Whatever similarity Nick's experienced, whether it's an injustice dealt out from fate or from the universe or the hand of God, the obedience induces a tiny shiver.

Daniel wets his lips. "I won't say we don't have choice. I won't say we're pawns, shaped by our fate or our trajectory in this universe or however you choose to define it. But those that -" He has to stop himself from saying Ancients. "Those that came before, or might have. Our power is to not allow them to determine us."

He thinks of countless worlds, burned-out husks because the inhabitants exercised their right of free will and set ablaze their cities. He thinks of the metallic electrical snap of radiation that seared up his hand as he reached out to grasp the thing that would dissolve his body into millions of dying cells. He thinks of formless energy transmuted into physical flesh.

He shakes his head.

"We're not a fixed point."