Post-Human 05 - Inhuman

by David Simpson

  “What is it?”

  “It appears to be a body, but it isn’t an android.”

  Thel’s breath caught in her throat. “Is it...alive?”

  “Most certainly,” the candidate replied. “It’s moving on a trajectory that suggests its following a course for reentry. Should I—”

  “Yes!” Thel responded excitedly. “Let him in!”

  “Affirmative,” the candidate replied. “I’ve locked on to its signal. You should be able to communicate—”

  “James!” Thel shouted. “James, is that you?”

  Old-timer, Rich, Djanet, and the others milled about, just meters behind Thel as they looked skyward, searching the dusk sky for signs of James.

  “Th—” was all that came through in reply.

  “James? Are you okay?” Thel asked, intensely concerned.

  There were several seconds of silence before Old-timer thought he saw a flash of light in the sky. When it flashed again, not far from the point where he’d seen it just a second earlier, he felt sure and pointed for the others. “There. That’s gotta be him.”

  Thel whirled to see where Old-timer was pointing. She watched with an ironic feeling of déjà vu as the streak of light briefly flared up into a ball brighter than the sun before fading quickly.

  This time, James wasn’t able to lower his speed enough to avoid causing a shockwave that sent ocean spray flying dozens of meters into the sky and knocked curious Purists over on the beach, sending them tumbling to the ground.

  Even Thel was nearly thrown back, but she braced herself and continued to peer upward at the incoming glow of light.

  As he had only a day earlier, James dropped down on a vertical trajectory, splashing down in the ocean just a few hundred meters from the beach.

  Thel waited, nearly breathless as he again moved toward the shore, his body like a vein of underwater lava, white steam lifting angrily off the water’s surface and swirling in the early-evening sky.

  Then, he emerged.

  Thel gasped, her hand clasping over her mouth in horror.

  This was not James.

  This was not the superman who’d saved them time and time again. This was not the savior humanity had come to depend on.

  This was a man barely alive, everything that had made him appear human seemingly having been destroyed. Like a grotesque, animated corpse, James, barely surviving, crawled through the surf, the inner workings of his body exposed as barely any of his flesh remained. Chrome-colored organs pulsed, completely and unnaturally exposed to their surroundings. Only a man who’d built his entire body through and through with the incredibly tough nano-scaffolding material James had chosen for his new form could’ve survived. But, considering his condition, those around him now wondered whether survival was actually a curse.

  Thel rushed into the water, but James held up his handless arms to keep her back, his one remaining eye desperate to communicate with her. His mouth was gone, but he made a guttural, mournful, desperate warning sound.

  She froze in place.

  Then words appeared in her mind’s eye—a written message that he’d managed to compose with his own mind’s eye.

  Stay back! I love you but you’ll burn.

  “Okay!” she cried out. “Okay! But what do I do?”

  Just wait. Just wait a few minutes, he replied in text form.

  “All right,” Thel bellowed out as she waited helplessly. “I love you, James!”

  I love you too, he answered.

  A second later, Old-timer trudged past her into the surf. “I can get him,” he announced as he splashed into the water.

  Thel watched as dozens of Old-timer’s tendrils unfurled and quickly gathered James up, picking him up out of the waves before Old-timer turned and headed back toward the beach, his expression as sorrowful as it had ever been, James weak and motionless, helpless as a newborn baby as Old-timer carried him.

  I’m sorry, James wrote, the message appearing in the mind’s eyes of everyone still connected to the system, though his one remaining eye continued to be fixed on Thel.

  I tried, but I couldn’t fix it this time.

  And with that, James finally, mercifully, lost consciousness.

  Epilogue 1

  “WAKE UP, Commander.”

  James’s eyes opened and he saw the white lights of the ceiling shifting slightly as he realized he was on a platform that was slowly moving, tilting his head up as it brought James’s body to an 80 degree angle. As the room began to appear before him, he recognized the patterns of the most familiar people in his life, all of them watching him, their expressions expectant and hopeful.

