The three of us bolted from the platform, only to be pummeled backward by a nerve-rattling, eyeball-pounding surge of electricity. Flat on my back, I looked up to see GOLEM floating down through the ceiling, the sphere’s internal DNA strands twisting into serpentlike coils, as if the AI had consumed the mythical head of Medusa.

The Monique clone placed the lead canister upon the cube, which appeared to be a sensory device activated by its creator.

In the blink of an eye the bomb detonated, the C-4’s powerful blast radius contained within an invisible oval-shaped force field, the interior of the barrier outlined in sizzling violet discharges of light.

“A composite of cyclotrimethylene trinitramine, a diethylhexy plasticizer, and the odorizing marker 3-dinitrobutane. Eisenbraun’s attempt to destroy the Creator has failed. The Creator is not of this world. The Creator is omnipotent.”

“If the Creator is omnipotent,” I ranted, “then how did I escape the last time? There is a flaw in the creation matrix–—trace memories from your DNA donors that can be used to nourish the seeds of something innate in every human—free will. Release us now and those trace memories remain dormant. Harm us and those memories will spread like a cancer throughout every cloned being in the Holy City.”

It was a bluff, but it was a good one (or so I thought), magnified by the computer’s lack of recent experience in handling an intellectual challenge to its rule.

I anticipated a rebuff. Instead, GOLEM rose majestically up through the center of the lab, the facility’s curved walls separating into five sections, peeling open like the pedals of a flower.

Exposed to the night, we watched spellbound as the glowing orb levitated three hundred feet or more above the lab, casting its light on the surrounding redwood hives and gardens, its presence demanding the attention of every clone, every transhuman, every being it had harvested with life.

“Robert Eisenbraun has sinned against the Creator. The punishment for blasphemy is harsh. Each one of you who shares memories of Robert Eisenbraun shall also receive a share of his punishment as a warning not to congregate with evil.”

Without warning, Dharma, Oscar, and I were tossed onto the lab floor as GOLEM commanded the transhuman hovercraft to its side.

“This H-T unit allowed its memories of Robert Eisenbraun to manipulate it against the Creator. Each of you shall register a spark of retribution against this blasphemy as a vaccination against free will.”

As we watched, billions of DNA strands began churning within the computer’s enzyme vessel, the outer rim of its dark pupil-like gelatinous nucleus radiating with a golden hue as it downloaded a self-destruct program to its creation.

Transhuman Andria convulsed in silent agony, her scarlet eyes draining white, her mechanical circuitry fried into smoldering cinders.

Its gravitational field in flux, the biological machine dropped and hovered several times until it finally plummeted onto the roots of a thousand-foot-tall redwood tree.