July 11, 2235

Seamus Tanaka peered out of the 4 by 8 inch window of the steel plated door. It was a twisted joke he'd had with himself for years: And how is the Earth doing this morning? Still dead? Oh well, I'll try back tomorrow...

Omnipresent clouds of radioactive aerosol and soot blocked the sun, stole its heat, and perverted its light, tinting the world copper. The landscape, once the luscious and green campus grounds of FermiLab, was gray and flat, but for the charred nubs of two small buildings in the fore and a forest in the back. Still, it was the closest thing to natural light he'd ever experienced and something about it drew him to ground level and this tiny vantage.

From within his head, there was a TING. But he wasn't ready to go back.

Then there was a voice. "Dr Tanaka? You are needed in Observation."

He sighed. "Can it wait?" The voice had been of one of the younger tech's. If they were going to drag him back down because James slipped on a banana peel, he might lose it.

"I'm sorry, sir. We have a problem that needs your attention."

"Seamus?" interrupted the voice of his wife, Amara. "It's serious. You need to come see."

Seamus frowned. Amara wouldn't panic or hyperbolize. "Okay," he said. "I'll be right there."

"Take the elevator, not the stairs, hon." Amara added.

Seamus smiled and stepped past the staircase and into the elevator. He preferred climbing the stairs; feeling the blood pumping in his legs and the strain of his muscles; acting out an ancient evolutionary drive to train himself for the elements, even if the elements themselves had perished long ago. But Amara was right. A forty minute climb was a five minute elevator ride and this was urgent – supposedly...

As the lights of the elevator shaft flew past, Seamus thought back. It had been nearly ten months since they'd begun Project Savior. In that time, they'd analyzed just over 240 universes with the help of their sub-quantum processors. The AI would flag significant moments in James' lives to be reviewed by low level technicians who would pare it down for further review by the directors. Of course, the only part of his lives that mattered was what came after his death. But studying events within his lifetimes could potentially offer clues toward the nature of man's downfall. Admittedly, Seamus also relished the vicarious wonders of the sun, the rain, and field after field of live vegetation. There is no heaven but the past...

The elevator passed the Agriculture and General Population levels, then came to a stop at Engineering. Seamus walked out of the elevator and down a hallway. He turned left down another, then right and into the 5,000 square meter Observation Room.

In the corner of the room to his right were a gallery of chairs in rows, three by ten, filled with science officers and bureaucratic representatives in heated and chaotic debate. On his left was the control terminal for God's Eye – not my choice of title. In front of him, on a raised platform taking up the majority of the space, was The Arena.

From the terminal, Amara spotted Seamus. "Oh good you're here," she said.

He walked to her and kissed her cheek. "Darling." Then he saw the look on her face. It's that serious? We've been failing miserably. How can it get worse?

"Come with me," she said and led him back to the terminal. "Start it back up, Rosa."

Seated at the terminal, Rosa pressed a series of buttons and The Arena lit up. A scene, frozen in time, projected three dimensionally and with perfect clarity, filled out the majority of the platform. At the center, James sat outside a coffee shop, reading a book. All God's Eye had to work with was James' perspective, seeing only what he saw. But the AI's ability to extrapolate from the tiniest of reflections off of windows, glasses, or even drops of water gave it a near 360 degree capture of the buildings, automobiles, and pedestrians surrounding him. Rosa hit another button and the scene sprang to life.

A car spewing poison drove by on the street, a coffee shop waitress apologized to another patron for mixing up their order, and James turned a page.

"What are we looking at?" Seamus asked.

"Life 242. Spring of '97. Berkeley," Amara answered.

"Is Martha with him?"

"Yes."

"Are they still trying to end it?"

"Yes."

Within The Arena, James looked up. Martha was at the end of the block, waving and hurrying towards him. He stood to greet her but the waitress cut in front of him clumsily. A man rose behind him and Seamus heard a gasp from the gallery. Then the man drew a large knife from his pocket and drove it into James' back.

"Oh dear," Seamus said as onlookers at the scene began to scream and more than one from the gallery began to cry.

James struck his attacker and the pair fell to the ground.

"Is that Robbie Drake?" Seamus asked.

"Yes," Amara confirmed. "Keep watching."

Martha ran to James' side. "James?! James?!?!" she cried. "No. No. Please. I'm not ready. Please!"

"This is horrible," Seamus said from the terminal. "That poor girl." He turned to Amara. "But I don't see what was so important that I had to-"

"Keep watching," she insisted and he returned his attention to Martha and James.

Her face, twisted and trembling, suddenly steeled. "James, you have to listen to me. We have to stop correcting for gravity. We'll never fully cancel it out and our efforts only produce more radiation. If we flip our vectors to flow with the gravitational force... Oh my god. Please, James. No!"

"Pause, Rosa!" Seamus called and she complied. He left the terminal and stepped up onto The Arena, frozen once again. There was the slightest weight to the projection as he waded into the scene – like moving through smoke.

