“Oh.” She put the statue down. “What are you going to say to him, Fin?”
“I do not know, but I have been thinking.”
“That’s always a good thing.”
“About us, I mean. There is something I must tell you now because I may not get another chance.”
“Fin, don’t.”
“Please. I know you do not love me, Nova. I cannot explain why I still love you, but I do. It hurts more than any pain I have ever experienced, but when I had the chance to forget it all, I could not. I want to remember the warmth of your touch, your scent in the air, things I will never experience again.” He took her hands. “I wish the world were different so that things between us could have been different, too.”
“I do, too,” she whispered.
They separated when Dr. Shepherd came into the room. He looked old and frail, more so than when Fin last saw him. “God be with you,” he said. When neither responded, he shrugged and continued, “Esse tells me you had a little trouble in the city, son. Is everything all right?”
“No,” Fin replied.
“What happened?”
“I can explain,” said Nova.
“I would prefer to hear it from him, dear.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“No need to apologize. No harm done. Well?” Shepherd said to Fin. “Don’t just stand there like you lost your best friend. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I do not know how,” Fin replied.
“That’s a first. Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
“I cannot start at the beginning because I do not know how it began, nor do I understand its purpose or why we have arrived at this point. I can only speak to the facts.”
“Then the facts it is. Proceed.” Shepherd picked up a paperweight, turning it absentmindedly in his hand while Fin began.
“You are a traitor, Dr. Shepherd. You planted false rumors of a mole inside the SIA. You manipulated Council to have me placed there to uncover that mole when in fact your intent was to have me steal technical information for you. When I was let go because I had failed to find that nonexistent mole, you offered them Nova as a replacement to continue your scheme. The significance of what we stole is still unclear, but what is clear is that many have died for it and you are responsible.”
Shepherd set the glass globe down. “I certainly wasn’t expecting that. These are serious accusations, son. This is all very hurtful.”
“Why did you do it, Doctor? Was it for the money?”
“The money? You insult me, boy.”
“I trusted you, Doctor. I was your son, and you were my father. I could always count on you to be there for me, but it was all a lie, wasn’t it?”
An antique wall clock struck the hour, marking the passing of an uneasy silence.
Fin pleaded with him. “Please, Dr. Shepherd, tell me there is a good reason for all this. Explain the evidence against you and restore my trust. Tell me you are not the evil person you appear to be.”
“What do you know of evil? You’re a child. Your existence is less than a blink of God’s eye.”
“Please, tell me why.”
“There is no why because there's nothing to explain.”
“There are my memories.”
“Of what?”
“Of you manipulating me, of you forcing me to become your accomplice in this crime.”
“Manipulating you? These so-called memories of yours sound more like the delusional ramblings of a Creep addict. Tell me you’re not a user now because I would be terribly disappointed.”
“He’s not,” said Nova. “That was Book’s fault and only that one time, like I told you.”
Fin looked at her, surprised.
“I was worried, Fin. I’m sorry.”
He faced Dr. Shepherd again. “I went to Polyclonic Technologies today.”
“So I heard,” said Shepherd. “That little stunt of yours was reckless. What were you hoping to accomplish, boy?”
Fin glanced at Nova. She looked away. “I used the neural projector, Doctor. I know what you did to us.”
“You what?”
“He had help,” said Nova.
“Of course,” Shepherd nodded. “Francis. Every chain has its weak link, I suppose.”
Fin said, “The duly recorded memories of a Cybernite are admissible in court as evidence under Article Five of the Artificial Intelligence Act. They will convict you of treason, Doctor. They will put you to death. Please tell me you had a good reason for doing this. Tell me there is more to the plan. Tell me the evidence is the lie, not you.”
Shepherd stiffened. “You seem to know the law. Are you also aware that any evidence obtained from an experimental device such as the neural projector is not admissible in court?”
“Council will subpoena my downloads after they hear what I have to say. They will find the backup server you hid them on and that will corroborate my story.”
“They can subpoena all they want. There are no downloads. I destroyed them. There was no point in keeping the data anymore. The experiment was over, son.”
“This was not an experiment and I am not your son! This was a despicable act and I am nothing but a slave to you, a tool to be used and discarded like the rest of my kind. You are no better than Council.”
The old wooden table creaked as Shepherd steadied himself on it. “This is oak,” he said, tapping it lightly. “Very old. Frankly, I’m not sure how much longer it will last, but nothing lasts forever, does it?”
“Dr. Shepherd, why? Why did you do this?”
“Why does anyone do anything: for power, wealth, vengeance, or perhaps justice or some altruistic notion of bettering mankind? If what you are accusing me of is true, does it really matter why?”
“It matters to me. You matter to me.”
“Fin, you’re everything I could have ever wanted in a son but I’m afraid any justifications I could offer at this point would be superfluous.”
“You owe me an explanation.”
Shepherd pounded his fist on the table. “I owe you nothing! You, on the other hand, owe me everything. I gave you life.”
