and had kept secret his entire life.
“Quarantine?” Simon did not understand.
Oliver’s head remained bowed, his eyes closed. Here, finally, he had broken the secret of the society—told the secret he had sworn to uphold all his life, a secret that lasted since a time before the Sumerians. It was a knowledge that mankind had no right to share, no right to know.
“We are captives on our own planet, Simon.”
“Captives? I—”
Oliver lifted his hand to stop Simon but did not open his eyes.
“Below where you are standing, thousands of devices from another time are embedded into the bedrock, waiting to melt the ice and create the next ice age. They are about to activate once more to create global catastrophe. To send us back into the Dark Ages.”
“Father, who is doing this? Who—”
“Extraterrestrial intelligence, my son. The same intelligence that helped create the pyramids, the ancient roads, all the many of the mysteries you and I never understood. The same intelligence that genetically altered us as an experiment. They held us captive. They watched and studied us for thousands of years, and decided that we were not capable of interstellar travel. We were not evolved. There were problems with the genetic code. Diseases started to arise, systemic failures of incompatibility. They realized that we—this experimental race—could not be allowed to take greed, war, suffering, and genetic mutation to other planets, not under any circumstances.
“We called them angels or gods, Simon. We wrote books about them. Entire religions were formed around them.”
Simon’s mouth had dropped as Oliver continued.
“They planted devices below the ice shelf and in other locations throughout the globe as a method of protection. They are control mechanisms. They ensure that we will not evolve beyond what we were capable of.”
Tears continued to slide down Oliver’s face as he realized the enormity of the moment. Then he said quietly, “I’m sorry, Simon.”
“But…” Simon’s voice trailed off. He simply couldn’t put the words together. He could not believe what he was hearing. His stomach sank; he felt hollow and worthless for the first time in his life…but somehow, something in him fought the will to believe.
“This is outrageous,” he said, and he was surprised at the sound of anger in his own voice. “This is impossible.” My father must be out of his mind, he told himself, standing stiff as a block of ice himself, staring defiantly at Oliver.
“I don’t believe you,” he said. “I can’t.”
“Whether you choose to believe me or not, what I am sharing with you is the absolute truth. You have little time to argue, and I have little time to convince you. You must escape and tell the world before it is too late. As long as you can get to the surface, you will stop all this.”
“But how do you—”
“How I know is not important right now.” Oliver said. It’s better if he does not know, he said only to himself.
“I need to know!” Simon demanded. “I need to know why, how you kept this from me, how you know. Who are you, Father?”
“There is no time to explain,” Oliver said, waving him away. “You need to escape now. Leave everything. There is a transport vehicle for an emergency escape situated right beyond the Great Room. It’s an Ice Raptor. It will shoot you straight through the continent and ten thousand feet toward the surface. Use your own judgment once you’ve escaped, decide how to reveal the truth, how to use it as a tool—and a weapon. But be careful, Simon. Please.”
Then Oliver reached out, ready to take his son’s hand, but Simon did not offer it. He looked crestfallen, broken, as he pulled his hand back. I deserve it, he told himself. I swore to protect a secret I should never have kept. The secret is not my life. My son is my real reason to live.
“Please forgive me, Simon. That is all I ask.”
Simon clenched his teeth. He felt no more pain from his shoulder. It simply didn’t matter now. What he had heard now changed everything. If it were true, it would change who he was and why he lived. He did not want to believe it.
For a brief moment he felt pain for mankind. His father had betrayed him—betrayed them all.
He stood for a long moment before Oliver spoke once more.
“You must escape immediately, and you must find…”
With a sudden burst, the cell door blasted open and careened across the room, crashing into the far wall with tremendous force. A shadowy