“Your fatal flaw, Ethan, is that you’re under the mistaken impression that people are like you. That they have your courage, your fearlessness, your will. You and I are exceptions, cut from the same cloth. Even my people in the mountain struggle with the fear. But not you and me. We know the truth. We aren’t afraid to look it in the eye. Only difference being, I’m aware of this fact, and it’s something you’re going to learn slowly and painfully and at great cost of human life. But you’ll remember this conversation one day, Ethan. You’ll understand why I did the things I did.”

“I’ll never understand why you turned off the fence. Why you murdered your daughter.”

“Rule long enough, you will.”

“I don’t plan on ruling.”

“No?” Pilcher laughed. “What do you think you’ve got down there? Plymouth Rock? You going to write a constitution? Start a democracy? The world beyond the fence is too cruel, too hostile. That town needs one strong man to lead.”

“Why did you turn off the fence, David?”

The old man sipped his whiskey.

“Without me, this would be a world free of our species. We’re here because of me and me alone. My money. My brilliance. My vision. I gave them everything.”

“Why did you do it?”

“You might as well say I created them. And you. And you have the gall to ask—”

“Why?”

Pilcher’s eyes suddenly burned with unchecked rage.

“Where were they when I discovered that the human genome was becoming corrupted? That humanity would become extinct in a matter of generations? When I built a thousand suspended animation units? When I dug a tunnel into the heart of a mountain and stocked a five-million-square-foot ark with enough supplies to rebuild the last town on earth? And while we’re on the topic, Ethan: Where the fuck were you?”

Pilcher’s entire body shook with fury.

“Were you there the day I emerged from suspended animation and took my crew outside to find that the abbies had taken over the world? Were you there as I walked down Main Street watching my workers frame each building? Pave each road? On the morning I called the head of suspension into this office and instructed him to wake you up so you could be with your wife and son again? I gave you this life, Ethan. You and everyone in that valley. Everyone in this mountain.”

“Why?”

He growled, “Because I could. Because I am their fucking creator, and creations don’t get to question the one who made them. Who gives them breath. And who can, at any second, snatch it all away.”

Ethan looked up at the monitors. They showed chaos in the cavern. The chain gun was empty and the guards were falling back with their AR-15s as the monsters advanced.