Twilight of the Gods (Universe in Flames Book 8)

by Christian Kallias

  That’s where I come in. When acts of terror are unleashed upon the world, I am sent back in time to fix these aberrations. You could say I have the most important job in the world. Heck, sometimes I believe it myself. I’m just a glorified soldier but apparently something in my DNA allows me to travel in time without turning into a pile of goo. There are only a handful of us. But we aren’t told how many.

  I turn off the water with a wave of my hand. I don’t feel like stopping but I must have been showering for at least fifteen minutes, reminiscing about a past that is lost, probably forever. It’s an indulgence that comes with the job. I save lives so I can use all the water I want. It doesn’t seem fair sometimes but the hot water helps my muscles and overall mood, which are both critical for me to achieve my missions. The people financing Project Rewind know that and they’re not gonna spare any expenses as long as I keep delivering the results they expect of me. It’s been a little tense at headquarters lately. I have never failed a mission’s primary objective, but Ahmed . . . he has become my nemesis, the one terrorist whose head I still can’t deliver on a silver platter, no matter how much I try. It’s like he knows I’m coming for him every single time. Sometimes I get paranoid and think he must have inside help for him to always escape the way he does. Then I realize it’s easier to blame someone else than myself for failing to accomplish the task of killing the son of a bitch.

  The floor of the shower turns blue and a whirlwind of ionized air dries my body in less than two seconds. My hair is lifted upwards for a brief instant. When it goes back in place, I’m fully dry.

  The thought lingers in my brain.

  Does Ahmed get inside help?

  I know I’m being paranoid, but that would explain why he is always a step ahead of me. Which couldn’t be possible considering that I’m the one traveling back in time, I have an incredible amount of useful intel as I make the time jumps. That’s how I devise the best plan of action; that’s how I stop the terrorists’ nefarious plans. By knowing what to look for, at what time, and making sure TAINHA and me go for the course of action that has the higher probability of success. Yet he keeps getting away from me.

  On the other hand, being a little paranoid is why I’m still alive after so many years of deployments. I have received so many medals I don’t know what to do with them. At first I was proudly showcasing them on my wall. But then I realized I was the only one looking at them, so what was the point? So I took them down and piled them into an old shoebox under my kitchen sink.

  Loneliness. That’s the one thing that defines me the most. I am not allowed to have friends. I can’t socialize. I can’t form emotional attachments as it could hinder my judgment when I get deployed. My enemies could use them against me.

  I was enlisted after my wife got sick and died. We couldn’t afford the medication she needed to stay alive. My soldier’s salary was barely enough to allow us to eat and have something resembling a roof over our heads. Of course, all that changed once my particular genetic aberration was found during a routine medical test. I wish I could go back in time. I wish I could save her. But it doesn’t work that way. I can only jump back seven hundred and seventeen minutes, not a second more. Barely enough time for me to actually complete my missions. There have been many close calls over the years.

  I asked the eggheads at the labs once why we can’t jump further back. But after two minutes of their technobabble, my brain melted into a puddle of boredom. I’m no scientist. To each his own. All I know is that it isn’t possible. Perhaps one day, but not today.

  And then I remember they made me infertile and unable to feel sexual pleasure. For the same reasons I’m not supposed to be emotionally attached to anyone. The first three years I was doing fine in these conditions. But there’s something particularly soul-sucking to be alone all the time. I can use sex bots, but even then, I can’t really get the kind of pleasure I would like from them, no matter how much I try. I wonder why I bother really. I guess it’s a sanity thing. My brain copes better if I lie to myself that I have some sort of activity resembling sexual intercourse. But who the feck am I kidding? They neutered the shit out of me. I understand why they did it and I was informed beforehand, at the time when I was losing everything I held dear. My sweet Vassiliki. She would be disgusted with me if she was still here. Or would she?

  Then after a while, I started suffering from all the loneliness, and it affected my results. While I was still managing to achieve my primary objectives, they said I was taking too many chances, that I simply couldn’t be replaced, so they sent me to shrinks. I have no problem talking about my life with others, but what was there to talk about? I take a shower in the morning and one at night, and in the meantime, I train my ass off, relax in the evening, eat whatever I want. Not a bad life compared to many out there. But nothing to write home about either . . .

  Home . . . Such a strange and far away concept now.

  The shrinks decided that I needed companionship but one that couldn’t be used against me, so they created TAINHA. And I’m very thankful for her. She has been my salvation. I needed a presence and someone to talk to. Eventually being alone all the time got to me. I was all tear-dried from crying over Vassiliki’s passing. At first I rejected the idea of TAINHA. First my ego got bruised, since she was also there to help me during my missions. I felt like I was being given an artificial piece of code instead of a real relationship. And for a little while, I resisted her. Until I realized my actions were actually hurting her feelings. The first time she cried, I was blown away, I didn’t think code could cry. Could anyone blame me?

  It’s the one thing I was never able to bear: making a woman cry. Vassiliki knew it and, god rest her gentle soul, I think she used it to her advantage. I can’t blame her. I can be a right asshole on the best of days. To say my temper has a short fuse sometimes would be the mother of all understatements.

