They sat down and Stephen told them everyone had purposefully not told him—until it was too late to do anything about it—that his father had been frozen. His body was in a facility somewhere in Minnesota, where people would take care of it around the clock, and sometime in the future, when technology had advanced, doctors would be ready to do the procedures to bring Stephen’s dad back to life. It also looked like, according to his papers, he had paid for Stephen to have the same procedure if he wanted to opt in. All that ancient Egypt stuff was a cover.

“Did you know he was that weird about death?” Ayanna asked.

“No. I thought he was normal weird about death.”

“I would be so pissed off if this was my dad,” Jane said. “He is dead. He’s wasting all that money, wasting energy, and time.”

“He’s just being a job creator,” Stephen said, then laughed a little too hard.

Ayanna had mulled over on the plane ride what the right thing to do was. But she loved Stephen and couldn’t help but say, “If there’s anything you need to say, I could help.”

He put his hands on Ayanna’s shoulders. “Ay, I love you and I respect your work, but no thanks. Death is final. That’s the world I want. Healthy boundaries.”

Stephen paused and let go of Ayanna. He looked around. “I don’t want to ruin the surprise either. Maybe he’s actually right and the process works. He’s not dead. Just chilling, waiting for some genius surgery robot to be invented.”

Felix was about to say something, but then the lights dimmed once, twice, and Stephen said, “The service is starting.”