It rained incessantly, to an alluvial rhythm.
“Wonderful!” Sirio exclaimed, driving the red Ford he had borrowed from his friend. “Thanks a lot,” he continued sarcastically, talking to a capricious god who, on the occasion of his first date with the Swedish woman, had decided to dump a veritable Niagara Falls on him.
Arriving in front of his colleague's house, he thought about avoiding a soaking and just calling her on the phone, to tell her to run out and jump in the car.
The hell with chivalry!
“What are you doing, Sirio?” he murmured to himself, resting his smartphone in the holder under the dashboard.
“Be a man!” he said, getting out of the car and opening a large umbrella, which didn't prevent him from showing up at Ingrid's door with his shoes soaked.
Having rung the bell, it took only a few seconds before the door opened, revealing a blond angel in a long red coat, with a dazzling smile and eyes that could light up the night.
“I tried to rent a boat, but didn’t have the right license for it,” Sirio began, hoping she appreciated the joke.
Ingrid's smile turned into a laugh. Sirio wasn't sure if it was sincere or she was just being polite. But what did it matter? She was simply enchanting and, beyond all doubt, they would certainly have an unforgettable evening.
Sirio had chosen an Italian restaurant which had just opened on Major Ave, a large street that the city planners had decided to allocate to restaurants and entertainment.
After the classic banter among fellow countrymen from another place, and references to the destruction that had hit such a beautiful country, the establishment's managers returned to work.
The choices that Sirio and Ingrid had made during office hours were confirmed by the smells of exquisite Italian dishes they were served, along with a delicious Sardinian Cannonau, from one of the few Italian vineyards that had survived the arrival of the Taahrians.
They had a very pleasant dinner. It was as though they had known each other for years. The only brief uncomfortable moment occurred when the Swedish woman told him how much she admired what he had done, for being one of the six champions who had saved the world. It was a topic that Sirio detested. It made him feel that he was condemned to be forever associated with a role that didn't reflect who he was. What bothered him most was that there was no way of knowing how people would've felt about him if they hadn't known his true identity. After years of living in the shadows, he could never learn to be a VIP. He kept wishing that people would forget his face, but that was too much to hope for. Even a few years after the massive information overload, there were still flashes on television and the internet. She had never mentioned the Alpha Orionis since he had met her. But that was probably because, even though they had only worked together a few days, she had intuited how repugnant certain topics were to him.
When he was back in Osaka, he had, on more than one occasion, expressed a desire to change his name and alter his features with plastic surgery. But Namiko's support and the journalists having backed off made him decide to wait.
The man's expression spoke volumes and Ingrid understood that she urgently needed to shift the focus of their conversation to other topics.
Sirio noticed how the charming young woman had changed the conversation, demonstrating that she had a sharp wit in addition to boundless beauty.
At the end of the evening, there were two empty wine bottles and they began to lose their inhibitions, giving way to more frivolous, amusing and provocative talk.
Along the way back, the rain stopped; and the beautiful Ingrid spent the time leaning back in her seat, with her eyes closed and a smile on her lips.
Sirio was glad that she hadn't asked any questions about his past. The orphanage, Iraq, killing for the secret service, Rachel and Namiko wouldn't have been any more pleasant to discuss than the Alpha Orionis.
As they got closer to the Swedish woman's home, doubts about what to do next assailed him: he was attracted to her in an irresistible way. His entire body demanded that he put an end to the past six months of sexual abstinence. But there were other things that he had to think about, including, of course, Ingrid's feelings, about which, however, he had little doubt.
When they arrived at Ingrid's house, he looked at her: she seemed to be asleep. He reached a hand towards her, intending to caress her face. As he brushed her hair back, his hand froze. Sirio let it hang in limbo for a while, then decided to pull it away.
“My head is spinning,” Ingrid suddenly said in a whisper. “Could you help me into the house...”
“Of course,” Sirio limited himself to saying.
A few moments later, they were walking hand in hand towards the stairs to her bedroom.
I told you, Tylor. A guy just knows how some things are going to end...
22
A man of one hundred and sixty centimeters, or five foot three inches, in height, Xnoris hadn't quite made it to the size of most Ikalians. The average height of his brethren, albeit less than that of the Taahrians, was about two meters. And though the skin of his peers tended to be a pastel pink, his was much darker, like a smooth cheap burgundy. Over the millennia, most Ikalians had relied on a genetic assistance program that, in addition to lowering the risk of developing a serious illness in their lifetime to one percent, had standardized certain morphological aspects. Despite this, owing to their spiritual beliefs, historically, not all Ikalian families had endorsed the morphological homogenization program. So Xnoris had ended up being one of the few remaining Jskyurth, which in his lingo could be translated to the unflattering title of colored midget. But, if during the first years of his life, his appearance had caused him problems, he realized in adolescence that his brain, albeit devoid of neural processors, was capable of reasoning and calculations well beyond the norm. From that moment on, he forgot his looks and dedicated his life to a scientific career with results that impressed not only the other students but the teachers themselves. After completing his training, it didn't take long for him to be assigned to the Ikalian Expansion Command Center: the center with the most advanced scientific research in the galaxy. Then, one day, looking up towards the magenta sky, he felt an inner emptiness which suggested that he had been wasting his life on those holographic sworkh books, unlike many of his colleagues who had not only explored the most hidden corners of Ikali, but had visited two or three other planets in the empire. So, from that moment on, he decided to volunteer any time it was necessary to bring technicians and scientists to other worlds. In little more than ten Ikalian years, he had seen four worlds, each very different from the other. He had seen entire peoples living in a state of unwitting slavery and thousands of his countrymen enjoying that galactic game in which the complete civilizations of other worlds were nothing more than domesticated animals, populating a planet-sized zoo.
