by Drew Cordell
“Good, you are awake. How are you feeling? Any pain? The surgery went remarkably well. I expect you to make a full recovery, although you are going to be sore for at least a week.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “My head’s just a little cloudy, and I could use a glass of water.”
Mary stirred when I spoke, lifting her head sleepily and looking over. When she saw I was awake, she got up and walked over, leaning down and kissing me on the lips. My own mouth was still numb and, despite what must have been a horrible kiss, she smiled.
A deep reverberation rumbled through my stomach, and I winced. “A meal too, if that’s all right. Actually, make it three meals,” I amended, feeling the staggering force of hunger wash over me. I had only eaten a few bites of a protein bar on my way back to the ODIN II after being rescued, and I was ready to eat a feast.
“I could eat too if you don’t mind,” Mary said.
“One more thing,” I said to the Builder, motioning for him to come close so I could whisper something in his ear.
“On it,” the Builder said, smiling. “By the way, you can call me Lawrence. I think the Builder sounds too weird now that I’m going to be living with other people. It seemed like a good idea when my only friends were a bunch of robots. Now not so much.”
“Lawrence,” I tested. “I like it.”
“Me too,” Mary agreed.
Lawrence returned with a tall glass of water and enough food to feed a small army. He also slipped something else behind me, the item I had requested. Mary and Lawrence pulled up chairs and ate a meal with me at my bed. We talked and joked for over an hour, enjoying each other’s company and the delicious food. Lawrence, after stating he needed to attend to other duties, gave us some space.
Things were truly different now, and despite the difficult road in front of us, we had a real future. I scooted over and made room for Mary so she could lie on my bed with me. I held her hands and felt wholeness swell through me. I was happy. I had Mary, and we had our whole lives ahead of us.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked, looking up at me. “Are you ready to tell me what you wanted to say before the attack?”
“I’m about to be ready to tell you. I’m just thinking about us, our new lives, everything,” I said. “We actually did it.”
“I knew we would. You’re just lucky you had me to get you through. You never would have made it without me,” she said, a playful smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
I smiled, but felt tears pooling in the corners of my eyes.
“Hey, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” she said. “I was only joking.”
“It’s not that. I’m just so happy,” I said. “I never told you, but I was planning on proposing to you in Olympus before we staged the terrorist attack at Baron Telson’s commencement ceremony. Bracken even helped me get you a ring.”
My heart was pounding in my chest, and I wished I had asked Lawrence to unplug me from the monitor before this.
“What? Really?”
I nodded. “The day of the ceremony, when you woke up to find me at your house playing Elorium with Arnold, I asked them for permission to marry you.”
She was tearing up now too. “I’ve accepted that they probably weren’t my real family—that it was a set up to bring me to Olympus, but they were good people.”
“They were good people.” I paused, taking a moment to gather myself. “I’ve known I have loved you for a long time, well before I told you my feelings. With everything going on, the timing was never right. There was always too much looming ahead.”
She nodded. “Until now.”
“Until now,” I agreed, feeling my hand squeeze the small velvet box Lawrence gave me. “I can’t really kneel, so you’ll have to forgive that.”
“What are you doing?” she asked, choking up on her words.
“Mary, would you make me the happiest person in the world and spend the rest of your life with me?” I asked, producing the box and flipping the cover so she could see the ring Lawrence had helped me pick for her. He was right—it wasn’t over the top. In fact, it was perfect.
“Oh my God. Jake, I—” She was crying now, tears blurring her eyes and spilling down her soft cheeks. “Yes,” she stammered, leaning in and kissing me.
I pull back on my layering, easing myself out of the memories for what I assure myself will be the last time. I wanted to end on a positive note—on one of the happiest moments of my life. There were more challenges to overcome once we had built New Olympus, but they have been nothing compared to everything else we faced before. I check my equipment to be sure everything was recorded. I check the files, upload them to my network, and backup the data before doing anything else. My father’s box is sitting on my desk, waiting for me. There is one more letter to open, and I find my thoughts drifting to what is in store for me. I know I must do this so I can keep my life with Mary and Kimberly. I’m going to see this through to the end.
As I grab the final envelope, I feel my hands trembling. It isn’t because I’ve just spent the past eight hours in a projection; I’m genuinely scared of what I am going to read and what comes next. I tear the top of the envelope, reaching in and pulling out a neatly folded letter and nothing else.
Hello Jake,
By the time you read this letter, many years will have passed for me—at least in theory. I’d like to believe I am still happy, that I am still living my life with my wife and daughter. Who knows? Maybe I even have grandchildren. If you haven’t already figured it out, I am not your—our father. In fact, you and I are the same person. All of the letters, everything up until this point was because of me.
I’m sorry for the lies and deception, but I think you’ll find they were necessary to bring you to this point. I know they helped ease me into the person I am today—the person you will become very soon. Now that you know who you are, it’s important you understand why things have to be the way they are. There can’t be any hesitation now, or you will break the cycle and lose the certainty of the future I chose. It is, of course, irrelevant to me. I chose to live with Mary and Kimberly, to live my life to its fullest in a world without the Omniscience Engine. Though my understanding of the Transfinite is limited, I do not believe your choices will affect me in my life, though I wish nothing but continued happiness for you.