He approached Martha and James, then knelt beside them. Her face was frozen in anguish as she pleaded for the life of her love. Seamus was in awe. "Truly remarkable..."

A hand lightly gripped his shoulder from behind. "You do know what this means?" Amara said softly.

He ignored the question as he fought back tears, himself. "...He's dying in front of her. She's moments away from losing him forever and instead of wallowing in agony as... as I imagine I would in her place, she chooses to pass along insight for his next life – a life she'll play no role in. Why... How can she do that?"

"Because she loves him, Seamus," Amara answered. She put her hand to his chin to gently pull his attention. "And because she understands that what we're doing to him is barbaric." She clenched her jaw and stifled her condemnation. "But that's besides the point. Do you know what this means?"

He dropped his head. "Yes. Yes, I do. It was the last piece. They'll be able to sever his connection to our anchor and the project will terminate. Have you suspended analysis?"

"Yes. Of course," Amara said.

Seamus stood and addressed the gallery. "Ladies and gentlemen. My colleagues and I need to review the data and analysis before we can give informed and prudent recommendations. It won't take long, but if you would please leave us to the task without distraction, we will be done that much sooner."

The men and women of the gallery followed his request and left, some grumbling, others drying their eyes as they went.

From the terminal, Rosa asked, "Do you want me to run the algorithms Dr-"

"Rosa, would you give Dr Tanaka and me a moment?" Amara asked.

"Yes, Ma'am," she said, then left like the rest.

Alone with his wife, Seamus began to pace along the campus street. His eyes were closed and the fingers of his right hand gently pinched the bridge of his nose as if that would focus his thoughts. A pathetic placebo for my feeble brain. James would know what to do...

"Are you thinking of sending someone back for her?" Amara asked.

"It's an option," he said.

"Another option would be to... let him die."

Seamus stopped and looked at Amara. Her eyes were conflicted; full of sympathy for the decision he was left with while judging him for it, all the same.

"Then what? Freeze the core?" he asked rhetorically. "No... letting him die would be giving up and condemning all of us – man, woman, and child – to death."

"And maybe that's what we deserve!" Amara brought her hand to her mouth, shocked by her own words, then turned away from Seamus. "We destroyed the Earth. We killed off countless species of plant and animal and... and we just expect to go on? Maybe the Earth needs to be done with us, Seamus; this Earth... every Earth."

He walked to her, positioned in front of two students gawking at the scene, and thought to put his hand on her shoulder, before retracting it in defeat. "I can't... I just can't think that way. I have to fight..."

She turned to him and a tear fell down her cheek. "Fight for what? Our humanity? This project... What we ask of him... We've lost something, Seamus – a part of what we mean to save. And every time we send him back; every time we deny him an end, we lose more! And now you want to sentence Martha as well?"

"But we won't be sentencing her," he rationalized. "James was alone – even after he found Martha. And from now on, they'll be together. As much as we've taken from James... this will be a gift."

Amara shook her head slowly then sighed. "Perhaps at first. But James had a honeymoon phase before the nightmare set in. Martha will too."

Seamus reached out to her. "Amara..."

But she stepped back. "You've made up your mind." She smiled in the way she always did when especially angry. "Forgive me if I let you deliver the good news by yourself." Then she walked out and left Seamus to his thoughts.

The burden of pragmatism weighed heavily while he trudged back to Martha. She cradled James' head in her lap as his eyes rolled back. Amara couldn't be right. The answer couldn't be to concede extinction.

Still, they had condemned James to a fate worse than death. On that, Seamus and Amara could agree. Were they about to inflict the same upon a girl whose only crimes were falling in love and being smart enough to hack their scheme?

"If I asked you," he suddenly said to Martha's ghost, kneeling to her level. "If I asked you right now, would you choose to spend eternity with this boy..."

But he knew better. It would be an unfair, manipulative, and cruel question to ask. Because a mortal doesn't understand the torment of immortality until they are in its throes. James was evidence enough.

Amara was opposed to going back. She'd made that clear. But the seventy eight children living within this station had no idea of the choices being made. They played no role in this crime. And so, perhaps Amara and the children's consciences could stay clean. Perhaps the atrocity could be his alone to carry.

The dreary pep talk was enough to get Seamus to his feet. He closed his eyes, thought of the people he needed to summon back, then spoke. "Ladies and gentlemen – if you would return to Observation, we are ready with our recommendation."

Author's note:

This has been a long time coming for me.  I conceived the plot point years ago, even before I wrote James' death or Martha's return.  But of course, it had to stay hidden. 

I hope it adds a layer of meaning to their journey and to Martha's legend (eek! I hope it doesn't ruin the ending of FTWDBILS for any of you!).

Anyways, what do you think of Seamus and Amara's debate?  Is existential survival enough to justify existential torture? 

Thank you for reading!!