“Isaac,” the voice yelled again, only more shrilly this time, “You fucking bastard!”

The owner of the voice rolled through the shocked occupants in their path like a raging storm front… and she was certainly tempestuous enough.

Maria stomped through the crowded room, forcing others to scramble out of the way to avoid her storm. Her once thunderous eyes had transitioned to flaring hurricanes, her heaving breaths like gale force winds, and the entirety of her focus lie solely on Isaac.

“M-Maria, I-,” as Maria rapidly approached, Isaac stammered, words failing to coalesce under the weight of her fury. He made to speak again, scrambling to think of the right words to say, but kept finding himself at a loss for words. His lack of eloquence only seemed to manage to infuriate Maria more, her eyes nearly sparking with anger, as the last few feet between them passed in a flash.

Isaac began to give another attempt at speaking to her when one of Maria’s fists lanced out like a lightning bolt, slamming into his stomach. Isaac folded like a dog-eared page - his diaphragm contracting painfully - preventing him from breathing let alone speaking again. He gasped, desperately trying to breathe again when another fist struck his face and sent him to the ground.

Sprawled on the floor, Isaac’s head swum from the impact, his sight blurring from pain and lack of oxygen both. He could barely make out additional voices yelling over the fog draped across his thoughts, mind spinning from shock, “This is more like how I imagined things would go for me when all of this crap started today. To be treated like I was the one who started all of this bullshit, the only one at fault for e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.” Isaac’s pain and shock fueled the anger that had been growing inside of him, “I’m not one of the assholes putting the entire world at risk because they’re too self-absorbed to think about anything other than their pride!”

“But that doesn’t matter, does it?” Isaac wheezed, voice dripping with frustration and indignation as he pushed himself up to a sitting position. He rubbed at his face, flinching away from the touch with a sharp hiss as his fingers brushed where Maria had made contact, and turned his attention to his surroundings. With a quick glance around, Isaac found that he was encircled, surrounded by a crowd of stunned and enraptured viewers. The guards at the door - in addition to some that must have already been present in the room - had pushed forward into the throng of people keeping them at a healthy distance.

But even they seemed taken aback by Maria’s outburst, given a few of the guards’ wide-eyed stares and rigid stances.

“See?!” Maria yelled, fighting to escape Elijah’s grasps, “That asshole is fine, so you can let me go!”

Elijah grunted as he took an elbow to the stomach in the struggle, “Fine or not, I am not letting go until you calm down!”

Maria’s writhing only increased, forcing Elijah to press her against himself in order to retain control. A couple of guards tensed, preparing themselves to jump in if she escaped, worried further violence would ensue.

Isaac could see the hatred in Maria’s eyes every time their sight met, a sickening pang of remorse and grief hitting him as impactfully as her fists with every glance. Gone was even an iota of the woman Isaac knew, replaced by a revenant whose sole goal was to repay the pain and betrayal she felt back to the one who caused it all… him.

The anger that he had been feeling wavered, but did not die upon seeing a similar hurt to his own, mirrored in her and many of the others surrounding them. As undeserved as he may have come to feel their hate towards him was, Isaac couldn’t deny them the right to feel the way they did, “Afterall, that would be like saying that I couldn’t be pissed at even half the crap that’s been happening today, or for the past couple months…”

Wincing as he began to stand, leveraging a hand on his knee to push himself up, Isaac paused in distraction as a woman superimposed herself between him and Maria.

Flaxen hair tied into a long braid - the length of which reaching all the way to the small of the woman’s back - swayed like wheat in the wind in front of Isaac’s face. She was tall, standing equal to Eli’s own height of 6’3”, and from what Isaac could see from how her head was tilted, was staring down at Maria.

“What the hell were you thinking!” She asked incredulously, the hint of an accent slipping through into her words displaying the extent of her shock, “What would possibly make you think that punching him was a good idea?!” Her tone reminded Isaac of a mother disappointed with their child, sending a sharp pang through his heart, “Well?”

Maria was silent for a moment before she answered, voice shaking with emotion “He put you, our families, and everyone else’s lives in danger, Sara! I’m not going to just stand around and let that asshole walk back in and pretend like I’m alright with him being around!” She was sobbing and from what Isaac could see of her past Sara, was now limp in Elijah’s hands, “I could lose you and everyone else I love because of him…”

The room instantly became somber, every person in the room resonating with the emotions behind Maria’s words.

Sara moved closer to her now crying partner, motioning to Eli to let Maria go. He released her, stepping away in silence as she fell into Sara’s embrace, “It’s alright, it’s alright.” she repeated soothingly, running a hand through Maria’s hair.

Unwilling to be the first one to ruin Sara and Maria’s moment or the quiet contemplation many of the other occupants of the room had fallen into, Isaac stood in silence; listening to the sobs of a woman he had only ever thought of as unbreakable… and hating himself for being the one to shatter her.

