I sat on the patio of the lake house with my father and watched the children play. Little Gershwin had caught a frog and was proudly showing it to his sister who wanted absolutely nothing to do with the slimy amphibian. He chased after her with the frog held out in front of him like a sibling repelling talisman.

"They're precious." Gershwin Prime remarked with pride. "Döbi and Sühi together, what a combination."

"You always say that." I laughed and took a sip of my beer.

"I always mean it. You truly are blessed. And as your father your blessings bring me great joy." He leaned back in his chair. "I wonder if they will bother visiting when they get older. The world is new for them, there's so much to see and explore. They won't want to dwell in the memories of an old war criminal."

"They will." I promised. "They love their grandfather, even if he is a ghost that thinks he knows everything."

"Good." Gershwin Prime took a puff of his cigar. "How is work?"

I shrugged. "I'm a deputy police chief in a place with little to no crime. Most of what I do these days is push paperwork around."

Gershwin Prime shook his head. "There is no crime because you are deputy police chief, not the other way around."

I couldn't argue with his logic. Granted, I had rather unique resources at my disposal. Revamping social services had taken care of most of the petty crime. Gershwin Prime and I had worked together on that. He had a passion for social welfare and had devoted significant processing power to ensuring that everyone was fed and taken care of. It was part of his way of atoning for past sins.

The more hardened criminals had tried to remove me but they were like pups compared to what I was used to dealing with back in Möhi. I had only had to introduce a few of them to my other side before the rest learned to play by the rules.

"I've got a present for you." Gershwin Prime said, reaching into his pocket for a small silver cylinder. It looked like a metal cigar tube but there was a button on one end of it and a plastic cap on the other.

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"So you finally got it to work." I said, inspecting the device. We had first come up with the idea years ago but designing it to be safe and resistant to tampering had taken some time. "How did the live trials go?"

"Flawlessly." Gershwin Prime said proudly. "It's universal healthcare in a syringe. It's the best thing I've ever made, besides you, of course."

I wondered if he meant that as a parent or as a scientist, but I didn't ask for clarification. "This is going to help a lot of people." I said. "Nanotechnology based medicine is the future."

"And it's cheap." Gershwin Prime looked down at the ground. "Well no, that's not quite right. A lot of beings paid dearly for it. We've all paid dearly for this peace we've found."

I patted him on the shoulder. "Don't dwell on the past. Think of all the good this will do."

He sighed. "I'm dead. All I have is the past."

I pointed to the two pups playing by the lake. "We have them. That's something." I said."We're doing this for them so that they never have to live in fear of humans. I want my children and my children's children to live free under a sky full of stars. Not trapped in some pocket dimension like a dog in a kennel."

"So it's decided then." Gershwin Prime nodded. "I will have the others move forward with production." He got up and walked away, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I leaned back in my chair and took a sip of my beer. A lot of innocent beings were going to die because of what we had chosen to do. I just hoped that history would look back on us kindly. The only silver lining was that if we failed, nobody would ever know. The humans would erase all traces that we ever had existed.

I watched my children play. I was doing this for them, just the way my own father had done what he had to do for me. The device Gershwin Prime had designed contained a milder self replicating version of the warhund nanotech that he had pioneered.

It would grant the user long life and good health while also allowing them limited ability to connect with the Gravekeeper, if they chose to do so. Those around them would also be colonized by the nanotechnology and receive the benefits as well. It was benign, literally harmless, but the unity it would bring and the suffering it would alleviate would inevitably lead to war with the humans.

Once they saw that we were no longer fighting each other for territory or scrambling for basic necessities the humans would try and force us back down into the mud. They would respond harshly to any demands for freedom. Maybe they would even kill us.

I watched my children play. They were blissfully unaware of what was coming or the decisions their father had made to secure their futures. I hoped they would understand. I hoped they would forgive me.