by JD Clarke
“Good idea, Claire, thanks.” The two left on their mission. I was pretty sure it was a wild-goose chase, but I had to be sure.
“Does sound a little paranoid, Jason. Dena was not herself when we left, and I’m afraid she’s gotten worse.”
“I know, Mako. I’m worried about her.”
“Did you tell her about me yet?” Jackson asked.
“No, not yet. I’m not sure how she would take it, with her distrust of androids and all. Sorry, Jackson. I know you care for her also.”
“It would be best not to inform her until after we can restore her normal mental functioning. I would love to see her, but I am concerned it might worsen her condition.”
“I agree. Thanks for your understanding.” Jackson was beginning to sound more like an android, or maybe it was just my imagination. Hell, who wouldn’t get confused on this ship? I thanked them both again for listening and caring; then I headed back to the living quarters. I wanted to be there when Dena woke up. She had been alone too much already.
When I arrived at our quarters, I found the door barred from the inside. “Dena, it’s me, Jason. Unlock the door.” There was no response. I could feel her presence inside our quarters. I knew she was there, but she refused to respond to my repeated requests.
Sybil was in the bio lab with Sasha. “Sybil, I need your assistance. Dena has locked herself inside her room and refuses to acknowledge me. Pick up a laser or something to force the door open. You might need to bring along a tranquilizer. There’s no telling what kind of mental state she is in.”
“I will bring Mako along also. He may be better at opening the door,” Sybil responded to my telepathic request. I continued trying to reason with Dena, but she refused to answer me. I was getting more worried; perhaps she was unconscious and couldn’t answer.
Mako and Sybil arrived shortly. “I brought along something better than a laser. I was afraid a laser might injure Dena if she is on the other side of the door and a stray beam of energy caught her.” Mako held up a device that looked more like a caulk gun than a high-tech gadget. “It’s like a welder, except it uses nanobots to stitch separate pieces of metal together. It can also cut like a welder.”
“The bar that secures the door on the inside runs along here.” I showed him about where the bar was. Mako stepped up and squeezed the handle on his nanowelder. He traced a white foam bead of material along a circular path. The foam seemed to boil and turned a greyish color. Light began to show through the foam, and then the circular metal cutout fell neatly out of the door. Mako pushed a button on the device, and a tone sounded.
“The nanobots are now neutralized and harmless. You can reach in and remove the bar safely,” Mako said as he stepped aside.
I opened the door to find Dena sitting curled up on the bed. She looked frightened and alone, helpless in a fear that gripped her in a fantasy world of paranoid delusions.
“Dena, we’re going to help you. You don’t have to be afraid now. I’m here. We’ll go down …” A pain shot through my body. It was like knives stabbing into my kidneys and streaking up through my spine, exploding into my head. I had been unprepared for Dena’s mental attack upon me. I fell to my knees. The pain was debilitating. I struggled to concentrate. I had to block her neural net’s signals. I had to control my own neural net. I began seeing stars, and my vision darkened around the edges. “Dena, I’m here to help you. Trust me please.” I could hear Mako groaning on the floor behind me.
“No, no, get away from me!” Dena screamed as I saw, from the corner of my eye, Sybil rush into the room. I heard pistol fire, three shots, and then the pain stopped.
My vision returned slowly as I looked up from my hands and knees. Dena was lying on the bed. Sybil was standing over her. Sybil’s left arm had a large hole in it, and her left side had a nasty slash across the torso where clothing and skin had been ripped open, exposing her metal ribs.
“Is she OK, Sybil?” I asked, my head still dizzy as I tried to stand.
“Yes, I injected the tranquilizer to sedate her, although I will need more repairs again. Fortunately, her hands were trembling as she took aim at me with her pistol.” Sybil moved over to help Mako to his feet as I regained my footing.
“We better get down to the bio lab while we can. Is Sasha still there?”
“Yes, Commander, and I believe we can reverse the changes to her with a high probability of success.”
Nightmare
The procedure to reverse the earlier changes that Dena had made to her brain went well. There was no open surgery since the additional implants could be easily deactivated without being removed. Sasha, with Sybil’s help, instructed Dena’s neural net to change her brain’s cortex to its earlier configuration. How much damage would be done to Dena’s synaptic patterns and her memory was the unknown. In theory, it should relieve Dena of her paranoia. We waited to see because after three days, Dena still had not regained consciousness.
I sat beside Dena in the bio lab, where she rested comfortably in a bed. Sasha was there also. She and I both tried to contact Dena telepathically; neither of us had any success.
“It wasn’t anything we did. Her brain is functional. The brain scans show activity and even elevated activity as if she were awake at times. It’s something else,” Sasha told me as we sat on either side of Dena’s bed.
“I am not blaming you, Sasha. Don’t get defensive. I am sure you and Sybil did everything you could.”
