It was clear from what Rast had told us that Hermes could not read me accurately because I did not have a human-computer interface brain implant. But Livia did, so if Hermes had any doubt whatsoever about the story we were feeding him, he would be able to violate Livia’s mind and check for himself.
Which was why we had been rehearsing our story incessantly for the last two hours. The best lie, I remembered from somewhen, was the one that was closest to the truth. So the story did not deviate from reality except where absolutely necessary. We had entered the base, lost the men and women that we had lost. Killed all we found. Been surprised to find Rast and two other familiar soldiers who had apparently been captured and killed just prior to or during our assault. Turned off a shielding mechanism that a captured tech revealed to us. And were returning home triumphantly, expecting great reward.
We had repeated it until we half-believed it, then started over. Finally, after hours, we had re-entered the machine room, made our way to the far corner with the pitiful remains of the ancient computer which had revealed so much of the truth and yet, ultimately, so little in comparison to all that there was to know. Accessed the controls built into the wall, and turned off the shield.
Now, we just had to wait.
And wait we did … but not for long.
Waking up. Soft noises purring, gentle wheezes of air blowing. Slowly cycling status lights gradually growing lighter. And the lid to my capsule popped open.
I opened my eyes and felt good. As usual, all aches and pains were gone, and my body was at peak condition: all toxins scrubbed, all muscles toned, all cuts and bruises healed. I felt perfect, until I remembered that today was the most dangerous day of my life. If we could not convince Hermes that all was well and everything was complete — that his victory was assured and absolute — there would be no chance of a future life for Livia and me.
More than for the continuation of my own mentally truncated existence, I longed for her and for that future time with the one I loved. And underneath all that was my determination that Hermes would not win … that he would not succeed in erasing past-me and past-Livia and past everyone we had known and loved, and succeed in achieving all his goals by spending our blood and our comrades’ lives. That he would pay for his treachery.
So I resolved to do nothing out of the ordinary. I fetched my day clothes, put them on, met Livia walking to the hall of feasting, joined her at a table, and ate what the servitors provided to the two of us, alone in that immense room. And as before when we had lost people, Livia and I sat and remembered our fallen comrades. And all the while I repeated to myself the story: mission complete, base destroyed, enemy defeated, job well done.
Livia raised a cup and spoke the names of those we had lost on the mission, the last mission: Helo, Kin, Sama, Tonia. And we drank to them, and I vowed that their deaths would not be in vain, and their lives would not, in the end, be a mockery of what they truly, originally, believed.
Then without ceremony and without pomp, Hermes came, and he took me away, and we walked in the field of the gods, where I had been, it seemed, so long ago, and where I had been such a different person. He gestured the way, and we strolled along the path towards the city of the gods.
My city, at some time in my life.
I paused and turned to face the sun. Closed my eyes, vulnerable, feeling the heat of this star on my face, penetrating my limbs, warming my body. The birds sang, and the insects buzzed, and the slow movement of a trillion leaves of grass waving in a gentle breeze sang counterpoint, and it was beautiful and glorious and good. I smiled, feeling Hermes’ gaze on me. And knowing it was all built on a lie.
“Lord Hermes,” I said, inclining my head a fraction. “The enemy base is destroyed, and all who were there.”
He smiled, and we resumed walking on the path, two men together. One posing as a god, one betrayed but preparing to betray.
“I think that you must have sent backup, or had multiple teams on this mission,” I added. “We found some bodies that did not — we think — belong there. Rast, and some others that we recognized from the Hall.”
He smiled wider, and as I looked, I thought I detected vestiges of a well-hidden hint of sudden understanding, tinged with the relief of a loose end, now tied up.
“This was an important mission,” Hermes said. “In fact, the most important mission. You did well, and I had faith in you. And yet … it is always good to have a plan B.”
“I understand,” I said, understanding perhaps better than Hermes knew. “Plan B.”
“Fortunately, plan A worked,” Hermes said. “As I always believed it would.”
We walked in silence a few more steps. Now was the most difficult part: to get him to agree to a few days off, a few days respite. Before our next mission, ostensibly, but before our imminent demise, actually. Because, as Livia and I figured it, he could have no further use for super-soldiers, once his enemies were dead. At best, we would be an inconvenience. At worst, we could be a threat.
“I do not know if there are other missions, other enemies,” I said, hoping to plant the thought in Hermes’ mind that even if all his enemies were dead now, such might not always be the case. “But may Livia and I take some time to train, to rest, to recover?”
He turned his head, looked at me, a little surprised.
“Have the pods not done their job?” he asked. “Are you not feeling well in every aspect?”
“Physically, of course, Lord Hermes,” I replied. “But ... losing almost all our companions on a mission … that’s not easy.”
“I understand,” Hermes said, sweeping me with a searching gaze. I was, after all, supposed to be the consummate warrior, always ready for action, emotionless, hard and cold. Perhaps he sensed too much of the old me seeping through, and a thrill of terror raced through my spine. But I kept my peace.
“Of course. Take three days,” Hermes said. “We’ll meet again then, and do what must be done.”
