The Forever Peace

by Craig Robertson

  “If this is so, when will the cursed Luminarians present themselves to us for slaughter?” asked Erratarus as he sat unsteadily back on his ornate throne.

  “If my observations are correct, the first of the Luminarians will reach Outpost Spleen in two minutes.”

  Erratarus clapped his hands at an officer. “Get me Spleen on the holo now.”

  “This is Vice Comman…”

  “Shut up, Perillius. My scientist tells me you will be the first outpost to greet the return of the Luminarians.”

  There was silence.

  “Are you there, fool?”

  “Yes, Lord. But, I thought you said…”

  “The Luminarians will be upon your position in less than two minutes. It is your duty to massacre them. I will keep this channel open, and you will report your victory live.”

  He gave a formal salute. “It will be my dying honor, Lord Erratarus.”

  “Let us hope not.”

  “Excuse me, Great One.” He turned to an aide. “Full assault configuration. Ready all personnel. We are to slaughter for our king.”

  Harsh alarms and thunderous footfalls could be heard in the background.

  Perillius returned his attention to the holo camera. “Lord, your glorious army is at the ready.” To someone just off camera he said, “What? Yes. Excellent idea.”

  Back to the king he said, “We can co-beam the holo from outside with this one, if it pleases you?”

  “Make it so,” replied Erratarus with a wave.

  A second holo popped to life. It showed Berrillians hustled into defensive lines, armed to the teeth. The original holo displayed Perillius standing with his arms folded, watching a bank of monitors. Soon, the edge of the outside view began to blur. As a wave crashing on a beach, the shimmering blur roiled toward the soldiers. Finally, someone fired. Then all hell broke loose as a rain of plasma bolts struck the advancing optical anomaly. The crashing tsunami didn’t split, it didn’t waiver, and it didn’t slow.

  The first Berrillians to engage the swarm continued to fire, but soon they shot randomly and often at one another. Then the cries of anguish began. Berrillians dropped their weapons and fled on all fours in every direction. It was as if a massive cue ball had struck a phalanx of billiard balls. But these billiard balls were smoking and rolling on the ground and emitting horrific death cries. Then the shriveled balls stopped with a crash, and the blur abandoned their carcasses.

  Within thirty seconds, all order was lost. Those who could tried to retreat to the safety of the bunker. But those inside, those witnesses of the hellish scene, refused to open the doors. All openings were sealed and all hatches secured. In less than ten minutes, every Berrillian was dead. They were not simply dead, however. They had been sucked clean of their life energy. That which remained was literally a husk, a shell that looked Berrillian but crumbled with its own weight when struck by a soft breeze.

  As the outside holo transformed into the image of lower hell, the one trained on Perillius showed him barking out orders and pointing frantically.

  “Perillius,” screamed the king, “what is your status?”

  Finally, Perillius heard his lord. “I don’t understand it, Master. They’re all dead. But our walls are holding. None of the whatever have penetrated our barriers.”

  “I care less than nothing about your safety. Open your doors and fight my enemy. Do it now, or I shall leap through this accursed machine and chew your balls off. Do it now. Your king commands it.”

  Perillius was clearly torn. To disobey such a direct, unequivocal order would mean death for him, his command, and his family tree for two generations. But to follow the directive was unthinkable. He had just seen his troops’ life energy sucked from them.

  “I do not see you moving, dog,” yelled the king.

  “I’m…I’m planning my strategy, Lord. I am contemplating how best to…”

  “You open the door, and you charge out firing. I promise they will kill you less miserably than I will if you don't.”

  “Lord.”

  Perillius ran out of view. Soon, the outside holo showed hundreds of Berrillians rushing from the bunker firing weapons madly in all directions. Instead of forming lines, they scattered in a panic. Then the shimmering blur returned. It fell upon the fighters. In the foreground, it was clear the blur was not one ocean of glimmering, but individual packages of light-bending glow. They looked like luminous amoebas gliding freely in the air.

