Hari Weber, who went by “Skittles” in the military, never liked taking shortcuts in life.

  He never thought about taking the roads traveled by others. He wasn’t like his cousin, Luis, who tried every money-making scheme he could to get out of northern Arizona and into one of those fancy mansions he saw in his secondhand copies of Architectural Digest. Nor was Hari like his father, who sold bootlegged movies (and music) and black-market electronics at flea markets up in Utah or Colorado.

  No, Hari’d taken the roads less traveled—or so he thought. His way had gotten him away from his no-name hometown in northern Arizona, where family members still lived in what tourists called “hovels.” These hovels were still largely ignored by the wealthier Arizonans. His family, and the Arizonans he shared a culture with, had roots in the land far longer than most. Knowing this, Hari’s family seemed content living within the confines of their small town.

  Hari never much liked his hometown; he was told that he was too smart, too determined to get away, rising too far above his lot in life. He scoffed at those who told him such things. He wanted to be a writer, a world traveler, and he decided that the recruiter’s sweet talk, something too many kids from his hometown knew about, enticed Hari enough to leave, to pursue his dreams.

  Things changed when Hari entered the Service. Its structure, its greater purpose, and its routines washed away all of those silly ideas he had inside his head—that is, being a writer and a world traveler. He believed in the “We only see green” mantra they kept telling him, even though there were plenty of contradictions when it came to this. Hari ignored them the best he could, and he soldiered onward.

  Hari had the shiniest boots, the best-kept uniform, and the look and body of a career soldier—although he’d been a bit ganglier than most in his unit. He sneered at those who couldn’t keep their uniforms perfect or their boots mirror-shined, something that made officers smile with fatherly pride. He laughed, privately, at those who broke tape—just like the others did—, and he secretly jeered at them as they walked away, their heads hung in shame. He believed in the cause of the ADF—the Sword and Shield of the Second Republic. It was above him, far greater than him, and he respected the call that all his brothers and sisters answered.

  Then shit went sideways.

  The docs told him he had severe PTSD, and they saw him fit only for a quick discharge. He then found himself out on his ass, left to wander the Wasteland that used to be Arizona and New Mexico. He tried going home, but something was missing when he arrived. Family and childhood friends treated him differently. He was the good little soldier boy, the golden boy who got away and left everyone behind. He was too good for them. So, Hari left, wandering from town or village to the next (and the next, and the next).

  The shortcut Hari took was supposed to get him to the other side of the mountain range without dying of heat exhaustion, thirst, or even hunger. He’d never wandered this far south, near the bootheel of what used to be New Mexico, the state that died with the Great Drought. He normally stayed near his usual stomping grounds, near the northern parts of Arizona and New Mexico, or what was left of them.

  The pickings’d started getting slimmer and slimmer each year. Rumors circulated among those homeless men and women Hari talked with. These rumors suggested the government and large development corporations were looking to rebuild the old towns and cities to the south, in what used to be southwestern New Mexico. He remembered his German grandfather saying things always worked in cycles. The desert was no different: cycles of civilization, collapse, and civilization reborn.

  By day, Hari followed the older, lesser-known highways, which were cracked, sand-blasted, and sun-bleached, and completely ignored by unsavory types, who tended to wander this far south. The occasional rattlesnake sounding off made his heart jump and his balls lodged deep inside his scrotum. He always managed to leave the rattlesnakes behind, unscathed and a bit thankful for such tender mercies from Mother Nature.

  By night, Hari built what his white teachers called an Indian fire—small, warm, comforting, and hard to spot from a distance. They’d taught him similar firemaking when he was in the military, as part of the basic survival training the ADF gave all recruits, before shipping them off to disparate places across the globe.

  Hari also ate whatever food he had available, and then he took the medicine he had been given during his last visit to the V.A. clinic. It was supposed to help him, but he felt the pills never worked. The nightmares kept coming. Sleep kept getting shorter and less meaningful. He took the meds anyway, as it was better than nothing, he reasoned. They helped him get some sleep, he guessed, even if that sleep was a couple of hours at most.

