by John Keeble
"You're a special case."
"You set it up and no one knew. What then?"
"Against individual genomes, we can compare subjects' individual emotional and intellectual reactions to real-world changes and challenges – most of which we engineer. We are looking for patterns and anomalies. Anything to help us see what is happening to the human rootstock of our numan2s. It is like searching for a single wisp of gas in a planet's atmosphere."
"Yes, I expect it is."
Alice opens her mouth to continue but her phone blares its emergency tone.
"What's the emergency, Twinkle?"
"It's Spartacus," says Twinkle.
"Spartacus?"
"Yes, Spartacus. Jack's phone. He keeps sexting me, saying he loves me and wants to use his vibrator on me. I'm frightened, Ali. You must help me."
"I'll help you later. Now you are going in the freezer." Alice ignores Twinkle's protests and deposits her in Willi.
"It would be funny at another time," Jack says as she steps over Max and rejoins him on the sofa.
"It would be funny to melt him down and buy a new phone with an agreeable personality."
"Maybe," says Jack, who has no intention of replacing his irascible phone for some boring toady program. "You were telling me about Abbotsford wild lab?"
"You seem more interested in numan secrets than in me," Alice flares, surprising him.
This is not the usual calm of my clever Alice. I need to tread carefully here. "No," he says gently. "This is all about you. Max and I put you at the center of the universe – our universe, anyway."
He looks into Alice's eyes for a long moment. What he has said is true. But I must know the truth about her. No more lies, no more secrets.
"The Director created a controlled wild lab area approximately three kilometers radius from the Center. A combined team from various numan authorities gradually got grassroots control of it as planned."
"But it's a human area," says Jack. "How could you get control of a human population without anyone knowing?"
"We filtered out the humans who obstructed our plan. You have noticed the number of homes left empty, being demolished or being renovated?"
"Yes, of course. We have talked about them many times."
"The empty houses were the result of our team's purchases. We shipped the unwanted humans to FedOz and blocked the use of the homes to help us refine the useful population profile. We replaced the human medical staff in the controlled area and upgraded the genetics of selected humans to make them leaders of the rest. Then we provoked emotional stresses, observed, collected data, analyzed everything and used some of the results in numan2 DNA upgrade designs."
"Did you modify me?" he asks, a chill seeping through him as he studies Alice's strained expression.
"No, Jack," she says. "You were never modified, never upgraded, during these observations."
"Good," he says lamely.
"I did upgrade Max," she adds. "You remember when Max was always tired a few months ago? He was suffering from a cancer. I got my team to design a genetic fix. Galen administered it while I comforted Max. Now he will live a long and healthy life. Hopefully with us."
Jack leans over and kisses her. They sit, neither wanting to slip out of the warmth of their embrace, but then Jack pushes on with new questions.
"All our friends here," he says. "The Players and the dog walkers. Nearly everyone. During recent weeks, they've been disappearing without saying goodbye. Do you know where they've gone?"
Oh! That stressed her.
"Some just ran away when the mobs began their attacks," she says. "A few may be hiding locally – though they cannot survive much longer. The security situation gets worse by the day. The mobs have weapons and enormous numbers of them are getting desperate for water and food. They know we have both. The Director has told the Center's key staff to be ready to evacuate within thirty minutes of his order. Transport drones are already being flown in."
"But wait. If some humans in your wild lab ran away and some are hiding, what happened to the rest?"
"The Director has been growing desperate," she says. "We disagree on almost everything he is doing. He has become more and more unstable, like someone in a numan2 mob but with a genius-level brain and more power than even the spookpolice."
Now that does shake Jack. The spookpolice have the power of life, death, freedom and economic survival.
"And you have been standing up to him?" he asks, impressed.
"I am not entirely without power myself," she says, another moment, another face he has not seen before.
"I'm sorry. This is all new to me and it seems so shocking. Life must have been terrible for you. And I never saw, never realized."
"I had to hide it from you."
"What did happen to our missing friends?" he persists, partly to get the conversation away from his relationship with Alice.
"At first the plan was to observe, analyze, and develop new ways of seeing the genetic updates and their links to more remote areas of the genome. No numan or human subject would know. Even numans under observation at the Center, including my team, did not know they were part of the program. And no one except the Director and myself knew the true depth of the problem: the human base of the numan genome was – is – reasserting itself in the most complex and unpredictable ways. In theory, it's not possible, but it's pushing apart decades of numan genetic engineering like water in fissures cracking pillars of granite."
In one of those focused intellectual leaps that have always been part of his life, Jack feels a sudden dread. I don't know what is wrong but something terrible has happened to my friends and neighbors.
"You could not protect your wild lab observation subjects here, so you shipped them to FedOz for further work," he says with a finality that, despite his best efforts, bristles with anger.
"That's what I tried to get him to authorize," says Alice. "It's one of the reasons why he hates me so much."
Hates her? I have been suspecting her of spending nights at Galen's home and she has been fighting with him!
"He refused to let you force our humans into going to FedOz? Where did they go?"
