“You’re an AI,” Vasper concluded. “An android.”
“Those are offensive terms,” Ramak replied, but if he felt insulted, he didn’t show it. His expression remained genial. “There is nothing artificial about my intelligence. I assure you, my mind and body are genuine.”
Kettle was confused. “But you’re not human, are you?”
“Obviously not.”
“Then what can we call your . . . species?” That was probably the wrong word, but Kettle was more interested in finding answers than categoric accuracy.
Ramak smiled like a teacher to a student that had made a naïve blunder. “I am a Tier-Six Quantum Organism, or Q.O.6. for short.” He tilted his head and let his smile morph into a suspicious smirk. “It appears you have no idea what that means, which tells me you’re not from Losh.” He took one more step closer to Kettle. “However, you entered this facility, so I suppose I should deduce that somewhere inside you, you’re at least part Loshian. Yes, I can see from your expression. That’s it, isn’t it? You’re a half-breed.”
“Speaking of offensive terms.”
“One of your ancestors was Loshian,” Ramak continued. “The other from . . . Earth, I think.”
“How did you know that?”
“And what about you?” he asked Vasper, turning to face the sergeant and completely ignoring Kettle’s question. “Are you a half-breed as well.”
“No.”
“Just you then,” Ramak said, returning his eyes to Kettle.
“Loshians,” Kettle said. “We call them Zeroes.”
“Yes, I understand that now. Well then, half-Zero, your presence here leaves me in a quandary. On the one hand, you’ve got me curious. It’s been a long time since anyone has set foot in these halls, and I’d like to know what you’re doing here. But on the other hand, you two shouldn’t be here.”
Kettle didn’t miss the emphasis Ramak put on the last word. There was an implied threat behind it.
“Maybe you should back up,” Vasper told Ramak, edging forward with his rifle pointed at Ramak’s chest.
“No,” Ramak replied. “And you’ll find that your weapon has been deactivated.” The Q.O.6. tilted his head toward Vasper’s rifle, urging him to look at the side panel. Vasper and Kettle both checked. The usual soft lighting on the blocky hand guard was absent. “Pull the trigger if you want,” Ramak told him. “It won’t work.”
“My knife might.”
“That would be . . . unwise.”
“Hey,” Kettle interjected, putting one hand on Vasper’s arm while keeping his eyes on Ramak. “We didn’t come here to pick a fight. Nobody’s shooting or stabbing anybody.”
“Why did you come?” Ramak asked. “Do you even know what this place is?”
“It’s a research facility,” Kettle said with a measure of uncertainty as he remembered Brennov’s briefing. “A storage place for all Zero knowledge. I mean, Loshian knowledge.”
“And may I ask who told you that?”
“The head of an interplanetary corporation.” In his mind, Kettle added, who then tried to have me killed and with any luck is now lying in a giant pool of his own blood.
Ramak tilted his head again, this time to the other side. “You’ve been lied to, half-blood. Whether it was intentional or not, I cannot say, but this is not a research facility.”
Well, that figures. A flood of thoughts paraded themselves through his brain. There was no cure here. There never was. It was all false hope. Brennov needn’t have gone to so much trouble to keep Zero Stock out; there was nothing here that could’ve threatened his empire. Strangely, he found himself not caring anymore. He didn’t want to be responsible for saving humanity. He didn’t want to be a target for death squads either. He just wanted to find his daughter and try to at least make things right with her. There was no getting back to Earth, but maybe they could make a life somewhere else.
“What is it then?” Vasper asked, his voice bringing Kettle back to the present. “If it’s not a depository for knowledge, what is this place?”
“It’s a way station.”
“What?”
“A way station. A necessary stopping point between stages on a journey.”
Kettle shook his head in frustrated confusion. “I’ve come too far and endured too much for riddles, Ramak. What are you talking about?”
“This is a facility where Loshians come to die,” Ramak told them. “And I help them move on to the next world.”
“You mean, like, heaven?”
“No, not like heaven. Nothing so . . . spiritual. Religion is a human condition amongst the seventeen worlds, but not for Loshians. They are more, shall we say, practical. They’ve developed their own method of achieving immortality, without the deities and belief systems. You see, when Loshians grow old and frail, and their mortal body can bear no more, they bring themselves to a way station where an organism such as myself assists their transcendence. I use equipment that – and I don’t mean to offend you – is well beyond your understanding, to digitize their minds. Once in digital form, they are free to move on to a place we call the Vastlands.”
“A virtual existence,” Kettle said.
“One that feels as real as this one. In some ways, even more real.”
“And they live on forever?”
“As long as they wish. Forever if they choose.”
“And you, Ramak? Can you go to this place when you die?”
“Quantum organisms don’t die. This is why we serve in facilities such as this one; time is largely irrelevant to us. But to answer your question, yes, I can travel to the Vastlands anytime I wish. In fact, I am capable of existing in this world and that world simultaneously.”
“What are you, Ramak?”
“I am a creation of your Zeroes, half-blood. A creation with the ability to exceed all human endeavors.”
