"Sir, you're going to want to see this." Major McMurray thrust a report into General Parker’s hands.

  The general frowned. "Want to see?" He asked.

  "No, need to see, sir." The Major sounded earnest.

  General Parker opened the red folder. He glanced briefly at the report before slamming it angrily onto his desk.

  "God damn it!" he boomed. His pulse hammered between his ears. No amount of blood pressure medication on the planet could help him now. "Who else knows about this report?”

  "Sir, no one, to my knowledge." The Major kept his calm as best he could. "What should I tell the scientists?”

  After a minute of trying to regain himself, General Parker produced a bottle of scotch and a shot glass from under his desk. After quickly throwing back a couple mouthfuls, he regained his composure.

  There was a time he could keep his repose with ease. Parker's mind flicked back to his first encounter with those damn scientists five years ago. It was their fault his heart health was in decline. He could already hear the smug "I told you so" coming out of Krylov’s pie-hole. The thought boiled Parker’s blood.

  "The truth," he fumed. Parker glanced down at the report sprawled across his desk. The top page sported a photo of the STM on a news cover.

  ***Ari***

  "It should be you. I can't do public speaking to save my life." Ari reasoned. After he and Nik learned that knowledge of the STM had finally found its way into the general public, they concluded that one of them needed to make a statement to the press. In Ari’s eyes, it was an impractical use of time. Naturally, he had more important matters to attend, especially since he and his clone were nearing the final stages of their secret project.

  "I don't know if I can," Nik admitted, avoiding Ari's gaze. "I've never spoken on live television before."

  "Are you kidding?" Ari said, faking a smile. "You've already dealt with those closed hearings before Congress. Why are you wetting your pants now that a camera is involved?" He already knew that adding a touch of humor and prodding Nik's past achievements would ultimately prevail.

  "Touché." Nik's frown still hadn't lifted. "Still, millions of people are going to watch me sweat."

  "So?" Ari shrugged. "You've already been the first human being to live through having your atomic structure dismantled. This is no big deal compared to that."

  Nik let out a chuckle. Ari knew he had won when Nik laughed.

  "Fine, I'll give the damn statement." Nik relented. "But you're buying me a round after."

  After a brief catch-up, Ari left Nik to his preparations. It wasn't long before he found himself back in the company of his clone. Together, they reviewed the final plans for their project.

  "Primary motor, premotor, anterior premotor," Ari mumbled.

  Navigating the gyri of his conscious decision-making centers had been relatively straightforward. Nevertheless, he and his clone encountered overwhelming problems when rerouting thoughts.

  Strangely, this part of his brain reminded Ari of the government. There were many channels and red tape to maneuver to accomplish even the most basic decisions. The higher the order of reasoning, the more annoying it became to crunch the data.

  It was all coming down to the final touches. They had managed to sweep away most of the neural roadblocks. But the last problem lay in the orbital and ventromedial prefrontal cortices. The issues were like trying to cross a chasm rather than a roadblock.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "One thing I never understood was why they have such an inefficient naming system for the brain," Ari's clone broke the silence. "It would be much simpler for us if they had just assigned numbers to the anatomical structures and letters to the functionary roles within each."

  Ari nodded, understanding the confusion. "The keywords in your statement are 'for us,'" he explained. "Most people can't memorize significant combinations of numbers and letters. They need more relatable terms."

  "That’s valid," his clone agreed. "Do you ever find dealing with others somewhat colorless lately?" he asked. "Things seem to be highly predictable now, so listening to others has been, more or less, reduced to automated responses."

  "True," Ari nodded. "Much like when quantum computation upended the world of binary."

  Ari had noticed something changing in his relationship with Neorah and Injilah lately. The playful husband and doting father he used to be had started feeling like mere algorithmic calculations. Making them happy now seemed like just another task for his ever-expanding mind.

  To them, Ari remained the same. If it weren't for the overwhelming exhaustion it caused, he might have allowed himself to feel depressed. After a moment of brooding, a brilliant thought struck him.

  “We should introduce our own form of color when interacting with the world.” Ari wasn't disappointed when his clone picked up on his sublanguage signals.

  "Yes, that makes sense." His clone nodded pensively. "When people are young, their understanding of colorful interaction is nothing more than slapstick humor and fart noises. When their minds mature, colorful interaction consists of analogy and innuendo."

  "So the primary question we must answer is what form should colorful interaction take in the next stage of mental evolution?" Both Ari and his clone fell into deep thought, silent and still. It had been a while since a question required such deep contemplation. Usually, the answers came to them automatically, but they honestly had to think this time. The minutes dragged on.

  "Compasso," Ari finally answered.

  "Eschaton," his clone spoke in sync. They shared a baffled glance.

  Throughout their partnership, not once had their responses diverged. The very idea of reaching disparate conclusions to an identical query seemed paradoxical. They were, after all, the same entity.

  "This warrants exploration," Ari murmured in bewilderment.

  "Indeed," His clone earnestly shifted forward in his chair. "I assume you are referring to the concept of Compasso outlined in Dante's Divine Comedy?"

  "Yes, I find it colorful that man's ultimate fate is to endure the opposite for which he has wrought. A kind of irony that can only be foreseen by those with a proper level of insight.”

  "By insight, I assume you are referring to the divine variety." His clone leaned back in his chair, musing over the idea.

  "Yes, at our current development, I hypothesize that we are the only ones that could set up colorful interactions using this style of facetiousness." Ari waited to see if his clone had the same idea.

  "I don't oppose. In fact, I quite like this methodology." His clone said.

  Ari was relieved but still wanted to know what his clone was thinking.

  "So, your reference to the Principia Discordia." Ari began. "I am curious about your arrival to immanentizing the Eschaton."

  "Oh yes." His clone snapped forward in his chair. "My theory is to compare all of existence to the setup of an immaculate joke, the punchline of which is the final step in the divine plan. Humorously, that final step would become the first into utopia. Naturally, Eschaton comes to mind." Ari thought about it.

  The last step in the divine plan... Not only did it fit the criteria of a joke, but it did so in a grandiosely poetic way. One question that always touches the lips of mortals, himself included, is what comes after existence? Do we necessarily have to die to know what it is? What is the last step? Many would say it is the apocalypse or armageddon, but they would also be wrong. Those are simply the final steps in the setup. The punchline is what comes afterward. That's the question no one seems to ever ask. What happens after the end of days?

  "This is highly poetic," Ari concluded.

  His clone smiled. "Extremely difficult to set up, but the value of the culmination has no comparison.

  "So the difficulty lay in how to reconcile these two ideologies." Ari stood up and began pacing. His clone watched closely for a moment before standing up himself.

  "I'm not sure we can reconcile them immediately," his clone said, moving over to the cabinet with the spare STM parts. "They are two qualitatively different higher-order genres. We may need to appreciate them one at a time. At least in the beginning."

  "Yes." Ari agreed. He stopped in front of the main terminal and half-mindedly glanced over the plans to modify the frontal lobe of his brain. "I suppose enacting Compasso will come first since Eschaton deals with a much larger scope. Easier to modify man instead of destiny."

  "On that, I disagree," his clone said.

  Ari suddenly felt a presence behind him. Whirling around, eyes wide, Ari had no time to react as the blunt edge of an STM battery slammed into his skull. With a thunk, Ari fell to the floor unconscious.

  His clone stood over him with an expressionless gaze. "Destiny, that's something you can modify in an orderly fashion. But humanity has always been, and always will be, chaos incarnate."