Post-Human 05 - Inhuman

by David Simpson

  “Governor,” Alejandra began, “the chief isn’t to be trusted. He’s the post-humans’ prime suspect.”

  “Suspect? Suspected of what?” Wong questioned.

  “Treason,” Alejandra replied. “Commander James Keats and their artificial intelligence are imprisoned within the device the chief is wearing over his shoulder,” she pointed out, gesturing to the black hard drive, still attached to the strap slung over Aldous’s shoulder.

  “James and the A.I. suspect that Aldous…” Rich began, struggling to get to his feet as he held both his arms around his torso, hugging himself to support his weight as he struggled against the pain that each breath brought along as part of the package so that he could continue speaking, “…may have paved the way for the androids to assimilate the humans on Earth.”

  “James,” Aldous said as though the name alone was enough of an answer, his expression flat, yet stoic. “He found a way to contact you, didn’t he?”

  Rich nodded.

  “That boy.” He shook his head before, odd as it seemed to those present, he held up his hands in surrender. “And now he’s told you he’s concerned that I’ll damage the hard drive? That I’d rather see James and the A.I. deleted than have them set free to defend us against the androids. Is that about right, Richard?”

  “That about sizes it up,” Rich replied, grimacing as he crossed both of his arms across his torso, hugging it to mitigate the extreme pain.

  “Rich, can you report?” James asked through their aural connection, desperate for answers.

  “I’m a little busy, Commander. Hang on,” Rich grunted in reply to the voice in his ears.

  “Richard, in the future,” Aldous began, his tone carrying a hint of slightly amused indignation, “if you ever want to attack me again, keep in mind that I am the chief of the governing council. That means I have access to extra defenses that the regular citizenship don’t have. Even if you sneak up on me, you’ll be detected, and my force-field will automatically activate to protect me.”

  “Yeah,” Rich answered. “So I noticed. Neat trick you got there.”

  “It was nothing personal,” Aldous said, his words tinged with condescension. “I meant you no harm, and…” He turned to the governor before addressing everyone else in the room, most of whom had their rifles aimed futilely in his direction, “I also meant no harm to James, Thel, or the A.I. So, if you’ll allow me,” he began to move his hands slowly to the hard drive before removing it from his shoulder, grasping the hard drive in his hand and holding it out before him, offering it directly to Rich.

  Rich kept his eyes squarely on the hard drive, but held his hands out, ready to blast the chief again while speaking with deliberate emphasis as each syllable escaped his lips, addressing Alejandra directly, “Would you mind?”

  Alejandra lowered her rifle, letting it hang loose from the strap on her shoulder as she tentatively reached for the hard drive.

  “You’re not thinking clearly, Richard,” Aldous spoke, a faint smile crossing his lips. “I already told you, you can’t harm me.”

  Alejandra’s fingers reached the hard drive and, for a moment, she and Aldous held it together, Aldous’s eyes remaining locked with Rich’s. After seconds that felt much longer, Aldous released his hold and Alejandra backed away with the hard drive successfully before turning to deliver it to Rich, who took it in his hands.

  “I’d never, ever, intentionally hurt Commander Keats, Thel, or the A.I., nor would I ever intentionally harm a post-human,” Aldous said emphatically.

  “He’s telling the truth,” Alejandra confirmed for those assembled.

  “And does that same courtesy extend to Purists?” Lieutenant Commander Patrick asked, his rifle still aimed squarely at the chief.

  Aldous’s eyes finally left Rich’s as he turned to regard the room, populated by the scrutinizing, distrustful eyes of more than a dozen Purists. He considered the question, then considered that he was in a room with an empath, who seemed nearly as adept as the A.I. at determining if someone was being sincere.

  “When Governor Wong here was barely out of his diapers,” Aldous spoke, gesturing to the elderly leader of the Purists, “I was rebuilding a world destroyed in a war that I blamed solely on Purist beliefs.” He tightened his lips as he allowed himself a brief remembrance of the pain. “The lives lost—the entire world, nearly destroyed. It wasn’t…easy. Of that you can be sure.”

