“And let you slide right in here, eh?” Vinnick chortled. “Take control of my domain? Put a puppet on the Council who agrees with everything you say?”
“I’m sure the rest of the Council can find someone suitable to replace you,” Enzo said. “I’m willing to offer very generous terms for your graceful exit.”
“All right,” Vinnick sighed. “Let’s hear your shit.”
Enzo placed his cup down on the table. “Let’s begin with your robust estate. Allow me to compliment you on your financial health. I am prepared to offer you five million Euros to settle you into a life of comfort for the rest of your days.”
“Five million?” Vinnick looked incredulous. “You’re offering me five million of my own money out of my four billion net worth?”
“Well, you won’t need it for much longer. The funds would be put to much better use in the service of the Holy Ones and Quasiform.”
“Yes, Quasiform. We barely have enough catalyst facilities for Quasiform. There is still much work to be done before the world is ready. Why not build a few more for redundancy in case a few fail or fall into enemy hands? This world will be ready for Quasiform in a generation or two, but not now.”
Enzo scoffed. “Unacceptable. The critical path is the rods, not the facilities. Redundancy is meaningless if the supply of rods is insufficient. Not to mention the cost of building the facilities. It would be wasted billions. Also, if I may remind you, brother, time is running out. That so-called Interpol Extraterrestrial Task Force has been mostly incompetent until now, but they are getting their act together and getting organized. Every year, they grow stronger and bolder.”
Vinnick waved that off. “The IXTF will end up like the United Nations. Impotent and useless. There is nothing to worry about from those fools.”
“I feel you are wrong about this. It’s only a matter of time before they discover our plans. If we do not start a world war and initiate Quasiform within the next decade, we will be found out and won’t be in a position to protect our interests. We cannot afford to dawdle much longer.”
“Still in such a hurry to blow the world up.” Vinnick shook his head and picked his teacup up again. “Several of the leadership feel more loyalty havens are needed to ease the transition when the transformation begins. Otherwise, there will be dissension in the ranks.”
Enzo sniffed dismissively. “You must know this is a non-starter, but let’s talk this out.”
Enzo detested the concept of loyalty havens. It was a recent concept that had sprung up from many of the lesser believers, if they could even be called believers at all. Self-serving bastards, more like it. They should be embracing Quasiform and the new Holy Ones home world. Instead, these petty Genjix, who had probably only joined the cause for selfish reasons, weren’t prepared to face the destiny the Holy Ones had always intended.
These havens were proposed ten years ago by several on the Council, when the inevitability of Quasiform within the next half-century became clear. The proposal had quickly gained popularity among the unblessed ranks, as well as a large percentage of the vessels. After all, why wouldn’t they? It would give loyal humans and vessels the ability to survive through the Quasiforming of Earth into the new Quasing homeland. From a practical standpoint, it made sense, except for those who did not embrace the change.
Enzo was vehemently against building havens. He considered them outright sacrilege. What sort of true believer would beg to delay Heaven in order for human bodies to survive longer? It would be like Christians refusing the Rapture, or the ancient Vikings refusing to enter the halls of Valhalla. All true Genjix should embrace their bodily deaths as Quasiform takes over the planet and ushers in a new beautiful world where the souls of the blessed and the Holy Ones stand side by side in harmony and peace. Because at his core, Enzo was a man of peace and pursued this vision of paradise for the good of all.
Your devotion is to be commended, but I would not go that far.
“When there is no one else left to fight, then there will be nothing left but peace.”
In the end, Enzo suffered a rare defeat on the Council, and the Genjix began Operation Gardens of Eden, a hundred-billion-dollar waste of time and resources. Since then, twenty-seven of these havens had sprung up, with the total capacity of safekeeping forty percent of all the existing Genjix. And because Vinnick himself put much of his fortune on it, the entire project fell directly under his control.
There was a political consequence to the project that Enzo had not foreseen. Since Vinnick was in control of all the havens, he was the one who determined which haven was allocated to which Council member. This had greatly raised his standing with all of the Genjix.
The political fallout from that battle had heavily hurt Enzo. It was a direct slap in the face that he, the councilman with the largest faction, currently had only one haven under his control, while all the others had several. Vinnick himself had ten. Many had rushed to curry the Russian’s favor, which made the Council Power Struggle even more difficult for Enzo than it had to be. In fact, he attributed Vinnick holding on to power for this long to that one crushing defeat. If it hadn’t been for the loyalty haven project, the old man would have been finished five years ago.
It didn’t bother Enzo that he was only allocated one haven. In fact, he had no intention of using it, nor would he allow any of his faction to delay their ascension. It was for their own good. One positive that came out of all of this was that now he knew who the true believers were and who was just riding the coat-tails of the Holy Ones for personal profit and gain. He reminded himself that once the Quasiform cycle began and could not be stopped, he would turn his attention inward and root out all the weak-willed and non-believers. In the end, only the pure would witness the final ascension.
Moving the conversation to these havens set the tone for the rest of their negotiations. Enzo knew why people who were in no position to negotiate still tried, but he never understood why they almost inevitably felt insulted when he didn’t budge. Whoever said a good agreement was a compromise neither side was completely happy with just had poor negotiators. For Enzo, the only time to bargain was when there was only one resolution. Everything else was details.
Unfortunately, Vinnick didn’t see things the right way. After an hour, the old man broke it off. “As expected, you’ve wasted my time, boy,” he said as he motioned for Sergii to come retrieve him. As Sergii wheeled Vinnick backward out of the courtyard, the old man stopped and looked back. “I gave you one chance to talk sense, and you blew it. You want Russia, you little prick. You come fucking take it from me.”
13 Teenage Life
Quasar is a living being. The planet itself is not alive, but the entire surface is interconnected as if it is a giant organism, with shared memories and experiences from billions of voices and minds mingling at all times.
It is that whole, that collective, those trillions upon trillions of Quasing merged together that allows us to evolve and advance, and eventually seek destiny beyond the boundaries of our planet and our solar system.
Tao
Cameron, wake up.
Cameron was out of bed before Tao finished the sentence, moving confidently in the dark. The sun had not risen yet, and the woods outside looked as pitch dark as they had when he had gone to bed just a few short hours ago. His window shutters rattled from a light breeze, but other than that, the entire house was still. Those signals told Cameron all he needed to know about what to wear this morning. He brushed his teeth, slipped on a long-sleeve shirt and running pants, and was out the door within two minutes.