  In a handful of minutes, all the personnel of Outpost Spleen were unaccounted for.

  Erratarus turned to his counsel. “Any thoughts? How are you to defend your lord and master?”

  “I fear I shall serve by being served as a meal.”

  “Guards, form ranks. I shall retreat to the nearby tunnel, and then we shall seal it tighter than a virgin’s thighs.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Our engineers had set it up perfectly. The incendiary beacons were so well concealed the Berrillians hadn’t detected them, if they ever bothered to survey the planet. The frequency emissions were tuned to be yummy for the Luminarians. The fact that the Berrillian weapons were completely ineffective was icing on the cake. Project Sanctuary did what I’d hoped it would. The Berrillians would slowly die or be killed off. At the least, they’d be tied down on Rigel 12 for a good long while.

  I knew they were a crafty, resourceful race. Sooner or later they’d probably find a way to kill the Luminarians. I knew it wasn’t PC and popular to even think it, but I figured to hell it. If the two species danced with their hands on each other’s throats for all time, it was fine by me. The Bible says as you sow, so shall you reap. They both sowed abysmally. That’s all I had to say about that.

  Sure, there were other Berrillians out there, billions of them probably. But they were leaderless and scattered. To regroup and pose a threat to the Alliance would take decades, maybe longer. It was also within the realm of possibility they’d get it through their enormously thick skulls that they should leave us the hell alone. Rain on someone else’s parade. But we beat them twice and were counting on next time too if they wanted to try us.

  All that said, I felt so sick at heart I began to fantasize I might die. We’d left submerged holo transmitters all over Rigel 12. After the trap was sprung, I watched as one horrible race drank the life out of another. To any human’s eyes, it was a horrific sight and sound. I’ve seen bad and I’ve seen unconscionably gruesome, but the carnage of Rigel 12 was the worst of the worst. I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it just filled my misery-tank past full. After every war, battle, or firefight I’d ever been in, I felt like shit. If a person didn’t, they weren’t much of a person. But that time, I truly felt I would never see the edge of the grave my soul was standing in.

  The jubilation of the victory lasted weeks. Everybody was so happy. I tried to hide my feelings. Yeah. That didn’t work too well. Of course, Kayla sensed my despair. Toño, Carlos, all my old friends did too. When they asked me if I was all right or if they could help, I’d shrug my shoulders, smile, and lie. I’d say I was fine. Not only was I fine, I was proud of my glorious plan. They all believed me like they believed in the tooth fairy.

  A few months later, Toño called me out of the blue and asked me to come to a nearby hospital. Odd, I thought. He was still technically a physician, but he hadn’t practiced general medicine in ages. The kicker was that he asked me to meet him in the morgue. Wow, sounded like just the place for a super-depressed ex-human to go. I told him I needed to pack a picnic lunch and I’d be right there.

  I took the elevator to the basement, because as sure as there were death and taxes, all morgues were in basements. The receptionist waved me past without a word. Imagine that, a reserved morgue receptionist. Alert the media, we have ourselves a story.

  “Jon,” yelled Toño from a room down the hall with an open door, “we’re in here.”

  I followed the sound, all the time wondering who we were. Doc and Count Dracula? Frankenstein’s monster?
It was getting better and better. First a morgue, then mystery death-oriented guests. Was it too much to hope for a séance or an embalming? Come on, every cake needed icing.

  “Ah,” he said as I entered, “there you are.”

  I patted my chest. “Yeah, everywhere I go, there I am. Weird, eh?”

  He scowled. He did that a lot. Well, at least he did around me.

  As I walked to the slab he was standing next to, he asked, “So, how are you today?”

  I angled my head. “I should be asking you that question. You built me, after all.”

  There was that darn scowl again.

  “You know, Doc, if you keep doing that, the expression will freeze on your face.”

  “It’s purely involuntary, I assure you. If I limit my Jon-exposure, there will be no issue.”

