“Er, then why did you steal his car?”
“I borrowed the car. I didn't steal it.”
“So why borrow it? To give the patents away to Ms Bell?”
“Nothing so sordid. I needed it to fetch some supplies, I’ve been preparing a little something.”
“Or to disable the rest of Mad-Sci-Soc?”
“Well it’s true that matters have not, er, gone strictly to plan. But I have predicted this coalescence of time-lines on this day and location.”
“So you are a time traveller?”
“We're all time travellers, Aaron.”
“But you go forwards faster and sometimes backwards.”
“Splendid! Something else unexpected. You've worked that out?” he said with amicable glee.
“Absolutely. You can't fool us, Max. But what's the point of all this?”
“Well I can tell you. And Conrad... I'm sure Conrad is listening in. Hi Conrad.”
“He's listening,” I said.
“It's all about the Holding Matrix. Do you know what that is?”
“It's the cheese. And your Mind Transfer device.”
“Again. You're one step ahead of where I thought you'd be. Bravo. I must have missed something in my probability model. Perhaps I need to tweak the parameters associated with the vagaries of time travel.”
“You've missed a lot, Max. Because this is where we stop you going fast forward into the future, to stop you going back to past and stopping this timeline,” I raised my arm and threatened to dart him.
“Sure if this timeline fails I may have to loop around again. That’s my super-power. It’s pretty neat, eh? Ah, I understand now, PK. You see me as a threat? I'm not the bad guy here. I just want to put a small ding in the universe, not to mess it up,” said Max arrogantly. “Perhaps we can resolve this misunderstanding, could you lower your weapon?”
“Not just yet, Majestro! There's an insurance excess on that ding.”
“Touché. That's A-one banter, Aaron. I'm almost impressed. But you have no justification for threatening me. It's only an adrenaline-fueled reaction to your covert entry into this building.”
“You stole this car!”
“Technically, since I paid for it, I'm probably the legal owner of the car.”
“Er?”
“I feel I don't own it either, it's true. But as treasurer and main donor to Mad-Sci-Soc, I paid for it all. I think you'll find that legally I have substantial rights. If we started a court case, we could be arguing about it for years. I feel I am entitled to borrow it, or indeed any other club property. That includes your costume; the dart gun too, which, by the way, you have yet to release the safety catch upon.”
“There's a safety catch?” I said looking at the device. I heard a warning bleep from my headset.
Too late! As soon as I looked down, Max gestured to a nearby holoscreen to activate a trap.
My psychic ability app was kicking in and sent me two further warning bleeps that, if you had the manual, translated by tone and frequency to “Danger! Force Field Activating.” Max's outline changed from yellow to red.
The trap was thus, an auto-net dropped from the ceiling and spun around me, wrapping me tight like I was a fat fly in a hungry spider's web. My force field was no help; it could stop a bullet but could not stop me from being trussed up like squirrel for Christmas.
“Ah. I knew you were lying!” I said as I struggled in the netting.
“A bit of reality distortion, maybe, but no lies, Aaron. I just didn't want to be accidentally punctured by one of your darts. Since I designed them, that would be just too ironic. I know you Brits love irony but it is not my er... cup of tea. Perhaps you can call Conrad in and we can make a deal? We do have something urgent to discuss.”
“Urgent? How about freeing me. That's urgent!”
Max waved away my struggle. “I suspect it is happening now. Let's see if it is being broadcast live.”
He gestured again to the holoscreen to engage broadcast TV, it displayed the finals of “America Still Has Talent.” A teenager was on the show singing, without tone-control assistance, the old song, Please Release Me, Let Me Go.
“You fiend,” I cried out.
“Oh sorry, wrong channel.”
***
Wednesday, February 13, 2123, Quantact building
Meanwhile, simultaneously, Karmen and Terri received a message from Conrad. “PK's been stopped by Max. Be prepared!”
“Who's the visitor here then?”
Out of the shadows, be-suited as usual, stepped Max! The first proof that Terri was right. Max had been at least copying himself, and probably time traveling.
