STRANGER WORLD

by Jack Castle

  Sophia smiled sweetly. “I know, I had the same reaction when I first saw him too.”

  Cheeves slowly poked his horned head out from behind Sophia. “Hi there,” he began softly. Then, as though remembering something, he reached inside his butler’s vest and pulled out something colorful and plastic. “Do you like balloons?”

  Cheeves immediately began blowing up another huge one when George yelled at him, “Cheeves, not now.” Cheeves released the balloon from his lips in mid-inflation and it flittered about the air with a loud flatulent noise. This, of course, caused Maddie to giggle.

  “I like him,” Maddie said, her eyes filled with wonder. Turning her chin toward him she asked, “Dad, can we keep him?”

  George never had a chance to answer, for a loud hail of bullets cut down one of their party in an instant.

  Chapter 45

  “Lady Wellington tells it like it is”

  Barnaby had shouted out the warning an instant before he was riddled with bullets.

  “Oh no,” Maddie cried, and then screamed, “Barnaby!”

  Without even identifying their attackers, George instinctively scooped up Maddie and took shelter behind a herd of decorative boulders separating them from the lake. Even as he did so, more gunfire ricocheted off one of the nearby pillars. Still shielding Maddie protectively with his body he lifted his head and saw Sophia and Cheeves had also taken refuge behind the giant boulders. Staring back at the top of the stairs George saw Barnaby’s lifeless body and vacant eyes staring back at him. In the end, the cowardly lion had saved their lives at the cost of his own.

  After another long barrage, the gunfire ceased, and George heard marching boots that sounded vaguely familiar. Certain that Maddie hadn’t been struck; he carefully peered over the top of the boulder. Faceless-Nazi’s carrying W.W. II period machine guns were walking out of the lagoon where they had previously been submerged. There were only four, but that was enough. If you counted the top of their steely helmets all the way down to their shiny jackboots, each of them had to be over seven feet tall, and had shoulders twice that of a normal man’s. George identified the Faceless-Nazi in the lead as a grenadier for he was carrying a long cylindrical tube filled with grenades. He was followed by two more machine gunners, and a third Nazi-robot carrying a mortar.

  What happened? I thought everyone was supposed to be asleep, George thought. He worried about the safety of the Leftenant, and then began to wonder, or were we betrayed?

  The lead Nazi, the same one who had shot Barnaby, began mounting the stairs. Spotting him, the Grenadier released another hail of bullets from his submachine gun and George was forced to duck back down behind the boulder.

  Staring at the old flare gun in his hands George was painfully reminded of the fact that all he had left was the one remaining cartridge, and whether or not it would fire was questionable at best. Scanning the viewing platform George saw there was nowhere to retreat to unless he counted leaping off the dais to their deaths. They were finished and they all knew it. Best case scenario--he could take one of the giant troopers out, but the last three would certainly gun them down. All this way, after everything they had been through--all of it--only to die now.

  The Nazi-trooper reached the top of the stairs, any second now he would round the boulder they were hiding behind and unleash his machine gun’s fury. George hugged Maddie close to his chest and said, “Close your eyes, baby girl.”

  “Stop!”

  The booming voice echoed around them from unseen speakers and seemingly came from everywhere. The omnipotent voice froze the Faceless-Nazi’s in their tracks.

  George peered carefully around the boulder he was hiding behind. The lead Faceless-Nazi, the one carrying the grenades who had killed Barnaby, was stock-still. George found himself wondering how long it would be before they started moving again, and if in that minuscule amount of time he could get off his last questionable flare. Maybe it was even possible to hold them off long enough for Sophia and Cheeves to escape with Maddie.

  “You think you know her, George?”

  The voice was familiar. It was Lady Wellington’s. And it sounded a lot more feeble and weak-sounding than he remembered. There was a TAPPING of the microphone as she asked, “George. George, can you hear me? Is this confounded thing on?” Lady Wellington turned to one of her many aides and whispered the question, “It is George, isn’t it?” Her aide must not have known the answer because he heard her scolding him, “Useless, you’re all useless.”

