Humans have been invoking God’s name as part of their interspecies slaughters since the Mayan, Toltec, and Aztec empires chose to appease their gods through human sacrifices. Generations suffered and died during the Christian Crusades. Countless innocents were “shocked and awed” during the campaigns to thwart Saddam Hussein. And as the nukes went off, the phrase “God and country” ushered in the opening battles of World War III, perhaps because it was a lot easier on the conscience to annihilate forty thousand Muslims if you truly believed God was on your side.

Thou shall not kill? More of a convenient metaphor than a commandment. A pacifist had never won a political office, nor had an atheist.

Kill, baby, kill.

Was bloodlust in our genes? Having witnessed my entire family murdered by a God-fearing, Bible-toting mob, my answer was a resounding “yes,” and that yes and the anger it had engendered in me led to the invention of ABE: If God could not keep our innate vices in check, then technology would.

Of course, my “genius” had also given life to GOLEM, rendering me history’s biggest hypocrite.

Now, man was all but gone, and yet the practice of killing innocent beings in God’s name was still alive and well. Ironically—maddeningly—in reshuffling and resequencing human DNA, GOLEM could have eliminated the “evil gene” from the Homo sapiens menu, but the computer needed its genetically engineered children to maintain a cold veneer of indifference when it came to the processing and disposal of the cephaloped race.

Having seen the remains of the dead, I could only imagine what evil awaited us in GOLEM’s death camp.

*   *   *

A predawn gray bled its way across the eastern sky, revealing the main gate—a pair of twelve-foot-tall bare metal posts. Nothing ominous looking like the entrance to Auschwitz, nothing as high tech as the security checkpoint at the Pentagon—simply two nondescript metal posts.

Again, I had underestimated humanity’s ruling artificial intelligence.

Prodded by the ghoulish Nosferatu sentries, I stepped across the threshold. Oscar was trembling against my chest—when my consciousness was instantly inhaled through a funnel of white energy, every cell in my body swimming in its warm, embracing, and quite intoxicating light. Gravity’s weight was shed from my body, my flesh liberated, my spirit tingling.

How long I remained in this state of harmony and bliss, I have no idea, but at some juncture I opened my eyes to blue skies and the sun’s warmth on my face … and Bella Maharaj.

“Wake up, sleepyhead.”

I sat up and realized that my body felt refreshed. I was in a grassy meadow, human Bella kneeling beside me. She was wearing a sheer white frock and a smile … But where was Oscar?

“Oscar’s safe, and so are you. Come, I’ll show you.”