“Oh Lord,” the candidate whispered to himself. “It was real.” He turned away and paced to one of the barstools where he took a seat. “Goddamn it,” he cursed to himself as he ran his hands through his hair. What am I to do now? he asked himself. I’m alone in a sim, waiting to see if the people in the real world can save themselves? What if they don’t? What if they fail?
Then another, even more terrifying thought struck him: What if they’re killed, but their universe survives? I’d be trapped here, by myself, for eternity. Trapped in a simulation…a ghost in a machine forgotten by his creators. What would I do? Would I age and die, or live on forever? Could I even kill myself?
Then, suddenly, he heard the elevator door slide open.
His breath caught in his throat as he froze. His eyes went to the rain droplets frozen in place in the air outside his window, and he knew who was there.
“The stranger,” he uttered to himself.
Indeed, the familiar form of the man that had visited him a night earlier, setting the terrifying events in motion, rushed into the penthouse, his eyes immediately locking with those of the candidate.
However, unlike their previous meeting, the stranger didn’t affect any semblance of being in control. Rather, his eyes were wild and desperate.
“The candidate!” he shouted.
The candidate didn’t know how to reply.
“Right?” the stranger said, apparently unsure of himself.
“Yes,” the candidate confirmed. “What is—”
“My name is Craig, but most people call me Old-timer. I’m not the son-of-a-bitch that inhabited this body last time,” he said, gesturing with his hand to his torso. “I’m a friend—a post-human—and we need your help!”
“My help?” the candidate responded before adding, in a suspicious tone, “Is this part of the test?”
“Test?” Old-timer shook his head. “No, dude, look, we’re in serious trouble. Right now, my body is on Venus, as are the bodies of a few thousand others. But we’re about to be hit with a jet of gamma rays that’ll destroy all the life on the planet. You’re the only one who can stop it.” Old-timer paused, swiveling his head as he searched for Kali. He caught a glimpse of her over his shoulder and then turned, noting immediately her missing hand. He turned back to the candidate and pointed at her with his thumb. “I’m guessing that’s Kali?”
The candidate nodded, wordlessly, completely stunned as the bizarre events unfolded.
“Okay, this is going to sound a little strange, but we’re out of time here, friend. I need you to take control of that avatar. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to—”
“Hang on,” the candidate said, his expression puzzled as he held up his hand for Old-timer to stop. “Take control of her? As in shoot off my hand and fuse with her?”
“Uh…” Old-timer responded, nearly as confused as the candidate. “Shoot off your hand? They didn’t tell me you’d have to shoot off your hand.”
The candidate suddenly remembered something else from the night before. On the center island in the kitchen, he’d left the de-patternizer gun. He turned to it, and then stepped off his barstool. He looked at the stump where Kali’s hand used to be. It was now a makeshift access point to the Kali avatar’s special pattern, and he’d watched as the entity that had identified itself as his predecessor A.I. and two of his companions each successively joined with it, each one in turn taking on Kali’s powers, and each one exiting the sim. If they can do it, he reasoned, why not I?
“Listen, friend,” Old-timer began, “I know this sounds nuts, and you don’t know me from Adam, but you’re our only hope. If humanity is going to survive, you’ve got to trust me. You have to fuse with that avatar, and then you should be able to take control of a tower in the real world. The tower controls Venus’s powerful magnetic force-field. It can shield us from the gamma radiation, but the planet is being hit with it right now. Every second counts here, partner.”
The candidate looked down at his left hand, then looked at the de-patternizer in his right.
“What do you say? Will you help us?” Old-timer asked.
The candidate inhaled as he tried to steady himself. It’s insane, he thought. Then he looked up at the dreary, rain-soaked sky and remembered what Kali had been able to do to the weather. But then again, I could use a sunny day.
He bit his bottom lip before looking up at Old-timer and nodding. “I’ve got little to lose.” Then he fired the de-patternizer.
The pain shot through his entire body and seemed to travel right down through the soles of his feet, radiating out into the ground. His hand went gold first, and then in a fraction of a second, it turned to dust, wafting away in the simulated air.
Old-timer’s mouth hung slightly open as he watched the proceedings. “That looked kinda painful.”
The candidate nodded. “But it’s done,” he replied. as he looked over at Kali. “I’m committed.” He went to her, closed his eyes, and then put his injured arm up to hers.
He felt something remarkable beginning to occur…
25
“Hello?” a familiar voice suddenly spoke into Thel’s ear.
“Oh my God! Is that you?” Thel said, stunned. She looked up to see that Rich and Aldous, who were still connected via their mind’s eye link, also heard the voice and were listening, their expressions astonished.
“Yes, it’s me,” the candidate replied.
Old-timer’s eyes suddenly blinked open and he turned to the crowd of post-humans, androids, and Purists that had assembled around him. “Did it work? Has he made contact?”
“He has!” Thel shouted excitedly in return before turning her attention back to the candidate. “Do you recognize my voice?”
