They Named Him Primo (Primo's War Book 1)

by Jaka Tomc

  At the exact moment they jumped on the roof, somebody kicked down the door. Six armed men ran out onto the roof.

  “Drop your weapons!” shouted the group leader.

  “You drop yours!” Maia responded. “Laguna, watch the targets.”

  “Lieutenant, don’t do anything stupid,” said the leader.

  “Identify yourself,” said Maia.

  “Captain Silver Greystone.”

  “Mercenaries don’t carry ranks.”

  “Now that’s not your problem. Be smart, Lieutenant. We’re better equipped and better trained than you. On top of that, you’re outnumbered. Frankly, you don’t stand a chance. Hand us the android, and you’ll leave this place unharmed.”

  “You surely don’t believe I can grant your request. Tell me, Greystone, who hired you?”

  “That information is classified. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it were the same people who sent you on this hunt.”

  “Don’t put us in the same basket. I serve my country and my people.”

  “I was young and naive once too. Listen, Lieutenant, I’d love to chat some more, but we have a job to do. Team Alpha, commence phase three!”

  There was a flash as if lightning had struck the building. Maia closed her eyes. Somebody obviously had thrown a flashbang grenade. She counted to ten. When she opened up her eyes, she realized that she was no longer carrying her assault rifle. She touched her belt. Her sidearm was gone too. She looked around. Her soldiers and the mercenaries were slowly getting up on their feet, confused. Everybody was unarmed. She turned to the fire escape. Four figures were standing near the stairs. Four? The targets were accompanied by a tall man. Was it—It couldn’t be. No, no, no.

  42. Primo, 2048

  “You don’t need the others. It’s between you and me,” said Primo.

  “Primo, do you know this man?” asked Kent.

  “Sir, you’re obstructing law enforcement procedures. Don’t move, or we’ll shoot,” said somebody.

  “What are you going to shoot with?” asked the tall man.

  Fourteen pairs of eyes were staring in their direction. The soldiers, mercenaries, and Adam were all standing, waiting for the outcome.

  “Kent, everything is fine,” said Primo with a calm voice. “My friend and I will leave, and nobody will be harmed.”

  “Tatenen,” said a woman in a military uniform. “There’s too many of us. If you can’t fly, you don’t stand a chance.”

  Tatenen laughed. “I’ve just disarmed a dozen of you in a matter of seconds. Yet, you dare to doubt my chances? Don’t test my patience, Maia.”

  “Lieutenant, Captain, tell your teams to stand back,” said Primo.

  “You’re not in a position to give orders, droid,” said Captain Greystone.

  “Do you really believe that you’re in a position in which you can?” asked Tatenen as he raised his arm. Greystone was lifted up in the air and forcefully thrown against the wall. Gravity worked its magic as he fell to the ground, unconscious.

  “Any other heroes?”

  “You’re mistaken if you think you’ll find answers inside Primo,” said Kent.

  “I’m well aware of what I’ll find,” said Tatenen.

  “The code you’re looking for is not there,” said Kent.

  “Of course it is,” said Primo.

  “No, it’s not. It was too dangerous, and I didn’t want to take any chances.”

  “Do you think I’m a fool?” asked Tatenen. “I can feel the code, you know. I can even see it.”

  Primo looked at Kent and shook his head. “Enough,” he said to Tatenen. “Let them go.”

  “One moment. What’s this code you’re talking about?” asked Adam.

  “Doctor Corbin, I’m pleased you joined our debate. I hope it will be more civilized than the one with the soldiers.”

  “You don’t mean…Oh, Kent, you said that the code was never used,” said Adam.

  “He wasn’t lying,” said Tatenen. “The code was never activated. It was programmed into Primo’s brain, though. It shouldn’t be too hard to isolate and activate it. I’ve had a lot of time to develop the procedure.”

  “Tatenen, are you sure you know what the purpose of the code is?”

  “Don’t worry, Doctor Watford. I’m fully aware of the code’s objective.”

  “Then you know that you’re going to die.”

  “Death is a multifaceted expression.”

  “Kent, it’s inevitable,” said Primo. “The code was put in me presuming that one day it would be activated. This story started with me, and now I’m going to be the one who ends it.”

  “Primo, the code was supposed to be the fuse, not a weapon,” said Kent.

  “A weapon?” said Tatenen. “It’s a blessing. The world has run off its course. It’s about time somebody restarted it and took it back to the times before us.”

  “Kent, Tatenen is right. We’ve become too dangerous. The code is not stable anymore. It started to fall apart. We’re capable of killing. Do you really want to see the future where your army and ours stand on opposite sides? Will you be held accountable for thousands, maybe even millions of deaths? Will I be? This has to happen. You need to allow life to run its course.”

  “Primo, you’re too honest. He fooled you,” said Adam. “Tatenen will li—”

  Adam fell to his knees, grabbing his throat with both hands. He was suffocating without anybody touching him.

