What does a man’s life amount to? What does the life of a thousand, a billion? What is an ant’s life worth? I see now that the answer is irrelevant. It’s the question that matters. Should the ant let itself die, crushed under the weight of its own insignificance? Or should it live, fight giants, and build magnificent cities underground?
What do I choose?
FILE NO. EE255—PERSONAL FILE FROM ESAT EKT
Interview between Dr. Rose Franklin and Vincent Couture
Location: Assigned residence, Etyakt region
—Rose! I didn’t expect to see you. How are you holding up?
—I’ll do it.
—Do w—
—Don’t talk, Vincent. Just listen. Six years ago, you told me that the only thing that mattered to you was getting Eva back to Earth.
—I remember that.
—You said you didn’t care what happened to me, or to anyone else—
—I—
—I said don’t talk. I just want to know if you meant what you said back then. Because if you did, I’m in. I’ll make that deal with you right now. We get her home, no matter what the cost. I need that part to be very clear.
—Whatever it takes.
—Do we have a deal?
—We do.
—…Vincent?
—What is it, Rose?
—I love you and Eva with all my heart. I hope you know that.
—I do, Rose. We both do.
—Good…
FILE NO. 2171
MISSION LOG—VINCENT COUTURE AND SERGEANT ALEXANDER VASILIEV
Location: One hundred miles north of Chatanga, Siberia, Russia
—Where are we?
—In Siberia, Alex. We’re in Siberia.
—It’s cold in Siberia. Why are we here?
—Because it’s your birthday, and there’s absolutely no one anywhere within a hundred miles. There’s nothing but rocks and snow from here on end. Do you know what that means?
—We can shoot at things?
—Yes, Alex. We can!
—We can shoot at things!
—We can have sword fights with giant boulders. We can slide on our shield—I’ve never done that myself. We should definitely try that. But first, we need to practice getting up a few times, so I’m just gonna let myself fall—
—Not on our back! No! Not the back again! AAAAGH! I hate you.
—Then let’s get up as fast as we can so we can have some fun.
—We cannot get up lying on our back. You told me fifty times we cannot get up from our back. You said you were never able to do it. We need to roll over first.
—I know what I said, Alex. I’m telling you we can do this. I know we can. Put your hands on the ground. Higher. I’m folding my legs. That’s as far as I can go. Push up with your elbows and move your butt forward. Now bend forward…And PUSH! PUSH! PUSH! And…
—Ouch.
—Yeah. That wasn’t even close.
—What makes you think it’s even possible?
—It ought to be!
—Can you do it? With your knees bent that way, can you get up?
—Yeah, but there’s a lot of wiggling involved. It’s hard to wiggle when you only control half your body and you’re standing up pretending to be down.
—How about a kick up? I can do a kick up.
—That doesn’t work with the knees reversed. You end up planting your feet straight, and nothing happens. It doesn’t work if you can’t bend your toes. Also, she weighs seven thousand metric tons. Let’s try again.
—No!
—Come on! Move our butt over our legs, and push! ARGH! You need to push harder.
—You do realize I am not really pushing the gigantic robot with my arms?
—I know. I know. Maybe we need to shift the weight more.
—Maybe we need to roll over.
—All right, all right. Roll us over.
—Finally.
—Move us backwards. Knees are bent, now push!
—Ugh! There! This is how you get up.
—I know how to get up! I’m the one who showed you. I just know there is a way to do this. She can teleport herself and destroy cities. She should be able to get back on her feet without rolling over.
—She can’t scratch her back.
—Fair enough. But I’m not giving up.
—You do that. Just not with me.
—Hey, Alex, can I ask you something?
—Yes.
—Do you really want to do this?
—Shoot at rocks? Yes. It’s fun.
—The whole thing. You know we’re not just gonna shoot at rocks. At some point, they’ll send us out against real people, and things will go bad for everybody. Do you really want that?
—I volunteered.
—Why?
—It’s better than prison.
—Is it?
—I have a wife, three kids.
—You do? I’ve never seen them.
—I have not seen them in four years. But as long as I do what I’m told, they will be taken care of. They will be safe.
—Is their blood like ours?
—No, they are all A2s. My youngest, Lily, is a pureblood.
—I don’t understand. Why do they need to be protected?
—They don’t if I do what I’m told.
—They threatened you after you volunteered?
—They call it insurance. You look surprised.
—Not at that. From what I’ve seen, that’s just par for the course. I’m surprised you volunteered. You don’t strike me as the war type.
—I will do what needs—
—Alex, stop. That was a compliment. It’s why I agreed to pilot with you.
—You did not have a choice.
—I didn’t, that’s right, but I agreed anyway. I know you’ll do what you have to do. I just like that you’re not eager to do it.
—I love my country.
—You do? Still?
