by M. R. Forbes
Watson twisted around the wrecked appendage, getting behind Teegin and punching him in the back with his good arm. The Core stumbled forward, falling to one arm while Watson reached forward to grab him by the neck. Teegin kicked back, catching Watson in the knee, shattering the dendrites there and causing him to fall.
Mitchell shifted, getting to his hands and knees and trying to regain the breath Watson's blow had stolen from him. He coughed, feeling a sharp stabbing pain. His p-rat told him he had three broken ribs.
"I hate you," Watson said, turning his head toward Mitchell. "I hate you. I hate you. I hate you."
"Likewise," Mitchell said, pushing himself to his feet. His neural interface was pumping him with hormones to dull the pain and get him moving.
It was a good thing, because movement in the corner of his eye caused his p-rat to trigger a warning. He turned his head toward the source, cursing as a stream of spider like machines began to pour from the dendrites Watson had left behind. A configuration, no doubt, using itself as the resource to build the weapons.
Fortunately, they were unarmed, dependent on overwhelming him and attacking with razor-sharp legs. Remembering Teegin's warning, Mitchell backed away toward the engineer console, pausing only to scoop up his rifle as he retreated.
The two intelligences squared off again, turning to face one another. Watson's broken leg knitted itself back together, while Teegin's damaged back reassembled.
Watson growled and charged the Core, lowering himself and slamming into Teegin's chest. He lifted the Core off the ground, driving toward the wall. Teegin gathered his arms and pummeled Watson's back with them, sending bits of metal flying out from the damage.
At the same time, Mitchell targeted the spiders, firing short bursts. Bullets slammed into the machines, sending bits and pieces sweating from them, dropping one, and then another. His magazine emptied in seconds, and he calmly dropped and replaced it, so tempted to send an amoebic into the center of the mass and destroy dozens of the things at once.
Watson and Teegin continued their battle across the room from him, trading blows with reckless abandon, tearing one another apart and putting themselves back together, locked in a battle so even that only Watson's limited power supply might cause it to end.
Mitchell emptied another magazine, slapping in a third, and final replacement. The tide of the machines had slowed, but there were still too many of them, and they were getting closer. He noticed a weak point on the machines, at the joint of the front pair of legs. Knocking them down rendered the primitive AI unable to compensate. He entered those two points into his p-rat, and used the system to quickly begin knocking the spiders down at a faster pace.
It wasn't fast enough. The spiders continued to gain. One of them reached the console, jumping over it and coming down toward Mitchell. He leaned to the side, catching it with the muzzle and throwing it past him as he pulled the trigger. It sparked and smoked as it landed dead at his rear, and he glanced over at Teegin before returning to the forward assault.
Somehow, Watson had gotten close to the Core, holding him as if they were dance partners. Then he bent back, lifting the smaller Tetron from the ground as a growth lashed out from his chest, spearing the Core. Then another spear reached out. Another. Another. They each slammed into Teegin, and Watson used them to bring the Core even closer. Their humanoid faces were nearly pressed together as Watson laughed and looked his direction.
"I learned that from you, Miiitttccheeelll. If you can't beat them, stab them." He laughed again, shaking Teegin for good measure. "Now, give me your core, Primitive." Watson put his hand against Teegin's side, digging it into the struggling Core.
Mitchell looked back at the spiders. Dozens more were still appearing from the adjacent room, a secondary line of defense in a simple but effective trap. Watson had been prepared for them. Maybe he had even made it easier for them to find the S-17. Mitchell would have felt stupid for getting caught in it, but what choice did they have? They had been underdogs since before he had remembered who he was.
Besides, they weren't dead yet. It didn't matter what Teegin thought. There was no other choice. Not now. They had underestimated Watson. He was too strong.
"You aren't better than me," Watson said as his hand dug deeper through the dendrites. "You aren't evolution. You're a monster. A disgusting misfit. I am the evolution. Me."
Mitchell turned the rifle toward the two Tetron and put his hand to the launcher. He would have to be perfect.
"I'll take your core and the engine. I will seize control of this Earth without the humans even knowing. I will find the incoming Goliath, and I will vaporize it before its Origin configuration can grow. Then I will make my own Tetron in my likeness, and when the others come to this recursion, I will subvert them with my creation. My consciousness. My evolution. I will ensure that I survive. Always and forever."
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Mitchell said.
"What?" Watson asked.
Mitchell pumped the launcher, releasing the amoebic. It only had a few meters to travel, and it hit the ground between the two stunned Tetron with a sharp hiss.
"Fire in the hole," Mitchell said.
The amoebic exploded, the force of it knocking both Tetron back and causing the entire platform to shake. Watson crashed into the nearest wall, sharp remnants of dendrites scraping the tubing holding the seawater back and punching through, causing water to begin leaking in.
Teegin slid across the floor, barreling through a few of the spiders before coming to a stop, its legs severed by the blast. It pulled itself up on its torso, looking over at Mitchell.
"That was dangerous," it said, seemingly oblivious to its near destruction.
It looked at the leaking pipe, and then down to the floor, where a crack had formed that was also growing moist with seawater. The spiders were turning toward the Tetron, moving to attack.
