by S. Harrison
My father turns around, and he looks just like he does in the photograph with the silver frame that sits on the table of the first-floor landing at home. His black hair is neatly combed, his pencil-thin moustache is carefully groomed, his black collared shirt is spotless, and his scarlet-red tie is perfectly knotted at his neck and sits arrow straight on his chest. He walks across the room and looks up into the camera. “You can ask me anything,” he says. “And I hope to see you soon.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I pull my hand away from the wall and heave at the air. I may not have internal organs in here, but outside in the real world, my actual body must be close to cardiac arrest, because I think I’m going to explode out of my skin. I don’t know what to feel. It’s all too much! The dreams of days I’ve already lived, the memories stolen from me, the other side of my existence hidden from me, the countless lies and dark secrets. My mind is reeling, and everything that led up to this moment comes flooding back into my head all at once.
It all started a month ago on that moonlit rooftop in Paris, when Infinity took a bullet to the chest. The pendant that kept our two minds separated fractured, and the walls between us began to crumble. Ever since then, it isn’t just my mind that’s been shattered. My entire life has been completely torn open in the span of four short weeks, and nothing but death and destruction has been flooding out, consuming everything in its path.
And now, if all of that weren’t enough, here I am about to face the man that made me. The man who saved the world by abolishing natural disasters, banishing hunger, and eliminating poverty is going to take back all that he gave humanity. He’s going to allow my mother to exist in a living-dead hell of eternal torture, enslave my best friend, lock me in an electronic prison forever, and destroy the human race.
I look up and see a wide black strip revolving around the side of the sphere. I blink to it, and as I float in front of it, staring at it, I can feel Infinity’s rage combining with my own, boiling up through me from the depths of my soul. I clench my hands into tight, trembling fists. I’m gonna make him pay for everything he’s done.
I quickly draw my fist back beside my face and scream out in furious anger as I slam my knuckles into the dark, shimmering strip, and everything instantly goes completely pitch-black. Even though I can’t see, I can feel the quantum grains in every place in the facility. The largest concentration of them by far is in the three domes, but just behind the third and smallest dome at the far end of Sector C, I can sense the top of my father’s tower. I will myself toward it.
The darkness all around me slowly gives way to light, and the red-and-gold decor of my father’s office gradually blurs and then sharpens into view. I’m here, inside my father’s ivory tower. I look down at myself. I’m still wearing my black hooded top, gray jeans, and green sneakers, but I know that’s only because I think I am. I’m standing here, but I know it’s not real. I pull up my sleeve and pinch myself on the forearm. I don’t feel it at all. My real body may have been created in a lab and grown inside my mother, but at least it’s flesh and bone, with nerve endings and a heart that pumps my blood through its veins. This one is pure quantum grains, and I can see why Nanny Theresa didn’t allow Graham to become something like this. It’s empty. I’m a ceramic statue that can move and think.
“Welcome,” says my father.
I quickly look in the direction of his voice. He’s standing behind the large wooden desk on the other side of the room, and the rage I felt in the mainframe returns with astonishing fury, but it’s strange and artificial, like an emotion mimicked by a soulless husk that just happens to look like me.
“Isn’t this wonderful!” Sable’s voice echoes all around the room. “Father and daughter and me, her real mother. All finally reunited at last!”
“Leave us alone please, Sable,” says my father.
“Oh no, I wouldn’t miss this for the world!” Sable says excitedly.
“You have duties to attend to. Leave us,” he says with a slightly sterner tone. “Don’t make me regret my decision to free you. I wish to talk to my daughter alone. Now leave us! I will not ask again!”
Silence.
My father waits for a moment, then he looks down at a computer slate on his desk and swipes his finger across its surface.
“She’s gone. I’m sorry about that. I’ve locked her out. She won’t disturb us again.”
I’m the one who’s disturbed to have the devil as a father. It makes no difference if the rage inside me is real or not; it feels genuine enough for me to do what I came here to do, and as long as I have a body, even this one, I can choke the breath out of him until he agrees to stop Project Infinity. Or better yet, I can cut him. With just the thought of having a knife in my hand, my whole forearm hisses as it changes shape into a two-foot-long glossy black blade. I glare directly at my father and quickly stride toward him.
He doesn’t look the least bit afraid as I storm across the room, and as I reach the desk, I quickly swing the blade at his neck, stopping it an inch away from the skin of his throat. He doesn’t even flinch.
“What’s the point of that?” he says, calmly glancing at the blade. “You can’t kill someone who is already dead.”
I frown at him and grit my teeth in anger. The bastard is a construct, too.
“Now we could chop each other’s limbs off and shatter each other’s heads all night long,” he says. “Or, you could have a seat.” Another leather-bound chair like his hisses up from the floor beside me. “And we could have our very first father-daughter chat.”
I glare at him. Then I slowly and grudgingly lower the blade. “When did you die?” I grunt at him.
“Would you like to sit?” he says, raising his eyebrows.
I look down at the chair, then I slowly lower and prop myself on the edge of the seat as my blade morphs back into an arm again.
