Old-timer, however, completely understood. As soon as he heard James’s words, it was as if a light switch had gone on. His eyes lit up with understanding.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “Luddites.”
“What?” Rich asked.
“Luddites,” Old-timer repeated. “I didn’t realize it until just this moment. I was fooled by their advanced technology. But just because they’re more advanced than we currently are, doesn’t mean that they’re still advancing.”
“Your arguments crossed the border into ridiculous long ago,” Neirbo replied.
Old-timer’s teeth were suddenly gritted with fury. “Think about it,” he said to his companions. “There are trillions and trillions of these people, all willing to do the same thing, to fight the same war. Where is the individuality? They’re even wearing the same damn style of clothes, for God’s sake!”
“We have individual freedom,” Neirbo replied. “We have chosen to defend humanity against the nanobot scourge. We are here because of our compassion.”
“You shoot me compassionately, son?” Old-timer seethed.
“They have the illusion of individual free choice,” James explained, “but at anytime their leader, the person who calls herself 1, can control their actions.”
“1 communicates with us and leads us. She does not control us!” Neirbo fired back.
“I’m willing to put that to the test,” James replied. He turned to his companions. “We are not going to destroy the solar system.”
“James, are you sure about this?” Thel asked, with a serious look of concern. “You may be right about everything you said, there’s no way to know for sure, but what we do know for sure is that the nans have turned against us! How can we just let them have this solar system to use to reproduce and kill more people in the future? Shouldn’t we destroy the nest?”
“Hello, 1,” James responded without missing a beat.
“What?” Thel answered back.
“I anticipated you would take her first. You’re counting on my emotional connection confusing my reason. However, I have more than just my emotions and reason to rely upon now.”
“James!” Thel exclaimed. “It’s me! I love you! What’s the matter with you?”
“It’s not Thel,” Old-timer asserted, turning to Rich and Djanet. “James is right. There’s no reason to think 1 couldn’t control any of us at anytime.”
“That’s paranoia!” Thel shouted. She threw her arms around James and tried to kiss him, but he roughly withdrew.
“You’re not the woman I love. Stop pretending.”
“You’re wrong, James!” Thel turned desperately to the others. “Don’t listen to him! There’s something wrong with him!”
James kept the gaze of his glowing blue eyes on Thel. “I can see you, 1. I have more eyes than you can imagine.”
“You’re confused,” Thel pleaded. “The A.I. has done something to you! He’s tricking you!”
James ignored her pleas and addressed everyone in the room. “The android system of transferring power sounds perfect on the surface. The android randomly selected to become 1 leads the group for a period of time and then, on the designated date, surrenders the power. Therefore, anyone and everyone has a chance to become the leader. But there’s a flaw. It was only a matter of time before someone was selected leader who would realize that he or she could continue as 1 forever. All that was required was that the randomly selected person be a person of 1’s own creation.”
“Of course,” Old-timer assented, “and that person would continue leading them, essentially, forever. Their civilization followed the singular vision of one entity—like fascism or any kind of dictatorship.”
“It’s even more similar than you think, Old-timer,” James continued. “Just like fascism, they’re xenophobic. 1 has unilaterally decided what is human and what is not and has made it her mission to stop human civilization from progressing into anything that she considers inhuman.”
“Something like you, for instance,” Old-timer observed.
“Exactly,” affirmed James.
“Then that’s their real mission,” Djanet realized, “to find human civilizations and...assimilate them.”
Thel paused for a moment, as though she was considering her next move. Then, suddenly, her body went slack, she released the grip that she had on the wall and she floated for a moment in the zero gravity. “What happened?” she asked.
“1 took control of your body,” James replied. “Any one of you could be next,” he began, “but I already know what her next move will be.”
“You don’t know a thing,” Neirbo replied as he held his weapon up to James with a snarl on his lips. Seeing Neirbo’s aggressive stance, the seven men under his command did likewise.
“Welcome back, 1,” said James. “Long time, no see.”
“You think that body of yours and your new senses make you special?” 1 replied with Neirbo’s lips. “You’re just another abomination.”
“Oh my God,” Old-timer said, shaking his head slightly in dismay. “This sounds so familiar.”
“Picked a hell of a time for déjà vu, Old-timer,” observed Rich.
“I’ve been through this with people before, on Earth, back in the old days,” Old-timer related. “There’s always someone out there who thinks we should draw a line and not cross it and that humanity will be much happier if we just stand still.”
“I’ve been through this more than once myself,” 1 replied. “And I’ve always managed to stop the spread of monsters like him,” she said, gesturing with Neirbo’s body toward James. “Don’t fool yourselves. He’ll just be the beginning. When people are given the reins to become anything they want, they will become unrecognizable...and uncontrollable.”
“We don’t want to be controlled,” Old-timer retorted.
“You’re a petty, selfish, idealist,” 1 answered back. “What I have done, I have done for all of humanity, throughout the universe.”
“Isn’t that what all dictators claim,” replied Old-timer. “You did it for the people? Bull. You just wanted to be number 1.”
