I wanted to save everyone. I wanted it so bad. Maybe it’s because no matter how much I try, I can’t shake the thought that they’re dying because of me. I fell on a hand and I brought the world to the brink of war. They brought me back to life and a hundred million people died. I am the harbinger of death.

Now I’m staring at my computer. I’m looking at every piece of data we have on the alien robots and I don’t know where to start. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. If there’s a reason for me to be here, there’s a good chance it has to do with what I’m good at. So I’m focusing on the metal, its composition, waiting for the answer to jump out of the screen. It’s entirely possible that what I’m supposed to achieve has nothing to do with physics. I could be wasting what little time I have trying to convince myself I’m a good scientist. Now I’m overanalyzing everything, wasting time thinking about wasting time.

And what if they’re right? What if wiping us out of history is the right thing to do? I can’t claim to have any objectivity on the matter. Everyone I care about would die in the process and I’d be left to live the most horrible life I can imagine, so my bias is obvious. But these aliens are evidently more evolved than we are. Their technology is incredibly more advanced. It’s at least possible that their understanding of everything else is also leaps and bounds ahead of ours. Maybe they know what’s best.

I feel so alone. I don’t do well on my own. I need people to guide me. I need…I need Kara. I need someone I can talk to about anything, anything but this. I need someone who won’t judge me based on whether or not I can save the world. I suppose no one really does judge me that way, but Kara was the only one who made me feel like I could just…be.

I need you, my nameless friend. Would you be OK with my calling you friend? You died with your arm around me, that has to count for something. Still, you’d probably be uncomfortable with the idea. Talking about you, I realize I’m still angry at you. I can forgive Kara, but you…You had no right to die. You had no right to leave me behind. What would you say if you were here? Something caustic, like: Are you talking to yourself, Dr. Franklin?

Yeah, I’m talking to myself…There’s no one else to talk to. Everyone’s dead. What would you do? What would you say to make me see? You weren’t a scientist, but you’d have made a good one. You were detached, methodical. You could see this problem for what it is. I can only see…nonsense. How can I—me, alone—defeat giant alien robots that can withstand a nuclear explosion, without using anything that was invented in the last three thousand years? What can I do without any technology whatsoever? I can’t even go near them. What would you say to that? You’d probably ask: Do you believe you can defeat them by conversing with the recently deceased?

Probably not. But I’m…allowed to talk to an imaginary friend. It’s in the rules. They had crazy people three thousand years ago. There was nothing else around, though. Nothing but rocks, and dirt, and bugs. I’m sure I wouldn’t like what you’d have to say now. It would be dry, bordering on insulting, but somehow supportive, in your own twisted way.

I know: If that is true, Dr. Franklin, I suggest you stop talking to the dead and find a way to defeat these robots with rocks, dirt, and/or bugs.

I’m losing my mind—I believe that was the general idea that I was trying to convey.

Why does that sentence ring a bell? Rocks, dirt, and/or bugs. What can I do with that? Rocks…Dirt…Bugs…I can throw rocks at them…Maybe they’ll take pity on me, decide we’re not that evolved after all. Think, Rose. Think…

Rocks…

Dirt…

Bugs…

Rocks, and dirt, and…

I think…I think I’ve got it.

Thank you. I don’t believe in the afterlife, but thank you, wherever you are.

FILE NO. 1626

INTERVIEW WITH BRIGADIER GENERAL EUGENE GOVENDER, COMMANDER, EARTH DEFENSE CORPS

Location: Shadow Government Bunker, Lenexa, KS

—You can sit down, Dr. Franklin. You’re stressing me out.

—Thank you, General.

—The Quebecois said you have a plan.

—I do. Half of one anyway.

—That’s a half more than what we had an hour ago.

—I suppose so.

—Well? What are you waiting for? We don’t have all day!

—Yes, sir. You know I’ve been going through everything we learned about the metal these robots are made of. There are slight differences, but it’s essentially the same material they built Themis with. It’s an alloy, mostly iridium, and it has a bunch of properties we can’t explain but that we’re beginning to understand. For example, we know it’s able to store energy. We don’t really know how it works, but we can make things with similar properties. We can make metal that stores solar energy and releases it when we want it to. We turn ruthenium into fulvalene diruthenium. That will store reasonably large amounts of solar energy that can be released using a catalyst.

—Ruthenium…Isn’t there some of that in the metal that makes up Themis?

—There is, but in very minute quantities. Nothing that could explain what it does. And the metal in Themis actually prefers nuclear energy. It can store a phenomenal amount of power. The closest thing we have is something like uranium. We can’t make it do what the metal in Themis does, but uranium does store energy and releases it over time. It’s slow if you don’t do anything to it, but it’s enough to keep the Earth cooking. About half of the heat inside the planet comes from radioactive decay. We have little control over the amount of energy uranium releases and the speed at which it does, but if we create a fission chain reaction—in a nuclear reactor, for example—we can release a lot more energy, and a lot faster.

Anyway, I decided to think of it as uranium, see where it would lead.

—And?

—It gave me an idea. There’s this special kind of bacteria, Geobacter. They have tiny wires on them—they’re called pili—that insulate them from the toxic environment they live in, and they’re able to transfer electrons to radioactive metal and change its properties. Basically, they can clean up radioactive waste, turn radioactive metal into a mineral by changing its molecular structure. It’s a slow process, though, way too slow. Takes years for these things to eat just a tiny bit of radioactive waste.