I am happy. I chose to keep the life I worked toward. Mary loves me. Kimberly loves me. I could be a better husband and father, but I truly believe I am a good person now. It is for that reason I encourage you to do what has always been done up until this point—choose your family like I am now.
I do not know exactly lies ahead for me—for you, if you choose to follow me. But I do know there is more to the Transfinite than we could ever hope to understand. Dad was right; we don’t want to discover more than we should. You hold true, absolute power in the form of that sphere. It is your future, it is my past, it is the key to unlocking the universe. You must make a decision.
If you decide to follow in my footsteps, create a copy of every letter I wrote to you and take it with you to the past along with your projection recordings. The storage boxes, any equipment, the treasonous book, the map to Vermont, and everything else you no longer have will be generated in the past. Dad will take care of most things for you with the help of your projections—that is what we were told.
With the help of some distant, older version of ourself, our dad will replicate everything that brought us to this point. He will make sure sixteen-year-old Jake Ashton gets the copy of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding from the traveling merchant. He will make sure his robot watches over and protects Jake—that he guides him as necessary and supports the events of our past. This cycle of our lives has occurred because of the Omniscience Engine, as the result of a fevered search into the void. I have to believe I will be free once this is over, once I complete my portion of the cycle so I can pass the torch along to you.
Follow me and pass the torch along to the next. Carve you
r own destiny, and wake up in a world or existence that isn’t yours. Truthfully, I don’t know what will happen if you choose differently. If you’re anything like me, which I’m almost certain you are, then leaving Mary and Kimberly behind and starting a new life isn’t an option.
The choice is yours.
Sincerely yourself, Jacob Ashton.
I read the letter one more time and set it down on my desk with the others with a shaking hand. The instructions are clear, but it’s hard to wrap my head around the meaning if all of this is true. The weight of realization sets in. I have been here an infinite amount of times because of the Omniscience Engine and this loop it has created within the impossible. Unless I will be forced into that grim future where the Omniscience Engine still exists. It terrifies me to think I am moving toward becoming that man—that everything we have built here will crumble apart.
I prepare to upload my projections to a physical drive, knowing I need something old enough to interface with a lot of the tech I can expect to find in the past. It takes me a while to sift through old bins filled with dusty electronics, but I find what I am looking for. After dusting off an old SSD drive I kept as memorabilia of the Champions of Liberty, I fish through more bins to find a connector compatible with my computer system. Most things from 2146 were wireless, but after everything with the Omniscience Engine, our society has taken a shift back to hardwired tech and soft, narrow AI.
Eventually, I find a connector that works and begin the upload, grumbling to myself as I have to reformat the SSD drive because it isn’t compatible with the version of Artemis I am running on my computer. It finishes several minutes later and I start the upload of my projections, using the down time to create photo copies of each letter as I was instructed.
My phone rings, and I pull it from my pocket. It’s Edgar.
“Hello, sir?” I say.
His voice is frantic. “Jake, thank God. Are you okay?”
“Yes, fine. What’s going on?”
“We found who has Marwin. They have Kimberly too,” Edgar says.
My gut wrenches, and my heart starts hammering in my chest. “Edgar, what the hell are you talking about? Who has Kimberly?”
“They’re calling themselves the Shaded. We don’t know more right now. We’re waiting for their demands.”
“My God,” I stammer, tears blurring my vision as the reality sets in. “You have to get them back.”
“We’re going to do everything we can to get both of them back, Jake. We’re working on tracking the Shaded right now, but we’re on standby to meet their demands if we’re not successful or perceive too much risk.”
“Please, just get my daughter and Marwin back,” I say, feeling terror wash over me like a cold torrent.
“We’re trying to get ahold of your security detail but haven’t had any luck. We have teams with full tactical enroute to you now. Can you get to a safe spot?”
“I’m safe,” I say. “What about Mary? Do you know where she is?”
“We’re working on that. We aren’t getting a signal from her transport.”
I frantically pull up the security camera feeds from my house, minimizing my file upload and scanning the feeds. Mary’s transport ship is docked on its landing platform. I can’t see any movement on or around the ship. I scan the other feeds that show the rooms of my house. There are masked people wearing full black armor walking through the halls, wielding compact submachine guns. They are clearing corners, working their way through the first floor with systematic caution. I can’t see my security personnel anywhere on the cameras; it’s as if they simply disappeared.
A movement flashes in the corner of my eye and draws my attention. It’s Mary, and she’s running up one of the staircases once three masked people move past where she must have been hiding. One of them sees her and yells out, spraying energy bolts at the stairwell, but she is already racing up the stairs.
My heart freezes. “Edgar, I have to call you back.”
“Jake—” he starts, but I’ve already dropped my phone.