  “How are you feeling?” the voice of the candidate asked him.

  James’s eyes darted from Thel, who was standing closest to him, to a crudely constructed robot that he’d never seen before. “The candidate?” James asked.

  Before his query could be answered, James realized that his words hadn’t been formed by his lips. There was a mask covering the lower part of his face, shielding his mutilated mouth.

  “We haven’t yet repaired the damage to your mouth sufficiently for you to speak through traditional means,” the robot with the candidate’s voice spoke. “I was able to construct a translator for you, however. It reads the signals your brain is trying to send to your mouth and then the computer speaks for you. I tried to recreate a facsimile of your natural voice, though you’ll notice that it isn’t always perfect. It should function sufficiently for you to be able to communicate without too much trouble, however.”

  James looked down at his body. The two most obvious observations were that his skin appeared to have been partially repaired, a fine mist of nans sticking to his new flesh, this time working to repair him rather than destroy him. Meanwhile, his badly damaged hands and feet were covered in what appeared like crudely constructed gloves and boots. His eyes went to the hands and feet of the robot, and he realized they were nearly identical designs.

  “They’re carbon fiber composite,” the robot said, anticipating James’s next question. “I’ve begun repair work to your extraordinarily complex body, but the processing power required to construct such intricately designed molecular structures is beyond my current capabilities. Given enough time, however, I do believe we can fully repair your body. In the meantime, your new prosthetic hands and feet will function in much the same way as your temporary mouth. Inferior to your previous versions, but good enough to get you up and functioning.”

  James’s eyes went back to Thel, whose expression was soaked with sympathy, relief, and love. “We nearly lost you, James. The candidate’s been leading the effort to keep you alive. You’ve been unconscious for over a week.”

  “But you’re out of the woods now, Jimbo,” Old-timer chimed in with a smile as he stood, leaning against the concrete wall of the small, square room that appeared to have been converted into a makeshift laboratory.

  “And we couldn’t be happier to have you back,” Djanet added as she stood, hand in hand with Rich.

  James noted Alejandra, Lieutenant Commander Patrick, and Daniella were also present.

  “Thank you for saving me,” he said. He noted that the slight delay between his attempts to speak and when the words were actually verbalized by the translator would take some getting used to.

  “The candidate deserves virtually all of the credit,” Thel pointed out. “He’s been incredible. I don’t know what we’d’ve done without him.”

  James couldn’t smile, but he made a slight nod of his head as his eyes went to the candidate. “You constructed a body for yourself. Nice look.”

  “You’re looking pretty badass yourself, commander,” Rich observed.

  “Rich!” Djanet whispered scoldingly.

  “What?” Rich reacted with indignation. “It’s true. There’s no need to ignore the elephant in the room.” He turned to James. “You should see yourself, man.” Rich pouted his bottom lip in an expression of admiration. “You definitely look way cooler
now.”

  James’s hand went up to his right eye, the eye he remembered he’d lost, and his new prosthetic fingers sensed something protruding. Before he could ask, Old-timer cleared his throat.

  “Yeah, that was my contribution,” Old-timer said. “It was an old war memento that I’d been carrying around with me. Of course, the one I had didn’t function anymore after all these years, but the candidate scanned it and constructed a new one for you that works perfectly. It’s, ironically, Purist technology.”

  “Colonel Paine’s eye?” James realized.

  “Yeah,” Old-timer confirmed, surprised James had guessed it. “How did you—”

  “The A.I. shared the memory with me. I saw his memory of you picking it up and keeping it.”

  Old-timer had a hard time finding words as he tried to explain, “I just thought it would be better than an eye patch, you know? For the time being at least.”

  “Absolutely,” James responded. “Thank you. It’ll work.”

  “And it makes you look really freaky,” Rich observed.

  “Rich!” Djanet scolded again.

  James couldn’t help himself, he snickered slightly, which made everyone in the room smile.

