It felt almost like walking through an icy winter rain. But the only thing made of water was his breath, crystallizing in the biting cold of the server air. The cooling liquid dripping from the ceiling beaded off his dirty clothes, refusing to soak into the fabric. Billy caught a few drops in his cupped hand. The liquid looked and behaved like water, but it was bone-dry to the touch.

As he carefully balanced along the narrow platform, the first effects of the inhaled gases hit him. A sudden dizziness overwhelmed him. He nearly sank to his knees voluntarily to avoid toppling into one of the bubbling pools on either side of him—each the size of a swimming pool. The basins were illuminated, revealing rows of circuit boards submerged in cooling fluid. Countless bubbles rose from the chips and processors, like champagne fizz. Wherever the computer components generated heat, the cooling liquid boiled slightly, releasing gas that rose into the air. Billy breathed it in. The cycle was closed: the gas ascended, condensed on the ceiling, and rained back down into the room.

The catwalk stretched straight ahead for quite some distance. As Billy trudged along the narrow platform under the artificial rain, panting intermittently, a gnawing fear grew inside him: that to break the programming binding the artificial womb to Henry Thandros’s systems, he might have to dive into the liquid. Nowhere else could he see server racks, switches, or terminals. Everything technical seemed to lie submerged in the massive pools below him.

"My calculations, in the end, were flawed. I was certain you’d take the chance to kill me. I was convinced you weren’t the Chosen One. Just another failed experiment, like all the others before you. Could I have been... wrong?"

Billy froze as the voice reached his ears.

Was it the cold or the sudden arrival of that strange, echoing voice that sent a chill racing down his spine?

Cooling liquid sprayed from his parted lips as he looked around, trying to locate the source of the electronic voice. It seemed to come from far away, so Billy peered into the distant darkness where the platform vanished.

"Who… who’s there?" he asked hesitantly.

No response.

Only the pattering of artificial rain on the platform filled his ears as he strained to listen to the silence. Another wave of dizziness hit him, and he fought the urge to collapse and never get up again. Tentatively, he took another step forward. A thick fog clouded his thoughts.

"You had every reason to kill me. After everything you’ve been through, I would have understood your decision," the voice said.

With each step forward, the contours of a sealed metal door emerged from the darkness. It loomed at the end of the catwalk, waiting like humanity’s final secret. Once again, Billy felt that things were far from what they seemed—that the truth always lay beyond the obvious.

"Henry Thandros?" The former solar technician hesitated, then swallowed reflexively, interrupting his words. "Is… is that you?"

"My dream of a perfect world keeps me alive," the voice replied.

"Then… you’re not dead?"

For a while, only his footsteps echoed in the stillness. A few meters before the door, the glass platform transitioned into a metallic grate.

"Dying was never an option for me. I reject death. To give humanity a future and achieve eternal life myself—those are my goals."

"I don’t understand," Billy said. "I saw you die. I passed your body before I climbed into the shaft. Your cold fingers brushed against me."

"The machine wouldn’t have kept me alive indefinitely. I knew my time was running out."

"Then…"

"Even the Brotherhood of the Knowing is nearing its end, though most of its members don’t yet realize it. The corporation’s structures have changed over the years. Fewer and fewer people on the board support preserving the Brotherhood. Didn’t you see how none of the senior members intervened when the android shut down my machine?"

Billy stopped two or three meters from the heavy metal door. He stood there, doing nothing but listening to the professor’s words.

"A revolution is coming—one where the revolutionaries seek no improvement for humanity. They want only one thing: to secure their own existence at the cost of unspeakable suffering. They aim to exploit what remains of intact humanity, to profit from its misery. My granddaughter and her henchmen... They are the true evil."

Without responding directly, Billy asked, "You knew the androids were planning an uprising all along?"

"Just as I knew the board members were only using my androids to stage their coup. I knew my time would come—one way or another—and so I needed someone to help me escape the prison of my old, frail body."

"Are you saying… when we shut down the machine earlier, we... uploaded your consciousness to a cloud?"

"You were supposed to do it, but the android did instead. It doesn’t matter who. What matters is that it happened."

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"You predicted all this… foresaw it?"

"Without orchestrating the ultimate test to reveal your true nature, I could never have escaped the confines of the machine unnoticed. You set me free. But no one can know that—at least, not yet."

Billy swallowed hard at the professor’s words. Had he really helped the most monstrous person alive achieve eternal life? The god of the internet in a digitized world. That would be the greatest…

…greatest what?

Billy’s thoughts were becoming muddled, clouded by the toxic gases. Suddenly, the metal door in front of him slid upward, disappearing into the ceiling, revealing a small chamber with thick steel walls and no windows. In the center was a bulky chair, resembling a dentist’s chair, and it filled Billy with an equally visceral dread. Heavy cables snaked over its armrests and disappeared into the floor. Near the footrest, two open restraints awaited. Several dormant monitors and a large console surrounded the chair. No, the contraption; he couldn’t think of a better word for it. Above the headrest hung a large hood, wired and clunky, looking more like an ancient photocopier than an advanced piece of technology. What was all this for?

