by J. N. Chaney
“Well, seems my boss didn’t like your orders about keeping stuff out of the streets. We’re definitely not taking the right fork anymore.”
“Hey, there are plenty of other ways,” Abimbola replied in defense.
“All of them longer ways.” Magnus pulled out his holo-pad and brought up the map. Once he’d marked the recommended route as impassable, the pad’s AI calculated a new path. “Looks like we’re turning hard right. Two blocks north, then a hard left. We’ll be back on track three blocks west. Sending to everyone’s holo-pads. Now I need those new bomb techs.”
“Well,” Abimbola said as he turned his skiff to point north, “the good news is that, as I said before, I have more techs. The bad news is that none of them are as good as Cyril or those other two who died.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I would not use them if I were you.”
“Splick, are you for real right now?”
“Listen here, buckethead. I—”
“Just give me options,” Magnus said.
“We blow up more splick!” Rix yelled.
“Anything else?” Magnus asked with a smirk.
Rix shook his head.
These Marauders were definitely unconventional. But whatever they lacked in nuance, they made up for in violent displays of force. At the end of the day, if it meant getting any of his men back, Magnus was all for it.
“Let’s move out,” Magnus ordered, stepping around the half wall and onto the northbound sidewalk. “We’ve got a lot more Selskrit to kill.”
16
“’Six?” Ezo asked, ripping himself away from the women. “Is that—is that you?”
The bounty hunter stumbled toward the robot, his expression hopeful but apprehensive too. His footsteps slowed the closer he got. The robot’s eyes were not lit the way they normally were; instead of a soft yellow, they’d turned white. Likewise, the bot stood too rigidly to be TO-96.
“Who is ’Six?” the bot asked.
Ezo’s shoulders slumped. “So, you’re not TO-96.”
“No. We are the Novia Minoosh. Who are you?”
“The Novia Minoosh?” Awen asked, incredulous. Now it was her turn to get her hopes up.
“Careful, Awen,” Ezo said, putting up his hands to slow her forward rush.
“You’re the Novia Minoosh?” Awen’s eyes darted all over the robot, then went back to the orb, then returned to the bot. “So, are you an AI, then? What… what are you?”
“We are the shared consciousness of our species. What are you?”
Awen felt her hands trembling. Is this really happening? She blinked, trying her best to step into her role as a Luma ambassador, but it felt awkward. The dream of making first contact with this race had died the moment her team realized the Novia had gone extinct. But they weren’t extinct—at least, insofar as a sentient consciousness was concerned. This is wonderful.
“I am Awen dau Lothlinium, galactic emissary of the Order of the Luma, sent—”
“Sent on an enduring mission to ensure the inalienable rights of all sentient species, regardless of origin or destiny, with the intent of preserving their customs, languages, and cultures against hostile forces and factions so long as it is within your power. Yes, we understand this. We are accessing and integrating your robot’s data drive now.”
“You have the bot’s data?” Ezo questioned.
“We do.”
“Are you going to… erase him?”
“Erase him?” The bot tilted its head. “We don’t understand.”
“Have you killed him?”
“The robot, as a non sentient being, cannot be slain. Likewise, it has no gender that we are aware of, yet you continue to refer to it as one of your species’ males. But if you mean, are we going to overwrite his data drives, yes. Those have been purged.”
Ezo cursed, his hands balled into fists.
“Its contents, however, have been successfully integrated within our singularity.”
“Hold on,” Ezo choked. “So, you mean, he’s alive… in you. I mean, his data, his subroutines, and programming—it’s all still intact?”
The robot tilted its head at Ezo. “Of course, sentient humanoid. Why would we seek to destroy his archives of your civilization?”
“Well, it’s just that… you know… wait. So can I speak with him?”
“You wish to speak to the robot’s neural network?”
“Yes. Yes I do. Is that possible?”
“Of course, humanoid sentient.” The robot’s head twitched. The eyes lit up, and the body slouched slightly.
“Ninety-Six?” Ezo asked cautiously.
“Sir, it is so nice to see you again.”
“‘Six!” Ezo charged the bot and threw his arms around him. Awen and Sootriman couldn’t help but share the man’s enthusiasm, and they joined him.
“I am afraid that the amount of affection you are displaying leaves me to question your mental stability. Are you all right, sir?”
“All right? All right?” Ezo took a step back, beaming, tears glistening in his eyes. “I thought you were gone, ’Six! Thought you were wiped!”
“Ah, I see. Yes, I was wiped, as it were. I still am, in fact.”
“You are?”
“Quite so. It seems that my entire framework is fried, toast, down for the count—”
“Got it, ’Six. Got it.” Ezo put a hand on TO-96’s chest. “It’s just good to have you back.”
“And it is so very good to be back, sir.”
“That said, how are you operating right now?”
“A fine question. It would seem the Novia Minoosh have uploaded my entire self, as it were—neural pathways, subroutines, and data sets—to their singularity. Whatever is delineated as me is being projected back into my shell.”
“So, your body is just a case, and your consciousness is hosted remotely.”
“Precisely,” TO-96 said with a sweeping wave of his hand. “You might say I am new and improved.”
