I pull my ear again and apparently jump into the middle of a conversation between the others on this transmitter.
“. . . still alive?” Alex says.
“I told you.” James is speaking slowly. “I am watching them. Rhen is in a medical chamber and Thalli is with Loudin.”
“Safe?” Berk asks.
“Yes.” I answer their question while also answering Loudin’s. He wants to know if I am willing to assist him as he prepares the nuclear bombs. “But are the bombs ready? When do you plan to launch them?”
Berk speaks at the same time as Loudin. I struggle to listen to both.
“They’re only partially ready.”
Berk is quiet, seeming to understand my need to hear Loudin as well.
“You still hope to stop me?” Loudin shakes his head, disappointment radiating off him.
“I still think there is a better solution. Innocent people do not need to die. They aren’t harming anyone.”
“First”—Loudin points to the wall screen—“they aren’t innocent, as we discussed before. And second, they are procreating. These few dots will multiply, generation after generation.”
“So let them.”
“And when they eventually develop technology and find us?” Loudin waves his hand. “When they want to infiltrate the State and turn it back into what the world was like before? They could undo all that we have worked toward here. They could reverse our progress.”
“Do you have a date in mind?”
“Soon.” Loudin eyes the wall screen. “Very soon.”
“The earth will be toxic again.” I try another argument, anything to stop him, or at least slow him enough to give us time to find a way to sabotage this plan. “You’ll never see the surface. You won’t live long enough.”
Loudin presses his lips together. “It is a small price to pay to save the world.”
“Save the world?” I know I should remain calm, but he is making that extremely difficult.
“There is a story in the mythology you love.” Loudin sits back at his desk. “I remember hearing it when I was child. God destroyed the earth in a flood because the people on the earth were wicked. He had no choice. They wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t change. So he started over with the only ones who would listen to him. Noah, I believe. Are you familiar with that story?”
There is no time to debate whether or not it is mythology. I simply nod, but my mind is working. A worldwide flood. God promised he would never flood the world again. Not the whole world but . . .
“That is what I am doing,” Loudin continues, unaware of the thoughts in my mind.
I try to listen, but a plan is coming. It is frightening and almost impossible. But if it is from God, then it will work.
“The world needs to be destroyed so it can be populated with better people.”
The door opens and Dr. Williams enters, a smile covering her face. “They have completed the warheads. We are ready.”
“Excellent.” Loudin walks to Dr. Williams and shakes her hand.
“Who is that?” Alex asks in my ear.
“Williams,” James whispers. “I have to go.”
“When can we launch?” Loudin pulls Dr. Williams’s communications pad from her hands.
“Twelve hours.”
Loudin tosses the image from the communications pad onto the wall screen. Red circles cover each location on the map where survivors live. The circles, I realize, are targets. In the corner of the screen is a clock. The countdown.
Eleven hours and forty-four minutes.