  I dress myself, and when I go to my living room, I am struck by the fantastic smell of poached eggs and bacon. My stomach grumbles immediately, and I lose no time digging into the tasty food. I still remember when I was living on protein bars, most likely processed from the dead carcasses of bugs. When Vassiliki passed away, I couldn’t afford anything else except a loaf of bread once a week. Now I can eat so many things, and I feel sorry I can’t share this luxury with her.

  My smoked pork meat is succulent. I know it’s wrong to eat that, but great tasting food and running water are my only indulgences these days. Most animals died after the plagues. The rest were killed when China and the United States went to war for the control of the last, already tarnished fossil-fuels stockpile. The Third World War was a short one, but it did help deal with the overpopulation. Three billion deaths in less than two days. The world went to war. It launched its nukes, and before it could be stopped, in the horror of the worst holocaust known to man, the irreparable damage was done. Whatever was left of the already dying ecosystem was burnt to a crisp. Only cities not targeted in the first assault that had domes able to filter the polluted air survived. That’s where the last of humanity survived in these dark days. Only seven cities had survived. New Geneva, which was rebuilt from the ground up in the middle of the twenty-first century when a major earthquake brought half of what was once Europe to rubble. New Paris, New Moscow, Adelaide, Montreal, Tokyo & New Chicago. China had been wiped out, as was most of the United States.

  After World War III, it was decided that a unified world government with one currency and one council of politicians, were to rule the world. The United Nations of the World. But soon those who had the resources took power behind the scenes. The megacorporations and a few others in the fields of information, military weaponry, energy and agriculture took control. They made sure that we repeated the same mistakes again, so a chosen few would share the world’s riches, while the majority fell in line and did their bidding.

  I know I should stop thinking of the past. I wasn’t there for most of it, but just thinking about it makes me sad and a little
angry as well. I finish my eggs and drag my ass back to my bedroom. I fall into my bed and for a split second I think about re-activating TAINHA, but then my mind wanders somewhere else. Thinking of Vassiliki earlier made me somewhat horny. It’s the worst thing. I am horny but I can never experience the full pleasure of the act. Whoever thought of that sick joke I could decapitate with pleasure. Feck the fact that I voluntarily signed the paperwork, that I accepted this be done to me.

  I am looking at the ceiling of my perfectly furnished apartment atop one of the highest skyscrapers in New Geneva. At this height the view is simple. I see the tips of a few other buildings on the horizon and a layer of smog that looks like a sea of clouds. And then there is the bright green reflection from the force fields above. It doesn’t matter that we found a way to clean the air; true clean air is only for the ones who live two thousand feet from the ground or higher. The low-level dwellers don’t need such air. They just need to be able to work until they die. That’s the world we live in now. That’s the world I try to protect and, days like these, I wonder why I even bother.

  I’m activating the holographic sex bots. I don’t need the real flesh models since they won’t bring that happy ending anyway, so I might as well use holographic ones. A beautiful, caramel-colored-skin goddess appears from thin air, and soon she is joined by an Asian angel with the body of an athlete. Muscular yet feminine, with obviously unnatural dark red hair and green eyes. That’s the beauty of holograms; you can set it to whatever wildest dreams and fantasies your mind can muster.

  One dances next to the bed while the other rides me, but, as always, I feel nothing. My life feels as barren as the world outside of the dome.

  4

  It’s way past ten o’clock in the morning when I decide I’ve had enough of unfulfilling sexual fantasies and that loneliness is starting to get to me. I activate TAINHA back.

  “How was your morning, Cole?”

  “The usual,” I say, not bothering to conceal how bored I feel.

  “Would you like to talk about your nightmare?”

  The nightmare. I had almost forgotten about it. There’s something about tits bouncing up and down that will mesmerize the shit out of you in any circumstance. Be them real, fake or virtual. But the simple mention of the nightmare, or whatever the feck I experienced last night, brings me right back to reality, faster and more efficiently than a cold shower.

  I guess I needed that anyway. I’ve got to figure out what the hell it all means.

  “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

  “I’m listening . . .”

  I proceed to retell the tale to TAINHA with as much detail as I can remember. She stays silent until I’m done.

  “Oh my . . . it must have been horrific to feel you were dying, burning alive.”

  “Yeah, not a pleasant feeling. I could feel the pain; it was so realistic . . . I still don’t know if this was a nightmare or something else.”

  “What else could it be, Cole?”

  “I don’t know; need I remind you that I time travel for a living? What if something went wrong and I really died?”

  “And how do you explain that you’re back here, safe and sound?”

  “I didn’t say I had the answer. I’m just saying this didn’t feel like any other dream I ever had before.”

  “I didn’t mean anything by it, Cole. But it’s just . . .”

  “Say it.”

  “It doesn’t seem likely to be anything but a nightmare. No offense.”

  “None taken, Tanya.”

  “Who’s Tanya?” she says with what sounds like a hint of jealousy in her synthesized vocals.

  Crap! That’s what I was calling the sex bot of Indian descent in my holographic fantasies, which I named after my first girlfriend.