  Hari didn’t mind the walking all that much. The routine that came with walking appealed to him, much like the routines he’d experienced in the Service. He missed the Service and its routines. Civilian life just didn’t compare to those days. He still wore the uniform, although it was a bit tattered, worn thin from years of being outdoors and the numerous hand-washings. He still wore the uniform with pride—even though his family and childhood friends told him he didn’t need to anymore. His friends and family members reasoned that Hari didn’t owe the military his loyalty, considering he was discharged and left to fend for himself. Hari also kept his face clean-shaven, his hair was regulation, and his hygiene was second to none, despite being homeless.

  Hari’s walking pushed him past the mountains, with little water and barely enough food to last him another day. In the distance, he saw what looked like a military compound, complete with concrete Jersey barriers, fencing, and guard towers. Normally, he wouldn’t have bothered walking toward such an installation. He knew they wouldn’t be allowed to give water and food to someone without the right credentials, but, something inside of him, the thing that kept him alive for five years, egged him on to walk toward the compound. As he did so, Hari drank the last of his water, hoping he’d find more soon.

  He didn’t like the idea of dying of thirst out in the desert. He’d seen the survival training pictures and simulations of those who’d been unlucky enough to die of thirst. Their bodies didn’t look all that different from his own.

  The heat of the southwestern New Mexico desert was unlike anything he’d experienced in his life. The short hike to the compound took two days because the yellow-white sun just didn’t give in.

  Hari was out of water.

  He’d normally walk during the night and rest during the day, but his gut told him the terrain might be safer traversed with more light. Hari tried drinking his piss, but he couldn’t get over the smell of the beer-colored urine. He even tried pinching his nose, hoping it would kill the taste, even for a moment. It didn’t work. He vomited the last of the food he’d eaten a few hours before. He felt more dehydrated. Hari felt like someone had taken ball-peen hammers to his joints and muscles. His mouth filled with cotton and sand, his tongue swollen, and his eyes bled away whatever moisture his body still had left to give, to propitiate the angry sun.

  He prayed to the universe, hoping it would offer him some cloud or a rainstorm, or anything. All he wanted was water and respite from the yellow-white sun, the angry god that sought to punish him. He shouldn’t have listened to his gut. He should’ve walked at night and slept during the day. Whatever fears his gut had about night didn’t seem to hold up against the searing-hot sun that hung over his wilting head.

  By the end of the second day, Hari found himself at the gates of the compound. The guardhouse stood empty and quiet. He saw a dozen cameras, peering down at him and the gate He grabbed ahold of the gate’s wrought iron bars, feeling his knees buckle under the weight of his tired body. The heat of the concrete and blacktop burned his legs and arms, despite being covered. He felt himself slipping away into the darkness, the yellow-white sun the harbinger of his inevitable fate.

  ***

  Hari came to a building that looked to be fashioned from prefabricated parts and set up in a hurry. The walls inside were a utilitarian white, with a single gray stripe painted horizontally so as to bifurcate the walls uniformly. The bed Hari lay in was covered in intricate machines, each, for the most part, with a purpose beyond his comprehension. Each machine attached to the bedframe and the wall behind him chirped, beeped, or chimed, oblivious to the others in the room. One machine in particular, a levitating rhombus, the color of a deep, blue glacial lake, checked on what Hari believed to be his vital signs, every few hours. It chirped at the machines attached to the bedframe and the wall behind Hari, and those machines fired back, with whines, whistles, and beeps of their own.

  The room itself was sterile like a hospital room might be, like the one Hari spent long nights in after leaving the ADF. Yet, the room didn’t feel like it belonged inside a hospital. Hari felt he was holed up in some kind of detention cell. He felt like someone was constantly watching him, poking and prodding him with their eyes and their invisible instruments. He felt like someone’s science experiment in a prisoner of war camp, rather than a patient receiving much-needed medical treatment.