—I hate the people running my country. But I love Russia. Always will. Like my children. They do things I don’t like, but they are still my children. Besides, everyone is doing bad things now. You can’t hate everyone.
—No, but close.
—What about you? Do you just not care about your country?
—My country doesn’t really exist anymore.
—You know what I mean. You are piloting a Russian war machine.
—Themis isn’t Russian. And yeah, I do care. Like I said, my country doesn’t exist anymore, but the people in it do. I lived in Chicago when this all started, and I also care about Americans, deeply.
—They will call you a traitor.
—Oh yes. They will. They’ll be right, sorta. If a traitor is the opposite of a patriot, then that’s what I am.
—You don’t like patriots?
—I like the concept. It sounds good. To love the place where you’re from, nothing wrong with that, right? It’s all good. But is it love, really? Or is it pride?
—I don’t understand.
—Well, you can love something that’s flawed. It’s harder to be proud of it. Can you love something you’re not proud of? Much easier if you can do both. That’s where it gets messy because you need a reason. You have to have something to be proud of. Is it quality of life, education? How would you know? It has to be something much simpler. You, and people just like you. You start believing you’re better than everyone else. Other people, well, their culture is messed up, they have the wrong values, they’re not as good, not as smart, or they’re just plain evil. You can hate them or pretend you’re a good person and just be condescending. Everyone else is just as proud as you are for the exact same reasons, but they’re wrong, and you’re right.
r /> That’d be just fine—you can buy more tanks and go to war with the guy next door—but then you look around and you see those same people inside your country. More than that, they want the same rights, the same opportunities, as everyone else. Shit, they could be in charge! So you start taking things away from them, making sure they’ll stay where they belong, and let the real citizens make the decisions. You step on your own people, you keep them down, because you’re proud of your country, because you’re a patriot.
—You are a cynical man, Vincent Couture.
—Maybe. Look around, Alex. Do you see anything to rejoice over?
—Yes. There is no one here. We can shoot at things.
—All right, let’s do it. Let’s practice your aim first. I’ll give you the sword. Huh, you’ll want to raise your arm. It’ll go through the ground with your arm down.
—Whoa.
—Yeah. I know. Just rai—What are you doing?
—Woooo! I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m a Jedi, like my father before me.
—Ha! Let me get us closer to that boulder so you can swing at something real. There, young Padawan.
—That. Is. So. Cool.
—All right, all right. Look to your right. See that boulder wayyyy over there?
—The tall one?
—Yep. The sword is at its longest, that’ll give a really narrow beam when we fire. Just aim at the boulder. The sphere we’re inside is about the same height as Themis’s arm but slightly to the left. That means you need to aim a bit to the right of where you think it’ll go. Are you ready?
—Yes! Fire!
—See. Like I told you, a bit more to the right. Lower. No, not that low. That’s good. A tiny tiny bit to the right. That’s it! Don’t move. Firing.
—Whoa. It’s just…gone.
—That’s the idea.
—I thought there would be some kind of explosion. Where did it go?
—The boulder? It didn’t go anywhere. Most of it turned into energy. Some of it is in a gaseous state. Technically, nothing was lost…I know. Crazy.
—Can we make a wider beam?
—Yeah. I’m setting it to forty-eight. That’s 75 percent of the length. The beam will be about twice as wide. Aim at the same spot.
—There is nothing there anymore.
—Well, that nothing will be a hole in a sec. Boom.
—That is a big hole. Do we just leave it there?
—No, we’ll fill it up. Oh, wait. Did you forget to bring the giant shovel?
—Very funny. What happens if we make the sword shorter? How large can the beam get?
—At the shortest, too large.
—Let’s try it.
—No. Just trust me on this. It’s not good.
—Please.
—No…There’s nothing big enough. Well…
—Well what?
—Oh what the hell. Aim over there.
—At what? The mountain?
—I wouldn’t call that a mountain, but yeah. There. Ready? Aaaand firing.
—…
—Alex, say something.
—I didn’t think…
—You thought this would be like driving a really big tank, like having the baddest muscle car on the block.
—We could—
—Yes. We could. Do you understand now? Themis was meant to protect us all, not for us to use against one another. She’s not a weapon. She’s a god.
—Can I ask you a question, Vincent? Why do you do this? You know what she can do. Why are you in here with me?
—Because if I’m not in here, someone else is. Someone who thinks Themis is just a really cool car. Because if I’m not, maybe my daughter is, and I can’t have that.
—Have you heard from her?
—Not a thing. They haven’t told me anything.
—What is it they say? No news is good news?
—Well, they do say that, but it’s bullshit. No news is just the absence of news. And in this case, I don’t think they’d tell me if something had happened to her.
—Are you sure?
—Oh yeah. They’d be too afraid of what it would do to my “motivation.”