  “It wasn’t easy to cram all of us on a reservation in South America?” Patrick questioned, disdain saturating his voice.

  “I didn’t make the decision to bring the post-human world into being,” Aldous replied. “I admit I wanted it, but I left it up to another man—a man considered by all of you here to be a hero. He had the power to decide whether the world would be post-human or…something else. Some, indescribable place the Purists were desperately and forlornly trying to build, albeit without much success.”

  Rich scoffed. “I really doubt you’d leave a decision like that up to someone else.”

  “Oh I did, Richard,” Aldous replied, “and you know the man I speak of very well. Craig Emilson made the call. I simply carried out his order.”

  “Old-timer?” Rich reacted, astonished.

  “Craig?” Alejandra echoed. She turned to Rich. “My God…Richard, he’s telling the truth.”

  Rich shook his head. “No...no way. Old-timer wouldn’t have wanted this. He wouldn’t have treated the Purists this way. I don’t believe it.”

  “Craig—or Old-timer as you incessantly insist on calling him—didn’t have the stomach to take control. He left the actual construction of the post-human world up to me, but he could’ve stopped me. I gave him the chance…and he chose a post-human future.”

  “But you’re the one who imprisoned us,” Patrick concluded. “You can’t pass the buck.”

  Aldous shook his head. “I didn’t imprison you. You imprisoned yourselves. You could’ve been post-humans, but you chose to live like the indigent fools of the past. You actually chose to live with disease and die like animals, as though your lives don’t mean anything,” Aldous said. It was clear from his tone that he could barely fathom the Purists’ reasoning.

  “At least we’re still human!” Patrick shot back.

  Aldous looked around the room at the venom that filled every stare directed his way. “You love James Keats,” Aldous said, nodding. “He’s your new hero. Your savior. Why? Because he gave you this?” he gestured around himself. “He gave you Venus?” Aldous pounded angrily on his own chest as he yelled out, “Well, I didn’t have an entire planet to give you!” He tried to get his breathing back under control, his anger reaching proportions he hadn’t felt for what seemed like eons. “No matter what I did, I couldn’t convince the Purists to join us. We explained everything—detailed a life without pain, or suffering. A life where you could soar in the air like a bird, and even help us terraform so that we could expand humanity’s reach! Most Purists eventually agreed and relented, but there were those of you that were unreachable. And every generation bred more doubters. So I gave you land—just like James—I gave you a place to exist.”

  He put his hand through his hair and paced as he further calmed himself, his eyes seeming to leave the room as he remembered something—something horrible. “And then years passed by. And over the years, a man learns. A man discovers truths. And as the man learns these truths, he begins to understand his enemies. And when a man understands his enemies—truly understands them—they cease to be his enemies.”

  He turned to Lieutenant Commander Patrick, then to Governor Wong, who stood just a meter away behind the chief. “Make no mistake. All these years, we had the power to eradicate you. But every single human life is sacred to me. And listen to me when I tell you, that now more than ever, I’ve done everything in my power to protect every human in this solar system, including the Purists.”

  For a moment, silence hung in the air. Rich didn’t have a response, but turned to Alejandra, as did,
eventually, everyone else—even Aldous.

  “He…” She paused as she realized she needed to moisten her dry mouth before she could speak. “He’s telling the truth.”

  The tension in the room suddenly dropped significantly, and Rich even relaxed his grip on the hard drive, which he’d been gripping like grim death.

  “But,” Alejandra continued, her face paled with terror, “he’s still hiding something from us. Something…horrible.”

  Before anyone could react, Thel Cleland burst through the doors into the command center, holding a Purist guard that she’d accosted in a headlock, her palm pressed against his temple threateningly. Once she was inside the room, she released him and he, without a fight, rolled pathetically away from her, getting to his knees as he continued to back away, terrified of the post-human after his ordeal.

  “Thel!” Rich exclaimed.

  “Thel?” James reacted. “She’s okay?”

  “Yes,” Rich confirmed.

  “Thel?” Aldous said, disbelieving his own eyes.

