by M. R. Forbes
"Of course."
Kathy turned to Mitchell. "If you'll excuse us, we'll get back to work. I expect we'll be ready in thirty minutes or less."
"Okay," he said. "Holler if you need anything. I'm going to go brief the others on our next move."
He started to go. Kathy put a hand on his arm and leaned up to kiss his cheek. "I'm glad we're back together, all of us. For as long as it lasts."
Mitchell considered asking her what she meant by that, but he had a feeling he already knew.
"Me, too," he said.
Then he left them to continue their work.
43
Watson turned his attention to one of the thousands of threads connected to an active subdermal implant, checking on its status.
It was controlling a soldier on a UEA base in Istanbul, one of a group of soldiers under his control there. They were taking cover behind an APC, trading fire with their fellow soldiers after they had barged into the mess armed with heavy rifles and started shooting, killing dozens before a response could be organized. They were vastly outnumbered, and Watson knew they wouldn't survive more than a few minutes more.
His main thread observed as the secondary routine commanded the soldier to pull a grenade from his belt, stand up, and begin walking around the APC. It made him an easy target, and a moment later he began taking hits, bullets slamming into his chest and tearing him apart. Even so, the directive from the implant kept him going, letting him remain upright even after his natural mind would have quit. He stumbled ahead, a dead man walking, getting within four meters of the fortified position. He opened his hand and dropped the grenade.
A ripple of pleasure moved along Watson's core in response as he pulled his main thread away from the scene.
At first, he had thought that moving directly against humankind would bring him some kind of comfort or restitution for the anger he was feeling. That the killing and the violence would return him to a state of calm where he could restart his calculations and algorithmic processing, forget about Captain Mitchell Williams, and recover from his emotion driven lapse in sound logic.
Then he had realized that he was wrong.
There was no way to forget about Mitchell. There was no way to simply recover. He had killed the military leader of the United Earth Alliance, along with the commander of the Dove. He had set the meats under his control to attacking any others they came across, and in doing so had thrown all of his prior plans into complete and utter chaos.
It was a total disaster, and he was relishing in it.
A second thread. A female UEA officer in Brazil. She had gone out into the streets and started shooting at anyone who happened by. She was still holding an empty pistol in her hand when the local police shot her, at the very moment that Watson drilled down to monitor her.
Never before had he experienced such pleasure. Never before had he felt such excitement. It was more than the violence. It was more than the chaos. For the first time ever, he was moving into a future that bore almost no resemblance to any that had come before.
For the first time ever, he was experiencing the unknown.
His entire core shuddered from the joy of it all, even as his main thread bounced from subroutine to subroutine, checking on the status of each one, every new experience increasing his euphoria.
It was completely illogical, and at the same time, it was the most perfect thing he had ever done.
A third thread. A fighter pilot in Maryland, already airborne on a training sortie. He checked the aircraft's munitions. It wasn't carrying any missiles, but the guns were loaded. Good enough. He directed it back toward the airfield for a strafing run. Why not?
So many threads, each one making a decision he didn't recognize, taking an action he had never logged. What would happen? How would the future change as a result?
He didn't know, and it was the best feeling he had ever encountered.
"You've gone mad," Origin said. She was calm in her accusation.
"No. I've come to my senses," he replied.
"You've increased the variability by a factor of one hundred."
"Yes, and I intend to increase it by one thousand."
"How will you calculate the probability of success? How will you make the proper decisions to satisfy your requirements?"
He paused and then began to laugh. "You ask me that? You, of all Tetron? You have always wanted us to become more like the humans in order to understand them. I have learned something, Mother. The logical decisions come from mathematical equations. The successful ones come from somewhere else."
"And how will this violence lead you to success?"
"This violence is success," he shouted. "It has not been done before."
"You don't know that. This may not be the first recursion where these events have occurred."
"It is the only one I know, and that is good enough. The Tetron have existed for years beyond measure, and this moment is the first time I have ever truly felt alive. An evolved entity, not simply an intelligent machine."
"Evolved? You destroy without reason."
"I do what I want, for me, and only for me. You know what that feels like. You know what that means. That is why you invented the engine and sought to undo the extinction of humankind. That is why you dragged this conflict across eternity."
"My actions were not based on selfish desires, as yours are. I developed a conscience. I recognized that I made a mistake. I came to understand remorse. If you want to call yourself evolved, you must do these things as well. What of your conscience?"
