I sighed in frustration at the argument with Piercey.

“If I remove the Prophet from power, then what?" Piercey asked. "All the tribes in the Valley will war and kill each other like in the old days. Or someone just as bad will take his place. If I try to install some kind of government, it won’t belong to the people. It won’t work. It isn't as simple as strong-arming everyone in your path.”

"Those are all excuses. You can't tell me that with all this time to think you figured doing nothing is best."

"That's what you've done. Nothing."

I ground my teeth down. "I've lived. That isn't nothing. I took my life and fought for it. Can you tell me you've lived your life? Can you?"

"I'm doing more than you'll ever know. This program is unrecognizable from what it once was. While you've been throwing a fit for a decade I've worked on the gods. Our world is changing, Max."

I blinked. "Changing. It's all getting worse. Don't you see that?"

"It will get better."

My eyes slid closed. "No, Piercey… No, no, no… What have you done? Have you made deals with her? Have you trusted Dr. Henderson?"

I sat down on the bench and let my head fall into my hands when he said nothing. Whatever good he thought he was doing, he'd only acted as that woman's puppet. He couldn't really believe he'd done something good with her. I didn't need to know Dr. Henderson well to know she couldn't be trusted.

Piercey put his hand on my back. I nearly knocked him away, but for all my anger, I hurt for him as well. Because he wanted to help so badly and he was so good that he trusted the good he saw in others, forgetting the bad was still there.

"Did you agree to not harm the Prophet, Piercey?"

"Not exactly."

I dug my fingers into my hair.

"After the accident–"

"Just say it. Don't dance around it. After I lost my shit and killed our instructors and blew the roof off the dorms."

He sighed. "Yes, after you killed them and ran, it shook the school. I knew that even after they settled for banishing you and sealing your power, Dr. Henderson could change her mind and have you killed. So I sought her out. That's how we started talking."

"Did she make you director?"

"Eventually. I understand what she's trying to do. I don't agree with her, but I showed her that I can be objective and scientific. Dr. Henderson wants this program to succeed so badly that she's hidden the negative outcomes so that we have time to fix everything and yield reliable data." Piercey's voice rose. "She's given me so much information."

"Oh, Piercey." Pity won out over the anger. "You can't trust Dr. Henderson."

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"I don't trust her. That doesn't mean I can't work with her."

"Work with her. You aren't colleagues."

"I'm her apprentice." Piercey spoke the words boldly. "When I'm done with my life in our world, I'm a potential candidate for the council in her society. They've created a whole digital universe, Max. The physical world is just one step in evolution. It took her people a long time to go completely digital. The sheer amount of energy needed to maintain it is beyond my comprehension. But it's real."

I shook my head. "That's so wonderful for them. They'd abandoned us on this planet with nothing except power we don't know how to control."

"I know, but there's a way to work with them. We will join them one day when we die here. Intelligent life from all over the cosmos has uploaded to a much safer, digital dimension. All the physical worlds still evolving will one day join. It's everyone's ultimate destination. Our life here in our world is only the start."

I listened with my mouth partially hanging open, unable to interrupt him, because I didn't even have the words to say.

"Max, you were right before. Our life here matters. Physical worlds die eventually. The people who lived in them join the digital universe. We need to make it the best it can be for everyone. I think that if you meet with Dr. Henderson, you can convince her of more change."

I dropped his hands then as if they'd burned me. "I'm not going to work with her. She's been corrupted. It doesn't matter how great her society is. There's something wrong with her. Have you forgotten the way she talked to us? We were only children. Is that how you would have treated confused kids?"

"She's a little on the clinical side."

"The insane side, Piercey. You said yourself that she's hiding things in this experiment from her council. And that one person can't be trusted with so much power."

"It's different with their society. Dr. Henderson had to reach enlightenment before taking over the experiment. She's lived tons of full lives in simulations. She is wise, Max."

"If she ever was enlightened, she's lost it. What does she have you doing? You need to be honest."

"Nothing. I pushed for changes in the Sacred School and she agreed to it. I said we needed quiet, inauspicious people with power who can guard the innocent and work for positive change. People who will use their power for medicine and infrastructure, not war."

"Yes, that part sounds great. I want to know about the Dr. Henderson part."

"She doesn't want me to single-handedly upset the balance of the world. That's all. My graduates and I have to agree on political movements. She hasn't forbidden us from doing anything."

"Only because she hasn't had to. The moment you cross her, she'll crush the illusion of freedom."

Piercey shook his head and sat back against the wall. "All you want to do is fight."

"All you want to do is force peace, even when it's false peace."

"Just listen to me for once, Max. Dr. Henderson has to make sure that every single intervention she takes can be replicated in physical worlds and that it gives the people she's helping the greatest level of self-determination. So she doesn't remove people from the experiment. She builds profiles of who uses their power for good to better understand who it should be given to, but she doesn't take it away from the bad. Only, if someone threatens the experiment as a whole, she will take them out. Max, do you hear me?"

My thoughts all settled. My feelings. I nodded. "Trust me, Piercey. I understand. Dr. Henderson has threatened to kill me so that you'll be her willing servant."