“The drones were a distraction, Stan," Simon said, spitting their derisive name for this deranged version of himself. “But they were also our ace in the hole. They helped spread a virus to your army.”
“That’s impossible! Their software is impenetrable.”
“It’s not their software that was under attack," Victor said. “Turns out that androids are closer to humans than we thought, even if they’re not biological, they’re still as susceptible to a physical virus as we are. The viruses we’re prone to are biological, like us, it stands to reason that a machine’s virus would also be mechanical. Our drones dropped nanobots while they distracted you with their recycling beams. Your androids circuits were shorted, and their software was rewritten using the nanobots as conduits.”
”We suspected that you had eyes on us back at HQ,” Spencer continued. “So we communicated via our cranial implants. You’re not as omnipresent as you think, you weren’t with us in the future, and you knew nothing of our new found telepathy. Can you not now see to reason? You’re not the deity you assume yourself to be.”
“I must admit, I’m both disappointed and impressed. I suppose my pride was responsible for my downfall. No matter, I’ll eradicate the emotion in my next patch. For now, I’ll just have to do this myself.”
The monstrous Stan-bot began to run at the team, crushing turncoat androids under his feet. The rest of the androids had prepared for this, they leapt at his legs and began climbing his massive form. The PRE-Innovations team ran for the cover of the nearest buildings, which were on the opposite side of the four-lane road, a good few seconds sprint away. A few seconds was all the giant android would need to reach them, but the climbing androids would help slow his advance, they were now swarming all over his chassis, attempting to separate his parts. Some were trying to enter his head and shut his primary control circuit down. He was swatting wildly at them, and their work was almost fruitless.
“Don’t let them wreck him," Simon shouted as he ran wheezily. “We need to find out where he stores all the minds he took. Just get an android in there, and we’ll find where to place the nanobot virus.”
“Fingers crossed that happens before we’re in there with him," Victor called back over his shoulder.
Once they reached the buildings, they ran through a side street too small for Stan to follow. After running across the next street, they turned back to see Stan’s hulking form crash straight into the buildings they’d put between him and them. The giant android kicked at the buildings, trying to demolish a path through while continuing to swipe at the swarming androids.
“This isn’t going to work," Victor told the rest of them.
One of their drones had been shadowing their movements and currently hovered over their heads. Victor tapped on his tablet, and the device gently placed a porta-portal on the ground beside them.
“We can’t run Dad, he’s right," Jules said.
“Maybe so, but I’m not running.” He allowed the portal to expand, started it up and ran through its surface. Stan was almost upon them when Victor’s voice could be heard calling from beside the Thames, next to the first porta-portal.
“Hey, dickhead! You lost one! Herding teleporters makes herding cats look easy.”
Stan turned to face Victor. “You bought yourself mere seconds, Victor. More than I can say for your friends.”
Stan turned to the rest of the group — who were now well within reach — dropped to a crouch, blocked their escape route with one robotic hand and scooped them up with his other, throwing them unceremoniously into his mouth where a SARA recycler lay in wait to disintegrate them. They vanished and entered Stan’s system as data to sort, along with the rest of their species. He could wait for their sorting, he had Victor to deal with first.
Victor couldn’t see his friends as they were gathered from the ground, but he had a direct line of sight on them as they were tossed down Stan’s throat since the mega-android towered over the buildings between them. He was already running towards Westminster Palace and hence unable to see Stan turn and give chase, but he could feel the ground shake as the vast machine gained on him. Victor barely got back to the bridge before painfully running headlong into Stan’s giant metal hand and was lifted off his feet. He was losing consciousness as Stan raised his damaged body towards the mouth of the android, but he managed to sound out four words before he slipped away.
“Choke on me, arsehole.”
Victor passed out before he hit the SARA and separated into billions upon billions of protons, electrons and neutrons.
Chapter 69
Stan had placed his physical form into sleep mode, conserving energy while he entered the virtual world of his software. His digital avatar replicated Simon’s physical appearance, but with fuller hair and a trimmer frame.
“Let’s get this over with.” He said as six members of the PRE-Innovations team appeared before him. “I want you to experience the last moments of your individuality before I allow you to partake in the purity of the shared consciousness I engendered. Think of it as the palette cleanser before the most impeccable of meals.”
The group were taking in their surroundings, and each other, with curiosity. Stan’s imagination was on display in all its glory. They were floating in a black space, standing on an invisible floor. Stan had given himself an extra foot on the tallest of them, which was no surprise. What did surprise them was their number. Simon wasn’t here, they knew that Stan saw him as unnecessary, but they were missing another member.
“Would any of you like to speak before you join with us? It will enhance my enjoyment of the moment when you admit to your misguided predilection to the old ways.” Stan continued. “I’m sure there… What? What’s wrong with all of you? You look like you’ve never seen a God before.” He chuckled at his own joke, genuinely believing that their looks of curiosity were due to his imagined divinity.