“Two Maxes. Just as we suspected,” said Karmen unconvincingly.
“Ah Karmen... I thought you might have turned up,” smiled Max.
Then Terri stepped out from behind her and Max was momentarily taken aback.
“Terri?! As Cloudera? Ok, not so predictable. I'm so pleased to see you here,” he beamed.
“You are? I wish the feeling was mutual, Max,” Terri replied, she raised her weapon arm to stop him approaching.
“I thought you would have left New York years ago…” mused Max.
Karmen interrupted. “So how many of you are there, Max? I can't believe there is just two!” she twittered as aggressively as she could.
“This is exceptional deduction, Karmen. I can go into that in a minute but I just want to say that I'm glad you're here. I need your help. Both you, Karmen and Conrad's help... even Sidekick Guy.”
“It's Psychic Kid!” corrected Terri.
“Whatever. We are all doomed unless we stop this monster we've unleashed.”
“It’s the singularity, isn’t it? You’ve brought it from the future!” spat Terri.
“Terri, Terri. We’ve gone over this; machines can never ever become sentient. They are just computer code giving the appearance of intelligence,” said Max patronisingly.
“What is it then? We know you’re to blame!”
“It’s not me. The monster is the Gruyère… it’s the cheese not a machine, that has achieved the singularity. It is sentient and apparently very nasty. It has amassed an army of huge robots with no Asimov rules holding them back. Technically, they are actually cyborgs. Cyborgs with a hive mind.”
“Whether it is cheese or cyborg, we know you had something to do with it!” raged Terri.
Max tried to be reasonable. “Look, we digress. Academically interesting but we will be attacked tonight according to the probability models. Starting here and then moving out to take over New York and there is nothing on this planet to stop them except for us, Mad-Sci-Soc. We're the only ones.”
“No, we're here to stop you, Max,” said Karmen shakily.
“Stop me? Why? We're on the same side. We are Mad-Sci-Soc!”
“Because you're the cause of all this. You can't keep on going back and forth in time trying to find the perfect solution for your love life and ever-lasting life!” snarled Terri.
“I've sorted out both of those, Terri. I've done that alone. That is something else entirely. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t been over to the club to let you know. Heck, if I knew you were in the city, Terri, I would have tweeted you.”
“You could have at least texted,” asserted Karmen, her defenses weakening.
“So it was immortality all along?” challenged Terri.
“Immortality? No, that's a fantasy. To quote scripture, death is the destination we all share. It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. But as the good Steve says, no one wants to die. No, I've been working on a solution to prolong active life. That's not immortality.”
“You are misquoting scripture to suit yourself,” retorted Terri.
“Amen, to that, Terri. It's the crazies that think they can change the world are the ones that do. Is it really that crazy to dream of a better, longer life? Surely, health promotion is not a sin?”
“So we've got you all w
rong?” asked Karmen.
“It’s now all about the cyborgs! I just need your help...” said Max, realising he was winning over Karmen, as he had done many times in the past.
“This is not just rhetorical Reality Distortion, this is real reality distortion. Distorting time lines and worst of all, facts! You ask for help but how do you know all this stuff? About the cheese and the Robot Army? You know something that you're not telling us!” growled Terri.
“I'm not really getting much of a chance...”
“Here's your chance.”
“Can I just show you something? On the broadcast channels?”
“Oh for frack-sake, Max. What is it?”
“An intersection of probability lines in my improbability model plotted after the demise of Max Two.”
“Max Two?”
“Yes, I'm Max Three. Your friends over at Ms Bell are talking to Max One.”
“The original Max?” asked Improbileon.
“No, that would be just Max. Or Max Zero as we like to call him. He's no longer around.”
“Travelled to the future?”
“It's a long story...”
“Damn you, Max. That's the Captain's catchphrase!” said Karmen with surprising venom.
“Catchphrase, no. A deflection respone. He just didn’t want to talk to you,” retorted Max.
Karmen spluttered.
