Post-Human 05 - Inhuman (29 page)

15

“WAKING UP as a robot wasn’t exactly on my bucket list,” Colonel Paine gruffly spoke as he opened his eyes and held his new android hands in front of face, “but it beats kicking the bucket altogether.” He stepped out of his pod and turned his head to see that Samantha was standing next to Old-timer and two females he didn’t recognize.

Then something extraordinary happened and the breath caught in his throat. There was a third woman, a woman he
did
recognize, and from her disbelieving expression, she clearly recognized him too.

“Daniella?”

“Colonel Paine?” Daniella replied, terrified.

Paine stepped toward her, his hand outstretched as though he were going to grab her, but she quickly stepped behind Old-timer, fearing for her life. “Craig!” she shouted.

“Daniella?” Paine repeated again. “Do you know me?”

“She knows you,” Old-timer confirmed. “And, believe me, she doesn’t want you to touch her.”

Paine’s expression was one of complete and utter confusion as his lips trembled while he tried to assemble a response. “But…why? Daniella,” he said to her as she stayed behind Old-timer, barely daring to peek an eye out to examine the monster from her distant memories. “Baby…”

Old-timer’s eyes widened like saucers. “
Baby?
”

“Baby?” Djanet echoed, stunned.

Daniella’s eyes widened with utter disbelief.

“Yes,” Paine said, licking his dry lips before he continued, gently, “in my universe, Daniella is—
was
—my wife.”

“What?” Daniella finally, reacted. “That’s impossible.”

“Why?” Paine responded, perplexed as he held his hands to his head.

“Because you’re a murderous piece of—”

“Honey,” Old-timer cut her off, quickly, “this isn’t the same man you knew.”

“Honey?” Paine reacted, his head jutting back as though he’d been punched.

“Colonel,” Old-timer turned to Paine, “Daniella is
my
wife in this universe.”

“What?” Samantha responded, equally stunned. She turned to Paine. “This is insane.”

Paine’s eyes darted to Samantha quickly before he looked around at their surroundings, the endless catwalks and pillars of the
Constructor’s
replicator facility. He bent over, propping himself with his hands on his knees to keep from falling as he shook his head. “This has to be a nightmare. Tell me this is a nightmare.”

“Uh, you guys all swapped wives?” Jules reacted, both perplexed and visibly amused.

“They’re from another universe,” Old-timer responded harshly.

Jules’s eyes widened. “Oh. This is fascinating,” Jules suddenly said, the pieces coming together for her. “The parallel universes we travel to are virtually identical—that’s why they’re so close to each other in the multiverse—but something must’ve happened in the universe you brought these two from that drastically altered their destiny.”

Old-timer cringed as he remembered the drastic event Jules’s didn’t even realize she was referring to.

“You’ve traveled vastly different paths since then,” Jules observed. She shook her head, marveling at the coincidences. “Yet, socially, you must’ve still intermixed with one another. We’re going to have to study this in greater detail at some point. We could write volumes on—”

“We’re not your damned science experiment!” Old-timer shouted, shutting her down. “This is our lives. And speaking of, there’s still one more person from their universe that needs to be awakened.”

“Uh, sorry, Craig,” Jules replied. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Why?” Old-timer demanded as he turned to the android, his tendril still jacked into the back of her skull.

“These two,” Jules replied, pointing to Samantha and Paine, “they’re most likely dead in this universe, but your friend, Adolf—”

“Aldous,” Old-timer corrected her.

“Aldous—much better name—he’s already been replicated. And we’ve got very strict rules about only replicating one individual from one universe at a time.”

“One individual from one universe?” Daniella reacted, astonished. “Craig, what is she talking about?”

“The androids aren’t replicating humans they find on different planets across the universe,” he explained, his eyes still locked impatiently on Jules’s as he answered Daniella’s question, “they’re hopping from universe to universe, assimilating Earths. That’s why they’re all human in appearance.”

“And why we can’t have multiple copies of the same person replicated from the same universe. We rescue one version per universe, that’s it,” Jules elaborated. “There are hundreds of versions of me from other universes, but there’s only one from each. You understand? We can’t let someone be replicated more than once in a universe, or they could build an army of themselves—”

“Make an exception,” Old-timer ordered through gritted teeth. “We’re running out of time here, Jules. We need to grab Aldous and get the hell—”

“I can’t,” Jules replied. “There are only two people who could overrule something like that. 1 herself, and—”

“
Neirbo
,” Old-timer growled, his eyes suddenly darting away from Jules, confusing her for a moment.

“Yeah, how did you—”

“Because he’s right behind you,” Old-timer replied.

Neirbo had, indeed, landed on the catwalk just a few short meters behind the group, a fully rebuilt Anisim at his side.

“Finally,” Neirbo said directly to Old-timer, with a gruesome smile, his face contorted by an ugly, twisted lust for revenge, “I get to end you.”

Jules moved away from Old-timer, though he didn’t release his tendril’s grip on her artificial brainstem.

