When Billy opened his eyes moments later, the world felt as though it had been turned upside down. He saw several pairs of black boots and the uniformed legs of guards standing in front of an ornate gate. They stepped aside in synchronized movements—not for him, but for the android carrying him over its shoulder like a disobedient child.

The door to the tower chamber swung open, and the first thing Billy noticed was the cold, sharp enough to make him shiver. It created a haze, mist that clung to the ground like liquid nitrogen. The first sound he registered was the loud hum of a machine, and the first sight was a mix of armed guards, slick-suited executives, rows of enormous windows, and a majestic ceiling. Beyond the windows, a snowstorm raged.

When the android stopped in the center of the room and the door closed behind them, Billy felt the gentle sway of the tower’s peak in the wind. Lightning flashed at their altitude, and icy gusts lashed the towering glass panes.

"He was disobedient," said Nicholas Curtis. "I had to subdue him, or he would have seen the inside of the tower."

A moment of silence passed before an unfamiliar robotic voice echoed from all directions. It was unmelodic, harsh, and unnaturally mechanical in its inflection.

"The poor thing is frightened. He doesn’t know what awaits him," the voice said. "And yet, he should only have reasons to... rejoice."

Billy felt a strong hand grip his ribs while another grasped his calf. The android lowered its burden with ease, as if setting down a child.

Still unsteady on his feet, Billy turned after three shaky steps. Among the uniformed corporate guards, the cluster of curious researchers, and the elegantly dressed board members, he saw for the first time the doctor responsible for everything: Professor Henry Thandros. The man Billy had made it his ultimate mission to find.

His outward appearance was a reflection of his inner self: a monster that could only exist in bitter cold. Henry Thandros sat atop a towering mechanical body, shrouded in that eerie frosty mist. It was clear the machine was the source of the chamber’s frigid temperature.

The body was massive and cone-shaped, rising so high that Thandros’s aged, wrinkled head nearly brushed the ceiling. Only now did Billy realize that the enormous machine was his entire lower body. The bare upper torso was fused to the machinery below the waist, a grotesque union where a broad tube connected the metallic frame to his abdomen, secured with plates and bolts.

Thandros himself was surrounded by a dense jungle of cables and tubes—some facilitating the exchange of fluids and blood, others appearing to simply hold his upper body and head upright.

The sight of the megalomaniacal scientist inevitably conjured in Billy’s mind the image of a queen bee, immobile in her hive’s chamber. As motionless as Thandros appeared, he likely spent every day and night gazing down at the world he had built. From the mirrored windows, he could observe the residents of Thandros’s Garden of Eden as well as the misery of New York’s abandoned boroughs, all while remaining invisible to the outside world.

A heavy silence filled the room. The only sound was the faint patter of snow and freezing rain on the roof, lending an oddly tranquil character to the oppressive quiet. Streaks of rain slid down the windows, while wet, gray clouds clung to the glass, barely visible through the room’s reflections.

Billy’s nervous gaze flitted across the faces of those present. He recognized the corporation’s spokesperson and HR director—faces he knew from TV. Standing next to them was a young blonde woman who scrutinized him openly, critically, as though he were a failed experiment. She, too, was a public figure, instantly recognizable.

She wore a tailored navy blazer paired with a matching skirt, dark silk stockings, and elegant heels. Her face, almost unnervingly perfect in its symmetry and beauty, was one Billy recognized immediately. In the past, he had assumed it was the result of plastic surgery. Now, knowing what he did about the Thandros Corporation, he suspected genetic engineering—or perhaps she was an android herself.

It was Zara Thandros, the granddaughter of the elderly Henry Thandros, the current Chairwoman of the Thandros Corporation’s Board and the public face of the Thandros dynasty. She stepped forward from the group, her expression cold and piercing.

"This pitiful little creature is supposed to change the world?"

Ouch.

