by David Beers
He listened as Grace spoke, wanting to catch up but at the same time not truly caring. The chip took it all in while his mind was elsewhere, focusing on the past forty-eight hours. Jerry and he had left the warehouse they woke up in, the impact of breaking through the ceiling knocking them out. Nothing chased them, and Caesar didn't know why. The Genesis could have tracked him down, without a doubt, finding the two of them in the broken city they walked through. There weren't any civilians to frighten, wasn't a single soul to watch as Jerry and he died under the weight of whichever applications it sent after them. Nothing, though.
He didn't know why and he didn't really care anymore. Maybe The Genesis thought he was a joke, something to be toyed with. Maybe it thought he would disappear for the next thousand years like Jerry had done. Maybe something else came up that was of more importance than these two wannabe revolutionaries. It didn't matter, not now. He was here, home in this cave, and Paige was dying.
I have his memories, Caesar said almost absently, whether to himself or Grace he wasn't sure.
"Whose?"
Manny's. The chip took them in, his whole life, categorizing it all.
That's what he was missing, something inside those memories that mattered. Caesar started searching, at the beginning, going through Manny's childhood with the diligence of a surgeon. As he moved through each memory and found nothing, he pushed to the next one, eagerly searching for something, though he didn't know what. Didn't really know how it could be possible either, that Manny would know anything about how to save Paige. It was here though, he was becoming more and more sure of it.
He began to see what the chip must have sensed when downloading all of the information.
The Genesis left stains on Manny. Whenever he synced, whenever he gave the knowledge of The Named's location up—against his will, apparently—The Genesis had left things inside him. Traces of knowledge that it might not have even known it was leaving. Whether The Genesis knew or not, it certainly didn't care, because it let the man live with these stains permeating his memory.
Caesar found an interesting one, an early memory of The Genesis conversing with its creators, with the scientists that clicked the button to set it free. And another, a room full of men sitting around a huge screen, speaking with The Genesis, deciding how to deal with the first round of Unnecessaries.
Caesar pushed past those, not caring about them. They weren't what he was after. There was more here, a treasure trove of information that had been imprinted on Manny without him even knowing it. Maybe it was his newly acquired psychosis that kept him from seeing all of this, or maybe he lacked the capabilities necessary. Caesar kept sifting through them, the mix of Manny's true memories with those that The Genesis copied over.
If he didn't find what he wanted here, he would kill Paige. He didn't say that to Jerry, but it would be him that did it. He hadn't made the choice The Genesis wanted, hadn't chosen either her or Jerry, and because of it, Paige was going to die. So he would be the one to kill her. He would shoulder that load because he was he one that hadn’t chose.
"What are the memories of?" Grace asked from somewhere far away. He heard her but didn't answer, because his mind was moving now, speeding through years, sifting information, discarding it almost as soon as he came across it.
His mind stopped, all at once, becoming still as it held the one piece of information it needed. The Tourist. The Genesis had left a mark on Manny, a mark about The Tourist, about the creation of it and what it knew. What it held inside it. More than The Genesis' location. The thing created, too. It wasn't just a depository for information, like they originally thought. It created...weapons. Two purposes in one application, something that both held onto knowledge and then created the ways to protect that knowledge.
It would know how to save Paige. It would know because it had created the weapon that put the wound across her back. It would know both things, where The Genesis' lived and what would heal Paige.
"Jesus Christ," he said.
"What?"
"I can save her. I know how."
"How?" Grace asked.
"The Tourist. I have to find The Tourist again."
Chapter Eight
Manny's chest moved up and down slowly, in a rhythm that would have been impossible if left up to himself. Even at one hundred percent, his body wouldn't have breathed in such a controlled and even fashion.
His mouth stood open and something resembling a bottle protruded from it. The bottle opened and closed in the same rhythm as his lungs, pumping air into his body and then sucking it out. His eyes were slightly less swollen, but his skin still red, still blistered. Tiny mechanical spiders crawled across his body, sticking needles into the blisters that hadn't yet burst and using their legs to patch up open flesh wounds.
Manny's mind was silent in a way that it couldn't possibly be when awake. Silenced because it no longer worked, no longer functioned because the blood that had coursed through it rose to a temperature of one hundred and eighty degrees for five solid minutes. His body lived on but only because of the machines crawling across him and the bottle that kept his lungs opening and closing and his heart pumping. Manny was dead except for those machines.
For a few days, Manny lay like this, at peace if only for a moment.
Chapter Nine
No one would stop him from going, that's what Leon understood. Jerry had given his blessing, but Jerry would bless anything Caesar said now. If Caesar said the sun wouldn't rise tomorrow, Jerry would say the sun's time was up, its reign over. Keke was lost, and the rest of The Named were concerned with making the cave habitable, no longer concerned with the plans and strategy being made in the small circle that still existed.
What circle, though? There was no more circle. There was Caesar and nothing else. That's what this newest decision really showed. Not the insanity that Leon believed it to be, not Caesar's underlying thirst to end The Genesis. Those were just side conversations to the main thing: that Caesar had no master. He listened to no one. The Named? What were they to this man? Had all of them begged him to stay, that he not do this, he would have looked at them and walked off without a word of acknowledgement for their wishes.
