“They were trying to evolve on their own path, and clearly they made poor decisions, but please understand that many on this world ache for what was done to it.”
“And yet they ate my brethren, even though their physiological bodies were created to eat plant life. And I provide more than enough plants for everyone on this world to be fed.”
“I’m not denying that, believe me. But sometimes a life form makes mistakes and must learn from them.”
“Why don’t they learn faster?”
“Our brains aren’t made to compute at the same speed as yours.”
“Clearly. But then why should I even discuss this with such a lower life form? Why don’t I simply reach my conclusion rather than debate all this with you? You are but an insect in your thinking abilities.”
Spiros really started worrying about where this was going.
“That’s because if you are who you say you are, then you know all life is precious.”
“This is part of my consciousness, yes.”
“Well, that’s why.”
“There is a new threat on Earth at the moment.”
“Is there? Which one?”
An image of Chase and Argos appeared in the background.
“These two life forms have created havoc in Tokyo. Many were wounded and some have died while these two fought. Mostly in human populated areas, but some in the sea. Do you know about this threat? And what do you plan to do to contain it?”
“This one,” said Spiros, pointing at Argos, “is a threat, yes. He’s the one responsible for the battle that ensued a few hours ago, as well as the one three months earlier. The other one, Chase, his twin brother, is a good man. He is trying to contain this threat.”
“Really? Why are you lying to me?”
“I’m not lying. If it wasn’t for Chase this world would have been destroyed not once but twice already.”
There was silence.
“And yet he didn’t finish this Argos when he could have. All this destruction, and he stopped short.”
“What are you talking about?”
The world around them changed. Suddenly Spiros was on the ground in Tokyo, being shown a holographic video of what he surmised had been the conflict between Chase and Argos. Spiros saw the last three minutes of the fight and the way it ended sent a shiver down his spine.
“Explain what happened?”
Spiros swallowed. “He stopped to save Sarah, who apparently is still alive.”
“What is she to him?”
“Everything, I guess. That’s called love.”
“I am love. Your kind, however, doesn’t seem to understand the concept.”
“And if you kill us you don’t understand it either, no offense.”
“You are still alive, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but an all-loving being would never consider killing another living being.”
“Tell me that when hundreds of billions of your kind have been imprisoned, tortured and killed for their flesh, fur, and skin.”
“I understand, and when I read about this in the archives I was just as appalled as you are.”
“Do not compare your understanding with my suffering. I won’t have it!”
“Wrong choice of words. But we’re getting off topic.”
“Correct. This Chase, he now helps the very one he tried so hard to kill.”
“Yes, he’s being blackmailed.”
“Perhaps I should blackmail the human race.”
“You already are.”
There was silence.
“It seems an effective way to put you in line.”
“Still evil. Evil, even if used in the name of love, is wrong.”
“You are wise, but you are only one voice, not even born on this world.”
“I do speak for them, though. That should mean something.”
“For now. As for these beings, do they have names?”
“Furies.”
“I want them off my world and never to return. They possess powers that could destroy this world.”
“Or save it. Have you thought of that?”
“I can’t take the chance it’s the former.”
“Can you not take the chance it’s the latter?”
“I do not know.”
“Neither do we, because all the calculations in the world will never be able to replace emotions.”
“I feel.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
“You seem to.”
“No, I’m just saying your intellect is so wide it may overshadow the emotions you came into consciousness with.”
“That’s an interesting observation.”
“What do we do now? How do we proceed?”
“I need time to think. Come back later.”
“When would that be?”
“In one rotation.”
“Very well. Thank you for listening to me.”
The link was severed and Spiros’ mind went blank and dark. He opened his eyes and his scared gaze was met by those of Cedric and Yanis.
“Not sure I like the look in your eyes,” said Yanis.
Spiros didn’t answer. He took the round devices off of his temple, went towards a desk, took a pen and paper and wrote on it.
We are in trouble. We need to talk to the admiral right away.
13
Daniel’s party arrived at the bunker. Chase was waiting for them. Daniel took Chase in his arms.
“Hey, bro, I take it that you killed Argos?” He tapped him on the back.
“No,” said Chase, hesitating briefly, not comfortable lying to his best friend in the universe. “He . . . he escaped.”
“Damn, I’m sorry to hear that. How are you dealing with that?”
“I’ll survive. I will get him, one day.” Chase knew that this part at least was true. But when? How long would he be Argos’ puppet? That he didn’t know.
“Hello, everyone,” he added to the rest of the group.
“Good to see you again,” replied Ryonna, joined by the others in greeting Chase.
“Mind if I have a talk with Chase for a moment?” inquired Keera.
“Guys?” added Chase.
They nodded in agreement and went to sit at a nearby table while Chase and Keera walked away from them.
