Dahlia Black

by Keith Thomas

  The last Ascendant died 5 million years ago.

  They made the Pulse and sent it out when their society was flagging, their civilization in tatters. They designed and sent the Pulse hoping upon hope that it would find another, similar race, a species they could “download” themselves into. See, that’s what the Elevation did: it changed our brains, rewired them, to inherit theirs.

  We were to be vehicles, bodies, for the Ascendant to inhabit. The Pulse was not so much a message in a bottle as it was a life vessel—an escape pod.

  And it failed.

  When I think of the Pulse now, the Elevation, I can’t help but think of Spanish conquistadors—how their sixteenth-century culture emerged from out of nowhere to subsume the Aztecs and Incas, to take their land, their resources, and their workforce. But the Ascendant, they didn’t want to colonize our world; they wanted to colonize us. Why bother with the difficulty of building ships to navigate light-years’ worth of empty space when you could just send your mind? The closest parallel, really, is a parasite.

  Of course, when the Pulse finally reached the Earth, we weren’t ready to receive it, and the Ascendant were already long dead. They gambled a little too late and they lost.

  The Pulse, the Elevation, the Finality—the reason why I paused during my last interview was simple. I didn’t want to tell the world the truth: that the Ascendant, our saviors, were dust.

  But I should have.

  You see, Jon, this was always about acceptance.

  We cannot find true meaning in the world, in life, if we’re always hedging our bets that some miracle will arrive to bail us out. We are special ourselves. That should be enough. That should have always been enough.

  There was always only us.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I want to thank everyone I interviewed for taking the time (and answering my repeated phone calls) to sit and talk with me about sometimes very difficult and painful events.

  This is your story and I hope I told it properly.

  I want to thank my assistants along the way: Yves Appel, Nat Whetstone, Rose Blassingame, and J. Quinliven. I could not have done any of this without your very generous and strong support.

  To the following individuals, organizations, and institutions for their help in illuminating the past: Susan O’Connell, Rinka, Engage Astrophysics, Patti Heckert, Glyph, Jock Foster, Leslie Korenbrot, the Overlook Crew, Radio 5, Juno Vale, the staff of the New York Public Library, Black Moon, Sam Sachs, Doris Matsumoto, Dr. Lester Shizue, Dr. Jadine Chang, Fizzy, Tomoko, the Space Mapping Project, Tanis Chaisson, the Air Loom Gang, Alex Ward, R. R. Ryan, Dr. Emet Pilsk, Survival Research Laboratories II, Abednego, Charles Halein, and the Skells, Starkies, Diggers, Trolls, and Roaches (you know who you are).

  I also want to extend my gratitude to the University of California, Santa Cruz; the University of Wyoming; the University of Nevada; Cornell University; the University of Washington; and the University of Pennsylvania. I really appreciate how graciously you opened the doors to your offices and libraries for me.

  To my wife and my family: Thank you for every day.

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Carter, August. Faith Enough to Shout: Life After the Finality. Spectrum, 2026.

  Childs-Briddle, Nieves. The Elevation: A Case Study. Oxford University Press, 2025.

  Curwen, Alfred. The Ascendant: Voices from the Fold? Zothique, 2026.

  Eymery, Jean-Pierre. The Science of the Elevation. Duke University Press, 2024.

  Hu, Dylan. The Fundamentals of Plasticity. Keystone, 2024.

  Ito, Haruki. Talking to the Other Side. Dell, 2026.

  Kudryashev, Viacheslav. Romans: How Hating Thy Neighbor Became Loving Yourself. University of Notre Dame Press, 2025.

  Liebovicci, Chaim. Breaking New Physics. Institute of Physics, 2025.

  Matsumoto, Doris. Forgetting to Breathe: How the Finality Reinvented American Culture. University Press of Florida, 2025.

  Owen, Glenn. Beneath the Darkness: Nihilism and Youth. Yale University Press, 2019.

  Ruckkehr, Esther. The Elevation Casebook. Human Rights Watch, 2026.

  Schwader, Ruthanna. Paradigm Shifts: Culture in Collapse. Overlook, 2023.

  Stableford, Lois. Encountering the Imaginable. Gauntlet, 2024.

  Tanzer, Melissa. Who Is Elevated? University Press of Colorado, 2024.

  Van den Broek, Fritz. The Finality: A Study of Transformation. Bruna, 2025.

  Vanhee, Livia. The Last 24 Hours: The Finality and Fragility. Éditions Denoë, 2025.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to everyone who helped make this book possible.

  Primarily: Leo, Jonah, Lisa, Loan, Rakesh, Jess, Molish, Landheart, and Ita.

  More from the Author

  The Clarity

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Keith Thomas is an author and filmmaker. Prior to writing for film and television, he worked as a clinical researcher at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and National Jewish Health.

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  ALSO BY KEITH THOMAS

  The Clarity

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Keith Thomas Breese

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  First Leopoldo & Co/Atria Books hardcover edition August 2019

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  Interior design by Dana Sloan

  Jacket design by Laywan Kwan

  Jacket photographs by Getty Images

  Author photograph by Eve B.

  ISBN 978-1-5011-5671-7

  ISBN 978-1-5011-5673-1 (ebook)