by R. E. Rowe
“I hate to agree, but she’s right,” Bouncer says. “Just do it.”
“Ah, hell.” Flashing road reflectors are all I can see outside the window.
My ribs still ache as I readjust myself, shifting my attention back inside the bus. Everything appears normal.
“Is this some kind of sick joke because I skipped my meds?”
The skinny lady up front puts her book down, glancing over her glasses at me.
I give her a half-wave and a fake smile. She picks up her book.
“You don’t have much time, big guy,” Bouncer says.
“Please trust us,” Honesti says with a sharp edge to her voice. “You need to get off this bus.”
“But Aimee told me to get on it—”
“You’re almost out of time,” Honesti says.
I grimace. “Okay, okay!”
More people turn around and stare.
I stagger down the aisle toward the front while the bus bounces along the highway, balancing myself as I pass rows of seats.
The cherry-scented elderly woman clears her throat. “Is everything all right, young man?”
I ignore her and continue forward until I’m near the husky driver who smells worse than a week-old trashcan, stuffed with leftover salmon. Disgusting.
“What do you want, son?” the driver asks.
“I need to get off the bus,” I say, gripping the cold pole near the front steps. Man, he stinks. “Now, sir.”
The heavyset bus driver waves me off. “Return to your seat, kid.” He points to the side with one hand. “We’re in the middle of Nowheresville, just green fields and darkness out there. Not even a car for at least five miles. We ain’t stopping for another hour and a half. You can wait.”
“But, sir, this is an emergency.”
“Sorry, kid. No can do. Can’t let you off until the next stop. Against policy, I’m afraid. Not to mention you’re obviously a minor.”
The man twists slightly in an attempt to sit up straighter, but his butt acts like it’s stuck to the seat.
“Mister, please.”
He scowls and waves me off again.
This isn’t going to be easy. I need a motivator.
I dig out two crispy one-hundred-dollar bills from the envelope in my backpack and hold them out in my hand. “Here, a tip, okay?”
“Oh, young man, he can’t be bribed—” the woman starts to say.
The driver sighs loudly, interrupting the lady. “Hang on.” His body odor has broken up the woman’s cherry fog.
He presses down hard on the brake causing everyone to lurch forward, then downshifts and stops the bus. He snatches the money from my hand. “Hope you know what you’re doing, kid. Like I said, nothing around here ’cept alfalfa farms.”
“Thanks.”
I put on my backpack and step off the bus.
The driver wasn’t wrong. The side of the dark road is in the middle of nowhere. I’m screwed. “Now what?”
The bus groans through its gears and continues on its way.
“Jog to the gravel bank away from the road,” Bouncer says.
Right. Like I’m going to listen to someone who lies to me and messes with the inside of my head.
“Trust us,” Honesti says. “Please.”
How can the voices in my head see a gravel bank? It’s so dark I can’t see anything.
I reluctantly jog away from the road as if I’m wearing a blindfold. After about twenty yards, I find a gravel bank running parallel to the road.
“Okay, now what?”
No response.
“Perfect. Just freaking perfect.”
I sit down on the bank and listen to legions of crickets harmonizing in the cool evening air while watching the bus continue to drive away down the straight highway. The bus reminds me of a brightly lit comet heading into deep space powered by two shrinking red tails.
I do a quick calculation. The bus must be five miles away by now and is still the only vehicle on the road. I clear my throat and stand up. This is ridiculous. Why did I listen? “Hello? Anybody? What now—?”
Before I finish the sentence, the two glowing taillights explode in a fireball rolling upward and lighting up the far end of the valley. The bus erupts into flames with black smoke bellowing from it.
The explosion shoves me backwards onto my butt. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. There were people inside!”
“You’re screwed,” Bouncer says. “But least you ain’t dead.”
“It appears Carmina has found you,” Honesti says.
chapter seven
A dozen Harrier Jump Jets, two modern fighter jets, and four Black Hawk helicopters are among countless other technologies and military weaponry inside my floating arsenal. Purchased anonymously through QCC’s network of brokers, arms dealers, and politicians, each aircraft can use the runway below deck to take off and land like a two-story aircraft carrier through a side opening in the refurbished oil tanker’s hull. No one would ever suspect I live on the Alaric I and not in a sprawling New York City penthouse.
I silently ride the elevator with Chien down to the boardroom level, contemplating my next move, adjusting details and working out an endless chain reaction of cause-and-effect ripples. Chien has learned from experience over many lifetimes never to interrupt me when I’m calculating probabilities and extrapolating outcomes.
The elevator doors open to the most modern corporate boardroom in existence. Wall-sized displays play news channel video from locations around the world. Three-dimensional holograms float near the walls and ceiling, displaying alerts and warnings.
We are finally back together.
Chien joins the team of six teenagers sitting around a polished oak table. When I sit at the head of the oblong table, I make eight.
Permanently grafted into our forearm bone, each of us wears a golden bracelet with colorful gemstones around its outside. The DNA of our chosen human host is paired with the bracelet’s quantum core as if it were a Bluetooth device, entangling our physical body with each of our souls beyond the ether. The pairing of a body with a soul allows the bracelet to access the cloud memory repository where past life memories from thousands of previous lifetimes can be downloaded to the body on a need-to-know basis.
