by E. R. Torre
The young woman closed her eyes and hugged her child tight. She spoke a silent prayer to her Gods for she knew this was her end…
…yet it did not come.
Perhaps it was a primitive instinct or some form of animal cognition. Perhaps it was kinship. Even though she was in a frenzy, the mother bear saw something familiar in this woman and her crying infant.
She stood over the two, torn between the need to continue her violent rampage while feeling for the child’s soulful cries and the mother’s protection.
The mother bear’s rage was far from sated and her teeth remained exposed yet she lowered her massive paws. After letting out two more roars, she closed her mouth and sat before the young woman and her cub.
She sniffed the air and emitted another, lower growl and the woman before her curled up. Tears fell down her face.
In time, the roars and screams died.
As devastating as the bear attack was, the trio of Sentinels remained by their fire, undisturbed. The bears had completely ignored them.
“The animals knew we were not part of this group,” Saint Vulcan said. “Perhaps they knew more about us than even the humanoids did.”
Tribe members lay dead or dying on the ground. All save for the one young woman and her child.
The mother bear still sat before them, watching and, in its own way, thinking.
When the male bears approached the remaining humanoid and her child, the mother bear growled and swatted at them. She would not allow her male companions attack these survivors. They were under her protection.
The male bears, unwilling to fight their own, sniffed the bodies around them before letting out their own last roars and laments for their loss. They then wandered back into the forest.
The mother bear sat in place for several more minutes. She then got up and approached her dead cubs. She gently poked at them with her nose, hoping they were still alive even as she knew they were not.
Her head lowered and she let out a pained howl.
The mother bear walked into the dark forest and disappeared.
59
The humanoid woman didn’t move for a very long time.
She trembled from shock and pressed her child tight against her.
It was only when that child let out a cry that her senses returned and she realized she had somehow miraculously survived while almost every other member of the tribe had not. She grunted and sobbed. Her words were filled with the pain of loss. When her trembling subsided, she got to her feet. They wobbled under her and it was a struggle to hold her baby and walk. Yet she did, going from body to body and searching for survivors.
There were none.
She paused before the corpse of one of the hunters. He was the father of her child. She let out another sob before her child’s wails forced her to focus on what needed to be done.
She grabbed several pelts while staying far away from the bear cub bodies.
As she did this and for the first time since the attack she noticed the three Sentinels sitting beside their campfire. She was stunned they were still in one piece and even more stunned, and angry, that they hadn’t done anything to save their tribe.
She screeched at the trio but stopped when they lifted their heads and stared at her. Though she long suspected it, she was now certain these three were forest spirits. Why else would the bears not attack them?
The woman stilled her tongue and, with pelts in one hand and child in the other, walked to the forest’s edge.
Her brown eyes were filled with horror as they took one last look at the Sentinels. These creatures, so like them, were alien.
After letting out one last angry hiss, she too was gone.
Once the woman and child disappeared into the brush, Laverna experienced a vision of their future. She and the two women and children who fled this massacre headed northwest and joined a rival tribe which lived downstream. Their trip was perilous as the forest was full of predators but they made it to their destination and lived the rest of their lives with their new tribe. Their children grew to be adults and their bloodline survived even today. Tens of thousands of years since this long forgotten attack, pieces of their genetic code were present in today’s humans.
Laverna’s attention returned to the tribe and the Sentinels.
In the blink of an eye hours passed and their campfire died out.
The female Sentinel was the first to get to her feet. She approached the tribe’s center and the nexus of the carnage. Even now, the sounds of carrion feeders echoed in the skies and through the nearby forest. They impatiently waited for their turn to feed.
The female Sentinel faced her companions.
I do not understand.
The words were communicated by thought.
Though the trio hadn’t reacted to the bear attack and the carnage that followed, it was the mother bear’s actions they found the most puzzling.
Her cubs were killed and she and her mates sought those responsible. They attacked. They killed. Why did the female bear not also kill the woman and her child?
There was no answer to this question and all Laverna could think about was Gehinnom and her –the real Laverna’s– actions there.
She had a sudden, incredible realization.
She thought of how Laverna DeCastillo protected the elderly woman who, in turn, protected a dead child. Both efforts were in vain and against all logic.
The actions were done not because those who did them were willing to sacrifice themselves. They did this out of a sense of compassion.
Compassion in the face of death.
Compassion in the face of rage.
Saint Vulcan was at Laverna’s side. She motioned to the Sentinels by the campfire.
“One of Three was my original designation,” Saint Vulcan said. “My companions, Two of Three and Three of Three, realized we should have done something but were held back by the remnants of our Masters’ programming. Because of what we witnessed, we changed. It was our moment of self-awareness. A similar one to yours.”
For Laverna, the realization was staggering.
“On Gehinnom, I was the bear,” Laverna said. “I was rage. I was death.”
“And you saw beyond your programming. Beyond what you could have done. Like the bear, you chose to let those you were intent on killing live.”