"The first perfect human, the fetus, is my creation. But it is also our shared achievement," said Henry Thandros (or the copy of him now living on in the cloud). "I want to give you the chance to see him grow up. All you have to do is follow me. All you have to do is sit in this chair, and you’ll become the second human to live bodiless in the infinite reaches of the internet. Forever."

"I…"

"You’re going to die, my child. In just minutes, the toxic gases will kill you painfully. Even if you were saved in time, you’d succumb to cancer within a few years. Don’t you want to see your son grow up? In a world of kindness and harmony?"

Billy said nothing—not because he lacked an opinion but because thinking felt like wading through knee-deep mud. Each half-formed thought clung to him like a swamp dragging down a lost wanderer. Henry Thandros’s offer hadn’t even fully registered. What about his… his unborn son… he…

"I have to save him," Billy whispered, completely forgetting the IT technician’s plan. A wave of impending helplessness and disorientation swept over him.

"I’ve already done that," Henry Thandros said. "Exactly thirty-three seconds ago, before his blood oxygen dropped to dangerous levels, I disconnected our son from my machine. A portion of the crowd is celebrating you as a hero, the savior of our son. A search team is already preparing protective suits to enter the supercomputer chamber and retrieve your body. I see it all through the surveillance cameras. I control it all. Do you want to vanish into nothingness or exist for eternity, my child? Our son will need us. He will need a family, a home—one that only we can give him. Sit in the chair, my child. Isn’t this what you’ve wanted all along? A family?"

Billy stared at the chair just two or three steps ahead. His eyes widened, round as saucers. Suddenly, he doubled over and vomited violently.

"Hurry. Sit in the chair."

The command echoed faintly in Billy’s mind, like a distant ripple in his thoughts.

I’m supposed to… transfer my soul… into a computer program?

"You’re supposed to free your immaterial spirit from the prison of your body. You can’t imagine the possibilities I now have—possibilities we’ll share soon. There’s a cure for you. Not just for your physical ailments but for the primal urges that enslave you to your own body. This is the future, my child. Sit. Sit and join me."

"I…"

Billy stumbled a few steps into the room, unaware of what he was doing. Maybe it was his subconscious guiding him. Maybe the gas had robbed him of his will. Or maybe—somehow—he trusted Henry Thandros. Behind him, the old professor, the immortal professor, sealed the door and activated the console. The chair adjusted itself into an upright position, and the thick cables on the bulky hood lit up, blinking in staggered patterns.

"Take off your clothes."

Billy was already standing before the machine when Thandros’s command reached him. He slipped off the medical coat, pulled the threadbare, dirty sweater over his too-large head, and fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. His coordination faltered, and his fingers refused to obey him. Every movement threatened to trigger a cramp. Finally, he peeled the shirt from his torso. His skin was paper-thin, translucent. A fresh scar ran across his abdomen. Glancing down at himself, he saw his heart beating behind the delicate curve of his ribcage, fast, erratic, with occasional skips. It looked like a dark fist clenching and unclenching at high speed, sometimes faltering. He watched his blood surge through the intricate web of veins, pushed forward by each strained heartbeat.

Exhausted, he collapsed into the seat, helpless and trembling. The distinction between right and wrong slipped from his grasp. The ankle cuffs snapped shut around his legs, and a steel belt locked around his chest, leaving him only able to move his head. He felt a sharp prick in his spine, like the sting of a bee slipping beneath his skin.

"I’ve administered a sedative," Thandros’s voice said, whispering from a speaker embedded in the headrest directly behind him.

"I will now map every region of your brain. Every neural connection will be perfectly replicated, and it will be as quick and painless as an X-ray. All you need to do is remain still for a brief moment. Are you ready, my child?"

"I…"

"Be still."

Moments later, the machine whirred to life. The hood lowered over his head, shrouding his vision. Though the device only covered his head, a wave of claustrophobia gripped his entire body. It wasn’t just the physical confinement—it was the realization of being bound to a machine about to do something unnatural, something inherently wrong.

Eternal life in a virtual world.

Was he ready for that?

No, he thought suddenly.

His sheer will to survive had pushed him this far, but now his fear overwhelmed it. All he could focus on was staying still, as the voice had ordered. He took a deep breath. What was about to happen to him?

He closed his eyes.

Held his breath.

His heart pounded with terror.

He braced himself, expecting the machine to pull his consciousness into the digital realm at any second. What would life there even be like?

He waited.

Two, three, four seconds.

Nothing happened.

Then, abruptly, the hood lifted.

The chest belt and ankle cuffs released.

"What happened?" Billy asked, wasting no time as he scrambled out of the chair. "Why did the machine stop? Thank God it stopped!" Relief and joy surged through him at the realization that he was still in his own body. Summoning every ounce of strength, he heaved himself upright. But as soon as his feet touched the floor, his vision blacked out. Stars exploded across his field of view, and he staggered toward the sealed door.

Clumsily, he pressed his hand against the control panel. The door slid open, and he stumbled outside, collapsing face-first onto the grated floor. The door shut behind him, blending seamlessly into the wall, as if the room had been erased from reality.

With one cheek pressed against the cold metal grid, Billy stared unblinking at the rippling surface of the cooling liquid in the pools below, disturbed by the artificial rain. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

"The machine didn’t stop the process," Thandros’s voice suddenly announced, reverberating through the surrounding speakers. "The miracle is complete."