Max continued. “I'll rephrase. I'll summarise. In essence, we are all Max Zero just forked off as different variants. Although we are planning on launching another Max into the future based on Max One. In this timeline, the original Max has been dead for a while. It seems, sorry to contradict you, my dear, we are all mortal.”
“This is like spaghetti. How are we supposed to unravel it all?” shouted Terri.
“Well, you can't. Time travel makes no sense at all to anyone except to the time traveller themselves.”
“So this makes sense to you?” asked Karmen.
“At the moment, yes. But I'm sure that will change.”
“And this doesn't worry you?” said Karmen.
“You cannot stand in the way of progress.”
At that very second, the building shook.
“What's that?” asked the women in unison.
“We're under attack. I believe that Gruyère has absorbed Max Two, with a better than 80% chance of mind meld. It understand all our plans. Hence the pre-emptive attack on us.”
Conrad's voice came over the private communication channel. “Don't be distracted. Plan the Dive. Dive the Plan. Arrest him!”
Karmen and Terri look at one another and nodded, but as they stepped forward to handcuff Max. He smartly stepped back and gestured to a holoscreen.
“Karmen, Terri! This isn't the time!” said Max. “I'm going to have to stop you. Relax. You won’t be harmed. At least, not by me.”
Doors open in each corner of the room and out marched a stream of identical female figures. Even their clothes were the same. A Harmony style, fashionable in 2009... They formed a circle around the two super heroes. The figures were all carbon copies of Terri.
“What the freaking-cyclopic-snake-yanking activity have you been up to, Max?” yelled Terri while staring at the impassive reflections confronting her.
“Sister, you just wouldn’t believe it,” said the Terri clone facing her.
***
Wednesday, February 13, 2123. Ms Bell Building, a few minutes before midnight.
On the broadcast holoscreen, directly in front of me, while I struggled with the netting restraining me, a drone video feed was following the reports of disruption on the subway system, ground tremors, roads buckling as if there were some kind of giant sewer alligator trying to break free. With the amount of radiation in the environment and the number of alligators in the sewers, a giant sewer gator attack had been foreseen by a band of entrepreneurial handbag manufacturers and had developed suitable contingency plans. But no, it was not gators or even giant rats causing the problem but giant robots built from fridges similar to the one seen in Queens a few weeks previously but bigger, armoured and weaponised. The first view of fridge-mageddon, was a robotic fist punching through a roadway causing metal and rubble flying everywhere, crashing into nearby buildings and cars, momentarily disrupting the flow of traffic, until alternative routes were calculated and the buzz of automated traffic resumed. A robot had smashed a hole in the road and rose up out of it. Without pausing, it purposefully made its way towards the Quantact building crushing auto-autos with each step, the traffic flow continued unabated, easily identifying new routes along the increasingly debris strewn road with most vehicular occupants being unaware of the monstrous robot, unless, that is, they too were stepped upon.
“Are you controlling this?” I accused.
“Me? No. This is Gruyère's doing. It controls these cyborgs. It's like a hive mind. This is the enemy. This is what we need to fight!” said Max.
I checked the feed coming from Karmen and Terri. They'd been captured. “Somehow, Max, I don't believe you. Why ask for help and then fight us?”
Another newscast came in. There was another robot rising up from the Hudson, also moving towards the Quantact building. Lights from aerial vehicles illuminated its fridge-door covered surface, dripping with dirty water and snagged debris from the river. This was a pincher movement closing in on Max Three, Karmen and Terri.
Karmen and I could not stop one of these things the other week and that was smaller. Now there's at least two. They're bigger and badder. Their arms are loaded with arms, and by that, I mean BFG-type weapons.
The comms cut out. I could not hear Karmen or Terri.