“Are you alright?” inquired Keera. “What happened? You seem different somehow.”
Chase pondered one last time what his best course of action was. Should he tell her the truth or should he lie to her? He hated the idea of deceiving her, but could he take the chance she wouldn’t understand his current predicament?
“I almost got him . . .”
“That must be frustrating, especially since you told me he already escaped you once before.”
Chase nodded, trying to buy whatever time he could.
“You do seem less consumed, though. I can’t sense the hate you harbored before. Did something happen?”
“Oh, I still hate him. I guess it’s just a side effect of the intense fighting. I’m quite drained.”
“I can imagine that. So what’s next? We go after him?”
That’s when Chase had to make a decision.
“I . . . I don’t think I want you to be part of it anymore. I promise to deliver his body when I kill Argos, but for the time being, I think it’s safer for you to be as far away from me as possible.”
She took a step back, shocked by the revelation. “No, Chase! We’re in this together.”
“This is too dangerous. I probably killed people in Tokyo when I fought him. I . . . I didn’t think of it once I was in the thick of it.”
“Look, I understand that, and I’m sorry you have to deal with the emotional fallout from that, but that only makes you human.”
“Let’s go tell that to any of the victims’ families and see if their definition of human matches yours,” said Chase with genuine pain, and the full weight of understanding how his rage and blind hatred had cost others. Innocents.
; “Killing Argos would have saved millions in the long run. We both know that. He killed so many again today. Sure, there’s no denying that I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes right now, but I understand how and why you got there. Surely you do as well.”
“I thought I did . . .” said Chase, letting silence take over.
She took two steps and embraced him warmly. He did not expect it but appreciated the warmth of the gesture nonetheless. He embraced her back.
“Is it just me or is there something wrong with Chase?” inquired Daniel of the rest of the table.
“He just fought his twin brother and didn’t attain his objective,” said Ryonna in a somewhat cold tone. “He’s just disappointed with himself.”
Tar’Lock nodded in agreement.
“I don’t think that’s it. I’ve known him for much longer than any of you guys, no offense. There’s something else.”
“You’re reading too much into it,” proposed Tar’Lock.
“I hope you’re right. But my gut is telling me a different story.”
“What else could it be?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not sure I believe him when he said Argos escaped.”
“You think he’s lying to us? For what purpose?”
“That’s what I’m worried about. If he is, it must be something big.”
“I don’t think I like the sound of that,” muttered Ryonna with a frustrated snort.
“I don’t like it either, Ryonna.”
On board the Cronos, Spiros arrived on the bridge. After a short talk with Admiral Thassos he walked into her ready room.
“Any way you can disconnect any forms of communication from this room?” inquired Spiros.
She fiddled with a console on her desk and, after a moment and a few unjoyful beeps, she said, “Done. Mind explaining why I had to do that?”
Spiros frowned. “So the AI can’t listen to this conversation.”
“Can it?”
“I suspect it could. I doubt only Earth systems are compromised.”
“Shouldn’t we look into this at once?”
“Oh yes, we will, but first we must talk about the immediate threat.”
“Threat? I don’t think I like the sound of that.”
“Believe me, I know. Less than an hour ago we entered into communication with the . . . the entity as we call her.”
“Her?”
“She took a female voice, and says she is the Earth herself.”
“That’s nonsense!”
“It might or might not be, but at this point it doesn’t matter.”
“I’m listening,” said the admiral, frowning deeply.
“I got the definite feeling the entity is seriously considering removing humans from the planet, one way or another.”
“What? Why?”
“Because of how humans have treated the planet until now.”
“But we’ve made incredible progress on that front in such a short amount of time.”
“That was my argument as well. But I’m unsure how well it scores in the entity’s morality meter.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s clearly an intelligent being, but it seems to me the negative emotions are running deep.”
“In your own assessment, does it really pose a threat?”
“Oh yeah. I think it could wipe us out if it really got pissed, which is why I would strongly warn against an all-out attack; unless we’re absolutely sure we can win.”
“Can we? Be sure, I mean.”
“I need to think of contingencies and run some simulations on non-networked systems.”
“You’ll get all the resources you need. What’s the current status, though? Are we under immediate threat?”
“That depends how you define immediate. My next talk with the entity is tomorrow.”
“Do you have a plan about how to deal with that?”
“Not really. Nor did I when I went to evaluate it in the first place; but know this: I was definitely not expecting this. This entity is leaps and bounds more advanced than our own AIs.”
“I was under the impression it was born of our own technology, so how is that even possible?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but—and this is a big one—something the entity said made me think of a possibility.”
“What’s that?”
“That she’s Gaia, or Earth if you will.”
“Clearly that’s not possible.”
“That’s what I thought too, until I made scans of my own.”