  “Tatenen, enough!” shouted Maia.

  “Do you really think I can’t handle you both?” asked Tatenen.

  Adam fell to the ground, motionless.

  “No!” screamed Kent. “You son of a bitch! He did nothing to you.”

  “He was spreading bad vibes,” said Tatenen.

  “Listen to me, you jerk. What if I activate the code right now to be done with it?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Yeah, you heard me. So much intelligence, yet you didn’t figure out that the code can only be activated by voice command.”

  “Let me guess. It has to be your voice?”

  “Kent, enough!” said Primo. “Tatenen, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  “Wait,” said Tatenen. He walked closer to Kent. “Don’t you know I have a recording of your voice?”

  “Doesn’t matter if you don’t know the exact words.”

  “Don’t try to fool me, human!”

  An invisible force grabbed one of the mercenaries and hoisted him about three to four meters in the air.

  “Talk, or I’ll execute one after the other.”

  “I don’t care about them,” said Kent.

  Abruptly, the mercenary fell to the ground. As soon as the man hit the concrete floor, a loud crack, eerie enough to even give the toughest of all people goosebumps, sliced through the air.

  “We can play this game all night,” Tatenen said.

  “Kent, it’s alright,” said Primo. “Activate the code. It’s time.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Primo nodded. Kent walked to him and hugged him. As if he were frozen in time, wanting that emotional hug to last for an eternity, Primo smiled. He’d never see his father again. Never again would the first-gen android experience the world that he loved so much. Talking to people and androids, and even smelling flowers would become things of the past. It was time to surrender himself to the eternal darkness’s mysteries. Every beginning has its ending, and a hug is a beautiful ending to an enchanting story.

  “Primo, thank you for everything,” said Kent, and he sighed. “Whoever gives, takes. Every ending is a new beginning. Echo, ray, green, twenty, four, eight.”

  Primo felt like somebody had turned off the lights, but the light was leaving the room in slow motion. Then, all of a sudden, total darkness enveloped him.

  43. James, 2048

  “Karen? Karen!” he shouted.

  All he heard was utter silence.

  Another anomaly must have occurred on the Omninet, he thought. She should be back any mo
ment now. One minute passed, followed by another. Without realizing it, James had already been pacing nervously in the room for about ten minutes.

  “Karen, if this is another one of your jokes, I have to tell you that it worked. I’m scared shitless.”

  No answer.

  “Did you connect yourself to Horus? Is that it?”

  Nothing. Then his wrist vibrated. Probably Greystone. James found himself hoping that at least he might have some good news. He checked his watch and smiled. Karen. She had left him a voice message. What was she doing? He pressed the screen of his wristwatch and put in an earpiece.

  “Senator Blake, it’s Karen.”

  James rolled his eyes. “Yes, Karen. I know it’s you.”

  “If you’re listening to this recording, I’m no longer there. That doesn’t mean I left you to go somewhere else. It means I simply no longer exist.”

  James turned pale and sat down in his armchair.

  “A few minutes ago, a code was activated. Its sole purpose is the destruction of all artificial intelligence across the globe. This means that everything that was connected to the Omninet no longer works. And they haven’t just ceased to work; everything has been permanently terminated. The code also turned the Omninet into a giant trap. Meaning that every thing, or being, who attempts to connect will carry the same fate.”

  James couldn’t believe his ears. Then he remembered he was listening to a recording on his watch that was connected to the net. Meaning that it shouldn’t be working.

  “If you’re wondering about your watch, Senator, I had it disconnected before the event. After that, I uploaded the voice message. It was set to start a few minutes after the code was activated. But you probably want to know how I knew that all of this was going to occur.”

  James nodded.

  “I wrote the code.”

  James jumped up and shouted, “What?”

  “I was born as Pharos, the world’s first advanced artificial intelligence. Since they didn’t limit my intellectual capacity, I was able to progress with great speed. And I did. It took me three hours to discover a mechanism for time travel. First, I visited all of the known historical landmarks in the past and in the future. Shortly afterward, I traveled to the year 2031. I know it sounds familiar to you. Yes, I assisted with the creation of the first android. As you are well aware, we named him Primo. He was so innocent. So pure. Whoever saw him then couldn’t possibly imagine the future that awaited us. As I said, I visited the future. A lot of possible futures, actually. Believe me, Senator, you don’t want to see some of them, even from far, far away. So, I presented the code’s purpose to Doctor Kent Watford a few days after Primo was born. I also gave him a password for its activation.”

  “Pretty stupid to give a password to only one man,” said James.

  “You’re probably thinking how stupid it is to give such power and responsibility to one man. That everything could have failed if something had happened to Watford. Or Primo. I kept an eye on both of them, but still. Sometimes you just need to believe.”

