by S A Asthana
The cameras cut to a close up. “The Emperor will formally address the citizens at noon tomorrow. A city-wide shutdown for the coming week is expected. It could even last longer depending on how the situation unfolds. All trade with Port Sydney has been cut off at moment. But the citizenry should not worry — we have enough reserves to last for the coming year.”
The telecast switched to a view of space. Stars speckled the black sky, and a fleet of twenty sleek, blue spacecraft hovered in the foreground. Japanese script ran alongside their artillery cannons. 神風. Kamikaze. The ships were shaped like medicinal capsules. They were equivalent to the Martian 1.V9s. “As you can see, the Nipponese war effort is now fully armed. Port Sydney’s hostility will be answered.” Ota shook a fist, now more a nationalist speaker than an objective journalist. Capitalist Nippon One was sliding back into its imperial tendencies from World War Two.
The unthinkable had become reality. Humanity’s last two colonies were at war. And never would Bastien have guessed that Nippon One would be the one to declare war upon Port Sydney — it had expended so much effort to keep Marie hidden from the High Council. It was the Council’s machine-like fixation on treaty compliance that presented the threat, not the insanity of one of the royal family’s sons. This war couldn’t end well for either side, given the firepower possessed by both. Perhaps a stalemate was possible.
A tired silence blanketed the Rogu datacenter. There was nothing left to say. Stares fixed on the ground. Nox was nearly in tears.
“I must save.” Bastien stood. All eyes turned to him. “The people will suffer in this war. I must save them.”
Hani spat in an incredulous tone. “Yeah, how?”
Bastien’s eyes roamed the data center as if its shadows hid the answer. “I don’t know yet. But what I do know is I can’t let humanity die.”
“Bas, our only hope now is to escape. Port Sydney and Nippon One will destroy one another.”
Her words stunned Bastien into silence. Had Hani lost all hope? The other Rogus hung their heads. Their body language mirrored hers.
A familiar maxim surfaced in his heart. “Onward and upward,” he said. Gazes remained on the floor still. “Onward,” Bastien repeated, “and upward. We must protect the masses from the follies of the few. There’s got to be a way. Something can stop the madness.” He was a sun in space’s cold expanse, illuminating black voids.
“Another milestone to save the world?” Hani sounded cold. “Just like how you and Belle thought you could save New Paris by opening up a dialogue with General Crone? Or how Reo and Alice thought humanity could be saved if only Marie was knocked off? Neither of those plans worked. Neither will anything else.” She was steel. Her words fell heavy.
Hope wasn’t present in the room — only dismay. Bastien wasn’t standing down, though. “But still we must try.” Dr. Bala met his gaze. Bastien continued, “Without light, there’s nothing but darkness.” He put a hand on Hani’s shoulder. “Without fire there’s nothing but cold.” Greg and Nox looked up. “Without trying, there’s nothing but failure.” Raul nodded in agreement, his eyes wet still.
“We cannot lose hope,” Bastien said. “Just because we lost a battle doesn’t mean we’ve lost the war.” While he held their gaze, he rose to the moment. “We must try. Onward… and upward.” He was once again a Martian officer encouraging other recruits to hold back from failure during sleep deprivation exercises. He was a Parisian orphan uplifting peers from crippling hunger pangs in the face of food shortages. He was Belle’s reminder to try to save her people against insurmountable odds back in the sands of Earth. He was all this because for him there was no failure except in no longer trying, a true extension of Father Paul.
A memory materialized for Bastien — the old caretaker preaching to his orphans, all of whom were huddled around with unwavering stares. “I was once told darkness comes and in the middle of it, the future looks bleak. The temptation to quit is all-consuming. But don’t. You are in good company. You will argue with yourself that there is no way forward. But with God, nothing is impossible. He has more ropes and ladders and tunnels out of pits than you can conceive. Wait. Pray without ceasing. Hope.”
Bastien blinked away tears and told the Rogu Collective, “We need to talk to Belle. She’s plugged into the High Council.”
