With the gaze of about thirty people fixed on him, Billy could hear the icy song of the north wind in the tense silence. Everyone awaited his next move. The board members stood in a rigid line, a mix of young and old, men and women, tall and short—a dozen or so who formed the ruling elite of the most powerful corporation in history. Which of them secretly longed for the fall of their king, hoping Billy would press the button? The Chairwoman, for one. Zara Thandros wore a look of consternation, her piercing eyes glued to Billy as he hesitated.
Why is he stalling? her expression seemed to demand. The usually unshakable businesswoman, heiress to a multibillion-dollar empire, blinked nervously.
"It’s not about passing judgment on you," Billy said, lowering his trembling fingertip toward the monitor’s screen, where the green confirmation field beckoned to be touched. "But I firmly believe that letting you live would be a mistake." He raised his gaze to the towering, cable-bound monstrosity watching him intently with a surprised yet curious expression.
Yes, there was curiosity in Henry Thandros’ ancient eyes, but no fear of death.
Billy pressed the screen.
But instead of confirming the shutdown, he closed the window containing the password entry for the life-support system. "Just because I believe you’re a horrible human being doesn’t mean I’ll become a murderer. That would make me no better than you. I won’t do it. I refuse to decide when someone’s life should end."
A hesitant clap echoed in the chamber, lonely and awkward at first, then joined by another. And another. Until the applause swelled into a thunderous roar that reverberated through the room. But the applause wasn’t for Billy or his decision. To the researchers, his resistance was the ultimate validation of their years of work, proof of their leader’s infallibility.
Zara Thandros stood apart, the only board member who didn’t clap. Her feet were planted firmly apart, her arms crossed, her icy gaze fixed on Billy. Her frosty blue iris sent silent messages his way:
Why in God’s name didn’t you kill him?
You’ve ruined everything we fought for.
You don’t understand the gravity of your actions.
A deafening crash shattered their locked gaze. On the west side of the room, the window wall exploded into a cascade of glass shards. Snow whipped into the tower room, carried by the howling north wind.
What the hell was that?!
For a brief moment, Billy imagined a bird of prey slamming into the window, its weight and speed shattering the glass. But there was no sign of any dead creature, and the next instant, another sharp crack pierced the air—a sound that made Billy’s ears ring. Screams erupted from the crowd of cowering onlookers.
Gunshots.
Another projectile shattered the sound barrier, whistling past Billy’s ear and thudding against the machine’s metallic hull, ricocheting into a jagged shard still clinging to the window frame.
Why the hell is someone shooting at me?
The next moment, a tremendous force slammed into him, knocking him to the ground.
Billy opened his eyes and rolled onto his back in one swift motion. Standing before the machine’s control panel was Nicholas Curtis. The sight of him filled Billy with a sinking sense of dread.
"Stop him!" someone shouted from behind as the guards opened fire on the android. Three bullets tore through his uniform, and oily brown hydraulic fluid sprayed from the wounds.
Despite his fear, Billy staggered to his feet, finding himself directly in the line of fire between Curtis and the security team.
"Don’t do this!" Billy shouted, breaking into a sprint. Bullets ripped through the android’s shoulders, neck, and legs, but he pressed on with his task, undeterred.
"Stop!" Billy screamed, his voice cracking with desperation. He closed the gap between them until the guards had no choice but to cease fire or risk hitting him. There was no longer a way to target Curtis without endangering Billy.
"My son is in there!" he bellowed, grabbing the android’s slippery, fluid-slicked uniform with both hands and wrenching him away from the controls with all his might.
Curtis crumpled to the floor, motionless.
But it was too late.
The machine sustaining Henry Thandros’ life began to power down.
An eerie silence spread through the room. The omnipresent hum of the machine was gone. Billy’s gaze climbed the metallic pyramid to its apex, where the old professor clung to the cables with skeletal fingers. His face twisted into a mask of pain as his chest rose and fell with laborious, unaided breaths.
For a moment, there was nothing but silence.
"This mercy," Henry Thandros croaked, his real, age-worn voice rasping painfully, "is… wondrous."
