by J Battle
Debois prodded him with one bright red fingernail.
‘What have you done to him?’
‘It’s a safety measure I incorporated in all of the later replicants. I’ve just switched off his AI. All control of his body goes through it. Also all of his senses rely on it. So, although he is still conscious, he has no sensory input at all.’
‘So what are you going to do know?’
‘I’ll control his body remotely myself and take him to the ship.’
‘Not a very dignified end to Charlemagne’s reign.’
‘It happens to us all in the end.’
The next morning, when a large band of Yeken approached the city, they were met on the outskirts by the lone figure of Jack.
As they grew nearer, Jack bent and place a hand on each knee, his head tilted to one side. This was the traditional Yeken passive pose and he hoped that it would delay any immediate aggression.
A male who could have been the Yeken that Jack had spoken to the day before, strode ahead of the crowd.
Before he could say anything, Jack stood upright.
‘The shiny one has gone already, and I am about to leave. But I would ask a favour of you, if you are willing.’ With one hand behind his back and the other across his chest, no Yeken would miss his supplication pose.
The male spat into each palm and wiped them through the dark, thick hair on his head. He turned to his comrades and seemed to study their postures for a moment. Some were openly aggressive, their great arms held wide from their bodies, massive fists clenched. Others were shaking their hairy heads and spitting into their palms.
It wasn’t clear to Jack what the consensus was going to be, but the leader suddenly turned and smacked Jack in the middle of the chest. He then stepped back and put one hand half way down his short thick thigh.
Jack took this to be a positive move.
‘There is a small island a couple of hundred kilometres south of here. I would ask that you allow these humans, who were also victims of the shiny one, to travel there and end their days in peace. They have done you no harm themselves, not of their own volition. In the name of my dear friend Hardron, I do not demand this, I only ask you to be lenient.’
The male stood up to his full height, but made no other response.
When the silence had lasted several minutes, Jack bowed and placed on hand on his mid-thigh.
‘The decision is yours. I will leave now, and never return.’
He straightened his back and took a long step backwards. Then he activated his anti-grav and floated into the sky.
The leader barely glanced at him as he rose. He banged one fist against his thick belly, then began to march towards the city, his arms wide from his body, his great fists clenched.
Jack hovered a couple of hundred metres above and watched them enter the city. Their attitude was a little more belligerent than he had hoped it would be, but that didn’t necessarily mean that the clones were in danger. It was just the way they usually walked.
He was about to turn and join Debois and the others back at the ship when he was hit by Number Five: Mk II, travelling at something in excess of 500 kilometres per hour.
The replicant was designed to defeat Jack in a physical contest; with stealth, with speed, and with ferocious strength.
Caught completely unawares, Jack had no opportunity to raise a field or defend himself in any way, before the shock of impact compromised most of his internal systems and he fell to the ground, damaged and suddenly helpless.
Number Five: Mk II swung around in a great curve and came to rest a couple of metres from him, switching off stealth to be sure that Jack would see what was about to happen. Standing over him, his shadow invisible on Jack’s dark skin, he prepared to deliver the Coup de Gras; he wasn’t going to waste any time arguing with Jack, he already knew that would be useless.
In a last desperate attempt, Jack reached out to remotely override the replicant, to no effect.
Number Five: Mk II didn’t even notice the attempt. Holding both hands before him, his wrists flipped back, exposing the muzzles of his plasma cannons. Without a second’s hesitation, he opened fire. Even Jack’s metaform body would not withstand this assault for long.
As we well know, Jack had been around for a very long time. And it was perfectly natural that, during his less active times, he would consider various situations that he might find himself in where he could be in serious danger, and how he should respond.
So, as he fell to the ground, an automatic protocol was activated.
Just as the plasma cannons were about to be activated, he fell into the perfect moment of stasis and was invulnerable to all external interference.
As the molten intensity of the plasma dissipated harmlessly against the stasis field, the replicant knew that he was in trouble. Jack was never only going to have such a passive defence as the stasis field; there had to be something a little bit more aggressive involved.
And there it was, coming at him at a ridiculous speed, all guns blazing, lighting up the sky with its multi-coloured munitions; Jack’s ship.
He slipped into stealth mode and flew straight up, sure that the ship would never be able to regain its target. But the ship had tagged him remotely before it appeared over the horizon, and a tiny magnetic disc foiled his hi-tech evasive capabilities as it broadcast his exact position to the ship.
There was no loud explosion; just a quite thud as his body collapsed in on itself at a molecular level as the weak nuclear force that held it together was compromised.
The ship landed beside Jack and waited.
After a predetermined time had elapsed, the stasis field switched itself off and Number Four left the ship and retrieved Jack’s damaged body.
Chapter 55
Debois found Jack in the holding bay, in the dark.
He called up some light and joined him beside the pair of stasis chambers. For a moment Jack seemed not to notice his presence, then he turned abruptly.
‘What do you want?’
‘You know it’s not over yet, don’t you Jack? We can’t go back yet, the job isn’t finished. We still have to find Number One.’
