Drive Time

by Matt Wilkinson

  “I think they’d rather have that than be non-existent.”

  “Their mother won’t be around, and they’re strangers to me, they might find it tough, but we don’t really have a choice.”

  “Yeah, I think you had it right, we need help right now, and they’ll get used to your lack of memory. Your kids will have plenty of stories to tell you if nothing else. Maybe we can find a way for them to share those memories with you using the helmets.”

  “That would definitely be possible. We’ve used them in similar situations in the future.” Correct use of tense was now negotiable.

  “In what similar situations?”

  “Shared dreaming and telepathy experiments. They weren’t all that enjoyable, it can be uncomfortable having another person share your personal thoughts. I don’t think they’d want to participate in that. Do you think I should try and find their mother? Bring her in on what we’re doing? Then at least they’d have her around too.”

  “Well, you’d have to find her first, but it’s a possibility. What about your new one, Beth?”

  “I really like her, I think we could be really good together, but your evil twin said that this mystery wife and I were soul-mates. It’s early days, but I don’t know if I’ll have that with Beth, and what if I owe it to the kids to bring their mother back?”

  “They might just be happy to know she’s out there and alive. Plus, you can’t be sure if you’ve missed your chance with their mother, even if she’s still single, the circumstances of your meeting could change everything about how your lives intertwine.”

  “True. I suppose what will be, will be, even if what was being isn’t being anymore.”

  Simon let that sink in for a moment before saying “Sure,” with some uncertainty.

  “Let’s just see how things play out. We have to get the information from the other Simon first, and that’s not going to be easy.” He changed the subject. “Let’s get this talking pet thing made up, and I suppose we could make a start on the cloning pods too, there are two of us.”

  Simon still felt cautious when allowing Victor access to the drive — regardless of Future Spencer’s assurances — but since Victor had chosen to be on fabrication duty, he knew there was no risk involved. Victor had experience in building all of these devices thanks to his new memories so he could assemble them mostly from memory. Simon used their 3D printer to produce the relevant pieces while the nanobots created the small electronic components. Months worth of development and testing were skipped thanks to the information and tools at their disposal. This didn’t mean that Victor himself got to skip those hours, he’d already used them in production, he’d reset them only from the perspective that time is usually experienced by humans. Victor remembered those spent hours. He wondered how many more resets it would take before he and his friends had succeeded in their mission and hoped their window of opportunity before the catastrophe hit would suffer no more shrinkage.

  Chapter 29

  Following the completion of her merge, Spencer didn't feel quite as strange as she thought she might. The new memories were already hers, they didn’t feel out of place, so there was no feeling of discombobulation, though there was a sense of duality as Victor had described. This feeling was most likely a symptom of chronologically misaligned recollection, she remembered events from the future. Spencer also felt total relief in the knowledge that there was no subterfuge in their future selves’ intentions. She needn’t have worried, after all, and now future merge procedures would require little deliberation. The downside was that she now also had an accumulation of memories from years of fear and hiding that were also equally coherent, so much death and destruction. Despite this, the time drive was always there as an anchor of hope, it was just a shame that in Simon’s alternate future he had lost his tether to that anchor.

  She climbed from her chair and headed to where the men were absorbed in their work. They were assembling new prototypes, and she recognised the beginnings of a cloning pod and the talking pet collar that people had gone nuts for. If only those same people were as excited about the safety of their species as they were with the prospect of their pets putting their readily discernable thoughts into words. PRE-Innovations tried their hardest to turn the spoils of human apathy into it’s saving grace but money can’t buy everything. Saving humankind from their indifference to certain doom turned out to be one of those non-purchasable items. Although the planet itself was in no need of rescue, it seemed to enjoy the absence of the species intent on destroying its equilibrium. Nature swiftly took back control.

  “Your turn, Simon," Spencer said. “It might not be much assurance to you, but I now know I had nothing to worry about.”

  “I would have thought so, Vic here has been very well behaved. If you want to take over here, you can, you’ll know how to do this better than I do," he said, gesturing to the collar he was assembling.

  He took his place on the chair and strapped on his helmet.

  “The write is all cued up, you can just click start once it’s finished with my read, which should only be a few seconds, I backed up an hour ago.”

  “Yep, it’s done already. Watch the hands, just one click.” Spencer said.

  “I trust you, Spence. I look forward to this going better than the last write.” Simon said.

  Spencer clicked start and Simon sagged into the recliner.

  “Well, that’s him out of the way, time to get step one of our evil world domination plot underway," Victor said.

  “Very funny. I feel a little stupid now for thinking that there was something fishy going on.”

  “You were just being cautious.”

  “I know. I would think we’re out of the woods now. If we’re doing okay, I can’t see us going mental any time in the future. We have clear goals now if we don’t achieve them, we can just return to square one.”

  She began to piece together some of the parts that Simon had laid out on the desk.

  “How are you doing with the new memories?” she asked.