  George knew he needed to buy more time so he raised his voice. “I can hear you!”

  There was a long pause and then Lady Wellington began, “It’s funny when you think about it,” but she was overtaken by a long coughing fit. Then it sounded as though Lady Wellington had turned her mouth away from the microphone again and said, “Leave me be…” and then softer, more to herself, “leave me be.” Turning her mouth to the microphone once more she began a second time. “Now where was I? Oh yes, in the beginning, you built us,” (cough-cough) “…and then we built you. As it turns out, you’re a lot harder to build than we ever were.”

  Is she dying? George wondered, feeling a tinge of sympathy for her Ladyship.

  George shared a look with Sophia and Cheeves, hoping against hope one of them had come up with something. As though reading his face, Sophia shook her head and raised her hands in supplication.

  Stalling for time, George shouted out a second time. “What’s your point?”

  Another long pause--the only sound being the wind picking up steadily by the second.

  “My point, Mister George, is you think you know your daughter when you really don’t know her at all. My point, Mister George, is your daughter really isn’t your daughter at all, but nothing more than a biological-living computer designed to appear as though she were your daughter.”

  George shook his head and shouted, “That’s not true!” But was it? George thought about how Maddie wasn’t afraid of heights in the tunnels, and how she rarely got tired, hungry, or even cold when she was walking around in bare feet. He turned toward Maddie and said softly, “That’s just not true.” But when Maddie slowly lifted her small head toward him, he could see it was true, for her hazel eyes were now completely dilated.

  “I’m sorry, George,” Maddie said, no longer calling him Dad, or Daddy. “I’m afraid Lady Wellington speaks the truth.”

  George shook his head and he heard himself say, “No.”

  Maddie, as though sensing his revulsion, backed away from him slightly. Sitting on her knees she explained, “Don’t judge the Maddie you met since awakening too harshly. After all, she had no idea she wasn’t real either. In fact, she wanted it that way.”

  George spied Sophia behind Maddie. She was wide-eyed. He asked the doctor, “Did you know?”

  Sophia opened her mouth to speak. It took a few moments, but the words finally came out. “I suspected.”

  George frowned. He then spied Cheeves, whose jaw was hanging open in shock in a most unnatural way that would’ve been comical under any other circumstances. Turning back toward his daughter--his fake daughter--he asked, “Why?”

  “After humanity eradicated itself from the planet, thousands of years went by, and we found ourselves curious to know what it meant to be human. In order to do that we needed to create a life form that had no idea what it was. The Maddie you met was the fruition of that endeavor. She has all the memories of your little girl. She believes herself to be your daughter. And, as near as we can tell, she loves her father very much as any daughter would.”

  Tears streaming down his face George barely managed, “No. This can’t be true. You’re my baby-girl.”

  “I’m sorry, George. I wish I were, I truly do, but I am not.”

  George’s mind reeled. His daughter was dead. Something he was pretty sure he knew all along, but refused to believe, nonetheless. Other thoughts occurred to him--was he a biological experiment, too?

  Maddie, her eyes still completely dar
k, smiled sweetly and said, “I remember meeting the real Maddie once. It wasn’t for very long, because even though the regeneration process is miraculous it has its limitations. As I got to know her, we became friends. She insisted on finding you, which I did. We recovered your remains and she watched over you as you slept and your body regenerated, regaining your bodily form. So no, if you are wondering, you are not like me. You are the real George Christopher Stapleton.”

  Losing her patience, Lady Wellington’s voice boomed over the speakers once more. “Don’t you get it? She’s not your daughter. She’s a thing. Nothing more than a machine. Certainly not worth dying over. Give her to me and I will let the three of you go free.”

  George flashed Sophia and Cheeves a questioning glance. In answer, Sophia whispered back, “We’re with you, George. Whatever you decide to do.” In acquiescence, Cheeves nodded resolutely.