When he landed on Blue C, Xnoris had the honor of setting foot on a planet where the so-called Taahrian phase had just ended.
The largest Ikalian settlements on human soil, in agreement with the Terrestrials, were built near the cities most affected by the Alpha Orionis attack, many of which were in a state that was far from the splendor of their past.
Xnoris was assigned to the Washington DC settlement, as he was an expert in data transmission and programming the neural processors' software. Actually, there were very few people who had chosen to have the chip implanted in their heads, for two main reasons: first, looking like biological puppets, similar to the Taahrians, was undignified, and, second, more seriously, there was a risk of submitting to a mind control greater than that to which the brains with implants had been subjected.
The Ikalians' self-assembling nano-buildings, once used for projects and construction sites, now allowed them to manufacture the equivalent of the Empire State Building in three weeks, with only the aid of a handful of drones. However, it was a technology suited only to metals, metalloids and specific nano-polymers. Ikalian technicians had explained to the representatives of th
e Super States that building an entire metropolis of super-skyscrapers via the nano-building process would take the same amount of time as renovating an old villa or historic building, which would be better entrusted to more traditional techniques.
Having only arrived a day ago, Xnoris wasn't staying in an ancient villa nor in a futuristic skyscraper, but in a squat, basic, square metal structure. An anonymous building that concealed technology so advanced that the Terrestrials couldn't have imagined, even in their dreams.
During the second night, the holographic generator, placed near Xnoris's bed, began to project a luminous figure which, after a few moments, assumed the features of the Director of the Ikalian Expansion Command Center - Communication and Programming Section.
“There's been a problem, Xnoris!”
“What's happening, sir?”
“Eldgh's chip!”
“What?”
“It's no longer working! You assured me that everything was in order!”
“Of course.”
“But it's not! Fortunately, our computational editors believe that they've stabilized it; but the signs were initially abnormal, then ceased as if the Taahrian had proceeded with hibernation.”
“So, in reality, everything is fine now?”
“No, it's not! You're oversimplifying things. In our regime, that's intolerable!”
“Sir, with all due respect, I don't think that computational editors, who basically write fables, are able to resolve a problem like that.”
“How dare you contradict me? The data suggests that everything is now in order and it's certainly not thanks to you, a hundred light years away!”
“One hundred and eight,” Xnoris corrected him.
“What?”
“Sir, Earth is one hundred and eight years from Ikali, not one hundred.”
“Are you making fun of me, you supervisor of ruins? As sure as the dominion of our empire, I'll have you executed!”
“Sir, I only wanted you to understand how precise and zealous I am in everything. The functioning of Eldgh's processor has returned, thanks to a quantum self-repair process that I put in place before I left.”
“I've never heard of the existence of anything like that!”
“Of course not, sir. I only patented it ten days before leaving. You can find all of the information about it in the appropriate offices, including permission to use it from Minister Njuth, which, she's told me before, I can use whenever she's engaged elsewhere.”
The director seemed to calm down and regain his composure.
“Is this true?”
“I swear, Director sir, upon pain of death.”
“Don't disappoint me, Xnoris. Out!”
After the conversation was finished, the supervisor gave a typical Ikalian grin, conscious of, and pleased by, the fact that his mind was always a step ahead.
23
The four androids upon which Eldgh had operated, in the hopes of concealing them from the puppeteers, had taken five days to locate the source of the subspace signal, though there was an eighteen percent margin of error which, in similar conditions, was more than acceptable.
While waiting for the response, and to avoid any thoughts of Sirio, her family and the Earth, Namiko tried to keep her mind occupied, as she often had to recently. In addition to helping the First Officer in his daily monitoring, she decided to dive back in the study of quantum computing that was dramatically affecting them. She faced the new problems with the same enthusiasm she had when still a college student. The structure of the Taahrians' processors was simple yet elegant, utilizing nanotubes of m'hirjkh, an artificial substance similar to carbon, but thousands of times more efficient.
