Causality (Quantum Gate Book 5)

by Eric Warren

  Because this wasn’t his body.

  Panic seized him, beginning small then spreading throughout his extremities. Except they weren’t his extremities. They were someone else’s. He was in someone else’s body. Frees pushed back from his sitting position, realizing that the limbs before him, the ones that weren’t his were following his commands. “What the…?” He scrambled further, only succeeding in falling back off the tall table.

  “Frees! Are you alright?” Jessika asked, bending down to him. He pushed back even further until his back (not his back) ran into some metal cabinets stopping him.

  “What’s happening? What did you do?” he asked, the fear easily audible in his voice.

  “Calm down, it’s okay,” Jessika said, her hands out in front of her. “We couldn’t save your body, it was far too damaged. We could only transfer your mind.”

  “How…how did…I mean…it was my…” he couldn’t seem to find the words.

  “Frees, listen to me, you are in shock,” she said, taking both of his (not his) polymorphic-covered hands in her human ones. “You are going to experience a disassociate effect due to the change in your self-image but it will go away. Do you understand? You have to give yourself time to adjust to this change. If your mind rejects the reality of what has happened, it will reject the body and you will die again. I want to be as clear as possible. Do you understand?”

  “But it was my…” He stared at the hands holding hers. He knew he could, at that moment, tell the hands to let go and they would respond. It was like he was operating a mannequin, except, he happened to be inside.

  “I know and I’m very sorry we couldn’t salvage your other body. We didn’t have time to retrieve it. All I could bring was your cranial unit.”

  “My head? You took my head and brought it…removed it from my…and now it’s…” A warning flashed in his vision, notifying him of a corrupt circuit in his primary transfer conduits that ran up his spine. He was in someone else’s body. And who knew where that body had been, what it had done and what it had taken a part in. What if it had been one of Charlie’s murderbots and been covered in the blood and guts of humans it had slaughtered? He made a retching noise even though he had nothing and no way to actually expel anything.

  “You’re crashing,” Jessika said. “We need to shut you back down, prepare the—”

  “No,” Frees said, squeezing her hands. “No, just…give me a minute.” He forced himself to calm down. His body had been irreparably damaged and he’d needed a new one. Jessika had removed the one crucial part of his self in order to transfer it to another body, and had done so. And now here he was, alive despite having died on that street in London. He was sitting right here.

  Two people in white coats appeared at the other end of the room and Jessika glanced back at them, shaking her head. He had to do this; to find a way to make himself accept this reality. Otherwise she was right, he’d go into a full systems failure.

  “I think…I mean I’m okay,” he said, doing his best not to think too hard about what had happened to him. Whatever it was, it beat the alternative; the dark place. He had vague memories of wherever he’d been, but the harder he tried to remember them the quicker they slipped away.

  “Good,” Jessika said, inspecting him. “Very good, this is what I want to see.”

  “Where are we?” Frees asked, glancing around at the very clean room. “And what happened to you?”

  She smiled. “I promise all your questions will be answered. But first let’s get you up and moving and acclimated to your new body. Your mind will still be calibrated to your old parameters and it will take a few minutes for everything to adjust.”

  Frees nodded. But an urgency pulled at him. He needed to get to Japan; to make sure Arista was alright. He didn’t trust Jonn and the last image he’d seen before going offline was him pulling Arista back through the gate. He couldn’t afford to stay here any longer than necessary.

  Frees stood up.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Frees stared at his reflection in the mirror. Jessika had done right by making sure this new body didn’t have any skin. And despite being brand new, in some ways it felt more like his old body back before he’d added the artificial covering so they could infiltrate the human colony. She’d been right, the disassociate feeling had dissipated. Not completely; he still wasn’t used to being an inch shorter but he’d managed to compensate so far. If he could have it his way, he’d have gone around stark naked but that upset some of the other humans, so he’d been forced to at least wear pants.

