Without taking his eyes off her, Julian shuffled his papers around, holding up more portraits in order. “I would also like to enter these into the record,” he said. He shuffled through them quickly, each second an eternity. Portraits of two men and one woman. She only recognized one of the men, whom she remembered being the driver in the van that had been carrying her, Vincent, and the Genome. The other two faces must have belonged to the people who had been in the SUV directly behind them.

“These CIA agents,” said Julian. “Do you know how they died?”

She thought of Obelus, his old body, that massive heft that carried with it the ability to unmake human flesh and bone with a thought. That monster that ripped apart the other Similar, Kruro, overpowered him, and disintegrated everything remotely carbon-based in his body. Human bodies turning to ash. She tried to swallow, tried to get some moisture into her cotton ball throat. “I don’t know the specifics.”

This seemed to anger Julian. “Four CIA agents were killed in action. You were there when they died. Can you tell us how they died?”

“I don’t know the specifics.”

Julian whipped out another ream of papers, glaring down at her. “According to this report, supplied to my staff by a whistleblower, they have an ability to instantly render organic flesh to ash. This ability was first observed by the specimen ‘Scio,’ who later adopted the name Jude Atheatos, during an autopsy of what ‘he’ described as his next of kin, the deceased specimen ‘Čefo.’ Team was unable to verify veracity of his ‘next of kin’ claim. Specimen Scio telekinetically removed the organic neural network of the deceased specimen Čefo, and then rendered the neural organic material to ash. A much more powerful version of this ability was observed by the specimens ‘unknown stratocrats’ AG-ETI-047, AG-ETI-048, AG-ETI-049, and AG-ETI-050 attached to the event code-named ‘Obelus.’ You were present for this autopsy, correct?”

She scanned the panel, looking for one sympathetic face and finding none. “Yes.”

“And according to this report, you were already active as Jude Atheatos’s—né Scio’s—communication intermediary, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Therefore, you saw specimen Scio vaporize the organic material of his alleged next of kin, Čefo.”

Stop, some distant part of her pleaded. You didn’t know this would be part of the testimony. You can plead the Fifth. You don’t need to answer this. “Yes.”

“Have you ever seen any of these ETIs use this ability on a human body?”

“Yes.”

When it came out, she heard the whole chamber erupt into chatter. She had all but forgotten there were people here, that she wasn’t alone in a cold, white void being questioned. That this was being broadcast live to anyone who cared to watch.