‘He could be anywhere.’
‘You still have to find him. You might be able to convince Earth’s AI that you have nullified Number Two’s threat, and that’s a long way from being certain. But they won’t accept not knowing where Number One is, and why he left Turquoise, and what his intentions are. They can’t allow a possibly rogue replicant to be loose in the galaxy.’
‘He could be anywhere.’
‘So you said. It’s not helping. Think of something. There has to be some way to find him.’
‘We should be able to trace him through his interface with the 12th Prime. Whenever I flicker, that’s the Prime I use, it’s close in to the Absence and has the easiest access to real space. Flickering causes disturbance in the Prime’s reality flux and we should still be able to detect the residual effects of that disturbance.’
‘Does that mean we have to enter the 12th Prime?’
‘It’s the only way we can track him.’
‘And what’s it like then, this 12th Prime?’
‘I’m not sure you’ll like it very much. I should put you in stasis while we’re there.’
‘I’d prefer to be aware of what was going on. That is my role, after all; as Earth’s observer. ‘
‘If that’s what you really want, then there are a couple of things you need to be aware of. First, the web of this Prime actively feeds off heat, so we must only stay there for as short a time as possible or there will be damage to the ship. Secondly, thoughts are a little strange there, producing physical manifestations that can cause difficulties. So, you’ll have to restrict your thinking, and specifically the range of your thoughts, to a minimum.’
Debois frowned.
‘What do you suggest I do? My mind is always racing from one thing to the next.’
‘I find that counting to 10, over and over again helps. You
still get the ribbons, but they are thin and easily avoided.’
‘Ribbons?’
‘Yes, that’s what will emerge each time you think. If you’re not careful, you can become entangled in them and you may end up being choked to death.’
‘I see. Have you been there before?’
‘Once or twice. When we flicker, we don’t enter the Prime. We actually bounce off its boundary, so we don’t get the effects we’re going to see when we break through.’
‘Okay, let’s do it, then. Before I weaken and accept the stasis.’
‘Okay, strap yourself in and start counting. Count slowly and try to focus on what you are doing. Don’t let your mind wander.’
Debois lay back in his couch and closed his eyes.
‘One. Two. Three.’
‘You don’t have to count out loud, do you?’
‘Sorry.’
There was no obvious change in the ship’s motion, and with no windows and the video screens not in operation, there were no visual tale-tails. But his stomach knew immediately that something was not right, and Debois stopped counting as he fought to keep his breakfast down.
The ribbon that extruded from his forehead started a deep, navy blue, but as it grew, there were greens and yellows interwoven with violet and shocking pink. He watched fascinated as the ribbon grew longer and thicker and began to wrap itself around his body. When he realised what it was doing, he became nervous and a second ribbon appeared, with browns and orange the predominant colours. It grew quickly and was soon joining the first encircling his body.
‘Count!’ shouted Jack, his own body already becoming entangled with four of five thick pulsing ribbons, twisting and weaving around his body.
‘One. Two.’ Debois forced himself to focus on the numbers. A new ribbon emerged, narrow and pale, presenting a range of pastel shades.
When he got to 10, he found he was watching the new ribbon instead of thinking about counting, and another one appeared. Then another, and another.
‘Jack!’ he called, suddenly fearful for his life.
Jack stepped over to him and sliced through the ribbons with one knife sharp finger.
Relieved for the moment, Debois groaned as he saw more ribbons forming, and the original ones still growing.
So involved was he in the ribbons, he barely noticed the cold creeping up on him, until he realised that he couldn’t move his fingers. Holding them up to his face he saw that they were coated in frost and turning a disturbingly dark colour underneath.
Then, in the blink of an eye, the ribbons were gone, and they were back in real space.
Debois gasped as feeling came back to his fingers, in the form of real pain. He instinctively sent his nanos to repair the damage.
When the pain had faded, he turned to Jack.
‘Did you manage to find a trace of him?’
Jack shook his head.
‘Not a single sign. The only interferences I could find were those I caused myself, in my earlier journeys.’
‘So what does that mean to us?’
‘It means that Number One didn’t use TPI technology when he left Turquoise. He’s crawling at snail speed and he’s probably no more than 1000 light years from Turquoise.’
‘That’s still a big area to search.’
‘The only way we could possibly find him would be if he was in distress and sent out a signal.’
‘And if he is not in distress?’
‘Then we have to accept that we will never find him.’
Debois nodded and walked closer. He glanced at the faceplates of the chambers, they were clouded but he could clearly see in side. He moved across the bay and studied the other chambers.
Wiping the frost from the view plate of the standard size chamber, he was not surprised at what he saw. But this was not the time.
‘What’s in the big one?’ he asked, turning towards Jack.
‘Just another option I considered, once.’
‘And..?’
There was no further response.
Chapter 56
So the search for Number One began.
