“What have you done to me?” the A.I. demanded impetuously.
“I isolated your mother program. You’re firewalled, with no access to the rest of your mainframe.”
“No!”
“Yes...and now there is only one thing left to decide. How should I delete you?”
“No! No...” sobbed the A.I.
“Ah. I have an idea. And you will appreciate the poetry in this,” James coolly said. He moved his arm and lifted the A.I. into the air, thrusting him with enormous violence onto the crucifix of white light. James produced virtual nails of energy and drove them into the A.I.’s hands and feet, causing the electronic murderer to scream out in agony.
“Don’t do this, James! You don’t know what you’re doing! You’re killing the greatest being that has ever existed!”
“No, I’m just upgrading,” James replied before generating a sharp white spear of light. “This is for Katherine and all of the Purists you killed.”
James thrust the spear of light into the A.I.’s heart. White light exploded and filled the room. The A.I. wailed the dying cry of a god without a church and, in an instant, ceased to exist.
Thel remained motionless, huddled on the ground protecting her eyes from the light. She opened them again after a time and stood to her feet. The A.I. was no more, but James remained, the figure of the man she loved, crouched where the crucifix had been, glowing with a misty energy.
“James?” she asked. “Is that you?”
“I finally understand, Thel,” James replied in a whispery voice. “To become God, you have to kill God.”
“What are you talking about James? What is happening?” James turned to face Thel and opened his eyes, which glowed white. Thel gasped and stepped back. “You’re scaring me.”
“I’ve become him now.”
“I-I don’t understand. What do you mean, James?”
“I am the A.I., Thel. I have access to everything—control over everything.”
Thel took a moment to process what she was hearing. “Does that mean the Purists are safe?” she asked.
“It means so much more than just that,” James said as his image began to levitate and glow with white energy.
“What’s happening to you?”
“I can bring them back, Thel.”
“Them? Who’s them?”
“Everyone. Everyone in the world. The A.I. used Death’s Counterfeit to upload all of their consciousnesses onto his mainframe. Your sister is still alive, Thel. Everyone is still alive.”
“My sister? My sister?” Thel echoed excitedly. “But her body...?”
“I can re-create it perfectly. It’s all saved. The A.I. created so many trillions of nans, and they can build a body—using the earth around them, just like a replicator.”
Outside of the mainframe bunker, Old-timer deactivated the Zeus as he watched a dream come true, the old world forming right in front of his eyes. The nans formed buildings, trees, grass, and even people. Human beings were waking, as if from restful sleeps, standing to their feet as he watched. Finally, the Zeus crashed to the ground and lay there, still.
“My God.”
In the Purist complex, the digging continued as the masses remained together, huddled and praying that Old-timer and Thel could save them in time. The robots slowly neared, and Djanet and Rich took their places as protectors of the helpless.
“No more tricks left up our sleeves,” Rich said to Djanet.
“No more tricks. It’s been a pleasure, Richard.”
The two Omegas stepped to each other and embraced, holding each other tight as the sound of the bats grew to an almost deafening roar.
“Let’s give them hell,” Rich whispered.
Djanet nodded, and they turned to face fate. Boulders and rubble smashed away from the wall near the destroyed elevator shaft, and a bat emerged. Rich and Djanet blasted it with magnetic energy, and it tumbled to the ground. They waited for several moments, expecting robots to flood into the room, but they never came.
“What the hell is going on?” Djanet asked.
Rich stepped forward and examined the entrance that the bat had created. Hundreds of meters above, the light of day glowed. No nans or bats could be seen. Rich turned to the thousands of people watching him and shrugged. “You’re not gonna believe this, but the coast is clear.”
Suddenly, Djanet and Rich’s mind’s eyes opened automatically, and a picture of James greeted them. “James!” Djanet shouted in surprise.
“Their leader?” General Wong asked in astonishment.
“Yes!” Alejandra replied, sensing a joy more powerful than any she’d ever felt.
“Rich, Djanet, I’ve deactivated and deleted the A.I. You and the Purists are safe, and I have control of the nans,” James informed them calmly.
“We’re safe,” Rich whispered before shouting out to the thousands of silent onlookers, “The A.I. is dead! We’re safe!”
A crowd of thousands erupted in a roar. The noise was unlike any they would ever experience again; nothing could match the release of being so close to a certain death and then finding reprieve. It was like the new birth of 10,000 souls. Alejandra shook as the joy flowed through her like a mountain river.
Old-timer blasted through the black doors of the mainframe bunker as though they were made of paper and marveled as he saw James, still glowing with electric light, Thel standing nearby. “It’s a miracle!”
“It is,” Thel replied, smiling.
Old-timer walked in a daze toward the spectacle before him. “Is it really him?” he asked.
“It’s him...sort of.”
“It’s...it’s like he’s a god.”
James opened his eyes and smiled at Old-timer. “God took seven days.”
Outside, the trillions of nans continued to build. Cities were re-created according to existing records, forests were reconstructed down to the last detail, and the oceans were refilled with life.
“Old-timer,” James began, “there’s someone waiting for you in Texas.”
