“We’ll get to that. Our understanding of your communication customs is limited, but you’re probably wondering what to call me.”
“Yeah…”
“247.” The man held out his hand, and David shook it reluctantly. “Yes, it’s a weird name, but we don’t need names, so we just have to make something up when we come across someone like you. I was link number 247 in the first ring, and now it’s about all I have, uh, name-wise.”
“Right. Well, I’m David Vale.”
247 reeled back, holding his hands up. “I know. I know all about you. And your people. You’ve caused quite a stir around here.”
David squinted, unsure what to say.
“You see, we found you at an ancient battlefield, where we once came into contact with the race you call the Atlanteans. The bizarre part is that you have some of their DNA, some of our DNA, and you also have some new DNA, some very exotic genetic components, sequences we’ve never seen before.” 247 smiled. “And we thought we had seen it all.”
David remained silent, but inside him, alarm bells went off. Something was very wrong here. This creature wasn’t what it seemed. David’s training kicked in. He knew what this was: an interrogation.
247 raised his eyebrows. “Oh, don’t think that way. I’m not interrogating you—Oh, right, let me explain. Your body emits radiation we can read, so I’m not reading your mind per se. Your mind is broadcasting to me.” He smiled again. “I can’t help it.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We actually want to help you.”
“Help me do what?”
“Join the ring.”
“I’m not a joiner.”
“I know,” 247 said brightly. “Again, I know all about you. I’ve seen your memories. But you don’t know anything about the ring. We’re offering you a chance to save millions, maybe billions of your people.” 247 paused. “But let’s face it, you only really care about one person.”
The opposite wall transformed into a video, seen from David’s perspective. It showed a bedroom with French doors that opened onto a small veranda overlooking the sea. Gibraltar. Kate lay in the bed, looking up at him, her eyes soft, inviting, staring up at him.
“We can save her,” 247 said.
David heard himself ask how, the words almost an involuntary reaction.
“Her body is broken, but it doesn’t matter in the ring. The ring exists outside of space and time. Every link is eternal. We’ve transcended primitive biology and so can she. So can you. You can be together forever, living a never-ending life. And you can be even more. We created the ring to access a quantum fabric that we call the Origin Entity. We believe that when we’ve harnessed every life form in the universe, every link to the Origin Entity, we will have full control of the entity, making us truly eternal, all powerful. We are the ring that circles space and time, and we are unstoppable. Join us.”
“You need me.”
“We want you. We want to help you.”
The opposite wall transformed again, showing the Serpentine battlefield where the last shards of the beacon were crashing into the plane of debris. Rings of ships rotated before the sun, generating portals of blue and white. An endless flow of ships moved between them.
“This fleet of ships is heading to your world. It’s one of many hidden worlds we’ve been trying to find for a very long time. Similar ships are headed for every world inside the sentinel line. The line itself is an artifact from my own civilization, the world that created the first ring. Our world fractured. Some people clung to the past, to their primitive, mortal existence, just as you do now. They created the sentinels to buy time for the other human worlds, but the sentinels are obsolete now. They’re retreating. They’ve been retreating for a long time now. Each time they form a new sentinel line, smaller than the last, and each time we break through.”
“Your fleet intends to attack my world?”
“We prefer the term liberate.”
David studied the man, or thing, or whatever it was. “What will happen to my people?”
“That depends on you. You can’t fight us. Your world is in shambles. Look at the suffering, what your people have done to themselves. Their suffering. We can end all that. Think about your life.”
The wall changed again. David saw a montage of scenes from his life form and fade, a march of memories, most of them sad. He was a child, at his father’s funeral, running to his room and the peace of isolation in that dark time. A graduate student running toward the buildings on 9/11; them falling, burying him. His agonizing recovery. Joining the CIA. Almost being killed and setting out again, joining Clocktower. His battles with Dorian. His takeover of the Immari base in Ceuta. The flooding of Earth. And finally, his retreat into the lander and his journey to the beacon.
“You’ve always been on the losing side, David. You’ve always fought a futile battle based on your heart. Use your head for once. Join us. Kate needs you.”
“And you need me?”
“We don’t. We don’t need anyone. The ring is inevitable. But if you join, it will help us assimilate your people. As I said, we’ve never seen anything like you. Yours is a completely new species, and we believe you have some sort of special connection to the Origin Entity. We think it could even change how we do business around here.” 247 grinned. “Let me explain. Your body is composed of atoms that are quantum entangled with the atoms of everyone you’ve ever come into contact with. All of those atoms are also tied to the quantum force we call the Origin Entity. Our technology is past your understanding, but if you accept your role as a link in the ring, we can access your connection to the Origin Entity, and then we can access those you’re connected to. Kate. The rest of your people. It’s a domino effect. If our theory is correct, the ring will spread instantly via your quantum entanglements.”
“That’s what you’re after: my connection to this universal entity? My soul.”
247 looked disgusted. “Your terminology is crude—”
“But it’s the truth.”
“Yes.”
“And if I refuse?”
“We always try it the easy way, David. We’ve been doing this a very long time. If you refuse, we’ll try to assimilate you anyway. If we can’t, we’ll kill you. Then, when our ships arrive at your world, they’ll kill everyone else. We kill anything we can’t assimilate. There’s only room for one advanced species in this universe, and the ring is that race. Be smart, David. Think about Kate. What she would want. If you join the ring, those ships will be picking up links when they arrive. Otherwise, it will be a massacre. Kate will die too. So will you.”
“So it’s join or be killed?”
“That’s the way of this universe, David. Whether you can admit it or not. Now what’s it going to be?”
David glanced out the window at the almost endless rows of rings. There was no escape from this place. For David, the decision was a reflection of the beliefs that had driven his whole life. He believed every person deserved the freedom to be different. Freedom, in a word, was what he had been fighting for his whole life. On one hand lay freedom and death, on the other lay Kate and assimilation, and on both, the fate of his entire world. But David believed his world had fought too hard to accept assimilation. Humanity hadn’t fought so hard just to become a few links in an endless chain. The decision was easy. “My answer is no.”
The room’s white walls dissolved to black. The comfortable bed morphed into a hard metal table. David was strapped in. 247’s human exterior faded to gray skin that crawled with tiny machines under the surface.
“So be it.”
David felt a needle jab into his neck.
CHAPTER 51
Mary was pacing the dark metallic floors of the medical lab on the Beta Lander, deep in thought, when the wall screen flashed a notification in red block letters.
“It’s ready,” she mumbled. She realized then that she had been dreading the moment the ship finished building the retrovirus from the signal she had received a few days ago. Why? This was the crowning achievement of her career. If the virus was a means of communication with an alien civilization, this breakthrough would validate her entire career, her every choice.
Paul lifted his head up from his arm. He had been somewhere between sleep and daydreaming. Mary grinned at him, seeing what he couldn’t.
“What?”
She licked her thumb and rubbed his forehead. “You were marking on your face.”
Paul tossed the pen on the table. “Oh. Thanks.” He focused on the screen. “So it’s ready.”
“How does this work?” Mary asked.
“You enter the medical pod, and Beta administers the therapy. It’s sim