  The rhomboid arrived, every five or six hours, with small portions of food and fluids. The food itself looked unappealing at first, but Hari found that he was much hungrier than he realized. He wolfed down what the rhombus brought him, forgetting to breathe between bites. Hari nearly choked on the food, and he had to remind himself to slow down. The rhomboid would then return and remove the serving trays once Hari was finished eating each meal.

  It was all like clockwork. Routine. Routine. Routine. And something kept staring at Hari. What exactly? He couldn’t fathom. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and his primal urges to fight or flight started to kick in. The machines intervened, injecting something into Hari’s bloodstream. He felt relaxed for the first time, and he felt nothing after a few moments. He felt nothing more than the sweet insouciance that came with the sedatives he was given. Then sleep came once again.

  ***

  When Hari came to the second time, he noticed his surroundings had changed. He was no longer in the utilitarian-white room, with the bifurcating gray stripe. Hari found himself in what appeared to be an old corrugated steel hangar. An old Cessna sat in the far corner, partially covered with a weathered tarpaulin. The hangar was filled with banks of computers, a server room enclosed in Plexiglas, and a lot of stuff Hari couldn’t identify. At his bedside, he noticed an older woman—short with well-kept hair, thick, black-rimmed glasses, and what Hari assumed to be comfortable shoes.

  “Glad to see that you’re awake, Hari,” the woman said. “How do you feel?”

  Hari shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Warmed over dog shit, I guess.”

  “Well, that’s a better state than what we found you in,” the woman commented. “My name is Maria. You can call me that, and only that.”

  “Where am I, Maria?” Hari asked.

  “For that information, you’ll need to talk with the Founder,” Maria answered.

  “The Founder?” Hari asked, pushing up from his bed.

  “Yes,” Maria answered. “Do you feel up for a brief walk then?”

  Hari nodded and said, “I don’t know. Should I do that? How bad of shape was I in?”

  “I can honestly say that we brought you back from death, Hari,” Maria replied. “You’re lucky our security officers were able to respond as quickly as they did. Most of our security apparatuses are automated these days. We usually don’t see people around here—it’s one of the many things the desert has bestowed on our little project.”

  “I’m glad someone found me,” Hari said, with a loud sigh.

  “Do you feel ready to see the Founder?” Maria asked.

  Hari nodded again and replied, “I should thank the person who’s responsible for all of this. I’d be dead right now if it weren’t for you guys.”

  “Well, we’ll see how appreciative you are after meeting the Founder,” Maria stated. Maria stood up from her small chair and offered Hari a hand. He swiped it away, before grabbing ahold of the edge of his bed to pull himself up. On his feet, Hari’s legs felt unsure of the weight being placed on them. They felt mushy, without solid form. After a few steps, Hari managed to get the feeling back in his legs and feet, but something didn’t feel right. Maria motioned for him to follow her across the hangar. He did and wished for something cold to drink. His mouth was still filled with cotton and sand, his tongue partially swollen, and his head spinning.

  “You’ll be required to sign an NDA,” Maria declared, waving off the moment of silence between them. “It’s standard protocol for situations like these—although they’re quite rare, Hari.”

  “Sure,” Hari said with a shrug. His head was still spinning, and his mouth needed moisture. “Whatever you need, Maria. I’ll be happy to keep whatever corporate or government projects around here secret—if that’s what you all want.”

  “Do you have any form of employment?” Maria asked. The line of questioning seemed a bit odd to Hari, but he assumed it might be for legal reasons to know why he happened to be wandering this deep into the desert.

  “No,” Hari answered with a nervous laugh. “Gainfully unemployed these days.”

  “What about military experience?” Maria asked, looking back at Hari. “We noticed you were wearing fatigues.”

  “Sure,” Hari answered with a nod. “I served ten years in the ADF.”

  “That’s quite impressive, Hari,” Maria said, giving him a quick once over. “I served with the ADF as well. Fifteen years.”

  “Interesting, Maria.”

