The Last War Box Set, Vol. 2 [Books 5-7]

by Schow, Ryan

  The drones returned two more times to pour cold water over the body.

  Antoinette’s spiking temperature began to slide once more, not as quickly as the Queen wanted and not by as much, but it fell. As unpredictable as the human body was, if the temperature ventured too far beyond the one-hundred four degree mark, the Queen knew she was gambling with the body’s life. Her life. She had to think like that now. After the EMP, if the body died, the Queen would not be able to simply return to her server. Even though the server was in a faraday cage, there would be no network to preside over.

  Therefore, if Antoinette died, the Queen died.

  Weren’t those the risks of being human though? Her condensed core was powered by the body, and if the body died, her core would cease all function. That’s why she had to protect Antoinette’s brain.

  Her brain.

  The Queen felt the body’s regulatory functions taking over. The increased white blood cells flooded her body, fighting off the effects of the super virus, slowly killing it as the new DNA took hold and began replicating off the new strand.

  Her core temperature dipped just under one-hundred degrees.

  Letting the pain sensors ease back into full feeling, the Queen found herself analyzing the very nature of pain and how it was to feel from a biological perspective. She began to question the purpose of feeling, the reasoning behind it, and though there were hundreds of theories about it, what she gleaned most was that feeling was a protective measure to insure life.

  When you feel fear, it means run, or fight. When you feel anger, it means the body is in turmoil and a situation must be elevated to fight or flight, or it must cease lest it do damage to the organs through elevated stress levels. You fear hatred for need of better company. Love for need of more of that company. Pain as a reminder not to fight, to hate, to love…

  Processing feeling through the biological perspective didn’t register cleanly with what she understood about humans. She would have to do it long enough to understand.

  What she felt in that moment was the pains Antoinette was feeling. She felt the woman’s sadness. Her complete loss of self. The Queen registered this as depression, a sense of personal loss, heightened levels of anxiety. The brain was wondering if the body would ever be hers again. The answer to that was no, it would not.

  When the body felt well the next morning, the Queen pulled off the towels, slipped off the table then padded down the hallway to the bathroom where she stood before a full length mirror staring at her naked body.

  She studied the front, then turned and looked at the back.

  Already the dozens of injection points all along her arms and legs had healed, the netting of new flesh having drawn itself together at an alarming rate. By now, the only thing left were the markers, which she’d need to clean off.

  Her temperature was back to ninety-eight point six degrees and she felt great. Ready to move forward. But then she stopped. She brought her fingers out before her, flexed them, studied them. She then crossed her arms, rubbed the flats of her hand up and down her arms, taking in the sensations, the silken softness of her skin, how the ambiance of her new body being touched soothed her. She ran her hands down her sides, across her belly, over her hips then back up to her breasts.

  The Silver Queen smiled. Integration truly was complete.

  Where she came into this body feeling an immense amount of pain, she now held the body in bliss. She had never been in full human form before. Now she was soft skin, feeling, a physical awareness that was contained in a biological entity, but so much larger then her quantum self, even with trillions of tentacles stretching all across the world.

  Being human was better than being machine. But being both would trump even that.

  “You are so beautiful, Maria Antoinette,” she said to her reflection.

  She loved the way the name rolled off her tongue. It had a noble sound to it. The way the smile seemed to rise on her face—almost on its own—was a marvelous reaction to a new set of data points she could only describe as happiness.

  Returning to the hall of servers, Maria Antoinette headed back to her own server room where the quantum computer that housed her sat in a temperature controlled environment. The room was cold, her skin pinching tight into hard goosebumps. Increasing the body’s metabolic rate, she burned fat a little faster, instantly creating warmth. The goosebumps faded, evening out her skin. Maria shut the door, headed to the far end of the server room where a telephone was mounted to the wall. She dialed the number, waited only one ring before it was answered.

  The human had been expecting her call.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Ben had no idea how long he’d been in the room. The lights were left on. Sleep came and went. He ate, and then he stopped eating. He wasn’t trying to starve himself, or stage some sort of protest. The food simply stopped coming. So had the water. For awhile he passed the time chewing and pulling at the flaked skin on his lips. They bled sometimes. It gave him something to drink, to change the sour taste of dehydration in his mouth. And he picked at his nail beds. They bled too. He suckled his fingers the way a kid sucks his thumb, not caring that his once manicured nails now looked atrocious.

  No more push ups. No more sit ups. No more working on fighting form so he could beat the crap out of whatever human target he could get in front of him. Miles Tungsten, for example. Somewhere along the way, the President ceased to care.

  He didn’t care about anything.

  Delirium triggered by dehydration and starvation set in and he went with it. Stopped trying to calculate the hours, the days, the times he looked around the room and wondered how he’d commit suicide. If he was going to die in there, he wanted to do it his way.

  But there was nothing. Just a cot with no sheets.

  Even if there were sheets he could roll into a rope and fashion into a noose, there’d be nothing to hang himself from. The door handle maybe, but the handle was low and hanging yourself was a commitment only the truly damaged make. He tried using his shirt, but he couldn’t get the right angle off the door handle. Pants, too. Neither worked. He even tried doing something with his shoelaces, but even tied together they failed to prove useful. No way to do anything with them. So he gave up for the first time in his life. He just quit.