“How’d you find us?”

Neirbo tilted his head toward Anisim. “Whenever a member of the collective is killed, a report is sent and we immediately review the last moments of their life in their mind file.”

“
That’s
why you didn’t resist,” Old-timer realized, turning to Anisim.

“I needed to stay alive long enough for us to know your plan,” Anisim confirmed. “I knew you weren’t going to succeed. You’re outnumbered, more than a trillion to the handful of you here. There was never any danger to the collective.”

Old-timer turned to Jules. “You knew this?”

She looked up at him and shrugged. “Everything I said before is true. I don’t want to die. But yes, I did know it was futile. I told you, resisting them is pointless.”

Old-timer nodded slightly before releasing Jules, his tendril folding back into his body.

Jules’s hand moved quickly to the damaged part of her skull and clasped over it. She was shocked by his gesture. “You’re not going to kill me?”

“I don’t want you to die either,” Old-timer answered. “Thanks for your help. I mean it.”

Jules was speechless.

“Who is this guy, Craig?” Paine asked in a low tone from behind Old-timer.

“Trouble,” Old-timer replied.

“Armed trouble,” Paine observed as he saw the weapon Neirbo held in his left hand.

“I’ve felt the gun’s effects before,” Old-timer replied over his shoulder. “Trust me, don’t get shot.”

“Copy,” Paine responded.

“You’ve felt the gun’s effects before,” Neirbo repeated, intrigued. “You
do
realize I don’t know you, don’t you? Yet you attacked me—tortured me—for no reason.”

“Oh, I had my reasons,” Old-timer replied, “and you better’ve brought more than just a gun with you, son.”

Neirbo’s eyes twitched as he scrutinized Old-timer with the laser-beam focus of a predator in the wild, sizing up his prey. “Indeed, I brought a lot more.”

With a gesture of his right hand, all of the pods opened around and above them.

Hundreds of androids leapt out, landing hard on the catwalk, which swayed and bounced with the vibrations, causing Old-timer and his companions to nearly lose their footing.

Neirbo shouted out his orders to the hundreds of androids that surrounded them, pointing directly at Old-timer. “That abomination is your target! He’s extremely dangerous, but your orders are to rescue him at all costs! Nothing else matters!”

“Rescue?” Paine reacted. “That doesn’t sound all bad.”

“Trust me,” Old-timer replied, “I don’t want to get rescued.”

“You got a plan?” Paine whispered to Old-timer.

“Oh yeah, I got a plan,” Old-timer growled through gritted teeth as he kept one hand protectively on Daniella, keeping her behind him.

“What is it?”

“I’m going to kill every last one of them.”

16

The bridge of their ship lowered itself, and Lieutenant Patrick stood, waiting to greet Rich and Aldous in the hangar, deep inside the Purists’ new fortress on Venus. He saluted the men and spoke quickly.

“Chief Gibson, I am Lieutenant Commander Patrick. The governor requests your presence in the command center. He would very much value your input and experience to help us battle the androids, sir.”

The chief nodded, then pointed to Thel’s unconscious body, still lying on a flat instrument panel at the back of the bridge. Luckily, Aldous had had the forethought to secure her with blankets and to strap her into place, making for a makeshift bed. “She needs to be transported to your medical facility. She’s still alive.”

“Yes, sir,” Patrick replied. “I’ll get my men on that right away.” He gestured for Aldous to follow him and Aldous, in turn, gestured for Rich to follow as well.

“Deep inside the bowels of a Purist hideout,” Rich whispered. “
Déjà
freakin’ vu.”

“How is the battle going, Lieutenant Commander?” Aldous asked.

“We’re holding our own so far,” Patrick replied. “We know you’ve lost Earth, and we’re devastated as nearly 40 percent of our citizens were still there.”

“They’ll have been assimilated,” Aldous pointed out quickly. “I know it’s not what anyone wanted, but you can’t think of them as dead. There’s still hope.”

“That may be, sir, but there’s no way in hell we’re going to let them take Venus without a fight.”

“How are you managing to do this?” Aldous asked.

“James Keats, sir. He fortified Venus with weapons like nothing we ever had access to before. Honestly, sir, even though we’re facing an enemy with an absurd advantage in numbers, I can’t see how they can possibly penetrate our defenses. Commander Keats seems to have thought of everything, sir.”

“Indeed,” Aldous replied. “Well, I’ll be very interested to learn more about this.”

Patrick nodded. “I know Governor Wong believes you’ll be an invaluable asset. We’re glad to have you here, sir.” He turned to Rich, adding, “That goes for both of you.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant,” Rich replied.

“Lieutenant Commander now,” Patrick corrected.

“Right. Sorry.”

“Not a problem,” Patrick responded over his shoulder. “Promotions come fast and furious when all of your people keep dying.”

Rich had nothing he could say to such a morbid, yet true observation.

