Wrenched from my arms, Dharma was violently splayed out on deck, her body pinned beneath three g’s of gravity.

“Andria, let her go.”

YOU HAVE SLEPT WITH THIS WOMAN?

“Of course not,” I lied, quickly instructing ABE to adjust my biological responses to back my claim. “Dharma and the cephaloped are friends, they’re here to help me free you and the others … to make you whole again.”

She turned to me, looking at me through scarlet eyes that spewed a jealous rage. Reaching out, she gripped my wrist in her right palm, reading my pulse—ABE quickly slowing my racing heartbeat.

After a moment, her expression changed. YOU SPEAK THE TRUTH.

“I’d never lie to you. Search your memories aboard Oceanus. Access Commander Kevin Read. It was you who cheated on me … but I forgave you.”

For several seconds her head twitched as she attempted to reconcile the contradictions between a life she believed she had lived and the dichotomy of existence she had been condemned to serve.

To my surprise, her lower lip quivered and she displayed emotions I would never have thought possible for a biological machine.

IKE, CAN YOU MAKE ME HUMAN AGAIN?

I could have lied, I could have simply told her what she needed to hear in order to get her to deliver the bomb, but suddenly she was no longer a genetic mutation to me, nor was she a random seed on an assembly line … she was a living being who aspired to be better than the warped depravity of her Creator.

“Andie, I can make your life better, only you have to trust me.”

I TRUST YOU.

“Then release Dharma and take us to the Holy City. Most important, do not reveal our presence to the Creator.”

Chapter 37

37

An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.

—CHARLES DARWIN

I had been born into a world of intolerance, a world where man’s negative nature—fueled by the human ego—had determined that greed was good, that hatred could drive a political campaign as well as an entertainment medium, and that fear could be used to coerce a nation into war. I had grown up in a maelstrom of cynicism—democracy had been poisoned by the power brokers of extremism who were given unrestricted backdoor government access to perpetuate their own agendas, overseen by politicians who wore their religion like a convenient garment.

My father had been my moral compass. Though not religious, he was a spiritual man who lived by the creed. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” In 2003, he had spoken out against the invasion of Iraq and was labeled a traitor; in 2005 he had established a blog that foretold the future legacy of Peak Oil.