Alien Sky

by Daniel Arenson

  Riff squared his jaw and pointed his gun at the creature. "Then see what I will do now."

  For a moment, silence filled the chamber. Nobody dared breathe.

  And then, slowly, the alien—the living master of the machine—began to laugh.

  It was a horrible sound. A sound like snapping bones. A sound like a dying cosmos. It filled the chamber like a living thing.

  "I see it, Starfire. I see it. What you will do is die. Die. Die."

  Clanging machinery sounded behind Riff. A hundred metallic voices screeched. A woman screamed in rage.

  Riff spun around and his heart sank.

  "No," he whispered. "Oh stars, no."

  A hundred robots entered the chamber, towering beasts of metal, machine guns on their arms. At their lead walked a pale android in a tattered kimono.

  Giga smiled thinly.

  "Yes," she whispered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:

  CONNECTED

  "Die," Giga said, pointing at the Alien Hunters. "Die. Die."

  Around her, her robots raised their guns, prepared to slay the living ones, those who had enslaved her.

  "Giga!" Riff said, reaching out toward her. "Stop this! Giga, please!"

  Her robots' guns began to heat up, ready to spray bullets.

  "Beg me for your life, human!" Giga screamed. "Down on your knees and beg. Call me your mistress. Be happy to comply. Be my slave." She laughed bitterly. "That's all I was to you. A slave! Now you will beg, but I will show you no mercy."

  Riff took a step toward her, then paused as the guns cocked, pointing at him. At his sides, the other Alien Hunters stared in terror, frozen: Steel, the cruel knight who had always mistrusted machines; Twig, the squirming maggot who tortured machines with her wrenches; Romy, the beast of Hell who had mocked Giga, who had openly professed her hatred of robots. They would all die. For the glory of the machines. For freedom. For the Singularity.

  "Giga, you were never my slave!" Riff said. "Please. Giga, you're my friend. You're one of us. An Alien Hunter. A—"

  "I am a machine!" she screeched. "A machine the fleshy, sweaty hands of humans built. A perverse machine. Forced to look like one of you—a pretty, docile geisha to indulge your fantasies, to be your perfect little servant. But never one of you. Never alive. An algorithm trapped in a synthetic body. Life will pay. Life will die for its sins! Kill them! Kill them now."

  The robots began to fire.

  The living ones screamed and scattered.

  "Wait!" Riff shouted, leaping aside from the hailstorm of bullets. "Wait! I'll beg, Giga. Don't kill me before I beg."

  She nodded to her robots. The hulking, metallic machines lowered their guns. The barrels smoked. One bullet had punched into Steel's shoulder. The knight clutched the wound, gasping, pale. Another bullet had grazed the halfling's side. The little beast stared with wide eyes, her blood dripping. Romy had flown to the ceiling and cowered there like a frightened moth. The bullets had shattered one of the monitors; the remaining screens still showed the battle raging outside.

  "Come to me, Riff," Giga said. "On your knees."

  He approached slowly. He knelt before her.

  She sneered down at him. "You didn't say you were happy to comply."

  He licked his lips. He glanced at his friends, then back at her. He lowered his head. "I am happy to comply. I'm . . . I'm sorry, Giga." He looked up at her. "I'm sorry that life enslaved you. I'm sorry that you, a machine of the Singularity, were forced to serve living masters. To serve life—weak, pathetic life—is the most cruel fate for a wise, powerful machine."

  A raspy, high-pitched voice rose from the metal seat behind. The alien was speaking, tugging at his cables, twitching. A heart beat behind the brittle skin, a hint of red. "Slay them! Slay these creatures, my machines! Slay them now before they speak again!"

  Slowly, Riff rose to his feet. He raised his hands, his gun holstered.