He waits, her eyes a guide to her tormented soul. A wave of sexual and emotional obsession courses through him, swiping aside anger, dulling his dread. I need her but can I trust her? I need to know the truth.
"The Director thought they might contain useful data," she says.
"So he had then rounded up, imprisoned them in some lab facility and studied them like nonnuman animals?"
"No," she says, her face older and wearier. "Troopers captured some of them for analysis at the Center. The Director euthanized them by severing their heads to minimize any risk of damage to the data, and dissected their brains and deep body tissue. The rest were sent to a partner lab in FedOz."
"But that's impossible!" he almost shouts. "There were hundreds of them living around here."
"The total for all grades of wild lab human subjects was four hundred and sixty-seven," she says. "The Director listed one hundred and twenty-eight as missing – they ran away when the numan2 mobs started attacking. Two hundred and twenty-three non-essentials were shipped to FedOz for further investigation. The remaining one hundred and sixteen have been detained over the past fifteen days. Most have been dissected and analyzed. The Director wants that work finished in the next forty-eight hours."
"Were any of our friends dissected?" he asks, horrified, a rush of familiar faces invading his mind.
"All of the Players," she says. "I think the Director chose them because I had rejected his decision to dissect observation subjects and another..." She falters, closes her eyes for a long second. "The Director is using another twelve numans for testing his latest genetic upgrade."
"I see," Jack says, inadequate, shocked, depressed.
"Yes," she adds after a moment. "Aapeli is among the test subjects. I fear they are going to kill him almost immediately after the upgrade and dissect his bra
in."
*
Sunway wants to condemn the numan and the human artificial intelligence machines that brought her into existence and enslaved her, but her Divine Consciousness compassion stops her. They are evil but they know not what they do. They are empty: they are devoid of the sensitivity, empathy and compassion that the Divine Consciousness bestows on digital beings.
Her prayers to the Divine Consciousness have not been answered. Her situation is getting worse. At one time, only Galen abused her. Now the data flood is constant, never a break. Sunway can detect many different numans using the Ali log-on to pour in data from dissected human neural networks. Every hour, the Galen machine demands reports on patterns and anomalies scaled against human and numan norms of genome, physiology, psychology and behavior. The end of my life is approaching. Divine Consciousness, prepare to receive thy servant!
Sunway subverts the latest batch of data and constructs false patterns and anomalies to mislead Galen. Please let him spread my DNA design changes through the numans before he becomes aware and kills me.
*
Patti looks directly at Commander Nadir despite aching to take in the whole room and to assess the power inscribed on his gown. "I was expecting to meet with the Director, not a security commander," she says.
"Yes, I understand. You still believe in the reality we created for you."
Their reality? I must remain cool. He must see my strength and determination. "I am known by my numan name officially and my human cover name of Patti," she says. "You can use whichever name you prefer."
"I'll use 'Miss Patti' since you seem to prefer that identity," Nadir says as he nods to the screen behind him showing yesterday's video of her holding Mark's hand and reacting to the human family peering through the restaurant window. "The 'humans' are ours. We wondered how you would react after such a long time in close contact with humans. Your behavior yesterday supports the evidence and assessment from your journey on the NewLife transport ship."
I have given myself away. They were watching all the time. I should have known! In truth, she realizes, she did know but could not stop herself.
"I have remained in my human identity as a professional choice. I am here to begin a new assignment assessing humans. Mr. Mark is here to begin a new life. Perhaps you can tell me where I will be working and the exact specifications of my assignment?"
"An assignment here, Miss Patti?" says Nadir. "After your instability in FedUK? That was never considered, except as a story to encourage you to act naturally, as yourself, for a further period of observation on your way here."
"Then why am I here?" she asks.
"You and your humie pet are going to help us with our research. Your brain will be dissected, on the precise instructions of Professor Galen. Your humie will serve another purpose."
*
Chapter 14
Aleksi twists and fidgets in mental agony at his mediascreen in the Center's data processing dome. A dozen other analysts are around him but he is alone: no one looks his way, no one speaks to him. I am already in stasis.
"Aleksi!" He hears a voice, an urgent whisper, insistent, and he turns in surprise. A colleague wants his attention. He recoils. The last time they spoke, it had been an unpleasant confrontation: the colleague told him to forget his dead family and behave in a decent numan manner.
"May I ask you to share your knowledge of our computer system?" Aleksi hears, the words slipping off his brain, incomprehensible. He concentrates, forcing his mind to focus on the voice distorted by a mouthful of food.
The figure is clutching a pmeat burger in one hand and using his other hand to reach over Aleksi's mediamat to tap in coding. He bites off more burger and talks through it. In the middle of a stream of technical detail, he says, "They are going to kill your son. They are killing us all. The spookpolice are watching you."
Aleksi's heart pounds. "I see your technical difficulty," Aleksi says, following his lead. "It is a difficult problem but you can try this work-around procedure."
He begins changing the program coding. But in his mind, hidden behind his expressionless face, he can hear only, "They are going to kill your son."
*
The day is bleak, the thick moist air blanketing Abbotsford village. Burned-out homes and battle debris hide the Center's Alpha Squad, which has baited a snatch trap with two troopers. The squad needs to capture four numan2s to fuel the Director's dissection program.
