I’d been having the dream for as long as I could remember.

It was always the same. I stood alone on the roof of the facility, a flat, oblong building surrounded by the rubble of twisted metal and melted glass. The wrought logo, two identical figures connected by a double helix, leaned awkwardly against the access door.

This was where I was born.

A tree rose in the distance, a colossal oak that almost blocked out the sun. From the first time I’d had the dream, I’d known it was important, that its existence meant the difference between life and death. I picked my way through the debris and set off on my customary path toward it.

The androids turned to watch me as I wound my way between the houses, their expressions inscrutable. They’d lived here long before I was born, and although we shared a history, it was a connection I couldn’t yet understand.

I wasn’t afraid of them. I was like them, but not. My flesh was something different. Something more fragile. Something mortal. My mortality crept up my skin in a shiver as their eyes followed me past the perimeter of the village and all the way to the wild grassland beyond.

At the edge of the field, as vast as an emerald sea, I began to run. Heat rose from the grass where my feet fell, rippling up my bare legs. My body was small and thin, my tiny fists pumping as I ran. In my hand I clutched a string that led up, up to a kite—a man but not a man, smooth and shiny, with only the suggestion of a face. He would stay with me for the rest of my life. My guide, my protector, my teacher, my love.

In the middle of this green ocean stood the tree. I raced toward it, my body expanding, stretching. When I reached it, they were waiting, as always. They smiled at me, crowding around as though I’d returned home after far too long, their hands outstretched to welcome me.

They’d been forged with purpose, a link to chain together two diverging worlds. In many ways they were like me, but they were also like the others—a combination of human and machine.

Human. The word was strange even in the dream, stirring feelings of loss, of loneliness. I am human.

After the others had embraced me, she stepped forward. It was as though I was looking into a mirror, her face a perfect replica of mine, her emerald eyes and skin—the rich brown of fertile soil—indistinguishable from my own. She smiled at me with the mouth we shared then murmured a single word.

Climb.

The others reached out for me again, and together they lifted me onto the lowest-hanging branch of the tree. Leaving them behind, I took a deep breath and began my ascension.

Halfway up, I skinned my leg on the rough bark. Blood welled up and out of the wound, but it wasn’t my blood; it was theirs and they were happy to give it. When I reached the top, the whole world spread out before me. The sun rose and fell, and the world changed with it, unfolding as it grew, withered, died, and came into bud again, an eternal bloom.

A gust of wind blew through the leaves, wrapping tendrils of hair around my face as I climbed back down the scarred trunk. Once my feet were on the ground, they crowned my hair with a wreath of flowers and pressed a worn book into my hands. Written across the cover in careful script was my name.

Omega.

When I raised my head to thank them, they’d changed. They smiled at the looseness of their skin, at the spots that now speckled the backs of their hands. The ache in my chest blossomed even though I knew the tears that shone in their rheumy eyes were tears of joy. They had chosen to rest at last.

Only one of them remained unaged, still as strong and solid as the tree. My kite, now as he really was. He watched them, smiling, but I knew his heart was breaking as best it could. He put a hand on my shoulder and turned me back the way I’d come.

“It’s time to go home.”

Before I left with him, the one whose long dark hair was now a silver halo around her golden feather hugged me close and whispered in my ear. Then they all gathered around me once more, their frail arms surprisingly strong. My twin placed her hands on my face and kissed my forehead, or perhaps I kissed hers; I was no longer sure which of us I was.

Our silent walk back across the field lasted only an instant. Home. Our home. It had changed while we were away. The androids were still there, their smooth, ageless faces raised at our return, but new beings walked among them now.

Most were unrecognizable, their faces only vaguely familiar, as though from a distant memory or a past that wasn’t mine. The others I knew instantly, for they were the exact genetic copies of the cyborgs who’d created us.

We were the future, cloned from their past. The only way for humankind to survive—a fresh start from the cells of people dead long before we were born, and from those who’d made us to honor them.

I was Omega, their last task, their final sowing.

This book is your story, Omega, she’d said, but it is also our story, told by the one who was all of us. In its pages is our truth, the truth we wanted you to know. And once you do, I hope you can forgive us. And that instead of a burden, you’ll see this knowledge as it’s intended: a gift, a sacrifice, a prayer, an act of love. For without it, even with all its darkness, you would not be here. You are the reason the world can go on living, Omega. You are the seed.