"You have met my other guests." Sen's matter-of-fact, baritone voice filled the room.
"You've tortured them." Christopher spoke the words before he could stop himself. Sen's oval head swiveled to Christopher.
"It is no different from what your young do. You pull the wings off flying insects or the legs off grasshoppers without a thought to the pain and suffering you cause."
"There you go again, comparing humans to insects." Tremain stepped in, "and if I am not mistaken, we are all old enough to know better than to torture another sentient being." His words dripped with contempt.
"To one like me, you are nothing more than insects."
"Then why these trappings of humanity?" Tremain waved a hand to indicate the room. "The furniture is perfect for our forms, the food is suited to our biology. You've even taken a humanoid appearance. I can't imagine your species was so like ours. Why, if we are such insects, do you mimic us?"
The silence hung in the room. Christopher shifted his weight from foot to foot, impatient to get back to his father. Tremain's gaze never left the smooth oval head of Sen's mechanical body. The body eventually swiveled to face the window again.
"It has been so long and my people no longer exist. I choose to show you an appearance you will find familiar."
Tremain didn't hesitate.
"Yet you also choose to assert your obvious superiority. If I didn't know better," Tremain said, settling himself into a plush couch seat, "I'd say you were quite insecure." At that Sen turned back to face Tremain.
"Insecure? I am the superior being. With nothing but a thought, I could separate your atoms in moments."
"I have no doubt you could. But you haven't. And you won't." Sen's posture shifted back. He was surprised.
"You think you know something."
Tremain waved his hand in dismissal.
"You can probe my mind without my ever knowing. You already know what I will say before I say it, don't you?"
Christopher, not sure what his uncle was up to, sat down cautiously. His eyes never left the metal framework of Sen's body.
"You astound me." Sen's voice boomed. "You should be begging me to let you live, yet you choose to be confrontational." The figure paused, the hand swiveling in an absent-minded way. "I can sense your anger and you are right to feel helpless." The oval head cocked. "You also feel concern . . . for Alice . . . and me?"
Christopher stayed silent.
"Of course I do." Tremain stared at the featureless face. His eyes blazed with intensity. "I don't quite understand everything, but I, well, we, felt your loneliness. If we are supposed to help you make a decision about my people, I need to know more about you and yours. Whatever that decision turns out to be, I prefer to fully know why."
Sen held his hands behind his back and paced across the room. To Christopher, he looked like a person deep in thought. Sen stopped and faced Tremain once again.
"There is a way for you to understand fully, but I am not sure your fragile mind can take it."
"Humanity is much stronger and more resilient than you give us credit for. What did you have in mind?"
"In mind." A low chuckle. "I seem to be learning your humor." A glow began to appear around Sen's head. "I will help you to understand." He reached a silver hand out and the glow traveled from his head down the arm to the hand, where it stopped and accumulated, pulsing and shining around the silver fingers.
Christopher stared at the glow, not understanding. Tremain sat up, the intensity in his gaze never wavering, curled his fingers and beckoned to Sen.
"Bring it on."
The glow shot out from Sen's outstretched fingers, slamming into Tremain's temples.
Tremain's eyes shot open and his back stiffened as the glow encompassed his head. As the light subsided, Tremain let out a loud gasp and slumped back into the couch, unconscious, his eyes open and staring. Christopher looked from his uncle to Sen, who appeared frozen in place. He felt an arm wrap around his.
Alice.
Her head was tilted to the side and she kept glancing over at Sen.
"That's odd. I can't feel him."
Christopher looked back to his uncle and noticed the light surrounding the two figures had faded.
"Are you okay?" He asked.
"Yes, I think I am. It just feels different. I feel cut off." She shook her head, her curls bouncing. "Come with me. I have a feeling they will be occupied for a while."