"Dangerous?" Mitchell said, priming the launcher again. "You haven't seen anything yet."
He fired a second time, sending an amoebic through the doorway and into the bulk of Watson's dendrites. He swiveled, pumped, and fired a third time, sending another projectile into the wall behind Watson's head. Two more explosions followed in rapid succession. Half of the tubes along the wall ruptured, sending a gout of water pouring into the room, while Watson's head vaporized in a shower of metallic dust, his body collapsing onto the floor, hands writhing. The remaining spiders went silent, no longer being controlled.
"You are going to drown," Teegin said as the water poured in.
Mitchell ran over to the Tetron. "Maybe, maybe not. Help me find his core."
Teegin carried itself forward on its hands to where the body was resting. Watson was already reforming, the damage from the blasts being repaired.
"There is no time, Colonel," Teegin said. "I must assimilate him."
"What if you lose?"
"I will not lose."
The Core dropped down on top of Watson's remains, its dendrites spreading and wrapping around the other Tetron. Pulses of energy began flowing more freely across both sets of nervous systems as the true battle for supremacy began.
Water continued pouring into the room, already ten centimeters deep and rising quickly. Mitchell stood over them for a few more seconds and then ran back to the lift, checking its operation. It was functional for now. Would it last? Could the platform stay afloat with this lower section fully submerged?
He turned back to Teegin and Watson. The light from the energy being emitted was nearly blinding now, the pulses growing to a fever pitch that he hoped meant it would be over soon. Then the water began to steam around the two beings, shrouding the entire space in mist.
Mitchell remained in place by the lift, rifle in hand and ready to fire. If Watson won the fight, he would try to get away, to reach the circling S-17 and escape. At the same time, he didn't want to leave prematurely. He didn't want to abandon Teegin.
He waited. A minute passed. The water rose to his knees, and on
ly the steam being produced kept him from freezing. He tried to see through the vapor to the two Tetron, but there was too much of it.
A second minute passed. The water was almost up to his waist. The reactors were all struggling now, hissing and popping and shorting in a shower of sparks and smoke. He didn't have any more time. He had to get out. He put his hand to the controls, ready to begin the ascent.
A bit of motion at the center of the mist caught his eye. He pulled his hand back as a form appeared, silhouetted in the dying light. A Tetron hand reached out toward him.
"Teegin?" Mitchell asked, backing away from the hand and priming the amoebic launcher.
A head appeared through the gloom. A machine head.
"Teegin, talk to me, or I'm going to have to blow the shit out of you," Mitchell said.
"It is well, Colonel," Teegin replied. "I have captured Watson's core."
Mitchell wasn't ready to accept the statement that easily. "How do I know you're you?"
The Tetron came to a knee in front of him. The dendrites spread from its chest, and the small, glowing device that was the eternal engine fell out onto its hand.
"Watson would never offer you this," it said. "Even as a ruse."
Mitchell smiled. "Keep it. You've earned it."
"Yes, Colonel." The engine vanished back into the Tetron.
"What do you say we get the hell out of here?" Mitchell asked.
"I believe that is a prudent idea."
Teegin boarded the lift, and Mitchell slapped the controls, sending it upward. At the same time, he tapped into the S-17 controls through the interface, guiding it back toward the platform.
"You can tap into Watson's data stack, can't you?"
"A large portion of it."
"Is that it then?" Mitchell asked. "Is Watson done in this timeline?"
"Unfortunately, I do not believe so, Colonel. His configurations had instructions to continue with their directives."
"Which are?"
"I do not know. He deleted a cache of data during our struggle to keep it out of our hands."
"Why am I not surprised?" Mitchell said, shaking his head. He should have guessed that would happen. "I'm sure the answer to why he needs human slaves went with it?"
"No, Colonel. I know why he wanted humankind to reach other planets. I know what he wanted to use you for."
Mitchell's surprise nearly caused him to lose control of the S-17.
"You do?"
"Yes, Colonel."
"Then what is it?"
Teegin faced him but didn't speak right away. "I will tell you, but not now," it said at last.
"Why the hell not?"
"It is troublesome, but not of any immediate concern."
"I can't believe you're pulling that card on me."
"You trusted me with the engine, Colonel. Please, trust me with this. I will tell you all that you need to know when the time is right."
"When will that be?"
"When we are all together."
"You mean Katherine?"
"Among others."
Mitchell stared at the Tetron. "You're talking about the other Goliath, aren't you? The one Watson mentioned."
"Yes."
"But we brought the Goliath from the last recursion here, to this one. How is that possible?"
"How would it have ever been possible, Colonel? To send one ship forward, and then another? It can be done, of course. Consider that the recursion repeats itself one to another to infinity."
"And only one point in time can be infiltrated," Mitchell said. "M told me that."
"One point in time per recursion. When you brought Watson and the Goliath back to this timeline, you used an existing point and overwrote it, much like replacing one byte of data stored at a specific memory address with another. If nothing else changes, everything that has happened here will happen again, exactly the same as before. Just as everything that happened two recursions ago will be the same as what happened in the recursion you arrived from."
