The Captured

by Kyte, Adrian

  The room felt so claustrophobic now. She simply had to get out of here. Zoraina carefully pulled back the cover. She had nothing on, wondered if – were she human – she’d feel some degree of shame. There was probably a word for females who did what she had done and had no qualms about walking around nude, but fortunately it eluded her at this moment. Humans were supposed to be more demure, reserved about nudity. That was surely one of the things the b’tari male found appealing about her – the exotic human form combined with the un-inhibition of a b’tari female. Not that they were easy, it was just the sexual roles tended to be more even, as would be the case for same-sex human coupling.

  Now the male was beginning to stir. He looked up at her. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realist you---’

  ‘Never mind,’ she told him. ‘I expect you’ll be leaving now.’

  ‘Yes of course,’ he said, in a kind of ready agreement. ‘I didn’t mean to inconvenience you.’

  ‘Not at all,’ she said brightly.

  How different he seemed now, sober. Perhaps even regretful to have entered her boudoir (an Earth word she had learned from their movies). Yes, perhaps that’s how he saw it now; tempted by the exotic female into debasing himself, fulfilling some illicit kinky urge.

  The male gathered up his things and hurried out without any further prompting needed from her.

  Now she sat staring at the cube that was planet Earth. Perhaps there was a way out of here. A safe way. A way that didn’t involve actually leaving.

  The cube had no interface port; it was entirely self-contained for a good reason – to prevent infiltration. In any case no biological could enter.

  She thought she should document this. Close.

  Some believed their consciousness can actually be transferred into the sim, by dint that the psyche will always find the best available vessel. Zoraina had her doubts about that. But she wanted a way in, rather than create a copy. There had to be a way to interface. She had, of course, accessed part of the sim, had made modifications to one specific area. She was preparing a place for her interface, but there was only so much she could do. So much may only depend on what her mind could create; her subconscious adding detail to a basic enabling framework.

  That day she had no specific assignment other than to protect the Earth-cube. It also meant she had access to the most highly sophisticated lab currently in the B’tari stronghold. Really, this responsibility the council had given her they considered as no more than a way to keep her occupied. Roidon’s suggestion that he could effect a counter-plan from within the virtual realm was not taken seriously by the Council. They considered it beneath them. Now they, and the whole B’tari race, were regrouping. Well, she thought, regrouping or retreating? She knew of no strategy against the Kintra-machines. Unless she was deliberately being kept out of the loop.

  Zoraina hastily showered, got dressed, ate breakfast, and felt a cortisone surge of anticipation through her body. The whole day was hers, and she would make damn good use of it.

  She hurried out, carrying the cube under her arm as if it were a prized gift she couldn’t bear to be parted from, hoping not to pass anyone on the way to the lab. She waited as the system identified her, then tentatively entered the room. There were two males and a female inside the bright white console arrayed room. They all stopped their work to look at her, all three showing almost equal surprise at her presence. The most senior-looking male approached her.

  ‘Can I be of assistance, ma’am?’ he said in B’tar.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied in the same language. ‘I need a way of interfacing with this Earth-simulation.’ Might as well come out with it directly, she thought.

  He looked at her quizzically for a few seconds. ‘Sorry, I am not obliged to assist you in that capacity,’ his formal statement.

  ‘I understand. There are protocols.’ She nodded. ‘However, I am sure you can provide me with the necessary equip---’

  ‘No. That will not be possible.’

  ‘All right. I will find the equipment myself.’

  ‘Well, as a grade three scientist, you do have the right to use this facility. But we can not assist you in any way.’

  ‘As you have made clear.’

  The senior male scratched his head, then turned about, pointed to another door. ‘You might find something useful in there.’

  The gun-metal grey room was filled with various cables and connectors. There were quiescent translucent screens covered in a sheen of dust. She wouldn’t have been surprised if this area hadn’t been used for decades. And again she did get the sense of her being a child humoured by the adults. ‘Let her think she is doing something useful, at least it will keep her out of trouble,’ she imagined them saying.

  Anyway, Zoraina set the cube down on a work bench, once again staring at it, trying to imagine the immense complexity of activity going on in those quantum-level processor arrays: billions of lives lived out as though they were real. She was also studying it for some kind of access port. Of course it had to be well hidden, but feeling over it with her fingers didn’t reveal anything.

  She looked around for a scanning device. On the side of the work bench she found an EM differential scanner, pointed it at the cube. The device bleeped over a certain area that looked completely smooth. With applied pressure from her finger a small section depressed and then popped out to reveal an optronic port. A fairly universal interface. There had to be a connector. And sure enough...

