I left the warmth of the main floor behind; the temperature seemed to drop with every step further down the stairway. At the bottom was a small door. I could hear the whirring coming from the other side. Bingo. This was it; Zenith was inside. With my gun held at the ready, I crept towards it, but it moved on its own, so much for stealth. Motion activation; convenient.

With the door out of the way, the faint whirring was now distractingly loud, like buzzing in my ears. The source was some sort of structure in the center of the room; it appeared to be limitless, stretching high into the sky, piercing the heavens with its sharp steel edges; the clouds parted around it. Outside, it was night, but within the basement, I saw the light of day.

Theatrics, all of it. Through my Iris, I could see the room for what it truly was; a harsh, barren concrete basement. This imagery of a black, gothic cathedral with a roof open to the sky was simply a well-built illusion, the product of carefully placed holograms. It was custom-made to make occupants feel small and awed in the face of God.

Zenith was standing carelessly, in plain view; he had made no attempts to hide or shield himself. Perhaps he had even purposefully positioned himself to catch my gaze. He stood there in this impossible place with his head tilted back; all his focus was on the central fixture in the room; he admired it like it was perfection – godly and beautiful. My presence was not unnoticed, but he did not turn to face me; it was a practiced sense of indifference.

“So glad you could join us, Detective,” he murmured. “Such a wonderful day for company...”

The tension I had seen in him earlier was gone now. He was at ease with his plan coming along just as he pictured it. He must have thought he already won.

“Why do you have it out for me and my family?”

“No, Detective,” he replied, still refusing to face me. “You’ve got it all wrong; I don’t care about your family; I just wanted to watch you squirm. Yes, I saw a hint of guilt flash before your eyes, and it was beautiful; thank you for that. I enjoyed it.”

“You’re toying with me,” I observed.

“If you just figured that out now, you must not be as bright as I thought,” he said. “How unfortunate, I almost regret luring you out all this way.”

If he thought he was God, he surely looked the part. His shoulder-length brown hair was reminiscent of the Son of God, Jesus himself. Now, well lit, I had a better look at his attire. It wasn’t just a white cassock gilded in gold-colored thread. His clothes were metallic, shimmering in the light. The silence stretched on as I stalked my way across the room.

“Tell me, do you believe in fate?”

“Do you?” I asked.

He smiled, faintly irritated that I had dodged his question.

“Everything beautiful is fate, Detective. You should learn your place in the world; people like you submit to people like me.”

Fate. Karma. Heaven. They all fit into the same category: wishful thinking. As comforting as it is to think we are all destined for greatness, it simply isn’t true. And if it were, how could you account for all the suffering throughout the world? Even in just Volare City, a tiny, compact piece of humanity hardly visible from space, a million people lived, struggled, or died every day. How much of it was just? I couldn’t say.

“Do you think fate brought you here?” I asked.

He smiled without answering me, which, in and of itself, told me everything I needed to know. His eyes were still fixed on the towering structure in the center of the room. “Do you like it?”

From behind, the fixture simply looked like some sort of machine. Behind the illusion, it was a boxy metal shape. Without more to go off of, I suspected it was a server or a computer console, possibly both housed together in the same shell. Now, ten feet closer, I took note of the display on top of it. It resembled the Madonna della Pietà, a famous marble statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary embracing her son, Jesus, in her arms as he died.

“The world has lost beauty,” he said. “It has been ugly for some time.”

The veil covering her head hid her face, but not her hair. I knew those long brown locks of flowing hair that peaked out from below it; they went all the way down to her waist. Starlight had been immobilized and mounted on a raised platform attached to the machine, and in her arms was someone still breathing. Their chest rose and fell, their body obscured by a cloth draped over them.

Zenith smiled at me now and pulled back the sheet. I had a feeling, but I flinched anyway. It was Noah.

“What did you do to him?” I growled.

“The same thing I did to all the others; I gave him a bit of wine,” he said. “It was a kindness. But this…” He gestured to my brother. “This is a gift. Do you like it?”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

His eyes narrowed as he spread his arms out into the air by his sides. Zenith, or rather, Dylan Hearst, was having the time of his life. Predators often enjoy catching their prey and watching them struggle. Domestic cats, still with a ghost of their ancestors, have been known to bat around mice until they can no longer entertain them. The cruelty was casual, the process was entertainment, and the result was never able to satisfy them.

“Why?” I asked. “Why go this far?”

I raised my gun and leveled it at his face.

"Everything has been leading to this, Detective; this is my moment of glory. People like you think too highly of themselves. I wanted to put you in your place. You see, there is only one God in this room, Detective, and that’s me.”

He smiled at me, fearless, arrogance gleaming in his eyes.

“Are you telling me you don’t fear death?”

“I don’t fear anything,” he said. “Care to guess why, Detective?”

He watched me intently as I circled around the room, keeping my gun trained on him as I walked. There was a narrow pathway made for visitors to pass through, with low cement walls arranged like the Fibonacci spiral. I could have jumped them, but it would have been suicide; he’d have shot me before I got within arm’s reach, and I’d have to get within arm’s reach to make it matter.

