—Do you believe I have lost my objectivity?

—Lost it? No. I don’t think you really had any to begin with. I don’t see how anyone can come into this and remain objective. Dr. Franklin is a scientist. If anyone can remain detached it should be her, but she’s not a robot, she’s curious, she’s proud. She can’t help but be blinded to certain things because of what motivates her. The same thing is true for me, and it’s blatantly true for you. You have your own agenda and you’re willing to go the distance for it. I’m not saying you’re in this for your own personal gain—I think, in many ways, your motivation might actually be less selfish than everyone else’s—but that doesn’t make you any less biased. The only difference between me and you, when it comes to Vincent, is that you really don’t care what happens to him if he can’t do this. That’s not objectivity.

—I can accept, and even understand, that you might question my motives. I find it more difficult not to respond when my integrity is questioned. Have I ever lied to you?

—A thousand times, I’m sure. Just don’t lie to him, that’s all I’m asking.

—I suppose I should be offended. Has it ever occurred to you to ask Mr. Couture if he believes I have misled him in any way? He is an incredibly intelligent young man, more so than either you or I could ever aspire to be.

—Come on. Be honest for one second. If he said: “No, I don’t wanna do this anymore,” you wouldn’t try to force him to continue, manipulate him, blackmail him, threaten him in some way?

—Who is being manipulative now? There are two possible answers to this question: one that you would not believe, and one that would make me a cruel and evil figure. So I can either appear cruel and dishonest, or honest but still cruel and evil. You have formulated a question for which the best possible answer is to admit than I am a dangerous manipulative blackmailer. You will forgive me if I do not give you the pleasure of answering it.

Fortunately for me, your question is entirely speculative, as Mr. Couture has expressed on several occasions, and to the both of us, his strong desire to help with this project in any way that he can. If, at some point in the future, his disposition changes and he wishes to remove himself from this enterprise, then you will have the only answer that really matters and we will know if I am everything you portray me to be. In the meantime, I hope you will not presume to know more about the needs and wants of Mr. Couture than he does, and that you will honor and respect the wishes of the man you claim to love.

FILE NO. 182

PERSONAL JOURNAL ENTRY—DR. ROSE FRANKLIN, PH.D.

Location: Underground Complex, Denver, CO

“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.”

Those are not my words. In fact, I had to look up the exact quote. Like everyone else, I only knew “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” We tend to romanticize good quotes, and I always imagined Oppenheimer uttering those words while staring at the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion. In reality, he spoke those words during an interview for an NBC documentary in 1965. He had had twenty years to think about it.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project these past few days. I haven’t been building a bomb, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore a very simple truth.

I am building a weapon, and a formidable one at that. But that’s not the truth I’m hiding from. There’s no hiding from that. I spend most of my time understanding just how devastating it can be. I realize it may have been an instrument of peace, but not the kind of peace achieved through righteousness and understanding. This is meant to be a killing machine, one of such might and power that no one would stand against it.

It works. I’m afraid of it. I’m reminded of it every night in my dreams. All of us are. I keep showing up earlier and earlier in the morning, either because I can’t sleep or because I don’t want to go back to whatever dream I was having. Inevitably, someone’s already there, or they show up a few minutes later. No one wants to talk about it, but we can all tell we’re going through the same thing.

My dream is usually the same: she’s standing over me, then she bends on one knee and brings her face a few feet above my head. She’s staring at me with bright, blinding turquoise eyes; she looks like she’s about to speak. That’s when I wake up in a sweat.

After yesterday, I know I won’t have the same dream ever again. We finally looked at the head.

Everyone was dying to see it. It had just been sitting there wrapped in a black tarp. I’d catch Kara trying to take a peek about once a day. I could have just unwrapped it, but it was too much fun torturing her. She would pace around it for twenty minutes, hoping the tarp would magically fall off. And then she’d walk off angrily.

Yesterday morning, I brought Vincent in his wheelchair and I told Kara it was time. We unstrapped the head and removed the cloth. She is stunning, but not at all what I expected.

She has thin lips and a very small nose. All her features are small, delicate. She almost looks like a child, innocent but controlled. Chaste is the word that comes to mind.

I can’t decide if it’s her hair or a very elaborate helmet, but her head is covered in wavy spines with intricate carvings. Turquoise light seeps between them. Some extend forward onto her cheeks and brow, others are sleeked backward toward her back armor. From her forehead, several spines join to form an axe-shaped appendage at the back of her head.

When we unwrapped her, I was expecting to cross the same intense gaze I see in my dreams, quailing at the idea to be honest, but it wasn’t there. No blinding light, no gaze, no eyes.

She doesn’t have eyes, only small recesses where they ought to be. It’s very unsettling. You can’t help but wonder just how aware of your presence she really is. I know she’s not aware of anything, because I’m the one who put her together. But there’s something about her…a presence. I think there’s more there than a glorified toaster. Besides, I can’t really be blamed for anthropomorphizing something that’s anthropomorphic. Anyway, I doubt she’ll leave me alone at night, but she’ll have to find another way to scare me.

We had to use two cranes to raise the head. As soon as we attached it, the whole room started to shake. Her entire body stiffened for a second, then everything went back to normal. I asked Kara to grab a walkie-talkie, get up the elevator, and into the sphere.

She went in and braced herself at her station. I asked her to raise her right arm slowly. It was fantastic to watch. She moves! After all this, we finally got her working. We made her move her arms, rotate her head. She even bent down to pick up a storage crate. She’s really gracious, delicate in her movements. I didn’t expect such fluency. Of course, she crushed the crate with her fingers, but we can work on that. Kara’s not that delicate herself.

We found weapons today. I haven’t told our nameless friend yet. He’ll find out soon enough. I just don’t want to give him the pleasure of pretending he hasn’t been waiting for this all along. We came upon them by accident. I was expecting we’d find weaponry at some point, but not so soon, and I always thought it would be lasers, a death ray, something futuristic. Maybe I just watch too many movies. I was wrong, it turns out our girl is old school. She has a sword and a shield.