  But it was never going to be that simple. She hooked the cube up to one of the old consoles. When it activated it told her it needed two thousand-plus updates for safe operation. Not now though. But it only recognized the connection on the level of a matrix-class processing unit. Ancient tech; she didn’t recognize the operating system: the monitor presented a basic menu, an old resistance field touch screen. Selecting the ‘analyses high-level operations’ revealed another menu: NARROW PARAMETERS TO SUBUNITS. SELECT. Too many to list. PLEASE SPECIFY BY VOICE. ‘Show me Roidon Chanley.’ After about twenty seconds the screen represented a map of New Mexico on which a green dot winked, tagged RC.

  ‘Increase resolution.’

  INSUFFICIENT INTERFACE FOR INCREASED DATA TRANSCRIPTION.

  Zoraina ripped the cable out of the cube. At the now completely destroyed moon-base there would have been the equipment for neural interface. Had none of it been salvaged?.

  She stormed into the main lab. The younger male and female researchers were laughing about something. Was it about her – the child sent in with the toys who thought she could do something worthwhile? Zoraina scoured at them, then turned to the more senior scientist. He could obviously sense her annoyance. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘is there---’

  ‘Damn right there is something you can do to help. I need to do some serious research with the proper equipment, not some centuries old discarded junk. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, but---’

  ‘But I have been entrusted with the safe upkeep of this simulation, which means I need to connect using a mind interface.’

  He took a sharp intake of breath. ‘That is most irregular. I will need to seek authority from our research commissioner.’

  ‘Really no time for that. This sim is in an unknown functional state, and it is imperative I do a detailed analysis.’

  ‘We may be able to provide a higher resolution display of its functional matrix.’

  ‘Oh, the equipment for the grown-ups,’ she sneered. ‘Well, given this is t
he main hub of B’tari operations, I am sure you also have a neural interface array – that no else is likely to be needing.’

  ‘Mahem Zardor,’ he said, addressing her by the formal title. ‘As a scientist you must appreciate the considerable risks involved in connecting your mind to an Earth-based simulation. I cannot take responsibility for any---’

  ‘No no, sure. Give me whatever waver there is to sign and I will gladly do so. Now show me the procedure.’

  He finally relented and led her over to to a fairly ordinary-looking plastic chair but with a metal headband, balanced on a hook, from which protruded a single cable disappearing into the back. She donned it.

  The scientist connected the cable to the cube. And then ... a flash of white. A feeling of euphoria. Then darkness.

  Part Six: Escape

  47

  Here was somewhere different. A dimly lit room – just a blue background light. Wires connected to his metal body. But he still felt human. Or was that just the memory of it carrying through like a phantom limb?

  Ah, yes, human memory: both a thing of refuge but also a distractingly heavy burden. And so many ways to seek the former while escaping the latter. But not now, not here the means to choose.

  Still, he’d been dreaming – of a life he once had when he’d first tasted humanity, his own and others. The wonder of nature. The intoxication of a summer’s garden, where he felt as carefree as the wildlife appeared to be. Holding a woman whose body was receptive to his every touch but whose mind was still enough of a mystery that he yearned only for more intimacy.

  There was no going back once you got a taste for it. Life. Forget the hyper intellect and the flawlessly logical thinking; that was all willingly sacrificed for the visceral emotional fuzziness of being alive. The flood of the senses. Maybe the contrast had made it feel special.

  Now the muted in-between, just the fading dreams.

  If this was the Kintra base, why had they kept him alive when there was a near perfect copy running around, infiltrating and undermining the best efforts of the B’tari?

  Yet this could be the worst of both worlds. Paralysed but with a mind intact. Trapped in reality.

  Something stirred in the corner, a figure. No ... not him? Roidon turned his gaze back to the dimly lit blue ceiling.

  ‘Roidon,’ came his own voice. ‘Don’t ignore me now. That won’t help matters at all.’ The figure, his own previous human form, loomed over him.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ he thought he replied. ‘You are are clearly but a figment of my imagination brought on by sensory deprivation.’

  ‘Or I could be another clone, courtesy of the Elusivers.’ That version grinned, somewhat menacingly: a contortion of him.

  ‘This is a waste of time. Get out of my mind.’

  ‘First you must leave this room.’

  ‘How do you suggest I do that?’

  ‘Err. By getting up and walking.’

  ‘This body does not function.’

  ‘Yes it does.’

  He tried lifting his head. Nothing. Proprioception almost non-existent.

  ‘Try a bit harder now.’

  The room tilted. Yes, he was moving. His tritanium-alloy torso rising from the couch, willed to life. An image of himself – the metal monster. The thing exists. I am the thing!

  His clone had vanished, at which point he felt once more to be in control. But had no idea where this is or how he got here.

  Another memory returning, unless a dream: being taken somewhere far away, not by something malign. They had saved him; his benefactors. For what? More tests?

  He got off the bed. And it was only then he discovered the restraining field. A pale blue aura roughly the shape of his body now flickered. He had overloaded it just with his strength. They didn’t trust him, yet they trusted their own security too much.

  Shall I be the monster – the impostor?

  He took a few staggering paces towards the door. He even thought he could hear the sound of servos whirring. Absurd; he was supposed to be mechanical perfection, the thing he most detested. But it may well serve him now.

