Prologue
Alton was not a man of god.
How could he be?
He was a self-fashioned scientist, a researcher, a man willing to push the boundaries of humanity and ethics. He was the opposite of a godly man.
He was damned.
Damned to lose everything.
He had lost his love, he had lost his empire, and now he was loosing his body. No amount of money, or effort, or pleading could save him.
The entirety of his adult life had been spent in the pursuit of one goal and one goal only: transcending the boundaries imposed on humanity by their very source code.
That goal had failed. Twice
First was his body. The bastard shell of him that refused to submit to reason, that impenetrable collection of neurons that defied all modern technology. It was failing him.
Second was Vivienne’s. The mad woman who would stop at nothing to know true joy. She forced him to believe in salvation against all odds. He loved her for it, yet, he lost her to it.
So, he sat in the chair, the very one she sat in all those months ago, with a syringe in hand, ready to end it all.
The will was written. It was an elegant treatise on the beauties beyond ethical frameworks, a mad attempt to stoke the flames of scientific wonder into burning brighter than anybody could possibly imagine. All his research would be donated to the cause.
All that was left was a final act of motion, he just needed to push the device against his thigh. The autoinjector would do the rest.
He took a deep breath and pushed through those traitorous tears, the last vestiges of a man desperate to save himself. His logical mind, the one that carried him through his whole life, knew there was nothing left to save.
He plunged the injector into his thigh and heard the subtle click. For the first time in his life, Alton Eriks tried to believe in something he could not prove.
He closed his eyes and waited for hell.