“That’s chilling.”
“I understand. Many feel this way when they meet us.”
“And that’s where all the Zeroes went then? They’ve gone to the Vastlands?”
Ramak paused and then wagged his head. “No. Not all.”
Kettle’s brain stuttered momentarily as he took in quantum organism’s response. “Ramak, where did the rest go?
“That’s a difficult question to answer. My access to Loshian networks outside of this facility is somewhat limited. However, it is logical to assume that there are two distinct populations of ethnically pure Loshians in existence at present.”
“Pure?”
“Not half-blooded, like you.”
“What do you mean by two distinct populations? Where are they?”
“When Losh fell to the virus and the planet was cleansed in fire, the two groups of survivors went in separate directions. The smaller group went into the seventeen worlds to live in secrecy. Their descendants still come here from time to time when they are ready to die.”
“Are there some on this planet? Could we find them?”
“Why would you want to?”
“Information. Maybe they’ve made progress on finding a cure for the virus. Hell, maybe they’ve found a cure already.”
“Highly improbable.”
“What? Why? How do you know?”
Ramak smiled, and Kettle was again reminded of the teacher-student relationship. “They have forsaken the old ways. Now, for the most part, they live in secluded hamlets scattered around the worlds. They don’t seek scientific knowledge, they don’t create new technologies, and they don’t attempt to make right the wrongs of the Loshian past. They seek solitude, not redemption.”
“That’s . . .” Kettle started, searching for the right word. He thought of the damage the Zeroes had done, unleashing a virus with the power to kill billions. Countless lives ruined, and countless more in imminent danger. His own daughter, Emma, ripped from her own world, literally, and put in harm’s way. “Disgusting,” he concluded.
“They are human,” Ramak said objectively, as if this explained the Zer
oes’ behavior.
Kettle pointed a finger at the Q.O.6. “That’s an unfair generalization.”
Ramak nodded and said, “Maybe.” It didn’t sound convincing.
Kettle opened his gob and the beginnings of a tirade on the redeeming features of the human species began to bubble up from his chest. Before they had a chance to spew forth, the more analytical and less emotional portion of Kettle’s brain told him convincing Ramak to reexamine his prejudices would be about as easy as persuading Saeliko to become a nun and join a convent.
“You might have better luck with the other group,” Ramak stated upon recognizing that Kettle’s open mouth wouldn’t be producing words.
“Huh?”
“The other group. The population that didn’t distribute themselves among the seventeen worlds.”
“Right.” The American contemplated this for a moment. “They stayed on Losh?”
“Of course not. The virus would have killed them.”
“But they’re not in the other seventeen worlds?”
Ramak gave off a slight tssk. “I already told you that.”
“Then where the hell did they go?”
It was Vasper who answered. The soldier, light on words as always, gruffly provided the solution in a single syllable. “Space.”
Kettle looked at him, and then back to Ramak, who nodded. “You’re kidding?”
“They went off-world in their own dimension.”
“Outer space? Like, in space ships.”
“Well they didn’t grow wings and fly there.”
He thought it odd that Ramak was employing sarcasm, but he also realized that he shouldn’t think it odd. The Q.O.6., Kettle suspected, wasn’t programmed to be sarcastic; he was an organism in his own right. He was fully sentient.
That begged further consideration. Hell, it begged outright astonishment and a cascading avalanche of questions. But not right now.
Outer space. Kettle let it sink in. Why would they have bothered to invest in all the technology needed to explore their universe when all they had to do to find livable terra firma was to pop through a verse gate? There were seventeen planets to build new beginnings on.
It took him only a few seconds to realize the flaw in his thinking. They didn’t invest in the technology because they already had it. Kettle thought to Earth. They hadn’t discovered the verse gates yet, but the U.S., Russia, China, India, they all had space programs. Who knows how much further the Zeroes had gotten with their own space programs before they stumbled upon the verse gates. When the virus hit, maybe the Zeroes didn’t need to rapidly create the infrastructure and organizational power to reach out into the vastness of space. Maybe they already had it.
“Where?” he asked.
“Space,” Ramak repeated.
“No. I mean, where in space?”
The quantam organism gave a subtle shrug and a non-committal smile. “Multiple destinations. There were a lot of them.”
“Space stations? Or planets.”
“Both.”
“In their own solar system?”
“Yes, and beyond.”
“Beyond? You mean, they’ve gone interstellar?”
“Yes.”
“As in different solar systems?”
“Yes. The most distant colony is in a twelve-planet system approximately thirty-seven light years from Losh.”
Kettle needed a moment to digest just how far ahead the Zeroes were from the rest of humanity. He was no scientist, but he understood (in the most basic terms) just how mind-bendingly difficult the challenges would be to travel to the stars. To make it work, the Loshians had either figured out how to travel at close to the speed of light, or – and this was the real cranium tickler – they had broken that threshold altogether. “Incredible,” he muttered.
“Indeed,” Ramak said with a hint of boredom.