Patrick continued to lead them through freshly constructed, metallic corridors on their way to the command center. Rich noted that the design was reminiscent of their old lab on Venus, the one he’d worked in for years with James and the others in the small band of terraformers. He suddenly felt an overwhelming pang of nostalgia and wistful desire to return to those times. Little did he know that those would be days he’d think of as golden.

“Are you still with me, James?” Rich whispered. There came no reply.

“Did you say something?” Aldous asked.

“Just talking to myself. I do that,” Rich replied with a forced smile.

“Here we are,” Patrick announced as he breezed past two guards as they saluted him and entered through the double-doors that led to the command center. Governor Wong’s attention was glued to the dozens of screens in front of him as he stood at the center, surrounded by dozens more operators at workstations.

“Governor,” Patrick announced, “they’ve arrived.”

The governor turned, his face brightening when he saw Aldous, although he didn’t smile. He walked away from Alejandra, who’d been at his side, and held out his hand early, even as he was walking up the stairs that led up to the doors to the room, and spoke before they’d even shaken hands. “Chief Gibson, we’re so pleased you survived.”

When the governor finally reached him, Aldous shook his hand and replied, “As am I that you and your people have endured.”

“I know we’ve had our differences,” Wong stated, “but the enemy of thine enemy is my friend. It’s time we put our differences aside. The fate of our solar system depends upon it.”

“Agreed,” replied Aldous. “Please get me up to speed.”

“It would be my pleasure,” the governor returned as he guided Aldous back down the stairs.

Meanwhile, Rich glared down at Alejandra. She craned her neck to look at him, and as soon as they made eye contact, he waved with his hand for her to come to him. She narrowed her eyes and used the opposite of the twin staircases that lined the walls of the command center to make her way to him.

Lieutenant Commander Patrick had, by this point, noticed their odd behavior and silently watched.

“What is it?” Alejandra whispered when she reached Rich.

Rich grabbed her hand, then turned to the lieutenant commander as well. “I need to speak with you guys outside,” he whispered.

Curious, the two Purists made their way out of the room with the post-human, closing the doors behind them.

“What’s going on?” Patrick asked.

“Listen, we might have a huge problem,” Rich explained. “I’m still in contact with James and the A.I., and—”

“They survived?” Alejandra responded, astonished. “Then why haven’t they—”

“They’re trapped in a simulation—trapped in a computer. The hard drive is that black box Aldous has strapped over his shoulder. But they’ve found a way to communicate with me, and they think Aldous is the number one suspect for having trapped them and sold us out to the androids.”

“Holy shit,” Patrick replied. “The fox is in the henhouse for real this time.”

Rich closed his eyes and shook his head. “I still really don’t get that metaphor. Can we use metaphors from this century please?”

“It means we just let the most dangerous man in the solar system into our command center,” Alejandra explained.

“Yeah! That’s what I said!” Rich replied, exasperated. “Though we don’t have proof yet. Look, James and the A.I. told me to watch him. They think he might be here to sabotage you guys to make the Purists as easy to assimilate as we were.”

“We can’t let that happen,” Patrick announced, holding up his rifle as though he were about to charge back into the command center.

“Hold it!” Rich fired back. “Aldous has the solar system’s best hope strapped over his shoulder. That hard drive contains James and the A.I., not to mention Thel. If we try to confront or arrest him, he could destroy it.”

“So what do we do?” Alejandra asked. “We can’t let him shut down our defenses!”

“We’ve got to incapacitate him without harming that hard drive,” Rich replied.

“Any idea how we do that?” Patrick asked.

Rich shrugged. “I’m willing to open the floor to suggestions.”

“
You
don’t have a plan?” Alejandra replied in disbelief. “Can’t you ask James or the A.I.?”

“They’ve been quiet for a few minutes. They must have their hands full with something at the moment.”

“Great,” Patrick replied, impatient. “Well, we can’t just sit here while a traitor learns how all our defenses work. We’ve got to act now.”

Rich nodded. “I agree. Okay. I’ve got an idea.”

“You do?” Alejandra replied, her tone dubious.

Rich looked the empath in her eyes, eyes that clearly saw he was bluffing, and he immediately folded. “No. No I don’t. I was just hoping I’d come up with something at the spur of the moment, you know?”

“Seriously?” Patrick responded.

“Sorry. I’m not usually the one who has to come up with the plan. Look, how about this? We go in there, and I just walk up behind him and blast him with a charge to the back of the head. That should render him unconscious, as long as he doesn’t see me coming.”

Patrick considered this for a moment. “It’s simple as hell, but sometimes simple works.” He looked to Alejandra.

She nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Just remember,” Rich cautioned, “we can’t let him damage that hard drive.
At all costs
. The hard drive contains the brains of the guys who can get us out of this mess. If we lose that hard drive, this solar system’s as good as finished.”

“Got it,” Patrick replied.

“Got it,” Alejandra echoed.

Rich took a deep breath. “Okay, guys. Let’s do this.”