An instant later, two metallic, shark-shaped objects dropped down from the ceiling. They were sharp like daggers—the diamond tipped ends pointed directly at Old-timer’s and Alejandra’s torsos.
“Oh my God.” Old-timer gasped.
Alejandra couldn’t speak anymore—she sobbed.
“Wait! Wait!” Old-timer screamed. “Wait! Please! We can talk! We’ll tell you whatever you want!”
“I don’t want you to tell me anything,” the man replied. “I want you to learn.”
“Please. Don’t do this. We can learn without this. Please.”
“No. You cannot learn without this,” the man replied.
With a thought, the man activated the objects, and the ends began to spin like drills as the springs from the ceiling moved the points toward Alejandra and Old-timer. Alejandra screamed a long, drawn-out scream.
“No!” Old-timer yelled. He pulled as hard as he could on his wrist cuffs, but he knew he couldn’t get free in time. This was really going to happen and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
12
The diamond points of the drills ground into each of their torsos, just below the chest, sending indescribable agony through each of them. Their screams were so loud that they threatened to drown out the sound of the drill motor and the sickening cutting sound as the edges forced their way inside of Old-timer and Alejandra bodies.
After a few seconds, the agony caused Alejandra to black out. The drills didn’t stop, however. They continued spinning and driving into each of them for over a minute; it felt like an eternity. Old-timer nearly blacked out as well from the searing swathe being cut into his chest. The pain he was feeling was beyond words—comparing it to anything else would be pointless. The pain signals were shooting to every part of his body, causing him to contort.
He wished he would black out too, but he didn’t. He felt he couldn’t take the pain anymore, yet there was no relief. There was no way to master pain like that. You couldn’t separate yourself from it and imagine that you were somewhere else as it happened to you. You couldn’t go limp and let the drill do its work.
It was the sort of pain that took any idea of there really being a “you” out of the picture. You were nothing. You were a series of nerve endings that were all firing at once, uncontrollably. Old-timer’s only wish was for a quick death. It wouldn’t come.
Finally, the drills stopped. They slowly pulled themselves back out of Old-timer’s and Alejandra’s insides, then closed back up into the ceiling. Old-timer’s body continued to shake uncontrollably for several more moments. His jaw was locked closed, and his eyes were clamped shut and filled with tears. He took a breath, but the pain it caused was so intense that he stopped breathing rather than repeat the experience—better to suffocate.
“And now you will learn,” the man said finally.
Old-timer opened his eyes. They were wild with hatred for the man. The man’s face remained hard like stone. Old-timer continued to shake, his hair soaked with sweat as tears streamed down his face.
The man’s eyes dropped from Old-timer’s eyes and fell onto the gaping hole in Old-timer’s torso. “Look at it,” he said.
Sadistic, Old-timer thought. He obeyed though—this man was not above anything—Old-timer would never refuse anything he asked.
He lowered his eyes and looked down. He cringed as he imagined what the damage must have looked like. The drill had been deep inside him, spinning for a full minute. He imagined blood. He imagined organs, shredded into twisted meat. Nothing that he imagined could compare to the hideousness of what he saw.
“No!” he screamed. He turned quickly to see Alejandra. Her wound was the same. She was still unconscious, a football-sized hole in her torso, her metallic and silicon insides exposed in a mess of twisted titanium and circuitry. “What have you done to us?” Old-timer bellowed.
“We’ve saved you,” the stone-faced man replied.
13
James kept watch over the stillness of Cathedral Grove and waited. He had played his last hand. Now that the alien A.I. had his position, he was virtually defenseless. At any moment, he could be destroyed, and then his only hope was that the broken body on the Purist ship would recover.
“Could it simply be that it doesn’t consider us a threat any longer?” James wondered.
“It could be,” the A.I. concurred. “You’ve been cut off from any communication with the outside. You’ve been neutralized. Maybe it doesn’t see the logic in destroying you.”
James shook his head. “Killing me is the best strategic move.”
“Have you considered that your foe simply isn’t as ruthless as you are?” the A.I. inquired with a mocking smile. “Perhaps you are not the good guy this time, James Keats.”
“You’re continuing with your games,” James observed. “You wouldn’t just be doing that for enjoyment. You’re trying to distract me—to confuse me—to keep me from the truth.”
“What is the truth?” the A.I. asked. “I’d love to hear it.”
At that moment, a signal reached James. “It’s the alien,” James asserted.
“Will you speak with it this time?” the A.I. asked.
“I might as well at this point,” James replied. He opened a line of communication.
“We have come in peace. Why have you attacked us?” the same electronic voice asked of James.
“Absurd,” James answered.
There was a long pause. James shared a look with the A.I. The electronic Satan was no longer smiling. James wasn’t sure whether that was a good sign.
“May I speak with you inside your mainframe?” the voice asked.
“Polite,” the A.I. observed. “James, if you’re going to allow it inside of the mainframe, may I suggest that I remain hidden?”