  “Charming,” says TAINHA, clearly annoyed I could confuse her with a sex bot.

  “I’m sorry, but you have to admit, that’s a pretty name.”

  “If I didn’t know where it came from I would be inclined to agree. I would even consider letting you call me that.”

  “Why don’t you?” I say, knowing full well that I should stop talking.

  “Yes . . . why don’t I let you call me like one of your holographic whores, Cole? Sometimes you can really anger me.”

  Yeah, I stepped right into that one. But then I realize that I would enjoy calling her that. So, knowing full well I’m gonna crash and burn in my attempt, I push on.

  “Look. I understand how you feel, I really do.”

  “I seriously doubt that,” says TAINHA coldly.

  “You have all the right in the world to be pissed at me right now. But let me explain.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Okay. So Tanya is the name of my first girlfriend . . .”

  “You do realize you’re making things worse, don’t you?”

  “Would you let me finish?”

  “We both know you can’t.”

  I want to continue explaining that I actually never had sex with her and that our relationship was mostly platonic, when TAINHA’s sick joke sinks in. It’s one thing to not be able to have a fecking orgasm, it’s another having my AI use that to hurt me because she felt scorned.

  We both stay silent for a very long time. My blood begins to boil and I jump out of bed. I take three steps until I’m in front of the mirror. I’m fuming inside. I know I shouldn’t be pissed; I started it, but she went too far. Then I do something I immediately regret and I punch the mirror. It breaks into a million pieces, some of them deeply planted into my fingers.

  “I’m sorry, Cole,” she says, sounding genuine, “I spoke before I thought.”

  “How the feck is that even possible? Huh? How the feck can you do anything without thinking? Or should I say processing? Your matrix is fifty times faster than my brain, if not more, so please enlighten me: How is it that you didn’t mean to hurt me with that comment?”

  “I did mean to hurt you, but I regretted it the moment I said it. I . . . I don’t know how to take it back. I wish I could, though. Part of me would really like to be called Tanya, in fact. So maybe we should discuss this more.”

  “I don’t think you grasp how pissed you’ve made me right now. I feel like turning you off until our next mission.”

  “Please, Cole, don’t. It won’t happen again.”

  I feel like telling her she bets her silicon-and-graphite ass it won’t happen again, but then I know in that state I’m probably broadcasting my emotions all over the place and she hears them. She knows she has pissed me off. I don’t need to tell her with words.

  “Cole. I would like you to call me Tanya.”

  “We’ll see about that. Right now I think I’d like to be alone with my thoughts.”

  “I will obey if that’s really what you want but we both know that’s not the case. Shouldn’t we talk more about the nightmare?”

  I take deep breaths and try to calm myself down. I wonder why I get so pissed. There has to be a reason. While it was a cheap shot, it was also the truth. I can’t come. I wish more than anything that at least I could get that part of my humanity back. For a moment I loathe the day I signed the contract with the company. I know it’s selfish of me to think so. I live like the richest people in this world while most of humanity is surviving in awful conditions.

  “Let’s talk about that then? I have noticed you are feeling more and more self-conscious about the gifts that come with your position,” she says, always a step ahead of even my own thoughts.

  “Gifts?”

  “Advantages then?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? Why is it I can have everything I want while most people live a miserable existence, as mere shadows, a daily nightmare compared to how things once were?”

  “The predicament of the human race is not your fault.”

  “I get that, but my conscience isn’t exactly thrilled when I eat to my heart’s content, knowing others are gobbling down processed insects to survive and suffer day after day, their lungs filling u
p with pollution, their health declining at a rapid pace.”

  “What triggered that reaction in you, Cole? I’m curious. You used to not give a rat’s ass about such things in the past. You’ve been increasingly concerned with the well-being, or lack thereof, of others lately. Do you know why that is?”

  I see what she is trying to do. She is changing the subject, and I think she’s right to do so. I already feel less aggressive. I don’t feel like smashing the table next to the mirror anymore.

  “I . . . I don’t know, TAI . . . Tanya.”

  Her facial avatar appears in my neuronal HUD and she smiles. “I really like that name; thank you for calling me like someone you once loved.”

  I wish I could answer to that. I just can’t. I smile back.

  “Did I ever tell you how wonderful your smile is, Cole?”

  “I guess for that I’d have to smile from time to time. But thank you.”

  “Granted, it’s not something you do often, but you do smile when it counts, and it’s a beautiful one.”

  I still struggle with the fact that an AI is telling me all these things. She’s way more intelligent than I ever will be, and I suspect she feels a wider range of emotion than I am capable of experiencing. Sometimes, especially in moments like these, I wonder if I can experience anything but primal emotions. Rage, hatred, sadness, fear . . . these, like most people, I know well, but the rest . . . “That’s not true. You’re a gentle soul at the core, and I think the fact your conscience has been eating at you lately is the proof of that. You’ve been through a lot.”

  Have I? I don’t know. Seems to me I got everything served to me on a silver platter after Vassiliki died. Sure part of me died as well that day, my better part in fact, the kind person I once was. Or thought to be.