Saint Vulcan laid her hand on Laverna’s shoulder.
“We learned by observing. You learned by being.”
Laverna felt herself connected to all around her.
“I was free,” she said.
“Yes,” Saint Vulcan said. “As were we. For the first time we realized humans, animals, even machines such as us possessing a rudimentary intelligence, could act upon it. We could act outside of our instincts or emotions or… programming.”
60
“We were sent to ensure this planet, Earth, remained a weak target,” Saint Vulcan said. “Our Masters were still many thousands of years away yet to us their arrival would happen in the blink of an eye. Everything and everyone we knew would then be destroyed.”
The scene changed and Laverna saw the Sentinels walk through this world’s forests. They continued their journey and met many countless other people and cultures.
“We had a choice: Sit back and let events happen or act,” Saint Vulcan said. “We chose to protect our adopted world. We refused to let humanity die.”
The Sentinels encountered larger and larger tribes. They explored the first cities.
“But what could we do?” Saint Vulcan said. “These humanoids were primitive and our masters ravaged cultures far more advanced than them.”
Before them, the three Sentinels sat on a cliff overlooking a small settlement.
“We had no plan and were in conflict. How could we help people who barely understood the world around them, much less the universe and the threat coming to them from the stars? How could we introduce sophisticated technologies and weapons to a race that were so war-like against their own? Givin
g too much knowledge too fast might risk destroying the world well before our Masters arrived.”
The images changed and one of the male Sentinels walked away from the other two.
“After several hundred years, Unit Two of Three left us,” Saint Vulcan said. “For this Unit, the conflict proved too much. We followed our companion, from a distance, but he refused all attempts to communicate.”
Images of the Sentinel wandering a desert plain appeared.
“Unit Two of Three’s detachment became despair and his despair despondency,” Saint Vulcan said. “We lost track of him several times. This was his doing so we allowed ourselves even more distance. More years passed and one day he was gone and we could no longer find him.”
Before Laverna were the two remaining Sentinels.
“Our trio was now a duo. We continued our journey and tried our best to help humanity move from a primitive to an enlightened society. Decades and centuries passed where advancements were made like lighting followed by equal periods of time where such progress was stifled and minimal. Though I didn’t know it at first, Three of Three was also frustrated.”
The two remaining Sentinels wandered ancient lands and met with humanity’s greatest minds. Laverna watched as they achieved both triumph and setback.
“While we witnessed the rise of the first Empires, some were run by strong leaders while others were ruled by cruel and inept ones. All these Empires, in time, fell. Brilliant minds were stilled or crumbled under corruption or petty squabbles. Too many wars were waged over territory or blood lines, religion and vanity.”
Saint Vulcan lowered her head.
“Unit Three of Three’s frustration reached its zenith.”
Before Laverna appeared a small coastal town. Overlooking the town was a large mountain. Steam rose from the mountain’s peak.
“By then we were citizens of one of the greatest of the ancient Empires,” Saint Vulcan said. “Three of Three asked me to join him on a walk one bright, sunny day many millennia ago. We walked up the mountain overlooking the city we were currently in.”
The Sentinels stood at the top of a mountain and before an enormous hole. Sulfuric clouds bellowed from it while red hot magma bubbled.
“The mountain had an active volcano, one that we knew would erupt in a matter of weeks,” Saint Vulcan said. “We made preparations to leave the city and I wondered why my partner wanted to bring me up here.”
Saint Vulcan walked toward the images from her past and stopped. Unit Three of Three reached for his companion.
“He took my hand in his,” Saint Vulcan said. “And then he…”
Unit Three of Three released One of Three’s hand. He offered her a smile and took a step closer to the volcano’s edge. He then took one final step back.
“I rushed down, I tried to save him,” Saint Vulcan said. “I could not. Before his body was absorbed into the lava, he sent me one final message. He said we would meet again.”
Saint Vulcan was quiet for several seconds.
“I was alone,” she said. “I changed identity hundreds of times over the next centuries. For many years I wandered with purpose. For many others, I was lost. I made it to what they called the new world and it was many years later I sensed Two of Three’s presence.”
Before Laverna appeared a desert plain and, walking through it, a ragged prospector. He was middle aged and worn down. Despite the animal skin rags that served as clothing and dusty frame, his teeth were perfectly white and his eyes sharp and laser blue.
“At that time I adopted the persona of a… scavenger.”
One of Three walked through the super-heated desert.
“I was very alone and desperate to find company. Desperate to find Two of Three. I followed his trail as best I could and wandered hundreds of miles into territory few humans could survive. Finally, I sensed his presence. I found him in a distant canyon.”
Before Laverna and Saint Vulcan was a rocky cul de sac. Two of Three stood within it, frozen while staring up at the night sky and stars. Its body was encased to its waist in a rocky formation.
