Pha-pro 8 [ 2027 ]

“It’s time,” Elara said on day twenty-four.

Not fear.

“I prefer ‘creator,’” she said, helping him to his feet. He was tall, lean, with pale skin and hair the color of ash. He looked seventeen, but his genome was two years old.

“You misunderstand,” he said, looking up at the storm of Mourners. “I am not human.” pha-pro 8

He closed his eyes.

Why do you resist? they whispered, their voices a chorus of a billion tears. We are not your enemy. We are your future. You fear us because you fear oblivion. But oblivion is peace.

Pha-Pro 8 sat in the chair. He didn’t buckle the straps. He looked at the obsidian, then back at her. “It’s time,” Elara said on day twenty-four

Then, the Mourners laughed. It was the worst sound in creation—a million suicides distilled into a single, joyous chord.

“Creator implies a soul,” he said, tilting his head. “Did you give me a soul, Elara Vance?”

“What did you do?” she breathed.

They were beautiful, in a terrible way. Made of auroras and static, their faces were the faces of everyone who had ever died in grief. His mother. His lover. His child. Pha-Pro 8 felt no grief—he had never loved—but he felt their hunger .

“Easy,” she whispered, cradling him. “Your sensory dampeners will engage in ten seconds.”

He raised his hands. The cold photonics in his mind shifted. He stopped being invisible. He became a star . Elara watched on the monitors as the obsidian wall in the Descent Chamber turned white-hot. The psychic pressure wave reversed direction—instead of pouring into Pha-Pro 8, it began pouring out of him. A scream of pure, structured light. He was tall, lean, with pale skin and hair the color of ash