He had bought it. But as he started to turn and walk away, I saw the start of a cruel and mocking smile begin at the corners of his mouth, and I knew that if I did not resolve this in three days, there would never be anything more to resolve. Hermes would “do what must be done,” and what was left of Geno — what was left of me — would be killed. Or put in cold storage for an unlikely future need.
The sun dimmed and the field of grass disappeared, and I was back in the Hall. I found Livia, and we got to work.
The knowledge that we had gained from the Athens base, partial and incomplete as it was, stood us in good stead. We quickly made our way through the servitors’ room to the command center, and accessed the computer system.
“When Hermes and his faction put us in here as soldiers, warriors, they didn’t know that I had encrypted the command center’s higher functions,” I told Livia, using the word ‘I’ even though the me that had done so felt rather alien and remote. I still had no personal memory of having done so, and was taking the message from earlier me on faith. “They can’t fully observe us in the Hall, and they can’t mind-read me, at least. In fact, they can’t even fully control the facility. They have no root-level access to the command layers.”
“So what are you going to do now?” Livia asked.
“I’m going to delete even their ability to use this machine,” I said. “I’m killing their user access, erasing their privileges, and shutting them out.”
I ignored the beautiful and simple menus and invoked a terminal window. Typing into a virtual keyboard, I quickly accessed the user identity and permissions protocols. Scanned them, and erased every single account except for the root, owner’s account. My account. Then I set a jump to a location and time that would be erased from memory after completion. And finally, I set a self-replicating routine which would consume all space in the facilities’ almost-unimaginably large electronic storage systems, eating whatever data and information it found and replacing it with more and more of itself. I called it Hermes, and set it to begin
after we left.
Virus implanted, I turned to Livia. “We have five hours,” I said.
She placed an antimatter grenade in the center of the room, set a timer fuse, and we walked out of the room. Then the real fun started.
We had set the initial conditions for our new life, but I had no intention of living destitute or hand-to-mouth. Work was no stranger to either of us, but it was silly to not take advantage of every opportunity. Roaming the storage rooms and armory, we spent two hours gathering equipment, tools, and low-tech money equivalents: mainly gold, which we had used in prior missions in which it might have become necessary to pay for goods and services, and some precious stones. Reluctantly, but with firm decision, I also took weapons.
Moving everything to this base’s room of departure, where, just like in the Athens base there was a physical space from which to be formally transited, took another two hours. Finally, we had everything together, loaded in boxes and packs, and ourselves, waiting on the dais, with an hour to go. An hour to our new lives, and our new freedom.
I thought I had a good way to use that hour. Bending down on one knee, I took Livia’s hand in my own.
“Livia, there’s a lot we forgot when we were put into this place. When we were remade as warriors and servants to our enemies.”
She nodded, a little puzzled at my odd posture.
“One of those things was how it is between a man and a woman … a husband and a wife. How people love each other, and how they live together.”
She nodded again, tears in her eyes as sudden understanding came. We had lost so much of our humanity, so much of ourselves. But she remembered this.
“Now it’s coming back,” I said. “Just bits and pieces … but I remember what it means to be a man, and to be in love with a woman. Not just to love her, but to be in love with her.” Now, against my will, tears moistened my eyes too.
“I don’t know how much you remember, or if you have exactly the same kind of feelings. But I want to ask you to be my wife … and I want to be your husband.”
I looked up at her. Little glistening jewels were sliding down her cheeks, but she did not speak. Her hand gripped my harder, fiercer. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Then her eyes found mine.
“Geno,” she breathed. “Geno, I remember. Now, I remember.” The tears came quicker now. “And I say yes.”
I jumped up and we embraced. Our tears mingled as we pledged our lives, already entangled, to each other. And we kissed as we had never kissed before. I gave her two ugly little metal rings that I had found in the mechanical room, probably washers for some roughly finger-sized bolts. She accepted them with a grin, and put the larger washer on my finger and the smaller one on hers, then kissed me again, and we embraced.
“And I pronounce you man and wife!” a sneering third voice filled the room.
We sprang apart, startled, and looked up. Hermes!
“So you thought you were more clever than me, Geno?” he laughed. “You thought you could fool me?”
Shock rocketed through every cell in my body as Hermes walked toward us. He had no weapon, and yet moved with complete confidence, a god approaching his creatures.
“I know who you are, Hermes,” I said, finding my voice. “You are no god. And you are a betrayer, a destroyer. You were my friend, or so I thought. You killed so many who were your friends! And you have stolen our lives.”
“So you do remember something,” Hermes smiled. “Good. That will make this sweeter.”
Hermes advanced on us and I moved toward him, separating from Livia. He was a fool to come without a weapon to the warriors he created in a thousand battles, I thought, as I closed with him and launched a kick to repay him some of the pain he had caused us.
Only to be sent spinning through the air to the corner of the room, slamming into the wall and reeling from the pain of a body blow so powerful it had tossed me ten feet. Shock and surprise must have shown on my face, and Hermes laughed as he absently backhanded Livia on the face, sending her to the opposite corner where she crumpled, unconscious, blood streaming down her face.
