GENESIX: THE TRILOGY

by Greg Logan

  What the other androids saw was Jeff grabbing the pistol and pushing their android comrade away, and the android seeming to disappear in a flash of light.

  Jeff then aimed the ion pistol at the control panel and fired. An ion blast was essentially a beam of focused electricity and it ripped the panel to shreds, thus ending this army’s ability to keep him from powering-up. Or Quentin from using his ability. They could always set up another one, but Jeff planned to keep them too busy for this.

  Three drones aimed at him and fired, but he was simply no longer there. Stepped away into the stream of time, again. He then appeared among them, and they found themselves whisked away to the roof top of old Logan airport.

  “Here’s the first three,” Jeff said, and then disappeared again.

  Quentin reached out with his mind, as pissed off as he was over the Sara business, and ripped all three of them to shreds. After all, he, alone among them, knew how Jeff felt. He had been living with the loss of Mandy for all these years. And even though it was true the woman Jeff had loved never really existed, it could easily be said the woman Quentin loved existed in his own mind, only. The real Mandy had been a sociopathic monster. And so, he vented twenty years of rage by tearing these metallic soldiers to bits.

  “Whoa, Quentin,” Henry said. “Go to town!”

  Jeff was then back with ten more, deposited them on the rooftop and was gone again, and the battle was on. Sammy, with reflexes and strength more than twice that of a human, knocked a pistol from the grasp of one drone and then threw the soldier into another drone. Henry fired his ion gun, taking one down, and Quentin ripped the others to pieces.

  “I am not needed here,” the Darkness said. “I am going to join Jeff at the other end of this.”

  At the perimeter, the robot drones were going into defensive mode. They had drawn their ion pistols, but there was simply no enemy present to shoot at. Their tachyon sensor alerts sounded, but not before Jeff was among them, grabbing a few of them, and then disappearing with them.

  Jeff appeared on the roof of Logan with ten more and then was gone. It took Quentin, Sammy and Henry maybe five seconds to dispense with them, and then Jeff was back with five or ten more.

  Jeff decided he had caused enough damage at one of the satellite dish locations, so he went to another and began grabbing drones from there. Then he went to another. He tried to keep it random, so the enemy wouldn’t be able to anticipate his next arrival point.

  One drone managed to fire a blast at him and missed, just barely. Powered-down as he was, the blast would have fried him. And he saw choppers were now in the air.

  Okay, he thought. Time to end this phase of the battle and begin the second one. Time to power-up.

  A dark fog began swirling about them all, and the drones began to simply break apart. The Darkness had said once that dark energy could be made solid, or at least he could somehow seem to make it solid, and he was now striking these drones with the force of a Mack truck.

  Jeff, now seriously powering-up, charged at some drones. One fired, catching him in the chest with an ion blast. He was powered-up enough so the blast did him no harm, but it burned his jean jacket and shirt away. And then he was among them, ripping and tearing and smashing.

  Five hover craft were in the air, flying toward Logan. They were not yet within firing range, but they would be soon. Jeff knocked the head clean away from one drone, then threw the body toward one hover craft, and the body of the drone hit it like a missile. The craft exploded over the city of Boston, raining fiery debris to the burned out streets below.

  Jeff’s powering-up was now approaching a threshold he had never reached before, but he let it continue because he had to go all-out. They could not afford to lose this battle.

  He leapt toward the remaining four hover craft, turning himself into a human missile. The trajectory of his jump took him whistling through the night air and he cut through the second chopper, sending it and its occupants to a fiery crash below. With a passing thought he hoped the pilots of the craft were robot drones. And yet, even if they were alive, he didn’t feel that badly for them. They had brought this on themselves. And if they didn’t think having a squid masquerade as Sara would send him over the edge, then they were downright stupid. Time for the enemy to learn a valuable lesson.

  One chopper was now within firing range of Logan and shot an ionic blast toward the main building, hitting it squarely. Part of the roof went crashing in.

  Quentin had been knocked from his feet by the blast, but the section of roof he and the others were on was still holding. He rose to his knees. Sammy grabbed him by an arm and pulled him to his feet. Henry had a bloody gash on one cheek, but otherwise he seemed all right. His ion rifle had gone skittering away when the roof got blasted, but he ran over and grabbed it.

  Henry aimed the gun toward the craft, but Quentin said, “Wait. You are still out of range.”

  Quentin then reached out with his mind, grabbing the hover craft and wrapping his telekinetic energy around it. He then pushed it off course, and it crashed into a second craft. They both burst into fireballs that lit up the night.

  Only one hover craft remained. It fired an ionic blast at the airport, and the roof Quentin and the others were standing on caved in around them. The craft then flew past the airport and turned around for a second flyby. It fired a second blast, bringing down most of the remaining structure.

  Jeff had landed on a city street, maybe two miles from the airport. From this distance he could see the glowing lights of the hover craft. He then did something Scott had theorized his dad should have been able to do, but for some reason never could. Jeff concentrated, focusing his gaze on the hover craft. He pushed his powering-up to an even higher degree, and then cut loose with a blast of zeta energy from his eyes.

