Dharma smiled. “God is neither man nor beast; the Creator is something we can never comprehend. Man, like these cephalopeds, was created not from God’s image but His essence, the essence to share. The cephalopeds are the embodiment of that essence—selfless loving beings existing harmoniously with nature. Like humans, they are physical vessels that harbor the soul. Unlike humans, they lack ego and all its ugly baggage—anger, hatred, jealousy, greed, corruption. These life-forms have achieved a state of Nirvana that keeps them attuned to the higher dimensions of the spiritual realm. Unfortunately once again, humans are threatening the natural order of life on this planet.”

“What humans? It’s just you and me.”

She shook her head, disappointed. “Remember, for the moment I can still read your thoughts. As such, I know you have crossed paths with Andria—at least one of her clone replicas. From having shared the cephaloped collective consciousness, I know that GOLEM used Andria’s DNA and the DNA of the other female members of the Omega crew to birth a nation of these soulless vessels. These lab creations that sprang from the sociopathic mind of your invention have spread across the continent like a pestilence; in the process they have forced the cephalopeds to abandon their natural habitat in the trees, hunting them down and using them in horrifying genetic experiments.”

“The cephalopeds are powerful intelligent creatures, Dharma. They are certainly capable of organizing a rebellion. Why don’t they fight back?”

“They did. For thousands of years their ancestors engaged in bloody battles with the children of GOLEM. Think of the Arab-Israeli conflict, only far worse. For even when the cephalopeds sought to end the fighting, peace could never be brokered with the Creator.”

“Creator? You mean GOLEM?”

“GOLEM no longer exists, your creation has evolved beyond its programming. It is an entity beyond artificial intelligence—an entity worshipped by its people as the Creator.”

It took me a moment to absorb this mind-boggling information.

Somewhere in the thought process my own ego reared its ugly head. You created a new life force, Eisenbraun. An intelligence capable of populating its own world.

Dharma slapped me hard across the face. “What you created was a monster, a machine possessing the desires of a sociopath. Free will exists only among the cephalopods, who are treated not as a species but as a genetic commodity necessary to seed your monster’s own creations.”