“Oh, yes. Omega dreams are the most vivid dreams you can imagine. Perhaps this is because the process prevents you from awakening as you would during normal REM sleep. During my second stasis, I fell in love with a beautiful South African woman. We were married and raised a family. She was pregnant with my second child when I was awakened. I miss my Omega family; I am hoping they will be waiting for me when I return in thirteen days.”

“Okay, but what if something unforeseen does happen, say a circuit failure inside the unit itself.”

“In that event, the unit drains and the subject receives an adrenaline shot from within the pod. Be glad it won’t happen, the normal wakening routine is far more pleasant.” Moving to the left side of the unit, Kyle opened a control panel. “We’re only running a test. Before you actually go under, the cryogenic software must be activated.” He pressed the F1 control on a keypad. The words TESTING UNIT appeared on the small monitor, along with a digital clock that counted down from six hundred seconds.

“Kyle, can I ask you a personal question?”

“Ask anything.”

“Why did you give Bella such a hard time?”

Graulus exhaled. “You’ve had a ten-minute conversation with our resident tree hugger, I’ve had to listen to her for more than a year. Her view of existence comes from a self-induced spiritual plateau erected after lifetimes of chanting. As a biologist, I look around me and see only evolution at play, sweeping us along in its tidal current like insects on a leaf. You want to know why humanity nearly went out? It’s called population spike meets an anticipated lack of resources, and it’s been happening for five hundred million years. Look at the sudden collapse of the deer population on St. Matthew Island when their feeding masses obliterated their only grasslands; look at the mass extinction on Easter Island when the natives decided to burn all the trees to appease their gods. Let me tell you this: The Great Die-Off was a long time coming, my friend. An entire continent had been starving for decades because African cattle herders overgrazed their land; our oceans were being decimated because commercial fishermen were allowed to rape entire species. Evolution can even be found in the economy of greed—look at how the world’s largest businesses and banks spiked and collapsed. And yet the fools remained convinced they were immune to the laws of nature. Why? Because our opposable thumb renders us so smart? Hoeren, they should all krijg kanker en ga dood!”

ABE translated: WHORES, THEY SHOULD ALL GET CANCER AND DIE.

“We behave like stupid heads; now we must go to another world to fix this mess. And yet, this too is part of evolution—the urgency creating the need to adapt. Darwinism at its best, ja?”

“And what of GOLEM? How does the computer fit into evolution?”