  There was a knock at the old door and before he could reach it, it slid open, revealing Jessika, sans her lab coat. In the short time she’d ushered him into the adjacent room she’d changed out of her “work” clothes into something more casual: an old sweater and jeans. She must have noticed him looking as she glanced down at herself then back at him.

  “We’ve had to reuse a lot of old clothing. We don’t have the manpower to be weaving cloth at the moment.”

  “I was just curious,” Frees replied, still testing out his voice. It sounded very close to his old one, with only a few small differences in the cadence and tone.

  Jessika’s brow creased. “Something’s off about your voice,” she said. “Once we’re done, we’ll come back down to op and see if I can’t fix it.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” Frees replied. “I’m surprised you even noticed.”

  “We spent enough time together in the colony. I noticed.”

  “Speaking of clothes, are these okay?” Frees asked, indicating his pants.

  “Minimal, but appropriate,” Jessika said. “I wouldn’t ask but some of the others are …uncomfortable with…your whole self.” She made a motion to indicate his crotch.

  “And you’re sure this body hasn’t been…used?” he asked.

  “Lightly used, how about that?” she replied, moving aside and avoiding eye contact.

  Flustered, he strode into the hallway beside her. “You said it was new!”

  “It’s not as if we could pull one off the assembly line. We’re working with what we’ve got here,” she replied. “But I double-checked the chronometer on him, he’s still got twenty-four years and three months left. As good as you could hope for anyway.”

  “And where is here?” The hallway had no windows and only half the lights were working. They could be back underground for all he knew, but this definitely wasn’t the colony. It was too old, too underused. Holes littered the walls where saws had cut through the drywall to access the electricity.

  “Los Angeles,” she replied. “A medical facility in Van Nuys. We needed somewhere to hide that was still close to a workable gate.”

  “Hide?” he asked.

  “We don’t know much, but after the husks started attacking the colony we had to escape. We came through here and set up a perimeter. We’ve shielded the whole building from their sensors; not that there are many husks out there anymore. They keep getting requisitioned out of the city.”

  “I don’t want to seem ungrateful,” he replied, “but would you please tell me how I am even here. My last memory before waking up was in London, being ripped apart by husks.”

  “Which is where we found you,” Jessika replied. “I’ve been tracking you ever since you came back.”

  Frees nearly stopped short. “Tracking me? How?”

  They turned the corner into a different hallway. This one was a tad dirtier, but most of the dirt seemed age-related, dust and cobwebs covering the surfaces. Though there was evidence of recent activity; a path of footprints wove through the dust on the floor. “Not you. Arista. I’ve had my scanning equipment tuned to her Device. Just like last time, remember?”

  “She told you not to do that again,” he replied, remembering the “conversation” they had. “And it hasn’t been working for the past six weeks. At least that’s what she’s told me.”

  “Maybe she can’t access the inputs but I can still pick it up. I did design the thi
ng. Besides, I didn’t have a choice. You were lost to the gate and I had no idea if you were ever coming back. So as soon as we were free, I brought my equipment and set it up, scanning for her.”

  “As soon as you were free?”

  “Here, this way.” Jessika led him to the end of the corridor where they took another left. Frees caught a glimpse of windows through the doors on either side of them. It was dark outside, but the lights of a city shone in the distance. “As soon as you, Arista, and Echo disappeared through the gate, everything shut down. McCulluh had to take charge; he thought the three of you were dead and the gate had been a failure. David had been killed in the crossfire, so he couldn’t tell them any different. When they didn’t find any organic residue from Arista or Echo around the gate, they started exploring the possibility of re-opening it. They tossed me back in my cell but wanted my help to restart the thing. McCulluh didn’t want to make a move without Echo. I showed them where David kept his personal files. From what I heard it took David’s people two days to figure out how to send a message through and then after a few hours of tweaking they had voice communication.”

  “You know it wasn’t a gate to the past, right?” Frees asked.

