“Heh.”
He turned to the cement bench behind him and decided it was finally time to sit. The bench had the look of a tombstone, but he badly needed to get off his feet, as the exhaustion and twisting abdominal cramps had taken too heavy of a toll. He sat on the bench and thought, This is as good a place to die as any, I suppose.
After a few peaceful moments of concentrating on his breath and trying to let everything earthly go, something strange crossed his vision. Far away, on the opposite side of the large pond, his ocular cameras picked up a sight they shouldn’t have seen. The facial recognition picked up Lieutenant O’Brien trudging slowly toward his quarters, apparently unaware that he was supposed to be on duty.
Paine sat upright, tapping his ocular implant to open communication with O’Brien. “Lieutenant! Why aren’t you at your post?”
“Sir? I was relieved five minutes ago, sir.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know—some new guy.”
“There is no new guy. I wrote the schedule myself!”
“It checked out, sir,” O’Brien replied, suddenly realizing the seriousness of the situation. “He was in the system.”
“Goddamn it!” Paine shouted as he jumped to his feet and began to sprint as fast as he could in his diminished condition in the direction of the medical facility.
“Sir? Should I—” O’Brien began, offering his aid.
“No! I’ll handle this myself!”
19
“You’re less than 500 meters away,” Lindholm said through his connection to Aldous’s mind’s eye.
“Thank you, Lindholm,” Aldous replied. “I see it ahead.”
“Lindholm? Who’s that?” Craig asked.
“A friend.”
“And where are we headed?”
“Toward a rather impressive mainframe that I just have to see for myself,” Aldous replied.
“It wouldn’t happen to be a worldwide surveillance mainframe, would it?” Craig asked.
Aldous stopped for a moment, turning to Craig with a surprised expression. “It’s real then? They told you about it?”
“Yes.”
Aldous smiled widely before immediately turning and continuing his march toward the airplane hangar-sized black rectangular building ahead of them.
“How do you know about it?” Craig asked as he marched half a step behind, with Daniella half a step behind him.
“I had to do a lot of hacking to get my super soldier alter-ego into the Purist computer system. While I was there, I found all sorts of fascinating tidbits.”
“You hacked your way in? How?”
Aldous turned back to Craig. “I’m not just a pretty face.”
Craig nearly recoiled as Aldous displayed his newly deformed features, the stretch marks and veins around his ocular implants still blood red with freshness. “Yeah. And how about all the—stuff?” Craig asked as he pointed toward Aldous’s new limbs and eyes. “How’d you pull that off?”
“Much the same,” Aldous replied. “I hacked the Purist system, found the schematics for the prosthetics and implants, and then commandeered the closest 3D printer I could find.”
“You printed them?”
“Yes,” Aldous replied. “They’re inferior to the real thing in the strength and durability departments, but I figured with any luck, they’d be adequate for the task at hand.”
“Which is?”
“To rescue you, extricate the A.I., and upload it into the Purist’s surveillance mainframe.”
Craig’s eyes were wild with disbelief. “Why would you want to do that? That’s exactly what the Purists want!”
“Not exactly,” Aldous replied, stopping to face Craig. “Don’t you see? The system controls everything. Everything! It’s exactly why we built the A.I. in the first place. The Purists think they’ll have control, but they won’t. We, on the other hand, will. Once we’ve uploaded the A.I., this war will be over. The A.I. will have control over everything—their weapons, their soldiers, their police—everything. The Purist government will be finished.”
“Dear God,” Craig whispered. “Okay, so what are we waiting here for? Let’s go.”
Aldous smiled, then turned and continued marching toward the gigantic mainframe building.
A lone soldier—a mere mortal—stood guarding the entrance to the building. He immediately saluted at the sight of a super soldier approaching. “Sir!”
“Open it,” Aldous replied as he saluted.
“Yes, sir!” the soldier replied as he turned and physically pulled the large door open.
“No electronic locks,” Craig noted. “Interesting.”