With a loud hum that Billy could feel vibrating through the soles of his shoes, the massive mechanical body began to move, rotating sluggishly on its axis until the wrinkled face of Henry Thandros was turned toward the peculiar visage of his own creation.

"One of the new humans," said the strange, computer-generated voice, as though it were reading Thandros’s thoughts and converting them into sound. "A creation from which we have removed all undesirable traits. While the other Paradise inhabitants are barely sentient, plagued by naivety as their greatest weakness, this one has been gifted with extraordinary intellect. The first nearly perfect human."

"Nearly?" his granddaughter said, her tone incredulous.

"Perfect? Me?" Billy asked, nearly laughing aloud.

"Before I prove it to you, let me first speak with him. I’m sure he has many questions," Henry Thandros said, clearly addressing the gathered assembly. The cables and thin wires attached to his shoulder blades and the back of his head pulled him slightly upward. Slowly, as though it took immense effort, he raised a thin arm and pointed toward the window. "Look, my child, down at the world, and tell me what you see."

It took Billy a moment to realize that he was the one being addressed. Fear rooted him in place. He tilted his head to the side, about to say he saw nothing but a few scattered city lights glimmering faintly behind the reflections on the glass, like stars in a light-polluted sky.

Then, suddenly, the bright lights of the tower chamber extinguished, plunging everyone into total darkness. Questions hung in the air: a power outage? Intentional?

Billy stood transfixed. Before him, the city came alive, a radiant tableau that seemed to draw him toward the glass like metal to a magnet. The vast windows lined nearly the entire chamber. Billy stepped closer, stopping a few meters from the eerie mechanical body whose chill permeated the room, a constant reminder of the machine keeping the old scientist alive.

He pressed a hand to the glass, leaning so close that his breath fogged the surface. He wiped it clear with his sleeve and gazed at the sea of lights below.

He saw the golden glow of Times Square’s neon lights, the shimmering facade of the Chrysler Building, and the majestic spire of St. Patrick’s Cathedral piercing the dark sky. Beyond, the muted hum of the East River hinted at the world outside, while the sprawling chaos of Manhattan stretched endlessly below. His thoughts lingered on the steady blinking of the television tower’s signal lights.

Though he stood far removed from the chaos, Billy had expected the city at night to appear peaceful from this distance. Instead, what he saw overwhelmed him—a panorama of suffering laid bare before his eyes.

Not beauty but horror stole his breath. Smoke plumes, thick and frayed, rose from every district. Fires raged both large and small throughout the city. Were they caused by accidents? Terrorism? Arson? In a metropolis like New York, tragedies unfolded every second—and, as Billy could now see, they occurred simultaneously across countless locations.

Below, chaos ruled the streets of the city where he had grown up, a city whose violent outbursts he knew all too well. Ambulance lights pulsed in the urban canyons, while police helicopters cast searchlights over buildings and streets, hunting criminals in a city that was nearly all crime. A storm howled over residential neighborhoods, and Billy couldn’t help but think of the hundreds of people who would freeze to death tonight in Midtown alone.

Beneath the resplendent lights lay an unfathomable expanse of despair. Billy swallowed hard at the thought, a lump tightening in his throat, and his vision blurred.

"Now look directly below, to the base of the tower, and tell me, my child, what you see," said the distorted voice, emanating from all directions and burrowing into his ears.

Billy lowered his gaze. Directly beneath the tower lay the glowing green Paradise, shielded by a force field from the raging storms that climate change had unleashed with devastating force. Tall palisades separated it from the ruin and destruction wrought by politics and humanity.

"We both see the same thing," Henry Thandros’s mechanized voice declared, "and yet, we perceive it with different eyes. Beneath us lies the future, my child—a future in which you play a vital role. We are building a world where human desire no longer matters. No more reproduction through intimacy. No love. No jealousy. No hatred. No vengeance. No passion. A world where humanity lives in complete harmony with one another."

Billy took a step back from the window. With some reluctance, he turned toward the old professor, tilting his head back to look up at him, straining to make out the contours of his unsettling figure in the darkness.