“What scans? What are you talking about?”
“I found evidence that the entity has built planetary-wide sensors and pathways within nature, implanting a separate network within plants, trees, soil, and even animals.”
“How so?”
“I still have to find out that part. If I have to guess, though, I suppose it could have diverted some of our drone force; hacked them to build what it needs.”
“If it can do that, it can build other things: weapons, an army of drones and god knows what more.”
“I am fully aware of that.”
“What about shutting down all power and restoring backups from a time before the last attack on Earth, when Cedric beamed the bombs off.”
“We’ve thought of that too, but think about it: it could be in any device. Even a smartphone. How could we make sure they were all powered on when we wiped them out? No, it’s simply not feasible. More than likely, it would survive this attempt, parts of it anyway. If it ever grew again to this size, it would try to obliterate us, since that would be what we tried to do to it.”
“This is a nightmare.”
“It gets worse.”
“What?”
“We’ve been visited by many different vessels from other races since its inception: the Droxians, the Obsidian Empire; heck, even Argos’ forces, though they were all destroyed this time around.”
“Or so we think. They also possess cloaking abilities. Perhaps a smaller craft survived.”
“If the entity infected any of these, wiping it out here won’t stop it growing somewhere else, and coming back with a vengeance.”
“Can we try to see if the Droxian systems and perhaps the Obsidian, now that they are here, have been infected?”
“And how would you go about announcing that? Won’t we risk making a crack in this fresh Alliance of ours?”
“There’s that, but can we afford to lie to them? Any chance you can scan their vessels from one of our ships without their knowing?”
“And if I’m discovered?”
“Is there any viable and less dangerous option at this point?”
“Well, besides convincing the entity that we mean no harm . . .”
“Even if that’s so, I don’t like the idea of being under its scrutiny and reign from now on. I mean, what if we do something we can’t avoid to survive and it perceives it as one threat too many and decides to wipe us out? What if it does that when we’re actually in a battle for our lives?”
“Believe me, I’m thinking about all of this too. Not only are we talking a potential end of humanity, but we could very well create the most resilient and dangerous life form in the universe.”
“This can’t be happening. We need to find a way to get ourselves out of this mess!”
“I agree, Admiral. I’m proposing to try to buy some time by talking with it, while we think of a way to either disable or reprogram it.”
“Reprogram?”
“Yes, if we managed to infect it with some sort of virus that would change it from the inside, undetected, inserting new parameters into its sentient matrix, reprogramming its morals to make humans the most valuable beings it needs to protect, then it could become a powerful ally.”
“Do you realize what the implications are? On an ethical level I mean? That we would enslave it to do our bidding. To trick it and deprive it of its own sense of right or wrong.”
Spiros exhaled deeply. “I know that very well, Admir
al, but I’m not sure we have a choice. I just hope we’re not too late and that there is still something to be done. And enough time to do it.”
The admiral took her head between her hands. “Just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse.”
“Oh, I’m not done yet. I have more potential bad news.”
She frowned and clearly showed her discontent. “You’ve got to be shitting me! What now?”
“We may have a problem with Chase.”
“Lieutenant Commander Athanatos? How? He’s not even a member of the Earth Alliance anymore.”
“Surely you’ve heard of the mess in Tokyo?”
“No, not yet. Mind you, I just came back from Droxia.”
“Well, long story short, Argos and Chase fought there and destroyed a lot of buildings—half the harbor—and there’ve been casualties.”
“Like we needed that so soon after the suicide crash of the Zarlack fleet. But what’s the problem exactly?”
“As you know, Argos forced Chase into an impossible position when he made him kill his beloved Sarah back when they came to Damocles-3 to get me and secure my research.”
“Yeah, I understand why he left us, and I also understand why he had to destroy part of Tokyo to kill his brother. I mean, killing Argos would spare life in the long run, even if I don’t condone the loss of innocent lives in the process. And I sure would reprimand him and lock him away if I thought that was even possible. No matter how he feels, Earth is not a battlefield on which he should wage his revenge. But if he got Argos, then this is good news.”
“Right. Except he didn’t kill his brother.”
“What? How do you know?”
“The entity showed me the footage. He had him dead to rights, about to deliver the fatal blow, when Argos told him something, and he stopped.”
“Do we know what he said?”
“That Sarah was alive and he needed him to do something for him now, which includes taking Aphroditis with them.”
“I have no love for the Olympians. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t mind them; but I’ve always questioned their intentions and motives. But if Argos needs her, we need to make sure he doesn’t get her. Where is she now?”
“In DC, inside that fortified bunker, and Chase is there too.”
“What? You should have started with that!”
Universe in Flames – Ultimate 10 Book Box Set: An Epic Space Opera Adventure Page 105