  “So, aside from a wonderful, fact-filled field trip, why am I here? Why, in fact, are you here?”

  He looked to the slab. Okay, it was a stainless steel medical table, but it was a morgue. No tables; just slabs.

  It was then I realized who we was. There was a dead guy on the slab. Nice. My day was complete. A day without standing next to a stiff was like a day without hemorrhoids.

  “Ah, who’s the recently departed?”

  “He’s the reason I asked you to come here. And he’s not recently departed. He’s alive.”

  No way. No flipping way. “Ah, Doc, I think you need a freshen-up course in med school. The dude’s expired, deceased, and demised, He is no more. He’s ceased to be, and he’s gone to meet his maker. This is a late human.” I patted the corpse’s chest with the palm of my hand. “Doc, his chest isn’t moving. That, in case you forgot, is how dead people breathe.”

  What was with the scowl I was receiving?

  Toño lifted the sheets covering the guy’s lower parts. He pointed to a small box resting on his groin. “That is an ECMO. An Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation unit. It breaths for him. He’s very much alive.”

  “Then why’s he lying naked and motionless in a morgue? Huh? Seems like a bad set of predictors for longevity if you ask me.”

  “He’s brain is dead, but his body is otherwise in fine shape. He was a thirty-seven-year-old construction worker. A falling steel beam lanced through his skull and killed him.”

  “And let the record show General Jon Ryan was no less confused after learning that depressing bit of information.”

  “Fortunately, the falling beam was part of this hospital’s expansion construction. He was brought straight to the ER and kept alive.”

  “Okay, a series of random questions. Why keep a brain-deader alive? We don’t harvest transplant organs anymore; we grow them. Why is there anything fortunate about having a steel rod skewer your noggin? Seems like a total downer to me. Why are you showing me this unfortunate character? I…I’ve really seen enough dead people, thank you very much. Enough to last my eternity. Finally, do I need to stay here any longer? I actually feel worse now than I did before I entered this creepy place.”

  “The answer to all those questions is for your own good.” He crossed his arms.

  “You know the sphinx is usually portrayed crouched on all fours when it speaks in riddles.”

  “I probably should complete the picture. Since his accident a month ago, I’ve repaired his brain damage. It wasn’t easy, and I needed the help of several specialists, but I’ve restored his brain to its normal functional status.”

  “Gee, Doc, I’m sure his grieving widow will be totally wowed that her late husband will be buried with a tip-top brain. One other little question. Why, for the love of all that’s medical, logical, and ethical would you rebuild a dead man’s brain? The previous owner ain’t coming back, you know?”

  “I did it for you, Jon. We did it for you.”

  I pointed to the door. “I’m going to walk out there and come back in. That way we can start fresh. I’m positive you’ll not sound like you’ve blown a bank of fuses.”

  “Jon, I’ve known you longer than anyone but yourself. You’ve changed. You know this as well as I do. All the killing, all the hating. It’s getting to you. It’s making you dark and cynical, and worst of all it's making you unhappy.”

  “I’m unhappy, so you bought me a fully functional dead guy? Makes no sense, but whatever.” I shrugged and looked to one side. “A fully functional dead hot babe, maybe I could see.” I pointed toward the deceased. “You know I don’t hit from that side of the plate, right?”

  “Sometimes I think I’ve heard you be as disgusting and insensitive as a human can be, then you go right ahead and surpass your last lowest mark. Unbelievable.”

  “Why else would you build me a living person for my fun and pleasure?”

  He shook his head mightily. “Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking, all those years ago.” He stiffened. “No, you moron, I made him for you to transfer into.”

  Did not—repeat did not—see that one coming.

  “It’s all too rare, but I love seeing that dumbfounded, speechless look on your face, Jon. I really do.” He chuckled softly.

  “Right,” I began, not knowing where I was going, “you made a dead guy undead so I could transfer from a robot to a living person?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Not the other way around, living to robot, like it’s supposed to be?”

  “There are no rules in that regard.”

