“GOLEM’s crater is surrounded by an impenetrable radar detection system. If one of our drones comes within fifty kilometers, it is destroyed.”

I checked my air gauge—down to six minutes. “If you can’t get close enough, how am I—”

“The transhuman hovercraft created with your fiancée’s genetic code remains close by, awaiting your next communiqué. The mutation can be used to transport the explosive. Detonated over the crater, the device will release an electromagnetic pulse powerful enough to short-circuit GOLEM.”

“What device? I see no—”

A slice of white light fractured away from the male’s holographic projection, illuminating a twelve-by-thirty-inch oval canister set on a control panel.

“You must instruct the hovercraft to fly at an altitude of twenty thousand feet at a velocity of seventy miles an hour. Proceed east to the Holy City. The moment you cross over the crater’s western border, press the control switch twice and the device will become active. Count eight seconds and release the device over the side, then instruct the hovercraft to turn around and execute a rapid descent to three hundred feet. The blast will be contained in the crater, shutting down and incinerating the computer and its brood.”

“Wait … what blast? I thought this was an EMP?”

“Dr. Eisenbraun, the device you see before you is a fifteen-kiloton nuclear bomb, carrying roughly the same charge as the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima. The plutonium was salvaged from the Oceanus reactor.”

“How did you recharge the plutonium? Never mind. I’m sure you’ve accomplished greater endeavors over the last twelve million years. But there’s a problem with nuking the Holy City—the cephalopeds want the clones spared.”

“They are unique creatures,” the man said. “However, they cannot possibly comprehend the dangers of allowing their masters to live.”

WARNING: LESS THAN TWO MINUTES OF AIR REMAINS IN YOUR TANK.

“Dr. Eisenbraun, there is much to discuss. Tomorrow night’s lunar event will allow us to bring both you and Dharma Yuan to Alpha Colony so we may brief you in person. For now, it is imperative that you collect the explosive and leave the habitat before you lose consciousness.”

I still had a million questions, but they would have to wait. Grabbing the sixty-pound lead capsule in both arms, I struggled with it up the aluminum ladder. My brain was operating in a fog and the egress passage was spinning by the time I made my way out the exit to daylight. I dropped to my knees, carefully laid the explosive down in the sand, and tore the suffocating mask from my face as Dharma rushed to my side.

Chapter 36

36

Humanity is going to need a substantially new way of thinking if it is to survive.

—ALBERT EINSTEIN