I gesture for Chien to begin.
“This day has been millennia in the making,” Chien says, as he walks to the front of the conference table making a series of hand gestures.
A hologram of the globe hovers above the boardroom table. “It is an honor to report that Quantum Computer Corp has achieved a CPU processor replacement rate of ninety-five percent. We expect the remaining five percent of legacy computer processors in the world to be replaced with QCC’s quantum core within three months.”
I applaud with the others around the table.
Chien’s jaw tightens as if he were about to enter the octagon for a championship mixed martial arts fight. “We now have eyes and ears around the globe. Even better, we will soon be able to take over any electronic device in the world.”
“Thank you, Chien.” I feel my shoulders relax. “Franz, please update us on the preparations.”
Chien takes his seat by my side as Franz Becke stands and straightens his long white lab coat. Born in Germany to Indian immigrant parents, Franz’s fourteen-year-old human body is average, but he stands confidently with a glint of death in his dark eyes. Franz’s failed experiments on human cadavers were well known a hundred years ago during another lifetime in a different body. This lifetime, Franz developed technology I need to pair a soul with the ego in a biological human body.
Franz pushes his round, wire-framed glasses high on his nose and saunters around the table, each of his movements calculated and certain. He makes eye contact with each of us, one at a time, as if he’s deciding who will be the lab rat for his next experiment. I love his passion, but despise his methods. Yet, sacrifices during previous generations have been required to make this day possible.
“As you know,�
� Franz says. “Soulless silica human 1.0 robotic replicas are fully functional for security and maintenance roles. A large number of them have been assigned as Carmina’s clones.” He speaks carefully with a slight German accent. “And deployed internationally. No one suspects they are not biological humans...”
I want Franz to speak faster, but force myself to let him take his time.
My mind drifts to the meetings my clones have had lately with high-level officials around the world. Expanding QCC Corp’s business operations. Funding communities that are more self-contained. With so many unemployed people, leaders are eager to attract QCC’s business and citizens welcome us.
And why wouldn’t they? Every QCC employee and their immediate families are invited to live within QCC-gated self-sufficient communities where we pay for all expenses and provide key infrastructure, including: grocery stores, retail, hospitals, dentists, building materials, restaurants, transportation, and anything else the community needs. Even employee-families living in places like India, Argentina, and Hong Kong receive a fully furnished, rent-free, single-family home or a luxury apartment in a QCC high-rise apartment building.
Employees and their family members are free to go outside the community’s gates. But people outside the gates are not allowed to enter without an approved visa sponsored by a resident-employee. I will keep expanding until the entire world is one large QCC community.
I interrupt. “Tell us the status of Human 2.0?”
“The builder-bot printer is on-line.” Franz clears his throat. “My research team has successfully printed the first operational Human 2.0 silica host. Titanium bones, carbon nanotube muscles, silica skin with follicle crystals to grow natural hair. A quantum brain replicates the function of 250 billion neurons in an above-average human brain and provides on-off host control of seven trillion nerves integrated in each silica shell. Taste and scent receptors have been upgraded along with vision and hearing, providing a much richer environment than that of a biological human.”
“When will it be ready for pairing with a soul?” Chien asks, tapping his fingers. His voice has an edge to it that reminds me of the sharp, fresh air of autumn.
“We are a week or two away from software completion and integration. Once all the bugs are worked out, builder-bots will start mass producing silica human forms.”
“What about our expansion strategy?” Chien asks. “Specifically, our deterrents.”
With current super powers protecting their borders and controlling the activities of their citizens, I knew we would need strong deterrents to protect expanding communities once they become a threat to existing governments and corporations.
Franz continues. “There are two parts to the strategy. First, six liberators are ready. Each device contains a one hundred megaton thermonuclear bomb with a red beryl electromagnetic pulse enhancement used to stop any military threat that becomes an issue to our communities. Second, our snoop malware worm has infected every QCC quantum core, and the eavesdropping tracking app has been activated, allowing any of your command centers to take over any device.”
“Just to be clear, Carmina,” Chien says. “We don’t intend to use any of these weapons. But without strong deterrents, we are powerless.”
“I understand and approve.” I turn to Curtis and gesture for him to stand. “Your update, please.”
This lifetime Curtis Webb is well over six-feet tall with piercing blue eyes, muscular and strong like a football middle-line-backer, but agile and tan enough to be mistaken for a world-class surfer.
Franz takes his seat as Curtis shakes out his long, dirty blond hair and stands. He winks at Bree Pellegrini, his sixteen-year-old girlfriend sitting at his side. Bree was born on Malta, an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea, fifty miles south of Sicily. Bree could easily be a runway model. Tall. Slender. Long, black feathery hair, smooth olive skin, and usually wears heavy eyeliner to match her black eyebrows. But underestimating Bree is usually the last thing an aggressor will ever do. She moves like a cougar with the ability to strike like a cobra, easily killing without hesitation when threatened. Bree leads my security team.