Christopher let himself be led down an unfamiliar corridor, which opened up to a courtyard. A cobblestoned square framed a large tree and garden area set in the center of the outside space. The walls of the spire they’d exited reached high up into the sky around them. Benches were interspersed around the garden. A fountain in one corner spewed water upwards, which cascaded down a series of stones, into a pond. The sound was peaceful to Christopher, who sat on one of the benches. The heat from the cobblestones radiated up through his sneakers. It was nice. Alice took a seat next to him. Christopher could feel her gaze on him as he stared at the garden, lost in his own thoughts.
"Do you wish me to leave?" She asked, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
Christopher shook his head.
"No, you can stay. I'm just thinking."
"About what? Your father?"
Christopher shifted his eyes from the tree to her and back.
"That and other things."
Alice put her arm around Christopher's shoulders and pulled him close. Something his mother would do, Christopher thought as he let himself be drawn in. He liked it. She smelled of exotic perfumes. He wondered if that was her doing or if she was programmed that way.
"You don't quite trust me." She said. It wasn't a question.
"I don't." Christopher pulled away from her and looked into her face. Her eyes were clear and questioning. "I don't understand how you can be a creation, yet you seem so human."
Alice's face broke into a huge grin.
"I think I understand." She folded her hands in her lap. "You wonder if I'm acting on my own or if I'm following some sort of command." At Christopher's tentative nod, she looked away and seemed to gaze into infinity. "I am self-aware, you know. I think for myself, or at least I believe I do. I do not follow blindly." She seemed at a loss for words. "I don't know how to convince you." She looked at Christopher with tears in her eyes. "I do care for you and your uncle. Our tea-times together have been quite pleasant." She looked away once more. "I don't want humanity to disappear. I want my life to continue." She stood and paced, her hands waving in front of her as she spoke.
"Sen wanted to do away with the ‘human problem’, as he put it, straight away. I convinced him to give them a chance to sway his opinion." She sat back on the bench, her hands finding Christopher's, squeezing hard.
"You chose my uncle." Christopher said.
Alice nodded.
"Out of all the people I'd encountered, only your uncle seemed to see beyond his existence. His curiosity seems boundless."
Christopher laughed at that. She described his uncle completely.
"That's for sure." He said. "Uncle Tremain is nothing if not curious." He nodded his head back towards the sitting room. "What's happening in there?"
Alice glanced back, her curls bobbing as her head moved.
"I believe Sen and Tremain have . . . merged." Her eyes filled with concern, her brows knitting together. "I can't feel anything from Sen. For as long as I can remember that's never happened." She looked back to Christopher. "We will both have to wait it out."
Christopher stood.
"In that case, I think I would like to spend some time with my father."
Alice smiled.
"I believe that can be arranged."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tremain awoke to total darkness. He flailed about, not feeling his body.
Oh, now this is interesting. He said . . . or at least, he thought he said it, not being able to feel his mouth either. He felt his awareness floating in this sea of blacknes
s. It was relaxing as well as aggravating.
I wish I could see something.
Pinpricks of light began to appear in random patterns across his field of vision. Some were larger than others, some were smaller. All were sparkling in various intensities. They continued to expand until he was looking over the vastness of a nearby galaxy.
"I don't know how I can breathe in space, but this is . . . beautiful." He felt a presence next to him as a glowing orb appeared, tendrils of energy snapping and coiling around it. A warm glow . . . a recognition overcame him. "Sen."
"Greetings." The glow bobbed. The voice was audible but wasn't. Disconcerting.
"Where are we?" Tremain asked.
"Your mind."
Tremain gasped, the implications overwhelming him.
"My mind? How? The glow was you entering my head? Then these aren't stars, are they?"
"You're catching on."
Tremain could see more stars had appeared. He examined the one closest to them. He could see movement just below the surface, shapes just barely recognizable. He gasped.
"They're memories!"
Sen laughed. Tremain could feel the joy Sen was filled with at being able to share the experience.
"Yes, they are your memories. Come." Sen moved towards the nearest star. Tremain found he didn't know how to move. He had no visible means of locomotion.