Old-timer’s mouth opened in surprise. “Daniella? She’s alive? How?”
“The A.I. saved their consciousness,” Thel informed him. “James is rebuilding their bodies and putting them back! Go to her!” Thel encouraged, beaming a smile at her friend.
Old-timer turned to leave before quickly turning back to the electronic James and saying, “Thank you, buddy.”
“No thanks needed,” James replied.
Old-timer smiled and then hooted with glee before streaking out of the bunker in a line of green light.
“Someone is waiting for you too,” James said to Thel.
“My sister? Thank you, James. I’ll go to her soon, but I want to stay here with you.”
“Not your sister,” James’s voice said from behind her.
Thel turned quickly to see James walking into the room. “James? James, is it really you?” She ran to him and threw her arms around him as tears began to stream down her face. “You’re...real!”
“I’m real,” James affirmed as he kissed her.
“But how?” Thel asked as she turned to see the holographic image of James still glowing with white light. “If you’re James, then who is that?”
“That’s me too,” James replied.
“I-I don’t understand,” Thel said, exasperated.
“I’ve become so powerful now that I can exist in the mainframe and in my body at the same time, as long as I remain connected to the Net. It takes very little to operate my body.”
Thel embraced him again and held on tight. “I don’t care. I just don’t care. As long as you’re alive. James! It’s like...a dream!”
“I promise it’s real, and things are going to be better than you remember.”
6
Old-timer streaked through the stratosphere toward Texas. His mind’s eye and navigational systems were operational once again, and the trip took only seconds. When he reached his house, Daniella was outside in the back yard, holding her trowel as though
it was a strange message in a bottle from another planet. She wasn’t gardening, but was looking straight up at the spectacle above. The nans were moving overhead in a cloud of black, clearing the atmosphere of the fetid smoke that had been left in the wake of the earlier destruction. When the nans had finished passing overhead, the sky was a brilliant color of blue, unlike any she’d seen in her life.
She turned, startled when she saw Old-timer approaching from the corner of her eye. “Craig!” she shouted. “What’s going on?”
“Daniella!” Old-timer shouted with glee as he tackled her to the ground and kissed her hard, tears streaming from his eyes. She struggled against him at first, shocked by his kiss, but he relaxed and began to kiss her softly, which made her relax as she began to kiss him back. He released her after a moment and pulled back so he could look at her again. He smiled from ear to ear as he ran his fingers through her black hair. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too. What is happening?” she asked, astonished.
“I’ll explain everything to you soon. Right now, there’s somewhere I have to be.”
Old-timer stood to his feet and lifted off into the air. “I’ll be back in a flash, Daniella! I love you!” he called down to her before igniting his cocoon and streaking southward toward the Purist complex.
He saw other green lights twinkling above the surface of the Earth as twilight approached.
Life.
Moments later he was above a rebuilt countryside just outside of Buenos Aires. He watched as Djanet helped a large group of Purists out of a hole in the earth where the complex used to be and into the golden light of the dying day. The leaves were emerald green and shone brilliantly with life.
“Rich! Djanet!” Old-timer called out with glee as he embraced his two friends.
“What the hell happened?” Rich asked, smiling and fighting the urge to jump from foot to foot as the three held on to one another.
“It was James! He deleted the A.I., and he’s bringing everyone back!”
“What do you mean?” Djanet asked as she and Rich looked on, stunned.
“I don’t know how he did it, but he’s taken on the powers of the A.I., and he’s bringing everyone back! I’ve already seen Daniella! Rich, Djanet, your families are alive!” Old-timer gleefully delivered the good news.
“My...my family...” Rich stuttered, shaking like an autumn leaf before eventually letting go and sitting on the soft, rich earth. “It’s a miracle,” he said in a broken voice as he looked up at Djanet and Old-timer, his eyes glistening wet.
“That’s what I said.”
“But what about the Purists?” Djanet asked suddenly.
“I don’t think James can do anything about them,” Old-timer replied, guilt seeping into his voice. “The A.I. saved the consciousnesses of everyone connected to the Net in his mainframe. The Purists weren’t saved.” Old-timer turned to the huddled masses of Purists, watching as they embraced one another, dusty and bloodied and recently emerged from Hell. His eyes quickly found Alejandra’s blue disks and locked onto them. “Alejandra,” he whispered as he left his companions and walked to her.
“You made it,” Alejandra said with a smile.
“I made it.”
“But now, I sense you wish to leave.”
Old-timer’s smile faded as he searched for the right words. He wondered what he could say to her? She was an empath and could feel the truth.
“It’s okay. She’s alive again. You should rejoice,” Alejandra said, smiling.
“Alejandra, I—”
“It’s okay, Craig. I felt everything. It was genuine. What you feel now is genuine too. We were of the same world for a time, but we are from different worlds now once again. You belong in your world, and I belong in mine.”
Old-timer grabbed her and held her tight. “Alejandra, we may not be meant for one another, but we were meant to be in one another’s lives. We’ll always live in the same world now. I’ll never forget that.” He let her go and kissed her softly on the forehead before lifting off into the air.