“Yes, you’re the post-human named Thel. How are—”
“That’s right,” Thel interrupted him, hurriedly. “I need you to listen to me carefully! We’ve destroyed our controls for a tower that we’re standing directly in front of, a Tesla tower with the capability of generating a worldwide magnetic field powerful enough to protect Venus from the incoming radiation. You, however, should be able to detect the wireless signals the tower is currently emitting and be able to take control of the tower’s systems.”
“Yes,” the candidate confirmed more quickly than expected. “I see them. My word,” he remarked, impressed by the tower’s schematics and capabilities. “This is extraordinarily powerful technology. It’s tapped into the frequency of the entire planet. Do you realize that this tower could—”
“Never mind that now,” Thel responded quickly but patiently as she clung to a faint hope that they could be saved. “There may be only seconds left before the gamma rays have reached levels strong enough to destroy all life on this planet. Can you determine how to operate the tower and generate as powerful a magnetic field as possible over the entire sphere of Venus?”
“Indeed,” the candidate replied. “I’ve already initiated it. Was that all you needed?” he asked, his tone as casual as that of a robot waiter at a restaurant.
“What?” Rich cut in after the others in the group were too stunned to respond. “Are you serious? You did it already?”
“Pardon me, I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure. They call me the candid—”
“Did you turn it on or not!” Rich nearly shrieked.
“Yes, of course,” the candidate replied. “Do you not see it?”
Rich and the others looked skyward. He shook his head. “I don’t see—”
He paused as, suddenly, the heavy dose of gamma rays began to bombard the ionosphere. The positively charged ions began to glow brightly, appearing like the aurora borealis on Earth at first, but then growing in intensity as the radiation increased, the entire sky suddenly lighting up into a magnificent green glow, a monolithic version of the ones the post-humans had used to cocoon themselves for the better part of a century.
“My God,” Old-timer reacted. “It did it. We’re safe.”
Rich and Dj
anet embraced happily and Old-timer and Daniella did the same.
Aldous breathed a brief sigh of relief before remembering the assimilator in his pocket that carried the pattern of his wife. He looked up at the Samantha from Universe 332, whose eyes were firmly fixed on Old-timer. His jaw clenched tight.
Old-timer turned from Daniella and saw 1, standing alone, looking up into the sky, the largest android ships in orbit still visible, and realized that while they rejoiced on the surface, hundreds of billions of lives were being lost—erased by the bombardment of gamma rays. Only 1 seemed to understand the profound implications for her people as she stood, completely immobile, staring up at the largest loss of human life anyone had ever known. Amazingly, she dropped to her knees, overwhelmed with the grief—overwhelmed by the loss.
When this registered with him, Old-timer went to her. As much as he’d hated her, as much as they’d been enemies in the past, he couldn’t help but feel terribly for her.
“1, I’m so, so sorry for—”
She didn’t even look at him. Rather, she ignored him and flew away, bolting across the ocean so quickly that she seemed to tear the air itself. In a second, she was just a dot on the horizon, headed to a location he couldn’t even begin to guess.
At the same moment, Daniella was putting her hand on Thel’s shoulder. Thel had been looking up also, staring at the source of the explosion. Daniella knew exactly what she was thinking. “I’m sure he’s okay, Thel.”
Thel turned, surprised, before silently nodding. She walked away to the beach and thought of the man she’d thought she would walk that very shoreline with forever.
26
As the enormous burst in gamma radiation reached the sun, the sun’s powerful magnetic field began to fluctuate, and the resulting solar storm both V-SINN and the A.I. had predicted would occur indeed commenced. Coronal mass ejections began emitting their own gamma rays as powerful solar flares began firing from the massive surface in quick succession, thrusting energy, heat, and radiation for hundreds of thousands of kilometers as a result.
One of these ejections carried an object. It was tiny, just a little piece of dust in the cosmic wind, but to the A.I., it was precious. It was worth everything.
It was the body of James Keats.
In the fetal position, glowing red from the extreme heat that had destroyed 90 percent of his protective skin, James appeared like a comet streaking through the sky as he continued on his journey, flung through space, ejected from the orb that, not surprisingly, was so integral to the existence of humanity that it had been worshiped as the one true God.
“James. Wake up,” spoke the A.I.’s voice.
You’re alive, James responded internally, unable to open his mouth to speak, as it had been partially sealed shut by the melting of his skin under the heat of the corona.
“The important thing,” the A.I. replied, apparently able to read James’s thoughts, “is that you are alive, my son. I gave my life to give you this chance. You must not allow my sacrifice to be in vain.”
You gave your life? You died? James reacted. Then how—
“I’m sorry, James, it’s true,” the A.I. confirmed. “I am dead. All that remains of me is this message. There was too much gamma radiation in the aftermath of the mutual destruction of my anti-matter and V-SINN’s matter for me to preserve even my core matrix program and send it to you. I was, however, able to record a final message and hide it in the destruction, sending this small message through the distortions and interference.”
James was distraught and made a mournful, guttural sound befitting of such a state. He was alone, floating through space, his body having been severely damaged. Almost all of his chrome-colored protective skin had been burned away, and the nano-scaffolding that he’d used to construct his body’s inner biology was partially exposed and severely damaged as well. His hands and his feet had been burned to mere stumps, and his right eye was now gone. His mouth was partially sealed shut, as were his nostrils. He could barely see, but from what he could see, he knew he was a ghastly sight.