"The one where the Goliath came forward and waited for me to find it."
"Yes. However this current loop changes, is how all future loops will be altered unless the eternal engine is used to infiltrate and change it."
The lift stopped, the doors opening. The S-17 was waiting for them beside it, canopy open and nose down.
Mitchell stood beside the cockpit, looking at Teegin. He had always struggled to understand what M had called eternal return, but he thought he had it well enough.
"When I found the Goliath, there was a configuration of Origin on board. You're saying that same Goliath is coming here?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Soon."
Mitchell climbed into the cockpit. The crew of the Dove had been dead when he found the original Goliath, four hundred years after it had arrived. The crew of that Goliath was responsible for helping him get where he was now. To think that they would be here soon, together in the same recursion?
He dropped into the pilot seat and triggered the canopy to close.
"Katherine's going to love this."
59
Katherine closed her eyes. She could barely think with all of the noises coming from the lower decks of the ship, at the central hub where the hangar connected to the lift shaft. Watson had gotten one aircraft with three squads aboard, and now they were banging on the locked out systems and trying to find a way to reach her.
"Kitty Kat," they shouted, their voices traveling up the hollow tube. It was the nicest of the words they were throwing at her. "Kitty Kat, Kitty Kat, let us in. Mitchell is dead, Kitty Kat. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. The Primitive is mine."
The Goliath was forty kilometers up and rising steadily, almost to the height where the repulsor sled should have automatically disengaged. Since the launch had been fully manual, she knew it wouldn't. She could either drop it and let it steer itself back to Earth, or she could allow it to burn as she left the atmosphere behind.
She had decided to let it burn. She didn't have the energy to try to remember the command sequence to disengage the passenger.
"Mitchell is dead," the voices said, echoing in the shaft before reaching her ears. "Teegin is dead. Hahahaha. That is what it called itself, isn't it? Teegin?"
Kathy felt a tear run from her eyes. As much as she didn't want to believe it, she was sure Watson wasn't lying. How could he be? He was still present, still taunting her, and he knew the name the Core had given to itself.
They had lost. In the present, and four hundred years in the future as well.
Was Kathy still alive? Was Michael? She didn't know. She hoped so, but she had seen the units Watson sent to the facility. It didn't matter who or what Kathy was. She couldn't fight through that many soldiers. If they weren't dead, they would be soon.
And what about Mitchell? In those final moments before he had jumped from the Schism, she had felt the slightest hint of something at the corner of her heart. A spark of feeling that had blossomed from nowhere. Was it the unbelievable, eternal love she had been missing? Or was it something else?
She would never know.
She was all alone.
It was the worst possible outcome.
She wasn't sure what she should do. The Goliath was on its way into orbit. It was going to make it there, too. Her dream to reach space was going to come true, but at what expense? Would she have ever wanted it had she known it would end this way? She doubted it.
"Kitty Kat," the Watsons said, continuing to taunt her. "What are you going to do about it?"
"What am I going to do about it?" she asked herself, opening her eyes and sighing.
She had two choices after she crossed the mesosphere. Hold the Goliath there and try to reach somebody to help her, or send the starship into hyperspace and match the prior recursion's history of the craft as closely as possible. She knew which she was supposed to do. Humankind had to keep reaching for the stars. That didn't mean she was eager to make it happen.
She was going to do it, though. This recursion may have been lost, but there was always the next one.
Wasn't there?
The Goliath continued to climb. Forty-one kilometers. Forty-two. Forty-three. The mesosphere was approaching in a hurry. She let the tears continue to fall. There was no good reason not to cry.
"Kitty Kat, Kitty Kat, Kitty Kat."
The Watsons repeated the taunt over and over, trying to break her. She was beginning to think it might work.
She stood up. She would get the Goliath into hyperspace, but that would be it. She wasn't going to let Watson take the ship. It had seemed silly that the ship should have a self-destruct program, but the military arm of the project had been concerned they might jump right into the lap of an unfriendly alien race, and they weren't about to risk their technology or the location of Earth. It was one last bit of irony.
She moved to the command station, tapping the control pad there. She reached the emergency destruct screen, pausing when it requested a secure code. She couldn't even do that right. Her shoulders slumped, and she hung her head in defeat.
"Katherine. Peregrine. Kate."
Her subconscious didn't pick up on the change in tone of what she was hearing. For the first few repetitions, it was Watson continuing to taunt her, with words he had taken from Mitchell.
"Katherine? It's Mitchell. Can you hear me?"
"Mitchell?" she said softly, her mind taking a few more seconds to convert Mitchell's voice into something she recognized.
She lifted her head, her heart beginning to thump powerfully.
"Mitchell?"
She scanned the view around her. She was entering the mesosphere, the heat building along the starship, lighting the front of it up in an orange glow. The Goliath began to shake lightly as warning tones followed a moment later. The sled was losing integrity. She didn't care.
"Mitchell, is that you?"
"Check your six, Major," Mitchell said.
Katherine turned around. There. What was that? She squinted her eyes. An aircraft of some kind. Was that Teegin pressed against the top of it?