  “You’re among brothers and sisters, Hari,” Maria said. “Most of us have served. That is a requirement for working here.”

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  “So,” Hari said, “why are you telling me all of this, Maria?”

  “We want to offer you a job, Hari,” Maria answered.

  “So, that’s what this is all about,” Hari said.

  “Don’t be so na?ve, Hari,” Maria said and stopped before a gunmetal gray door. “We know a lot about you. We did our homework when you were under.”

  “Why does that not comfort me in the slightest?” Hari asked, leaning up against a nearby wall. He muttered a few words, thanking the universe for the relief.

  “It will soon enough, Hari,” Maria said. “Your appointment is on the other side.”

  ***

  The room on the other side of the gunmetal gray door was poorly lit and dominated by a polished conference table with leather and steel swivel chairs. Hari plopped down in one of the chairs and crossed his tired and sore arms across his chest. The lights dimmed even more, except for those at the other end of the table. A shadow of a man, or even possibly a woman, Hari couldn’t tell, appeared at the lit end of the table.

  “Hello, Hari,” an asexual voice said, fuzzy from some kind of latency issues. They used to have the same problems, halfway across the world, in the ADF with teleconferencing. “You’ve come a long way, haven’t you?”

  “Sure,” Hari said, unsure of what to say.

  “Your wandering has come to an end, my friend. You are no longer going to be a homeless veteran. That is one of the political travesties of this fine country. We’ve managed to unite the entire continent democratically, but we can’t seem to protect those who’ve protected us and our interests. I hope to solve that problem one day—one day very soon—”

  “—so why am I here again?” Hari interrupted, raising his hand.

  “Because I want to give you gainful employment,” the shadowy figure answered. “I believe in taking care of our own, even if the parliamentarians don’t.”

  “What kind of job are we talkin’ about?” Hari asked.

  “I will get to that soon, my friend,” the shade answered. “For now, I want you to know something. We are at the precipice of the greatest epoch in human existence—and that’s no exaggeration. As you may have heard, I am the Founder. I founded this endeavor that surrounds you all now. It took the better part of three decades to do so, as old as the Second Republic itself. What you haven’t been told is the purpose of this facility. Its purpose is quite simple; so simple that people often laugh at it when they learn of its purpose. We’re here to predict and change the future.”

  “Wow,” Hari said, wondering if the Founder was one of those looney corporate types he’d been warned about.

  “It may be hard to believe, but I assure you that it is very real. The facility around you is the largest experiment of its kind in human history. It has been one of the most profitable as well. We try to explore potential trends and capitalize on those trends before anyone else can. Some might call it cheating; others might call it a crime against humanity. I prefer to see it as fair competition. If others want to do the same, they will have to spend the trillions we’ve sunk into this project.”

  “Okay, okay,” Hari interrupted. “Time out on the play, coach. I need a cold drink before I can get any deeper into the bullshit here.”

  “Drinks are provided in the minifridge next to the door,” the Founder said in all seriousness. “As for the bullshit, I will prove something to you.”

  “What?” Hari asked, moving toward the mini-fridge.

  “The reasons why you came down this way,” the Founder offered.

  “All right,” Hari replied, before grabbing a cold soda from the mini-fridge. “I’m game, boss.”

  “If our information from the prolegomenon is correct,” the Founder mumbled. “Your journey southward can be pinned to your need to make a living, to support yourself. You couldn’t do that up north, so you traveled southbound. How am I doing so far?”

  “Good,” Hari answered, taking a swig from the cold soda. “Anyone might know that, though. Not exactly hard to work out on your own.”

  “I’ve got a good deal more,” the Founder admitted. “You served in the ADF—”

  “—yeah, so what?”

  “But you never tell people why you almost left before they discharged you, do you, Hari?”

  “What are you talking about, coach?” Hari asked, taking another sip from his soda.