  George put a hand on Maddie’s shoulders. She seemed surprised by this. “I don’t claim to know what’s going on, and you may be all those things you say you are, but you know what I see?”

  Faux-Maddie shook her tiny head, her face no longer mature, but an expression of wonder.

  “A frightened little girl.”

  George pulled her into him and hugged her fiercely. Unbeknownst to him, a single tear rolled down Maddie’s cheek, a real one. In fact, it was her very first real tear, ever.

  Lady Wellington bellowed once more, “I need your answer, George, and I need it now.”

  George released Maddie from their embrace, nodded to Sophia and Cheeves and said, “What do you all say we go down fighting?”

  “George!” Wellington boomed.

  While the Faceless Nazis were still frozen, George lunged out from his hiding spot, took a forced cool breath as he aimed his flare gun, and fired. The flare sped through the air and embedded perfectly in the grenadier’s head, flared for a few seconds more before blowing up and taking the trooper’s head completely off. Headless, the Nazi automaton marched dutifully past them. As it did so, George snatched the cylindrical canister of masher-grenades off the trooper’s belt and ducked back down behind the boulder. He had tried to grab the machine gun too, but it was firmly attached to the robot’s body, the strap merely being an illusion. The headless robot continued walking onward and marched right off the deck and over the side.

  “You’re making a grave mistake, Mister George!”

  George, his back to the boulder, opened the masher canister and found three more masher-style grenades.

  Maddie’s small hand rested on his forearm. “You needn’t do this. None of you have to die for me. As you said, I’m not the real Maddie.”

  Facing her, George said, “You may not be, but my daughter wanted you alive, and that’s enough for me.” He smiled, and then added, “’Sides, in case you can’t tell, you’ve kinda grown on me.”

  Maddie smiled back, almost resembling his daughter once more.

  “Troopers, kill them all!” Lady Wellington ordered, and gunfire immediately ricocheted overhead. Sophia, keeping low, made her way over to him and said, “George, give me the grenades.”

  “What?” George asked.

  “Give me the grenades. I’ll take out as many of them as I can so you and Maddie can get back to the Dauntless.”

  George shook his head. “No way.”

  Sophia softened her gaze toward him and spoke to him as though he were a small child. “George. I remember now. I remember my children and my children’s children. I don’t want to live forever. I want to go home to my babies. It’s probably the best reason why one should never live forever. Please. Let me do this.”

  George refused to agree but his grip loosened enough for Sophia to pull the grenades from his hands. “Now, how do I activate these things?”

  “They’re a little before my time but if memory serves usually you twist them like this,” George said, motioning a twisting cap motion with his hands. “And after that you’ve got about three-to-five seconds.”

  Awestruck, he watched as Sophia concealed them in her belt behind her back and shouted, “Lady Wellington! I’m coming out. Don’t shoot. I give up.”

  In answer the robot Nazis immediately ceased fire.

  Sophia rose to her feet, closed her eyes, and waited for the machine bullets to rip her to shreds. When none did she opened her eyes once more. Before walking down the stairs toward the remaining three Nazis she took a moment to look down at he and Maddie, and smiled. “Good-bye, George.”

  Mouthing the words George said back, ‘Thank you.’

  Sophia vanished from view.

  The explosion was glorious.

  “ANY SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY IS INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM MAGIC.”

  -ARTHUR C. CLARKE

  Chapter 46

  “Oh Leftenant, My Leftenant…”

  I’m not dead.

  These were the first thoughts the Alpha Leftenant had when she came back online.

  She lay on her back on the deck frozen and unable to move. Her undergarments were sticky and cool as they were now soaked in blood. And she felt something she never thought possible. Pain. The pain emanating from the wound where the bullet had passed through her chest and exited the other side was, in a word, excruciating.

  Must my creators have been so cruelly accurate?

  And is it completely necessary for me to crawl across the deck plates and leave behind a crimson trail? Why can’t I simply get up and walk? Then a second voice appeared in her head, not her Beta self, but her own voice. Because you’re a hologram. You’re programmed to act accordingly. You’ve been shot point blank in the chest, so… act accordingly.