  “I’ve not really noticed any adverse effects. It’s like they were always there. Memories from a time that hasn’t happened yet are a little hard to process sometimes like I’m suddenly remembering something I forgot. I keep losing track of how things place in a regular chronology, but it only lasts a second, like when you wake up from a dream and have to adjust to reality. Sometimes I get absorbed in what I’m doing then panic a little when I realise I’m not hidden underground. I suppose it’s a bit like jet lag, it will just take some adjustment.”

  “I can see that it might feel like that, I’ve only been dealing with it for a few minutes, but there’s a part in the back of my mind that’s really nervous about being up here, it might be that the memories need time to settle into their new biological home. Kind of like an organ transplant, but less traumatic. I suppose that each new write will get easier, now we know what to expect.”

  “I would think so.”

  “So, you’re making a start on the cloning pod?”

  “Yeah, it can’t hurt.”

  “I thought you’d want the android first, you loved those things. Especially the one that you installed the Schwarzenegger voice mod on. You wouldn’t have finally made a decision, would you?”

  “Yeah, I think I’m going to do it. I was just saying to Simon that we do need all the help we can get, and they’re already well versed in what we’re doing. They’ll have some obstacles to overcome, but I think the fact that we’re one step closer to our goal should help them through it.”

  “We still need to get the information out of our prisoner.”

  “Simon seems to think that if we bribe him with a chance of his own clone, he might be more inclined to give it up.”

  “Do we want him running around in a new body?”

  “Maybe if we explain to him what we’re doing and how much further we’ve come, he’ll agree to help rather than working against us.”

  “We can hope. After all, we can’t pla
y jailer to him forever, it’s not right.”

  “He can’t feel the time pass in there, if anything it might be a blessing, he doesn’t age and can come out once it’s all solved. If he doesn’t agree to our terms, that is, if he does agree he’ll get parole earlier. I even suggested putting him in an android and limiting his movement, so we at least know we’ll be safe.”

  “It’s another possibility.”

  They worked in silence for a while. By the time Simon woke up, Spencer had finished assembling the pet accessory.

  “How’s it going?” he asked as he returned to the others.

  “The collar’s done, we’re making good headway on the pod. Feeling okay?”

  “Absolutely. It’s great to have so much new knowledge without spending any time on studying. Feel a bit anxious above ground, though.”

  “Tell me about it.” Victor and Spencer said in unison.

  “We were just talking about having a chat with your double and seeing if we can sweet talk him into telling us everything.”

  “I was thinking about that. If we fail at persuading him, we could run a search on his backup until we find something that’s a match for a DNA sequence. The quantum computer should be able to do it. The only problem is finding the location of their backups. That would be harder to find in his brain. He said that their DNA sequences were recorded directly to his brain, not necessarily in memory format, but just hidden in the backup code itself, that’s searchable, but memories aren’t anywhere near as easy.”

  “If we put him in an android, would we be able to force him to tell us? He’s hurting a pair of humans by not telling us.”

  “Yes, that’s right, but the mind inside is not accessible by the droid. His consciousness will be in control of the android, similar to how he can control the speakers and mic, but the connection to the machine doesn’t go the other way.”

  “I know that Simon, I’m not Present Victor anymore, I’m Present Victor Plus. Couldn’t we amend the droid so that it could?”

  “We could, but I’m not sure we should. It might cause corruption of his mind’s data, or it could unhinge him further if he feels that his mind is no longer his own.”

  “If we did it right, it would be like using the truth serum, not really that invasive.”

  “Well, I suppose we could amend his prison software so that it does the same thing, but the android does have the added advantage of showing him we’re willing to allow him more freedom. I don’t know how long it would take me to code a virtual sodium pentothal though, possibly months.”

  “Let’s just put all this on the back-burner and just have a conversation with him first," Spencer said. “We may be over-complicating things, maybe he’ll be more agreeable than we think.”

  Chapter 30

  Simon booted the virtual prison and switched the backup’s status from idle to live. The alternate, virtual Simon should now have audiovisual capabilities the group.

  “Simon? Can you see and hear us?” Simon asked for confirmation.

  “Of course.” the simulated voice spoke in reply. “Are you here to offer me a new body? I assume you decided that the information I hold is more important than your objection towards letting me do what has to be done.”

  “Well, you’re half right. We wanted to give you the opportunity to work with us in putting things right, our way.”

  “All you’ve succeeded in doing so far is making things worse, my way is foolproof.”

  “Why don’t you explain your way to us? We never got to hear the plan, we just know that we once died because of our opposition to it.” Victor said.

  “Your stubborn devotion to an overly sentimental morality, more like.”

  “Okay, if you say so, just tell us the plan," Spencer said, growing bored.

  “I was going to place a backdoor into the software that controls the medical nanobots. At some point in the future, everyone will have drones in their system keeping them healthy, it’s a cheaper option than our current drug reliant health system. Big Pharma will no longer have control and drones are cheap enough to donate to other countries. Once this happens, I plan to have the drones execute an order to make three-quarters of the population sterile, thereby forcing the population into decline.”