  “Chief Gibson,” Thel began, her expression molded by her determination, “you better have one hell of an explanation.” She held up her hands, green energy pulsating threateningly on her fingertips.

  “Whoa!” Rich shouted out to her. “Thel! Wait! I got the hard drive,” he said, holding it up for her to see. “He gave it to me.”

  “Thel, is that really you?” Aldous asked, astonished to see her awake and returned to her body.

  “You better believe it,” Thel replied, her fingers still pulsating energy.

  “James figured out how to break through the trapdoor code,” Aldous said, his hand coming to his forehead as the disbelief set in even further.

  “Actually,” Thel said with a slightly proud smile, “I figured it out.”

  Aldous’s eyebrows knitted furiously. “That’s not possible,” he responded. “No mere human could’ve—” He stopped himself before he continued.

  “What?” Rich reacted. “What do you mean?” he asked the chief. “How would you know that?”

  “Because it was him,” Thel said coldly. “All along. I knew it.”

  Aldous’s face went pale and he shook his head, distraught. “Milady, you do not know the half of it. You have no idea what you’ve done.”

  “Yeah? How’s about you tell me, old man?”

  Aldous turned back to Rich, his eyes immediately falling on the hard drive in Rich’s grasp that contained the sim—an entire world within a box—and James’s and the A.I.’s core patterns within it. “James and the A.I.—they have no body to which to return. They remain trapped,” he said, as much to himself as to Thel as he sought confirmation.

  “Not for long,” Thel responded. “James’s body survived the impact that destroyed Earth. As soon as we get a signal booster strong enough—”

  Aldous shook his head violently at the news, as though he were attempting to shake off a leash, fruitlessly fighting the will of his master. “Enough!” he shouted. “Enough. Oh my dear God,” he said, as he put his hand to his lips, partially covering his mouth. His eyes twitched as he seemed to attempt to generate an alternative course of action in his imagination, but he quickly realized, dread filling his heart, that there was nothing to be done.

  “You’ve done the impossible,” Aldous uttered. “The trapdoor was impossible for a human to have broken it. Which means I’ve been betrayed.”

  “You’ve been betrayed?” Thel repeated the chief, astounded by Aldous’s reaction.

  “That’s correct,” Aldous confirmed, matter-of-factly as he turned to her, the look in his eye telling Thel that all of the people in the room’s safety was in immediate peril. “And if I’ve been betrayed,” Aldous continued, “we’ve all been betrayed.”

  “What the hell is he—” Rich began before Thel cut him off.

  “Rich! Protect the hard drive!” she screamed out.

  Rich turned to Thel and the deadly serious expression of concern on her face told him that he’d better heed her warning. He ignited his protective magnetic field just in time.

  Aldous’s lips curled up atavistically, and he unleashed the full power at his disposal, blasting out energy in every direction, instantly felling all of the Purists in the room and slamming Rich backward against the wall once again, and slamming Thel against the doors to the command center, causing the doors to become unhinged and fly with her for several meters down the adjacent hallway.

  2

  “He’s right!” Jules echoed Paine as she hooked her arm hard over the railing of the catwalk, careful not to be hit by the fast moving debris that rocketed toward them from above. “The gravity well is too strong for it be anything else! We should be able to fly out of here but the gravity’s too powerful to break free from! It’s one of them!”

  “One of what?” Djanet shot back as she, too, held on for dear life, her feet being sucked to some unseen point at the back of the ship, which felt as though it were pointing nose up when it should’ve been floating steadily in deep space.

  “An infinity computer!” Jules answered, yelling over the nearly deafening sound of the extraordinarily large ship’s hull buckling in billions of places at once. “It’s what the nanobots always eventually build. Perfectly, mathematically, predictable—it’s a tiny black hole, but even a black hole just a few meters across is powerful enough to swallow the entire ship!”

  “This is where the bodies are built, right?” Paine confirmed with Jules.

  Jules nodded. “Yes, ninety-nine percent of our collective’s replication capability is in the Constructor.”