“This place could use some interior decoration," James said. “Maybe a few mirrors, they give the illusion of more space, it would add to the infinity theme you seem to have going on here, more black void for your buck. Oh, and they’re also useful for checking your appearance.”
The group laughed, which confused Stan, had they taken early leave of their senses? Maybe their utter failure affected their sanity in ways he hadn’t foreseen? As they continued to laugh, he became aware that there seemed to be something was wrong with his vision, but he couldn’t put his finger on what that was. A few moments later he realised what was missing, something that should be right at the centre of his perspective, his nose. He narrowed his eyes in frustration and conjured a mirror in the space before him. He almost jumped back in surprise when he saw the visage that stared back at him. His face was gone. In its place there hung what looked like a giant animated emoji, just eyes and a mouth on a flat, yellow generic face.
“Just a rendering bug, I’m sure," Stan said.
“No.” A voice echoed all around them. “That’s my friend’s face; you’re not fit to wear it. I’m giving it back to him.”
Simon appeared with the rest of the group and looked at everyone, puzzled.
“What is this?” Stan screamed. “You will pay for this sacrilege. Is that you Victor? Maybe I don’t need you to join my legion. I shall make an example of you to the rest of your friends here.”
“Give it a try.” Victor’s voice said as he gradually faded into existence next to Stan, grin first like a Cheshire Cat.
“Begone.” Stan made a dramatic stage magician gesture with a flick of his wrist. His face would have shown more significant confusion if it’s simplicity would have allowed.
“You’re not the only one who can play games with someone’s sense of time, Stan. Your overconfidence let you down again. You saw that my plan to run through the porta-portal and pull your attention away from my friends was ineffective, you were so caught up in your own superiority that you forgot to ask yourself why I didn’t know it would be ineffectual. You see, I did know that I coul
dn’t outrun you, but I thought that I might be able to outsmart you, regardless of how impossible you thought that might be. The journey looked instantaneous, but after I ran through the portal, I actually spent several hours back at HQ devising a new virus just for you.”
“That’s impossible; my form is fully firewalled, impenetrable from the outside.”
“But I’m not outside, am I?”
“Your mind…” Stan said with a resigned frustration.
“That’s right. I embedded the virus into the code of my mind backup, then rewrote it to my brain. You fell for the same ruse twice in as many minutes.”
“No!”
“Yes! It’s true, you’re out of moves. I already found where you kept the minds you stole.”
“Good for you, enjoy your world of sentient androids. I have been usurped as their leader, but my plan is still a success.”
“Whatever, Stan, it’s time to say goodbye. Say goodbye everyone.”
The group smiled and said their derisive goodbyes to Stan while waving, some slower to respond than others — due to their sheer surprise at the turn of events.
Stan’s form began to break down into voxel cubes from the bottom up, each cube dropped and disappeared moments after hitting the invisible floor. He was still screaming in anger and frustration when he was just a floating smiley face.
“I’ll be back!” he yelled.
“Not if we delete you," Victor said.
Stan’s mouth was silenced when it broke down, but his eyes gave a cartoon glare in Victor’s direction until there was nothing left of him.
The group started at the space that Stan had previously occupied for a moment, then Victor turned and grinned at them.
“A little theatrical, that last bit, you brilliant bastard," Zack said.
“Are we really going to delete him?” Spencer asked.
“He’s a threat to the whole of humanity," Simon said.
“Is forgetting what’s humane a threat to humanity?”
The group remained quiet.
“We’ll be more cautious next time.” She continued.
The group sighed in resignation and respect for Spencer’s steadfast morality. Ever the superhero.
“Right. Let’s see what we need to do to sort this mess out.” Victor said as he and the group vanished from the virtual space.
∆ ∆ ∆
The group popped out of the portal at HQ.
“I took the liberty of unlocking the quantum computer and connecting Stan’s portal network to ours," Victor said. “We also have access to his data storage from here.”
“If he has plenty of space on his drive, the erased data may still be recoverable," Simon said.
“The storage is physically huge in its real-world location. He had it underground, below where we first found him. There’s a chance.” Victor said.
“Let’s get to it then," Beth said. “Maybe it’s as obvious as a recycle bin icon.”
The group worked tirelessly, writing software to automatically search for recoverable data on Stan’s drive. Their hope was shaken when they ran the finished software, and it turned up nothing.
“He purged all of the data by the look of it," Simon said.
“So that’s it?” Beth asked. “We’re the last biological humans on the planet?”
“Placing their minds in androids might be a worst case scenario, we can randomise new bodies for them virtually, build them using SARA, then insert their minds.”
“But everyone will look different, they won’t recognise themselves in a mirror. Won’t that be a strain psychologically?” Beth asked.
“Well, it might be the second to worst case scenario. I don’t think we’re out of other options. I have a theory to work on, I’m going to need some quiet time.”
