“How is that bullshit?”

“Because it’s all wrong. Paradise isn’t a lack of want. That’s hell, brother.” Warren glanced back at the lab again, then, clapping Ellis on the back, encouraged him to take a few more steps away. “This is the mistake everyone makes. Life is all about conflict. The pursuitof happiness—that’s life, not the achievement. It’s all about the journey, my friend. Everyone always used to ask how God could let terrible things happen. They didn’t understand. I didn’t, either, until I was alone under a pile of snow in a shack I built with my own hands, surviving on worms. I was teetering on the brink, Ellis—I really was. Thought I was going to die, and I can honestly say, I’ve never lived so fully and deeply before. Every minute, every decision I made could decide if I would survive or die. When spring came and I felt the warmth of the sun and ate that wonderful bushy-tailed squirrel—man—I knew I was alive. I was part of nature like every other animal that made it through the long dark. I never felt like that before, but that’s how we’re supposed to be. Life is intended to be a battle, a struggle. God designed it that way. Think about it. Everything is always in constant conflict. Heat versus cold, light versus dark, gravity versus…whatever. Every living thing in existence has to fight and kill to survive. Even plants are in competition with each other for light and water. The whole ecosystem is based on conflict. Who do you think did that? It’s God, Ellis. God made the world like a cage match. You go in and you fight to win or die trying.”

“Survival of the fittest,” Ellis said, putting that piece in place. In one season in a branch hut, Warren had managed to succeed where centuries of scholars had failed—reconciling science and religion.

“Exactly.” Warren nodded. “You see, everyone thought Darwin was anti-religion, but they had it wrong. They just refused to see the real God.”

“A sadist God?”

Warren smirked. “You only say that because you think conflict is bad. It isn’t. It’s like competition in capitalism. It drives the system and makes it work. Just think for a second. How much fun would it be to play a game like Monopolyif you started out owning everything and having all the money? The fun of playing the game is trying to win. Once you’ve won, what’s the point of playing?”

“So you think God made it so no one can win?”

Warren clapped his hands together, then tapped his nose with his index finger. “Look at history. Every time we solved a problem, it caused two more. Solve world hunger and what happens—overpopulation, right? Discover penicillin and you get super bugs. The world is a problem-creator so we humans never run out of things to combat, because that’s what we love to do. But the baldies, they don’t understand this. They’re trying to wipe out problems, engineer away conflict, and it’s driving them insane. They spend their time painting pictures and singing songs. That’s not living. That’s what people do in prison.”

“So how’s this going to work?” Ellis indicated the lab. “Repopulating the world? We don’t have the pattern to make males, right? So what? Are we going to screw our daughters or just have our sons sleep with their sisters?”

“Like I said, it was good enough for Adam and Eve, but we don’t have to do that. Your sons will marry my daughters and vice versa. It’s all very simple, really. I don’t know why you’re kicking up such a stink.”

Ellis sighed. “I don’t like this idea of a pecking order. It’s—it’s just bullying for the sake of bullying. These people were designed to resist violence—which is a good thing—and here you are training them to fight.”

“They need to be toughened up. They need to know how to fight.”

“Why? Who is there to fight? Did that squirrel you ate put up that much of a battle?”

Warren took a deep breath and shook his head slowly. “Do you think the moles underground are gonna be fine if we build a prosperous society here on the surface? What did I just tell you about conflict?”

“You’re expecting to fight Hollow World?”

“Of course.” Warren raised his arms, then slapped his thighs.

“They’re nonviolent. They don’t even have a police force, much less an army. They don’t understand weapons. There’s no way they’ll attack us.”

“You’ve heard of this Hive Mind thing they’re working on, right? How long before they insist we get chips planted in our brains so they can control us?”

“The Hive Mind has nothing to do with control—”

“Of course it does. That’s all anything is ever about. Once they implement it, they’ll be unstoppable, like a colony of single-minded ants. They’ll be the Borg, rushing from their holes to wipe us out if we refuse to be assimilated. Well, I’m not going to let that happen.”

“Warren, the Hive Project doesn’t even work. They can’t do it. You’re scared of nothing.”

Warren glanced back at the lab again. How many times was that?

“What’s going on in the lab?”

“Huh?”

Ellis pointed. “Is Dex starting the female Chia Pet farm in Edison’s lab?” Ellis had to admit that was surprisingly apropos. Thomas would have been pleased.

“Oh—uh—yeah. Dex is working on all kinds of things. They’ve already got the first batch of eggs growing in some sort of incubator that he and Pol brought back.”

“All kinds? Other than making baby girls, what’s Dex up to?”

“Probably best if you don’t know,” Warren said so thoughtfully, so seriously, that Ellis focused on the lab. He tried to see through the windows, but they were covered.

“Why is that?”

“You know I love you like a brother, Ellis, but you’ve always lacked the conviction of your beliefs.”

Ellis shifted his attention off the lab and back squarely on Warren. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Warren had his straight-shooter face on. The tough-love train was heading Ellis’s way and looking to pick up a passenger. “If you really wanted to be an astronaut, you could have, but you settled for a mid-level white-bread job. And when Peggy got pregnant, you should have told her Hasta la vista,bitch. But you’ve always been weak. Let’s face it, Ellis, if you were a lifeboat captain with too many passengers, they’d all die because you couldn’t make the tough decisions. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s just the way you are. A lot of people are that way.”

Ellis felt like Warren was telling him he shouldn’t be ashamed to come out of the closet. Not that there’s anything wrong with being compassionate.

“What’s going on in the lab, Warren?”

“The future.”

“Haven’t we both had more than our fair share off that plate?”

“You can’t understand—not yet. But you would if you had spent that winter with me. You see, when I crawled out, I knew I had been spared for a reason. Course, I didn’t know what that was at the time, but Moses didn’t know why he survived being exiled to the desert either. God had a purpose for me.”

“What’s in the lab, Warren?”

“It wasn’t until I met Pol, Dex, and Hig that I began to understand I had been saved from cancer and a killing winter for a reason. So I could fix the world—so I could be the new Savior—kind of a second coming of Warren Eckard. We really are like Jesus and John the Baptist. I’m doing the heavy lifting at first to pave the way—to prepare the people—for you to use that brain of yours and guide them. I can’t do that as well as you. You got all the education. My gut tells me what’s right, but I can’t explain the hows and whys like you can.”

“How are you preparing the people?” Ellis began walking back toward the lab.

“It took a year, Ellis, and the hard work of everyone here, mostly Pol and Dex, but especially Hal.”

“I never met Hal. Who’s that?”

“Oh, you met him,” Warren told Ellis as he stepped on the porch. “You killed him.”