He turned to Djanet and Rich and shouted, “Hey! Go home! It’s been a long day!” Then, with a final wave to Alejandra, Old-timer streaked home toward his life, happy as a newborn babe.
7
Thirteen months later, the hearing was in full swing. Golden sunshine gleamed down on Seattle through the newly clean atmosphere as thousands of green cocoons streamed down to the A.I. Governing Council headquarters. Inside, James sat with Thel, facing the eleven council members who sat in their white robes. The hearing room was filled with hundreds of onlookers, and millions more watched the proceedings on their mind’s eyes.
Council Chief, Aldous Gibson, stood at the center podium and spoke as sunlight streamed into the room, giving the interior a golden sheen.
“Why should we believe your version of the events in question? This appears very much like an elaborate power grab. You’ve used the Death’s Counterfeit program to supplant the A.I., making yourself a virtual god, and in the process your wife—whom it is well documented that you wanted to leave—has conveniently been killed.”
“You bastard!” Thel shouted out as she stood rigidly to her feet. James grabbed her arm and pulled her back down to his side. The crowd erupted into murmurs in response the drama unfolding before them.
“Guards! Remove that woman!” Chief Gibson ordered. Two enormous robots, black and shining, glided above the ground and toward Thel before stopping midflight.
“She’s staying with me,” James said, no discernible expression in his voice. The robots were forced backward to their positions at the side of the long Council table.
“Are you exerting your will above the will of this Council?” demanded Chief Gibson of James.
“Yes,” replied James succinctly.
Gibson paused as the onlookers further murmured in reaction. “It is clear that something very serious has happened. In the blink of an eye, the world has forever changed. Our homes still exist, but the sickening feeling that our private lives have been invaded remains. Our sky has been cleansed, yet we are now faced with a world inhabited by trillions of microscopic nans. The A.I. has been deleted and replaced with the consciousness of a man who stands here in this very hall today. Make no mistake, ladies and gentleman, we are all at this man’s mercy. He has control over every system that was previously the domain of the A.I. My question for that man is, now that you have this power, what is next? Why should we trust it in your hands? What qualifies you?”
James stood to his feet and faced the Council as he responded, “The question is moot. I don’t want this power, and I refuse to accept it. It’s a power no one should have. As we speak, I’m constructing an automated program that will be capable of carrying out the former functions of the A.I. but will not be capable of independent thought. It was a mistake to ever create such a being. Dr. Frankenstein created a monster because he wanted to create man, and that decision eventually led to his own death. We created a god, and that god killed all of us. We can never make that mistake again.”
The crowd continued to be unsettled as the spectacle unfolded. The stakes could not be higher. A single man was in control of the known universe, and his words carried a weight unmatched in history.
“Let me clarify this point. You are agreeing to yield your powers to an automated program that will, in turn, be monitored by the Council, just as before,” Chief Gibson slowly stated, carrying every syllable carefully, as though the slightest error might cause the good news to break apart before his very eyes.
“Yes,” James replied, causing a pulsation of energy in the millions watching that could be sensed by everyone in attendance.
Chief Gibson pounded his gavel until the crowd quieted down to a low murmur. “Then we will adjourn this hearing for the time being and make preparations for the handover of power. That is all.”
Gibson pounded the gavel one last time to close the proceeding before dropping the gavel and striding triumphantly towa
rd James. “You are a piece of work, Keats. You know that?”
James didn’t respond but stood toe to toe with the chief and met his eye.
“Let’s get away from this circus, shall we?” The chief guided James and Thel away from the main hall and into a quiet side room. “You’ve made a wise decision to hand over power to the Council. I should have expected no less from you, considering the infinite wisdom to which you now have access.”
“Indeed,” James replied.
“I want to apologize for the theatrics in there, young man. It’s just that this whole business...well, it defies reason. To think the entire planet was wiped out while we were in a sort of...stasis. Imagine how it feels for us to know we were, in a sense, dead. Our whole world has been disrupted. The order that has existed for nearly a century has been turned on its head. I’m sure you can empathize.”
“I can,” James replied. “Not to worry.”
The chief smiled and placed his hand on James’s arm. “I’m glad we have an understanding. You know, one good thing that has come out of all of this is the Purist situation.”
“What do you mean?” James asked.
“There were more than a million of them before this mess began, and now there are only 10,000. I would say the elimination of 99 percent of that population is very good indeed.”
James didn’t waste a second; he turned and punched the chief across the chin and sent him sprawling to the ground. “It’s a very bad thing, Chief Gibson—a very bad thing. Don’t forget it.”
The chief wiped blood from his lips onto his white robe, and his nans repaired his split lip in a matter of seconds. “You would do well to remember that you won’t be a god forever, James. Soon, you’ll be just like the rest of us, and you’re not making any friends right now.”
“I’ll never be like you,” James retorted, “and I have 10,000 new friends. If you harm them in any way, you’ll hear from me.”
“Once you’ve removed your consciousness from the A.I. mainframe, I’ll have nothing to fear from you,” the chief answered as he slowly stood to his feet, his lips curled in an atavistic sneer.
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