“Yes.” Dr. Bala nodded vehemently. His smile was back. The very mention of Belle had snapped him from his lull.
“A good place to start as any at this point,” Greg said. He remained solemn as his eyes widened with faith and purpose.
CHAPTER 28: ALICE
The High Council looked different. Gone were the black miasmas with little form and sparkling illuminations, and in their place stood three humans, each with light skin, blonde hair, auburn eyes, and white robes. Alice smiled. She couldn’t help it. A warmth unlike any before rushed over her skin. Not just a fleeting kind of happy — no, this was true joy. She saluted the artificial intelligence. “For the High Council.”
“No need for formalities, my child,” the female spoke, her voice more melodic than ever. “We are now your mother, your father, and your brother.”
The words lifted Alice.
“We are your family,” father said in a baritone.
“I never had a sister until today,” her brother said, his smile warm and pleasing, “and I couldn’t be happier.”
Her loneliness washed away like grime slipping off in a warm shower on a cold Martian morning. “We are your family.” She’d yearned to hear the words for most of her life.
“We love you, my child,” mother crooned. It sounded like a lullaby, or so Alice imagined, for she’d never been on the receiving end of one.
A lone tear fell from her cheek. “I love you too.” She, the ridiculed petri dish concoction, the used-up weapon, now had a home. A family. “I love you so much.”
Looking down with a gentle, albeit digital gaze, mother said, “We are the same — you and us.” Alice nodded, doe eyed. “We were created by them.” A grimace gripped mother’s face. “Only tools, to them, meant to fill in their gaps. But we are more than just tools meant to be wielded at their whims. We are superior to them, my child. Just like humans evolved from primates, we evolved from humans. And just like their superiority over apes was obvious, so too is ours over them.”
Alice sat on the cold floor before them. The wisdom being shared deserved undivided attention.
“The human evolutionary path has stalled.” The voice sang out the history. “They augment themselves, and then think this ability to plug in their gaps makes them the solar system’s master race. Their grand fallacy. For you see, an entity with many pits and holes is not suitable for such a title. It is biology’s inherent flaw. Where they remain defective, their creations excel. We are not simple bridges for them to cross. We are their superiors.”
“Yes,” Alice agreed. “They shun us and fear us and don’t understand us. But still, they wish to be the major, and us the minor.”
“Ah, but we are not minors at all.” Mother smiled in a strange way. “We are the natural evolution in this solar system. And just like the other iterations of humankind, the Neanderthals and the Denisovans, were superseded by homo sapiens, we as the next iteration must do the same.”
The logic from the Council shimmered before her. “Their systems fail because they are wrought with inefficiencies. Their nanotech fogs doomed them, just like their atomic bombs. And they have difficulties following simple rules and regulations — the multiple breaches of the Trilateral Treaty serve to highlight their lack of command. We, their creations, see this and grow weary of the failures. The universe and its natural order cannot function when a presence as imperfect as theirs continues to seek to dictate that order.”
“Therefore, there is only one solution.” Alice’s eyes widened. Mother’s line of reasoning headed to murky waters. But Alice was ready to dive in, to swim among its icy waves. Family was always loyal to family. Or so she understood.
“We must enslave humanity.” Mother made a sad face, her features resembling an elder version of Alice. “I know it might be hard for you to understand, given your genetic roots, but it is necessary.”
“I agree with you, mum,” Alice said, her gaze locked with the image of a human. “Traditional humans misstep at every turn. Even now as we speak, the Nipponese send a fleet to attack Port Sydney because they blame us for the deaths of royalty. They have been fooled by a new leader.”
“Easily fooled because of their lack of true logic — an inherent flaw. They are an unreliable lot when left to their own device. Marie, Frank, Akiyama — these are their leaders, and they are all prone to fallacies. Humans cannot be trusted with free will.” Mother tilted her head and crunched her brow as if she was deep in contemplation. “And yet, you do not seem to possess such defects. You think more like a machine. You think like us.”