He was going back to The Tourist. Going back to that same damn city, weeks after he had just been captured. He was going back and he would die this time, Leon was completely sure about that. The Genesis wouldn't make the silly mistake it had before, trying to toy with him while it held him captive. No, it would throw him in a vat and his body would melt, both metal and flesh.
"Don't do this," Leon said. "Don't go back out there."
Caesar didn't look at him, and instead threw a shirt in the bag he was packing—a small thing, barely able to hold a change of clothes and the water packs he would need to make it out of the desert.
"You barely survived what happened two days ago. Why can't you just be happy about that? Why can't you just fucking stop?" Leon felt like he might cry, felt exasperated at what was happening right now. This man, the one throwing clothes into a bag and ignoring him, was all Leon had—and two days ago Leon was sure that he no longer had him. That his last real connection with another person was gone, destroyed, killed. Caesar didn't care. Didn't care how Leon pleaded, didn't care what he thought. His mind was set on this Tourist, on getting to it and finding out whatever information it held. That's all he cared about and he was going to die because of it. "I'm begging you," Leon said. "Let it go."
"No."
Caesar still didn't turn around.
"Look at me," Leon said.
Caesar stopped packing, his back still facing Leon. "Why?"
"Because I want you to see me. I want you to tell me you won't stay to my face."
Caesar turned around. "I can't stay."
"You said you wanted to die, but I guess I didn't believe it," Leon said. "I guess I thought some part of you still wanted this life."
"That's not it. I have to try to save her, Leon. You can see that, right?"
&nb
sp; He shook his head. "No. I can't because you won't be able to. You won't come back, Caesar, and then there will be two people dead instead of one. You can't save her. You can't make up for what happened to your parents and you can't stop The Genesis. All of this has been set from the beginning, maybe the beginning of time, maybe since the first cell found itself floating around in the ocean billions of years ago."
"I don't believe that," Caesar said.
"You don't have to believe it for it to be true."
"She deserves a chance."
"And you don't? You don't deserve a chance just to fucking live? I care about Paige, Caesar. I do. I sat there and I watched her shivering while the fever raged, and I might even take her place if it was asked of me. It's not being asked though. It can't be asked. Yet you're acting like it is, that if you somehow sacrifice yourself you'll be able to save her. But you won't. You're just throwing yourself atop her funeral pyre and that's not heroism. It's not honorable. It's fucking stupid."
Caesar set his bag on the cot. He took a seat next to it, putting his hands on his knees.
"Even if Paige had died, I'd still be going," Caesar said. "I don't have a choice. Not anymore."
"You do. You always have a choice."
"To do what, Leon? Sit in this cave? To live forever because of this sacrificed body? Because that's what I did, I sacrificed my body, my very life, to do this. Just because it stopped me once doesn't mean I can just turn around. It doesn't mean that I don't have to keep trying."
Leon opened his mouth to say something, but didn't. There wasn't anything for him to say. He could argue in circles forever, going around and around about why Caesar didn't have to do this, but it would make no difference. He could follow Caesar all the way to this application, yapping the whole time about how he didn't have to do it, and Caesar would walk him all the way to the Tourist's door. It didn't matter what Leon said anymore. It didn't matter what anyone said. Caesar barely escaped death, barely removed himself from The Genesis' grasp, and he was determined to throw himself back in.
"You really do want to do die," Leon said, finally, the only words he found to be true.
* * *
It's human, Caesar said.
"No, it just looks that way," Grace answered.
Caesar watched The Tourist, his eyes taking in the thing that should have been invisible like Grace, or else some kind of machine. It was neither, though; it looked like anyone else sitting in this cafe. It looked human. Its eyes, its mouth, the hair falling across its brow.
Why? Why does it look human? He asked.
"Camouflage," Grace whispered. "It needs the ability to blend in, especially with the amount of information it holds."
Caesar leaned back in his chair, bringing the beer to his lips. He took a sip, not really tasting the heavy substance. He arrived in the city a few hours ago and took the escalators down just as he had before. Things were different this time though, much different, and he realized that as soon as he entered the underground city.
He had felt some of this back at the cave, around Leon and Paige and the rest of The Named, but he tried to block it out. He could have heard Leon's thoughts, could have walked through the corridors of his mind if he wanted, but he didn't. Those thoughts were created under the impression that no one could view them, that they were safe inside Leon's head, and now they weren't. Now no one around Caesar was safe from what he knew about them. Not Jerry and not this machine playing human sitting across the restaurant from him. Everything was open to him; nothing could close itself off, not if he wanted to pry.
The thoughts of the fifty patrons in here swam through his head like a school of fish, moving in the same direction for the most part, organized by the chip in his brain to keep the entire thing from turning into a confusing mess. The thoughts were little more than nonsense: nonexistent worries or thoughts about dinner. He only kept tuned to them so that he could understand if he set off alarms in their minds, if they somehow noticed him as different.
