Old-timer’s lip curled again as he glared at Anisim, but he remained speechless.
Anisim dared to follow up his stunning pronouncement with one that was even more stunning. “Our mission is to save humanity from itself.”
31
Djanet halted a dozen meters above and slightly to the south of the farmhouse shared by Daniella and Old-timer, close enough to see the shadowy figures inside as they appeared to ransack the old structure while they searched for signs of human life—human life to be assimilated.
“Old-timer, do you read me?” Djanet whispered over her mind’s eye as she disengaged her magnetic field and let herself float softly to the ground, crouching low as she made contact with the earth, ducking behind the tall brush to obscure her from the eyes of the androids.
“I read you,” Old-timer cut in, quickly and excitedly. “Have you got her?”
“Not yet. I don’t want to open communication with her yet, in case they’re scanning for communication signals—it’d give her position away.”
“You talking to me now will give yours away,” Old-timer pointed out.
“I had to risk it. I don’t know where the storm shelter Daniella was talking about is.”
“About forty paces from the house, to the east. It should be under the shadow of the big oak at this time of day.”
Djanet turned her head to the left to the large oak tree, a remnant of a time long past—a tree that outdated WWIII. It occurred to Djanet that Old-timer had surrounded himself with artifacts of the past—as though he’d tried to erase the memory of the war he’d fought in and the post-human world that had risen in its aftermath. It had never occurred to her before just how much effort he’d put into being Old-timer, and not Craig Emilson. The insight was overwhelming for her as she sensed his spirit, the spirit of a man running from his past, saturating the grounds—the farm was Old-timer.
“I see it,” Djanet replied as she began to sprint toward the shaded area Old-timer had described.
“Be careful,” Old-timer cautioned. “If you get caught in there, there’s no way out.”
“I don’t think we have to worry about them finding this,” Djanet replied as she found the doors to the shelter, flush with the ground. “I doubt these things even know what a storm shelter is.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Old-timer replied. “Djanet, this android just told me he’s Russian.”
“Ukrainian,” Anisim corrected.
“Ukrainian,” Old-timer corrected in turn.
Djanet stopped in her tracks. “What? How can that—”
“I don’t think he’s lying,” Old-timer followed up. “I think the android collective’s been assimilating parallel Earths.”
“That makes sense,” Djanet replied as she fought back her surprise and accepted the bizarrely obvious truth. “We should’ve realized that.”
“I should’ve realized it. Besides Aldous and the A.I., I was the only person who even knew parallel Earths not only existed, but could be accessed. Be careful, Djanet,” Old-timer cautioned. “They will know what a storm shelter is.”
“Daniella! Can you hear me? It’s Djanet!” Djanet whispered as she rapped softly on the shelter doors with her knuckle.
There was no immediate response from within.
There was a pause of a few seconds as Djanet kept her eyes on the androids in the house, wary that at any moment, one of them could turn their heads and catch sight of her there in the long shadow of the giant oak tree.
“Uh, Old-timer,” Djanet began, “I’ve got some disconcerting news, but I don’t want you to worry.”
“What is it?”
“I just knocked, no answer. So I tried to reach her on her mind’s eye—”
“Oh my God, no answer,” Old-timer echoed as he too tried to reach his wife.
“I think they might’ve got her already,” Djanet said.
“Goddamnit,” Old-timer cursed. “One of them must still have the assimilator with her pattern,” Old-timer realized, desperation causing his mind to work at lightning speed to conjure a new plan. “Do you think you can get it?”
Djanet stood and considered the situation. “There are at least half a dozen androids inside the house and, Old-timer, I hate to tell you this, but according to Rich, if we’re not off the surface in the next ninety seconds, we’re dead anyway.”
“What are you talking about?” Old-timer reacted, mortified.
“He says the androids are about to ram the Earth with one of their largest ships—Aldous says it’ll be an Earth-killer.”