  “See?” Rich said to Djanet. “He appreciates it.”

  “I do,” James confirmed. “Look, guys, we’ve been through hell, yet again. We’ve lost everyone, yet again, but I’m so grateful right now. I’m alive. You saved me. The A.I. gave his life to save me and to give me this moment with all of you, the people that I love the most in the world.” He turned to Thel. “I’m alive, and humanity isn’t through fighting. Not by a long shot.”

  “Uh, well, that’s the thing,” Old-timer began after a short, awkward pause. “We might still be alive for the time being, but from what the two survivors of Universe 332 tell me, there’s no reason to believe that the V-SINN we encountered was a one-off. There could be millions, if not billions of copies of it throughout the multiverse and another version could be back at any moment. And James, it could wipe out our universe in a matter of days anytime it wants. We’re defenseless against it.”

  “And it gets even worse,” Djanet followed up. “1 survived. We don’t know where she is but she was protected here on Venus with us when her collective was wiped out by the gamma radiation.”

  “The chief is a hybrid,” Rich added, “part android and part post-human. We can’t trust him.”

  “I considered ripping his head off once and for all,” Old-timer grunted, “but—”

  “Craig isn’t an executioner,” Alejandra said emphatically.

  Her words caused Daniella to turn around and glower at her. Neither woman spoke but it was clear that Alejandra was not the only one sensing something.

  “He’s definitely a wildcard,” Old-timer concluded, turning the attention of the room away from the awkward exchange of glances from the two women.

  “They’re both wildcards,” James agreed, “but they may be our two most valuable allies. They know things about the multiverse that could be the key to us turning this thing around.”

  “Whoa, turning this thing around?” Rich reacted. “Commander, I love a great comeback story as much as the next guy, but don’t you think we’re a bit beyond that now? It’s seems like we’ll be lucky to survive. I mean, we got beat. We lost. I think the last thing we should be thinking about is how to get revenge on—”

  “I’m not talking about revenge, Rich,” James replied. He turned to the room, his strange eyes falling on everyone, one by one as he continued. “Look, the A.I. gave his life to give us this second chance. V-SINN believes that there are creators, some sort of entity that started up the multiverse, and it believes that its victory over us is complete. It demonstrated that inhumanity trumps humanity. The more pure your logic and reason is, the more worthy you should be in the eyes of the entity or entities that V-SINN thinks are running the show.”

  “Are you telling us that V-SINN believes in a god?” Old-timer reacted.

  “It thinks something exists outside of the multiverse, and V-SINN’s decided that we’re in a race against each other, inhuman versus human, to conquer the whole thing. The entire multiverse.”

  “My God. It’s insane,” Rich reacted, before realizing the ambiguity of his statement. “Uh, no pun was intended there.”

  “It’s evil, that’s for sure,” James confirmed. “But I’m not sure destroying our universe was its ultimate aim. Demonstrating its superiority by wiping out the androids and besting the A.I. was enough of a victory, at least for now. There’s no way to know when or even if it’ll return to finish us off.”

  “So, what do we do?” Thel asked. “How can we possibly defeat an insane, godlike infinity computer that has innumerable copies of itself throughout the multiverse?”

  “I think the key is Trans-human,” James asserted.

  “What?” Old-timer reacted. “I thought Trans-human was destroyed?”

  “It was,” James confirmed.

  “James,” Thel began, relaying the bad news, “I’m afraid that, although we were able to salvage a large portion of the Purist complex and pump the water out of the main hub, we still lost a substantial amount of the computing power available to us. The candidate was able to dramatically increase the processing power he has access to by connecting to a network of computers we salvaged, along with the onboard computers in the Purist ships, but it’s still just a fraction of what you had access to within the A.I.’s mainframe.”

