by Lea Tassie
The machine could send the details of the basic particles needed to create a human body, replicate the particles until enough were available to print out a human. Then it would send the binary information, or memories, of that specific human, to its destination, recreating the human in his or her entirety at the new location, thus destroying the human at the sending point. Reversing this process would transmit the human back to its sending point, because the original sending unit was still intact at its point of origin.
You want to experience traveling like that? Just wait a bit and you probably will. Remember, we don't have much time and I must finish the story before you go.
This principle would be applied to the entire world of Neo Terra. The device would disassemble all the matter of Neo Terra, and send the information to a location in the direction they wanted to travel, then reassemble it all within a few short minutes, keeping the cosmos in perfect balance.
The drive engine of this endeavor was the easiest part. Covering the entire planet in a thick mass of molten iron would take some serious effort. The Taskoids, using their mining experience, set about gathering and pulverizing raw ore from meteorites. Where the Grays had taken a few days, the Taskoids took the better part of three years, working day and night, melting and reforming the ore into a shield that covered the entire surface of the world ship.
This coat of iron increased the mass of the planet, which affected the orbit it traveled. Fine-tuning was needed, using the Grays' massive explorer ship to nudge the planet back on course. As the entire planet was already in motion, it was simply a matter of using mathematics to determine where the world ship should jump to, whether that was to a stable orbit around a sun, or a region of space they wanted to traverse. They could go anywhere, in any direction, at any distance they chose, and travel that area at their current speed and with planetary rotation unimpeded.
"Wow!" is a very appropriate comment!
***
Prime Minister Jana met with the Prime in her office, employing Quat I as the translator. "Explain to me again why you felt it necessary to retrieve this time-lock device. That action resulted in the deaths of Jillian and the others."
"It was not our choice, but your orders, to have the three humans travel with us. We are deeply disturbed by your accusation that the Taskoids had something to do with their demise. As for the time-lock device, we will consider it a backup plan should our initial invasion run into unforeseen problems. I am certain that placing Grays into the time-lock will remove them from combat," Quat I responded firmly. It paced around the room.
"Do not try to shed your responsibility in this matter!" snapped Jana. "You know damn well there was no need to have any humans inside those tunnels you describe. That the Taskoids were negligent is obvious. And before I agree to this conversion program you are suggesting, I need to know that any human/Taskoid hybrids will not be merely experiments for you. If I am to ask the peoples of Neo Terra to volunteer for this program, you damn well better give me more assurances." Jana was so angry she was red in the face, and her voice could be heard far down the halls.
"The conversion program has been successfully done in the past, and it will better armor your kind against the technologies the Grays throw at us," responded Quat I. "I will place the time-lock device in your control, overseen by our new command Taskoids. These new Taskoids have been designed strictly for combat assistance, and will ensure that you make the most correct combat decision necessary."
"I can decide things for myself!" snapped an impatient Jana. She was finding it increasingly difficult to contain her hostility toward this Taskoid who seemed so smug and self-righteous. The fact that she didn't know whether it experienced such emotions only served to irritate her further.
Later that afternoon, Jana called Dayton to her office for a private meeting. "I don't trust the Prime. I'm sure the Taskoids are up to something but I have no proof. I need your help," Jana said.
"I might have an answer for you soon, Madam Prime Minister. My team has been working day and night with the small Gray device we have in our possession, the one that was donated to a museum by a woman called Deleray. She was my ancestor, by the way. We suspect it might have the ability to control the Taskoids. The test subject we isolated has responded to some of the device settings. We are just now starting to understand the complexity of the Taskoid units," Dayton said.
"What you are doing is the most dangerous thing we have tried so far. If the Prime becomes aware of what we are doing to that Taskoid, the repercussions could be devastating." Jana was deeply concerned.
"We have taken every possible precaution in isolating this lone Taskoid from the Prime, and we are getting close. Just give us a little more time," Dayton replied, as he fidgeted in one of Jana's office chairs. Dayton's team had been carefully disassembling the Taskoid deep inside the city's lower levels, in order to examine its interior components. They surmised that if their ancestors could invent and build a Taskoid, then they should be able to take one apart and figure it out.
They had no way of knowing that the Taskoid Prime maintained a constant virtual link with every unit, and the Prime had noticed that one of the Taskoids was missing. It was also quietly searching for the missing Taskoid's location. And so the race was on.
More and more humans volunteered for the Taskoid/Human blending program; history was repeating itself even here as the Prime had begun to propagandize the advantages of being half machine. To be stronger, faster, smarter and live longer was the wish of many. The Prime was pleased with the progress, but the city's elders had reservations. The program had not been endorsed by the city council, but they could not stall things forever.