“Aldous? Oh my God. Djanet, you’ve got to save Daniella! One of those bastards must have the assimilator on—”
Djanet was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of impending dread. “Something’s not right here,” she said quickly, cutting Old-timer off as she continued to watch the androids ransacking the inside of the Old-timer’s home, apparently aimlessly. “If they got Daniella already, then why—”
Old-timer came to the same realization at almost the exact same time as Djanet. “Oh no! It’s a trap! Get the hell out of there, Djanet!”
Before Djanet could ignite her magnetic field, the android who had quietly emerged from the storm shelter and sneaked up behind her jammed her assimilator into Djanet’s neck, instantly rendering her unconscious.
“Djanet? Djanet!” Old-timer called out. The connection between their mind’s eyes had been terminated.
Old-timer knew there could only be one reason. “Oh no.”
32
“What if it’s Aldous?” Thel suggested in a low tone to James and the A.I.
“What?” James responded, tilting his head back in surprise.
“That’s impossible,” the A.I. asserted, his tone, like his expression, firm.
“Why?” Thel countered, pushing her point. “He’s got control of the mainframe, something we know he’s coveted.”
“We don’t know he’s coveted it for sure,” James pointed out.
“And he’s about to lose control of it,” the A.I. added. “He’s gained nothing from us being trapped in here.”
“That’s not true. He got the two of you out of the way,” Thel continued to argue. “You posed the question yourself,” she pointed out to the A.I., “who benefits by trapping you inside the sim but who also doesn’t want you dead? Aldous checks both of those boxes. Who else does? Plus, he’s been a real asshole on many—”
“Your assessment of his character is purely subjective,” the A.I. insisted. “I and others have known him to be of extraordinary character. Aldous is not the perpetrator we seek.”
“Hang on,” James cut in after Thel’s arguments began to resonate with him, “he has been trying to keep us from developing Planck technology,” he observed. “He’s partly the reason we moved our test of the candidate ahead of schedule.”
“And now he can communicate to us,” Thel added, “but he can’t get us out? Convenient.”
“The trapdoor code eluded both James and me, Thel,” the A.I. returned, sticking to his firm, emphatic tone. “That means it is extraordinarily sophisticated. It is highly plausible that Aldous, who has only been in control of the mainframe for mere minutes, is unable to break the code.”
“Yeah, but—” James began before he was interrupted by the sound of glass smashing and, seconds later, raining down on the marble floor in front of the balcony. A second after that, a cold gust of damp air blew through the room.
“Oh no,” Thel said as she saw a woman’s arm desperately lunging, mindlessly flailing through the sharp, jagged hole, cutting itself in its attempts to form a larger opening. “An NPC!”
“Dear God,” the candidate said as he back peddled from the balcony, the streaks of blood from the NPC’s bicep raining down from the hole and splashing to the floor; it was in danger of cutting its own limb off before the glass door broke open.
Seconds later, dozens more NPCs leapt over the balcony, having climbed the exterior of the building. Their bodies crashed again
st the weakening glass.
“We’re in deep trouble,” Thel announced, turning to James and the A.I. “We’ve got no way of defending ourselves against those things, and we’re about to be overwhelmed.”
James cut into communication with Aldous as he waved for his companions to follow him to the elevator. They hit the button and waited with desperate impatience for the elevator to arrive. They could hear it audibly shimmy its way up from the lobby.
“Aldous, we’re in the penthouse, and we’ve been discovered by the NPCs. We’re about to be purged, unless you can get us some help!”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Aldous replied. “Stand by.”
“Stand by again?” Thel shouted. “Is that all you can ever say? Do something!” Her eyes were then suddenly drawn to the A.I. as he took the Kali avatar by the hand and guided the empty shell as though he were guiding a somnambulist toward the elevator. “Speaking of doing something, what the hell are you doing? We don’t have time for a puppet show!”
The A.I. shot her a warning look and held his finger to his lips, motioning for her to be silent.