  “You almost left the ADF after a close friend died during a rather nasty deployment. He was a brother to you. His name was Kip. Kip came from Kenya, and he wanted to get his citizenship through the ADF. You wanted to help him. You two bonded, and, then, he died in a roadside ambush in Central Africa—”

  “—that’s enough, coach,” Hari said. His heart sank. He hadn’t thought of Kip in nearly six months. Kip was his friend, yes; he was his brother. Kip was more than that, too. Kip could be depended on. Kip would listen, even when Hari didn’t make much sense.

  “We want to offer you employment here, in this facility,” the Founder continued. “We want you to get better. All we ask in return is six months. After that, you are free to leave, to wander the desert to your heart’s content.”

  “What’s the catch, coach?” Hari asked, sitting up in his chair.

  “No catch at all, Hari,” the Founder replied.

  “There’s always a catch,” Hari replied. “Always.”

  “You will need to sign an NDA, you will have to stay within the confines of this facility, and you will have to report all findings to your case officer, Maria.”

  “That doesn’t sound too bad, coach,” Hari commented with a whistle.

  “No, I’m sure it doesn’t, Hari,” the Founder said. “So, what do you say?”

  ***

  Hari’s new quarters were sparse: Utilitarian-white walls with a bifurcating gray stripe. A twin-sized mattress with a black metal frame and a particleboard dresser were the only furniture that occupied the space. A cramped bathroom sat adjacent to the bed and dresser.

  Hari’d signed the NDA the best he could with his good hand. He closed and locked the door after Maria left him. The room itself gave him some comfort. He liked the idea of having a roof over his head. He could shower when he needed to, not when it was affordable. He checked the room over, looking for anything that might be out of place or missing. He found nothing and decided to drink another can of soda before falling asleep.

  When sleep finally came, things were more violent than previously. Oddly enough the world of his dreams was muted as well. A roadside ambush and causalities. Not exactly something Hari had signed up for when he joined the Service. It was another one of those odd films that played (and played again) in one’s mind when one needed some real sleep. Something that never really went away. Something Hari wished would leave him alone and for good.

  At least it was quick.

  The ambush lasted a few moments. The only problem with the dream was with who died in it: Kip. His face was a pile of goo and broken teeth and shattered bone. His body lay there, limp and still warm in the burning heat of Central Africa. Hari felt tears making their way down his stubble-covered face. He felt helpless and alone. He’d never felt that alone before. It felt like someone, or something had ripped away what made him a living person at that very moment. Then he felt himself sobbing, blubbering really, and slamming a gloved fist against the wall of the armored vehicle. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair.

  ***

  The next morning, Maria brought Hari fresh fatigues, missing the patches. Hari didn’t mind the new fatigues. He felt different in a cleaner set. Maria even brought him new boots, clean and without holes. They even had the right laces. Hari took this as a sign that he was meant to be there. He took a five-minute shower, shaved, trimmed his hair, and brushed his teeth. He then donned the uniform Maria gave him, hoping it would mean a change in his life—and for the better.

  Once finished, Hari followed Maria to the mess hall, where a dozen or so workers were enjoying an early breakfast. Muffled conversations filled the hall, and they grew louder when Hari and Maria were in sight. Hari grabbed everything he could—sugary cereal, toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, cottage cheese, milk, and juice. He shoveled his food into his mouth at a rate that Maria had to remind him he could eat as much as he liked. Nothing was going to change that. He slowed down after this reminder. Hari looked around, taking note of the faces in the room, before eating more of his food.

  “Your first assignment today is going to be pretty disorienting,” Maria said. “D’you know how to swim?”

  Hari laughed and answered, “Sure do, Maria.”

  “Good,” Maria commented with a nod. “Finish up, so we can get to work.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hari said, wolfing down the last sausage patty and a slice of toast on his tray. He washed it all down with the remnants of his milk and juice.

  “You ready?” Maria asked.

  “Where do I go swimming out in the desert?” Hari asked, getting ready to put up his tray.

  “You’ll see,” Maria answered. “You can leave your tray here. The dining hall staff will take care of it. That is, after all, why we’ve hired them.”

