by Jade Kerrion
“My scheduled maintenance is next week.”
“Never mind.”
The contest with Kir infused energy into Jem’s busy days. The apartment that she shared with Rio was no more than a place to sleep and shower; she spent most of her waking moments at the simulation laboratory.
She did, however, run into her boyfriend late one afternoon; he had returned to the apartment just as she was leaving.
“Hey, Jem,” Rio greeted, his smile wide.
“Hey, Rio.” She stood on tiptoes to plant a quick kiss on his lips. “I’ll see you later.”
“But I haven’t seen you in days. You leave early, come back late—”
“It’s the simulation. There’s too much to do. I have to get to the lab and get SimOne to execute some of my decisions before my other classes start.”
“I’ll walk with you.” He grabbed the jacket he had tossed aside. “So, what’s keeping you in the lab?” he asked as they walked down the stairs together to wait for the campus transporter.
“Kir and I have a competition going. We’re going to manage the rise and fall of different human empires. Actually, I’m going to manage it. He’s going to watch it happen in true Kir fashion. We’ll see who has the better outcome.”
“How would you know when you’ve gotten there? Have you defined the better outcome?”
Jem looked at him.
Rio shook his head. “I can see an argument just waiting to happen. If you don’t agree on what to work toward, how will you know if you’ve achieved it? You may be thinking it’s the biggest empire; he may be thinking it’s the longest period of stability. You need to agree on these things before you get started.”
“Right. We’ll do that. The transporter is here.”
Rio kissed her again. “Winter break is in two weeks. You’re still coming back home with me for vacation, right?”
“Yes, of course. Wouldn’t miss it.” She jumped on the shuttle as it paused for her. The winter vacation was the last thing on her mind. She had an empire to build.
To her surprise, Kir was in the simulation laboratory when she arrived.
“You’ve been spending lots of time in here,” Kir said.
“There’s lots to do.” Jem shrugged. “And you’ve been slack, as usual.”
“There’s not that much to do when you let them do their own thing.” He grinned. “I’m on empire number four.”
“Four? What have you been doing? Eating them for breakfast?”
Kir laughed. “It’s like watching a soap opera. Do you remember where we dumped the first few humans, the ones that we wanted to start out fresh, away from possible fights?”
“Yes, that valley with four rivers.”
“The valley is down to two rivers now. The other two rivers went underground. Anyway, the first empire started there—I thought there was some poetic justice in it. That empire worked out for about a hundred star revolutions, and then one of its neighbors took over. That second empire did better. One of its kings was very acquisitive. He defeated three smaller kingdoms and landed up owning half of the land across the largest continent at one point.”
“That must have kept him busy.”
“It kept him and his descendants busy for about two hundred star revolutions, until another empire that had been simmering in the west swept in and took over.”
“Why didn’t it before?” Jem asked.
“Some kid called Alexander ended up taking the throne, and I guess he didn’t have anything else to do. He probably found adolescence fairly trying.” Kir eyes darkened. “We need to talk about that though.”
“The kid?”
“No, his empire. Six hundred star revolutions is a long time for an empire. I think they had outside help.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” Jem turned to SimOne. “Did something else infect our planet?”
“No. There have been no interplanetary interactions since the Atlante humanoid,” SimOne reported.
Kir’s lips twisted. “The Atlantean’s descendants, the ones that got away—”
Jem held up her hand. “No, wait, don’t tell me. They went there, and started that third empire.”
“Not precisely. They went there, and were worshipped as gods.”
Jem’s eyes narrowed. “Not cool, Kir. So when were you planning to tell me about it?”
“You’ve been so busy with your empire the past week, I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Hah, you’re stalling. So, they’re worshipped as gods and…?”
“And I think they’ve been interfering,” Kir admitted.
“Stop them.”
“I didn’t have to. The other empire from the west did.”
She was losing count of the empires in Kir’s on-going soap opera. “So that’s empire number four?”
“Yeah.”
“Why do your empires come out of the west?”
“Well, yours is sitting in the east, and any ambitions in that direction are thwarted by that very large mountain range.”
Jem glanced down at the planet and grinned. “I like mountain ranges.”
“I can see that. You’re building your own, apparently.” Kir pointed down at the planet. “What is that thing that can be seen from up here?”
“A wall.”
“A wall?”
Jem’s smile was smug. “To keep nasty things out and protect the boundaries of an empire.”
“People build walls around cities, but whole empires?”
She snorted. “I’ll keep my empire running for longer than you will, Kir, and it will have a lot to do with that wall.”
“You told them to do that?”
“Of course.”
“So, stability is your goal? Are you going to have one family rule the empire forever?”
“Of course not. Talent can run dry. If it does, I’ll replace the ruling family with someone else, but the boundaries of the empire will stay intact. Stability is my goal.”
Kir shook his head. “Wow, that’s a lot of interference, and the absence of anything even remotely resembling free thought.”
Jem’s face tightened. “It was necessary.”