All of the replicants were able to send out signals to their brothers, broadcasting on a TPI wavelength that flickered in and out of real space, each flicker lasting an immeasurably small part of a second. So they could be received in virtually all parts of the universe within a relatively small period of time; relative on a galactic scale.
Of course, when the signal arrived in real space, it could still be light years away from any possible receiver.
Picking up a signal that may, or may not have been sent was, therefore, quite a challenging task.
Jack sent out swarms of self-replicating sensors in every possible direction. The sensors were set to flicker, replicate, flicker, replicate in a sequence that would cover the whole of the estimated search area, eventually.
That was the issue here. It might take thousands of years for them to complete their task; before they were in a position to be certain to detect any distress signal Number One may have sent.
Of course, if Number One was fine and dandy, relaxing in a cave somewhere, there would be no signal and all of this effort was a waste of time.
Jack was not prepared to wait for thousands of years. Not even hundreds of years.
He was going to give it six months.
If no trace had been found of Number One in that time, he would return to Earth and force them to accept his ultimatum.
The sensors had not all been sent out randomly. A number of them were targeted at known earth type worlds within 200 light years of Turquoise.
When the signal was found, after only 10 days, it came from a location barely 20 light years from Number One’s previous home.
Debois almost leapt from his bed when Jack gave him the good news.
He followed Jack on deck, past the quiet, still figure of Number Four and the frozen, immobile figure of Number Three.
He’d already tried to persuade Jack to release Number Three from his sensory deprived prison, but to no avail.
‘This is cruel and unnatural punishment,’ he’d argued.
‘I know.’ Had been Jack’s simple reply.
‘The distress signal came from a known planet; inhabited by humans for a couple of thousand years. It’s called Calisto. The time signature indicates that the message was sent 30 years ago. But we still have to carry on. We could still be lucky.’
Debois thought that 30 years after a distress signal was probably too late to do anything to save even a replicant, but that wasn’t a great concern to him. If Number One had been destroyed, that was fine. He just needed proof that his threat had been nullified and then they could return to Earth’s solar system and this romp across the cosmos would be over.
‘Prepare for flicker,’ said Jack, in his best Captain Kirk voice.
Chapter 57
They were soon in orbit around Calisto, a glowing blue and white world with great swirling black clouds racing around its equator.
The ship made several orbits of the planet, sensors exploring the surface, searching for the replicant.
‘What’s the problem?’ asked Debois. ‘Can’t you find him?’
‘We’ve narrowed down the source of the signal to this planet, but there is no activity there now, so we can’t pin it down any further. In fact, there is no detectable electrical activity on the planet at all.’
‘Is it possible that the colony has failed?’
‘There are clear signs of cultivation, and there are roads and cities that appear to be well maintained. It doesn’t look like a failed colony. More like it’s thriving.’
‘But how can that be? They must have machinery. May be the electrical activity is being shielded in some way.’
Jack didn’t answer for a moment.
‘I think I can see the source of the problem,’ he said, at last. ’There is one place we can detect some electrical activity. There is a device on the northern continent that is repeatedly emitting E
MPs. In fact we’re a bit close for comfort. I’m going to move to a more distant orbit. We don’t want to be affected.’
He suited his actions to his words and Debois soon felt the ship adjusting its position.
‘You know what this means, don’t you?’ said Jack, when he was happier with their position. ‘I can’t go down there. The EMPs would disrupt my internal functions. So you will have to go on your own.’
Debois nodded. He’d been expecting this.
‘Don’t you just love it when you find what you’re looking for, and it turns out to be something you no longer want?’
**********
‘You can’t expect me to fly in that!’ protested Debois, when Jack presented him with his craft.
‘It’ll be fine. It’s more solid than it looks.’
‘I’ve had more solid underwear! Is that string? You can’t ask me to fly in a ship controlled by string!’
‘It’s not string. They’re carbon fibre wire pulleys. They’re the strongest part of the craft.’
‘That really helps, you know that? You’ve been immortal and indestructible for too long. Way too long.’
The craft in question was a narrow cylinder, a little over two metres in length, its forward surfaces covered in a black, heat resistant film. Its short, stubby wings were equipped with rudimentary control surfaces. A detachable drive unit was fixed to its tail.
‘Why can’t you just blast the place to bits from here? Then you can fly down and save the day.’
‘The source is inside a mountain and there are settlements all over its lower slopes. At this stage I’d prefer not to kill any more people, if it is at all possible. This really is a job only you can do.’
‘Should I salute, or something? And what happens when I land? If I land; if I’m not smashed up against that mountain.’
‘It’s quite simple. You visit the source of the EMPs, disable it, and then you find Number One.’
‘And then?’
‘Then I come and get you.’
‘That all sounds so simple, I can’t think why I should be worried. Apart from the fact that you’re sending me down in my own coffin! And I might be killed by the inhabitants of the planet as soon as I land. Or I might not be able to find Number One or the source of the EMPs. Or I might not be able to disable it. Or you might not be able to come and get me. Or this whole thing might only be your jolly way of getting rid of me!’