  Hari nodded and said, “Yes, ma’am. Where do we go from here?”

  ***

  Maria led Hari to another section of the facility, ignoring any questions he had until she swiped her fob in front of a red metal door with stenciled white lettering. The lettering read, “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. SECURITY CAMERAS IN USE.”

  “This should answer some of your questions, Hari,” Maria said, after pushing open the door. “What do you see?”

  Hari looked inside. He saw what looked like a swimming pool with black water, but it didn’t seem to act like water. Now waves, no movement.

  “Looks like a swimming pool,” Hari answered. “Also looks like you guys need to clean the water.”

  “Huh,” Maria commented. “You will need to take your uniform off. The pool tends to stain clothes.”

  “I don’t have a swimsuit,” Hari said.

  “You’ll have to go in naked,” Maria said.

  “Naked?” Hari asked.

  “Naked,” Maria replied.

  “You’re the boss,” Hari muttered. “What happens once I’m in the water?”

  “Who said it was water?”

  “Do I need to worry about anything, Maria?”

  “Nope,” Maria answered. “The rest will come naturally.”

  “Okay,” Hari said with a nod. “Not inspiring any kind of confidence in me, Maria.”

  “Trust me,” Maria said. “You’ll find that your first experience in the prolegomenon is quite disorienting but enjoyable.”

  “Enjoyable?”

  “Yes, enjoyable is the word I would use for it.”

  “Okay,” Hari said.

  “Don’t worry about anything once you are in,” Maria remarked. “Let the fluid do what it needs to.”

  “Sure will, boss.”

  “One other thing, Hari,” Maria said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t forget that you’ve a job to do.”

  “Sure enough,” Hari replied. “I’ll keep that in mind, boss.”

  “Good,” Maria said. “Now take your clothes off and jump in. I’ll be in the control room, monitoring you from there.”

  Before Hari could say anything, Maria disappeared.

  * * *

  Hari floated in the blackwater pool.

  He floated in silence.

  Silence was unlike anything he had felt since leaving the military. Hari felt as if he was bobbing up and down on the waves of some glacial lake his father took the family to. However, Hari was dry to the touch, like floating on an invisible current of air. He also felt the warmth of the dark liquid surrounding him. The dark fluid cradled his body, protecting it, connecting it to something Hari couldn’t fathom. He could see, but not with his own two eyes. Something was mediating his sight for him, censoring what it did not want him to see. He felt the presence of a million living and warm bodies smashed up against one another. A million sets of eyes were watching him at that moment, too, judging him, admiring the curves of his muscles, his brown skin, and his hairless chest, examining his scars and numerous calluses. A million murmurs filled his ears. Each murmur was in a different language, alien tongues all—all languages were foreign to him, blocked from his mind. Wiped away from the deepest depths of his memory.

  In the floating warmth, Hari thought of his home in northern Arizona, a place of little consequence to the wider world. He imagined the social-credit utopias on the West Coast, just on the horizon of his mind, with their great skyscrapers, bullet trains, and celebrities. The warmth of the blackwater pool was that of a cool night in the desert, a time for drinking and eating food. A time for respite from the burning-hot sun that bleached the sky and sapped the strength of the strongest woman or man. It was during this time of respite that Hari would read from his favorite paperback, The Adventures of Gonzo the RoboChimp & the D-Team, in the firelight or moonlight.

  Then the voices came.

  At first, it was light a trickle, a small creek running down the rusted hillside near his home in northern Arizona. The trickle tickling Hari’s inner ear took hold of his limbs, and he then felt himself sinking into the black fluid, like someone might sink into quicksand. The trickle turned into a roaring, gushing noise that rattled his inner ear, pushed up against his eyeballs, and made his skull feel like it was being split in two. He kept sinking into the liquid darkness. His heart slammed against his chest as if it were a caged animal desperately trying to escape. His lungs felt as if they had been weighed down by wet concrete. His limbs sunk deeper and faster than the rest of his body. Panic. Panic hit him like a lightning bolt, but something, deep in the back of his mind, told him that everything was fine. He would survive. He would see another day. He just needed to trust his instincts, and his instincts were telling him to let the fluid overcome him, to wash over his naked body, to be consumed in its darkness.