***
Wednesday, February 13, 2123
We were surrounded by a pincher movement of giant robots, trapped within a trap, defenceless. Held at bay by a replicated mad-man who had out guessed our every move. As his super power was mind-reading this should not have been entirely unexpected. Even though we know that mind-reading is just a mathematical trick, he had been remarkably accurate with his probability modelling despite the few surprises we were able to throw in. If we did not stop him completely, he would somehow go back to the past and change this timeline in any case, erasing us from history. In fact, erasing the whole human race from history if we are not careful. In the short term, if we did not succeed against these Cyborgs, then perhaps in a thousand years, the whole planet would be covered metres thick in one particular material, cheese! Gruyère cheese!
And my girlfriend? She's surrounded by 24 replicas of herself and Really Angry that her ex had made a bunch of sex toys in her image.
I think I need a Jobsian guru to talk me through the stress. Perhaps have a sit down with a nice cup of tea and biscuit. It’s all a little bit too traumatic.
***
Part 2 The Battle to Save Time
Chapter 1 Valentine’s Day
Thursday, February 14, 2123, a few minutes past midnight. Ms Bell Building.
She could be dead.
Reality hit home. This was serious. There were two giant cyborgs closing in on my one true love and I had lost all communication with her.
I received an audio call. Was it her? I couldn’t reach my G-Phone but at least I had voice activated commands.
“Hi, Aaron. How’s it going?” said a familiar male voice.
Jason! What the hell was he calling me at midnight? “I’ve had better moments… argh,” I spat fighting at the netting around me, still trying to access my G-Phone wrist control.
“A bit tied up?”
“Literally! This isn’t a good time...”
“Oh right. Time difference! Of course. We’re hours behind you. Naoki and I changed our plans. It turns out that, for the money we were paying out for the Virtual Resort, we could take a real trip. We’re in Hawaii! By Hyperjet. Extreme, eh? Yippie-do! It’s gorgeous here, by the way. Palm trees, and ocean. All low level and 2D.”
“I really don’t…”
“So what time is it in New York?�
�
“Jason! We have a situation here!”
“Sorry, pal. It’s early evening here…”
“Watch a news broadcast! Watch the news!”
“We’ve gone au-naturale here. No wireless. I’m using, get this, a land-line! The phone’s got wires. It’s kind of restricting. You can hardly move when you use it.”
“Ditto. Look. Just watch the news, man. It will explain everything.”
“Listen to this! Listen to this! We’ve just had this drink called Okolehao. It’s made locally, by the locals for the locals. I know we are not local but we were able to blag some. It has these amazing medicinal properties…”
Click. I was finally able to disconnect him.
Actually, the news wouldn’t explain much. It would show the giant robots and the devastation in the streets but nothing of my real dilemma. Plus the fact, I think Jason was probably overwhelmed by that moonshine’s “medicinal” properties.
“Who was that?” said Conrad on the private channel.
“A friend. Or rather an ex-friend.”
“I’ll be with you in a few moments.” I could hear Conrad panting as-if running up steps.
On the holoscreen broadcast I could see two giant robots pounding their fist through the Quantact building like it was a soggy punchbag. With the outer walls shattered they began pulling away the girders as if they were unwrapping a desirable Christmas present.
Conrad burst into the room, very unsuperhero-like, dressed in dark civies, puffing and wheezing.
Max walked out from behind me.
“Conrad, hi. You’re out of shape,” said Max.
“I came as fast I could.”
“You should have used the lifts”
“I might have lost signal.”
“There’s very little metal in this building. It wouldn’t have been a problem,” said Max casually.
“Look! Look!” I spluttered and gestured towards the holoscreen.
“Oh Monsanto! The team is in there? What are their chances?” asked Conrad exhausted.
“Good. We have escape chutes fitted into the one of the elevator shafts. We were expecting this.”
“You were?”
“The probability model. Just as we were expecting you to turn up here.”
“No way.”
“Way.”
“You were?”
“Yes?”
“Before we resume any further Mexican standoffs,” sighed Max. “I’d just like to remind everyone that we need to counterattack against the cyborgs as soon as possible to see whether my preparations have been successful. Max-3 can only hang out for so long.”
Mad-Sci-Soc Page 21