“I think she just doesn’t want to wake up.” Sasha got up and stood at the foot of the bed. “Mako is no help either. He’s no psychologist.”
“None of us are. This is more Dena’s field really. She’s the biology whiz. At least she had some college courses in psych. That’s more than the rest of us.”
“She should wake up. The brain is undamaged.”
“Sasha, is there some way I can link with her mind through the neural net, like I did with Sybil?”
“Maybe, usually, you have to allow the other person into your head, like you and Sybil did. But Sybil’s not a human. None of the rest of us have tried that. I just don’t know if it’s possible or not.”
“Well, I have to try. Maybe I can reach her that way. If it is some type of self-induced coma from her fears and trauma, then maybe I can get through to her. We’ve been very close and shared a lot of conscious and unconscious thoughts.”
“That or you might get caught up in her nightmare and be comatose too.”
“All I can do is try.”
“I’ll get Sybil to take turns with me. We can keep a vigil on you for twenty-four hours. If you haven’t regained consciousness by then, we’ll wake you—whatever it takes.”
I lay down beside Dena and held her hand. Closing my eyes, I concentrated on contacting her, feeling her mind, reliving past experiences we had shared. I relaxed my body and tried to only feel Dena beside me. Using the neural net, I spoke to her, calling her name, begging her to let me into her thoughts.
I don’t know how long I lay there, only that I became exhausted with the effort, and then I must have drifted off to sleep. It was a dreamworld of deep shadow, dark and oppressive. I walked through a black fog that swirled about my feet. I could feel eyes staring at me from out of the shadows. There was the sound of heavy machinery thrumming all around, just out of sight. Indistinct walls were on either side. A hallway? No, it was a narrow street with brick buildings on either side rising high out of the darkness with no rooftops in sight. The feeling of being watched turned into the feeling of being stalked. I walked a little faster, glancing behind me often.
“Dena?” I called to her. Alleyways branched off to the sides, dark and menacing. I called to Dena over and over, and soon I felt desperate to find her. My quickened steps turned into a run as I felt sure there was something behind me, something large and terrible. Then I heard the metal footfalls on the pavement. They were getting closer. I stumbled and fell. As I scrambled to get up, a hand reached out of an alley and grabbed my arm. I tried t
o squirm free, but the arm jerked me into the alley, almost pulling me off my feet.
“Shhh … quiet now,” a voice whispered in my ear. It was Dena’s voice, I realized. But my eyes were locked on to the street. I had to see what was pursuing me. Would it go by or turn into the alley? A huge shadow clanged by. Its metal feet striking the pavement and its clawed toes scraping along the stones. Red eyes searched left and right, but it continued on.
“It was one of the Unity’s robotic assassins. We’re lucky to have escaped. You made too much noise. We have to stay still and quiet.” Dena kept a firm grip on my arm.
I looked into her eyes; they were a dead black, without any shine. “Dena, I came to take you to a safe place.”
“There is no place safe from them. They will follow us anywhere, Jason. You have to be silent now.”
I thought for a moment, a long moment that seemed to last forever. “Dena, they can’t follow us. Come with me, and we’ll be safe, I promise.”
“You have to be quiet, or I’ll have to leave you.”
“Dena, listen to me. You’re all right. You’re on board the Defiant, and I am beside you. You have to wake up—”
“I have to go. I have to hide. You’re making too much noise. They’ll find us.”
“They can’t find us on Earth. There are no monsters on Earth. Come with me, and I’ll take you home.” I clutched Dena’s arm as she tried to release mine. Her eyes filled with tears.
“We’ll never get home. I know that.”
“You’re wrong. We’re already on course for Earth. I’m taking us home. I’m taking us all home. We’re going home, and you’re coming with me. I won’t let you go, Dena.”
I could hear the mechanical demon stop in the distance. He turned, and his footsteps began to get louder.
“Dena, we’re going home. You and I together, we’re going home. I won’t let go of you. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
Dena screamed, “He’s coming! Let me go! Oh my god, let me go! He’s coming!”
Dena’s screams filled the bio lab, vocal screams—screams of a nightmare, screams of a nightmare passed. She was awake and trembling in my arms as we both looked around and squinted from the bright light of the bio lab.
Sybil and Sasha were there also. They both had smiles on their faces, those funny little smiles of joy mingled with concern. I wondered at them both. They seemed to share so much at this moment. A clone and an android, very different and yet expressing the same emotion.
I looked to Dena and wiped the tears from her eyes as she began to realize where she was and what was going on.
“You were in my head? You were in my nightmare?”
“Of course, I had to come get you, didn’t I?” I held her close. “Besides, how many of my nightmares have you endured and held me after?”
