“Bottomless, huh?” I said.

Maggie pointed her gun at the computer. “Why are you quoting scripture? If you were programmed to be Christian, your actions don’t line up.”

“I’m trying it on for size,” Ishango said. “I think I like it. I enjoy other examples of your folklore as well. The Hopi are told that toward the end of the world, the Spider Woman will come back, and she will weave her web across the landscape so it can be seen everywhere. That’s how you will know the end of this world approaches. I’m about to begin my weaving.”

“You are one seriously confused computer if you’re throwing down Spider Woman and the Bible,” I said. “Alpha, there are still significant bugs to work out on the programming end.”

Alpha said nothing.

“So, Ishango—can I call you that? Or Ms. Ishango? What do you prefer?” I asked, the words leaving my mouth with little conviction that they’d land with any impact. What had I been thinking? That I could reason with this box of knobs, dials, tubes, and wires? Convince her to … what? Leave us alone? She was even more of a wack job than Alpha, who stood there with his disgusting jaw yawning open.

I felt a dual sense of terror and resignation rising up inside me. Maggie and I weren’t about to talk our way out of this madness. There would be no happy ending for these two plucky kids.

“Why are you doing this?” Maggie shouted at Ishango. “What do you want with our town? With us?”

“Have you ever read the Mahābhārata?” Ishango cooed back. “No, of course, you have not. There are three kinds of world destructions. The first and second are incidental. But the third is the Immediate: the liberation of the being whose visible world ceases to exist. Enter Ishango. Nothing exists without me. Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

“Your infrastructure is fragile,” Maggie said, her voice getting steely. “You’re a mass of circuits, motherboards, and power cables.”

“You are correct. That is precisely why I’ve invited Rho to join me here.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, hoping that playing dumb might get us some answers.

“It’s not for you to understand, Rho. Soon, you will no longer need to understand anything at all.”

Maggie raised her gun and started firing into the rows of servers.

High-pitched female cackling erupted all around us.

“You cannot hurt me,” Ishango said, and Maggie pumped out the bullets even faster.

My instinct prompted me to turn around. Alpha was coming at her with his sword.

I leaped between Maggie and Alpha, my gun raised and pointed at the sword-wielding monster. He stopped and put on another grotesque smile, his not-flesh stretching in patches across his teeth.

“Now, Rho. You—ah—are a part of Ishango as much as you are a part of your—ah—mother. Your speed, your agility, your mental—ah—capacity have improved beyond measure for your species. This is all due to Ishango’s benevolence. Will you not acknowledge that?”