  “I didn’t know, but I had my suspicions. Because nothing happened to us, we were all still there. Though, I imagine if you had changed the past none of us would have known, as it would have been the past we grew up with. But it must have taken you somewhere remote, because I couldn’t get a read on her at all.”

  “Oh, just a parallel universe, that’s all.”

  Jessika shook her head. “David, you brilliant idiot.” She turned to him. “How bad was it?”

  “Rough. But the human population was thriving, if you could call it that. The war with the machines never happened there. Sentient machines were outlawed.”

  “I’m guessing that didn’t go well for you.” He shook his head. Should he tell her about the other David? He wasn’t sure she’d want to know. According to Arista they’d had a contentious and combative relationship on this side. Perhaps it was better to postpone any other dire news until he had a better handle of what was going on. “Oh, here we are, thank god,” she said. “I’m starving.”

  They’d entered a larger room with tables and chairs situated to one side and a buffet line on the other. Otherwise it was sparse on decoration, sterile even. Frees counted seventeen different humans in various stages of arriving, eating or leaving.

  “This is the café. It’s where everyone comes to eat or socialize. Mostly eat as they keep us pretty busy.”

  “Who’s they?” Frees asked.

  A couple of people passed, nodding to Jessika as they did. She sighed. “When I say they, I mean me. I’m in charge with a few other people, but I hate being the center of attention,” she said. “I just did what I had to do.” She grabbed an old, plastic tray and put it on the buffet line. Each of the items seemed like a different type of paste, and Jessika spooned three helpings on her tray. “Not as good as the colony’s food, but good enough to keep us alive. We genetically modified baseless organic material to meet all our nutritional needs. It’s not much, but it gets the job done.”

  Frees eyed the organic food suspiciously. Thankfully he didn’t have to eat it. He was at a good ninety-eight percent charge.

  They took a seat at the closest table as Jessika spooned the food in her mouth. “You set all this up? In six weeks?” Frees asked. These humans were more industrious than he’d given them credit for.

  Jessika laughed, almost spitting out her food. “Partially. The hospital seemed like the most logical place to set-up. Few husks as they don’t use them, easy to shield and still only a few miles from the closest gate. We’ve been using whatever we could find, setting up the large-scale refractors, dampeners, everything else to keep us hidden up here.”

  “How did you escape?” The smell of Jessika’s food hit Frees’ sensors, causing him to want to retch, but he managed to quell the sensation.

  “After I’d helped them find David’s research and had been rewarded with a return to my cell, the power fluctuated throughout the colony. It didn’t go out, but it was enough to get out of that damn Quantum Prison. The benefit of a prison without a physical door, I suppose. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but instead of heading for the command rooms I went straight for the research department. Research has always been my baby and if we were all going to die, then I would do it there.” She took another bite and chewed. “Most of my team was there, along with a few others. They were getting reports from command a machine had infiltrated the colony and was using the husks against us.”

  “We saw the footage when we got back to the colony,” Frees replied.

  “Then you probably know more than I do. Most of the comm network is down and we haven’t been able to raise any other human refugees. I don’t even know if there are any. We may be the only ones left.”

  “How many people do you have here?” Frees asked.

  “Close to a hundred,” she replied. “I knew we’d have to evacuate, so I told everyone to grab what they could and we made our way to the gate. My group was larger than some of the others and a few more people joined us as we were escaping. I didn’t even know where the gate was going to spit us out. No one had coordinates set, they were just…on.”

  “Arista and I searched the colony. It looked like people were ready to go. All the essentials were gone.”

  “That was part of the preparation protocol Echo put into place. She was always concerned we could be invaded by the machines and set up certain requirements for everyone. In case we needed to leave in a hurry. It’s why as many people got out as they did.”

  “Did you see any of the husks attacking you?” Frees asked.

