Even after General Dean made his exit, the interrogation of Joachim Coleman dragged on for hours. He was the first living, breathing witness they’d found in this whole Coleman-flavored mess, and Taro had a mountain of questions he wanted to bury the man under.
How many more of these creepy facilities are there?
Are there other guys like you wandering around the galaxy?
Who are these military traitors Dean keeps grumbling about?
Is this pathetic lab the best your research could do? And what the hell is the deal with WIND?
Taro vented every ounce of built-up frustration, lobbing questions that ranged from "critically important" to "completely irrelevant." He just wanted answers, damn it.
In reality, there was probably no need to rush. Joachim Coleman didn’t look like he had any plans to bolt. In fact, just as he’d said, he didn’t seem to have a single secret left that he felt like protecting. The man was a dry well.
Still, Taro felt the need to squeeze out every last drop.
"H-hey. Don't you think you should, I don't know... stay in a bunker for a bit?"
The interrogation had finally wound down, and the hour was getting obscenely late. Taro caught up to Coleman at the exit of the room, calling out to him as he stood by the door. Coleman glanced back over his shoulder and gave a shrug so exaggerated it was practically an Olympic sport.
"What, are you suggesting I live the rest of my days with a lead-lined skull? Even that wouldn't block the signal, and it sounds dreadfully inconvenient. I'll pass."
In this corner of the galaxy, BISHOP was everywhere. People lived their entire lives plugged into the network. Unless you were a hermit or an astronaut in deep space, being 'offline' was basically a myth. Which was exactly why Taro was sweating.
"If you take one step out that door, there’s a chance your brain goes kaboom, you know?" Taro opened his hand in a mock explosion.
Joachim let out a bored, nasal snort. "If the Voice wanted me dead, it would have happened before I ever set foot here. The moment I accepted the General’s summons, I knew I’d end up spilling everything. If it hasn't killed me yet, I'm clearly not worth the effort."
Ignoring Taro’s hesitant hovering, Joachim stepped out into the hallway.
"If you find yourself desperate for more of my company, talk to the General. I imagine I’ll be under his thumb for the foreseeable future. Though, I’m fairly certain I’ve told you everything worth knowing."
With a face that screamed 'perpetual boredom,' Joachim walked away. Taro watched him go, flinching at every shadow, half-expecting a laser beam to descend from the heavens. When nothing happened, he finally let out a long, shaky breath.
"Oh, wait. I forgot one minor detail," Coleman said, stopping in his tracks.
"The Voice made us a promise. If 'Biological Creation' was the Voice’s goal, then our goal was the reward for helping achieve it."
Coleman didn't turn around. He just tilted his head slightly to the side.
"It promised to invite us to something called Eden. New Eden was just our pathetic attempt at a scale model. Of course, given the architect, I doubt it’s actually a paradise."
He turned then, flashing a smile that was less cynical and more… provocative. He locked eyes with Taro.
"Find Earth. That’s where Eden is."
The conference room was a bleak, depressing box of a place—dimly lit and furnished only with long, cheap tables and rows of soul-crushing chairs. Dozens of men and women were packed inside.
"As you can see from the hard copies provided, the value of these findings far exceeds our wildest projections," a woman said, clutching a stack of papers.
Every person in the room was dressed in the same crisp uniform, featuring the letters IN prominently displayed on their chests.
"Hmph. If they weren't valuable, I wouldn't have signed off on the permit in the first place," a man grunted. He had more stars on his uniform than anyone else in the room and an attitude to match. He flipped through the stack of paper with visible disdain before tossing it onto the table like trash. "Physical paper? This is idiotic. Is this much paranoia really necessary?"
Compared to the instantaneous data transfer of BISHOP, reading words printed on actual wood pulp was a massive pain in the ass. It was archaic, slow, and frankly, an insult to modern civilization. But given the circumstances, they didn't have a choice.
"With all due respect, sir... we have to prepare for a worst-case scenario," the woman replied, her voice trembling under the weight of his ego.
The man preened at her fear, waving a hand dismissively. "Fine, fine. More importantly, move the schedule up. We won't last twenty months. We'll be lucky if we make it ten."
The room erupted into a low-level panic. Faces twisted in horror; people started whispering frantically to their neighbors. One guy looked like he was about to start pulling his hair out in clumps.
"A troublesome fly has caught the scent," the man said, standing up. He had the air of someone who was finished with the conversation. "We’ve gone too far to back out now. Get it done."
The moment he stepped out, the room devolved into absolute chaos.
The man paused in the hallway, listening to the muffled sounds of the panic he’d just ignited, and let out a smug, nasty snort.
"Search for Earth, huh..."
Taro muttered the phrase for the hundredth time as he slumped on the bridge of the Plum. He couldn't get Coleman’s words out of his head. They were looping like a bad pop song.
"Look on the bright side," Marl said, not looking up from the instrument panel she was currently disassembling. "After all those detours, we’re finally back on the main quest."
"I guess..." Taro groaned, rolling over on his seat like a depressed log. But seriously, what the hell is Earth even like these days? A radioactive wasteland? A giant theme park?