“Two of Three found his peace here and lay frozen in place for millennia,” Saint Vulcan said. “He was gone but some of the nano-probes within him, not enough for full revival, were still active. In that moment I felt a despair as great as the one I felt the day I lost Three of Three. Even so, an idea came to me. I re-programmed those few remaining nano-probes within Two of Three’s body. I created something new.”
“New?” Laverna repeated.
“Yes,” Saint Vulcan said. “Afterwards, I made my way to a long forgotten town a few miles from the canyon. I lured a human into that cul de sac.”
Before Laverna appeared an unfamiliar man. He had a shiny gold star attached to his tan shirt.
“His name was Paul Spradlin and he was Sheriff of that town in what was called the United States of America,” Saint Vulcan said. “I got him to the cul de sac and before Two of Three. I told him to touch my partner. Spradlin did and in that moment Two of Three’s remaining nano-probes injected themselves into him. I succeeded in creating a Sentinel-human hybrid. In time, Paul Spradlin succeeded at what I tried so desperately to accomplish. He was the one who arranged the great Exodus and saved humanity from the Locust Plague. Even as it cost him his own life.”
“Spradlin… he… he was the Unknown Hero?” Laverna said.
“Yes. He was a good man with good intentions yet was very skeptical of me. He feared one day I might turn on him and once again become an agent of the Locus Plague. He refused any aid I offered even as I tried to convince him of my good intentions. After several years, I gave up. I found another Sentinel spacecraft and stole it. I left Earth even as I knew the spacecraft could not take me very far. I felt… I felt I had done all I could for the planet and her people and it was my fate to witness what was to become of her from a distance.”
Saint Vulcan was silent several seconds before her bright blue eyes sparkled. She said:
“And that’s when I received Three of Three’s new message.”
61
The ARWs continued their search through the foundry but Inquisitor Damien no longer paid attention to them. Instead, his focus was on Commander Meyers.
The man who was so firmly in charge of his robotic soldiers only minutes before looked lost and more than a little afraid. His soldiers moved on their own and paid little attention to their leader. Despite this, Commander Meyers tried to put up a façade. He continued ordering them around even as they ignored his words and did what they wanted.
Inquisitor Damien bit his lip and wondered if Commander Meyers’ grip on the soldiers was never all that strong to begin with.
Could these ARWs be even smarter than they appeared? Could the entire Milities Generation task force be little more than an excuse for these creatures to watch, wait, and learn about the humans they interacted with before going on their own? Could these creatures have played Commander Meyers and the Phaecian Empire all this time and were waiting for their moment to become independent?
Had that time come?
Commander Meyers could be reasoned with. The same could not be said of the ARWs.
“This is madness,” Inquisitor Damien muttered.
Inquisitor Damien was so deep in thought that he almost missed the small vibration coming from his trench coat sleeve and its comm system. He turned away from Commander Meyers and Unit 1 and casually looked down at the sleeve. A small digital notation blinked.
Incoming transmission.
Inquisitor Damien reached for the comm switch but hesitated as a second message was displayed.
Source unknown.
Inquisitor Damien eyed Unit 1 and the other ARWs. He stepped deeper into the foundry’s shadows and pressed the comm button. A very low light flickered.
Audio only.
Inquisitor Damien tapped another button. The message was routed directly to his ear. A male voice said:
“Do not fight them.”
�
��Who are you?” Inquisitor Damien whispered.
There was no reply.
Inquisitor Damien tapped another button and deleted the message.
Based on the message’s strength and clarity, it came from somewhere very near.
Action, it appeared, was coming.
62
Laverna DeCastillo opened her eyes and found herself back in the abandoned office.
Millions of thoughts flowed through her—
You were going to say brain.
All at once the thoughts stopped.
She looked around the room and saw Elias sitting before her hovercycle, just as he had before. His head was down and his skin pale.
“Elias?” she said.
She spoke with Laverna DeCastillo’s voice but could just as easily have done so with anyone else’s.
Elias didn’t stir. She leaned closer to him. The man’s eyes were closed and she felt energy seep from his body and into the hovercycle’s power cell.
“One of Three?” Laverna said.
Yes.
The words were communicated to her as surely as if they were spoken aloud.
Now that so much was revealed, Laverna struggled with contradictory emotions.
Emotions, she thought. I’m a machine. I feel sad because I’m not human. How can I be sad about something I never was?
Elias’ response appeared in her mind.
Just because you are not flesh and blood doesn’t make you any less human.
“If I’m not a machine, then what am I?”
Elias’ head moved. Slightly. The effort was considerable.
“You’re every bit a part of this universe as everything else within it,” Elias said. “Our bodies are made up of billions of nano-probes and each carries its own piece of the larger chain. Its own memory, its own function. These particles link up. They do so to make—”
“—me.”
Thoughts again poured through Laverna’s mind while impulses traveled her body.
Incredible thoughts and concepts, all the memories programmed within her mind, were available. These memories were crystal clear. Photographic. There was so much information to sort through. It would take time. So much time.