  “And you didn’t ask me if I had the slightest interest in assuming a perfect stranger’s identity?”

  “Again, correct.”

  “Okay, now don’t tell me, because I want to guess the bizarre reason you did that. Hmm. You’re diversifying into being a comedian? No. This isn’t funny, so that's not it. Maybe you’ve blown a bank of fuses? Hey, that now makes double sense.”

  “I prepared this host in case you wanted to transfer into it.”

  “No, that’s not it either. Because, you see, if you were going to go to all that trouble, you’d have asked me first if I had the slightest interest in doing so.”

  “And if I had asked you, you’d have swaggered and said you were fine, please don’t bother, and you’d have farted to humorously change the subject.”

  Dude knew me too well.

  “No,” I jabbed a finger at him. “You know very well I can’t fart. You took that away from me.”

  “I think you take my drift.”

  Yeah, I did. If he’d have asked, I’d have totally blown him off. But now that he’d gone to all the trouble, wasn’t my answer the same?

  “Dr. De Jesus, my answer is phhhhhhrt.”

  “Somethings never change,” he scoffed.

  “Seriously, what am I supposed to say?” I pointed to the quiet guy. “This is a little odd. You’ll have to grant me that.”

  “I suppose it might seem odd.”

  “Might? Even to an egghead like you? Ya think?”

  “Here are my thoughts, Jon. You’ve been more places, done more things, and been involved in more killing than any other human. You’re changing, and not for the better. It came to me recently that maybe you wouldn’t mind stepping back and being a simple human again.”

  Doc, you’re nuts. Is that even possible?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “Ah, that’s what Saunders and you told me about the original transfer. It wasn’t very reassuring then, and it still isn’t. I don’t see why not is diametrically different than yes.”

  “I was correct then, and I am certain again.”

  “But…why?” I put my hands on my head. “I didn’t ask you to make this possible.” I looked at him severely. “Wait, did Kayla put you up to this?”

  “She most certainly did not. I haven’t discussed the possibility with anyone else.”

  “Not even Carlos?”

  He shuffled his feet nervously. “Well, of course Carlos. I needed his help.”

  “What about the janitor? Did you tell him? My dry cleaner? Some chicky-pooh you were trying to impress?”

&nb
sp; “You know very well I did not. Carlos doesn’t count.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be flattered to hear that.”

  “Jon, the point is that I told no one. This is not a decision for anyone but you.”

  “Why would I choose to return to being human? I don’t get it.”

  “I’m certain you do. If you were human again, you could be normal again.” He stomped his foot. “You could be as normal as you could be.”

  “No, I wouldn’t. You know that. What kind of trick are you trying to pull?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Even if I agree to transferring to this stiff, there’ll still be me,” I slapped my chest, “just as screwed up,” I pointed to my head, “as ever.”

  “No. If you decide to transfer, the unit you are in will be decommissioned. I will personally see that the android Jon Ryan is never activated again.”

  “Never is a long time, Doc.”

  He squinted. “No, it isn’t. Never is infinitely short, not long.”

  “No, I mean never turning me back on is a long time to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

  “Oh. I see your point. No, you will not be rebootable.”

  “What, you going to melt me down for scrap?”

  He shuttered. “Of course not.”

  “Then how? If dead-guy version of me is happier than a bunch of clams, it doesn’t help this me in any way, shape, or form.”

  “This version of you would be permanently shelved, inactivated, canceled.”

  “Maybe stuff me and put me in a museum?”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  “Wait. I have far too many memories, too many bits of crap in my computers to fit into any single human brain.” I rapped a knuckle on the dead guy’s forehead. “Especially a secondhand model.”

  “That is a valid point. I think I can cull out the technical and historical data that has no relevance to your day-to-day life.”

  “I have that tingling uncertainty again.”

  “Which is one reason I would not melt down the android. If there were information you decided you needed, I could do so without waking the android.”

  “Waking? You mean this me’d just be in sleep mode?”