Ethan’s room was little more than a prison cell. There were the essentials. A bed, table, chair, toilet, sink, and an overhead light that didn’t have a switch to turn it on and off. There was a small window of safety glass in the door, which looked out onto a hallway. When he tried to open the door, he found it was locked. There wasn’t a window.

Days went by and then weeks and the team hadn’t heard from Ethan. At first they waited, probably longer than they should have, then they resigned themselves to the idea they had to move forward without Ethan.

‘I’ll still try to figure out the frequency of his microchip,’ Jimmy said. ‘We don’’t know he’s dead. Alicia and I both have our AI focused on finding the universal frequency. Alicia has this hippy dippy thing going on where hers is on a magical quest to find the actualizing frequency it requires to become conscious, but to become conscious and connected to all life, and then they think all this paisley is going to flow from a never ending source. We need this frequency for the people as much as to connect with Ethan’s microchip. At the time of the singularity, AI and the human species create an impenetrable bond based on cooperation and sameness. It’s this frequency they share. It’s this sharing that causes the whole explosive moment of transcendence for both sides’.

‘You don’t get to run things, Jimmy,’ Alicia stated.

‘What?’ Jimmy looked taken aback. ‘I’m not trying to run things. Why would you say that?’

‘All that stuff about the singularity. We already know that. You’re just trying to make it look like you’re so smart and should be leading us forward, and all that crap’.

‘Well, I suppose I am the natural leader, when it comes down to it. I’m a little more mature than you two. That you two would naturally look up to me as the voice of wisdom, is, well, natural, and...’

‘I don’t look up to you.’

‘And, as I was saying, I am a Son of God after all. It’s right there in the Tui Bei Tu. Look it up. You can’t argue with it’.

‘Maybe I’m the Son of God.’ Alicia retorted. ‘We’re both doing the same thing, and my AI is looking for this God frequency a lot harder than yours.

‘On the back of my genius. You wouldn’t even exist without my AI’.

‘Okay you two,’ Dawn interjected, taking charge. ‘We seem to have plenty of time and not a lot left to do. It looks like everything’s on track, You guys have no problem ensuring that Eldon never really has control of StarForce, even though he believes he has.’

‘Yeah, that’s already coded as the final instruction.’ Alicia said.

‘Well the rate of active protest both online, and in person is moving much faster than out modelling predicted. The people are getting ready to act. Anything could set them off right now. We’re even backing off on our own propaganda. It looks like we’re on top of everything we have to have done, so I was thinking, why don’t we mess with Eldon a bit.’

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

‘What are you thinking?’ Jimmy asked.

‘I don’t know. Mess with his equipment. Make it look like he’s lost control of things, and then bring it all back to him when the time is right. Stuff to mess with his mind. Can we do that?

‘Oh yeah!’ Alicia replied. ‘This is going to be a party’.

Ethan didn’t know what day it was. He didn’t even know if it was day or night. The length of his beard told him he had been there for weeks, maybe months for all he knew. The mind plays tricks on you and he didn’t know anymore. Eldon was distorting time with the lighting. Sometimes, it felt like they were on for at least 24 hours at a time, then they were off. On and off. Off and on. There was no way to keep track of what was going on.

No one had spoken to him. Food, good food came every day, but guards brought it and they would not respond to any of his questions. They wouldn’t speak at all. Ethan had never realized how much he needed people, or at least distraction to function. A small room with only a few feet to pace, was very close for one to be alone with their thoughts.

All that time was spent thinking about how he treated young Leita. Eldon could not have thought of a better way to torture him. Ethan’s guilt was complete. There wasn’t much more in his life than the wrong he had done her. He started placing himself in Leita’s place and imagining how his acts had changed her. He’d come up with little scenario’s where the violence he had brought to her, would cause her to cower in fear. He felt the pain. He projected it, and it was worse than any pain that could be inflicted on himself. These imagined scenes kept popping into his head, one after another, until he felt defeated and waiting for death.

Depression came over him. He would lay in bed for days. He was starting to lose the mental reservoir which would be needed to challenge Eldon if the opportunity ever did come up. It was this thought that finally brought him back from the blackness. He had to be ready to do his part, even if he never got the chance.

He hadn’t done what he came here to do, which in his mind, was everything he could to ensure Leita lived the peaceful future life brought on by the singularity. He hadn’t done that yet, and so he would have to change. He would have to be mentally ready when his time came.

He needed to give himself room to live. He had to own his crime, but free himself of the guilt that came with it.

He learned to lock the crime into a jail inside his mind. It was there. It would always be there, and the only way it would remain under control, was from knowing a lifetime of redemption was the only forgiveness. Ethan excepted these terms and set the guilt aside. His focus would be redemption. He no longer cared what time or day or night it was. He slept when he was tired and used his waking moments pacing the floor, doing ground exercises, and praying.

Ethan had graduated into the warrior mind. Not the frame of mind, but the perspective practitioners of mindfulness covet so highly. Not of the warrior, but of the warrior. A place between the two where stasis meets action. Living at this intersection always. Always prepared for anything, even in the face of nothingness, as .Ethan was facing now.

If Eldon was to walk in while Ethan was in meditation, and ask, ‘What are you doing?’

Ethan’s reply would be, ‘I’m waiting and observing’.

He would be waiting to act. While he waited, he would sit focused on his thoughts and breathing. Watching where his thoughts went, and noticing when they came back. Finding there was a whole new universe for him to explore. Day after day, week after week, Ethan sat on his bed, waiting for the moment to act. He had adopted the warrior mind. He had taken the most meaningful step towards transcendence.