Vasper scratched the thick stubble on his chin and re-entered the conversation. “How many colonies?”
“At last count, they had significant colonial establishments on twenty-three planets and moons, and another seventeen mega-city-class space stations. There are hundreds of smaller research stations, inhabited vessels, military outposts and other inhabited structures, of course, all scattered throughout Loshian space, but they constitute a far smaller percentage of the overall population. All together, these points of habitation are separated into four distinct socio-political entities, each one vying for relative power over the others. The largest of these entities . . .”
“We’re an afterthought,” Vasper interrupted.
“Pardon?”
“The seventeen worlds,” the sergeant clarified. “Classic scorched earth tactics.”
“I don’t get it,” Kettle stated.
“They cut their losses.” Vasper ran his hand through his unkempt hair and offered Kettle a mirthless smile. “They knew they couldn’t contain the virus, and they knew it would eventually seep through the verse gates. They already had a viable escape route, so they burned their planet and left the rest of us to deal with the mess.”
“Abandoned us.”
Vasper grunted in agreement.
“Is that true?” Kettle asked Ramak and took another step forward. “Did they desert us?”
Ramak’s eyes glanced upward, as if in thought. Then he said softly, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.”
“What?”
“It’s from a poem. An Earth poem. Quite famous, I think. I’m surprised you haven’t heard it. But this is the problem with your non-quantum brains; your memory and learning capacities are rather . . . restricted. Constrained. Limited.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood / And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth.” Ramak said the lines slowly, enunciating carefully. “I believe the poet was describing a moment in which you must make a choice. But not just any choice. A critical choice. One that will determine the rest of your days, and one that you know once made, it cannot be undone, for the other choice will be lost to you.
“Like crossing the Rubicon.”
Ramak thought for a flicker of a moment and said, “Yes. Just so.”
“You’re saying these assholes had the choice of whether to keep working for a solution to the virus or run away into space.”
“That is oversimplifying the complexity of the decision they made, but insomuch as it matters, you’re correct.”
“And they chose to abandon us.”
“They chose to save themselves.”
“They were cowards.”
“They were pragmatists.”
“How could they have done that?”
“Do you have children, half-blood?”
His thoughts flashed to Emma. “Yes.”
“How many?”
“One.”
“Boy or girl?”
“Girl.”
“And could you look your daughter in the eyes and tell her that you were prepared to let her die just so you could save a group of strangers on other planets? When the virus began to eat away at her flesh, would you bask in the glow of your righteousness while you watched her die? Would you tell her that her pain and torment was justified? Or, half-blood, would you have made the same choice the Loshians after all?”
Kettle didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“Besides,” Ramak went on, “they didn’t abandon you to certain death.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re still here, aren’t you? You draw air into your lungs, blood pumps through your veins, you walk the ground. More than that, as a species, you’re still in control of your own destiny. I hesitate to delve into philosophy at this point, but I’d wager even you would agree that you’re not an agent without agency. There are steps you can take.”
“Steps I can take to do what
?” He tried not to sound anxious. He also tried not to give himself hope where there was none.
“To stop the virus.”
“Tell me.” Again, he pushed down any hints of optimism in his voice. He full-well expected Ramak to tell him that they would need to nuke entire planets or start building rockets to the stars.
“Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe the Loshians have found a cure. It is probable that they would have continued working on the problem to ensure that the virus didn’t follow them into space.”
“They’re in space, Ramak. Outer space. Light years away. We can’t just go there and ask them.”
The quantum organism smiled a condescending little smile and shook his head. “Oh ye of little imagination.”
And then Ramak proceeded to explain to them how to find the Loshians.
3.10 EMMA
She stood on a field of long green grass surrounded by rows of tall oak trees. At least, they looked like oaks; it was still sinking in that she was standing on a planet in a different dimension than the one she was born in.
Tears streamed down her face, trapping some loose strands of dark hair on her cheek. She couldn’t help it. A flurry of emotions cascaded through her mind and chest, and she neither knew how to process them nor understood where they began and ended. They ranged from mere anger and spite all the way to sincere gratitude, and back again to unmitigated shock, all with some curiosity thrown in. Nevertheless, given her journey, she felt it justified. She didn’t brush the tears away.
She stayed close to the man standing beside her. His name was Dallas. She trusted him, though she couldn’t say exactly why. To Emma, he radiated a feeling of security. She had felt it when he first broke her out of the jail in that weird facility. Dallas wasn’t that much older than she was, but he was tougher than those old oak trees (or whatever trees they were), and he wasn’t going to let anyone hurt her. Or maybe she was just naively hoping that he was her noble protector without comprehending his true intentions.
On her other side, Saeliko stood quietly. Emma didn’t feel the same way about her. Saeliko didn’t project an aura of safety; she projected entirely the opposite feeling. There was something less human and more animalistic in the way she operated. Emma wasn’t sure how to put it into words. Predatorial, maybe. You could see it in the way Saeliko moved. She didn’t walk; she loped.
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