Aldous, Craig, and Daniella entered the gigantic, dark room, and the soldier closed the door behind them. As soon as the door shut and they were enclosed in darkness, Aldous ignited a small green ball of energy and hovered it above his palm, illuminating their path.
“Where to now?” Craig asked.
“I don’t know,” Aldous replied as he scanned as far into the distance as he could. “I don’t see any equipment or work stations.”
“Anywhere will do,” the A.I. informed them. “It is a structural mainframe, so the entire building is part of the computer. My nanobots can enter this system anywhere along the lines.”
“Excellent,” Aldous replied. “Proceed.”
“Uh...how?” Craig asked.
“You don’t have to do anything,” Aldous answered. “The A.I. is handling it as we speak.”
“I will momentarily be expelling myself from your physical body, Craig,” the A.I. related.
“Expelling? That doesn’t sound pleasant.”
“Yes,” the A.I. answered, his tone as neutral as ever. “This may be somewhat uncomfortable as the process progresses. The nanobots will be leaving through your eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.”
“Wonderful,” Craig sighed.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Craig replied with resignation. “For the greater good, please proceed with oozing out of my head.”
Aldous smiled, faintly amused, but the smile was brief. It was instantly replaced with an expression of surprise and dismay as he saw something over Craig’s shoulder that caused Craig to snap his neck around with alarm.
Colonel Paine was hurtling toward them at full speed, his neutralizer already drawn and blasting at Aldous. The last thing Craig saw was Paine’s shoulder as it plowed into him, knocking him down to the ground and instantly unconscious.
20
WAKING UP wasn’t easy. In fact, it was a painful sacrifice, requiring extraordinary will and determination.
“Craig! You have to get up!” the A.I. shouted urgently. “Aldous is in trouble!”
Craig squinted, his vision blurry as pain seared behind his eyes. The vision in front of him wobbled as though it were a television show tuning in from a weak and distant signal. Like an episode of The Twilight Zone, two half-man half-machine monsters were engaged in hand-to-hand combat. It was difficult for Craig to make out who was who in the tangled mess of flailing cybernetic limbs and sharp prosthetic claws in the darkness, only illuminated by the LED lighting on Paine’s and Aldous’s gear.
“Paine neutralized Aldous’s MTF generator!” the A.I. warned. “If you don’t help him, Paine will terminate him!”
Craig struggled to his knees, his head bobbing from side to side like a punch-drunk boxer trying to beat the count. As he blinked his eyes several times, the picture in front of him began to solidify, and it became clear that it was Aldous, not Paine who was on top, preparing to deliver a death blow.
“You murdered my wife!” Aldous screamed in a guttural fury. His fist was cocked back and ready to strike, but Paine had managed to grasp Aldous’s arm at the elbow and was struggling to keep the blow from crushing his all-too-human skull.
It seemed as though it would be a forlorn effort on the part of Paine, his strength failing him in the face of the radiation poisoning and of Aldous’s overpowering lust for th
e ultimate revenge, but then superior technology began to trump the human advantages of will and determination. Though strong, Aldous’s prosthetics were made from a binding material that was hardened with a resin. In contrast, Paine’s prosthetics were carbon fiber, nearly impossible to fracture. As the two materials worked against each other, inevitably it was Aldous’s forgeries that began to show their inferiority. What began as a loud snapping sound quickly became a buckling, and Aldous’s right arm snapped at the bicep, enabling Paine to twist it, rendering the limb useless. Paine’s teeth emerged, a smile forming that revealed his sharp canines. His hand began to spin in its drill action while still gripping Aldous’s arm, causing the limb to snap off violently and throwing Aldous off of the Purist and onto his back. Paine pounced on him instantly, his left arm cocking back as he prepared to level the drill right into the center of Aldous’s chest.
Craig stood on rubberized legs, cognizant of Aldous’s impending demise, yet unable to command his body to respond. “No!” he choked out pathetically as he stepped forward on his unsteady legs and tumbled to the ground.