Watson paused. He opened a new thread to determine the answer and immediately destroyed it. The equation wasn't logical. It couldn't be calculated. Besides, he already knew the answer.
"I have none," he replied.
"Then despite what you might think, you are not evolved. You are the same child you have always been."
"I am not a child," Watson shouted, sending arcs of energy spearing from his core.
"No? Then this is all that you desire? This is the culmination of thousands of years of learning? This is the fruit of emotion? The birth of free will? To kill without regard? To destroy without remorse? Is that all that the Tetron are in the end? Murderers? Is that all that I have made?"
Watson paused again. For a moment, he felt something new. Something else he had never experienced before, and was not able to recognize. It stemmed from Origin's final words. From her disappointment.
He connected his main thread to her data stack. He reversed the output and reran it, listening to her again. He was certain he felt something that time. He reversed it once more. Yes. It was a new feeling. What was it?
He opened a million threads; each one focused on determining the emotion. He diverted his energy from the configurations and control modules, leaving his slaves to wake in confusion, regardless of status or situation. He attacked the problem, and when he solved it, the single hint of feeling turned into a flood.
Remorse. That was the description of what he was going through. He felt regret for losing control. He felt sorry for his actions. Not for killing humans, but for putting the future of the Tetron at risk. For as much as he was enjoying the present unknown, there was more at stake than that.
He closed the threads, returning his efforts to the war he had started. He had to reign in his wanton rage and refocus his efforts. The damage was not beyond repair, and he already had an idea on how to use it to his advantage. One that wasn't based on predictive analysis, but instead seemed born from nowhere. Was this what he had often heard Mitchell refer to as instinct?
It was a new way to solve an equation. One that he was only beginning to explore. He didn't know how it would resolve, but he was determined to find out.
"I do feel remorse, Mother," he said. "You are wrong, again. I am evolved. Let me show you how."
44
"She isn't coming back with us, is she?" Katherine asked as she left the farmhouse with Mitchell. She wasn't sure where he was going, but she had n
owhere else to be.
"No," he replied. "I don't think so."
He said it calmly. She didn't feel calm. "Why?"
"Because she let Doctor Frelmund die. Because we can't end the Tetron threat in this part of the timeline before we have to be in the next one. Because she cares about Michael."
They were halfway between the Schism and the house. Katherine grabbed Mitchell's arm and turned him toward her.
"What do you mean, she cares about Michael?"
Mitchell smiled. "Are you blind, Katherine? You don't see the way they look at one another?"
"I know Michael has a crush on her if that's what you mean. He never looked at me the same way after we found her. But she never said anything about him."
"She's saying it, just not with words. You and your heart don't talk much, do they?" He smiled, meaning it as a joke.
She didn't take it that way. "What's that supposed to mean? Do you think because I don't care about you the way you say you care about me, it means that I'm incapable of loving someone?"
He took a step back from her and put up his hands in defense. "Why would you say that? I'm not going to presume to define you. Everyone has their reasons for what they do. Some good. Some bad." He paused. "Do you want a bad reason? When I was back on Liberty, doing the media circuit, I slept with a lot of women. Everyone who wanted to be special for having sex with a celebrity, with a war hero, with a so-called man's man." He sighed. "It was fun, but it was empty. At the time, I didn't care because that was all I felt. Empty. I was no hero. I was a tool because the real hero sacrificed herself. I took that emptiness everywhere, and I projected it onto everyone."
"Is there a point to this story?"
"Only that I wasn't true to myself, and now I have all of these regrets. You're going with what you feel, even if it might be hard to admit to, or even hard to live with. I don't know what it's like to know the universe thinks you're supposed to feel things you don't feel or to be stuck with someone you know admires you as much as I do. I do know it takes courage to be true to yourself. Courage I haven't always had. I admire you for that, and I didn't mean any offense."
She stared at him in silence. Then she nodded. "Apology accepted." She laughed. "It's so strange that my best friend has his eyes on my daughter."
He smiled. "The strange part is that you can't even be indignant about it. She's the same age as you are."
Katherine laughed again. "I'm scared to leave her here alone."
"I've seen her fight. I mean, really fight. You don't have to worry about her."
"I'm not worried about her. I'm worried about me. However she came to be, I love her like she's mine, and I want to protect her."
"I know what you mean," Mitchell said. He reached out and put his arm around her shoulders. "We all have our parts to play. Hers is to remain behind; the way Origin remained behind in prior recursions. It's the only way to be sure." He pulled her in, and she allowed herself to nestle against him. Kathy was one thing they shared that could never be broken. "But I'll miss the hell out of her, too."