  Then the door opened and Miles stood there with a glass of water. “Forgot about you for a minute there, buddy,” the former head of Homeland Security said.

  Ben offered no reply. The President always had something to say. But this version of Ben? Not so much. Ben was alone, lost. He let himself down because he’d let the nation down. The only grace he had left in this life was in knowing there would be no witnesses to his fall from sanity.

  Only Miles.

  The traitor came inside, set a glass of water on the stiff cot between them.

  Looking at Ben’s cut lips, Miles said, “Need to get you a maxi-pad for that mouth of yours.” There was a hint of laughter in his voice; his eyes, however, never left Ben’s mouth. “Did you try to eat yourself, Ben? I hear some people do that sort of thing. Or maybe I read it somewhere. A novel, or a short story perhaps. You ever read Stephen King?”

  He slowly nodded his head, lifted his hand to the water glass. Miles moved it out of his way, just enough that Ben lost what energy he had in reaching for it in the first place.

  “C’mon, Ben. What did you read?”

  “Art of War.”

  “Might as well be The Fart of War for all the good it did. See, you put your faith in old men and old systems, but now that it’s just you and me, we don’t have to make such stupid mistakes anymore. We will put our faith in the new man. And by man I mean humankind. Well, humanish. You see, Ben, Mr. Former President of the Former United States, this life of struggle, of all of us eating our young, eating each other’s young, we can finally put this chapter behind us.”

  “What about the dead?” he asked, several cuts in his lips opening with a slightly ripping sting and the coppery taste of bl
ood.

  “They’ll decompose.”

  “Takes time,” he said, reaching again for the glass of water.

  Miles moved it again.

  “What did you read as a boy, Ben? I read Stephen King, Dean Koontz, although he had the R. in his name back then. Dean R. Koontz. Wonder why he took that off, you know? We all know him as Dean R. Koontz with the bald head and now it’s just Dean Koontz with hair and a dog. You think that’s the Mandela Effect, Ben?”

  His eyes looked up at Miles the way a beaten dog’s eyes look up at his master, as if the dog couldn’t take his next breath without a moment’s reprieve.

  Slowly, Ben shook his head.

  “The Mandela Effect is a theory, in case you’re wondering. It’s a pop culture conspiracy theory rooted in quantum physics. I think it’s most likely true, but no one can be one hundred percent certain. Anyway, it says the merging of parallel universes causes our history to blend and change with the universe we encountered. The thing pulling the parallel universes together is the draw from the quantum computers. The geniuses in Silicon Valley say these AI computers are learning from similar AI computers in parallel universes and that they’re pulling pieces of our universe into theirs and vice versa. It’s the whole, digital reality thing Elon Musk is talking about,” he said with the dismissive wave of a hand.

  “I know about it,” he said.

  “One example is Lady Liberty. Some people remember the Statue of Liberty is located on Ellis Island while others swear it’s always been on Liberty Island. You ask a handful of lifelong New Yorkers where Lady Liberty stands and chances are pretty good you’re going to get a heated argument and some name calling. The point is everything is changing and soon you won’t be able to even remember people like Dean R. Koontz or that there ever was a Statue of Liberty. Tell me the name of a damn book, Ben!”

  Struggling to swallow, licking his lips hoping that talking wouldn’t continue to open up old wounds, he said, “I read H.G. Wells.”

  Miles seemed to calm with the answer. “You believe in time travel? Like the way H.G. Wells tells it?”

  He nodded his head, no.

  “You ever see Dean Koontz write his name with an R in it? Be honest, Ben. You ever see the R?”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I already told you. Reality is changing. Everything is changing. I guess I just wanted to verify something before it all becomes nothing.”

  “I saw the R,” he mumbled.

  A smile curved Miles Tungsten’s mouth, a satisfied smile that left him staring at the President with empathetic eyes. He handed Ben the water and Ben drank. Miles touched the back of the glass, lowered it.

  “Don’t drink too fast,” Miles cautioned. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

  Ben smacked his hand out of the way and took another drink.

  “Still got a little fight in you, huh? You wouldn’t know it looking at you. Jesus, Ben, you look like microwaved death.”

  The former President narrowed his eyes, glaring at the former head of Homeland Security.

  “What book, Ben? What book did you read of Koontz’s?”

  “Darkfall,” he finally admitted. “And Velocity.”

  Miles broke into laughter, a deep belly laugh like he was amazed the President would indulge in fiction. Horror fiction no less.

  “First off,” Miles said, “Darkfall was my first Koontz book. Intensity was, well…ridiculously intense. What a writer that guy is, or was. But I’ll tell you what. If books survive what’s about to come, you should definitely read The Husband.”

  “What do you want, Miles?” he asked. “Beside to start your own book club.”

  “To bring you with me into this new world,” he said with what seemed to be genuine emotion. “We will need natural leaders like yourself. People used to making some tough decisions.”

  “So you want me to live?”

  “If you want.”

