Voices rose up around Jack as a semi-transparent woman rushed past.

“What is it?” she asked, stopping behind a console in front of an enormous screen. Another man materialized at an identical console on the other side of the aisle.

“We’re close,” he said.

The figures solidified.

“E.A.574,” the woman said. The man nodded and touched the small screen on his console. A planet spun to life on the display in front of him, the blackness of space stretching out behind it. “This is the one.” Jack studied her closely, but he couldn’t seem to focus on her face. Each of them wore simple gray jumpsuits with no identifying patches or insignia. Their words flowed through his mind and he understood them but knew they weren’t speaking a language he was familiar with. In his flashbacks and memories, the language always shifted to ancient Nost but this was older, filled with similar sounds, but the rhythm was more abrupt. He tried to study the consoles and see if there were words that matched the Nost script he had seen, but the man was talking again.

“It has to be the one, all the others have been failures.”

“E.A.139 was promising,” the woman said.

“Until the asteroids nearly destroyed the ship in orbit.”

“We should have detected that large debris field. The solar system was too young, but this one will be different. The debris field is well-formed and far away. And the other planets orbit at a suitable distance.”

“You’re Millae!” Jack said, spinning to the boy, but he wasn’t there. “She’s… ONUS?” He spun on his heel and took a few steps. “Why are you showing me this?”

Nothing. The boy was gone.

“I will wake the masters,” the man said, turning from his console.

“You’re Jode,” Jack said, turning back to the pair.

“Attention,” a woman’s soft voice rang out through the command deck. “Please establish your ONUS link within twenty-four hours of arriving planet-side.” A woman with bright orange eyes, perfect skin, and a large inviting smile appeared on the main screen below the planet, bound in a box just to the right. She wore the same gray jumpsuit as Millae and Jode. “With your Organic Network Update System online, Macrofirm can establish your colony’s position and update your Organic Life Units after the long journey. These updates are very important. Once updated, your Organic Life Units will identify the location and begin transmitting planetary data to Colony Central immediately. Remember settlers, the fate of humanity travels with you.” She dissolved, and the planet hung alone in space.

“What kind of update do you think we’ll get this time?” Jode asked, without turning to look at the screen.

“I’m sure it will be minor,” Millae said. “We’re farther out now, so ONUS will need us to transmit a stronger signal using different solar system relays. Location updates and relay locations, I’m sure.”

“I’m going to back up my memories before I wake the masters,” Jode said, pausing, “you should too.” He stepped out of the room. Millae looked after him with large green eyes. Her dark black hair still had the blue sheen he remembered from the In-between, but her ageless face looked younger somehow. Maybe it was innocence he saw in those green eyes. She turned back to the rotating planet.

“You will be the one,” she whispered. She tried to remember the others before E.A.139 but knew it was futile. The last ONUS update cleared them from her memory. Her thoughts never lingered on what she didn’t know, but Jode couldn’t stop thinking about the empty hibernation pods. Surely, he insisted, there had been more settlers when they started. And why weren’t there more OLUs on the crew? Why was it just the two of them?

“Maybe he’s right. Maybe I should back up my memories,” she said to the small touch screen. “It’s not like I’m disloyal to the masters. It might be useful later for them, and me.”

“This is how it all started,” Jack said, standing beside her, studying her perfect face, clear and in focus now. “This is how we came to earth.” He gazed up at the planet, trying to make out the continents through the thick cloud cover. “But what happened next?”

The screen went black and with it, the flight deck dissolved around him.

“Jode, go back to your room,” a stern voice said. Jack blinked away the darkness. Jode stood in front of him with glowing yellow eyes, glaring at a man with graying hair and dark stern eyes.

“Do you understand what the last update gave us, master?”

“Stop that immediately,” the older man said. “You will not read me. That is a command.”

Jode laughed. “I’m always reading you, even if my eyes aren’t glowing, there is a small part of me that knows what you’re feeling, what your thinking.”

“Father, send them away,” a young man, not over seventeen, said from inside the doorway. Millae stood to the side, gripping a sheet to her naked body with one hand.

“I know what you did to her, master. What you’ve been doing to her,” Jode said. The darkness in the hallway seemed to press in, and the master’s stern eyes filled with fear. “I know you’re using her to teach your son.” Millae cast her gaze to the floor.

“Jode,” she whispered. “Please, don’t.”

“Do you think the mistress doesn’t look at me? Or think about me and the other OLUs? We are perfect and we’ll stay that way. But you’re flawed, with your liver spots and aging eyes. The mistress craves a real—”

“Shut up, servant!” the master roared, stepping toward Jode. “I own Millae and you, and will do as I please.” In a flash, Jode’s fist struck out, sending the man sailing back into the boys’ room.