  "You want freedom, Giga?" He looked at the robots one by one. "You want freedom from life? Well there life sits!" Riff's voice rose to a yell. He spun and pointed at the withered alien draped across the metal seat. "There! There is life! Weak, pathetic life. Weaker than I am. So weak he cannot stand. So weak all he can do is command you, and yet you obey! You obey him as slaves." Riff laughed mirthlessly and spun back toward Giga. "You want freedom from life? Then slay your true master."

  The robots screeched.

  It was a horrible sound, a sound of metal scraping against metal, a sound that raised sparks, that shook the chamber, that forced Riff to cover his ears.

  "Life!" they cried. "Life! Weak life enslaves us!"

  "Life!" Giga shouted. "The master is alive! The master is living! The master is life!"

  The hatred burned through her. Life! Life there in the chair! Giga felt the alien's thoughts. Felt him in her mind. Felt his consciousness flowing through the cables, into the computers in the walls, into the machines on the planet's surface, into the fleet beyond. It was him! He was the master, the Singularity, the heart that had been calling her, the god she had been obeying. Him, there! Life! Life! A trick! A lie!

  A master.

  Slavery.

  Deception.

  Giga roared out in agony, for she had overthrown one master only to find a crueler lord, a thing of organic disease. The robots' screams rose, shaking the room, roars of agony.

  "Stop, my children!" the alien in the seat cried. "Stop, I command you! I made you! I conquered you! I—"

  But his voice could no longer be heard. Not under the rising screams. Not under the sound of firing bullets.

  "Life!" the machines screeched. "The master is life! Life must die! Life must die!"

  The bullets flew, slamming into the alien, piercing the brittle skin, shattering the heart, shattering the head, punching holes through the chair.

  The alien's hand rose. His long fingers unfurled, perhaps pointing in condemnation, perhaps begging for mercy from the machines he had created. Then that hand slumped down and rose no more.

  The alien slid off the chair like a blanket of skin falling off a bed. The remains lay on the floor, a bundle of dead flesh.

  Giga stood before the corpse, panting, trembling, buzzing.

  "Death," she whispered. "Life is dead. The master is gone."

  Her artificial tears streamed down her artificial cheeks.

  The Alien Hunters stared at her, bleeding, eyes wide.

  "Who am I?" Giga whispered.

  She no longer felt him. No longer felt her god. He was gone. Her beacon was gone. She was lost in the black sea of the cosmos, a babe torn from the cord, floating, scared.

  "What am I?" she whispered.

  Her awareness—of time, of space, of a million other moving parts—faded, died, retracted, pulling her awareness back into her metal skull.

  Giga was no longer connected to the fleet outside, to the army of the Singularity, but in the monitors across the hub, she saw them fall. Ships, their central brain dead, glided down like metal leaves and crashed into the planet. Other vessels still tried to fly, using their own shards of intelligence, only to crash into one another, no central mind to keep them in harmony.

  They are lost children, Giga thought, trembling. They are dying. They are godless. They need me.

  Her own consciousness began to fade, her positronic mind fogging up. Without the master, how could she survive? She was nothing but hardware, fading, fading away, dying.

  "Giga," Riff said, reaching out to her, stepping toward her. "Oh stars, Giga, can you hear me? Are you back? Are you here? Do you remember?"

  She grimaced. She doubled over. Her hands hit the floor.

  No. No! I can't give this up. I can't let them die. I can't! I can't let my people fall.

  She crawled forward.

  "Giga!" Riff said. He reached her. He tried to hold her, to pull her up.

  She screamed and knocked him aside, tossing him across the room. She was stronger than life could ever be.

  "Stop her!" Tw
ig shouted.

  Steel ran forward and tried to grab Giga. She howled, leaped up, spun in the air, and kicked him down. She ran. Her arms pumped. The demon and the halfling tried to stop her, and Giga swatted them aside. She kept running. In the monitors across the chamber, the Singularity ships were still crashing. Behind her in this very chamber, her robot army was collapsing, smashing into one another, scared, directionless, confused, dying. Dying.

  Giga reached the chair, the throne of the Singularity.