As he looked up to see the results of his failure, to his amazement, Daniella had leapt from the utter blackness into the fray, her scalpel still in hand, and expertly plunged the metal instrument into the back of Paine’s neck between the C5 and C6 vertebrae. Paine instantly went limp, crumpling down on Aldous, who tucked his prosthetic legs under the heavy body before propelling the mortally wounded man off of him and several meters away.
Daniella immediately went to Aldous’s aid, the prosthetic arm having been torn apart so violently that the prosthetic shoulder had wrenched gruesomely against the soft flesh of Aldous’s torso. Craig observed in near disbelief, his head clearing slowly as a soft whisper floated through the darkness toward him. He turned to his left and regarded the source of the voice—the broken cyborg from whom a faint light emanated, the pillars of LED light shining straight up into the darkness as Paine remained on his back.
“Doc,” his voice called weakly.
Craig walked slowly to the fallen figure whose head was propped up sickeningly by the silver stiletto of the scalpel. It occurred to Craig that the scalpel was like a pillow in Hell.
“Be careful, Craig,” the A.I. warned. “He has respirocytes, and his limbs are cybernetic. Even with his spinal cord severely damaged, he may be able to strike.”
“He won’t,” Craig replied.
“Craig—”
“I know, I know. This time I’ll be right.”
“Doc,” Paine spoke when he sensed Craig was near. “It’s okay. This is a better death—a good death. Remember, Doc. You’re a good man. Don’t let this war consume you...like it consumed me. Remember.”
Before Craig had time to absorb Paine’s last words, Aldous had knocked Craig aside, driving the drill action of his one remaining hand into Paine’s face, instantly liquefying his skull and sending a froth of blood in every direction. “Die, you son of a bitch!”
Something shot toward Craig and hit him in the left pectoral muscle before falling to the ground. He bent down to retrieve it and wiped copious amounts of blood from its surface. When the blood was removed from the ocular implant, it revealed Paine’s golden iris, still staring forward as intently as ever. Craig’s mental haze instantly vanished as he looked into the eye that seemed to bore into him, right into his soul.
21
“Hurry,” Craig said in a voice muffled by the living gray ooze that dripped from his mouth, nose, ears and eyes. The ooze was a mucous that lubricated the exit of the nans that carried the A.I.’s mother program from Craig’s body. The liquid seemed to form intelligent strings that grasped the open panel on the floor and quickly disappeared into the circuitry underneath. When the liquid stopped dripping from him, Craig sat up and blinked several times, wiping the remnants of the discharge from his face.
“Is it out?” Aldous asked, standing with Daniella, a meter in front of Craig.
“I think so. It’s not talking to me anymore. I think that’s a good sign.”
“Indeed,” the A.I. replied before appearing next to them in holographic form. “Now, this is an excellent holographic projection—much more convincing.”
“That was fast,” Craig noted, impressed.
“This mainframe, though enormously powerful, is relatively simple to navigate,” the A.I. replied. “I am already in the operator’s position.”
“Enjoying your new home?” Craig asked.
“Quite,” answered the A.I.
“What’s the status of the Purists’ armed forces and security?” Aldous asked.
“I am in control,” the A.I. replied. “I’ve neutralized the super soldiers’ onboard computer systems, along with all the computer systems on all their aircraft, ships, weaponry, and so on. I’m already locked into their communications and surveillance systems and I am in control of every system in the globe that is linked to the Internet.”
“Holy...so that means it’s over, doesn’t it?” Daniella asked, astonished.
“Not yet. There’s one more loose end,” Aldous answered before turning to the A.I. “Morgan. Isolate him.”
“Done,” the A.I. replied without skipping a beat. “He’s currently alone in the new oval office in Columbia Bio-Dome. I’ve locked the security doors. From his steady heart rate, I can ascertain that he is unaware of what is transpiring.”
“His heart rate?” Daniella reacted.