“You’re a philosophy major. How can you say that? Book burning’s never necessary. It’s how we transmit information across generations, remember?”
“It’s a temporary measure, just for stability. My people have been at war for centuries. I’m not going to let it fall apart in under a hundred star revolutions just to hold on to a principle.”
An unfamiliar voice cut through their lively debate. “You goddamned interfering jerks!”
Jem looked up sharply. Her eyes widened with alarm when she saw two people stalking toward them. “It’s Dri Zabra and Sani Mudo from Atlante.”
Kir stood up and placed himself between them and Jem. “Inserting a humanoid from your planet on another…that’s interfering. What we did was merely self-defense. The civilizations on our planet figured out how to develop steel a week ago. We’re not ready to get dragged into your fight with a galactic empire.”
“The Shixar wiped out our planet. It’s gone, do you understand? It’s gone. Every shred of life on it…gone!” Dri shouted. Pain and rage vibrated in his voice.
Jem swallowed hard. Gone? She could not imagine losing everything she and Kir had invested so much time and energy in creating and nurturing.
Kir shrugged. “That’s a risk you took when you decided to go up against the Shixar.”
Dri shook his head. “We didn’t decide to go up against the Shixar. The humanoids on our planet did. The infants they sent to your world and others…we didn’t decide that. The humanoids acted on their own!”
“What?”
“We weren’t watching closely. We didn’t realize they had ambitions for expansion, that they were stupid enough to think they could take on the Shixar.”
“You should have come to us,” Sani added. Her voice was quieter than Dri’s, but it trembled nonetheless. “We would have fixed it. We
would have recalled all the humanoids. There was no need to aggravate the Shixar.”
“How couldn’t you have known that your humanoids were escalating the war?” Kir asked.
“Do you know everything that’s happening on your planet?” Dri shot back bitterly. “Is your life so intimately entwined with theirs? Do they consult you on everything? We didn’t know everything. We didn’t know enough, and now they’re all gone.”
“Can’t you start over?” Jem asked quietly.
“Yes, but what’s the point? We evolved our humanoids though millions of star revolutions, and they’re completely gone. The Shixar destroyed the other planets too. The Shixar wiped them all out.”
Jem looked at Kir. He hesitated briefly and then nodded.
She spoke for the both of them. “The humanoid you sent here is dead, but he has descendants. They’re not pure-blooded, of course, but they’re still far more exceptional than our planet’s natives,” she added hastily when Dri and Sani gaped at her. “Here, they’re apparently worshipped as gods and demi-gods. I know it’s not the same thing as what you’ve lost, but if you wanted them back—”
“You’ll let us have them?”
Kir nodded. “If you were going to try repopulate your planet, yes.”
Dri and Sani exchanged a glance. “We will take them home.”
“All right. SimOne, can you coordinate with their android to repatriate them back to Atlante?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” Sani said, stepping away. “We won’t forget what you’ve done.”
Jem and Kir waited until Dri and Sani were out of earshot. “I don’t know if that was gratitude or a threat,” Kir said.
Jem exhaled a sigh. “Probably both. We screwed up, didn’t we?”
“I think they did when they lost control of their people, but there are millions and millions of people. How can they be responsible for everyone?”
“That’s what government is for, Kir. You control the people by controlling its leaders.” Jem shook her head, her thoughts drifting back to Dri and Sani. “What have we done?”
Kir’s voice was quiet. “We secured the Shixar as allies and guaranteed the freedom of our planet from their galactic expansions.”
“And now we’ve given the half-Atlanteans back to Atlante. Isn’t it going to make the Shixar furious?”
“Probably, but we’re at least partly responsible for getting Atlante wiped out; I think it was the least we could do. As for the repercussions…” Kir gazed into the darkness of the universe. Out there, the Shixar Imperium was growing and expanding. “We’ll just have to deal with it when they find out.”
8
The Nazca Lines are a series of ancient geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. The hundreds of individual figures range in complexity from simple lines to stylized hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, fish, sharks, orcas, llamas, and lizards.
– Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
* * *
As busy as her days were with the simulation and her other classes, Jem always took an hour off to be by herself for lunch on the weekends. That day, bundled up in a warm coat, she sat on a park bench, chewing slowly on her sandwich. Her black coat and gloves were dotted with breadcrumbs. The smart thing to do would have been to take the gloves off while eating, but it was too cold. The even smarter thing would have been to eat her lunch indoors where it was warm, but she did not want to miss her monthly appointment.
The squeal of laughing children rang through the park. Trinestra was a quiet, upper-middle class neighborhood popular with professors and graduate students, especially those with families. The neighborhood park was an eternally green expanse of artificial grass—a playground for young children. Every weekend, Jem ate lunch at the park and watched the children play.
In a way, that weekend was no different from any other. It could not look different from any other weekend. A life was at stake.