"What you describe is not a life worth living," he said. "What you’ve created down there in your so-called Garden of Eden is nothing more than a lie, populated by lab rats eking out their existence in a cage. It’s completely meaningless. You refuse—or are unable—to see the truth. In your quest for humanity, you’ve committed inhuman atrocities."

"You are twenty-eight years old, my child. I, on the other hand, am a century older. Our horizons could not be further apart. And yet we share the same desires. How many times did you tell Vivian, and how many times did she report to me, that you long for a world free of injustice and poverty? A world where people live in prosperity and help each other rather than wage war?"

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Billy reached back, his hand finding support on the icy glass. Had the doctor really just mentioned Vivian? And yet—was he truly surprised that she was involved?

Of course Vivian and the professor are in this together.

"Never again war," Henry Thandros said. "Never again disease. To banish anger and hatred from human hearts. That is what I have achieved. To eradicate greed and avarice and replace them with altruism. To destroy evil and create a new world where all live in harmony."

"That’s your goal? That’s what you think you’ve achieved?" Billy asked, making sure his tone conveyed his deep skepticism to everyone in the room. "Are you telling me that you of all people want to improve the world?"

"The greater the goal, the greater the sacrifices required to achieve it," said the voice, echoing from all sides and sinking into Billy’s mind like a mantra. "I have dedicated my entire life to this singular purpose."

"And in the process, you’ve tortured and murdered thousands of innocent people."

"Yes," Thandros replied. "I did so to save billions more, those whose lives are currently mired in filth and misery. I did it for the billions yet to come, whose world would otherwise be even worse than the one we live in now. I did it to give humanity a future after they squandered their right to existence long ago."

Billy clicked his tongue disdainfully. "The world is burning," he said. "You can see it for yourself if you care to look out your own window. What have you accomplished?"

"We are merely at the beginning of our task. The Garden of Eden will grow. One day, its green grass will stretch across the entire planet, and on it, the new humans will play and laugh, dedicating their hearts to harmony and their minds to science. It won’t be long before we introduce the purchasable acquisition of humanity’s noblest traits. And eventually, we will make it mandatory. For decades, we’ve searched the globe for individuals who possess the very best qualities humanity has to offer: selflessness, dedication, humility."

Billy swallowed hard. "Like Tabitha?" he asked, his voice tinged with fury. Fury—an emotion he, as one of these so-called new humans, wasn’t supposed to have, right?

"Like Tabitha," the doctor confirmed. "Thanks to her, humanity will have a real chance at survival."

Billy stared at him, mouth agape. He knows her name, Billy thought. The monstrous doctor knows the name of Isaac’s wife. Did he also know the names of the countless other test subjects he only referred to as objects in his reports?

"One day," Thandros continued, "it will become mandatory for every citizen to undergo genetic modification to eliminate their flaws and replace them with... virtues. By then, there will already be so many like you that you will spread among the human population. Eventually, everyone will be like you—like the Paradise residents."

"You’re insane."

"I am necessary. Someone must take this step. Artificial evolution is imperative, because natural evolution will lead us to inevitable ruin. Without the genetic transformation of humanity, there will always be war. The pursuit of power will never end—until the day we annihilate ourselves."

For a moment, there was silence. Then, behind Billy, a throat cleared among the ranks of the board members.

"Now you know my goals," the professor said. "But what about you? What do you believe brought you to me, my child?"

"There’s nothing I need to believe," Billy replied. "Because I know. I am here to make you pay for your heinous crimes."

A murmur rippled through the assembly. Scientists scribbled notes at his words, while the board members exchanged skeptical glances. Billy’s tone did not belong to a benevolent soul, nor to a heart willing to forgive.

"If your true goal is revenge," Henry Thandros said, "step up to the control panel and shut down the machine that has kept me alive for the past quarter-century." He continued, "I am convinced that you are a being incapable of harming another life."