I don’t think, I’m already running to Mary. There is no time to go through the lengthy process of opening my gun safe. I won’t be able to match the firepower of the infiltrators here, and there are too many of them. My office doubles as a safe room, and Mary is probably heading here anyway. The only thing that matters is I reach her on time.
I’m sprinting across the hall toward the staircase she was coming from. She rounds the corner I’m approaching, bright flashes of energy bolts whizzing past where she was only seconds ago, slamming into the wall and exploding with a spray of sparks and sizzling smoke. There is terror in her eyes, deep rooted panic as she runs to me. I move behind her, trying to block the path as we rush to my office. The infiltrator isn’t fast enough, and we make it to my office unscathed.
I punch the emergency panic button, sealing us inside and letting the Nanotech-infused composite settle into place.
“They have Kimberly. Oh God. They have her, Jake,” Mary wails, struggling to pull in breaths.
“I know,” I say, my voice breaking. “We can get her back. I just spoke with Edgar. Teams in full tactical are on their way here now.”
I pick up my phone, but there is no signal anymore. Something is blocking it.
The infiltrators are on the office door now. Some of them start dismantling the console next to the room, and others start trying to break through the surrounding walls and the door itself.
“They’re not going to be able to get in,” I say. “We’re going to get Kimberly back and everything will be okay.”
A figure moves past the other infiltrators. It’s clear she is a woman from the curves in her tight-fitting armor. She has a handgun on a leg holster, but unlike the others, she isn’t wielding a primary weapon. Two long knives rest on her belt. As she approaches the camera, she pulls off her black, featureless mask.
Though it has been years, I know who she is. Suddenly, I know why this is happening.
It is Violet Adrihel.
“Jake, Mary, I know you’re in there. If you don’t come out right now, Kimberly is dead. I’ll kill her just like you killed my father.”
Mary and I are crying, but I do my best to convince her everything is going to be okay, that Violet isn’t going to hurt Kimberly.
“We have to open the door,” Mary says.
“She will kill us,” I say, rushing over to my safe and going through the procedure to retrieve my gun. It’s not in the best shape, but as I pressurize it with its helium magazine, the light glows green and indicates it is ready to shoot at full power. I hand it to Mary, who is still the better shot.
“No? Suit yourself. We’re coming in,” Violet says, placing something on her wrist next to the console.
Black sludge leaks from a canister on her wrist, jumping from her arm to the wall in thick globs. I recognize it as the technology from the weapons lab in Vermont all these years ago. How she is controlling it is another question altogether.
As it reaches the console, I see warning messages flash from the inside.
I know what I have to do. I know how to save my daughter.
“Mary, you have to trust me. There is a way out of this—a way we can save Kimberly.”
“How?” she demands, pointing the gun at the door.
“We’re going back to 2143. I can’t explain it. Come here,” I say, rushing to the computer and grabbing the completed SSD drive which is now filled with my memories. I put it in my pocket along with the originals and copies of the letters from myself.
“Jake, what are you talking about?” she demands, panic and dread laced in her voice.
“Give me the gun,” I say, taking the weapon and shooting my computer several times until I’m sure Violet won’t be recovering any data from it with her mysterious sludge. When I’m done, I return the gun to Mary, still at 75% charge. If this doesn’t work, then Violet won’t be able to steal this information.
We don’t have much time. I grab the
sphere and set to work. “Hold my hand. You have to trust me. This is the only way.”
“What is that thing?”
I wince, losing my train of thought. “Shh, I need to concentrate.”
Mary squeezes my hand while I manipulate the sphere, the symbols floating off the surface and burning in a green and blue glow.
“I trust you,” she says, the words barely audible between her sobs.
Just as I finish with the sphere, the door of the office bursts open and Violet rushes in. Mary is shooting with her free hand. Violet has her knives drawn, and she deflects Mary’s shots, surging forward just as I press the button on the sphere. Violet lashes out with her arm from the other side of the room. There is a flicker of light—flashing steel that is swallowed by the ethereal light of the orb as it takes us away. The light becomes too bright and I can’t see, can’t feel anything. I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for it to fade as the intense sensation of random motion overtakes me. Movement stops, and I fight the urge to vomit as vertigo washes over me like a wave. My ears pop, and a pressure on my entire body seems to fade away into nothingness.
I open my eyes and slowly become acclimated to my environment. I’m a different warehouse than before, and it is dark and empty and I don’t see Mary anywhere near me. I search around desperately, checking behind discarded crates and empty workstations. “Mary!”
I scream, calling out for her again and again. She isn’t here. As the panic grows, I feel something uncomfortable. I reach up and wipe away a wetness from my nose and cheeks, feeling my face and palm start to dry almost instantly. As I look at my hand, I see blood that isn’t mine.
PARAGON.EXE
An Absolute Knowledge Prequel Novella
DREW CORDELL
This righteous conquest we pursue will lead our nation to safety. The work you do for us will not be forgotten. When you wither, our nation will remain steadfast, preserved in all its greatness for the people of our land. While this struggle stresses the fabric of our country’s being, your innovation and heroism will not be forgotten.