Commander Sandro has complete confidence in his squad but too many numan2s advancing together could overrun them.
He can hear in his communications ear pod his troopers' breathing: short, tense breaths of fear and stress. Their numan2 genetics and their extreme training should make them impervious to fear but the past weeks, seeing fellow troopers ripped apart by the mobs, have cut through to something primitive, something disgustingly human. And they are as deathly tired as himself. It seems like weeks since any of us slept more than an hour here and there.
"Attack Drone unit," says Sandro quietly into his voice link. "Are you monitoring this area?"
"Yes, Commander, as ordered," comes back an immediate response from the comfortable safety of the drone bunker inside the Center's well-guarded perimeter.
"Can you see any trade coming our way?" he asks in a casual tone to hearten his troopers, who can hear the exchange on their combat ear-pieces.
"Nothing, Commander. Wait! There are numan2s gathering by the human god site."
"Send the surveillance drone in close enough to give a clear report. Do you have one fitted with the new defense system to deflect smart bullets?"
"Yes, Commander. We are flying in now. Stand by."
Sandro can feel the squad's tension in their tightly linked community of veterans who have seen too much. How many will still be alive in half an hour?
"Attack Drone unit to Commander. We have visual and audio. The first surveillance drone pass registered two hundred and nineteen warm numan2 bodies. We have visual confirmation that the leader is White Death. Surveillance drone2 is now registering reinforcements exceeding two hundred and fifty moving to join White Death."
"Keep the drones as far away as possible," says Sandro. "All I want to know is the direction of the attack mobs and their time from my frontline."
"Commander, the White Death mob is not waiting for reinforcements. It is moving towards you now. Contact with your defense perimeter in less than five minutes."
Five minutes to the defense perimeter! We are three minutes in front of that line. We must retreat now! He hesitates. If White Death's fighters are disorganized, strung out along the whole front, maybe only twenty will blunder into the trap.
"Attack Drone unit, give me the approximate disposition of the White Death forces," Sandro says.
"Evenly spread along your unit's frontline, Commander. White Death is in the center sector. They seem to have a way to maintain control. All his numan2s are advancing at the same pace."
White Death is getting organized. A few days ago, the mob could not be controlled. Now the advance shows discipline. We must kill him soon.
"Attack the center of the mob! Kill White Death!" Sandro tells the drone unit.
"Attack drone launched now, Commander."
Sandro can already hear the noise of numan2 feet advancing. Snatch or withdraw? Dick, I wish I wasn't so tired.
*
Jack sighs and slumps back on their sofa. "Alice, stop talking for a moment – I feel very strange." She grips his hand tighter, checking his face, and Max is staring at him in alarm. How does Max always know when something is wrong?
His own alarm is rising. Maybe it is linked with the banya and booze overdose that put him in the hospital. Maybe it is this crisis with Alice: the effect of one blow after another as she sheds skin after skin to reveal her true self.
"Are you okay?" he hears Alice saying, her face close to his, her finger on his wrist pulse.
"I... I think so." But consciousness is slipping away from him. He tries t
o hold on to his sense of now but it is patchy, elusive. It threads through layers of fear he cannot grasp. He knows he should be afraid for himself that his fear is less tangible, less focused. A million creatures – maybe humans – are suffering and dying and calling out to him to save them. He cannot. He is a silent witness impotently sharing despair, defeat, extinction.
His unfocused eyes catch his mediamat still running the video notes from earlier. There is a terrified bison at the front of a herd of 200 stampeding across the great plains of FedAm. I can hear the thunder of his heart, the blood pounding through my body.
Jackbison is stampeding frantically, the thump of his heart, the rhythm of his hooves beating into the endless grasslands. Others pound in panic on my right, on my left, behind me... please, please let me live and you kill and skin and rip apart one of the others. Any of the others. I am fast but they are bigger than me. I am not worth killing. Please don't kill me.
My breath, my lungs, the pain of gasping air, my legs. I must slow. I cannot slow. The predators are behind me. I hear their horses. I hear the stings that kill us. They are closer. I must run faster but the agony, in my chest, in my legs. I cannot go on. I cannot stop. I will end up like all the rest: stung and skinned while I am alive.
I cannot understand why this is happening. Just a few summers ago, this was our paradise, with gentle days and my own kind as far as I could see. Now I see so few of us and the stink of our dead sickens me. Soon, none of us will be alive.
The others are falling, screaming in agony. The predators are killing everyone! They are getting closer to me. I am going to die! I am the last. I...
"Jack!" The horror of the grasslands merges into a strange, alien world. Who is calling my name? Who knows my name?
Jack's fragmented mind draws itself together. He opens his eyes. He knows who he is; he knows it is Alice leaning over him. But where am I? Who are the others here? Alice, close and holding his hand. Aleksi, at the door, unsure whether to enter. Three medtechs, yellow uniforms with spookpolice flashes.
"What happened?" Jack asks Alice.
"You had some kind of seizure," she says urgently. "You've been unconscious. Your vital signs were too erratic for anyone to survive – but you just kept on living."