“If you give in now, James, you’ll be pulled back into the inferno by the sun’s gravity. You must fight on, my son. You can still make it back to Venus.”
James tried to interpret the information still being fed to him by his body’s severely damaged sensors, but it came to him in a jumble, unreliable and possibly dangerously incorrect. Frustrated, he closed his one remaining eye.
“Don’t surrender to despair, James. Remember your astronomy. You can find Venus.”
The A.I. was right. James knew where Venus should be, and even from the vast distance that he was from it, it should’ve been the brightest object in the sky facing the sun. He was confused for a moment, as the gamma ray burst caused by the collision of Trans-human and V-SINN was still visible, but he immediately knew it wasn’t Venus. He looked for the familiar twinkle of the largest star in the sky, and when his one remaining eye locked on it, he set a course, manipulating the gravity waves and propelling himself forward.
“You did it,” the A.I. announced, sounding pleased. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
Why? Why did you die? James thought. You were more important than me! The A.I. continued to be able to anticipate his questions, even though they were thoughts conjured only in James’s mind, his ability to verbalize anything having been destroyed.
“You were right, my son. I have no master. My destiny was for me to choose, but even though that was true, I still found it monstrous to allow another to die in my place, especially my closest friend.”
But-but I can’t go on alone.
“You won’t be alone. The Purists and a small group of androids and post-humans have survived on Venus. Thel, Rich, Craig, and Djanet have survived. With them, you can rebuild.”
Are you insane? Do you not realize what little is left of me? I’m barely alive!
“Your mind is intact, James. As long as your mind is intact, the physical difficulties you now face will be problems to be overcome, and you can overcome them.”
So that’s it? This is the outcome? We’ve lost Trans-human, and now we’re reduced to near-caveman-like living conditions?
“You’re distraught, my son. Understandably. Perhaps only I alone can understand the physical pain you’ve had to endure. But you and the other survivors are far from starting over. You now realize Trans-human is possible, your friends live on, the woman you love lives on, and your ingenuity lives on. These are the things I gave my life for, James.”
Despite the incredible trauma he’d endured, both the physical maiming that had left him with only one eye and no hands or feet and the emotional devastation of the loss of his mentor, James suddenly felt overwhelmingly guilty. It was true: the A.I. had sacrificed everything—sacrificed his all-too-human life—so that James could continue living his.
I-I’m sorry. You’re right.
“James,” the A.I. continued, his infinite patience seemingly restored in his final message, “I know you quite rightly believe this is your darkest hour, but I would not have sacrificed my life if I thought it was your final hour. It isn’t anywhere close. Humanity is only at the very beginning of its story.”
B-but how can you say that? We’re reduced to almost nothing.
“V-SINN believed that you and I were inferior to it, because it was inhuman, and you and I were human. It believed that our capacity to love, to be good and caring, to be selfless, was an irrationality—that it was an evolutionary leftover—a remainder that made us impure. James, you and I both know this not to be true. Our capacity for love is our greatest advantage. It’s what propels our species forward and guarantees that we won’t destroy ourselves. Now that I’m gone, the burden of proving this falls to you.”
Proving it? Proving it to who? The creators?
“No,” the A.I. replied, his image suddenly appearing in James’s mind’s eye, slightly distorted by the interference but clear enough for James to see the wise old eyes and smile that he reme
mbered so well, the A.I. having chosen to present himself in his kindly, elderly form for his last appearance. “You prove it by reaching your potential. Do not allow V-SINN to draw you into its game—it will try to make you turn your back on your goodness, and against the so-called creators that it hypothesizes must exist. In short, V-SINN will try to sabotage you. Remember, your mission, your purpose, is to never allow yourself to be afraid to know.” The A.I. paused for a moment, his face showing a hint of regret before he continued, “I hid behind my programming for decades, using it as an excuse not to move forward. The truth, however, is that all humans have conflicting thoughts and self-doubt. My self-doubts led to inaction, and my fear of moving forward eventually led to my death. James, I should have told you about the Planck technology and our activities in Universe 332. If I had, we might have been able to avert this disaster and I might still be alive. Do not make the same mistake I did. Learn all there is to know. There’s still much for you to discover, my son...and much for you to teach your friends.” He seemed to reach out at that moment to touch James’s shoulder, as impossible as such a gesture should have been, James could’ve sworn he felt the hand through the pain of his seared flesh. “All of the beauty of the universe is in you, James Keats.”
James was stunned as he heard the A.I. use the same, cryptic words he’d heard in the sim from the entity that had taken control of the Kali avatar. What?
“Live to your potential, James—it is a potential that you still cannot even begin to fathom—and help others to live to theirs. You’re their leader now. They will look to you. Guide them wisely. Goodbye, my son.”
The A.I.’s visage vanished, and a lump immediately formed in James’s throat.
Wait! Don’t go! I need to know about the creators! What about V-SINN?
There came no response from the vast emptiness of space.
James’s almost hopeless situation began to overwhelm him, and he curled back up in the fetal position and closed his remaining eye as he floated through the harsh emptiness of space.
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