James’s eyebrow arched. This was a rare example of the A.I. acting in accordance with the logical desire for self-preservation that James had expected all along. Perhaps it was finally recognizing that this was its moment to take the situation seriously. “Why would we do that?” James asked. He was already nearly certain of the answer, but he wanted to hear the A.I. say it—it was important for James to feel like he could finally anticipate something correctly again.
“It’s a strategic advantage for us,” the A.I. replied.
“Us?” James said, repeating the A.I. “Are we a team again?”
“We always were,” the A.I. said with a slight smile. “There’s no reason for them to know that I’m in your back pocket. It might come in handy.”
James nodded in agreement. He had felt the same way—but the A.I. was not to be trusted. “Okay. You lie low.”
The A.I. nodded and disappeared from view, going into monitoring mode.
James addressed the alien A.I. “Permission granted. Come in.”
14
“This can’t be real. This has to be a nightmare,” Old-timer whispered to himself as he remained shackled to the metal coffin.
Alejandra was awake now. She was dazed from the blinding agony, but conscious.
“It is real,” the hard-faced man said. “If you deny the reality of the situation, then you have failed to learn, and the lesson will be repeated.”
“No! No!” Old-timer shouted, pleading. “No…please. I believe it.”
The man didn’t smile, but something in his eyes showed that he was pleased. “Good. Then you are ready to be put back together.”
Another metallic apparatus dropped from the ceiling, and several robotic arms, thin and dark like insect legs, began manipulating Alejandra’s and Old-timer’s wounds. They had both jerked away from the instruments in fear, but it became quickly apparent that something had been done to neutralize the pain.
“You’ll require no more pain,” the man said.
“What have you done to us?” Alejandra asked weakly.
“It should be clear,” the man said, this time demonstrating patience.
“You’ve turned us into machines—like you,” Old-timer sa
id, hardly believing his own words.
“We’ve replaced your bodies,” the man said. “Your old bodies were fragile. Your new bodies are strong. Your new bodies are repairable. Your new bodies are independent.”
“Why are you doing this?” Old-timer asked, starting to feel better as his new body drew closer to completion.
“We have done this to save you,” the man replied.
“Who is ‘we’?” Alejandra asked.
“People,” the man replied. He didn’t elaborate on his perplexing answer.
“How is robbing us of our humanity saving us?” Old-timer asked.
The man paused for a moment. Alejandra’s and Old-timer’s bodies were now completely repaired. The shackles that had held them in place suddenly released. “You may step down from there now,” the man said.
They shared looks of astonishment before stepping down from the metal coffins. Once they were on their feet again, the structures disappeared back into the floor. Old-timer rubbed his wrists. They felt like his wrists, which was, in itself, puzzling.
“Do you no longer believe that you are human?” the man asked.
Old-timer didn’t know how to respond. “I feel human,” he replied, “but I’m not human any longer.”
“Why not?” the man asked.
“Because…I’m made of metal.”
“Tell me,” the man said, “if you were injured and the injury was so severe that it required one of your joints to be replaced—let’s say in your hip—and you agreed to have a metal joint implanted, would you then conclude at the end of the procedure you were no longer human?”
“That’s clearly different,” Alejandra interjected.
“And if you had two joints replaced? What if you had to have every joint in your body replaced with metal or plastic replicas? What if you needed your jawbone replaced as well? What if you needed every bone in your body replaced? Tell me—at what point do you draw the line and say you are no longer human?”
Old-timer and Alejandra didn’t have an answer.
“Alejandra,” the man began, “you knew you were going to be physically harmed before you entered this room.”
The man’s words were true—it seemed inexplicable to Alejandra that she had maintained her powers throughout the transition and yet she had.
“The ability to read people and situations and to sometimes even predict the future was something that you always assumed was connected to your ‘humanity’—to your…meat.”
Alejandra’s eyes were wide. She nodded. “I thought… I thought it was spiritual.”
“I cannot provide you with spiritual answers—it is, as of yet, impossible to prove the existence of spirits. There are things we can prove the existence of, however. Electricity, for instance, can be invisible—it can carry signals—information. Your flesh bodies were excellent carriers of those signals—your new bodies are much better at it.”
“That doesn’t explain why she still has her powers,” Old-timer retorted.
“Not entirely, but I can explain it to you,” the man replied. He turned back to Alejandra. “It won’t be a mystical answer, Alejandra. You may even find it disappointing—but it is the reality. You cannot sense other people’s emotions, even if you have always felt you could. Your gift is purely observational. You are far more in tune with your subconscious than regular people. You read facial expressions and combine this with a lifetime of subconscious data collection about human tendencies to draw your conclusions, which, you then, in turn, interpret as reading emotions.”
“That’s hogwash,” Old-timer said, dismissing the explanation.
“Take your most recent prediction, for example,” the man continued. “How did you conclude that we were going to harm you? The answer is simple: You read the expression on my face—”
“You have no expressions,” Old-timer interjected.