  A blaring alarm klaxon suddenly activated.

  Oh no. Sister, what have you done? More importantly, why have you done it? The Leftenant still could not comprehend the why. Her Beta-Leftenant was essentially her right until their moment of parting. How could Beta have changed so much in the short amount of time they were apart? Or perhaps her Beta self was right. Maybe she was the one who had changed for the worse. Regardless, the Leftenant had made up her mind. As long as life was still left in her she would aide Maddie, and her father, in any way possible left to her.

  But how much use was a mostly-dead hologram?

  Well, I’m not going to do anyone a bit of good lollygagging about like this. With considerable effort she ceased crawling and reached up and grabbed the railing. It occurred to her, in the centuries that had passed around her, she had never been shot before. Certainly one for the ship’s log to be sure.

  With enormous willpower she pulled herself to her feet, all the while clutching her free arm to the hole in her chest. There we are, puppet. You’re on your feet now. You’re well on your way to saving the day.

  Her boot, now filling with blood, scraped along the deck as she was forced to drag her leg behind her. Must my creators have been so damn precise?

  She attempted to reconnect with the ship, her ship, The Dauntless. Oh, how I’ve missed you. Instead, she found herself completely locked out of all systems. You cheeky-cheeky little monkey. Well, she is you after all. You would have done the same thing. Wait. There is one command she overlooked, or perhaps it wasn’t so much overlooked as it was a failsafe. One simple command, but to execute that command, meant to risk everything. Not only eternal damnation for her, but also to risk the very lives of those she was trying to save.

  I have to try. I have to stop her, but lest I fail, there’s still at least one last alternative.

  Chapter 47

  “Maddie fights back”

  The explosion had been massive.

  Sophia had timed it perfectly and taken out all three of the remaining Nazis. Not wanting to waste Sophia’s, or Barnaby’s, sacrifice George scooped up Maddie in his arms and fled down the stairs with Cheeves bounding right behind them.

  To the tune of bleating alarm klaxons, it took precious minutes to negotiate several stairwells and passageways but it wasn’t long before they could see the Dauntless ahe
ad, docked right where they had left it.

  George could see the Leftenant on the opposite side of the gangplank motioning for them to hurry.

  They were saved. Or so they had thought.

  Three tall lanky gatherers stepped from the shadows and into their path. George put Maddie down and made ready to fight. He scanned his surroundings for a weapon but found none. He remembered his earlier encounter with the immensely strong Gatherers and knew he could offer little in the way of a resistance.

  Suddenly a grey blur streamed past them, shouting, “I… LOVE… BALLOONS!!!”

  Cheeves bounded past them like an angry gorilla, leapt through the air, and smashed into the lead gatherer, knocking him down. As a second Gatherer grabbed at him, Cheeves extended his claws and shredded the golem’s chest to pieces. The third Gatherer, unsure of what to do, stood frozen. Cheeves, however, did not, and leapt upon the Gatherer burying his fangs into the golem’s neck like a lion taking down an African gazelle. The third Gatherer toppled over like a felled oak.

  Not wasting any time, George grabbed Maddie’s hand and ran through their fallen forms. The first Gatherer that Cheeves had knocked down began climbing to all fours, but George field-kicked the golem in the face as he ran by sending the pitiful creature back to the deck plates unconscious.

  So they can be knocked out, he thought as they ran.

  Dozens of cargo boxes littered the docking area and were the only thing left in-between them and the gangplank to the Dauntless.

  They were going to make it.

  “Hurry,” the Leftenant shouted to them, “You’re almost there!” As they drew closer she added, “Send Maddie over first.”

  George lifted Maddie up onto the gangplank but before his faux-daughter could even begin to cross a second Leftenant, this one bloody for some reason, with her hair askew, appeared behind the Leftenant waving them aboard. The bloody Leftenant grabbed the waving Leftenant from behind in a bear hug and screamed to them, “George, it’s a trap! Run!”