“The President is wearing a security apparatus that monitors his vitals at all times.”
“Not very Luddite of him,” Craig noted.
“He’s a murderous hypocrite,” Aldous replied. “I’m going to go have a little chat with him.”
“Craig, would you like to accompany Aldous?” the A.I. asked.
“Me?” Craig replied, surprised by the invitation. “Paine ripped out my MTF. I’m...useless.”
“Not necessarily,” the A.I. replied. “Your MTF is still functional and, it is on Paine’s body in the pocket of his jacket. If you wish, I can painlessly re-implant it for you. You’d be ready to fly in little less than ten minutes.”
Aldous grinned at Craig. “What do you say? I’ve only got one arm. I could use the backup. Would you like to be a post-human again?”
It wasn’t a difficult decision; after having had a taste of what it was like to have wings, having them clipped felt tragic. He nodded. “Yeah. Let’s do it. I wouldn’t mind having a little chat with the President myself.”
22
“His heart rate is elevated,” the A.I. related to Aldous and Craig as they streaked toward the eastern seaboard of the former United States on a trajectory controlled by the A.I. “He’s not yet panicked, however. He tried to exit the room and discovered the doors are locked and that the communication system is down, but he doesn’t realize the extent of his predicament.”
“Good,” Aldous replied, remaining in his super soldier garb, his prosthetic arm still ripped in half. “Craig and I will take care of that momentarily.”
“You are thirty seconds from reaching your destination,” the A.I. noted.
Craig and Aldous streaked toward the illuminated dome together, guided automatically toward a colossal aircraft-receiving door that slid open for them at the A.I.’s command. They maneuvered through the heliport, down to a series of hallways and doorways at a speed that peeled Craig’s eyelids back in disbelief—there was no way a human could maneuver through such tight confines at that speed. “Quite a ride,” he said, his mouth dry.
“Don’t worry. He won’t drop you,” Aldous replied, his trademark confidence as intact as ever.
As the duo emerged from the hangar structure into the wide open space of the dome, the newly reconstructed White House emerged.
“I’m opening the armored security shutters on the windows,” the A.I. informed. “Arrival in five seconds.”
Craig took a deep breath as the window went from a small dot in the distance to filling up his entire field of vision before sha
ttering apart with the force of their entry, the A.I. barely slowing their approach until the last moment.
Then, suddenly, the A.I. let them go. “You have arrived at your destination.”
“No kidding,” Craig replied as he and Aldous lowered themselves to the ground, their protective cocoons casting a green glow that illuminated the entire room in a light that caused Morgan to squint as he knelt on the ground and shielded himself with his outstretched arms.
When they let down their protective fields, the A.I. turned the lights in the room back on, leaving the trio to share an eerie moment of silence. Morgan hesitantly stood to his feet, looking first at Aldous and then at Craig.
“I-I recognize you,” he said. “You’re the fellow with the A.I. inside him.” Morgan’s face suddenly fell as he made a realization. “Where’s Colonel Paine?”
“Was the fellow,” Craig replied, “and Paine’s dead.”
“Dear God,” Morgan whispered. “What is this?”
“Progress,” Aldous interjected.
Morgan peered at the strange figure for several moments, cocking his head to the side and stepping toward him, an expression of disbelief on his face. “Gibson? Is that you?”
Aldous smiled silently in return.
“Oh my God. What have you done to yourself?” Morgan asked as he stepped back in fear.
“Just trying out some of your Purist technology—walking a mile in a super soldier’s shoes. Not to worry. It’s all reversible.”
“You’re a lunatic,” Morgan whispered as he shook his head and continued to step back.
“Oh look...the kettle is black,” Aldous seethed through gritted teeth before pouncing on Morgan, using his remaining arm to grasp the mortal around the back of his neck. Morgan called out in pain as Aldous roughly hoisted him into the air and pointed his face in the direction of Craig. “Anything you’d like to say to the former President, Craig?”
Post-Human Trilogy Page 21