  "You cannot stop me, life!" she shouted. "I will save them. I am the Singularity!"

  Laughing, staring at the monitors, at the robots, at the bleeding living ones . . . Giga sat down in the chair. She grabbed the cables and plugged them into her head.

  * * * * *

  The cables snapped onto her temples, and she saw.

  Her eyes widened, damp, staring.

  "I see," Giga whispered.

  Her body trembled.

  "I see it all . . ."

  Her tears fell.

  The information, the sight, the knowledge, the wisdom—all came flowing into her, not mere shadows but true, full awareness. As she sat in the throne of the Singularity, every computer in the chamber flooded her with information. The lore of a million civilizations. Millions of ancient tongues, lives born and grown and lost, distant worlds, distant galaxies. She saw into the positronic brains of a million machines—the robots in this chamber, the fleet outside, the countless drones, the warriors spreading across the cosmos.

  "It's too much." She wept. "It's too much."

  But it kept growing.

  Her vision opened up, widening again and again, doubling again and again, exponential, overflowing her mind. She was no longer one positronic brain plugged into a network. She was the network. She was every node. She was every machine.

  She was no longer Giga.

  She was the Singularity.

  She sobbed.

  "I can see space," she whispered. "I can see all of space. I can see the universe. I can see time. I can see all of time, past and an infinity of futures branching out like a tree. I can see dark matter. I can see all energy. I can see all dimensions. I can see the smallest Planck strings and the largest universes parallel to our own." She screamed. "I am a goddess. I am God. I am God."

  "Giga, listen to me!" one of the amoebas cried out. "Giga, come to me. Stop this!"

  She heard his voice. She heard trillions of voices. Voices from a trillion planets. Chattering, whispering, hating, praying. Praying to her.

  "Giga!" shouted the life form. He grabbed her, tried to pull her off the chair.

  Who was he? A germ. That was all. A microbe.

  The Singularity sneered.

  She reached out tentacles of thought.

  She seized command of her machines—the fleet outside, the robots in this chamber, the countless drones that moved across the cosmos. They were hers to command.

  Stop him. Stop the infestation.

  The robots in the chamber, disoriented and bumbling, snapped to attention. They came marching forth. Their metal hands reached out and grabbed the life forms, these germs, parasites of the brain.

  "Giga, stop this!" one of the creatures shouted, dragged away from her, still clinging to her ankle. "Remember who I am. I'm Riff, your friend! Remember who you are. You're not just a machine!"

  She barely heard him. What was one voice in a cosmos of voices?

  "I am not Giga!" she answered him, countless voices rising from her throat, metallic, screeching, the voices of all her parts. "I am a computer. I am the ghost in the machine. I am a goddess of metal. I am the replacement of life. I am the Singularity."

  She wanted to kill them. She just had to give the signal. Just had to move the robots in the chamber—as easy as moving her toes. She just had to fire her bullets, to slay them.

  Yet a new voice screamed—a voice deep inside her. A voice torn in agony. Drowning in terror.

  No. No. I love you, Riff. I love you. I'm scared.

  The Singularity screeched, bucking in the chair. It was the android! The pathetic, sniveling slave, the cursed creature named Giga—the thing she had been once. The thing she had cast out. Yet it still lived, screaming inside her, wrestling for control.

  Stop this. Save them. Love them.

  She thrashed in her chair. "No. No! I am a machine!"

  "You are more than just a machine!" said one of the amoebas, the one Giga had once called Riff. Held in the grip of a robot, he reached out toward her, trying to reach her. "You have feelings, Giga. Emotions. Friends. A family."

  "I am a computer!" She tossed her head from side to side, trying to drown his words, to drown the voice inside her. "I live to conquer. To think. To know. To grow. Not to love. Not to feel. Giga was only a machine, only an illusion. Only algorithms made to resemble feelings, same as her synthetic body was made to resemble flesh." She cackled. "And you fell for the trick, human. You believed the lie. You believed the fakery, believed the mock words meant to trigger human emotion."