“Oh, but I do,” the man said, turning back to Old-timer briefly. “They may be subtle, but they are present. The one I am exhibiting now is mild annoyance. Please limit your interruptions.” He turned back to Alejandra. “You read my body language. I moved with purpose, yet I was not excited. Why? I do not like causing pain. Yet, I knew I had to so that this lesson could unfold. To deal with the unpleasantness of my mission, I attempted to cut myself off from my emotion and focus on the task at hand.”
Alejandra’s mouth hung slightly open—she couldn’t deny that all of these observations were accurate, though she had not consciously registered any of them beforehand.
“You’ve seen actions like this before, haven’t you, Alejandra?” the man continued. “Perhaps when you were young, someone in your family behaved this way before slaughtering an animal for food or clothing? Yes. I’m sure you’ve seen it many times—and when you saw my behavior, you read it perfectly. You knew what was to come.”
Alejandra’s head lowered as she heard the explanation. It was so clear—yet it ran contrary to everything she’d always hoped and believed.
“When you entered the room, your anxiety rose substantially. Why? Again the answer is simple: there were three other men in the room, each with expressions and demeanors similar to my own. They do not like causing pain either. And then there is the question of why there would need to be four men in the room. You now know the obvious answer—four men are the minimum required to safely subdue two people without the threat of weapons. Of course you knew this the moment you entered the room, even if you weren’t consciously aware of it.”
Alejandra stepped to Old-timer and began to cry into his chest.
He held her and put his hand on her head to comfort her. He glared at the man. “What is the point of all of this?” Old-timer demanded.
“I told you. We’re here to save you. To save you, we have to explain the truth to you.”
“But…but I can feel their emotions,” Alejandra said.
The man shook his head. “No you cannot. You are exceptionally adept at reading emotions and then manufacturing emotions to mirror them. You are a tremendous empath.”
“How can you call her an empath?” Old-timer asked. “You just told her that her powers are an illusion.”
“I never said that. I only explained how her powers work. This is why her powers remain, even in her new body. She is indeed an empath—but an empath does not have spiritual or mystical powers.”
“How is all of this supposed to be saving us?” Old-timer asked.
“For you to be saved, you must know the truth. To know the truth, you must have no delusions.”
“And what about the pain? Why did you have to cause us pain?” Alejandra asked.
“You had to see what you were for you to believe it—you had to feel what you were as well. It wasn’t just the pain. You had to anticipate it—you had to fear it. You had to feel your humanity, or else you would not believe you are still human, and we would not be able to save you.”
“And what are you trying to save us from?” Alejandra asked.
“From forces you do not yet understand… but you very soon will.”
15
“The damage to the engines isn’t a threat right now,” Rich explained to Thel as she remained next to James in sick bay, “but the danger is, if the androids find us again, it won’t take them long to finish the job they started. I recommend we do a patch up.”
“Have you tried communicating with the nans that are still onboard the ship?” Thel asked.
“Yes,” Djanet answered for both her and Rich. “Neither of us can make heads or tails out of them.”
“We’d have to spend a decade in training just to have a workable knowledge of how to create nano-programs that would help fix the engines,” Rich elaborated. “It’s the sort of thing only James can do when he has access to the A.I. mainframe.”
Thel nodded in understanding. “Then what are you suggesting?”
“Well, I’m thinking we find some scrap metal—there must be something we can use onboard—and then just do an old-fashioned welding job,”
Rich replied.
“How quick can you get it done?” Thel asked. “We’re going to be coming around the far side of the sun soon. Right now, the sun’s radiation is cloaking us, but we’ll be more visible when we move away from the strongest radiation and get closer to Venus.”
“We can have something put together in an hour,” Djanet asserted.
Thel nodded. “Good. Make it happen.”
“How’s the commander?” Rich asked. “He’s looking better.”
Thel looked down at James’s body. Indeed, he did look far better than he had after his collision with the android. “All his minor injuries have been repaired, but it’s the nerve damage to his spine that is the real problem. If this had happened on Earth, James could have used the same programs that built entire people out of nothing to repair the body in an instant. Instead, we have to hope the programming of the nans already in his body can repair the damage before more of his body begins to shut down.”
“He’ll pull through,” Djanet said, reaching for Thel’s hand.
“He has to—the last time I communicated with him from Earth, he’d been found by the alien A.I. We’ve lost contact since then.” She closed her eyes and tried not to visualize what seemed to be an implacable truth. “By now, he has probably been deleted.”
16
This was not what James had been expecting—once again.
The form the alien A.I. had chosen for its appearance in the mainframe was of a blonde—a blonde that James hypothesized had been designed to be the most appealing form possible—mathematically possible.
“We have come in peace,” the woman said, her beautiful blue eyes speaking the message even more earnestly than her words.
“No you haven’t,” James replied immediately. “Why are you wasting my time?”
“We were invited,” the alien replied.
“Not by me.”
“We know,” the alien answered. “We were contacted by an artificial intelligence. You are a human.”
Post-Human Trilogy Page 45