gen:LOCK

Dri!

What's going on?

We need to go.

Oh, my God!

What's happening?

No, no, no!

Why do you have a Union card?

- There's a lot you don't understand.

Chase is...fighting them.

Aah!

We'll be safe in here!

- Through Ascension, you join our ancestors in the Flow.

All become one, in the true community.

You're all fucking insane!

Shh!

- I can't spend any more Sundays

watching people kill themselves!

- Baby, if you just give the Omnifaith a chance--

- The Union's responsible for killing my brother!

Your son!

- Whether or not you share my beliefs,

my job is to protect you.

I'm done listening.

Merciful inhabitants of the Flow.

You who are together, my ancestors

and my enemies as one,

please protect the only child I have left.

Juju. Mama's here.

Ma? You're alive!

Am I...dead?

- No, baby, you're alive. We're alive.

What's happening to me?

You are saved, child.

We 12 never knew each other,

but we had two points

we were all atheists, and scientists,

working to harness nano-technology

to stop the climate collapse that races toward us still.

- The Flow is powered by the Kaaba!

You really think heaven would need a battery?

Wake up!

- Then, our own nano-technology consumed us.

I woke up in the HereAfter. A miracle!

Ugh.

I've heard this boring story a million times.

- And you will hear it a million more

until you accept the truth.

Naked before the Kaaba,

surrounded by relics of the Old Religions,

to survive the death of our ecosystem,

we must bring all faiths together.

And so we built Babylon.

Here, we prepare

that glorious day when all have accepted the Omnifaith,

and the last man Ascends.

That day, the Nano-Euphrates will run gold

as the rays of the sun,

to signify humanity has finally beaten death.

The sun has set.

May those who have earned Ascension step forward.

Through this rite, you join our ancestors in the Flow.

You become one in the true community.

Juju? Baby?

- You know, I used to be embarrassed

when you called me that.

But I gotta admit,

it sounds good right about now.

Ma, where are we?

Last I remember, the Union slashed my eye.

I thought I was dead, - LOCK.

The Union saved you.

- Ma, the Union aren't good guys!

They're zealots marching to their deaths for fairy tales.

- The Miracle is not a fairy tale.

You don't understand.

The Flow used Brother Tate to answer my prayers.

I prayed for a reunion with my children every night.

Children? Who else is there?

Baby? What can I do?

- In our attempt to free Chase from the Polity,

he was badly damaged.

I'm so sorry, sister.

We did not know he would be so broken.

Pain that only gets worse.

Memories vanishing, he doesn't have a body.

What kind of life is that?

No kind of life at all.

But I've been thinking

maybe there is a way for his suffering

and yours to have been worth it.

You want to Ascend?

You have no proof of an afterlife

in the Flow, Baba!

- The testimonies of the Saint Scientists

are proof enough for a billion people.

- Yasamin, your father is sick. He is in great pain.

Ascension will free him.

And I want to go with him.

But you aren't sick!

- You don't need us. -

You're an adult now, Yasamin.

Do you not see, daughter?

We cannot Ascend while you are without faith.

- But-- - No, buts!

Your disbelief is the only reason

your father lives in pain.

- These sheep just "go with the Flow."

And I, Meshach,

will wake them up.

Meshach, Meshach--

- Juju, do you remember your father?

Only in flashes.

I feel...empty where he's supposed to be.

- Your father and I were children

when the United Nations rebranded as the Polity.

They changed their name, but the old hierarchies

didn't go away.

Mother Earth still got sicker.

The poor, poorer.

To me, it was a farce.

But your father believed in making change from within.

He had so much optimism. It radiated into me.

Until he passed away.

When I didn't have his faith in the Polity around,

I found once again that I had none of my own.

So I became the "traitor" you now see before you.

- Mom, I'm scared. Was Dad ever scared?

- Of course, but he put on a brave face.

That's...good to know.

- Terrorists destroyed these monuments long ago.

The Flow rebuilt them,

only for the Polity to destroy them again.

- And foolish the Polity was to destroy them.

Hello, Julian.

- I can't live like this, Ma!

- Thankfully, you do not have to.

- What? I-- - Hush now. And listen.