―――――――――

As the minutes passed without change, the crowd begrudgingly dispersed, many throwing complicated looks at Isaac and the still attached couple through what guards remained overlooking the scene. Maria’s sobbing had quieted, only an errant sniffle or two heard over Sara’s calming coos.

Isaac awkwardly shifted foot to foot, avoiding the urge to look anyone in the eyes for what he might see there. He could feel his failures as a leader and friend all the more intimately with every sob that had wracked Maria’s frame. What little time he had spent listening to Maria’s cries had choked his anger down to errant embers, leaving nothing but heavy chunks of charcoal darkened by remorse and disappointment in their place.

It took a moment for Isaac to realize that - in his wallowing - Maria had begun speaking again, her voice nearly inaudible, “I’m alright, I’m alright,” she repeated in imitation to Sara’s earlier comforts.

Sara pulled Maria to her feet, one hand braced at her back and the other still combing through her hair, “Yes you are Mari,” she moved her hands to gently clasp at either side of her partner’s face, “And we’ll be alright too, okay?”

Maria wrapped her hands around Sara’s, keeping close contact to the taller woman as though she would disappear at any moment, “You don’t know that.” Maria harshly whispered, her fears evident, “But,” she took a large audible breath, still shaky with emotions, “We can make sure everyone’s safe together, right Sare?”

“Yes,” Isaac could hear the smile in Sara’s voice, “we will.” Sara maneuvered the still clasped hands of hers and Maria’s to be loosely held between them before her voice took a different edge, “Even if we’re going to have to work with someone we would rather just leave to rot.”

Isaac’s posture straightened and his hair stood on end as Sara turned to him, one hand still joined with Maria’s. Like a placid glacial lake, her eyes were a startling blue and complimented a stare just as frigid. The porcelain skin of her face was scrunched in scorn, a sharp glare pointed his way, making the wide scar from her chin to lower lips stand out all the more harshly. She looked every inch the baleful warrior her Scandinavian heritage was often referenced to.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

“Giovanni,” Isaac’s surname came out with the same harshness as a curse, “you wanted us to “help” finish Enuma? Well, you’ve got us. But unless you’re talking about a different project, none of us have found a way that we can finish the Cradles for it in as… short a time frame as you presented, to do anything, let alone save any lives.” Sara’s eyes thinned to severe lines, “Which means you’re hiding something… again.”

Nervously, Isaac chewed at his lip, the full weight of the room’s focus landing squarely on his shoulders with Sara’s final declaration. He sighed, knowing there was only one way forward, “You’re right, Doctor.” The room was filled with gasps and hisses, many of those present taking aggressive steps towards him, forcing the guards to tense again, “But, for vastly different reasons this time.”

“Oh?” Sara’s voice dripped with condescension, “And what possible reasons could that be?”

Isaac bit back the desire to snap at her before replying, “I-I believe it would be better to show you all, Doctor,” He motioned to the console bays, beyond the crowd, where he would be able to pull up the relevant information, “If you would all allow me to pass?”

Sara, Maria, Elijah, and the other assorted scientists, engineers, and doctors, reluctantly made space for Isaac to pass. He caught outward signs of disappointment, hatred, and disgust on the majority faces around him, but also intrigue and anticipation on others, as he moved through the crowd. He could feel their stares on his back - like a heavy blanket smothering him with its weight - but he continued on with only minor discomfort to one of the consoles.

Isaac quickly brought up the schematics that he had originally gone over with Theo earlier, casting it up onto the glass windows that also doubled as a single massive screen. He pulled away from the console and turned to the crowd, a bit of his vexation slipping out, “This, is what I, as Doctor Muñoz so succinctly put it, was hiding… Read it over. Then look me in the eyes and tell me I was wrong never to want to give this nightmare even a moment of thought.”

Isaac waited in silence, his own glare firmly affixed to his face, while he watched the group arrayed before him study the diagrams projected across the window. The longer their eyes tracked over the information in front of them, the more Isaac noticed the reality of what it represented dawn on each person; faces paled or turned green, breaths become locked in place from shock, eyes widened with fear.

All the sorts of outward signs to indicate just how… terrifying of a creation this deviation from the original plans for the Enuma project was.

A choice of desperation.

The silence continued for long seconds before Sara spoke up first, “What is this, Isaac?” A hesitantly rhetorical question, Isaac knew, asked solely out of hope that the conclusion she had reached was a false one.

Isaac gave her his full attention, looking into eyes pleading for her inference to be wrong, “The only answer to the horror ahead of us,” he answered, voice turning harsh with disgust, “Even if I hate it as much as the war that conceived it.”

“You see this as an answer!” Sara screamed with as vitriolic a tone as her partner had earlier, “This is a perversion of everything we stand for… You-You’re asking us to kill people!”