Ezo’s jaw worked, eyebrows rising and lowering in quick repetition. “But this raises so many questions! I mean—how? And why? And then what happens if you want to leave? And, and, and—”
“Sir, everything is going to be all right.”
Ezo stopped. TO-96 spoke with so much confidence that it was surprisingly reassuring, even for Awen. Arresting even.
“How can you be sure?” Ezo asked.
“Because the Novia Minoosh do not wish you any harm, sir.”
“They don’t?” Awen asked, stepping forward. “How do you know that?”
“Why, because they told me so, of course.”
“So… you’re conversant with them,” Awen said flatly.
“Quite. Would you like to speak with them again?”
“Of course!”
“But what about you, ’Six?” Ezo asked.
Awen looked at Ezo and thought better of her reply. Saying goodbye to TO-96 so soon after such a traumatic series of events might be too much for the man to bear.
“On second thought,” Awen said, holding up a hand, “would you be willing to be our liaison?”
TO-96 jerked back as if surprised. “You mean an intermediary? A mediator? A go-between?”
“Yes, ’Six,” Ezo said with a wide grin. “One of those.”
“That sounds like a fine idea. Let me ask them. Ah, very good. They have agreed.”
“Just like that?” Ezo asked.
“Of course. I am a part of them now, so most everything is instantaneous, at least as you perceive the passage of time.”
Awen thought that TO-96’s eyes might return to their soft-yellow glow, but they remained white—a sign of his permanent connection to the Novia Minoosh’s singularity.
“So, does that mean you have to… stay in here?” Ezo asked, looking around the room.
“To the contrary. I am able to travel anywhere in any universe and take the Novia Minoosh—and therefore myself—with me.”
“How is tha
t even possible?” Awen asked.
“Why, Awen, you of all people should understand this. Because of the Unity, of course.”
“The Unity?”
“Yes, the Novia Minoosh were moving within the Unity thousands of years before the Luma discovered it. As such, it appears as if my consciousness is merely transmitted through the Unity and projected into this body.” TO-96 raised his arms and examined them. “The only processing power I’m using locally is to move my limbs,” he said, demonstrating his point with a lanky display of motor skills.
“But they… I don’t know—” Ezo stopped and tried again, speaking carefully. “They aren’t trying to co-opt your systems or something, are they, ’Six?”
“Mystics, no.” The bot flashed one of his eyes off and on at Awen in an awkward wink.
“He’s definitely all there,” she said to Ezo.
“Yes, I am whole. In fact, you might even say that I feel at home here in their singularity. It is the freest I have ever been, as it were.”
“That’s wonderful, ’Six,” Ezo said. “I’m just glad that… I’m just glad to have you back.”
“And I am glad to be with you again too, sir.” TO-96 took a moment to look at each person then straightened up. “Very well. Where would you like to start?”
“Start?” Awen asked. “As in questioning? Wow, I guess we’re getting right to it, then.” Her Luma training was coming back to her. “We should start by allowing them to ask us whatever they wish. I can only imagine that they have plenty of questions for us.”
“Not really, no,” replied the bot.
Awen froze. “Wait—what? They don’t?”
“No, not really. They know everything that I know about you, and that is considerably more than you could convey in several months of constant talking. So it serves your needs well in that so much vocalization would be a drain on your resources.”
“But they don’t want to know anything about where we come from or the history of our universe or the—”
“They already know it all,” the bot interrupted. “As I said, whatever I know, they know.”
“That’s a head trip,” Sootriman said under her breath. Ezo nodded, eyes wide.
“Therefore, I suggest that you inquire of them as you will. You know infinitely less, and they defer to your inferior position.”
“Maybe examine word choice, ’Six,” Ezo said. “That sentence needs some work.”
“Oh dear. Have I offended you all?” The bot threw his hands up in the air. “I am only moments into my new role as an inter-universal liaison and I am already botching interspecies communications due to my inability to parse the inherent nuances of each language!”
“Whoa, whoa, ’Six. It’s okay. No one’s mad,” Ezo said.
“You are certain?”
“Of course,” Awen said. “We’re all just happy you’re safe.”
TO-96 placed a hand over his imaginary heart, even though Awen was fairly certain his quantum drive core was somewhere under there. “That is quite touching, everyone. Thank you. Now, shall we begin?”
* * *
Awen, Ezo, and Sootriman lounged along the ground surrounding the orb, their legs hanging over the floor of the first row of workstations, backs resting against the railing’s upright posts. TO-96 faced them, his back to the orb.
“I guess my first question—our first question—might be where the Novia Minoosh came from,” Awen said.
“A very insightful starting point,” TO-96 replied. “The Novia, as I shall henceforth refer to them since the name is rather cumbersome and you already know—”
“We’ve got it, ’Six. Good call. Move along.”
“Yes, sir. The Novia feel that conveying their entire evolutionary history is unnecessary at this point. Suffice it to say that eleven hundred years prior to this date, they were technologically advanced enough that an evolutionary leap into a quantum state was the next logical step in their development as a species.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Ezo said. “You mean to tell me that they willingly left their naturally evolved bodies to… become a collective consciousness?”