The room stirred with astonishment. Was the professor serious? Was he willing to gamble his life to prove the success of his creation to those gathered?

The scientists glanced nervously at the skeptical eyes of the board members. Up until this moment, Billy had envisioned a violent uprising, a battle of androids against their creators, with him caught in the middle. One of the Brotherhood scientists raised his voice, seemingly ready to protest the risky idea, but Henry Thandros cut him off, addressing Billy again.

"Believe me, my child, I wouldn’t offer you this choice if I weren’t one hundred percent certain that you couldn’t do it. You will see the necessity of my actions. You will agree with me. You are one of my greatest successes. You are part of my life’s work. You are incapable of hurting another human being. Ever."

Billy took a step closer to the terminal that controlled the old man’s life support and said, "As you can probably imagine, I’ve learned a lot about my life since my car accident. For instance, that my father gave me away when I was just a baby—to you. And you experimented on me. Is that why I’ve been bald as an egg for as long as I can remember? Was I ever anything more than just... an experiment?"

His eyes burned with fury as he stared at the grotesque figure of Henry Thandros, a puppet suspended by cables and tubes; devices keeping him alive artificially. The most powerful man in the world lived thanks to a machine that occupied half the room.

"You have been an object of our research your entire life. Since Nicholas Curtis handed you over to science, you’ve been both our greatest challenge and our greatest hope," Thandros said. While it wasn’t news to Billy, hearing it spoken aloud still hit him with the force of a head-on collision at a hundred miles per hour.

Speaking of head-on collisions: "What happened to me about two weeks ago?"

"Two weeks ago?"

Billy hesitated. "Before Christmas. December twentieth, when I was on my way to my wife’s play. It all started with the car accident. I crashed into a horrifically disfigured woman who later turned out to be Tabitha—in the research facility, in Room 101. How the hell—"

"You didn’t crash into anyone," the voice interrupted, silencing Billy immediately. "The car accident was self-inflicted."

He froze. "What? That’s not possible… I saw her… the woman, Tabitha. She was one of your experiments… far more disfigured than..."

"What you experienced," Thandros continued, "was a flashback. Tabitha was in the research facility the entire time. You’ve seen her many times before. You carry some of her genes within you. What you saw must have been a memory resurfacing—an echo from the time when you and Tabitha were housed in the same room here in the complex. Although we always induce artificial amnesia before beginning field experiments, it seems the brain is more adaptive than we anticipated. Apparently, fragments of memory were retained, and those fragments manifested as a hallucination that day."

Billy’s voice was sharp as he asked, "And the missing car? When I woke up again, it was gone. Did I imagine that too? A week has vanished from my memory, and ever since, my life—what little order it had—has spiraled into hell."

The old man chuckled softly to himself. "Depends on how you look at it," he said. "When you crashed, we had to assess your condition. As it turned out, you were gravely ill at the time. You had terminal cancer."

"I had…?" Billy pushed the question aside, refocusing. "What happened during that week I can’t remember?"

"That one week? Are you sure it’s just a single week?" Henry Thandros asked. "Have you stopped to consider how many other days in your life you don’t remember? What happened on the fifteenth of last month? How did you celebrate your last birthday? When was the last time you had breakfast with your wife? What did you do this April? Or May? Your life is more gaps than memories. It’s only the trauma of that crash that burned itself into your mind so deeply that you noticed something was missing. But in truth, most of your life is missing."

Billy froze, horrified. Could that mean…?

"Are you saying... this wasn’t the first time I’ve been abducted?" he asked.

"Your disappearance was the forty-ninth time in your life, if you must know."

"Forty-nine times? That averages out to… two abductions a year, and I never even noticed?" Billy fell silent, too stunned to continue.

For a while, the only sound was Henry Thandros’s breathing, a strained, rattling noise that echoed through the speakers like a laborious machine.

"What happened," Thandros asked, "after my guards apprehended you in our underground research facility?"