  The exit – judging by the door’s recessed bulk – seemed to have a simple slide mechanism. The side panel: a hand-print and vascular topology reader. Apparently unhackable, they must have considered adequate security from inside.

  Roidon gave the door the hardest kick he could muster. It sent him flying back, slamming on the ground. He got up, seemingly unharmed. The door had a crack in it. This time he hit it with his palm. The crack increased. Repeated the action until a section broke clean away. He took a few seconds to dwell on the extreme force he must have used. The restraining field a gesture only to elicit anger; a gamble that they’d keep him contained.

  He emerged into a dimly lit corridor. As far as he could see, only a dull amber glow pervaded the long curving section. This area seemed to be isolated. Abandoned. Roidon still had a moment of dread that he’d been captured by the Kintra machines, and that they had his every move under close surveillance, just standing by to clamp down on his little transgression, as if a toddler had escaped its pen.

  But he kept walking. The corridor went on and on. Occasionally he would pass a door, with an unidentifiable security panel, knowing he would have to exert every effort to break through.

  Eventually he reached an end. A door presented before him, bringing to mind the Kintra base where he had been forced to make a choice about his existence and that of his other self. It certainly gave the lie to any notion of individuality. As if he could ever really be fooled. But like everyone, every sane sentient being, he wanted to hold to that very notion, to be convinced. Only, even now, he could hear in his mind the stilted tones of the B’tari Temporal Directive being quoted: ‘What defined you were your actions, not the fact of your being.’

  On this door there was not even a security panel, at least not one that was visible. Really it was just a rectangular recess. So again he kicked, one foot then the next. Alternating between them. This exit was not going to give so easily; not even a crack. Hadn’t anyone detected his presence here?

  After about five minutes Roidon felt himself tire. It was a type of fugue state. Everything seemed to recede. He sat on the hard shiny floor.

  How do I recover? Upon that thought a display came into his mind: a series of bars and graphs that for a few seconds didn’t make any sense, then he noticed one bar beginning to rise from a red to an amber. Just rest now, he thought. When the status bar had turned green he mentally ordered it away. No more floaty graphics, no more reminders.

  Another minute passed. And then the door slid open. The figure in padded military-style garb was clearly B’tari, holding some kind of weapon.

  Roidon just about managed to speak. ‘I do not wish to cause you any harm. How about you?’

  ‘Earth. English. Captured?’ The guard seemed nonplussed as if completely uninformed about Roidon’s imprisonment.

  ‘I’ve been held here as a prisoner. I need to speak to your commander.’

  The guard appeared to be in communication, nodding his head every so often. Then two others, heavily armed, emerged from that same section of corridor.

  ‘We will escort you to the commander,’ the first one announced.

  Roidon went along with them, whilst analyzing his possible options of escape, none of which looked promising; he was flanked by one guard each side and one behind. B’tari weapons were an unknown quantity to him now. And even though he had the clear advantage of reflex, was that really worth testing?

  ‘I’d be interested to know where this is,’ he said to no one in particular.

  ‘This is our central base,’ said the lead guard. ‘You will not be leaving here. But if you did, there would be no way to reunite with the machines.’

  Roidon did not bother to say anything in response.

  He was mildly surprised that they actually did end up in the commander’s office, or at least someone who announced themselves to be head of this base. />
  The treated pinewood panelled office looked inspired by Earth late twenty-first century design. What was it with the B’tari and their obsession with the blue planet? Roidon had to stop himself from laughing. The irony of a race considerably more advanced, and as such so careful not to contaminate the culture of other worlds.

  The commander, however, looked very traditionally B’tari; his face with that reptilian edge, as if the dinosaurs had survived to evolve on earth without mammal competition. He had the full naval garb of the white jacket and gold epaulets. Again the Earth influence.

  The guards still flanked him; he tried to pretend they were not there.

  ‘The eponymous Roidon Chanley,’ the commander boomed in clear English. ‘We’d almost given you up for dead.’

  ‘So you acknowledge my identity.’

  A smile formed. ‘In as much as our genetic and neural-print scans inform us.’

  ‘Then that other man who goes by my name. He is the impostor.’

  The commander shook his head. ‘Not as simple as that. He passes all of the tests as well.’

  ‘Well, naturally,’ Roidon muttered.

  ‘Then you see our dilemma. Who is the original?’

  ‘I began in an organic body; my brain was removed and placed in this machine.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve read the report. And you claim the other man is an alien – an Elusiver – transformed into you?’

  ‘That other version, however he started, is essentially me – I admit – but I think if you analyses deeply enough you’d find the subtle influence of the Elusivers.’

  ‘Conjecture, is it not?’

  ‘A reasonable hypothesis. The Elusivers espouse a more radical strategy.’

  ‘And how about you?’ The commander patted his desk once as if passing over a physical manifestation of his argument, to take up.