1 snapped her neck quickly toward Old-timer, her eyes filled with black hatred, fueled by a war and a conviction that had lasted for centuries. “How dare you speak to me that way!” she thundered with Neirbo’s voice as she used Neirbo’s arm to train his weapon on Old-timer again. 1 fired.
20
James held his hand up once again, palm outward, and the bullets became a harmless puff of smoke that wafted through the air. “That’s not going to happen.”
“What did you do?” 1 furiously demanded.
“If you had allowed your civilization to progress scientifically, you’d know what and how I did it.”
“Your science makes you smug and arrogant,” 1 stated coldly, “but you have absolutely no idea in which direction it is taking you, do you? You’re just blindly moving forward, unable to even realize the simple reality that your science has taken away your humanity.”
“It hasn’t taken away my humanity—it has transcended it. But you are right about one thing,” James conceded. “I cannot see where we are going or what our distant future will hold, and I hope I can never see the boundary of human ingenuity and progress.”
“You have become too arrogant to admit it, but we were meant to have limits,” 1 retorted. “If we do not respect them, we will inevitably destroy ourselves.”
“That’s the same fear I’ve been fighting against my entire life,” Old-timer countered. “You sound like a broken record.”
Neirbo’s head tilted slightly as 1 sent a command message to the troops on the ship. With negotiation at an impasse, she had decided to eliminate James and his companions. In a flash, each of them drew their weapons and fired.
Equally quickly, James held his hand up to dissipate the bullets. However, this time, he didn’t stop with only the bullets. He waved his hands in front of his adversaries, and their entire bodies simply evaporated into a wh
ite smoke that hung in the air.
A brief moment of astonishment from his companions followed. “Where’d they go?” Djanet asked.
“I think you’re breathing them,” Rich replied.
“You killed them?” Thel uttered, aghast.
“They will live again,” James replied. “I’ve just removed them for the time being.”
“Removed them? James!” she shouted, stunned.
He grabbed her shoulders with his diamond-hard hands and pulled her to him. “You’re going to have to trust me. I don’t have time to explain.”
He kissed her.
“But I don’t want you to forget everything that’s happened,” he said. He turned to Old-timer. “Do you still have the device they use to download consciousness?”
Old-timer reached in his pocket and pulled out the small, black stick. “They call it an assimilator.” He handed it to James.
James took it and placed it on Thel’s neck.
She jerked away from him. “No!”
“Honey,” he said, “you have to trust me. 1 can reenter any of your bodies at any moment. She wants to destroy the solar system. I want to save it—and I can bring everyone back.”
“Bring them back?” Djanet gasped. “How?”
“I don’t have time to explain it,” he replied. “I can do it though.” He turned back to Thel and looked deeply and earnestly into her eyes. “I can do it.”
She looked back at him, at his new body, this incredible, almost magical achievement, and replied, “I know.”
“I love you, Thel.”
“I love you, James.”
“See you soon,” James said, winking his left, glowing eye. He placed the assimilator on her neck, and she immediately lost consciousness, her body curling up into the fetal position as she floated gently in the zero gravity. He temporarily transferred the pattern from the assimilator to himself before sending it back to the A.I. on Earth, where it would safely survive the inception of the Trans-Human program and subsequent reversal of the solar system. He then turned to Djanet and Rich. “Your turn.”
Rich winced. “I don’t know about this, Commander. The last time I got stuck with one of those things, I woke up as a robot. I’d really rather not go through that again.”
“This time when you wake up, you’ll be your old self,” James smiled. “I just don’t want you to forget everything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours. You’ve got to trust me, guys.”
“It’s James,” Old-timer echoed, speaking in a reassuring tone. “He knows what he’s doing.”
“All right,” Djanet said, bravely moving forward and floating toward James. “I trust you. Let’s do this.”
James placed the assimilator on her neck, and her muscles instantly relaxed. She remained in a standing position, almost appearing like a sleepwalker as she swayed slightly to and fro. Rich floated to her side and took her unconscious body into his arms. He felt his stomach twist as he considered the thought of never seeing her again. “You better know what you’re doing,” he said to James.
James smiled. “I give you my word.” He placed the assimilator onto Rich’s neck and he too, instantly, went to sleep.
As soon as they were alone, Old-timer echoed Rich. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”
“It’s the A.I.’s plan. It should work.”
“Before you put me to sleep,” Old-timer said, regarding the assimilator in James’s hand, “I wanted to say thanks for taking care of that Neirbo for me. I only wish it had been more painful. I owed him—big time.”
“You may still get your chance,” James replied. “Are you ready?”
“I’m ready,” Old-timer replied.
James placed the assimilator on his friend’s neck and watched him slip out of consciousness. “I’ll see you soon, old friend,” he said as he sent Old-timer’s pattern back to the safety of the A.I.’s mainframe.
“Much sooner than you think!” Old-timer suddenly shouted as his eyes suddenly blazed open and he grasped James around the neck, twisting him around and thrusting him right through the thin hull of the ship and out into space.