  The blast cut through the hover craft. The craft exploded to atoms, lighting up the night sky with reds and blues. He would have thought pretty if he hadn’t been so concerned about the people at the airport who had just been hit with two ionic blasts. And if he hadn’t been already shaken to his core about Sara.

  He leaped into the air again, and a couple minutes later touched down on the tarmac at Logan. He ran to the rubble that was once the building and began digging through it, looking for survivors, leaving Mother’s son to finish off the remaining drones. He threw one chunk of concrete away, then another. He pulled free one the size of a small house, and shot put it through the air and into Boston harbor with a resounding splash.

  He then became aware that he wasn’t alone. At the edge of the tarmac was a man dressed in military fatigues. But it wasn’t a robot drone. The face was all too human. An ionic rifle was slung over his shoulder.

  “You’re one of them,” Jeff said. “A shape-shifter. A squid.”

  The man nodded. “I find it easier to get around in human form, because of this planet’s stronger gravitational field. I was in command of the assault force you and your friends are tearing apart so easily. As you can see, looking at this building, we did some damage. But not nearly enough. It’s clear we seriously underestimated you.”

  “Why?” Jeff said. “Why all of this? What did you possibly have to gain by attacking our planet in the first place?”

  The alien shrugged. “I am merely an officer. As you humans would say, it’s above my pay grade. I am not involved in any of the political or strategic decisions. But really, what does anyone gain by conquering anyone? When Europeans invaded North America, conquering the native people, what did they really gain? Sure, some territory and some resources, and some people made some money. But in the long run, what it really comes down to is the more advanced people conquer the lessor advanced because they can. And that is the way it always will be. It’s nature. Excuses can be made, reasons invented. But in reality, the strong conquer the weak because they can. And they always will.”

  “We won this battle,” Jeff said.

  The squid nodded. “I am conceding that. I am not going to even bothe
r to shoot at you, because it would be a waste. Nothing my ionic weapons have can stop you. You could rip me to shreds without even raising a sweat. But more will come. You know that, don’t you? More and more.”

  “Let them come,” Jeff said. “If you think this war is over, you’re sorely mistaken. It has just begun. But the role of attacker and defender has just been switched. I won’t stop until you’re all gone.”

  A baritone spoke from the darkness around them. “That makes two of us.”

  The man nodded gravely and turned to walk away. Jeff returned to digging through the rubble. The Darkness began tossing away pieces of concrete. If there were any survivors, they would find them.

  SIXTEEN

  1880

  The bartender at the tavern had watched the man from the future walk across the floor and out into the night. He then looked upward, and said, “Computer, time to close up shop.”

  The computer said, in a very human sounding female voice, “Ending program. Initiating closing protocols.”

  The customers in the room faded fro mview. But then, they had never been anything more than solid holographic projections. The door then swung shut and the man heard the lock fix into place.

  He then untied his apron and dropped it to the bar. He turned and stepped through a wooden door on the wall behind the bar. He followed a flight of wooden, rickety steps downward, through dim light provided by a kerosene lamp mounted on one wall. He then stepped into a cellar. Beneath his shoes was a dirt floor. Overhead were rough hewn rafters that were, in fact, the joists for the floor above.

  He reached for a lantern hanging from a nail in one timber, and then struck a match and brought it to the wick, and the lantern came alive with a pale light not dissimilar from the light outside in the street.

  Before him were stacks of beer kegs and crates filled with bottles of wine, whiskey and brandy.

  He walked along the length of the cellar and stopped at one wall. Ahead of him was a vertical wall of bricks, and spaced periodically along each wall were thick, wooden timbers standing upright and connecting to beams overhead.

  He said, “Elevator portal.”

  A portion of the brick wall shimmered and then faded away to be replaced by a steel door. The door slid aside, and he stepped into a small rectangular elevator.

  “Level one,” he said, and the elevator began to move downward. Above him, the steel door faded from view and was again replaced by the solid holographic projection of bricks.

  The elevator came to a stop and the door slid open. He stepped out into a long chamber lighted with rectangular glowing panels attached to the ceiling. Against one wall was a large monitor and a series of control panels.

  A woman stood at the monitor. She was maybe thirty, with a long slender neck, and auburn hair was tied into a ball behind her head. Her buxom chest was tucked into a gray jump suit, the front zipper of which was trailing teasingly low. She knew he liked it. She liked that he liked it.

  “Hello, love,” she said, and gave him a quick kiss.

  “Hello, Cassandra, my sweet,” he said. “I got your message. So you apparently were able to apprehend one of them.”

  She nodded. “I took the woman. It was as you said. They have superhuman abilities. Or at least she does. I witnessed her disappearing into a flash of light, and then reappearing.”

  “Did you have any trouble with her?”

  The woman shook her head. “None. I was in stealth mode. I came up behind her and she never knew I was there. She is now unconscious.”

  “It might be good if she should remain so, until we can figure out just who she is and exactly when in the future she and her comrades came from.”