Thel’s eyes narrowed as she looked on in utter disbelief, but she heeded his warning and remained silent, trusting that there had to be some sort of method to the A.I.’s seeming mad behavior.
“Do you have something for us?” James shouted to Aldous as the entire group collected around the still-closed elevator door.
“Stand by,” Aldous repeated.
“Stand by,” Thel repeated as she shook her head in frustration. She listened to the hum of the elevator as it made its way up the shaft, closer and closer. “What if an NPC is in there when the door opens?”
“We outnumber it,” the A.I. pointed out. “If we work together—”
“We need to get to the roof,” the candidate suddenly announced. “I can fly. That’s one ability that the stranger endowed me with. If we can get to the roof, I can get us out of here.”
The elevator reached the penthouse and a second later, the door opened, empty. There wasn’t time to be grateful, however, as in the same second, they heard the last of the glass balcony door give way, shattering as a herd of NPCs brought it down.
“Inside!” James shouted as he shoved his shocked and reluctant companions into the elevator, seeing the first of the NPCs sprint around the corner into the hallway as he hit the elevator’s button. The door hesitated for what seemed an eternity before finally beginning to close.
“Good news,” Aldous announced as guns that the A.I. instantly recognized suddenly appeared in all of their hands.
It wasn’t a moment too soon, as the first NPC’s arm reached into the elevator in time to stop the door and was only prevented from doing so by Thel’s quick reflexes as she aimed and pulled her trigger quickly enough to de-patternize the figure, the appendage breaking apart into a golden dust of coding that seemed to blow away in the cold breeze.
The door closed and it quickly became apparent that, had Thel not moved fast enough, they would’ve been overwhelmed by the herd of mindless patterns outside the door, the thud of their collective bodies crashing against the doors, sending a vibration throughout the inside of the elevator. James hit the STOP button and the elevator remained frozen in place in the shaft, the NPCs clawing against the outer door as the occupants, terrified, considered their next move.
Thel looked up. “They’re gonna rip through that door,” she pointed out. “We’ve gotta go up.”
“Agreed,” James replied.
Suddenly, a black armor began to form over his skin, shocking Thel and the others before they realized that it was forming over their own bodies as well.
The A.I. recognized the material, which fit over his frame like a glove. “Thank you, Aldous,” he said.
“It’s the least I could do,” Aldous replied. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have been of more use, but I’m afraid we have only seconds of contact left. I wasn’t able to reach Craig,” he relayed, “but, rest assured, I shall endeavor to find him. In the meantime, know that the sim itself is safe. It’s up to each of you now to survive the purge with the weapons you have in your possession. I have full confidence you can do it.”
“We’ll do our best,” the A.I. replied. “Good luck to you, Aldous,” the A.I. spoke as he aimed his de-patternizing gun at the roof of the elevator before stopping to speak to his companions. “Allow me. I have some experience with this sort of thing.”
He fired his weapon and the elevator’s roof disappeared in an explosion of golden dust.
33
Rich could barely move; only his left index finger twitched as he realized he’d been pushed beyond any of the extreme stress levels he’d experienced before. He’d faced death so many times, battled these androids before, but he’d never seen anything like what his eyes now beheld.
The wave of android bodies had swarmed the mainframe’s protective magnetic force-field once again, only to find themselves shredded by a dense, living fog of nanobots that ate each of them alive, relentlessly devouring the millions of android bodies just meters above Rich’s head. He watched as desperate android after android hit the surface of the field, only to have their flesh eaten within seconds, the metal skeletons underneath suddenly exposed as the flesh was consumed before the skeletons too were shredded. It was like watching them fall into a high-powered blender, their powerful bodies succumbing again and again…but they just kept coming.
“This makes no sense. This is absurd,” Rich whispered to himself, his lips trembling. “If this isn’t Hell, I don’t know what is.”
“Worse than Dante,” Aldous suddenly observed through their mind’s eye connection. “Worse than Blake.”