Even the mathematics used to describe the quantum correlation weren't entirely impossible. But, when she dug deeper into the subatomic composition of the artificial atoms, their interaction with photons, superconducting materials, self-assembling molecules, and quantum wells, to try to understand the functioning of various generations of quantum processors, even Albert Einstein surely would've have thrown in the towel, Namiko thought.
“The signal is coming from a planet about a hundred and fifty light years away,” Eldgh explained, after looking at the C6 units' results.
“So it's actually closer than we thought,” the Japanese woman commented.
“One hundred and eight light years from Earth.”
“At a distance that close, at least in astronomical terms, we could hear the puppeteers' conversations from a century ago, if we pointed our radio telescopes at the planet in question.”
“I don’t think that radio waves would be used by a civilization that can communicate through the various levels of the space-time continuum.”
Namiko said nothing for a moment, shocked by her own ingenuity. “Well, in addition to the source,” she said, turning to look at the androids, “are our friends capable of discovering something more?”
“The information in the waves has continued to flow, as it contains data needed to reprogram the neural chips. But, from what I've been able to understand, there's nothing about controlling the memories of my people.”
“And what have you been able to discover about the specifics?”
“Fables and lies! Nothing more than stories similar to those that, in all honesty, I myself told all of you on board this ship.”
“And there's nothing about the Earth, right?”
Eldgh shook his head, looking ever darker, with eyes narrowed and downturned, as if his soul was being drowned in a sea of sadness.
“Furthermore, the data in the transmissions doesn't even help us to determine who's running this.”
“Perhaps, now that we know the origin of the signal, we'll be able to eavesdrop on their other communications. Please tell me that we have the necessary technology...”
“I don't know,” the Taahrian admitted, shaking his head again. “The C6 units, the central computer, the other auxiliary AI might...”
The First Officer stopped, leaving out the last word.
“What's wrong? Are you ill?” the Terrestrial asked, visibly worried.
“No, at least not physically.”
“Did you change your mind? Aren't you happy that we've identified the source of the waves?”
“Namiko, perhaps one detail has escaped you.”
“Tell me...” she uttered, deeply troubled. She had never seen her companion behave like that before.
“All of my brethren and I are nothing more than drones, like those C6 units, programmed to carry out predetermined orders.”
“What do you mean? There's a huge difference between you and an android!”
“What? That I'm part organic? What difference does that make? We all have processors which tell us what to do. And I'll tell you something else. In light of recent facts, I believe that my free will is more illusory and far inferior to that of most of the drones on board.”
“No!” Namiko exclaimed resolutely. “All of the artificial intelligences that I've seen are cold, like the metal that they're made out of. You, however, are enormously complex and vital! You have what we humans would call a soul.”
“One single soul for millions of individuals,” Eldgh whispered.
“What do you mean?”
“Haven't you noticed how much the Taahrians all resemble each other?”
“So what?”
“Now that I think about it, there are a maximum of a dozen phenotypes among us.”
The Terrestrials eyes opened wide: “So you mean that...”
“We're clones!” Eldgh asserted resolutely.
“That's just your hypothesis,”the Japanese woman reasoned, as she had no wish to answer the Taahrian, much less confront him or give him hope that there might be other possibilities.
“If only that were true,” the First Officer said, grinding his teeth. “Just as the units C1, C2 etc. exist, these damned puppeteers, in all probability our creators, invented and reproduced us in models. The Taahrian1, Taahrian2 and s
o on, with some slight variations for the Commander, First Officer and others.”
“Well, for now that's just speculation. Let's not draw any hasty conclusions.”
“Your logic and common sense are commendable, but not superior to mine, which is, alas, guided by too many clues which all point the self-same direction.”
Namiko ran her hands through her long hair, smoothing it off her forehead and inhaling the oxygen calibrated for her lungs deeply, in the hope of finding words in a well which was now drained.
“I'm going to go now. I need to be alone for a little while.”
“Eld...”
“Don't try to follow me, I beg you.”
The Terrestrial stood there, looking dazed and confused about what to do next. Then the Taahrian stopped, before going through the exit, and turned to her.
“Don't worry, and don't give up,” he said halfheartedly.
In another moment, Namiko was alone.
More alone than ever.
24
Their after-dinner laziness led them to a fire: Ingrid became a tiger. Sirio was overwhelmed by a hurricane-like momentum, with clouds of excitement and winds of passion. Like a navigator bewitched by an enchantress, he was inexorably attracted to the call of that beautiful blond siren.
After both had achieved heights of intense pleasure, his testosterone fog dissipated, allowing the turmoil in his mind to return to its natural state.
That evening's lovemaking was exceptional, despite which it was impossible for Sirio to forget the last woman who had brought him to heights of erotic passion. It was obvious that he would inevitably surrender to the call of a woman so beautiful; but, once the carnal desires of his physical body had been satisfied, a sense of guilt and the fact that his lover's Scandinavian features differed so much from those of Namiko, made him suddenly feel ashamed. He decided to leave, to put as much distance between himself and that bed as possible.
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