"Um . . . Sen, would you be kind enough to educate me on how to move?"
In response, Tremain felt himself being pulled along. Feeling helpless did not improve his mood. "If I survive this, I am going to take him apart, bit by rusty bit." He thought to himself.
The globe of light became so large he could see nothing else. He pierced the surface, the glow suffusing him. When he could see again, he froze in shock.
He stood in a hospital room, the smell of antiseptic making that fact perfectly clear. It was a private room, the ping of machinery sounding every so often. The figure in the bed was hidden behind someone leaning over the bed. She stood on tip-toes to be able to reach. He heard a kissing sound. She stood and turned to look in his direction. It was his sister, Davie. She looked so young, with her red hair pulled back into a large ponytail. Her eyes were bright with tears.
Tremain realized where and when they were.
"My father's hospital room. This is the day he died." He felt Sen pull him to the side as Davie spoke.
"Here comes Tremain now." She gestured to a figure just coming into the room.
Tremain saw himself as a young man shuffle into the room. The younger version of himself wasn't the most impressive thing he'd ever seen.
The boy's hair was long and unkempt, just brushed back with some sticking up and out all over the place. His t-shirt was too large and hung off him. His jeans, also just a bit too large, were rolled up at the ankles. His shoes were untied, the laces making a clicking sound as they hit the linoleum. The bed started moving, raising up to allow the figure to sit up more.
Tremain felt conflicting emotions as he saw his father.
His sharp eyes peered out of a liver spotted, bald head. Those piercing eyes took in the room and his two visitors in a glance. An oxygen tube wrapped around his head, taped just under his nose. His gaze followed Tremain as he came around to the opposite side of the bed from his sister. When the old man spoke, the voice was barely over a whisper.
"Nice of you to find time to visit me." His voice was cold.
The young Tremain shrugged, looking at his shoes, his hands grasping the bed-rail.
"I've been busy." He mumbled.
The older man reached a withered arm and grabbed the boy's hand, the grip stronger than one would believe from such a frail man.
"Nice of you to pull yourself away from your precious lab." The voice came stronger now. "I won't be around much longer for you to ignore."
The voices grew dim as Sen's presence filled Tremain's mind.
"Why does your sire feel this way about you?"
Tremain's conflicted emotions were creating ripples in the space around him. The hospital bed and visitors wavered.
"He never understood my fascination with science. He felt it was a waste of time rather than doing something productive to help the colony. Besides that, I think he resented the fact I didn't need him any longer." His sadness turned to frustration and anger. "Why are we visiting my memories? I thought we were going to help me understand your people?"
The waves of emotion rippling from Tremain had pushed Sen's essence to the wall of the hospital room. With a surge of power, Sen pulled them out of that particular memory. Tremain found himself floating in the galaxy of memories once again.
Another star had shifted and was now in front of them. "Let us look at another." They pushed through the surface once again.
Tremain now found himself standing in the lab. An older woman wearing a lab coat was waving her arms and talking down a young lab assistant with unruly hair. Tremain was seeing himself once again.
"Marjorie." He exclaimed as he recognized the older woman. "I haven't talked to her in a while. I should probably pay her a visit."
Sen froze the memory and wove in between the figures.
"This woman was your superior. Why is she berating you?"
Tremain suppressed a laugh.
"She always yelled at me, her bosses, and whoever else she could. It was her way of showing affection, I believe."
The figures moved once again, the dressing-down apparently over, the older woman brushing a strand of dirty-blond hair away from her face and motioning the younger Tremain to get back to work. The young man hustled off to a workbench, where an elaborate apparatus of beakers, test tubes and Bunsen burners sat. Tremain watched as the older woman studied his younger self, hidden by another piece of equipment. She soon nodded, smiling slightly. Tremain sought out Sen, who was floating nearby.
"Have you seen enough? What could you hope to gain by this if you're going to destroy us anyway?"
