EPISODE 8: THE BREAKING ## CHAPTER 1: THE WHITE LIGHT Cole's scream echoed through the pocket space—a sound that seemed to exist in frequencies the human ear shouldn't be able to perceive. His body convulsed, suspended in the impossible geometry of the chamber. Light poured from his eyes, his mouth, every pore of his enhanced body. "What's happening to him?" one of his lieutenants demanded. "The white lights contain knowledge that no current species should possess," the Keeper explained calmly. "Technologies that require preparation we have not provided. Understanding that requires foundations we have not built. He is receiving information his consciousness cannot process." "Stop it! Remove it from him!" "I cannot. Once begun, the process must complete. His mind will integrate the knowledge—or it will be destroyed by it." Cole's scream modulated, became something else. Not pain—or not only pain. Recognition. Horror. Understanding. "I see," he whispered, his voice carrying through the chamber despite its softness. "I see what we are. What we could be. What we will become." "What do you see?" Marcus asked. "Everything. Nothing. The end and the beginning. The universe as it was and as it will be." Cole's eyes focused—or seemed to—on something beyond the visible spectrum. "We are so small. So terribly, beautifully small." Then he collapsed. --- ## CHAPTER 2: THE...