Given the connection between the Voice and Eden, if Earth really was Eden, Taro’s imagination was currently serving up a buffet of worst-case scenarios.
[THAT REMAINS TO BE SEEN, MR. TEIRO. HOWEVER, WE ARE APPROACHING OUR DESTINATION.]
Koume, who was currently opting to be a literal metal ball, rolled across the floor and bumped into Taro’s foot. Taro looked up as the display flickered to life, showing a single planet hanging in the void.
Eden. God. Earth. The Voice.
These weren't just random words anymore. Taro remembered exactly when all these pieces had first started falling into his lap.
It was Planet Nuke. And that "Ancient Navigation Log" they’d found there.
Taro pulled up the image data Marl had snapped of the log, letting the BISHOP interface float the text in front of his eyes.
"There's no way this record isn't ancient, right?" Taro asked.
[AFFIRMATIVE,] Koume’s deadpan voice rang out as she rolled across the control console. [THE ADVANCED SCIENCE RESEARCH DEPARTMENT INVESTIGATED THE ARTIFACT AND CONFIRMED IT PREDATES THE EMPIRE BY AT LEAST 4,500 YEARS.]
"Wait, we have a department for that?" Taro asked. It was a wildly irresponsible question for a man in his position, but he kept going anyway. "I don't know who that fleet belonged to, but they mention leaving Eden. You think it’s the same Eden Coleman was talking about?"
[THE DATA IS INCONCLUSIVE, MR. TEIRO. HOWEVER, THE OVERLAP IN TERMINOLOGY AND CIRCUMSTANCE IS STATISTICALLY ANOMALOUS.]
"Right? I mean, the end of the log says 'God' gave them blueprints for an Override Device and a drive system. That sounds exactly like the 'unpublished physical formulas' and 'Oracles' Joachim was rambling about. For that time period, that’s some serious over-technology."
Taro remembered how Alan had practically had a heart attack when he first saw those blueprints. Looking at the primitive ship replicas in the Museum, there was no way people back then could have built something like that on their own.
[AFFIRMATIVE, MR. TEIRO. ALTHOUGH, IT IS NOT ENTIRELY IMPOSSIBLE. THERE IS A NON-ZERO CHANCE THAT DRIVE PARTICLE PHYSICS RANDOMLY ADVANCED AHEAD OF ALL OTHER SCIENCES DUE TO A SERIES OF BIZARRE COINCIDENCES. IT IS ABOUT AS LIKELY AS THE PROBABILITY OF YOU BEING A NON-VIRGIN.]
"HEY! I HAVE REPEATEDLY FILED PROTESTS THAT THE PROBABILITY OF THAT IS ACTUALLY QUITE HIGH!"
[OF COURSE, MR. TEIRO. IT IS ALSO THEORETICALLY POSSIBLE FOR A BALL THROWN AT A WALL TO QUANTUM-TUNNEL DIRECTLY THROUGH THE SOLID MATTER. KOUME BELIEVES IN MIRACLES.]
"Wow. Thanks. What exactly are those odds, by the way?"
[MOVING ON, MR. TEIRO. THERE IS ALSO THE MATTER OF THE FLAG. YOU CLAIMED THE DESIGN FOUND AT THE SITE MATCHED THE FLAG OF A NATION FROM YOUR MEMORY CALLED THE UNITED STATES. THIS PROVIDES A STRONG LINK TO THE PLANET EARTH.]
"Damn it, I thought everyone had ignored that. Uh, the United States? What's that? Sounds like a brand of steakhouse. Did I really say that?"
[...MY APOLOGIES, MR. TEIRO. PLEASE DISREGARD. I SHALL ADJUST THE ARGUMENT. THE GALACTIC EMPIRE HAS A 5,000-YEAR HISTORY. THE ARTIFACTS IN THE MUSEUM DATE BACK TO THE EMPIRE'S INFANCY. SINCE OUR ENTIRE CIVILIZATION AGREES THAT HUMANITY ORIGINATED FROM A SINGLE PLANET—EARTH—THE CONNECTION IS ALREADY ESTABLISHED.]
"Yeah, yeah. Still, this 'no important data over the network' rule is a total pain. Teiro-chan is going to lose his mind if we have to spend days traveling just to have a five-minute chat."
Taro glared at Planet Nuke on the screen. Dr. Arzimof was waiting down there with supposed "major progress" on the search for Earth. While Taro was hyped for the news, the sheer stress of hopping from the Delta system to Roma and then all the way to Nuke just to avoid a digital eavesdropper was wearing him thin.
But they didn't have a choice. Not with the Voice listening.
"We have to stay off the grid," Marl said, finally looking up from her repairs with an air of zen-like patience. "We don't know which networks are compromised. We should just be happy the basic comms still work. It's better than nothing."
"I guess..." Taro sighed.
He stared out at Nuke. The small, dusty planet hadn't changed since their last visit—it was still just a blurry, brown sphere hanging in space.
Alright, Doc. Let’s see what you’ve got.