking, and I’d change into it en route.
Which meant that I had some time on my hands. A very good thing, as I had made a critical decision upon awakening with respect to Tessa Barrett.
She had to die. It was as simple as that.
There was really no other good solution. Ending her life now was the compassionate thing to do. The real Tessa buried deep inside her had been warped since birth, since before birth, so much so that she had been willing to kill me, exterminate a peaceful race coming our way, many billions strong, and sell humanity out to a duplicitous species bent on genocide.
As the captain had pointed out, I really only had two choices. She could remain a prisoner for life, or I could end her now.
Was keeping her a prisoner forever really the compassionate choice? Or would letting her die now be a mercy, like in the movie example the captain had given?
And would keeping her alive come back to bite us in the ass?
She was the most dangerous human alive, there could be no doubt. A zealot with nanites and training both, and I had seen her in action. I knew how much havoc she could create if she escaped. Not only was she lethal, her ability to turn male heads gave her an added advantage when dealing with her own species.
In the end, the answer was easy. There was no choice. She had to die. And I had to kill her. I couldn’t ask someone else to do it for me, either. I had to handle it on my own.
But what better way to prove my new resolve to myself, and to my new allies? To demonstrate just how deeply I had become dedicated to what needed to be done, and how unwilling I was to take the slightest chance of something derailing the plan.