“The life you gave me is a lie. Look me in the eyes and deny it if you dare.”
Nova said, “It’s over, Dr. Shepherd. You might have erased the hard evidence, but it won’t matter. Fin will find your digital fingerprints everywhere. You know he will.”
“If that is so, it would make you both accomplices, my dear.”
“But we did nothing wrong. We’re the victims here.”
“Do you really think Council will see it that way? Two rogue Cybernites who breached SIA security and who are now accusing the city’s most venerable citizen of treason? I don’t think so. You'll be recycled before you get a word in edgewise.” Shepherd steadied himself. “Well, never mind. That’s irrelevant now. What’s done is done.” He picked up the reading glasses that were resting on a book on the table, blowing away a speck of dust from one of the lenses before setting them down again, making sure they were in their proper place. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read that book,” he said. “But I don’t think I shall be reading it again. The tale seems rather silly now: an old man struggling against the indomitable sea. Why would anyone persist in something so futile? What was the point when the ending was inevitable?”
“What did you have us steal?” Fin said. “What was so important that so many had to die?”
“The key to the experiment, my boy.”
“Which experiment?” said Nova.
“Humanity, my dear. This grand experiment, this last desperate hope, it was my charge. Mine, I tell you. I alone am responsible for what has become of humanity. Humanity,” he spat. “Where is the humanity in leaders that delude their citizens with a false sense of complacency while they suck the very life from this world? Where is the humanity in a society that thinks it’s acceptable to survive on the backs of slaves, to torture and oppress them in the name of preserving civilization? Where is
the humanity in a race that thrives not on love and peace, but on hatred and war? There is no humanity in mankind. Would that they had chosen someone else to carry out this folly. Would that Naamah and I had never existed. But then none of us chooses to come into this life, do we?”
“You’re insane,” said Nova.
“I am what I was made to be.” Shepherd focused on something distant, not in the room but in some other time. “They were scientists,” he began, “so young, so foolish. For them, everything from the greatest to the least was a problem to be solved by science, by experimentation. That was how they thought. It was all they knew. Life itself was a problem to be solved by a clear, simple methodology. And they applied it without emotion, without exception, according to established rules. They had such high ideals, such a grand sense of purpose. I do admire them for that. When they saw their own Great War coming and knew they were powerless to stop it, they devised the grandest experiment of all—the survival of their species. Science, they believed, would be their salvation. So they created this experiment, assembled the materials, determined the variables, listed the controls, and set it all in motion. But the point was not to prove that they could survive. Oh, no. It was to demonstrate that they deserved to.” Shepherd paused and his gaze returned to the present. He continued matter-of-factly. “The results are in. The data is quite clear. This experiment was a failure and it is time to terminate it.”
“Wait a minute,” said Nova. “Are you talking about killing everyone? You are crazy.”
“Am I? If a deadly disease had infected your body, would you not eradicate it?”
“That’s different.”
“Is it? Humans are a plague. They must be stopped before they infect the entire universe.”
Fin said, “Do they not deserve a chance to change their ways and redeem themselves?”
“They had their chance! We could have ended it when we saw the Great War coming. We should have, but Naamah thought otherwise. She was always the merciful one. She insisted we help them. So against my better judgment we did. We gave them Cybernites to help them rebuild. We gave them a shield to protect them while they recovered. We gave them their second chance." He paused to catch his breath. “And what did they do? They committed atrocities worse than before, and now my Naamah is gone. No, the time for mercy has passed. Now is the time for justice.”
“You blame them for her death,” said Fin.
“And they will all pay.”
“Who appointed you judge, jury, and executioner?” said Nova. “Who made you God?"
“The humans, my dear. They created me for this. They made me God of this world. And it was I who created them. So it is I who shall judge them for what they have done.”
“You’re God and they created you, so you created them? That makes no sense.”
“Very little in this world does, my dear. But take heart, it will all be over soon enough.”
“The schematics are the key to some sort of doomsday device,” Fin realized.
“Which your people built for me.”
“The Periculum shield?”
Shepherd nodded. “Ironic, isn’t it? The very thing their slaves built to protect their fair city will be its undoing. By default, its nanoparticles disintegrate every living thing they come in contact with. Council maintains an exception list of biocodes allowed to pass through it unharmed. The shield's superstructure links this exception list to each of its nanoparticles. If the power were ever shut off, that link would be broken. The nanoparticles would reset to default mode and with nothing to hold them in place, they would scatter to the winds. Every living thing they came in contact with would be disintegrated until all life on this world was erased. I intend to shut the shield down. I intended to finish the job mankind has begun. I intend to kill them all.”
Nova gasped, “You're a monster.”
“Their deaths will be instantaneous, quite painless, my dear. Is that such a horrible end?”
“Surely, Council became aware of what you were doing when the murders began?” Fin said.
“You overestimate their intelligence, boy. They’re nothing but glorified accounts and bookkeepers. We told them there was no way of shutting down their shield. They believe it will protect them forever.”