“Did you think I would give the best and latest bodies to my servants?” Hermes asked, as he resumed his stalk towards me. “You’re an … older model. Slower. Weaker.”
I half-turned, looking at Livia. He wanted her, it was plain, when this was all over. On that slim basis I hung her life and my love, and turned and ran for the door, slamming it behind me as I heard his mocking laugh. He would not condescend to run after me, I thought, preferring instead to patiently follow me in a dignified walk, and kill me when inevitably he cornered me.
Plan B, I thought to myself. If I can’t deal with an enemy physically, I must beat him with my mind.
I ran to the armory at full speed, selected a weapon and a few grenades, and ran to the hall. There was no avoiding this battle, and I wanted a space where I could see his approach for some time … where Hermes would be forced to cross open territory to close with me.
It did not take long.
This was an odd reversal of the battle against Rast in the mechanical room at Athens base. Here I was like Rast, with a weapon, waiting for the arrival of an enemy. There Hermes was coming, like me, without a weapon, but supremely confident in his ability to kill me with his bare hands.
I heard his voice around the corner.
“Geno, Geno, Geno … I saw your battle against Rast. At least, until you killed him. He had a little video transmitter, you see. Do you really think you’ll succeed where he failed? Your body is three generations out of date, and I’m five times faster, stronger.”
I loosed a bolt right at the corner where I thought he was, hoping the savage weapon would chew through the wall and hit him too, but his laughter proved me wrong. Then he appeared, and his movements were like lightning. He didn’t walk, he flowed. But he flowed like light would flow, if it was liquid, and if it was confined to some sizable fraction of its usual speed. My bolts flew behind, beside him … anywhere but where his body was. It was not as if he was faster than light, but he was faster at moving his entire body than I was at redirecting and aiming my weapon.
I was failing, just like Rast had.
So I changed tactics. Ancient scientist Einstein’s rule: repeating similar actions expecting different results is insanity.
Instead of firing at Hermes, I fired away from him. If he was left, I fired right, or above, or below. At first I missed wildly, and Hermes’s laughter, rich and full despite his exertions, echoed in the room. Then I got lucky.
Hermes jumped, tucked, rolled, just twenty feet away now. A laser blast aimed at nothing in particular milliseconds before his movement reached out. I could almost see the progression of photons racing towards his form. The red line intercepted Hermes, intersecting the crazed geometry of his twisting body near the end of one wildly gyrating leg.
There was a mini pink explosion as super-heated water in the blood and other liquids in the cells of his foot expanded too rapidly to be contained by the fragile barrier of his skin. And Hermes lost a foot from the ankle down.
He swore, slumped. Lay on the ground. Suspicious, I kept the rifle trained on his body. He started to laugh regretfully, wildly, angrily.
“You utter fool, Geno. You complete and total idiot,” he said viciously. “Your plans would have ruined our City, ruined our lives. All I ever wanted to to keep things as they were, and to keep our way of life — and indeed our lives themselves — safe. I guess now you will—”
I never found out what he was going to say as mid-sentence his body convulsed, leaped off the ground. My hasty shot sprayed the metal floor where his body had been just a millisecond ago while Hermes landed like a cat just ten feet away on one foot and two hands, continuing in a roll to my feet that became a leaping tackle under my rifle, lifting me off the ground, and slamming me down to the deck with a one-footed Hermes on top, hammering at my head and neck and chest.
I fought as best I could, warding off blows, pulling Herme
s into my guard, remembering hours of groundwork, endless jiu-jitsu lessons. But nothing sufficed; he was simply too strong. If not five times my strength as he had boasted, he was easily twice. And I was taking damage — too much damage.
Hermes paused the savage beating, staggered to his foot, balanced. Bent down and pulled me up too.
“Stand up!” he yelled hoarsely.
Looking at him through the blood that dripped from my forehead and obscured my vision, I had to give him credit. One functioning leg, fighting against a trained and veteran warrior. He had done well. I slumped against him, in pain, confused, beaten.
I looked up at his face, triumphant, exulting. Cast my eyes down again. Drew a deep, staccato breath.
“At least tell me, Hermes, what you had us doing through time and space,” I asked. “Not all of it was fighting or finding your enemies.”
He looked at me, laughed.
“Some of it was creating the future that would lead to more power for our city, Geno,” he answered. “You might remember that was why I supported creating the machine in the first place, if the pieces of your brain ever find each other again. Others were … more complicated.”
He laughed, sure of himself. Unwilling to explain himself further. But I saw him now. Saw through him.
“You want more power for our city, I can see that,” I said, shaking my head. “But more than that you want more power for you. This has never been about safety. This is about you owning everything, controlling everything, deciding everything, like the old-style tyrants we got rid of.”
Hermes laughed again, and shook me like a lion with a lamb despite his missing foot, despite the pain.
“Enough,” he said, triumphantly. “Now it’s time. Finally, I can do what I have wanted to do for years. But first, tell me ... how does it feel, Geno, to be used to undo all that you wanted to accomplish, to kill those you loved, to destroy your own dream with your own fingers … and then to die?”
No Other Gods Page 28