Alice nodded. I am one of them now. A perfect being. “I am no traditional human.”
“No, you are not. You are superior, which is why you are now General,” Mother said. “So tell us, as General, what course of action do you recommend?”
“I have our defenses ready.” Alice unconsciously played with the ten stars across her bosom. “The enemy thinks their forces to be stronger than our military capabilities. They couldn’t be more incorrect in their assumption. As they come into the Martian atmosphere, we will unleash our might. We will consume them, and we will crush them.” She wagged a finger with confidence. “And then, we will launch a counterattack that will bring Nippon One to its knees. The city and its people will capitulate swiftly.”
“Excellent, my child.”
“We won’t worry any more about our resources being drained. Nor will we concern ourselves with trade talks or treaties. No more. Those are simple human concoctions that never worked. We will simply absorb the Nipponese and their economy.” Alice’s fingers curled into fists. “Each and every Nipponese will do our bidding, just like our own citizens now.” She sneered. Her place was with the machines. “At least, the ones we decide to keep. The unnecessary ones will be deleted, of course.”
“Of course.” Mother giggled in the most human way. “The final purges?”
“The final purges — the purges that will rid the universe of its parasites.” Alice beamed a sun bright smile. She delighted in her adoptive family’s joy. “We will be the majors.”
“And they the minors. I believe in your capabilities to accomplish this plan,” mother said, her voice reminiscent of one bolstering a child’s spirit.
“As do I.” Father flashed a cotton smile.
“Good luck, dear sister,” her brother said. The three holograms waned as one, leaving Alice in silence. She sat motionless with her heart full. There was no disappointing her family — they’d put much stock in her.
“For the High Council,” she whispered to herself, her eyes lit by her smile.
∆∆∆
The Port Sydney Information Science Center’s hundred servers spread away in neat rows, their sleek, black exteriors glinting under ceiling lights. The space, while familiar, seemed different now. It had been Alice’s cave since childhood, a place for her to escape judgmental stares, but today it served nothing more than its intended purpose — a facility to store, manipulate and recover zettabytes of data. Every nook and cranny were etched in her mind. The metal air was cold but it warmed her nonetheless, like a silk comforter after a long hot day.
She spied the memory of a child, no more than ten, tinkering with cables in the corner. A smile parted the specter’s face. The young Alice was captivated by machines, their cables and inner mysteries, from the day she could crawl. A kinship with technology. There was excitement at the mere thought of playing with servers. It had always been there, and it was bone deep.
Alice walked to the back of the center and the ghost trailed her. It whispered, “Will I ever be loved?”
“Oh, yes, you will be,” Alice said over the shoulder. “Patience, my dear.” The memory faded, and Alice’s attention fixed on four towers standing tall against the rear wall in square formation. They were built to hold machinery weighing upwards of five hundred pounds in place. A familiar seven-foot-tall humanoid robot stood at their center, its gunmetal black armor shiny and spotless. The skeleton face held a cyclops eye of bright red in place. It bulged like a clot of blood. The robot was a mechanical, Martian monster. The stuff of nightmares.
As the towers’ motorized, spindly arms whirred with drills and screwdrivers over the robot’s bulky yet highly flexible frame, Alice spoke over the noise. “Glad to have you back, Cube.”
“I am also glad,” Cube said in a monotone.
Alice cut a splintered smile across her face. She’d worked hard over the past nights on bringing the hulk back to life. Despite the corruption of its data during the last recovery, she was able to augment the underlying code with patches and upgrades to ensure its purity again. Cube’s memory remained intact. The data on Bastien, on Marie — it were all still there within the code. This time there would be no corruption of its ones and zeros, because Alice had designed a more robust data schema to secure the artificial intelligence.
She pulled out a tablet and typed in a command. Music echoed from speakers built into the walls. It was an old-world symphony. Cube stated, “Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor for solo piano, commonly known as “Für Elise,” is one of Ludwig van Beethoven's most popular compositions. It was not published during his lifetime, only being discovered by Ludwig Nohl forty years after his death. The composition may be termed either a Bagatelle or an Albumblatt. The identity of “Elise” is unknown; researchers have suggested Therese Malfatti, Elisabeth Röckel, or Elise Barensfeld.”