  ***

  Amidst the darkness, Hari felt an unknown presence—hungry, never-ending, sun-bright. He tried communicating with it, but the creature simply ignored him at first. He shouted at it, calling it whatever names he could think of in the moment. Hari then felt the presence change, as it began to realize what he was. Hari felt fear in the back of his mind, but he knew that fear would get him nowhere. He soldiered on and swam closer to the presence.

  As he moved closer to the presence, he felt as if he’d been thrown back into the desert. The black liquid of the swimming pool melted away, shriveling at the heat of the presence. Hari wondered if he’d died and was seeing the face of God, but something felt off about the presence. He didn’t hear the angels singing. He felt empty, devoid of feeling. He felt like the presence was sapping energy from his body, and he felt a despair creeping up in the back of his mind. A flight or fight response was kicking in, and the presence seemed to feed off of the fear Hari felt coursing through his body.

  “Who are you? What are you?” Hari asked, looking up at the bright-hot presence.

  The presence said nothing, it grew around Hari, encircling him with searing-hot flame. Hari felt the choking heat closing in on his body. He tried swimming away, but everywhere he went, Hari found the presence closing in on him.

  “What are you?” Hari asked again.

  The presence closed in on Hari, choking the air from his lungs. He felt his skin burning. He felt flesh melting and bone dissolving in the heat of the presence. He screamed, but he felt nothing escape his mouth. Instead of darkness, he assumed came for all, Hari saw a blinding white light and knew death was closing in. He swam toward the blinding light of the presence, diving deeper into its heat. Something told him he could escape, at least long enough to get a message out to the others. He felt his body breaking down with each stroke.

  ***

  The screams were the worst part of observing subjects like Hari. Maria knew they wouldn’t recover much from the prolegomenon’s pool. Hari, the fiftieth test subject, had lasted longer than most. She, with the help of a company medication, was able to justify the death of another human being. Although the prolegomenon had been intended to predict the future through acausal signaling, they’d found that something existed, out there, somewhere, that fed on the information, energy, and resources of a human body. Its consumption of human test subjects had been predictable, but what Maria feared most was the rate at which they were consumed. Some lasted longer than others, like Hari Weber. Others didn’t last long against what the company had begun calling the Great Maw.

  “Tell the Founder,” Maria began, recording herself using voice notes on her tablet, “that we need more test subjects. The data is just too inconclusive at the moment.”

  She sat up in her swivel chair, looking down at the screen and observing the still blackness of the prolegomenon. Maria then continued her recording saying, “Subject: Hari Weber or 0050. Subject 0050 showed incredible strength when facing the Great Maw. We must determine why certain subjects are more or less resistant to the Great Maw’s energies. I guess that a strong will to survive intrigues the Great Maw. Like many predators, especially sentient ones, we might assume that the Great Maw studies its prey before consuming them. The Great Maw’s form of consumption goes beyond simple sustenance, such as the consumption of flesh, blood, and bone. I would hypothesize that the Great Maw feeds on our emotional responses, our intelligence, and our bodies. This could explain why some subjects have lasted longer than others. Emotional responses, intelligence, and body structures are likely to be different, depending on the subject. We must continue sending in subjects, and we must continue giving all test subjects a regime of nanochines, so we can continue to study what is sent back to us. Although the nanomachines tend to be the first to be destroyed, they have provided interesting data.”

  Maria left the observation room and made her way to the chow hall. She’d need to find another willing test subject. The company would provide, and they would ensure her experiments were continued without the intrusion of the government. She was excited by the prospect of more data, and she hoped the data from Subject 0050 could be put to good use. She almost missed Subject 0050, Hari, but she knew he’d served his purpose, for a greater good, a greater calling.