It must be boring to be God … omnipotent and immortal, never knowing ambition or desire, triumph or loss. Is that why You created us, Lord? To entertain You? Is that why You ‘blessed us’ with our insecurities, poisoned us with ego, enslaved us with lust and greed, power and revenge? Is the human race one big cockfight to you? Do You enjoy the cruelties we inflict upon one another?

Does it entertain You?

Or have You, our parental deity, simply given up? At what point, I wonder, did we finally cross the line? Not during our infancy, when You instructed us through Noah and Abraham, Jacob and Moses. Was it after Christ was crucified? Did You really forgive us? Perhaps it was during humanity’s adolescence, those terrible ‘teen’ years when most parents feel like abandoning their child. Was that it, Lord? Was it the Holocaust that caused You to shake Your mighty head in shame? Hiroshima? Korea? Vietnam? September 11? The 2012 conflict? The atrocities in Africa? The endless turmoil in the Middle East?

At what point did You say, ‘To Hell with them.’

Selfish and stupid, violent and destructive, shortsighted and cruel. Children step on your toes when they are young, then step on your hearts as they get older.

Everyone makes mistakes, God. Were we Yours?

Or was this whole thing just part of Your master plan?

Forgive my tirade, son, but since your departure from my soul, I am so full of anger, so full of hate, so full of blasphemy that at times I feel as if I could burst—

Immanuel’s ebony eyes flash open as he wails a bloodcurdling scream and leaps to his feet, tossing the now-dry bedsheet from his shoulders.

Jacob grabs him around the shoulders. ‘Manny, what is it?’

Immanuel hugs himself, pacing back and forth in the snow, his limbs shaking.

‘Computer, end program!’

The snow and mountainside disappear, revealing the onyx-tiled sensory chamber. The heavy chill ceases, replaced by waves of heat.

Jacob hovers over his brother, who is kneeling on the damp floor, huddling in the warmth. ‘You heard him, didn’t you, Manny? You heard our father!’

Immanuel looks up, his body still trembling. ‘I heard nothing. Now get me the hell out of here.’

33

NOVEMBER 24, 2033: HEALTH SOUTH DOCTOR’S HOSPITAL, CORAL GABLES, FLORIDA

Thursday Morning

Lauren Beckmeyer is exhausted.

It is not the kind of exhaustion she ordinarily relishes from her physical training. This is something she has never experienced, the kind of overwhelming fatigue that comes from being a fugitive. Perpetually draining, it refuses to allow her mind to rest, her fraught nerves to settle.

It is exhaustion based on the fear of death.