Three years passed from the moment the revenge program started for the people of Neo Terra, to the final covering of the planet's surface in molten iron some three feet thick. An uneasy truce existed between the elders of the black world and the Taskoids. Ten thousand humans had accepted the conversion to a human/Taskoid hybrid and called themselves the Biotechs. Part human, part machine, they maintained the human form, but their bodies were covered in protective armor. The new Biotechs had enhanced vision, cognitive capabilities, and muscle mass, much like the Hyborgs and undead reds of history back on Earth. They were not, however, linked to the Prime's communications network. Jana's final days as prime minister were spent passing an edict that no humans were allowed to be linked. This, she informed the public, would prevent acts of subversion.
The Taskoids appeared to comply, for the betterment of their fragile relations, never letting the humans know that a microchip of specific code could be activated at any time of the Prime's choosing, giving it full control of the Biotech army. Most Taskoids had worked diligently covering the planet's surface day and night for three years, but others had been deciphering the communications device retrieved from Dhuusamareeb on Earth. It was now obvious that the First Ones of Earth had not invented this technology. They had had help from the Grays, and had used their knowledge and expertise in constructing the three massive underground complexes. This communications device was proof of that. Now the Prime had full control of how and when to use it.
Chapter 19 Pennington becomes Pope
I have a memory, vague and distant. I pulled the vial from my pack and drank the last of the blood. I shared the last of my meat with a dog. It had a name I gave it. Then I stood up and stepped boldly into the fading light and my body burst into flames.
I don't remember any pain. I was only annoyed because, once again, I had bitten my tongue on that damn broken fang. For a while, there was blackness, terrible blackness and cold, with a shrill screeching that filled my mind no matter how I covered up my ears.
Then silence. Darkness. Nothing. Nothing at all. Peace.
The torment began as a small seed in the pit of my being, expanding outward into an emptiness beyond recognition. An absurd wrenching and tearing of flesh I no longer own. How can I be feeling every fiber of my body in pain? How can I be feeling anything?
I'm dead. Dead once through the workings of science, and then dead again through the functioning of fire. How am I able to even be thinking about this?
I can't be alive; I have no body. I paid the price of living, and want nothing more to do with it. But clearly I'm thinking, though I have no brain. Is this the cruelty of humanity once again?
This can't be happening. I'm going mad!
"You cannot kill what is already dead."
Who said that? How am I hearing this? I have no ears. Was that a voice?
"You have been just out of our reach for many years. It is good to have you with us now, dead one."
I call out, asking who is there. But I don't know how I can do that, for I have no mouth, no tongue. No body.
"Do you enjoy the pain?"
I scream back, "Come closer and I'll show you what pain is!"
"We have need of you. You have another task to complete."
"No!" I yell, furious and determined. "I was a puppet for death too long. I won't do that anymore. What are you? Come out of the darkness and look at who you are asking to kill again."
"You will do as I ask. You have no choice."
I feel pain now and relish it. I have not felt anything for an eternity.
Yet I am outraged and shout "I have free will!" I do not understand how any of this is happening.
The anger begins to build. I have not had anger as my companion since the flames took me and I like it that way.
I see a spark, I see a light, yet I have no eyes. "Soon I will have hands and I'll be happy to use them around your neck!"
There is laughter, a cruel taunting laughter.
My rage flames into a red mist that boils around me. I will kill whoever is doing this. I will kill whoever crosses my path.
***
Dart speaks to Reader:
That was Charger, slowly being brought back from the dead.
You say spooky, Reader. I say scary. Very scary.
The Prime had three years on Neo Terra to rebuild every aspect of Charger's life. The massive computing power of the Taskoids and their five ships worked in unison with the city computers under the command of the Prime to resurrect Charger's mind. Every bit of information that had ever been part of Charger was compiled and condensed into the quantum-powered computational Taskoid computers. Every military report, every medical report, every camera event on every planet Charger visited for over three hundred years gave the Prime a vast unending data stream to work with.
Charger's mind was being dragged back, screaming in fury, from the black, peaceful silence of death into the grip of the Taskoids' Prime.
The Prime had no idea what it was doing.
No, the Prime didn't know what pure rage was like. After all, the Prime had been only a simple mining Tasker when Charger burst into flames near the oak tree.
Whatever else Charger might be now, he was the Prime's prisoner. It took a huge part of every Taskoid's computing power to keep Charger from shredding and tearing down the virtual walls of the Prime's reformatory, but the Prime was pleased with the building, pulsing, violent energy.
Now it just needed a body to house the mind. With the Grays' communication device unlocked, the opportunity was almost there. And, with the acquisition of the full god fragment, the Prime could use the final pieces of Charger's recovered remains to resurrect the perfect fighting machine. Then it could be cloned. And very, very quickly.
The Prime knew the Grays would stand little chance of winning any fight with an army of Chargers, and he had ten thousand unwitting volunteers, the Biotechs. The world ship's drive engines would send the data to recreate the ship at the desired location, then send the data of the people. The Prime would, at the appropriate time, simply not send the mental data for the ten thousand human/Taskoid hybrids. It would then have blank slates for his army of Chargers.