“You want to die,” I observed. “But you don’t want to go alone.”

“Still pretending we’re in control, are we?” he asked. “It’s almost admirable.”

“Tell me what happens at midnight,” I demanded.

“No, no, no,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s not how this works. What makes you think a woman gets to tell me what to do?”

His lips twitched upward at the corners. Zenith was a simple man; he just wanted to play his little game – the kind of game where he got to make all the rules and call all the shots. As long as I didn’t give him what he wanted, it’d buy me some more time, if only I had more.

“I can’t imagine you plan to let us leave,” I said.

“No,” he said. “All of you will follow us when the bell tolls twelve, and it will be an honor.”

“Going somewhere?” I asked.

“Only eternity,” he said. “Our minds have already been digitalized. Now, our bodies are just vessels to be discarded, and you will bear witness as we ascend.”

I had made it about halfway at this point. I felt my heart beating in my chest; it hammered against my skull. Closer, I needed to be closer. His mask was slipping, and I saw in his face an angry little boy – petulant, almost childish, like when I was still a little girl trying to impress my parents, desperate to get them to tell me that I had done a good job.

“Why did you target me?” I asked. “If this was just about our interference, you’d had gone after my partner too.”

“Again, with the questions,” he sighed. “Don’t forget who’s in charge.”

“Admit it,” I said. “You can’t stand being challenged by a woman.”

It was a risk to challenge him, but if I could get him to lose his cool, it might just give me the opening I needed to take him down. My military-grade stun gun was sitting in a pouch on my belt. It was specifically made to take down guys like this, guys who were more machine than man, but I’d need to make direct contact for it to work.

I felt the smooth, rubbery grip in my left hand. With my right, I kept my gun trained on his head. He was still watching me take methodical steps, one at a time, closer and closer to him. Gabe was right on the money. Zenith wasn’t in a hurry; he wanted to play with his food.

“You put up such a strong front, but you’re nothing against me,” he said. “You’re just a dog, all bark and no bite.”

“I’m a bitch then?” I laughed. “You know, I’ve been wondering what would drive someone to do what you’ve done, and I’ve figured you out. You’re so transparent.”

“Enlighten me then,” he said, folding his arms across his chest.

I dialed Ethan and Gabe, but there was no answer; my Iris couldn’t reach them. The walls of the basement were blocking my signal. I had to do this alone.

“You’re still just a little boy, pretending to be a big man. Here you are, presenting your work to me so nicely because, secretly, you want my approval. You want me to quake in my boots and tell you that you’ve done such a good job, but is it really my approval you want or your father’s?”

“Filth,” he snarled. “I am a GOD!”

He held his fists out to his sides, his shoulders hunched, positioned to fight.

“Arthur Hearst,” I said. “Sound familiar?”

“Don’t you dare say his name to me,” he hissed. “He abandoned me – no, not abandoned because he never even met me. That man has never been anything to me other than a paycheck, and now he is not even that.”

“Daddy cut you off?” I asked, and now it was my turn to smirk.

His face was flushed a bloody red and a vein bulged out of his forehead.

I wanted him to lose his cool, but I didn’t want him to go berserk. Still, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel so damn good. Like a frog sitting in a pot of boiling water, I hadn’t noticed the slow seep of smoke into the room, but it was filling the room now and there was no ignoring it any longer; the building was burning.

I was running out of time, but there were still two problems I had to deal with. The first was the man standing in front of me, and the second was that I couldn’t to leave my brother to die.

Once I entered the clearing, my body moved on instinct, drunk on adrenaline. I lunged at him with the stun gun buzzing in my hand, barely inches away from his neck. I was so close I could taste it until I felt the breath knocked out of my lungs, and I was laying horizontal on the ground. The cold concrete did not cushion my fall. I saw stars. Zenith was standing over me, heaving as if it took all his strength to breathe, looking more like the demon he was than the god he pretended to be.

“I offered you the chance to join me in salvation, and you spat in my face,” he said. “This city is filled with scum – stupid, ugly, and worthless and you are no exception.”

He opened his palm towards me and fired several rounds through the stigmata-like hole in his hand, leaving small lines of blood dripping down the side of my face. Then he stooped down and braced one hand against my shoulder and twisted. My arm burned. Spirals. A white-hot pain shot through me. I fought him, screaming like my life depended on it.

Tendons tore. Blood poured. Bones cracked. And before I knew it, he was dangling something above me. I recognized the patch on the sleeve – an eye with rays radiating from the iris, a border to the sides. I looked to my right and saw what I lacked; it was my arm.

And then I was floating, a viscous fluid cradling me, but I wasn’t drowning. My blood ran warm, soaking into my clothes. A loud whine shot through the air. Zenith collapsed like a pile of scraps, crashing beside me. The ambulatory staff in white uniforms rushed over to me. The ringing in my ears drowned out their voices, but I thought I made out the words on their lips. ‘You’re safe now,’ they said. Someone bagged my arm. I saw white, then black, then nothing.