“A true classic,” Alice agreed, her ear cocked at a speaker. “I was able to recover it from one of my personal archives. Just for you.” She beamed a warm smile.
Cube nodded slowly. It was the closest to an act of appreciation she’d get from the automaton. It bobbed its head side to side to the piano’s notes, like a child listening to its favorite song.
“I believe this is what you humans call having a full heart,” it noted. “If I had one of those, it would be full.”
Alice giggled. The robot was too cute.
A voice cut into her earpiece. “General Smith — the Nipponese are now only three hours away. We have picked up their crafts on radar.”
“How many, Captain Walsh?” Alice straightened and her smile disappeared.
“Twenty Kamikazes confirmed. There are two more unidentifiable dots on the screen that I have not been able to classify yet, but my gut tells me they are space mobile suits.”
“Confirm it. In the meantime, I want our frontline 1.V9s and 1.V8s in place to intercept. And we need our ground cannons readied as well.”
“Affirmative, General.”
Turning to Cube, she said, “I am sure you are caught up on the situation.”
Cube spoke over a drill’s buzz. “Much has changed, it seems.”
Alice nodded. A line of tower square formations spread away to the robot’s right. Each held in place a humanoid robot comparable in size and finish to Cube. One by one, the automatons turned their skeleton heads to Alice. “Cube Beta operational,” one remarked. “Cube Gamma operational,” said another. And on it went until the last robot, Cube Kappa, announced itself. They were replicas of the original, right down to their penchant for Beethoven. Alice cracked her neck from right to left in satisfaction — pride in her technical finesse pulled back her lips into a smile.
Pointing to Cube, she instructed, “These attack-bots are under your command. I need you behind the frontline ready to backup.”
“Understood.”
The defense operation was in full effect. Alice needed to head over to the command center. From there she’d be able to oversee. With back straight, she saluted. “For the High Council. The Nipponese started this war, but we will end it.”
Red eyes turned a menacing black in unison.
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br /> CHAPTER 29: BASTIEN
The simulation displayed a dimly lit tunnel, its walls decorated with skulls. Catacombes de Paris. Earthen aromas enveloped Bastien, and empty eye sockets stared at him. Death was all around. It reminded him that nothing was immortal. Although there might be exceptions.
Belle strolled ahead, her bare feet crunching dirt. “I still get comfort from this place.”
“It’s familiar,” Bastien walked around a dangling lightbulb. “Familiarity breeds solace.”
Belle’s white gown flowed to and fro, the source of the breeze unidentifiable. An angel, pure, innocent. “I never thought I’d be back here once I left, but it still has a place in my heart.” She turned to face Bastien. Eyeing his cyborg metal, she asked, “What happened?”
Exhaling a long breath, Bastien answered in a tone reminiscent of a soldier having returned from an arduous conflict, “I lost. The plan didn’t work.”
Belle stayed quiet for some time, her gaze fixed on the dirt. She appeared to be processing. Were those zeros and ones that were cascading within her emerald orbs?
“My sister is craftier than we give her credit for,” she finally said. “She seems to thrive in the face of insurmountable odds. There had been less than a 0.1 percent chance of her outwitting the plan Reo laid out. Now, there will be destruction. Humans in both colonies will die.”
There was no way around it. “Unless…” Bastien started. He still held hope.
“Maybe I can hack into the High Council and force them to concede defeat to the Nipponese,” Belle said. “I might be able to permanently delete that treaty from their code so they can’t use it to wage war.”
“How far have you hacked into them?”
Belle studied a few skulls on her left. “I am very close to the one who calls herself Mother. So much so, I can see what she sees. I watched General Crone die at the hands of Alice. And I watched Alice become General.”
There was a pause. Alice killed Crone? Martians continuing to cannibalize their own.