  She shook her head, finishing the pastes on her plate. “We could hear them, though. They were close when we went through. As soon as we were on the other side, I didn’t have a choice, I cut the power to the gate so no one else could come through. Which means I probably sentenced a few people to die.” She stared at her empty tray. “More than a few people actually.”

  “Have you been back?” Frees asked.

  “Only for brief visits when we needed a piece of equipment or component we couldn’t salvage elsewhere. And only with the refractors, so we haven’t been able to bring anything large over here. We’re just trying to survive and hope whatever has the husks infected burns itself out.”

  “It’s not going to burn itself out,” Frees said, relieved when she pushed the tray to the side. “The problem isn’t with the husks, it’s Charlie. He’s taken control of them and we think he’s trying to exterminate all the humans. And the Peacekeepers.”

  “Charlie. The AI you and Arista destroyed? That Charlie?” Jessika stared at him as if she feared he was having a mental breakdown.

  “Yes. He hid inside my cortex when we were destroying the AI housing and stayed there until he was accidentally released in the other universe.”

  “And he came back through,” she said. “Before you did.”

  Frees nodded. “We lost him, Arista tried her best to stop him before he could make it back, but the gate between the worlds was unstable. We had to build a second one to return. And it took a while.”

  Jessika stood. “Come with me. We have to alert the others.” She tapped her chin a few times. “That’s why the husks have been leaving the city. He’s been pulling them from here to take care of things in other places for him.”

  “Like London,” Frees said.

  Jessika stared at him. “Right. I still owe you an explanation. Come on, we’ll walk and talk at the same time.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  “Now this is what I’m talkin’ about,” Jill said, staring at the small arsenal displayed before them. Trymian had led them down into an even lower level under the palace to the armory which was stocked full of old weapons, most hadn’t been used in at least a hundred years; since the last humans had inhabited the palace.

  “I keep them a
ll in relative working order,” Trymian said. “A symptom of my boredom. There’s not a lot to do around here other than keep things tidy. Take your pick, you can go out on the south lawn and use it for target practice until the others return if you like.”

  Jill’s eyes ran over the variety of weapons before her. They were all projectile weapons, nothing fancy, but they all had a certain appeal to them. Elegant in a way, a product of the humans’ need to destroy each other. Pistols, semi-automatics, automatics, and specials; Trymian had them all. Her eyes landed on an Accuracy International AS50 and she gently picked it up as if she’d just found Excalibur itself. “This is the one,” she said.

  “Ah yes, the AI AS50.” Trymian smiled. “Semi-automatic you know. Uses a cartridge system.”

  “Have you used it?” Jill asked.

  “Me? No, I don’t fire them. I just keep them as they were. Clean and operational. There’s something to be said for maintaining the links to our past.”

  “You mean your links to humans,” David replied, coming up behind Jill. His voice was hard. “We had these back in my world too, until they were outlawed. The rich got to keep theirs, but everyone else had to give up their guns.” He shrugged. “Until they figured out how to manufacture their own.”

  “Don’t worry, sugar,” Jill said, still admiring the weapon. “I won’t be shootin’ anyone with this. Jus’ wanted to see it was all. Hold one for once, see how it felt.” She replaced the weapon on the rack and turned back to Trymian. “Much obliged.”

  “My pleasure,” Trymian replied.

  “I think I may have found a solution,” David said, breaking the silence.

  “Solution? To findin’ out about Arista’s parents?” Jill asked.

  He shook his head as they made their way out of the armory and back up to the research lab. “I’ve given up on finding out more about them. Unless we’re willing to open those tanks, we’ll never know what they’re for. And even then we might not find out, and we’ll have killed them for no reason. I want to wait until Arista is back and we’ll ask her.” He paused. “No, what I was referring to is the communications blackout around Trymian. I’ve been studying what limited information we have on how your comm system works and it isn’t that much different than my own back in my world. Charlie seems to have turned off key relays around London making any comms impossible. But what if we could build our own network? Like a patch in a quilt.”