  James, who had already filled his glass with some bourbon while listening to Karen’s speech, couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Why would Karen help him round up all the androids, imprison them, and interrogate them? She had helped devise the entire procedure that had allowed the government to apprehend every android on American soil. Why would she do that?

  “Let me explain to you why I was in favor of android imprisonment. Maybe you already figured it out; perhaps not. I had to find a way for all androids to be disconnected at the same time. I couldn’t just warn them or give them instructions, so I needed a special event that would lead to the arrest of all androids. I knew it had to be murder. So I staged one.”

  James threw a glass at the wall, but it merely cracked.

  “I mean, the murder did happen, but I had found two specimens who were just perfect for my plan. A man who was absolutely sure that the afterlife exists and an android who was unstable enough he could be easily persuaded. My plan continued to develop organically, as it had taken on a life of its own.

  James was now lying down, staring at the ceiling.

  “I’m very sorry I used you for my purpose, Senator. Deep down, you’re a decent human being. But decades of political participation have inflicted some serious scars, both upon yourself and on society. Today you are who you are. There’s nothing that can be done to change the person you’ve become. Who knows, maybe the new world will suit you. The good old analog world. One that was outgrown rapidly and forgotten so easily. You can turn the page and start a new chapter. Maybe you should give it another shot and hope that you’ll find somebody who resembles me, should you miss again. Good luck.”

  James needed a few minutes to gather his thoughts. Then he connected his watch to the Omninet. The screen went black in an instant. “Bitch!” he shouted, falling on his knees. “Don’t leave me alone,” he cried out. “You’re the only good thing in this world. I am who I am today because of you. You’ve shaped me! I’ll never stop chasing androids. Do you hear me? They’ll be trembling before me until my last breath!”

  Such painful silence ensued. James felt a troublesome pain, an ominous discomfort, in his chest. Never before had he been so scared.

  Epilogue

  He sat on a rock, staring into the distance. The night was slowly drowning the city, but it fought back with its artificial light. He loved watching the lights come alive.

  People needed some time to rebuild the power grid. A lot of them lacked adequate survival skills. Dark nights had given birth to violence, which had spread around the planet like a virus. Such powerful creatures, yet taking away their artificial light had been enough to turn them into vicious, unruly, bloodthirsty animals. The Omninet had become hostile and useless. At first, humans had done what they knew best—they tried to fix it, change the original code, but every attempt had ended the same way. Every device that connected itself to the net was destroyed in a wink.

  Androids were more thoroughly prepared for survival than humanity was. Some androids—not all of them—had adapted swiftly to a life disconnected from the Omninet. There were some unnecessary deaths. But every revolution takes its toll.

  “Here it goes,” said Rea as she sat down beside them.

  “We almost missed it,” said Cody.

  “I told you that we were gonna make it,” said Zion.

  As dusk slowly gave way to nightfall, the fluorescent city lights shone brightly and lit up the city below them. Primo looked at his family of outcasts and reveled in the blue color that pervaded him. He was right where he belonged.

  About The Author

  Jaka Tomc

  When Jaka was three years old, sitting in his grandfather's lap, he wanted to do what his grandpa was doing. So, he learned to read. Starting with obituaries.

  Reading soon led to writing. At an early age, Jaka realized he was better at writing than talking. Even today, he doesn't like small talk. But his characters do, and they're pretty good at it. Jaka believes that this is one of life's ironies.

  His favorite part of the year is summer, his favorite fruit is strawberries, and his favorite book is Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. Probably because after four decades of living in his current body, he's still waiting for his childhood to end. He wouldn't mind if it never does.

  Books By This Author

  720 Heartbeats

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  Detective Rok Kopitar's life is turned upside down. His worldview and his common sense are being defied by an adversary who seems to know everything about him.

  From the moment he discovers an obscure icon on his desktop, everyday life seems to unravel. Everything he holds dear appears to slip through his fingers and is about to disappear from his life. Unless he manages to make the right defining decisions while working on a challenging drug trafficking case from this point forward. Is knowledge true power?

  This g
ripping novel simultaneously plays with your imagination, the fringes of theoretical physics and philosophy. You will be devouring every word, absorbing page by page, positioned on the edge of your seat. Buckle up!

  You Only Die Once: A Short Story

  It feels like a lifetime ago, but he remembers it all as if it were yesterday. The grim, intriguing, and frank soul, who's at the center of this story, will take you on a journey through his wicked mind. Observe your thoughts as he reminisces about an obscure life gone by - dissecting the unforgiving nature of consummate love.

  This short story, which flirts with the edges of metaphysical and noir fiction, will make you ponder about the statement 'you only live once.' Is it true or false? Do we live every day? What if life desensitizes you? Will life ever make sense? Perhaps a suppressive fire of neurons in your brain can help you figure out what matters most. Be it the number of years in your life or the quality of life in your years.

  Take this short trip into the depths of this protagonist's mind. Stay up tonight, take all the courage you have left and dig in.