A few of the scientists nearby stepped forward as if they were about to assist the professor at the last moment. But none moved more than a couple of steps toward him.
"My son. He’s still in there!" Billy shouted, positioning himself in front of the small door leading to the chamber where the incubator lay in darkness and cold. He pounded his fists against the door—not because he believed he could open it that way, but because desperation left him with no better idea.
"We have to help him!" His voice cracked with panic.
With trembling fingers, Vivian swiped her ID through the reader.
It worked! Billy thought in silent relief.
The door slid open with a faint hiss. A plume of icy mist spilled out from the chamber, swirling until it dissipated and revealed the incubator. Red warning lights blinked relentlessly on the console. On a small monitor, the words flashed:
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS DISABLED
Vivian pressed her fingerprint onto a scanner, and the protective cover lifted. Billy saw the tiny creature inside the tank. It kicked one frail leg and flailed its tiny arms.
"The machine still has power," Vivian said, "but it’s connected to the Professor’s life support systems. The moment his body stops functioning, the artificial womb will fail too, and the first perfect human will die."
"My God. Can’t we get him out of there? He’s my son! We have to save him!"
"The fetus is only four months along," Vivian said. "There’s no way he’d survive outside the tank."
"Why on earth would the machine be linked to the old man’s systems? It should function autonomously to ensure the baby’s safety!"
"It was his decision," Vivian replied. "He wanted to be the one to bring the perfect child into the world. Him or... no one else."
Billy’s heart raced as he locked eyes with his wife, then looked through the glass at the fetus growing more restless by the second. Henry Thandros. That twisted bastard.
Next to the monitor showing the vital signs, the oxygen saturation level in the fetus’s blood dropped, hitting the first critical threshold of 91%. The percentage fell by a point every twenty or thirty seconds. Though the fetus’s lungs weren’t functioning independently yet, the lack of oxygen seemed to trigger a suffocating reaction. It kicked and flailed more frantically than before.
It was the most fragile creature Billy had ever seen. He didn’t want to save it because it was supposedly perfect—he wanted to save it because it needed him.
"How much time do we have?" he asked.
Vivian studied the screens and exhaled a shaky breath. Her shoulders slumped.
"Maybe seven or eight minutes. Definitely no more. Probably less."
"My God," Billy whispered. His breathing was ragged, as if he’d sprinted a marathon. "We can get the machine running again, right?" he panted.
Just then, someone cleared their throat. One of the researchers had stepped up to the terminal where the android, with its photographic memory, had entered the shutdown code. That decision had sealed not only Henry Thandros’ fate but the fetus’s as well. Billy hadn’t noticed how long the researcher had been standing there, working at the terminal and studying the screens, but it was long enough to grasp the situation.
"I managed to restart the life support systems," the researcher said, "but"—he quickly added, cutting off the spark of hope—"the systems are running an automatic diagnostic check, which will take several hours."
"Hours?" Billy echoed in disbelief.
"This system was built to last forever. A reboot would only be necessary if there were significant issues, and the software is currently scanning for precisely that."
Billy’s eyes darted to the oxygen monitor: 88%.
The tiny being floating in the amniotic fluid wasn’t even born yet, and it was already enduring unimaginable suffering. It had no idea what was happening but could feel, instinctively, that something was very wrong.
"How do we help him?" Billy demanded.
"If we had more time, then—"
"We don’t have time! What can we do now?"
"The only way to save the fetus," Vivian said suddenly, "is to delete the programming linking the artificial womb to professor Henry Thandros’s life support systems. That would allow the incubator to function independently again."
Billy whipped around to face her.
The researcher stared at her, stunned.
"And how do we do that?" Billy pressed, every thought consumed by the dwindling time.
"Someone has to climb into the maintenance shaft up there"—Vivian pointed to a narrow hatch framed by the Professor’s limp, mottled arms—"and crawl down to the supercomputer’s core. Specifically, to row B36, where the module controlling the life support systems is located."
"There’s a catch," the researcher added, adjusting his glasses. "Without the proper codes, you’d need to manually disable the module by removing its energy cell first."
