“Bringing us back down to earth for a moment, what if some people don’t want to go along with this?”

“No one will force them to. But why would anyone want their existence to cease when, for the first time in human history, they can prevent it?”

“But are you just setting up another haves and have-nots situation? Some people get perpetual life; most around the world do not.”

He nodded. “But that’s the case with any new technology. At first it will be available, affordable, to some. Eventually, to the entire world. My goal is for us to end death as we know it on earth within fifty years—for the essence of every person to live perpetually in an uploaded state. It will require the combined global effort of government and private sector, but we can do it. We will do it. The transhuman age has dawned.”

The program ended. Sabin looked over at Abby, who sat silently. “So what do you think?”

“I still can’t believe my grandfather helped invent this.”

Chloe scowled. “Why not?”

“I think it’s…unnatural.”

“You think it’s better to die?”

“No.” Abby looked Chloe in the eye. “I think it’s better to have faith in Jesus.”

Chloe stared at Abby for a moment, then looked at Sabin and laughed. “Okay. Whatever.”

“Find anything interesting in there?”

Abby swung around and looked out from the closet into the bedroom, toward the voice. Sabin was standing over her. She smiled and nodded toward a low-hanging shelf. “I was just looking through these framed photos that were stacked in here. They look like family pictures. I was hoping to find one with my grandparents.”

He sat on the floor next to her. “Yeah. That’s unlikely.” He picked up a frame and glanced at the photo.

“Why wouldn’t Lauren have a picture of Poppy? He was her uncle. It seems odd, given her association with Nichols—”

Sabin shook his head. “She had a falling out with him when she was a teenager, I think. It never got repaired. I thought that might change when Lauren got involved with Nichols, but it didn’t. She can be pretty stubborn.”

Abby lifted a final frame off the shelf and looked at a picture of people she didn’t know. “I can’t stop thinking about that interview with Bryson Nichols.”

“That he invented an artificial brain?”

She frowned. “No, I just can’t believe my grandfather would be involved with that type of work.”

“Why?”

“Because of his faith.”

“His faith…in…”

“God. You didn’t know that he was a Christian?”

Sabin looked surprised. “No. He really was? He must have kept that under wraps.”

Abby’s brow furrowed. “I wouldn’t think so.” She began stacking frames back on the shelf. “How did he die, exactly?”