As a last step, the Prime renamed his weapon 'Charger R/T' in order to distinguish him from the original. He chose to keep 'Charger' because it was familiar to humanity and could be used to arouse fear. The 'R/T' stood for 'resurrected terminus' or 'living dead.' The term 'living dead' in itself would add to the fear factor.
Oh, you're already frightened, Reader? Then you have more sense than the Prime. Yes, I'm grateful that Charger is on our side.
***
The time arrived for testing the world ship's drive engines. The calculations had shown that a quantum entangled particle, now called a QEP, existed just above a small sun in an almost perfect orbit. With the math checked and rechecked, the new command center which controlled the world ship informed the masses that in a few minutes, the world would take its first jump.
"I am glad that I no longer lead our people," Jana said to Dayton. "If this thing goes sideways, it's you who will have caused our death." She gave a wry laugh.
"Believe me, no one realizes that more than me. I wake up every morning wondering what I got myself into," Dayton replied, not laughing at all. He had been promoted by the council of elders as the new prime minister. The election by Neo Terra's people confirmed this choice. Had it not, the council would have had to find another candidate to lead the masses.
"QEP drive reaching full intensity, drive to be engaged in mark minus one minute and counting," said a voice from command center over monitors placed all around the capitals. The greatest minds had determined that size meant nothing to the QEP drive. It simply took information and sent it to a destination and reassembled it. The only factor to consider was time. The amount of mass was equal to the time needed to reassemble the world ship, and the best calculation showed that time for this event was but a few seconds. "Time minus thirty seconds and counting," the command voice rang out.
"There is no stopping this now, see you on the other side," Dayton said to Jana. He gave her a comforting hug, then they both turned to look out of the prime minister's office window to the city of Neo Terra below.
As the clock ran down, the drive engine engaged and the world appeared as a white mist to every eye. People everywhere all reported the same experience. The world simply vaporized and became white mist, then solidified again. It was almost like taking a long blink against a brilliant light shining in one's eyes.
Command voices were all talking, reporting from locations around the planet that everything was in place and safe. They had arrived.
On city monitors, the planet's external cameras showed a view of a bold new star shining its light for the first time on the iron-encased world ship. The cheers were overwhelming, as humans and Taskoids rejoiced at the accomplishment of creative minds. They had done what no one had ever dreamed possible. They had driven a planet to a new location. This was vastly different to driving a space ship. It was like ultrasonic flight compared to sending a wagon train to the stars.
The countdown again resumed. The planet would jump back to its original location. With the four-dimensional printer being safely created at this new sun, the original QEP printer still traveled the old orbit which the planet had always traveled and they needed to be sure the system worked in both directions. Now the world would drive back to its original location, to travel its original path, with normal rotation, around New Eden.
The safe return sent the inhabitants of Neo Terra into exuberant celebration for several days. The festivities were grand, and many people were acknowledged and thanked for their efforts. Names were emblazoned on wall plaques across all the cities of Neo Terra. The system had worked flawlessly and the council planned that the planet, within weeks, would set out across the vast distances of space in search of the Grays' planet.
Charger R/T's mind also traveled this test voyage, of course. It was becoming more self-aware as time passed and more insane with rage. The Prime kept having to divert more resources to contain Charger R/T's ungovernable anger, eventually using the QEP drive engine's own colossal calculating computers in the process.
***
Pennington tried again to get the faucet to produce water. The damn thing just woul
d not give her water to fill her kettle, and she very much wanted a good cup of tea. Pen had decided long ago to reject the conveniences of technology, instead relying on the old ways her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother had taught her. She was sure that life in the past had been much simpler and more wholesome.
She hated the fact that her world was gearing up for war, and war with the Grays, no less. They were such good little beings, she thought, as she called to mind all the stories her great grandmother, Peony, had told her about playing with the dying Gray. The tales had been so vivid she could almost see the small creature and the device he demonstrated. "How could such delightful little people be responsible for so much destruction?" Pen wondered. She would go talk with the prime minister and straighten out this whole mess.
Pen finally settled on yesterday's cold leftover tea and a small piece of the cake she had made a few days back. She sat at the kitchen table to celebrate her seventieth birthday alone. Pen was never sad about her life; she had spent it well, traveling and learning things from all around her world, thanks to her father. She did not mind being childless. Life was too short to do everything she wanted, and having kids would surely have meant less time for those things.
Yes, tomorrow she would go talk to the prime minister. He'd listen to her.
The next morning Pennington awoke to the typical pains and aches of old age. She fought them off, for today she intended to have a word with Dayton. Pen dressed in her village's traditional clothing and, carrying a cane in one hand, set off down the narrow streets of her neighborhood, trundling past familiar houses. She boarded an electric transport with several other people destined for the city center.