Billy hesitated. The explanation was a jumble of incomprehensible jargon. "Then what the hell are you waiting for?" he snapped. "You seem to know what you’re doing. Go!"
"I... I won't do it. No one should, not while the cooling system down there is running. The gases produced by the cooling of the chips and processors are highly toxic. Anyone foolish enough to go in without a protective suit would die."
"Immediately?"
"What?"
"Would they die immediately?"
The scientist—or IT technician—hesitated. "Within a short time, yes."
"Then just shut off the cooling system."
"That’s impossible. The processors would overheat immediately. We’d have to shut down the supercomputer entirely to stop the cores from generating heat. But that would cost the company billions."
"No way are we doing that," Zara Thandros interjected, speaking up for the first time. "Billions of people rely on the services we provide. Shutting down the supercomputer would cause a total collapse of our online systems and tank our stock prices. We’d lose countless billions, even if it was only for a few hours. That’s not an option."
"This is about saving a child’s life," Billy shot back.
"It’s about a four-month-old fetus," Zara Thandros countered. "At this stage, even an abortion would still be legal. Legally, that thing doesn’t even have a right to live."
"You’re insane," Billy said.
"After the professor’s death, I’m one thing above all else: the new CEO of the Thandros Corporation. And I’m deciding that the supercomputer stays online."
As Billy listened to the new corporate boss talk about the fetus, valuing dollars over a life, he was already making his way toward the maintenance shaft. He climbed up the structure, shivering as the cold, dead hand of professor Henry Thandros brushed against his head.
Perched high above the floor, Billy reached for the hatch and slid it open.
Narrow, he thought, swallowing hard. He barely fit. But where else could he go?
He disappeared into the hatch and followed a bundle of cables around a bend where the path split. He took the left tunnel—it sloped steeply downward, the direction he needed to go: toward the supercomputer.
As he crawled, Billy recalled what the android had told him outside in the tower courtyard—that the tower was a massive data center, housing the secrets of the world. And at the very top, Henry Thandros had been seated in the machine linked to the supercomputer.
An unsettling feeling crept over him. There was so much he didn’t understand. How could he possibly make the right decision? But when everything seems too complex, he thought, you can still trust your heart. It might not have all the answers, but it knows the right ones.
He crawled deeper. It was hot and stifling, and he felt as though he were being swallowed whole. The walls of the shaft seemed to press closer, boxing him in, brushing against him. He wondered if he could still turn back or if he was doomed to die here in this suffocating tunnel. A red light illuminated a junction box emitting a low electrical hum. A voltage converter, Billy guessed, which he tried to avoid. But the shaft was so tight that he snagged his jacket on a sharp edge, tearing it open.
Above him, a ventilation grille. Beyond it, slotted light spun rhythmically as a ceiling fan turned.
Oddly, Billy suddenly felt a wave of sympathy for the android. He wanted to save it, to keep it from being scrapped. Strange, how quickly your perception of someone—or something—could change. How would he have acted in the android’s place? Would he have sacrificed a young life of a completely different kind to free his own people from slavery? The thought lingered as he pressed onward into the dimly lit shaft.
Technically, he was now inside the belly of Professor Henry Thandros—an idea he decided not to dwell on for a second longer.
As Billy continued crawling, the deafening roar of the ventilation system filled his ears. Another sound joined the clamor, distant but penetrating, coming from several floors below. A steady rhythm, like faint drumbeats, echoed through the walls.
Billy reached a small window in the shaft. Its exterior was fogged and streaked with moisture, as though from rain. Beyond the condensation and droplets, countless tiny lights blinked in the darkness.
That must be the entrance to the supercomputer, he thought, gripping the lever to open the hatch. But he hesitated. A large warning sign forbade him from opening it.
Danger to life, it read.
The supercomputer was still operational. Billy remembered what the IT technician had said: highly toxic gases.
Lethal within minutes. Entering would be suicide, Billy thought.
But the last few days had taught him that he had already crossed the point of no return. He wasn’t thinking about himself anymore. All that mattered was the tiny creature he could save: his unborn son.
With that thought, he wrenched the hatch open.