Before James had time to reorient himself, Old-timer had turned his attention to the anti-matter missile and quickly removed it from its platform. He mounted it like a cowboy hopping on the back of his trusty steed and launched himself toward the sun. Just as James began to pursue, another wormhole opened up and gulped down Old-timer and the anti-matter missile—it vanished as quickly as it had opened.
“Oh no,” James whispered.
21
Back at the mainframe, James turned to the A.I., who was still standing beside him in the operator’s position. “What can I do? Can we track 1 somehow?”
“No. Not from this range, I’m afraid.”
“I need help here. I’m at a loss,” James responded, panic seeping into his voice. Even with his new powers, he felt utterly helpless.
“Use your reason, my son,” the A.I. replied in a master’s calm and patient tone. “Remember: the android’s limited wormhole technology will not allow her to have traveled a great distance. Also, Craig’s android body will not be able to withstand the sun’s heat for long.”
“Meaning she’ll have to pause and set a course for the missile before the body gives out,” James realized. “I have to find her before then.”
Back in space, he blasted away from the android ship, in the direction of the sun, using his new senses, feeling the molecules around him, waiting to feel the ripples in space that 1 and the missile would have made when their wormhole opened up and spat them out. It wasn’t long before he found them. “I’ve got them,” he affirmed.
1, in Old-timer’s possessed body, raced toward the sun, still mounted on the back of the missile. The blazing-white heat was melting Old-timer’s hair and the flesh on his face, but 1 continued, undeterred.
James overtook them quickly, turning back to see 1’s grimace as the flesh on Old-timer’s metal frame became red with the heat and peeled off, streaming off into glowing red globes in her wake. He held his hand up and began to manipulate her molecules, scattering them so Old-timer’s frame disappeared in a puff of smoke, instantly left behind by the careening missile.
“Excellent work, James,” said the A.I. in his ear. “You have a clear path now. However, you must hurry and download the Trans-Human program into the missile. I calculate that there are less than sixty seconds before it will have reached its intended detonation location.”
“I’m on it,” James replied as he placed his palm on the side of the missile. The Trans-Human program was within him, and once his skin made contact with the missile, he was able to download it into its onboard computer.
“It’s going to take another twenty seconds to bring the program online,” James related to the A.I. “This is going to be close.”
Back on Earth, Katherine, Jim, and the A.I. watched the events unfold through James’s eyes. “What if he doesn’t activate it in time?” Katherine asked.
“He will,” Jim replied, trying to sound reassuring, though he was truly unsure.
“Five seconds,” James said. The light from the sun was now too much for even his new eyes to filter out, and the heat was beginning to cause his skin to glow red as it threatened to liquefy.
“Done!” he finally shouted as he let the missile continue on its trajectory without him; he retreated as quickly as he could. “It’s away!”
Only a handful of seconds later, the anti-matter missile ignited.
22
James had made just enough distance between himself and point zero that he was able to turn and, through his mental connection, give those back on Earth a view that was unlike anything any human had ever looked upon before. The sun began to grow dim, flickering like a candle in the final moments before it succumbs, all the while eerily silent.
“It’s happening,” James whispered. “I’m too close. I’m not going to make it!”
“Try, James!” Katherine sho
uted in desperation.
James turned and began to streak away from the collapsing sun, opening wormholes one after another so he could cheat the speed of light, desperately trying to make it as far away from the birth of this manmade black hole. The collapsing solar system nipped at his heels, bending the rules of the universe as the fabric of space and time was sucked into the blackness of the black hole.
He didn’t know why he was fleeing. He knew the plan meant he would, in all likelihood, be caught in the wake of the black hole, that he would be sucked in, past the event horizon, and have to face the unknowable fate within. Yet he raced away from it as fast as he could, terrified as though he were drowning—fighting for his life.
Back in the mainframe, the A.I. spoke to him, his words calm and even. “It will be all right. You will survive this, my son. Do not be afraid.” He placed his hand on James’s shoulder.
The calming words of the A.I. brought James back to his senses. He suddenly stopped.
“Embrace it,” advised the A.I.
James turned and gazed upon the coming blackness. Space was being pulled toward point zero, and James was about to become a part of it. He suddenly realized that this would be the greatest moment of his life. “Embrace it,” he whispered.
The trinity watched the event horizon approach from the mainframe.
“He must be terrified,” Katherine said, mortified.
“Indeed, I am sure he is,” replied the A.I. as he watched the dazzling spectrum of colors from the rim of Hawking radiation as it approached James. “I envy him.”
When the event horizon reached James, he held his arms up to the coming wave and watched them begin to distort, first lengthening as the gravity pulled them toward it, then shortening as the gravity compressed them.
“There’s no pain,” James related with awe.
In the next moment, the screen went completely dark, and James’s form vanished in the mainframe.
“Is that it?” Katherine asked, horrified. “Is he...gone?”
Post-Human Trilogy Page 54