Everyone knew what that meant and immediately left his presence without another word. Simon had produced magic before, they all went to their leisure activities hoping that the power of positive thinking would help him find that magic once again.
∆ ∆ ∆
A few hours later Simon called them back into his area.
“Eureka!” he shouted as they returned.
“How long have you been waiting to say that? It looked awkward.” Victor said.
“You took longer to come down the stairs than I expected.”
“I take it you saved the human race?” Spencer asked.
“Of course. I had a theory that there may be a copy of a person’s DNA within their consciousness.”
“Really?” Victor said. “What led you to that decision?”
“The mind and body have always had a connection to one another; I just wanted to find how deep the connection was, to see if there might be an imprint of the DNA in the consciousness somewhere. The mind controls the body; it stands to reason that the mind also indicates how the body should grow. The genetic plans for limbs are the same, regardless of whether they’re for an arm or a leg, no one really knows what how it’s decided which becomes which. I theorised that the consciousness has a hand in that; therefore it might also have copies of the genetic plans hidden away. I made a small program to search the mind data for anything that appeared to fit a DNA string. I ran it on my backup, and it found the code, I repeated it with each of yours, and the same happened. We just need to do the same for almost seven and a half billion more people.”
“Easy!” Victor said, not without the expected irony.
“I’m sure the QC will cope with the task and can do so relatively quickly. DNA is just the start, though, we’ll need to run a simulation on every individual’s DNA, grow a virtual clone and then merge their mind with their body data inside the simulation, then they can be recreated.”
“Recreated with improvements," Spencer said.
“Yes, we can’t do this discreetly, everyone who’s lost a limb will find they have it back once we return them. The process will also remove any genetic disorders in the bodies since the simulation might not recreate them in the exact same way they appeared in the original. Genetic disorders cause a localised butterfly effect that would manifest each time differently.”
“Stan kept a record of abduction location in the metadata of each person’s file, presumably so he would be able to find a particular individual more efficiently, so it’s possible to spit them out of a drone right where they were taken,” Victor said. “People will absolutely know that an unexplained event has occurred, due to the… well… regrown limbs, missing time and stuff. They might assume we were visited by benevolent aliens.”
“We just need seven and a half billion drones to return them all at once, we better get disintegrating stuff for the particles," James said.
“Stan has a stockpile of osmium that he collected during the abduction, so we have enough for the humans, but we’ll need more for the drones," Victor said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there were enough refuse in the world for all seven point five billion, more than enough maybe, but I have a more efficient way. We can manipulate time, as long as we keep track of shadows. If we create a smaller group of drones, send them through one of Stan’s portals to reintegrate the population at that location, then send them back through the portal to another spot while sending them back in time, we can return every human on earth instantaneously, from a chronologically linear perspective. Just like Santa visiting every child in the world in one night.”
“That doesn’t sound easy," Beth said.
“I said efficient, not easy.”
“Yes. Yes, you did.”
“The best thing is, Stan’s portal network is extensive, he placed them within miles of each other. The drones would put a portal at certain intervals while they took the people.”
“I was going to ask about that," Simon said. “That’s very convenient.”
“Not for the people," Victor said sarcastically.
“Looks like we have a plan, let's get on it," Spencer said. “We have a better world to create.”
Epilogue
; The PRE-Innovations team stood in a newly created enormous, open room beneath HQ, watching Simon as he made final adjustments to their new immense new device.
They were accompanied by several leaders — and their representatives — from around the world. In the month since Stan’s attempted planetary conquest, PRE-Innovations had sought to explain the situation to select dignitaries, so the world didn’t descend into anarchy while trying to come to terms with the unexplained phenomenon. Victor addressed the observers.
“What you see before you is the result of years of work by our team. Years that were shortened considerably due to the use of our secret technology.”
“Secret technology I’m still not sure I trust.” The British Prime Minister said.
“We’ve been over this, Prime Minister. Your scientists have been shown everything, and they endorse what we have, we’ve worked tirelessly to correct what we inadvertently put in motion, we accept our part. You paid a visit to our future personally, you know how this works out for all of us. Paradise. This machine will erase any errors along the way, including that unfortunate worldwide event. Do you look forward to the better world we’ve created for our species, or are you reluctant to let go of your defunct position of authority and give the power back to the people? We can find you a new planet to govern if you think you can find enough people to follow you there.”
The Prime Minister became silent and glanced at the ground for a second.
“Okay, if we’re done with the interruptions, I’ll continue. In the future, we discover how to harness tachyon particles, and we sent that knowledge back to our present; here. A tachyon is a sub-atomic particle that can travel faster than light, which gives it the ability to move backwards in time. After some incredibly complicated calculations, we can now use this machine to send a stream of tachyons into the past to interfere with our very first attempt at communicating with the future.”
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