  In the center of the room was a steel table. Lying on it was April. A strap about her neck held her head in place. Straps were also across her wrists and ankles. She was wearing her gold jumpsuit.

  “You removed her clothing?” he said. When he and Cassandra had passed them on the street, the girl had been in clothing similar to those worn by women of this world.

  “She did so herself. Apparently, when she disappears into a flash of light, her clothing fails to go with her. Or at least most of it. She was wearing this jumpsuit when I apprehended her.”

  They stood and looked at April silently. Then the man said, “We will have to determine when she and the man she was with came from. And if they pose any kind of threat to our operation.”

  The woman said, She is quite attractive, this young woman from the future. Don’t you think?”

  The man smiled. “Believe me, Cassandra. I have eyes only for you.”

  She raised a brow. “Oh, really? And the fact that she is human and I am only an A.I. has no influence upon you?”

  “You are an artificial life form, but still very much a life form. There is nothing only about you. And you forget—despite appearances, I am not really human, either.”

  She grinned. “I do not forget. But in human form, you have human desires.”

  “As do you. Maybe when we are finished with tonight’s work, we can further explore these human desires.”

  Her grin opened to a full smile. “I do love you, Alexander.”

  He returned the smile. “And I love you, my love.”

  He brought up a hand to lightly caress her cheekbone, letting the hand drift down to her jaw. She closed her eyes, relishing his touch.

  He turned and strode toward the table and said, “Computer, begin full cellular analysis on the subject.”

  The female voice of the computer said, “Full cellular analysis initiated.”

  A holographic image of a spread sheet appeared before him and he began to focus his thoughts on it.

  The woman walked up behind him, placing her hands on his shoulders. She stood on her toes to rest her chin on one shoulder and look past him to the spreadsheet.

  He said, “Well, she does indeed have the gene we have been implanting.”

  “So, at least we know the gene does survive into the future. So your plan will work.”

  “Presumably.”

  The woman walked around to the other side of the table. “Can you determine the time period she comes from?”

  “The vibration of the photons within her molecules would seem to indicate she might be anywhere from one hundred to one hundred fifty years into the future.”

  Cassandra stepped along the table toward April’s feet, which were still bare. The leg of the jumpsuit ended just above the ankle. Cassandra said, “Look at this odd design that seems to be imprinted on her ankle.”

  Alexander glanced down to her ankle. The design of a green holly vine was imprinted on her, winding its way around it. “It appears to be a sort of tattoo.”

  “How incredibly odd. I have never seen a tattoo on a woman. On men, yes, who work at sea or on the waterfront. And usually something crude like a ship’s anchor or sometimes a woman’s name. And never with colors, only with black ink.”

  “Different time period, different customs.” Alexander turned his gaze from the tattoo to Cassandra. “You know, I really doubt this young woman would appreciate being scrutinized as such. She’s not a lab specimen.”

  “True. I should be ashamed of myself, but I find curiosity overwhelms me. I am, after all, a sociologist. When will I again have the opportunity to so closely study a person from the future?”

  His eyes fell to April’s right wrist and the band encircling it. “One thing I am curious about is this. It appears to be a canvas strap, and yet is not. And the face, something like a watch, contains microscopic workings. And my scans show nanotechnology is present. At the current rate of human development, I didn’t think they would be using nanotechnology for another three centuries, at least.”

  He released the strap holding her wrist down and lifted her arm, bending it at the elbow. “I would like to remove it, but I can find no clasp.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe we should simply cut it off.”

  He nodded. From a drawer in the table, he produced a sma
ll scalpel-like blade. He then began to cut into the strap. An electric charge caused him to jump back. April’s arm fell back to the table.

  He looked to Cassandra with surprise.

  She said, “Apparently it isn’t designed to be removed.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Have you given any thought as to how you are going to return her to her people? With the technology they have, they might be quite powerful.”

  There was a sudden boom from above, like a small explosion, and the computer voice said, “Warning. Security perimeter breach. Warning.”

  Alexander raised a brow. “It would seem we are about to meet them, my love.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Scott, Sammy and Jeff stood in front of the tavern. The windows were now dark.

  “Amazing,” Scott said. “I came in here to get April a glass of water. The power source was here, all along.”

  Sammy was looking at the read-out on his tricorder. “The way it’s shielded, I don’t think one tricorder could have accurately located it. But the three of us together were able to do the trick.”

  Jeff said, “What now?”

  “We should proceed with extreme caution. There seems to be an energy field of some sort, just beneath the exterior siding of these walls. It’s obstructing my tricorder from getting any readings beyond it.”

  “Maybe we should just try the door.” Scott gave the door knob a turn and found it was locked. He gave a push and found it holding solidly. He then put his shoulder to it, and there was a sudden energy crackle and he was knocked back a couple feet.

  Sammy said, “The energy field.”

  “Just how powerful is it?”

  “I can’t get enough of a reading to even gauge that.”

  Jeff began powering up. “Well, maybe we just need to test its strength. See how it matches up to someone like me.”