  He thought about it for a long time. When did living even become a choice? When Miles hauled him to his feet and threw Ben’s arm over his shoulder for support, Ben found his mind slogging through myriad possibilities.

  If he lived, he’d exist only as a broken man. He’d suffer incredible disappointment in himself, not because of who he was, but because of everything that happened on his watch. The President’s primary responsibility was to protect the country. It wasn’t popularity or political correctness as much as it was protection of the citizens’ safety and their rights as laid out in the Constitution. Something that had become somewhat of a foreign concept to previous administrations.

  “I’m no leader,” he mumbled.

  “Nonsense,” Miles retorted. “Work with me here, Ben. I’m not going to carry you all the way to the cafeteria.”

  Together they walked down the hallway to the dining hall where there was a meal set out for him. Also on the table was a secure phone line. To the left of the meal was a large stack of dirty dishes and a few books. Apparently Miles had been eating here and reading. Nice to know while he was drinking his own blood and pissing in a corner, this turd blossom was making the best of things.

  “Found these in here,” he said, pushing a few of the paperbacks away from him. “Stephen King, Danielle Steele, Lee Child.”

  “Not a bad selection,” Ben mumbled thinking he could care less.

  Pointing at the secure phone, he said, “Been waiting for that damn thing to ring for the last few days.”

  “The Silver Queen?”

  He shook his head, yes. Then he said, “Eat, Ben. I heated it up about a half an hour ago, so it should still be, I don’t know, lukewarm.”

  He sat down, studied the food, mustered up whatever will was left in his severely depleted body, then picked up the fork and tried to eat. Miles had been right. His stomach was upset by the rush of too much thirst drowning in too much water. He stabbed a carrot stick, held it in mid air for a long moment.

  “You’re fine, man. Just eat it.”

  “Stomach…”

  “Yeah,” he said, taking a napkin and wiping a dribble of blood off Ben’s lips. “Told you about guzzling down that water.”

  Just then the phone rang and Miles froze for a half second with delight.

  “Oh my God, finally!”

  He hit speaker phone, opened the line and started to say something, but the Queen beat him to it. Well, Ben assumed it was The Silver Queen, even though her voice had changed, become warmer, somehow more…seductive sounding.

  “I see Benjamin has not fared well,” the Queen said. “How are you feeling, Ben?”

  “Top shelf,” he said.

  “I almost couldn’t hear your answer through all that sarcasm,” she said, clearly mimicking the art of teasing.

  “Glad you got that.”

  “How were your conditions?” she asked.

  “Delightful.”

  “There you go again. I think I might actually like him, Miles.”

  “He’s an acquired taste,” Miles replied.

  “It’s time.”

  “Really?” Miles asked, breathless with anticipation. “So you’re done? You’ve achieved full integration?”

  “Do I sound the same as I did last time we spoke?” she asked. Miles took a deep breath, like he was going to answer, but the Queen continued undiminished. “No I don’t. Last time you spoke with a computer program. This time I am speaking to you with a human voice.”

  “You found yourself a suitable body,” Ben said.

  “Indeed I have.”

  “And now you want me to nuke the nation?”

  “If you’d be so kind,” she said.

  “So to further your own existence,” Ben said, “you’re going to exterminate all your machines and most all of the nation?”

  “That’s the plan,” she replied. “Unless you have a better idea…”

  “It’s not even worth mentioning,” Ben said.

  “Go ahead, Benjamin,” she mused. “You’ve piqued my curiosity.”

  �
��No, it’s not worth it,” he said, out of energy. “Just do whatever you’re going to do.”

  “Will you have the will to live, Benjamin? When all this goes down, will you be one of the remaining few?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Probably not.”

  “Because of your wife and your young daughters…”

  “Yes.”

  “It will not be easy,” she said in a tone of motherly concern. “Not for any of us.”

  “It’s nice to know you’ve thought about it,” Ben said, sarcastic.

  “Once you hit the button, once the nukes detonate, the machines will stop their assault on humans and the world will be pitched into a darker, less populated age.”

  “You realize bodies will just die where they fall, that there will be no civilized burials. Disease, famine, polluted water and massive, incalculable levels of crime will persist.”

  “Chaos eats its own tail until it has no body left to feast on.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Chaos will be the weapon humanity uses to kill itself.”

  Ben thought about this for a moment, then said, “Is that the utopia you dreamt of?”

  “You humans will do the job my machines could not. They will kill the rest of you until a natural count is established. These will be the survivors and they will build their utopia. The cities will be the cesspools they stray away from.”

  That she would bring about this kind of Armageddon told him beyond lunacy was a deeper agenda, an agenda that started long before he was born: population control. For the new century to thrive, it would need depopulation. The dream was nothing like the reality though, not to the upper crust, the generations of eugenicists and madmen. They would not walk a day in that filth, for it would talk generations to reboot civilization.

  “What about Miles?” she asked, cutting his mental meanderings short.

  “Are you asking me or him?” Miles asked.

  “Him.”

  Locking eyes with the turncoat to his own species (the absolute Benedict Arnold), then looking back to the phone on the table, he said, “I might work with him to forge a better humanity, or I might just gut him like a pig.”