  “Okay, I don’t know if you lost your love of fiction somewhere along the way, but that’s not a new idea as a base concept," Victor said. “Various novels and movies have used that very idea, whether it’s a virus or a purge of some kind, it’s not very original. You could at least own up to the plagiarism and stop acting so smug about your brilliant plan.”

  “Originality wasn’t a prime concern.”

  “And which quarter gets to keep their fertility?” Spencer asked.

  “Ah, it didn’t take you long to get our point contention. I planned on making a list of the gene pools that would contribute most to the new society.”

  “Bingo! And this is why we have to decline your most generous offer.” Victor said.

  “Which quarter would you prefer? The quarter that’s no use other than to serve you food?”

  “If this were to be a plan we could agree to, which it won’t be, we’d make the quarter random. Ethnic cleansing never sat too well with history.”

  “It’s not an ethnic cleansing, the choices have nothing to do with race, culture or religion and no-one is dying, they’re just being denied the opportunity to procreate. The possible offspring that might have lived in another timeline would never know one way or the other, they can’t feel oppressed or mistreated in any way, as they would never have existed.”

  “It’s still not right, Simon. We can’t play God in that way.”

  “We are playing God every damn day we use this machine! What difference does this make? You have absolutely no idea how many people you’ve already denied existence, there is no way of knowing how you’ve affected the future. Did your future selves ever conduct a census before deciding to allow you to meddle with the timeline? No, there are probably many instances of lives deleted, probably way more than you’ve conjured out of nowhere. If you’re so resistant to playing God, you’d better shut this machine off right now and give in to the inevitable destruction of everything we’ve achieved as a species up to the present.”

  The three friends leaned back in their chairs, thinking about Simon’s plan for a moment. Would it be right for them to mould the human race in this way if it were their only option for a safe future? They looked at each other, aware that the same train of thought was running through each of their minds. Victor was first to shake his head. Spencer smiled, she’d been waiting for their response and was glad that Victor was the first to choose the right path. Simon also shook his head with a contemplative sigh.

  “It might seem like our only option, Simon," Victor said to the computer duplicate. “But we would deserve to be among the deleted if it was the one we chose. It would be the first step towards a society that believes those dealt a better hand in their DNA are the ones who deserve life most. Even if we had no morals, there’s no way that the population would be blind to the pattern of those who’ve been spared the sterilisation, they’d see that there was a human hand involved. We’d start a war between the fertile and the infertile, even though the fertile were blameless. The sterile would outnumber the productive by three to one. What would happen to your chosen few then? Also, if you’re sparing those who you decide will have worthy children, who will ‘serve you food’, as you put it? Do you think a Nobel prize winner will be willing to do that? Who will provide the manual labour in future generations if your super race is busy with the work you find more important?”

  “We’d have androids and nanobots to spare us the manual labour.”

  “What a warm, inviting society you have planned, Simon. I can see that your recluse lifestyle has taught you everything you need to know about the best things in life.” Spencer said. She turned to the real Simon. “No offence.” Simon shrugged.

  “So, now that we know you have a fir
m ‘no’ concerning your master plan is there no compromise we can come to?” Victor asked. “I wouldn’t ask for a random sterilisation either since we’d still be declaring ourselves gods. Don’t say we already are again, you know this would be different, we’d be directly meddling with people’s lives. Though, you could get a new body in exchange for trying to help us with our plan...”

  “And what plan is that? No plan? To keep repeating the same actions, expecting a different result?”

  “...or we can place you in an android and give you limited access to the building. A prison somewhat less enjoyable than the relaxing stasis you’re currently being treated to.”

  “Those are rather tempting offers, offers that I’ll give serious consideration. I do have a counter offer that I’ll find a lot more agreeable since I’ll be walking out of here in a new body with zero obligations to any of you.”

  The three biologically sentient beings in the room weren’t stupid, they knew that Simon was about to make them an offer that was not going to be to their liking in the slightest, and from his tone, they knew it was probably going to be something that they would have trouble denying him. They looked at each other anxiously, preparing for the worst.

  “I can tell by your silence, and the look you all share right now, that I have your attention.”

  “What did you do, Simon?”

  “Well, as you know, I have the knowledge you are yet to acquire regarding reaching obsolete timelines. Remember, that I took one of your spare photon boxes before I left you with the guests inside your skull? Well, I knew that box would eventually be connected to my timeline. I prepared for this before I even evacuated the future, I left some very special software running on my drive before the journey to your present. Its purpose was to search for a ghost signal created by the photon box I stole in this reality, effectively giving me a way to send information forward to my time, even once it was deleted. Only up to the moment I left, of course, but it came in very useful for setting up an insurance policy. You know, in my reality, once mankind fell, it left telecommunications facilities open for data mining. No one was there to protect the information, and even if there was, why would they bother? The system no longer worked and no one was around to use it if it did. I could have hacked the data from this reality, but with access to my quantum computer in my own reality, it made things so much more speedy and efficient. I must say, Victor, it’s quite an achievement to find such a good looking girl who also shares your hobbies. She’s not quite Sarah, Vic, but she’s a valid enough compromise.”