  Paine turned to Old-timer. “It’s a strategic strike,” he said. “V-SINN’s not appearing here by accident. It wants to make sure these androids can’t rebuild.”

  “V-SINN never does anything by accident,” Samantha added in agreement. “It’s always pure, unfeeling, mathematical precision. It’s strategy. Paine’s right, this ship’s finished!”

  “And we’ll be finished if we can’t figure out a way to escape this gravity well!” Djanet shouted. “If we can’t fly out of here, what can we do?”

  Jules turned her head and watched with an expression of awe and horror as she saw the monolithic towers of the replicator swaying, some of them beginning to crack, their metallic frames fracturing, splitting in half from the gravity’s extreme pressure, now focused on their midpoints as they were horizontal in orientation. “There’s one chance!” she shouted over the sound of the unimaginable destruction.

  “What?” Old-timer asked desperately.

  “Large portions of the ship have atmospheric controls—the most concentrated are in Eden but there’s atmospheric control in the replicator too!”

  “Oh my God,” Djanet responded, putting two and two together. “You can’t seriously be suggesting—”

  “Look!” Jules shouted, as she pointed far into the distance. As the pillars collapsed, one by one, the ship’s hull, nearly a dozen kilometers from their current position, came into view.

  They each turned their heads to see what she was referring to. A giant zipper crack, so long that it was, by the second, resembling more and more a canyon, was suddenly in clear view.

  “When the hull breaches,” Jules shouted, “if the breach is big enough, there’s going to be an explosive decompression! It might give us the propulsion we need to escape the gravity well!”

  “Yeah,” Djanet shouted back, “if we survive being sucked out of the ship through a debris field of jagged metal objects moving at speeds that could even slice an android in half!”

  “We’ll survive!” Old-timer shouted. “Every one, stay close to me. When the decompression happens, I can protect us.”

  Daniella’s panicked expression was instantly replaced with disbelief. “Craig! Even you can’t—”

  “I can!” Old-timer shouted, determinedly. “I can save us! Trust me! Just get close—”

  Before he could finish his sentence, he was interrupted by a bullet whizzing unexpectedly past h
is face from above, a bullet that cut right through the center of the catwalk, slicing it cleanly in two and causing it to buckle, sending the entire group plunging toward their deaths below them in the heart of darkness that was the infinity computer.

  3

  Aldous turned to Rich, who struggled to get back to his feet. They were both cocooned now in their magnetic fields, their communication shifting to their mind’s eyes. “Richard, I’m sorry, but I must ask you to return the hard drive to me.”

  “No can do, Chief,” Rich said, his voice beginning to shake with panic.

  “What’s going on?” James shouted.

  “The chief’s trying to kill us!” Rich shouted to him in return.

  Aldous’s face suddenly changed as he heard Rich’s communication with James. He shook his head. “I’m not trying to kill you, Richard, and I’m not trying to kill James or the A.I. But Richard, they can never leave that simulation. That was the agreement I made and a duty that I alone can carry out. Do you understand?”

  “Keep him talking, Rich,” James said. “Buy us some time.”

  “Yeah, I understand,” Rich replied. “You’re a traitor. I get it.”

  “Normal ethics don’t apply in this situation, Richard. To you, I’m a traitor, but to everyone in this solar system who lives to see the future because of my actions today, I’m a savior.”

  “Delusions of grandeur,” Rich responded, his eyes wide. “You just disabled the Purists’ command center. They’re not going to be thanking you for saving them if they’re assimilated!”

  “When they’re assimilated,” Aldous corrected. “It was inevitable.” He narrowed his eyes. “Only the timing was off. Something went wrong in the sim. I was betrayed, but I don’t know yet why or by whom.”

  Rich scoffed, his palm going to his forehead. “Oh dear Lord, I am in a comedy!”

  “I’m afraid not, Richard,” Aldous replied. “And there will be no Deus ex machina to intervene this time. I’m making sure of that. Now, please, hand over the hard drive. I give you my word I will protect it, and I’ll make sure the androids take you painlessly.”