Sen thought for a moment, his ball of light weaving around the memory of the lab.
"I don't understand how you form attachments without communing." He moved to study Marjorie, then back to the young Tremain.
Tremain realized almost at once what Sen referred to.
"Ah! I think I understand. Your people link your minds together. We humans communicate by talking to each other. We use language to get our points across." Another revelation hit him. "And that's what you and I are doing right now, isn't it? This is communing."
Sen's confusion was palpable. It flowed off him in waves.
"Yes, in a very limited way." He said. "I am restraining my mind so as not to overtax yours."
Tremain moved himself closer to Marjorie. He was finding it easier to direct himself in this environment.
"I wonder why you'd take such care at all," Tremain said, "aren't I just another pest?"
The ball of light that was Sen pulled Tremain back out into the void. The galaxy of Tremain's memories pulsed brightly around them.
Tremain could feel the turmoil Sen was experiencing. He understood the powerful being's preconceived notions about humanity were starting to crack under the evidence of Tremain's own memories. He knew just what he had to do.
"It's not easy to contemplate wholesale genocide, now is it? How about we see another memory?" Tremain concentrated, calling up two more glowing spheres. The first bright orb approached and absorbed them.
They were in another hospital room, this one appointed much more comfortably. The walls were a calming, homey brown color and the furniture resembled more of a living room than a hospital room. A woman sat in the bed, looking exhausted, her red hair hung over her tired eyes. She brightened as a nurse, carrying a bundle swaddled in a receiving blanket came over to her. She held out her arms and cradled the little baby, her eyes sparkling with happiness.
"What is this?" Sen asked.
"This is the day Christopher was born. That's my sister Davie, and right about now," The door burst open and Daylin bustled i
n with an overflowing bag of clothes, baby things and other stuff. A lab-coated Tremain was right behind him, picking up items strewn about the floor after falling out of his brother-in-law's bag. Daylin looked panicked, his clean-shaven face gaunt and pale. The nurse held up her hands to shush the two as they bustled into the room.
"Now boys, let's keep it quiet." She admonished them. "This little one has had a long morning." She gave Davie a smile and an eye-roll and left the room. Davie grinned and beckoned to her husband.
"Do you want to see your son?" She asked. Daylin quickly dropped the bag and rushed to his wife's side. He ran a finger across the baby boy's cherub cheek.
"What are we going to name him?" He whispered. Davie turned her head to look at her brother, who had hung back, not wanting to impose on them.
"How about we name him Christopher, after his grandfather?" She raised her eyebrows at Tremain, the question directed as much at him as her husband. Tremain smiled and nodded.
"Christopher." Daylin repeated, not seeing the silent exchange between the siblings. "I like it. Christopher."
Sen interrupted the scene before them, his words cutting in over the rest of the conversation.
"Why is naming so important to you?" He asked.
"It's one of the first decisions a parent has to make. A name is a very important thing. It has to fit."
"How do you know?"
Tremain laughed. The ripples disrupting the memory, causing him and Sen to be pushed out of this globe and into the path of the second memory.
"A parent just knows." He said as they were engulfed by the light of the sphere.
The found themselves in Tremain's lab. Tremain was just coming out from the kitchen area, a glass of milk in his hand, when he stopped and looked over at his desk. His shoulders slumped and a huge grin enveloped his face. He leaned into the doorway and watched as Christopher, only about six or seven years old, struggled to fit into his uncle's lab coat, which had been laid across the back of the desk chair. The boy had his arms in the sleeves and was smoothing out the lapels. He reached into the pocket and pulled out a half-eaten sandwich.
"Oops" The now-Tremain whispered. "I seem to have a habit of forgetting to eat my lunches." He chuckled. "Something I'll need to work on." Then he remembered Sen's declaration. "If I live that long." He moved to the side as his younger self walked over to the desk with the glass of milk.
The Adventures of Tremain & Christopher BoxSet Page 23