I see past Bree’s beautiful physical form and look deep into her eyes at her ancient soul who shares my belief that every incarnated soul should be free to live without suffering. She twirls a stand of hair with one finger, keeping her chestnut brown eyes fixed on Curtis.
“The Snoop Worm has infected most devices,” Curtis says. “I am continuing to monitor the malware’s progress. We should have it communicating with our main command center soon. Once operational, I will join Bree in the field to assist with the enforcers.” Curtis returns to his seat and Bree immediately rewards him with a deep kiss.
Chien glares at Bree. “Status on the remaining enforcers?”
“Four enforcers remain,” Bree replies. “Three older. One our age who has not been activated.”
Four incarnated souls stand between an ancient outdated cycle of life-death-rebirth and a new existence.
General’s ridiculous rules will soon be upgraded. No more end-of-life reviews to access readiness for higher dimensions or the need to repeat a lifetime. No more waiting to remember one’s purpose. Souls will have two incarnation options: a traditional biological host or a new, improved silica high-tech host.
“Do we know where the remaining enforcers are located?” I ask.
Chien lowers his head. “Yes. We have identified their locations.”
“If you agree, we can eliminate them,” Bree says. She nods at Alex and Asher, prompting them to stand.
The two fifteen-year-olds are physical twins in this lifetime with short cut hair and thick black glasses teetering over their small facial features. In their present human bodies, the pair could easily win breakable-nerd-twins of the year. Neither one was pleased with the bodies available to them, but timing was more critical than incarnating them in more appealing human bodies. These two bodies were the last remaining that could handle the physical demands of the abrupt awakening that occurs when a gold bracelet is activated.
“I prefer the old methods, personally,” Alex says, raising the sword he used centuries ago. “Fleshy enforcer bodies cannot stop my blade.” His deep voice appears strange coming from his geeky body.
“I second that,” Asher says in a wobbly whine, his pitchy voice on the verge of changing from boy to man.
I slam both open hands on the table causing sparks to pop from the lighting overhead. “I want the enforcers alive. Do you understand me? They must have a choice to join us. I will not let General use them to stop us.”
Alex and Asher cower back to their chairs.
“I know one of them,” Bree says. “I will make contact with her.”
“Good,” I reply.
“Dennis. Report,” Chien says.
Seventeen-year-old Dennis Ray walks proudly to the front of the room. Standing tall at a mere five-foot-five, his over-the-top confidence makes everyone around him believe he’s six-foot-four. Dark skin, with short hair, and cleanly shaven, he looks as if he’s a polished politician preparing to give a motivational speech to a thousand eager listeners.
Dennis was the first of General’s enforcers I recruited to lead a worldwide network of QCC communities. Launching each of the QCC communities was interesting to him and appealed to his desire to be a world leader.
Bree winks at Franz and Curtis nudges her. But that doesn’t stop her from smiling at Dennis when he stops in front of the room to begin his presentation.
Dennis ignores Bree and motions with a slight of hand, prompting a hologram of the world to appear and rotate above the boardroom table.
The rotating globe initially shows the present-day modern world in high-resolution, highlighting the borders of each country. The hologram transforms into a world globe with a single country without borders.
“Once the remaining enforcers have joined us, we will proceed with rapid QCC community expansion,” Dennis says. “Human 1.0 robotic forms are being i
ntegrated into the communities as fast as Franz can make them.”
I’m amazed at how well our plan is coming together this lifetime. Proud even. “When will we be in a position to replace legacy governments with QCC infrastructure?”
“We expect the smaller governments to transition within one year’s time.”
General will not defeat us.
“Very good. Thank you, Dennis.” I raise my voice and address the entire group. “I have decided that I will take on initial leadership responsibilities.”
Dennis stops mid stride and glares. “You?”
“Yes. I will oversee the integration of silica humans with biological humans.”
Bree interrupts. “I thought we’d planned to phase out biological humans?”
“No.” I soften my voice. “All suffering of innocents is to stop. No one is to be harmed unless it is required to move forward.”
Alex and Asher jump out of their seats.
“Are you serious?” Alex says. “Protect biological humans? How will we ever control millions of them?”
“We should return them all back beyond the ether,” Asher adds. “Let them get in line for a silica host.”
“Death to biologicals!” Alex yells. “A series of well-placed nuclear explosions would do it. Radiation can’t hurt us once we’ve incarnated into silicon forms. Right? We have the liberators. We should use them to cleanse this world!”
“Enough!” I shout. “I hear egos ranting, not souls. We will not harm biological humans. Souls must have the choice: incarnate into a biological host or into a silica host.” I sneer at the faces around the table. “Should a world power try to stop us, yes, we’ll destroy their military. But we will not harm innocents. Not even one. All suffering ends now. Is that understood?”
Relax. I will not allow my human form to dominate my actions in this moment. Control. Slow my biological heart rate. Calm myself. Or I will lose control just like in past lifetimes.
Alex and Asher scowl and reluctantly sit back down. They both glare. But I don’t acknowledge them. Whispers circulate the room as if a fan switched on and frustrated glares go back and forth among the team, but I ignore them.