Jem forced herself to stay in her relaxed pose as a man led his young son into the park. The boy, scarcely older than five, was bundled in a heavy coat, and he wore a cap over a head of red hair. The boy’s mother, heavily pregnant, followed at a distance. With a visible sigh, she sat on a bench as the boy and his father played tag. The boy shrieked, screaming with laughter, when his father tackled him and he collapsed into giggles when his father tickled him.
Lukas was no longer a toddler, trotting on unsteady feet. He had left his infancy behind, and with it, the terrifying memories of being abandoned by his family.
He had probably forgotten her too.
Jem pressed her lips together and told herself that she was happy, even though her chest ached with tears she could not shed.
She brushed the crumbs off her gloves and her jacket before unfolding her astral workstation. SimOne appeared when summoned, her astral image serene and lovely. “What can I do for you, Jem?”
“I’d like to insert something into our planet.”
“A life form?”
Jem shook her head. “No. I’m thinking of a game, perhaps books with hints of mysteries beyond the grasp of the human mind. Deciphering the books will keep the humans occupied in between their wars.”
“How would you like to interface with the humans?”
“Through dreams or drug-induced hallucinations, I don’t care,” Jem said. The lump no longer clogged her throat. The fog of grief and regret no longer clouded her mind. Purpose gave her strength and determination. “This will be an on-going project through the end of the year. I want you to identify possible hosts—humans who will write the books.”
As unorthodox as the request must have seemed to the android, SimOne did not protest. “Certainly. When can I expect an upload of the game data?”
“You won’t. I’ll handle the interface with the humans directly.”
SimOne’s delicate eyebrows drew together in an expression of disapproval. “This does not follow the standard protocols—”
“I’m aware of that.” The information, however, was too important to entrust to anyone. “Just find my hosts, SimOne. I’ll handle everything else.” Jem cut off the communication link with SimOne and leaned against the back of the wooden bench to watch the child at play. She shivered, tugging her coat tightly around her. The wind had a chill that cut to the bone, and the boy’s laughter cut straight to her heart.
That evening, Jem coiled into a comfortable chair in her darkened bedroom, her eyes closed, and the rhythm of her breath steady. Her mind, with SimOne as the neural interface, melded with that of a human from her simulated planet. The joining was simple and flawless, which surprised her, though perhaps it should not have. After all, she had designed her planet’s humans based on the humans of Sylvania who were the dominant species on multiple planets across multiple star systems.
With the concern of a parent and the pride of a creator, she stood back to admire her handiwork. The simulated human mind was fascinating, seemingly filled in equal portions with dark cobwebs of fears as with shining threads of hope. It was messy and cluttered, and therefore, pleasantly familiar. It was also discouraging. I should have designed them better. Instead, they’ve turned out just like me.
At her touch, the simulated human mind quivered, hovering between disbelief and delight. She smiled at its infusion of wonder. Did it think it was touching a greater consciousness, like that of a god? Sorry, it’s just me, a girl with something to prove, and something to protect, and you’re going to help me do it.
She whispered, watching as the simulated human mind seized her words and spun its own visions. She hoped the visions were more dream than nightmare, but both would serve her ends. The human would wake, and he would write. He, and many others across time, would write the manuscripts she demanded.
The mysterious manuscripts would hint of greater truths, but all of them would be lies and decoys, save one which alone would contain the truth of Lukas’s birthright.
Temperatures cooled as the seasons turned and brought with it
the promise of the winter vacation and its seasonal festivity, the Genitura. Jem and Kir met up at the simulation laboratory for the last time prior to the semester break.
“Your eastern empire, the one with the ridiculous wall, is still going strong, isn’t it?” Kir asked morosely after they had scanned SimOne’s reports.
“Yup,” Jem said. It was impolite to gloat, but damn, she had earned it.
“How are you planning to stay on top of it through the winter vacation?” he asked.
“We have these little things called ‘communicators,’ and SimOne knows when to alert me. I’ve noticed that you’ve been on top of your empire, too.” The run-in with the Atlante team had apparently convinced Kir that the planet’s inhabitants could not be left to their own devices.
“I’ve watched them more closely, but I haven’t done anything to interfere. Typically, another empire does a good job of picking up the pieces when one falls apart. Not unlike all those dynastic changes happening in your empire.”
“A minor change is typically easier on the people, trust me on that.”
Kir nodded. He seemed out of sorts, his usual good humor missing. “I guess so.”
“Didn’t you get enough sleep?” she asked.
“Huh? Oh, no, not that.” He tried for a smile, but it looked forced. “I’m not looking forward Genitura this year.”
She could not imagine anyone not enjoying Genitura; it celebrated life and love, hearth and home in the heart of the coldest season of the year. “Are you going back home for vacation?”
“Home’s right here,” he said. “What about you?”
“Rio invited me to his home.”
“Are you meeting his parents?” Kir asked, grinning widely.
Jem shrugged and hoped that the gesture did not look as awkward as she felt.
“First time?”
She nodded.
He nodded too, the expression on his face oddly regretful. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” She twitched through the awkward silence and then asked, “So you’re not going home for the winter celebrations?”