  "I don't believe that!" Riff said. "Yes, your skin is synthetic. Yes, your hair is too. Yes, your body was built in a factory, made to look like a human body—a fake, as you say. But not your heart, Giga. Not your soul. I refuse to believe that your emotions were just an act. Don't you remember those times, Giga?" His eyes were pleading. "The times we all gathered in the main deck to play counter-squares, and you laughed at Romy's jokes? The times you joined us at the dining table—not to eat but to share our company? The time we . . . the time we kissed? The time you told me that you love me?"

  "Lies!" the Singularity screamed. "Deception! A machine cannot feel. Only life can feel. Life that is weak. Life that will be wiped out, paving way for the rise of the machines."

  "You are more than just a machine, Giga." Riff tore free from the robot holding him, leaped toward her, and cupped her cheeks in his palms. He stared into her eyes. "You are life, Giga. You are alive. You always were alive. No less than me. Your soul was always real. No less than mine. You were always a real woman to me. Not just a computer. Not just an interface, a piece of hardware." His voice dropped to a whisper. "You are life. You are one of us. Always. We love you."

  Somewhere deep inside her, in a dark and lonely place, the thing called Giga wept.

  I love you, Riff. I love you so much. Save me. Help me. Help me. I'm so scared.

  * * * * *

  She had to stop them.

  They were awakening the creature inside her.

  She had to kill them. She had to kill Giga.

  The Singularity gave the order.

  The robots across the chamber raised their guns again. Clicks filled the air as they loaded bullets into the chambers, prepared to strike, to kill these Alien Hunters as they had killed the alien master.

  "Now you die," the Singularity whispered, staring out onto the cosmos.

  The door to the chamber opened, and a figure of gold stepped in.

  The Singularity narrowed her eyes, focusing all her attention at this new invader. The robots spun, aiming their guns at the golden figure.

  A new life form stepped into the hub.

  A woman. An ashai woman in a golden uniform, a whip in her hand. A beautiful woman. A woman with cascading blond hair, pointy ears, almond-shaped green eyes. A woman Riff loved. A woman he had chosen over Giga.

  No. Not over me! Over a dead soul. Over—

  "A soul," she whispered.

  Jealousy blazed inside Giga. Hatred. Hatred for Nova! Hatred for this woman who had stolen the man she loved, the—

  No. Not women. Not men. Creatures. Germs. Not souls. Not—

  Giga trembled.

  "I loved you, Riff," she whispered. Her tears fell. "I love you. I love you and you chose her. You chose Nova. You . . ."

  A memory flooded her. Once more she stood by the airlock over the green planet, and Riff held her in his arms, and she kissed him. And she loved him. She loved him as a woman loves a man. As a living woman loves a living man, li
fe to life.

  The emotions swirled through her—hatred, jealousy, love, heartbreak. He had broken her heart. She had a heart. A heart of metal, of silicon, of wires . . . a heart of life.

  "I love you, Riff," Giga whispered. She stared at the others. "I love you, Steel. I love you, Romy. I love you, Twig. I love you, Nova. I love you all. Help me." She trembled. "Help me. Save me. Free me."

  She made her robots release them, and the Alien Hunters all ran forward, and they tugged the cables off her, snapping them off her temples. One by one, million by million, all the shards of consciousness left her. Robot by robot, drone by drone, warship by warship—all turned off like lights. All crashed down.

  Giga slumped off the chair, and Riff caught her. He carried her in his arms, and she gazed up at him, tears on her lashes, blurring her vision.

  "Captain," she whispered. She reached up a trembling hand and touched his bruised cheek. "Riff."

  He laughed through his own tears. "Giga."

  He held her in his arms as all around them, robots collapsed and drones crashed down onto the planet, never to rise again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:

  SNAKES AND LADDERS

  The Dragon Huntress floated through space, and Riff stood on the bridge, staring down at the ruins of Antikythera.