“I’ll take your word on that, Chief,” Rich replied, his mouth dry as he closed his eyes, blocking out the utter carnage and horror, trying to protect his mind from the trauma of the implacable chaos.
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Aldous said. Rich noted that Aldous seemed to grunt, as though he were carrying some sort of burden.
“Good news first, please,” Rich replied.
“We’re going to survive this,” Aldous said, still huffing as he sounded to Rich to be hurrying as he carried whatever it was that caused him so much difficulty.
“That’s not fair. You’re double-dipping your good news,” Rich said, his eyebrows raised. “You already told me that good news earlier. You’re just dressing up the bad news that’s coming, aren’t you?”
“Well…” Aldous began, his voice no longer in Rich’s mind’s eye but coming from behind him as he hurried to reach him, Thel’s unconscious body over his shoulder. “I’m afraid we will have to endure the impact. As you can see, I’m no longer in control of the mainframe.”
Rich’s brow furrowed instantly. “Whoa, wait a sec’! Where’s James’s body?”
“I couldn’t carry both of them,” Aldous replied as he tilted his head toward the unconscious Thel before kneeling and laying her on the soft earth. He turned to the small ship Rich had arrived in. “We need to get her on board—”
“I’ll get him!” Rich shouted, cutting Aldous off as he started to fly toward the mainframe building. Aldous grabbed his ankle to stop him, pulling him back to the ground where the duo thudded hard to the ground, sending a plume of dust up around them. Rich noted that Aldous was stronger than he looked.
“No! There isn’t time! Look!” Aldous shouted as he pointed up to the canopy of the mainframe’s force-field.
Rich looked up to see the nanobot storm that had been defending them dispersing, the wisps of microscopic robotic warriors now blowing away, clearing like dust in the wind. When the dust cleared enough, Rich’s mouth dropped and he, likewise dropped to his knees. “For the love of God.”
The entire sky, right to the horizon line, was now taken up by the rust-colored, pockmarked hull of the android ship.
“I’m sorry, my friend,” Aldous uttered. “I should’ve asked you to help me transport James’s body, but I didn’t realize t
he material it was made of would be so dense—it was heavier than you could imagine—I couldn’t move him an inch, even with all my might. But don’t worry,” he patted the black, square object that was attached to him via a black strap over his shoulder. “I downloaded their sim into this hard drive. It contains their patterns. We may lose James’s body and the mainframe, but we’ll all survive this. I swear it.”
Rich couldn’t respond. He looked up, wide-eyed, at the monstrous spacecraft, a ship that looked to him to be the size of an entire world—and watched the object that was about to destroy his home planet get closer and closer by the second.
“Djanet?” he finally managed to call out weakly through his mind’s eye. There was no response. “Edmund?” he asked. “Linda?” he spoke. No one spoke back.
“Richard,” Aldous finally said, in an unnervingly calm tone. “Do you trust me?”
Rich turned to him, still unable to speak or even nod his head in response.
“The mainframe’s magnetic field will fail because the mainframe is embedded in the earth, and when that monstrosity collides with it, the ground will be obliterated.” Aldous grabbed Rich’s shoulders and tried to get the dazed man to look him in the eye as he continued, “But your magnetic field can withstand this. We need to get Thel on board and then you’ll need to cocoon the ship. The android ship is moving at four kilometers per second and will hit us in twelve seconds. It’ll be the first giant impact the Earth has experienced in four and a half billion years and, just like the last time, an incident that gave birth to our current moon, it’ll vaporize the water in the oceans and cause the Earth’s surface to become an ocean of magma.”
“Are you—what the fu—“ Rich uttered, his lips quivering.
“Listen to me, Richard!” Aldous shouted as he dragged him with one hand while literally dragging Thel with the other. Rich was aware enough to know to help him, and together, they began dragging Thel’s unconscious body onto the ship. “We can do this! Are you ready?”
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