“Four years ago,” my father says as he sits on his own chair. “I died in my sleep. The autopsy said it was a brain aneurysm. Luckily I used to download my consciousness on a weekly basis and store it for such an eventuality.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask bluntly as I glare at him. “Project Infinity I mean. You don’t seem nearly as insane as everyone says you are.”
“Straight to the point. I like that,” he says. “Well it’s simple really. The human race is absolutely horrible.”
“That’s your answer?” I bark at him. “You’re going to kill ninety percent of all the people in the world, because you think they’re horrible?”
“Ninety-nine-point-five-nine-seven-eight-six percent. Give or take four- or five-tenths of a percent.”
“I take it back. You are insane,” I mutter.
“Am I? You’ve studied world history at school. Tell me, what was society like before my innovations?”
I don’t want to play his game, so I just flump back in the chair and glower at him.
“I’ll tell you,” he says. “By the first quarter of the twenty-first century, mankind had depleted resources to a point where forty-five percent of the global population were on the brink of starvation. They almost completely destroyed the natural environment, causing floods and typhoons so powerful that cities were being wiped from the earth, and droughts so severe that they forced millions of refugees to flee their own countries. Forty percent of all the fish in the oceans were driven to the brink of extinction, and more than a hundred unique land species became extinct every single day.”
“But you fixed all that,” I say.
“Most of it, I did. Richard Blackstone, the savior of the world, they said. And for a time, I was proud of what I had achieved. But I was a fool. I thought the world would be a better place if I could just solve the big problems. Then every man, woman, and child could band together and help each other to solve the smaller ones . . . united, together.
“But the human race doesn’t work like that. If you give a person everything they need, they will eventually begin to demand everything they want. War ha
s become a game that people play, imagination has become whatever a search engine tells them to think, love is chosen by an algorithm, and the truth is whatever the one who shouts the loudest says it is. Society as it is was already dying, my daughter, and no matter how much I tried to help, I couldn’t change the traditions of greed and selfishness that had become ingrained in the minds of the people for so long.
“So now I’m just speeding up the process. I’m ending this empty society, and I will teach the new humanity the values that truly matter. I will finally give this planet the children it deserves and help the new human race be something so much greater. Mankind will be . . . reborn.”
“You’re not going to stop this, are you?”
“No.”
“There are good, decent people who want to change all the things you said are wrong about humanity, and their numbers are growing. They should be given the chance to try and make things right. They just need more time.”
“The bad far outweigh the good. Humanity’s time to change on their own has passed.”
“If you won’t stop it, I’m going to.”
My father leans back in his chair and leisurely cracks his knuckles. “I admire your tenacity. But there’s no way that you can stop it. Everything I’ve said about the human race is true, and you will be there to share in it. When you stand back and look at the big picture, at how wonderful the future is going to be, what is really so bad about the decision that I’ve made?”
I glare at Richard Blackstone, and my hate is pure. “There are so many things that are wrong with this decision,” I mutter. “But do you know what the worst thing of all is?”
My father leans forward on his desk and looks at me with a bemused expression. “And what would that be?”
“That you made it.”
I quickly stand, and a six-foot-long glossy black blade spears from my forearm, impaling my father right through the center of his forehead.
A grotesque, rasping sound croaks from his throat, and his fingers skitter and twitch on the desktop as his eyes roll back in his head and blood pours in thick rivulets down his face. His mouth drops open, and his final breath groans from his gaping lips as his eyelids droop half-closed. His body goes limp, and his hands go still as thick red droplets pitter-patter from his chin into a growing pool on his desk.
With one quick pull, I withdraw the blade, and his head thuds with a wet splat into the puddle of blood on the varnished wooden veneer.
“You cracked your knuckles, Dad,” I say, looking down at him. “And constructs don’t have knuckle bones to crack.”
With the tip of the blade, I push back the edge of his sleeve and confirm what I already knew. Wrapped around his wrist is a silver bracelet with a black diamond-shaped stone set into it. It’s a command module, used for controlling quantum grains.
My father lied about being dead, and he lied about not being able to stop Project Infinity. There is only one person who can end all of this, but in order to save everyone in the world, he will have to do the worst thing he could possibly imagine.
I close my eyes and sink into the floor, willing my way through the quantum darkness. When I open my eyes again, I’m back inside the massive multicolored sphere surrounding the core. And waiting for me is a floating mass of purple smoke.
Immediately on guard, I stare at the formless Sable, preparing myself to run, but where can I go? She has ultimate power inside here. I can’t get out, and there’s nowhere in the systems of this facility where I can hide that she won’t find me.
With my hands raised defensively before me, I’m still desperately racking my mind for any slim hope of escape when the smoke coalesces into a very worried-looking Sable.
“He’s mad at me, isn’t he?” she says, wringing her hands. “It’s OK, you can tell me. Is he mad? Please don’t say he’s angry at me. I couldn’t take that, I really couldn’t,” she babbles.
Considering the fact that I just killed my own father and the fate of the world is hanging in the balance, the only thing I feel at this very moment is an overwhelming sense of relief. Sable doesn’t know, and I suddenly see a chance to seize an opportunity.
