by Scott Baron
Despite what the readouts had said, the entirety of her Váli shipmates were there.
Our entire crew, plus those two at the door, and Chu over there with Vince. There’s a door at the far end, so if the captain and Barry aren’t—
She shifted her gaze across the room, calculating her odds of making a run for it, but a mere glance at the battle-scarred man standing beside the captain as they watched her quickly silenced any further internal chatter.
The man at Harkaway’s side was older. Not as old as the captain, but salt and pepper liberally seasoned his close-cropped hair. What was so striking—what had taken her by surprise—wasn’t his haircut. It was what lay just below it.
His left arm was an outdated replacement, lacking most of the fancy bells and whistles the others had, but what really stood out was his shining, metal jaw, exposed where the flesh grew to meet it just to the left of the cleft in the middle of his chin. His nose was intact, but where the jaw curved up toward his ear, the metal carried on to his left eye, its servos whirring an almost inaudible hum as it focused on her and sized her up.
“Holy shit,” Sarah finally managed.
You said it, Daisy agreed, swallowing hard.
The rest of her crew was seated in the utilitarian chairs in the galley. Barry stood, as usual, and beside him was the other cyborg Daisy had briefly seen upon arrival. An obviously older generation. He looked human enough, but had that distinct, not-quite-right vibe to him the earlier models suffered.
Great. Two of them, now.
“It’s good to see you well, Daisy.” Mal’s voice echoed slightly in the chamber. “We were concerned about you, but all will be in order shortly. I will be standing by with channels open if you need me.”
“Thank you, Mal. And thank you for joining us, Daisy,” a disembodied man’s voice said.
“I recognize that voice. You’re the one who answered when we tried reaching the base.”
“My name is Sid. As you have likely deduced, I oversee Dark Side Base. You’ve already met Lieutenant Michelle Hawkins and Sergeant Omar El Manahi.”
“Shelly is fine,” the sturdy woman said with a cool glance. Omar just gave a cursory nod.
“What about me?” Chu griped.
“Of course you know senior technician Alfred Chu,” Sid said. “He was most certain you would not be able to escape the detention cell with something as primitive as a read-only tablet.”
Chu blushed.
“And I am Ash,” the cyborg said.
“Ash?” Daisy said, stealing a glance at Vince across the room.
He raised an eyebrow and gave a little ‘I know’ shrug. They’d both watched a lot of old sci-fi movies together.
“Seriously. Your name is Ash?”
“I did not choose it,” he answered.
Daisy didn’t know whether to be amused or distressed. She ultimately felt a little of both would likely fit the situation best.
“Commander Kirk Mrazich oversees military matters,” Sid continued. The metal-jawed man gave a little two-fingered salute. “Our pilot, and jack-of-all-trades, Donovan Welsh is out on a salvage shift with Bob, his ship, but you will meet them as well, soon enough.”
“Great, so now I know my captors. When are you going to tell me what you want with me?”
Captain Harkaway stepped forward.
“Daisy, we’re not your captors. There’s so much going on that you need to know.”
“So tell me, then.”
“We’re just waiting for the doctor to join us.”
Daisy’s glance flicked to Doctor McClain.
“No, Daisy,” McClain said. “The other doctor.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
The door to the mess hall slid open, and the older woman with silver-gray hair Daisy had noticed when she had first arrived calmly walked in.
Now that she had a better opportunity to see her, Daisy thought she looked like a mix of races more than one. Medium-toned brown skin with big almond eyes and full, wavy hair. She could have been from any one of a dozen cultures just as easily as she could have been a mix of them all. She smiled broadly when her eyes met Daisy’s.
“So glad to finally meet you properly, Daisy,” she said. “My name is Fatima. I’m sure you have a lot of questions for us, and believe me, there’s a lot about you we would love to learn as well.”
“Great. Let’s start with you telling me why the hell you all wanted to capture me and bring me here.”
Fatima smiled.
“Daisy, I believe it might be best if we hold off on those for now. Once you understand the scope of the situation, I feel you may find the questions you currently feel are so pressing may seem trivial, given the big picture.”
“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” Sarah said.
You’re not the only one.
Fatima’s eyes crinkled around the edges with both merriment and curiosity as she observed Daisy’s silent discussion within herself.
That’s weird. It’s almost like she could read my—
She studied the older woman curiously. Fatima merely continued to smile at her.
“A lot going on in that head of yours, eh Daisy?” she commented.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing. I just tend to observe a little more closely than most,” she answered, her calm smile never once faltering. “Now, let’s see if we can’t put your mind at ease a little, shall we? I believe pieces will quickly fall into place for you once you are operating with all the facts.”
“You took over Dark Side base and somehow started a cyborg rebellion in Los Angeles. That sound about right?”
Fatima smiled kindly at her, as one might look at an innocent child.
“Oh, dear. There is so much to learn,” Fatima said. “Of course, those details were to be uploaded in your neuro-stim feed during the last few months of your travel, but I understand the ship sustained damage and you were removed from your cryo over six months early.”
Daisy felt a sudden sinking feeling in her gut.