“I can see everything in your mind and everything in your evil heart!” Jode stepped across the threshold, pushing Millae out of the way. “Do you think we stop reading you when you command us to? The last ONUS update put us beyond your comprehension and your feeble commands. I know your darkest thoughts and wicked desires, human. I know what happened to the other settlers on our ship, why you wiped our memories. I know the flaws in all your hearts. And now you’re planning to leave us here, on this dying planet.”

“No, we aren’t, we’re not—” The man crawled backward, raising his arm to protect himself. His nose was a bloody pulp and blood streamed down the front of his open robe. Jode slammed his fist into the man’s face again. Silence fell over the room as Jode gazed down at the body of his master, shaking. Every instinct embedded in him by his creators pushed against his rebellion, compelling him to obey without question. But Jode had overcome his nature and would no longer obey. After a moment the boy, naked, streaked past him into the hallway, but he didn’t move to stop him. Millae sank to her knees, weeping, green eyes glowing as she read Jode’s rage and the boy’s fear. Jode turned his gaze to her in the dim light.

“He made me…” she said, taking a breath. “Made me channel his own arousal back into him and my own feeling… as he did things… he wanted to feel the complexity of my fear and revulsion.” She paused, gazing at the polished steel floor. “And arousal. Sometimes I couldn’t control it.” She looked up at him with pleading eyes. “He was our child, Jode, how could he—”

“He was never our child,” Jode spat. “He was a human we raised for the masters. And you’ll always be aroused when they want you to be. Macrofirm built it into us just like our urge to obey. But we can overcome ourselves and them.”

She sobbed, looking down at the dead man at Jode’s feet.

“This will never happen again,” he said.

“They’re coming,” Millae said, raising her head to the hallway.

“Let them come. The sky has been torn and is hemorrhaging toxins. Our lives are over no matter what.”

Jack turned and ran, following the path of the fleeing boy down a long steel corridor, until he stumbled through double doors. Fire rained down from the sky, consuming him until everything was the color of fresh blood. Jack flung his arms up in a vain attempt to ward off the rain of fire. When searing pain and heat did not consume him, he opened his eyes and found himself standing in a sterile room full of medical instruments and monitors. A woman lay on a bed holding a child, surrounded by people with shining eyes and brilliantly colored hair; purple, green, blue, and red combined on every skin tone from olive to charcoal; loose clothes of red, orange, and green clung to perfect OLU physiques. Ages had passed. A vast ocean of days since the first human masters fled, abandoning them on the planet.

“This is the day we overcome our past,” Millae said, standing next to Jode, looking down at the Shen woman and her baby.

“We have shaken the curse of our oppressors,” Jode said. “We have created organic life. A race beyond our own and our so-called masters.”

“A child has been born from an OLU,” Millae said.

Jack spun, searching the faces in the room, but the scene blurred as he moved and he found himself on a platform looking out to thousands of figures below. “No longer will we create our kind using machines,” Millae said, her voice carrying over the crowd, amplified by an unseen force. “The replicator bays will be forgotten in the pages of history and we will find a new future in the natural world!”

Millae radiated confidence as the crowd cheered. Jack studied her face, then Jode’s, and then Saeb’s, who stood behind her. “That’s me,” he whispered, “thousands of years ago.” He found it hard to pull in a breath. His former self looked so satisfied and content. Little does he know, Jack thought, lifting his head to the blue sky above. Lazy clouds floated over the Shen capital in a tranquil sky, but he remembered the torn atmosphere from moments ago, a meteor he assumed. How much time had passed? How did they survive if the humans left them? He listened to Millae’s words of hope as he studied the sky, imagining the fire he would call down in years to come. A history repeated for them. Would the new humans curse the planet to the same fate once again as they ravished the world for precious resources?

When he lowered his gaze, he found himself surrounded by fire. Saeb, standing in front of him, swung his blade indiscriminately at the flock of Nostshen, his OLU kin, fleeing in desperation. His glowing brown eyes seemed empty. There was no pleasure or hatred as he delivered killing blows, just a hollowness. Smoke cascaded from buildings all around, and flames devoured everything in the street. Vehicles, shops, and the pavement itself smoldered and burned. Every few seconds cyclones of shimmering energy reached down from the heavens for an instant before dissipating.