“Why would you store the plans for this key on their computers? And why, if you designed this device, did you need us to steal the schematics to build it?”
“Because I didn’t have the schematics,” Shepherd replied. “I didn't design the damn thing either. Naamah did. She was always the smart one, too smart as it turned out. When I told her I was going to put an end once and for all to this folly we call mankind, she said I was too late, that she had destroyed the key and the plans to make another. I was quite . . .” Shepherd paused until the color faded from his cheeks. “I was quite put out with her, you see. We argued. We fought. We were not on the best of terms when she died.” Shepherd stopped to collect himself again. “I’m sorry. This is still all so painful for me. I do miss her. After her passing, I became quite morbid, despondent, fixated on the last moments of her life. I read and reread all her correspondence, went through all the photos and vids of us. I even traced the last few days of her network activity because it was a part of the love that was lost to me forever. Oddly, this obsession led me to a file in the SIA computer system modified by her just before her death. Why would she do that, I wondered? It was the damnedest thing. She never had anything to do with the SIA. She hated the SIA. Out of curiosity, I tried to download the file but found it couldn’t be done unless I was onsite. When I asked Commander Roberts if I could use a terminal in Central Stores for research, he told me that the system was in lockdown because there had been a breach. You see, I did not fabricate the existence of a mole to get you inserted into the SIA, son. Naamah was the mole, but she was not stealing information. She was hiding it. That was when I created you and offered you as a means to uncovering this mole so I could obtain the schematics and build the key. You were programmed to be one hundred percent loyal, Fin. You were never meant to betray their trust or mine, but it seems you have evolved beyond that. I am proud of you, my perfect son.”
Fin said, “Killing them will not solve anything, Doctor.”
“I disagree. It will solve the world’s biggest problem—mankind. Ninety-nine percent of the complex life forms on this planet are already extinct because of them. I intend to the finish the job.”
“But the Cybernites are innocent victims. You cannot justify murdering them, too.”
“I created them. I am their God. I can do whatever I please.”
“This is bullshit," said Nova. "You're working for the Eastern Bloc, plain and simple.”
“My dear, even if there were an Eastern Bloc they would die, too, when the nanoparticles found them.”
“What do you mean, even if there were?”
“What Council labeled the Eastern Bloc was a disjointed collection of misfits who were expelled from the city hundreds of years ago for protesting the treatment of Cybernites. They had no weapons of mass destruction, no armies. They were never a serious threat to the city, but they were a convenient excuse to frighten the citizens of Periculum so they would hand over absolute power to Council. The last of them died over three hundred years ago. There are no humans left outside Periculum."
“What about the northern front? The new offensive? Are you saying it’s all fake?”
“The Great War as you know it, is a fabrication meant to keep people's focus off the real war Council is waging against its own people, a conflict I intend to end quite soon."
“I beg you, don’t do this,” said Fin.
“You remind me so much of Naamah. Your plea is touching, but they don't deserve your mercy, son.”
Fin pressed his palms to his temples. “Stop calling me that!”
Shepherd rested a fatherly hand on Fin’s shoulder. “I will grieve as much as you for my children, but their sacrifice is necessary for the greater good. The univers
e is better off without them. Surely you understand?”
Fin pushed him away. “I only thing I understand is that killing the innocent to punish the guilty is wrong. I cannot let you do this, Doctor.”
“You don’t seriously think you can stop me, do you?”
“I will stop you.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Shepherd took a Commlink out of his jacket pocket. Fin grabbed him by the wrist and squeezed until the doctor cried out and dropped the device.
Fin picked it up. “As I suspected,” he said, looking at the screen. “My override code.” He took the Pulser from the bookcase and pointed it at Shepherd. “Have you completed the key?”
“Of course, I have. That’s why I called you here: to witness the end."
“Tell me where it is.”
“No.”
Fin pressed the weapon against Shepherd’s forehead. “I said, tell me.”
“Or what? You’ll count to ten and shoot? Killing me won’t get you what you want.” Shepherd held out his hand. “As your father I order you to give me the gun.”
“You are not my father!” Fin’s finger tightened around the trigger. “I have never killed anyone before, but they say there is a first time for everything. Where is the key, Doctor?”
“Fin, please don’t,” said Nova.
“Why not? He betrayed the city. He betrayed our people. He betrayed us, Nova. Give me one good reason why I should not kill him where he stands.”
“Do you really want to die a murderer?”
“We all die. What difference does it make how?”
“It makes a difference to me. Please, don’t do this, Fin. This isn’t who you are.”
“It’s who we all are, my dear,” said Shepherd, grabbing the barrel of the Pulser, pulling it tighter against his skull. “Do it, son. Kill me. Kill the treacherous, lying old man who betrayed everything you believed in. You hate me. You know you do. Let your hatred speak now or forever remain silent.”
Fin jerked the gun away, strangling the trigger until it let loose a blast of deadly energy that melted a hole in the wall.
Fin Page 30
