Taking my hand, Dharma led me into this growing congregation of lost souls, all of us beckoned by the unifying sound, desiring only to live in peace.

*   *   *

I awoke to the quiet of dawn, the air heavy with humidity. The aurora was gone, the moon waxing as it ventured once more on its elliptical circuit around the planet.

Dharma was curled next to me. We were in a meadow just outside the redwood city, the crater’s southwest wall looming before us like the Appalachian mountain range. We were not alone.

Spread out around us were thousands of cephalopeds. They were sleeping in clusters of three to seven—brown mounds of entangled limbs in the dew-covered grass.

My left shoulder was sore, so I rolled over, Dharma following suit. Oscar was three paces away, his tentacles entwined around a female. Sensing movement, he raised his bulbous head, his yellow eyes watching me, making sure I was all right.

I waved at my friend, assuring him everything was fine.

Of course, there were still questions to be answered. In the last eight hours an event of messianic proportions had taken place, and all indications were that it had been preordained. The cephalopeds were clearly the Chosen Ones on this rebooted Earth—Oscar their leader, an eight-legged Moses chosen to free his species from bondage.

Chosen by whom? God? Dharma had told me the cephalopeds had the ability to access the Light of the Creator; a theory I had too easily dismissed. But their desire to love their enemies demonstrated incredible faith, proving the cephs were not merely the next rung up the evolutionary ladder; in a sense they were everything humanity had aspired to be—loving, selfless, caring, nonjudgmental—they were clearly “connected” to a higher power.

Oscar had also been chosen to free me from my cryogenic purgatory. What role was I destined to play? Had I already played it?

Then there was the Rebirth Moon. Though caused by the sun, it seemed far more than a random celestial event. Dharma believed it was a connection between the spiritual and physical worlds.

I knew she was right. ABE was no longer functioning, but I didn’t need the bio-chip to confirm that last night had been the eve of Rosh Hashanah. As my father had taught me, the Jewish holy days were not simply dates on a calendar, nor were they just for the Jews. According to the Torah, the holy days corresponded to certain times of the year when humanity could more directly access a connection with the spiritual realm. Rosh Hashanah was such a time—a day for atonement and transformation.

A time of rebirth.