Skeleton Crew
The Defiant plowed through space on a course that would lead us home. We would need to make several jumps to get there, but we were on our way. The adventure and the danger seemed strangely unreal as we left them behind us and headed for home. I let Dena sleep in as I went to the mess hall for breakfast. Sasha was there eating, sitting across from Legion. He had brought food from his ring to store in mess hall so that he could begin joining us at mealtime. Beside him sat three female Warriors. They were enjoying some type of meat cooked on a stick and a plate of what looked like alien sauerkraut.
“Good morning,” I said, and the reality of living aboard a spaceship was back.
“Good morning, Jason. Allow me to introduce Charity, Sprint, and Grace. They are the only Warriors left on board.” As Legion introduced the three females, each bowed in recognition, leaving their heads down until all three had been introduced. Then after the last was introduced, they all looked up at once.
“The others opted to leave the ship then?” I asked.
“Yes, many went to be with the men on the weapons planet, but most went to our home planet to help secure it from the Unity invaders.”
“It must be lonely on the Fifth Ring now,” Sasha said to Legion.
“Yes, it seems very empty. Only the wild beasts and vacant houses. That is why we have brought food and provisions so that we may dine with you.”
“Why don’t you move into the living quarters here, on the main deck. God knows there is plenty of room,” I said.
Legion consulted with the females. It was the first time I had ever seen any male Warrior ask a female her opinion. Maybe it was our influence on them. I liked to think we had been a positive influence on someone.
“We will do that,” Legion replied.
Mako came into the mess hall then. He looked refreshed and well rested. He had worked hard over the past few months and was well overdue a rest. “Morning, everyone.” Legion introduced the three young females to Mako. “It will be good to see Earth again. You realize it will be quite different, Jason.”
“Yes, I know, relativity. Time slows for us as we speed through the universe, but back home on Earth, it still ticks away at the same pace we would call normal. Any idea how many years have elapsed back on Earth?”
“No, I don’t have an accurate record of our combined trips, especially of our trip from Earth to the Defiant aboard that cargo vessel. As near as I can calculate, between one hundred and two hundred years have passed on Earth.”
“Will you even recognize your planet’s culture and language after being away for almost two centuries?”
“Yes, Sasha, I think so. The neural nets will be able to translate for us. I’m sure there will still be many common words from our time, and basic gestures and body language will be the same. The biggest changes will be in technology. Actually, I’m excited to see what has been accomplished since we’ve been away.”
“If we haven’t killed ourselves and the planet.”
“What do you mean, Mako?”
“Well, Sasha, when we left Earth, there were problems with nations competing for limited resources. Our industrial technology was polluting the environment and changing the climate. Any one of a number of things could have caused the collapse of our civilization, from nuclear war to triggering another Ice Age. We could return to a postapocalyptic world.”
“Or to a space age utopian society,” I added.
Mako only smiled. “I hope so.”
“Or the Unity could have already found and destroyed Earth. Replacing your people with mining and fabrication bases, like they did in my world,” Legion observed.
Dena came in on that note. “I hope not. I miss Earth, and I am looking forward to being home again.” She was smiling and had a bounce in her step. She looked like the old Dena again. “Why didn’t you wake me, Jason?”
“You were sleeping so peacefully I did not want to disturb you. Besides, I figured you could use the rest.” I watched her as she loaded up her plate with food; she must be starving.
“It’s good to see you smiling again. You must have had a very bad time of it, here on the Defiant alone.” Sasha smiled as well. “All we had to do was battle the Unity and a fleet of warships.”
“Well, fill me in on what happened. I’m dying to know how it went.” Dena sat next to me, and we all told our tales of being on the weapons planet, the battles, the incursion, and the disruption of the Unity itself.
“Hopefully, it may even lead to a civil war between the Unity forces that do not want to change and the forces that want android bodies and a more independent life,” I concluded. “At least it should keep them busy and slow down their conquest of star systems.”
Dena looked thoughtful for a moment. “So you introduced sex into the Unity society with the hopes that knowledge of it will lead to jealousy and individual desires, causing the collapse of their peaceful, unified world? Where before everyone was equal, now they will design their own selves and begin to differentiate among each other? Some will, of course, be more desirable than others as they change and become more individual.” She looked at me for a long moment. “Don’t you see the role yo
u’ve had in their world? How they will remember you?”
“What do you mean, Dena?”
“Jason, in our culture, you would have been called Satan. You destroyed their Garden of Eden by introducing them to cardinal sin. You’re the serpent.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” I confessed. It did cast a different light on things in my mind.
“Not only that, but now you—or at least your digitally replicated self—will be inside each of them, tempting them, leading them to rebel, to cause trouble. You’re not only the serpent—you have become, in a very real way, the devil inside them all.” She paused again for a moment, then continued, “I wonder if we really have the right to destroy so perfect a society in order to save ourselves and our own destructive way of life. Must we corrupt everything?”