Billy thought back, piecing the sequence together. After Isaac had taken his wife’s body from the facility, Billy himself had been sedated and hadn’t woken up until he was on the train heading here. Yes, his memory picked up again on the tram ride.

"What’s the time gap between those events?" Thandros pressed. "Do you know? No? Then I’ll tell you—it’s been sixteen weeks."

Billy stammered, his thoughts reeling, doing frantic mental math. For a long moment, he couldn’t form words. "Four months? A whole goddamn third of a year, stolen from me?"

"That was the fiftieth time you’ve been with us. But this time, it was the first time you came to us willingly. And it was urgently necessary. We had to operate immediately. You had several tumors, the largest of which had grown to the size of a tennis ball. You wouldn’t have survived another day without the treatment. The past months were brutal for you, believe me. Wiping your memory of that time was your own request."

Billy considered this. It made sense, he thought. It explained why he now felt better than he had in years, or the past weeks, when he could barely stand on his own two feet. Even so, the truth was almost unbearable.

"Back when you woke up after the car accident near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, we made a serious error. The artificial amnesia we induced should have erased your memory of the accident, but for some reason, it didn’t work this time."

"I don’t get it," Billy said. "What’s the point of all this? Why fake my death? Why try to drive me insane?"

"That was never the intention," Thandros replied, his omnipresent voice calm yet unnerving. "Quite the opposite. You almost caused us significant trouble. We wanted the world to believe you were dead."

"Why?"

"Because you belong here."

"Here?"

"In Paradise."

Despite his shock, Billy forced himself to analyze the professor’s words, to internalize and critically assess them. Did any of this make sense?

"If the world was supposed to think I was dead, why release me from the research facility? Why not erase my entire memory like you did with the other Paradise residents and let me live out my days in your Garden of Eden?"

"Yes," said Henry Thandros, drawing the word out thoughtfully, as if burdened by some heavy truth. "You’ve asked the pivotal question, my child. I won’t hide it from you—there is a problem with the Paradise residents. While we’ve developed methods to help certain GMOs survive the metamorphosis, their lifespans are still tragically short. The cancer spreads and consumes them."

Billy swallowed hard.

"It can take months, a decade, or even thirty years in rare cases like yours. But the cancer always comes back, which is why the Paradise residents must regularly endure painful treatments. Just like you."

Billy gritted his teeth. "What does that have to do with my question?" he growled through clenched jaws. "Why did you let me go?"

"What I just told you has everything to do with your question, my child. I’ve given you the foundation you need to even comprehend the answer."

Billy balled his hands into fists. "I don’t understand a damn thing," he hissed.

"Tabitha, the wife of your friend Isaac. Tabitha, the saint. She was a unique human being. What you don’t know is how much she resembles you. In many ways. In fact, you carry a part of her within you. Her kindness."

That didn’t shock Billy much, even if kindness wasn’t exactly a trait he’d consider one of his defining characteristics. He was familiar with the classified documents, and his mind immediately turned to the patient files that mentioned how Tabitha’s genetic material had been combined with his. Yet, he couldn’t connect the dots. What did Tabitha have to do with his question?

"Her body, like most GMOs, struggled greatly to adapt to the changes. When we realized she wouldn’t make it, we extracted one of her eggs."

Billy shook his head, disbelief etched into his expression. "Why? Why are you telling me this?"

Henry Thandros, the ancient man enmeshed in the eerie machine, offered no immediate reply. His purplish tongue moved sluggishly across his cracked lips. He had no teeth left—not that he likely needed them anymore. The machine fed him through the tubes that snaked in and out of his abdomen.

"It’s time," he said after a long pause, "for you to see someone you know very well. Although today, you might see her in a completely different light. Perhaps she's a different person to you now."

Billy’s breath hitched. What was the professor getting at now?

Suddenly, the door to the tower room creaked open behind him.

He jumped, startled.

It was Vivian.