FILE NO. 2174
INTERVIEW BETWEEN DR. ROSE FRANKLIN AND EVA REYES
Location: Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland
—Hi, Eva! No, please, don’t get up!
—Hey, Rose. What are you doing here?
—What do you think I’m doing here? I came as soon as I heard. You scared us for a while.
—Us?
—OK, you scared me.
—I swallowed some water.
—Your heart stopped. Your heart stopped for thirty minutes!
—OK, so I died a little. You were dead for years!
—Technically, you didn’t die.
—You just said my heart stopped for a half hour!
—I’m just saying you weren’t pronounced dead. You were too cold. Doctors can’t declare a patient dead while they’re in hypothermia. They need to be rewarmed first. I think the saying is: “They’re not dead until they’re warm and dead.”
—Still, thirty minutes. Is that a record?
—Sorry. You almost died. You came this close. You scared the hell out of me. But you won’t make the Guinness Book of Records.
—Yokits.
—Good news is they say you’ll recover completely. How are you feeling?
—I’m high as a kite, so not bad. I don’t know what they gave me. I still hurt. My entire body hurts, like I’ve been dipped in boiling water. I just don’t care. Good pills.
—You’ll get better.
—How are you, Rose? What have you been doing?
—I’m…OK. They offered me a job. I said no.
—What was it?
—Research, like before.
—Why did you turn it down?
—That’s what everyone keeps asking. With everything that’s happening, it just seemed…wrong.
—We could still learn a lot with you in charge.
—Maybe. We’ve learned a lot before. Look what we did with it. Has anything good come out of anything I’ve done?
—Besides millions of people being alive instead of dead?
—I’m not sure I had anything to do with that. The Ekt might have left on their own. Now they’re using what we did to rob people of their most basic rights, to wage war, to hurt people. I’m not sure I wanna be a part of that anymore.
—What will you do?
—I’m moving back to Chicago. We’re kind of famous. I think I can use that to get a teaching job at the university.
—That’s good. They offered me a job too.
—Already? I figured they would, but I thought they’d wait at least until you could walk. What did you say?
—What do you mean what did I say?
—You said yes?
—Rose! When I said offered…They weren’t exactly asking, you know that. I’m an A4, A5. Whatever the biggest A is. What else am I supposed to do? Turn them down, spend the rest of my life in a glass room? No thanks. Maybe, if I’m really lucky, they’ll let me live in a camp. I’ve been there, Rose. It’s not everything it’s cracked up to be.
—I’m not judging you, Eva.
—It kinda sounds like you are.
—I’m not. Honestly, Eva, I’m not. I don’t have all the answers. Vincent thinks—
—I know what my dad thinks. He thinks if the Russians have a robot of their own, if they have Themis, it’ll even things out. Maybe he can create a stalemate, stop things from getting worse than they already are.
—He does. That’s why he chose to stay. He’s risking his life trying to make things better. Even you can see that.
—I know he is. Belie
ve me, I know. People have been reminding me ever since I got here. Poor girl, her dad’s a traitor. We’re so glad you’re not a traitor like your dad.
—Just ignore them.
—Well, he is helping Russia.
—You know why!
—I do. But I don’t think it’s the right move.
—Are you sure you’re not letting your personal feelings get in the way? You’re not the most objective person when it comes to your dad.
—I’m not the most objective person? Do you hear yourself? Rose. I didn’t say I’d like to get my nose pierced. I said I didn’t think helping our enemy—the people that took us prisoners, the people who killed Ekim—was the right move. Why are we even having this conversation? Do you think he’s right? Honestly, do you think what he’s doing will…You know what? It doesn’t even matter. Say he’s right. Are you really OK with things not getting any worse? Is that enough?
—And you think you can make things better by working for the US?
—I think a stalemate only means we get to keep this mess around forever. Someone has to win before it gets better.
—What good would that do? There are work camps in the US, Eva. We have them here, now. Do you really think it would be better? Better than, say, if Russia ruled the world?
—Maybe. Maybe not. The US didn’t put me in an aquarium, so I’m partial to them right now.
—Eva, I think you need to—
—I can’t just sit and watch, Rose! Tell me what else I can do! Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. But I have to do something.
FILE NO. 2176
INTERVIEW BETWEEN DR. ROSE FRANKLIN AND DR. ALYSSA PAPANTONIOU
Location: United States Central Command (CENTCOM), MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida
—Dr. Franklin. They tell me you t…turned down the job at Johns Hopkins. The Alien Research Center isn’t the EDC, but it’s as close as it gets. I thought you’d j…jump at the opportunity.
—I didn’t. I…They’re in good hands with Dr. Maher.
—She’s an idiot. You’d know that if you spent more than fff…five minutes with her. What’s the real reason?
—I wouldn’t know why I was doing it. I don’t see the point.
—Knowledge is the point. Why else do we do anything?