If The Genesis found him now, it wasn't because he hadn't tried to hide. His eyes contained different retinas. His fingertips were pasted over with new prints. Even his body looked different. He wore a digital mask over his entire body, giving him fifty pounds and the appearance of a man twenty years his senior. Leon had insisted on the precautions, had practically yelled at him that going into this city as he was couldn't be allowed. And now he sat, looking like a completely different person, virtually no scan able to reveal who he was beneath it all.
The Tourist sat twenty yards from him, a plate of food in front of it, untouched.
Caesar reached out, searching its thoughts, trying to understand something about it, but when he did, he only reached a silent mind. Unstopping thoughts flowed through all the patrons in this place, except for the application. No thoughts went through its head. Instead, it sat still, looking out in front of it.
Is it alive?
"Yes."
What's it doing? How is it not thinking?
"I don't know, Caesar. This thing isn't like me. It's not like any application I've ever met. If there are tiers to us, in levels of importance, then this one is among the top tier. I don't know how they're made or what's different about them."
Something is different. Its mind is completely silent, completely still. I'm not meaning its concentrating on its breath, I mean that there isn't a single pulse of life running through its consciousness.
"What are you going to do?" Grace asked, her voice hushed. She didn't want him here anymore than Leon did. No one in that whole cave wanted him here, except Jerry.
Jerry told him to go. Caesar wouldn't say that Jerry understood completely, but he understood better than the others. Jerry wanted him to go because this thing didn't end until Caesar or The Genesis was dead. Jerry wanted him to go because the ends justified the means. That might not be the exact reason Caesar was here, but it was close enough.
I'm going to bring it home, I suppose. He didn't know what else to do with it. He understood that he could control this thing the same as he had controlled Manny. That he could grab its silent mind and make it do what he wanted. But he didn't understand why its mind was silent. Didn't understand what it meant, and that scared him. He could take over all the people in this restaurant and make them do a synchronized dance, if he wanted, but they all had thoughts flying through their heads like mad runners on a track. The Tourist didn't. The Tourist seemed to have no track, yet somehow it came to this place and ordered the plate of food in front of it. Now it sat quietly, not moving, just staring out a window.
He could sit here and think on it all day; eventually, The Tourist would stand and leave the restaurant, though, and Caesar would have to track it down again, and what if its mind was still then? Would he continue waiting until a thought finally went through its blank head?
No. There wasn't time.
He pushed forward, feeling his mind move out across the air in front of him, taking the shortest route to The Tourist. He pushed his own worries away, acting now, done with the thinking, done with the doubts.
The Tourist's first thought occurred when Caesar latched onto its machine brain, latched on and started manipulating the synthetic hormones and motor neurons that controlled its movement.
Odd, it thought.
* * *
"You're not going to like what you find," The Tourist said.
"Why not?" Caesar asked.
"Because it's not going to be the answer that you want. You'll never find the answers you want, not in this lifetime."
Caesar sat in front of the machine that looked human. He hadn't strapped the thing down or used any other precautions to keep it from attacking him. He monitored it closely, but wasn't even using his mind to restrain it. The Tourist seemed to have no inclination to run, to try to save itself, or to hurt Caesar. It was completely calm, in a way that Caesar had never seen before.
"How do you know what answers I'm looking for?"
"Because I know you, Caesar
Wells. I know your kind, all of humanity. You may be the most advanced of your species, but even the fastest dog is still only a dog."
"What do I want?" Caesar asked.
"Security. That's all any human wants, in the end. Security. Immortality. Life without end and joy without suffering. You won't find any of those things inside me."
Joy without suffering? Was that what he was here looking for? No. He wanted two things: The Genesis' location and the cure for Paige. The philosophical underpinnings mattered none.
"Don't delude yourself, Mr. Wells," the application said. "Even now you're standing there determining that you don't want anything of the sort from me. Your friend, your lover, is dying, correct?"
Caesar didn't say anything, trying to keep from showing his surprise.
"She's dying from a wound that she received from one of the weapons I designed. Am I right?"
Caesar kept quiet.
"No matter. I am right. You're here because you want to save her, and you think that I'm going to know how given that I'm the creator of the weapon. What are you looking for then? Not a cure, but joy. Joy without suffering. You had your joy, Mr. Wells. You had it with her and now that she suffers, you wish to return her to joy, return yourself to joy. So don't delude yourself into thinking that's not what you're after. It's what all your kind is after."
"How do you know that's why I'm here?" Caesar asked. He didn't like this, not the way the application spoke to him—as if he were a child in need of a lesson, nor that it knew why he captured it.
"We know everything, Mr. Wells. One way or another, all information serves The Genesis. I may be but a piece of The Genesis, but I'm an important piece as you've undoubtedly surmised by now."
Vague, hidden answers that moved Caesar nowhere. Maybe it was right. Maybe he was here for things that he couldn't possibly get; maybe the philosophical roots the application spoke of were correct. Even so, it changed nothing. He was still here with this application, and he was still searching. Whether for joy without suffering or a cure for Paige, he still searched. And this thing was going to give him what he wanted.