“Then give me a different fucking answer then!” Isaac roared back causing no few people, Sara included, to jump back in surprise, “You think I haven’t tried to think of another way?! You think I don’t understand what this thing will do to people?!” The floodgates had opened, Isaac’s frustration and anger pouring out in an unstifled flood, “I have barely slept or eaten in weeks since I was dragged into this fucking nightmare. Hell, I’ve avoided looking in mirrors since the last time I did I was filled with so much… disgust with myself that I struggled not to vomit! So, please, give me a better answer here and now; give me a reason so I no longer have to constantly hate myself, give me your genius plan so I don’t have to be involved with this shit for even a second longer! Or,” Isaac prowled forward, the crowd stumbling back at his approach, voice growling with rage, “shut-the-fuck-up and listen.”

Seeing a few mouths open and close like beached fish, empty of any sound their shock was so complete, Isaac pushed on, “You’re right that adapting the Cradles to support the functions of this schematic is corruption of everything we stand for, that it’s… inhumane in every way,” he let out a harsh sigh, turning away to look past the window filled with diagrams to the room alive with machinery below, “You are right. But only under old circumstances. War is coming, even if some of you are still holding out on the misguided hope that all of this is an overaction… or another lie, it is inevitable. People will die regardless of our actions. However, I would rather they die by choice, with the possibility of more, than die at the hand of the choices of others.” Isaac’s sight clouded with emotion and fatigue as he continued on, “That is the only reason why I would even consider pursuing something this terrifying, this… appalling. Because it gives everyone a chance they wouldn’t have otherwise.”

Isaac looked up, eyes clearing as he gazed at the complex diagrams suspended above. It answered every deficiency in the current design of the prototype Cradle, the version these very people - in the room with him now - had been working on so feverishly. Without the necessity of prolonged suspension, the vast majority of problems reducing the viability of the fourth generation Cradle were reduced in their severity if not eliminated completely. Energy expenditure would no longer be a chronic issue as the machine would only draw power intermittently, when activated, without having to be powered continuously to support an occupant. The machine would remain as complex, if not more so than the previous schema, leading to an expensive and material intensive production process. However, without the requirement of a Cradle per person, the mass-production of the fourth gens became a significantly more reasonable undertaking. Not simple by any means, but a far more realistic endeavor than it would have been otherwise. And without the need for a significant personnel presence to supervise and maintain this new version of the Cradles, the machine would likely become far more… attractive of an acquisition to medical institutions and similar organizations alike.

If only its true cost wasn’t so high, Isaac would almost be willing to call it a miracle.

In order to avoid all of the inefficiencies of the original fourth iteration prototype, Isaac chose to remove the singular point of complication… the long-term suspension of a patient within the Cradle. However, devoid of this one portion, the entirety of the Enuma project lost its most crucial component. He had wracked his brain for a more manageable answer; staggered suspensions? group pods? Solution after solution falling flat due to the sheer impracticality of supporting even a couple thousand people, let alone possible millions, for an indeterminable amount of time.

Isaac courted madness the longer he struggled to find anything resembling an acceptable answer… until Tia gave him one, a solution he could never have conceived himself.

Digitization.

On its own the word, and the idea, was innocuous. Harmless. The Cradles already created some of the most comprehensive maps and templates of the human mind, sling-shotting the understanding of the brain decades into the future. How much of a leap would it be to - essentially - copy a person’s entire psyche, their entire personality, into a digitized form?

Not difficult at all Isaac had found, in fact it wasn’t so far from what the Cradles were already capable of. A couple modifications and Isaac would have the answer he so desperately had been searching for. He should have been relieved.

“If only the process of digitizing didn’t kill the person undergoing the procedure, I would have been,” Isaac thought, remembering as he had tested hundreds, if not thousands, of different simulations in a futile effort to find a way in which that wasn’t the case. To no avail. “Not that it would matter if their entire body wasn’t essentially scorched from the inside out or not. If their bodies had survived the process, they would still have to be cared for… leading to the same damn problem I had been trying to avoid.”

Isaac glanced over his shoulder to the still stunned Neurologist as he began to speak again, “I’ve done everything that I can to find another way. I’ve run so many tests, tried to change so many things… all to come to the same conclusion. That this,” Isaac motioned to the window, diagrams still present over its entirety, “is the only way we survive.”

A fragile silence answered Isaac’s declaration, broken when a new voice spoke from the crowd.

“Not to disparage your skills Isaac,” Elijah was surprisingly the first to speak up, “But, I-I don’t think any of us can work on this without doing some of our own… examinations of it, and what other options might be available to us.”

Isaac snorted, making his dissatisfaction clear, beginning to tap at the keys of the console he stooped over, “Sure. Here’s all, of my tests and failed modifications, do with them as you please,” The screen bloomed with hundreds of packets of information, detailing every one of Isaac’s analyses, “And while all of you waste your time looking for an answer that doesn’t exist, as I believe I have made abundantly clear, I will work on saving our lives.”

Isaac abruptly pushed himself away from the console and began to walk towards a door away from the crowd, “Oh, make sure a couple of those consoles play the news. After all, if none of you will take my word on… anything - it would seem - maybe you’ll all stop throwing away our chances when an anchor or two start to get nervous.” Isaac didn’t look back as he spoke, but he was sure that his words, borne from his irritation, made for quite the reaction.