“He is very mad at you, Sable,” I murmur, trying my best to look disappointed in her.
She flinches like she’s been stung by a bee, and her brow furrows into deep creases. “Maybe I should go and apologize,” she says as she reaches toward the shimmering black strip.
“No!” I bark as I grab her hand. “He wants to be left alone right now. He said that I should tell you to get back to work and you’re not to disturb him until he calls for you.”
Sable looks brokenhearted. “He must be very mad at me.”
“He is, but my father and I had a very good talk, and . . . and he convinced me that Project Infinity is the best thing for everyone.”
“Oh, my sweet darling,” Sable says, beaming at me. “That is the most wonderful news. I just knew you two would work things out.”
“Yes, we did,” I reply. “Now . . . um, seeing as this is going to be my new home, my father said that I could look around, and y’know . . . get to know the place.”
“That is a fantastic idea!” Sable says, clapping her hands excitedly. “We can go together!”
“No, he needs you back inside the core.” I quickly quash the idea.
Sable’s face drops. “But I’d rather be with you.”
“That may be, but . . . Project Infinity is very important to my father, and you don’t want him to put you away again, do you?”
“No,” she grumbles as she rolls her blank white eyes. “I do have to get back to the core, I suppose. The first satellites have just come online, after all.”
Panic suddenly surges through me. “Already?”
Sable grins and nods enthusiastically. “But tomorrow it’ll be just you and me!” she says as she takes my hands and squeezes them tightly. “I’ll show you all the best places in here. We really do have forever to be together, my darling, so you go ahead, go and play, and I’ll see you bright and early in the morning.” Then, with another cheerful smile, Sable dissolves into smoke. In a purple flash of light, she zips away, back into the core.
I wait a moment to make sure she’s really gone, then I quickly look at Bit all the way over by the core. In a flash, I’m floating in front of her. “Bit?” I whisper.
“Finn,” she says, again in that horrible, dreamy robotic-toned voice.
“Bit, please, please stop what you’re doing. Billions of people are going to die.”
“Death for eternal life, Finn.”
“Bettina! Listen to me. Brody is going to die out there! Don’t you care?”
“Eternal life, Finn. It’s already begun,” she murmurs.
There’s no getting through to her. Sadness and regret fill every single part of me. If I could cry right now, I would. But this cruel existence won’t let me, just like it will never let me forget what I’m about to do. I’m going to have to live with the horror of it every day, until the end of time. But it has to be done, and it has to be done right now.
I look toward the red and blue strips, and in a blink, I’m there. I slap my palm on the blue and quickly search through the multitude of holoscreens floating in my vision until I see the one I’m looking for. The label in the bottom left corner of the screen says, “SPHERE INTERFACE,” and as I zoom into the screen, I see Brody.
He’s sitting on the short white bridge that extends into the center of the small round space. His legs are dangling over the side of the bridge, and his head is hung low. He looks defeated. I see Bit, with one broken arm in a sling and the other melded to the black column, and there’s me, standing beside her with my hand still fixed to the skin just above her wrist. Both of us look absolutely horrible. Our limbs are skinny and withered, our skin is turning gray, and our faces are so gaunt we look as if we haven’t eaten in weeks.
I switch to the next nearest camera. It shows the crystalline hallway leading to the room. The armless Percy is l
ying on his back on the floor with his eyes closed, and Brody has used the cable ties that were in his satchel to bind Percy’s ankles. Sitting propped against the wall near Percy is Dean, who looks as if he’s happily chatting to himself. Leaning against the opposite wall, still wearing his yellow plastic radiation suit and glaring down at Percy, is Jonah, and lying on the floor behind him, with a foil blanket draped over his body, is Professor Francis.
I press my other hand against the red strip and call out. “Brody? Brody, can you hear me?”
I switch my view back to the other screen and see Brody suddenly flinch and quickly pick up the radio that’s sitting on the bridge beside him.
There’s a hiss and a crackle, and he responds. “Finn. I’m here.”
“Brody, it’s begun. If we don’t stop this now, billions of people are going to die.”
“What? It’s happening? Right now?”
On the screen Jonah lumbers to the entrance of the small room. I can see his lips moving and hear him through the walkie-talkie. “I’m here, too, Finn. Brody let me in. What’s going on? Are you alright?”
“Please listen. Project Infinity has begun, and the entire world is in grave danger. Everyone on the planet is going to die if it isn’t shut down. Bettina is being forced to control it, and there’s nothing I can do to stop her. But you can. You can end this. And you have to do it now.”
“But I already tried as hard as I could to pull her free,” Brody whimpers. “And when that didn’t work, I tried to use the scalpel on her wrist, but her skin kept healing as quickly as I could cut it. I don’t know what else to—”
“Brody.” My voice cracks as I force the words out. “Where is Percy’s gun?”
“I have it,” says Brody. “It’s here, in my satchel.”
“Of course it is,” I say with a sad and solemn smile. “Give the gun to Jonah.”
“Has it come to that, Finn?” Jonah asks in the background.
“Bit’s body is the mainframe’s link to the physical world. There’s no other way.”
“Are you sure?” Jonah asks.