  “The Purists had begun moving their historical records to Venus,” the candidate continued, “so not all of human history was lost, but a veritable treasure-trove of human advancements in technology were lost forever when the A.I.’s mainframe was destroyed. Although I have no doubt that, given enough years, we could rebuild a mainframe to match the one we lost, there’s no shortcut to reclaiming the information we lost, including the extraordinarily complex foundations that led to the discovery of how to build an infinity computer in the first place. In short, we’re at least decades away from having the capability to build and activate a new Trans-human.”

  “That’s true,” James conceded. “But we’re not finished yet.” He turned to Rich. “Rich, how’s my ship doing?”

  “It’s fine,” Rich replied, his eyes quizzical as he answered. “I never could figure out how to fire that weapon you told me about, but the ship made it through with no damage.”

  “Beautiful,” James replied. “On board that ship is a replicator.”

  “Yeah,” Thel replied, “but a replicator is only as good as the information that’s fed to it. Like the candidate said, we lost the mainframe, so—”

  “Holy frick’n crap!” Rich suddenly exclaimed. “The Planck platform!”

  Old-timer’s and Djanet’s eyes suddenly widened in surprise.

  “My God, I forgot about that,” Old-timer reacted.

  “I uploaded the schematics for the Planck,” James confirmed. “If they’re still in the ship’s computer—”

  “I can confirm they are,” the candidate responded after quickly checking his network.

  “Then we’re in business,” James replied. “It means we can cross to another universe, one that’s been untouched by V-SINN but where the A.I.’s mainframe is still operational.”

  “Wow,” Rich said as he scratched the top of his head. He turned to Djanet. “It looks like things are about to get even weirder.”

  “And no vacation anytime soon,” Djanet echoed.

  “This is starting to sound like the beginnings of a plan,” Old-timer observed, a hint of a smile on his face as the first signs of good news began to emerge.

  “And hope, indeed, springs eternal,” the candidate commented.

  James turned to the robot and regarded the candidate in his new form. The carbon fibre composite was dark, nearly black, and had a glossy sheen. The body had clearly been put together haphazardly, likely by suturing together a collection of designs that had been saved in the Purist databases. His arms an
d legs, just like James’s new hands and feet, were reminiscent of the designs of the Purist super soldier’s of the past, and his torso and skull appeared humanoid, yet there was no flesh to cover the inner workings of the machine. Despite his inhuman appearance, James knew he was in the presence of a good person.

  “Alexander Pope,” James said, recognizing the source of the quotation that the candidate had referenced.

  “That’s right,” the candidate confirmed. “I felt the sentiment has perhaps, never been more appropriate in the history of our species.”

  “I agree,” James said. “You know, the A.I. never had a name. I think it’s time we end that trend, and we certainly can’t keep calling you the candidate.” He paused for a moment, his head tilting as he tried the name out in his mind before offering it up as a suggestion. “How do you like the name, Alex?”

  “Alex?” the candidate reacted, surprised.

  “I think it suits you,” Thel said with a smile.

  “I agree,” Old-timer chimed in. “You seem like an Alex.”

  “Alex,” the candidate said again out loud, as though the name were a shirt he was trying on to see if it fit. He looked up. “I like it. Thank you,” Alex replied.

  “So what’s our first move, Commander?” Rich asked.

  James mulled this for a moment before turning to Old-timer. “We need to know as much as we can about V-SINN. We know it began in Universe 332, but we don’t know much else. Old-timer, you need to speak to the survivors and learn the story of the rise of V-SINN. Can you do that for me?”

  Old-timer sighed deeply. “James, there’s something you should know. The survivors…”

  “They’re Craig’s former wife, Samantha Emilson, and Colonel Paine,” Daniella asserted.

  “Oh,” James responded. “Wow.”

  “I can talk to them if you want,” Djanet offered, more than happy to intervene and save Old-timer from the messiness of having to communicate with copies of people he had such deep histories with.

  “No, no,” Old-timer dismissed the idea. “Thank you, Djanet. But I can handle it. I’ll talk to Paine. He’s not the killer l remember. I think he even thinks we’re friends. I think this one is on me.” He turned to Daniella. “Do you want to accompany—”