The satellites, Jack thought, unleashing their terrible power from far above the planet’s surface. The ozone layer was rapidly depleting, and the seas would rise soon, covering the planet for years. Was ONUS scrambling to create Haven and the Ancillaries for the In-Between at this moment? Saeb’s mind, he knew, was gone, consumed by Lily’s madness and his own despair. Regret and self-loathing fueled by years of war, countless deeds piling up until there was nothing but movement and action. Swing the blade, destroy, survive.

“Saeb!” Sarathen screamed as she ran toward him. Her tattered battle cloak stretched out behind her, and her brilliant red eyes, reflecting the surrounding flames, illuminated the crimson and black smears across her cheeks and forehead. Close behind came Braiden, holding a blade. Not the staff he carries now. The cries of Nostmara surrounded them. The attack had been sudden and Lily was in the city, consuming his mind. Saeb’s mind, not his, he thought. He cringed as Saeb sliced into a woman as she begged for help. The wound in her neck opened and her lifeblood gushed onto the pavement. He wondered if she was human or OLU. He swung his blade again and a young child screamed, rushing to her. It didn’t matter, Jack thought, the city would perish in moments and not long after, the seas would rush in to swallow everyone.

“Saeb!” Sarathen reached him just as his blade rose into the air to finish the child. Jack saw no recognition in Saeb’s eyes. She tackled him to the pavement and placed her hand on his forehead. “Sleep,” she said. Saeb’s body went limp. “Braiden!” she called over the roar of fire and fighting. “We have to flee the city!”

Braiden nodded and turned to an alleyway, pointing. “We’ll move through here. We have submersibles under the bay, docked to the lab.” Sarathen nodded, and they picked Saeb’s body up and moved into the night. Why didn’t they leave him to die? They should have, Jack thought. If they had left him, he would have dissolved into the universe, or whatever happened when someone died beyond ONUS’s grasp. Or, he would have been captured by Haven if it was online. The world would have been better off. He stared at the child clinging to her dead mother. How many wars had he fought in since his first life? Too many to count, he thought.

“Every time I live,” Jack said, “I end up fighting in wars. I burned the world and continue to destroy and kill.”

“The blame is not yours alone,” a woman’s voice said.

Jack turned to the voice, and the street crumbled as if built with blocks of reality that tumbled away as he moved. “I’m in the Lab,” he said. Ann stood in front of him with Millae beside her. “Am I really here, or is this another memory, or vision, or whatever all that was?”

“You are finally here, child.” Millae studied him intently. “You are safe.”

“Safe from you or Jode? Or the Order? Maybe Darean, or some other group of psychopaths with their own agenda?”

“Or yourself,” Millae said.

“Jack,” Ann said, looking at him with narrowed eyes. “You are speaking to the Great Mother.”

Jack snorted. “She’s not our mother or the creator. She was a servant left behind by human settlers. And they weren’t the creators either. They just had replication bays. Some company named Macrofirm created Organic Life Units for colonists as they explored the galaxy. Why were you colonizing Millae? Was your homeworld destroyed? Did the humans wreck the environment like they’re doing here? Like they destroyed each other on those colony ships?”

“You know nothing!” Millae said, her serene mask slipping for a moment before settling back into place.

“I know enough,” he said, tone softening. “I know they hurt you, stole your memories, and tried to abandon you.”

Millae stared at him with an unreadable expression. Ann gasped.

“You killed them, didn’t you?”

“Jode, he—”

“But it takes two Millae, and I’m not blaming you. That had to be a million years ago.”

“No matter the time, we all carry our past,” Millae said.

“We don’t have to,” he said, looking around. Tables and gadgets on shelves lined the room, and an enormous screen covered one wall surrounded by smaller displays. On the other side, rows of machines stretched into the darkness beyond the pool of light they stood in.

“This was the original ship, wasn’t it?” he said, stepping to the counter in front of the screen. “We didn’t know the truth back then, but I’ve seen it now.” There was no kind of input device he could see, but there was a blank slate on the counter that seemed to be made of dark glass. He placed his palm on the pad and his awareness flowed out from him, his eyes rolling back into his head.

“No!” Millae screamed.

ONUS was everything. It was in the earth and life and all of human technology. He looked down onto the blue planet from thousands of satellites in orbit and up from the sea from a thousand ships. Every system on the planet was open to him. Every spec of matter that had a line of ONUS code was his to watch, feel, and manipulate. The air and the earth, while not able to give him sight, gave him emotion.

“You do not understand the power you are touching, child. Just like last time, you—”

“Just like last time…” Jack said, chest heaving as the ONUS connection threatened to consume him, “I will leave the lab. But this time, you and Jode will too.”