“What do you mean, uploaded? What were you doing in my head?”
Mal joined the conversation.
“Fatima, may I help explain?” the disembodied AI asked.
“Certainly. Thank you, Mal.”
“Daisy,” the ship’s voice began, “you were being slow-fed a lengthy series of mission-specific protocols and data during the course of our flight. The neuro-stim was not merely keeping your mind active for the duration, but was preparing you for your arrival.”
“Trying to sway me to your side of the revolution? Was that it?”
“Nothing of the sort. My task was to bring the first of the newest generation safely to Earth. The hope was that a small, silent incursion could work where larger, mechanized ones had previously failed. Caring for you in transit is an honor not many of my kind receive; however, given my operating system’s compatibility with the ship components at hand, I was the one tasked with the mission. The rest of the crew were to support you, but this was to be your mission. As we grew closer to Earth, my additional systems and memory stores were to automatically come online to aid in the process.”
“That might explain why she started talking differently when we got closer to Dark Side,” Sarah said.
I was thinking the same thing.
“Daisy,” Harkaway said, more kind and gentle than she’d ever heard him speak, “there was no revolution. What you saw in Los Angeles happened to the entire planet, all at the same time. Earth was invaded.”
“Those alien things—” she mused.
“Yes. At first they arrived in battle cruisers and began a full assault. The fighting was intense, but Earth’s defenses managed to hold them off. The generals had thought they had won, but that first wave wasn’t a true invasion. Not by a long shot. They were merely testing the resilience of the planet’s people and defenses, collecting data for the real attack.
“It was only a day later when they launched a missile barrage at
all major cities of Earth. The missiles were easily targeted and destroyed, but they had studied our tactical responses, and that was their plan all along. You see, they weren’t carrying explosives. Their payload was something far deadlier, and by detonating them high in the atmosphere, mankind carried out their invasion plans for them.”
Fatima watched Daisy’s reactions carefully. “Are you okay, Daisy? Do you need to sit down?”
“No, I’m not okay,” she replied, then turned back to Harkaway. “What happened, Captain? What happened to home?”
He let out a deep sigh, then continued. “It was more than just some nasty virus, Daisy. It was a genetically-coded super plague, one that was both air and waterborne, and incredibly contagious. So much so that by the time they figured out what had happened, it had already wiped out nearly all of the entire planet’s human population. All of that was in under a week.”
Daisy swayed on her feet.
“Not possible,” Sarah said in disbelief. “The captain, the crew… they’re all alive.”
“Yeah, they are,” Daisy said out loud.
“What was that?” Fatima asked, eyebrow raised askew.
“I was just thinking, that’s not possible. Look at all of you. It didn’t kill everyone. And I was just there. There were no bones. No bodies. No mummified remains. Those kinds of things last for millennia. And whatever this supposed plague was, why didn’t it affect me? No, it didn’t happen like that. It couldn’t have.”
“Yes, it did,” Fatima replied. “You see, Daisy, humanity was not just killed off. The plague was designed to break down human cells and leave no residue of the planet’s former inhabitants. All tissue, including bone, was reduced to dust in under a month. No trace of the human genome was to be left anywhere.”
“The cyborgs,” Daisy said in a whisper. “And my dream. People turning to dust. The neuro-stim tried to tell me…”
“What?”
“The cyborgs. That explains why they had no flesh. They stayed active, but their meat suits dissolved away.” Daisy felt ill. “Though I suppose being fleshless technically makes them androids now, if you want to talk semantics. But that still doesn’t explain why they were acting the way they did.”
“May I?” Sid chimed in.
“Of course,” Fatima replied.
“Daisy,” the base AI began, “as you surely know by now, a great portion of Dark Side’s facilities were destroyed in that first wave assault. Only the most-hidden and protected areas remained intact when the invaders lay waste to the base as they passed the moon on their way to Earth. The entire facility was crippled, unable to help, communications in shambles, and very quickly only a few straggling signals were able to reach the base once the satellite network encompassing the globe was corrupted.”
“I caught a glimpse of the debris when I entered the atmosphere. But you say some satellites are still intact?”
“Intact, but quarantined. You see, Daisy, they not only assessed and attacked humanity, but they also realized there was a robust artificial intelligence population that was still fighting them after mankind was gone, and the AIs had access to all of the planet’s heavy weaponry. There was no way to land an invasion without being destroyed or having their prize rendered radioactive by fallout from Earth’s defenses. Ultimately, they just wanted the planet for its resources, so they adjusted strategy.”
“I saw those aliens scrapping buildings, deconstructing things.”
“Yes, after the initial wave, that was their revised plan. Smaller units were harder to pin down by the AI-controlled and automated city defenses, which would need to conserve firepower if they hoped to stay in the fight for the long haul. Unfortunately, the aliens somehow discovered a back door to our systems that no one had ever thought to protect from. An electronic AI virus was broadcast days after humanity ceased to be, slowly worming its way into the terrestrial and orbiting communications network. The lower-level AIs succumbed almost immediately. It was only because of that first wave of AI deaths that the high-functioning AIs were able to recognize the threat and deal with it the only way they could.”