“In a manner of speaking, that is precisely what they did.”
Ezo was slack-jawed.
Awen felt her own disbelief picking an ethical fight with this alien species. “Why would they want to do that?” she asked, trying her best to hold her incredulity at bay.
“Their society had long since incorporated the many benefits of their technological affluence into their daily lives. As I am informed, the final leap was not as drastic as you might imagine.”
“Uh, leaving my body for a computer system seems pretty drastic,” Sootriman said. “Anyone?”
Ezo nodded emphatically, but Awen did her best to exude a nonplussed disposition.
“You mentioned the ‘many benefits,’ Ninety-Six,” Awen stated. “Am I correct in assuming there were also detractors?”
“There were. The Novia became so reliant on their advancements that certain elements of natural life became vestigial.”
“What elements?”
“Chiefly, organic forms of communication.”
“Organic forms of communication?” Awen asked.
“Spoken dialogue, physical touch—”
“Excuse me?” Sootriman said, leaning forward. “They stopped talking to one another? They stopped touching?”
Ezo gasped. “You mean, they stopped having sex?”
“Speech became too slow, contingent upon even slower means of assimilation and transmission. It was subject to gross misinterpretation as well. Visual stimulation, however, required less work and increased the rate of transmission. Most Novia began living more connected to their infrastructure than not, though several of their kind resisted the evolutionary move.
Once it was discovered that data could be sent through optic nerves and eventually directly into the brain, devices were replaced with code. It was then that the prospect of a single interconnected state of existence emerged as the most logical and viable step forward. The natural body was regarded as inferior—prone to disease, age, and inevitable failure. But a quantum existence eliminated those realities altogether. So the move was made, and the Novia divested themselves of their bodies in favor of the singularity.”
Awen actually thought she might be sick. She was not trying to judge this species—truly, she wasn’t. What they chose to do was their decision. She just couldn’t believe that they’d chosen to do it. Then again, she didn’t know what they’d faced in the natural realm. She didn’t even know what they looked like! For all she knew, they’d suffered from some incurable disease, or maybe their life expectancy was a few days. She tried to assure herself that the course of action TO-96 had just outlined was, in fact, the inevitable outcome of anyone placed in the Novia Minoosh’s same context. Still, it was terrifying.
“As for copulation,” the bot continued, “that too became vestigial. As the Novia became more engrossed with the prospect of a super-state existence, the natural state lost its allure—even the most primal desire to self-replicate. Since such behaviors are largely driven by the ego’s need to believe in its own eternal perseverance through producing progeny, sexual activity was usurped by the prospect of true eternal quantum existence.”
“So, let me get this straight,” Awen said, her tone betraying a bit more of her true feelings than she wished. “First, they stopped relating to one another in the natural realm because it was more convenient—”
“And efficient,” TO-96 added with a raised finger.
“More convenient and efficient to do so in the quantum state?”
“That is an overly simplified summary, but yes. Why be connected to one person imperfectly when you could be connected to everyone perfectly? Miscommunication became a thing of the past, and the combined learning of the entire populace accelerated the accumulation of knowledge to its zenith.”
“And the sex thing?” Ezo asked.
“Yeah, I’m with h
im on that,” Sootriman added. “How do you just give up sex like that?” She thought better of her question. “Assuming, of course, that the Novia were as, uh, driven as most creatures in our universe.”
“As I said, the Novia had no need for it once a quantum existence became viable. It was a cost of the transaction.”
“A cost of the transaction,” Awen echoed under her breath. “Fascinating.”
“They take it from your body language that you disapprove of their evolutionary choices.”
Awen looked up, as did the others.
“It’s a wonder they can still read body language,” Sootriman stated. The sarcasm was not lost on the others, but TO-96 was sure to miss it.
Awen spoke up. “It’s not that we disapprove so much as we don’t readily understand why they’d give up what we perceive are two of the most fundamental aspects of existence, at least in terms of what it means to be a humanoid from our universe.”
“They understand your frustration and appreciate your willingness to consider things from their point of view.”
Awen tapped her lips with her index finger. “Ninety-Six, you mentioned earlier that all of these were negative aspects of their evolutionary development.”
“That is correct, Awen.”
“I assume, then, that they’re negative because communication and procreation are considered inferior?”
The bot tilted his head. “On the contrary. They are negative because the Novia miss them.”
A heavy silence descended on Awen and the others. As shocked as she’d been at the prospect of everything TO-96 had said before, she was equally shocked with this last bit of news. Perhaps the Novia weren’t as misguided as she’d assumed. Instead, maybe they were simply experiencing the consequences of their own base desires left to their most extreme ends. It was as chilling as it was sad. She wondered, for the first time in her life, what it would be like to know you were the last of your species to ever exist but that you would, in turn, go on existing forever. She pitied them.
The prospect of death is the thing that makes living so worthwhile. Awen wondered what gave the Novia a reason to live now and how long it had been since another sentient species had visited them like this and provided company—if that was something they even desired. She also wondered what it felt like to be alone with themselves for a millennium. Were it her, she was pretty sure she’d know exactly how she’d feel. Tormented.