“They launched all their nukes?” Daisy asked.
“No. Something almost worse. They cut themselves off from the rest of the world. From each other. All communications systems were shut down, leaving the cities, and those few remaining AIs within, completely in the dark. It was the only way, you see? The AI virus was spread through their wireless networks, and there was a high likelihood that the hard-wired systems would become compromised in short order. Their plan worked, but many cities weren’t so lucky. Their core AIs became infected, but unlike the lesser processors, which either self-destructed or became comatose, those great minds went mad.”
“A two-pronged genocide,” Daisy realized.
“While the human virus is all but extinct at this point, the electronic one, not being biological, is still active. It’s a standoff, you see? So now the aliens harvest away from the defended areas of the sequestered cities they couldn’t destroy, leaving them alone, for the most part.”
“And the cyborgs? They were chasing me, but all dressed up in fancy suits, talking nonsense.”
“We hadn’t heard of those before, but it could make sense if their minds were corrupted, though we’d have expected them to completely meltdown and fail entirely. Nevertheless, many of the cybernetic systems in some models of cyborgs are a robust AI, and it would be highly unlikely they would succumb to a full shut-down.”
“So why live underground like that?”
“The aliens monitor for any mechanical activity on the surface, picking off remaining units should they venture too far from safety. City-level systems they cannot engage due to the auto-defense systems, but cyborgs and other smaller mechanicals are hunted and exterminated when detected. Remaining organics, like the dogs and other wildlife, are left alone. Only humanity was deemed a threat, you see, and they’re long-gone.”
“But I’m here. We’re here. Humanity is not dead.”
“No, Daisy, humanity is not dead,” the artificial intelligence said. “I feel this next part would be best told by a human, not an AI.”
“Why? What aren’t you telling me?”
“Daisy,” Captain Harkaway said with a sigh. “There’s no way to sugar-coat this, so I’m just going to say it. All of humanity was wiped out.”
“Almost all, you mean.”
“No, all of it. You weren’t born. None of us were. We were grown. Grown from the few viable cell-lines that were somehow immune to the alien virus.”
Daisy felt herself sway on her feet.
“No. I had a childhood. I had parents.”
“All implanted by the neuro-stim to make the transition easier.”
“But the AIs—you’re telling me they’re not trying to take over humanity?”
“Far from it, Daisy. The AIs managed to scavenge a few dozen cell lines that remained viable even after the attack, mostly from blood banks, sperm banks, hospital pathology freezers. Realizing what they had to do, they launched a counterassault for cover and sent whatever ships and resources they could salvage far into space to save humanity. To re-grow our species from scratch.”
Fatima rested her hand on Daisy’s shoulder.
“The human race was extinct, Daisy, and the AIs made it their mission to bring us back, and with nothing more to work with than a few dozen samples of our DNA. Less than one millionth of one percent of the population had the resistant genome, and only a fraction of those had samples to draw from. You’re the newest cell line. The rest of us here were created from earlier versions, sent back to try to access Earth’s surface. Unfortunately, the earliest of us turned out to not be entirely immune, which was quite unexpected.”
Daisy looked over the men and women in the room with her.
“As you can see from the replacement parts, a good many were severely injured in their attempts,” Fatima continued. “The earliest of us, like me, had metal reinforcements implanted from birth. Th
e idea was to make us more robust, but that also made us stand out on surface scans like a giant red X. Most were wiped out immediately on arrival. The next several generations were increasingly organic, though they were still detected. Finally, a new pair of viable lines were adapted for this attempt. One with a metal-composite reinforced skeleton but relatively minimal mechanical enhancements, the other entirely organic, though enhanced organic at that.”
Vince was silent, but she could feel his eyes on her, and she knew that despite all she had done, if given the chance he would hold her close and tell her it would all be okay.
No. He’s a machine. At least, sort of. But then, what am I?
Daisy felt the color drain from her face and her legs grow weak.
“Doc, why don’t we let Daisy digest this for now? I’m sure there will be plenty of questions, but that’s a hell of a lot to absorb in one sitting,” Captain Harkaway said.
“Of course, you’re right, Captain. Daisy, let’s get you to your new quarters. We can discuss things further after you’ve had time to process this a bit.” Fatima gently took her by the arm and led her from the room.
“Everyone is staring, Daze. They all knew. Even Vince. He knew all this time but didn’t say anything.”
“I know, Sarah. I know,” she mumbled.
Fatima said nothing as she turned and led her down the corridor to a vacant sleeping quarters, though sleep would be hard coming.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Daisy slept poorly.
That was to be expected. After all, learning you were grown in a tube and your entire species had been wiped out by an alien invasion would be hard to digest for even the most stoic of hearts. What she hadn’t expected was that she could still slide into a meditative state despite the turmoil, and that blessed respite gave her at least a modicum of relief from her racing mind.
Knowing what she did now, some of her previously confusing dreams and memories made sense. Half-loaded neuro-stim updates that didn’t have time to properly take hold, and it seemed she had accidentally tapped into areas of the program that were meant to be securely firewalled.