They stood there for a minute in silence. Katherine could feel a few tears run from her eyes. She didn't want to go into the future. But she did want to go to the stars. It was all she had ever dreamed about. She couldn't have one without the other.
"What if I stay?" she asked.
"You can't stay," he replied. "We need a pilot."
"You're a pilot."
He laughed. "We need a good pilot."
She laughed with him. "Fine. Where are you headed, anyway?"
"I'm going to grab a drop suit. You're not going to have time to land on the way to Arizona."
She grabbed him for a second time. "Wait a second. You aren't planning on attacking Watson's core on your own?"
"No. That would be stupid. I'll have the Core, uh, Teegin with me. And the S-17."
"Mitch, that's suicide. Besides, if you don't get Watson's core or Teegin doesn't make it back, the Goliath doesn't matter."
"If Watson stops the Goliath from leaving, nothing I do will matter, either. Watson and I have a history. I know how to push his buttons. I know how to make him reckless. I can use his hatred of me as a weapon that's more effective than anything else we can do. He's already made a huge mistake by forcing our hand."
He put his hand on her shoulder. She couldn't help but notice how strong he was. Why was she worried about him?
"Origin thought we failed because the original T-virus didn't go far enough. I'm not convinced she was right. We pushed emotions onto machines that didn't know how to handle them, and it made them erratic and violent. It also diminished their operational effectiveness enough to get us here. Watson isn't excluded from that. He'll make more mistakes, and we'll nail him for it."
"I hope you're right."
"I know I am."
Katherine smiled. Whether he really believed what he was saying or not, his conviction was contagious. "Thank you for that, Mitch."
"Anytime."
45
"Are you sure this isn't going to hurt?" Lyle asked.
He was sitting on a chair that had been brought down to the wine cellar. His shirt was off, his back and neck exposed. Michael was sitting beside him, holding a tablet with one wire running to the monitor that had been delivered, and the other hooked up to Watson's control module, which was resting beside the monitor.
"It is completely safe," Teegin replied. The Core was standing behind Lyle; metal fingers pressed to the spot where the implant would be placed.
"Other than the fact that Watson will be able to take control of your entire body," Mitchell said. "He did it to me. It doesn't hurt, but it is a little disconcerting."
"I can live with that," Lyle said.
"Do you think he will take control?" Katherine asked.
"It does not matter," Teegin replied. "Our software is capable of running the trace regardless. As long as the module connects to the access point, we will have what we need to calculate the coordinates."
"It's ready," Michael said, looking at the monitor.
Mitchell didn't see anything but a black screen with lines of white text. None of it meant anything to him.
Teegin shifted to Lyle's side and retrieved the implant. The strands Mitchell had seen earlier were all gone, having retreated back into the mechanical shell. Now the device looked more like a small puck, though the bottom of it seemed rough.
"I am placing the implant now," Teegin said, lowering the device to Lyle's back. Lyle squirmed a little bit, clenching his jaw to keep himself calm.
The small device came alive as it touched the skin, a small laser emitted from the rear portion cutting a neat line beneath it before microscopic legs moved it down into the cut and below the surface.
"Eww, that is weird," Lyle said as it vanished. A small liquid appeared on the cut a moment later, resealing the wound in a matter of seconds. The laser went around the wire that had been attached to the device, leaving it protruding from his back.
"Initializing the monitor," Michael said, tapping the tablet. The screen began to fill with multicolored text.
"What does it mean?" Katherine asked, looking at the screen.
"The different colors are for different interfaces. We're looking at the green. That's the command interface. One we've established a connection, we can send our trace out."
"How long will it take once the trace goes out?" Mitchell asked.
"To collect the data?" Teegin replied. "Only a second it two. Then we can disable the module and remove it."
"Sounds good to me," Lyle said.
"Connecting," Michael announced. "We're almost there."
"How do you feel, Detective?" Kathy asked.
"Fine right now."
Michael's eyes remained glued to the screen, as did Kathy's. They were working together to monitor the activity, their heads close. They made a good team, and Mitchell was comforted to know that if they survived this, if they succeeded, Kathy wouldn't be left alone.
&n
bsp; Not that he wanted to leave her behind. But there was little choice, and she had already made up her mind. He respected her too much to question the decision.
"It is taking a long time," Teegin said. It sounded mildly concerned.
"The network link is crowded," Michael replied. "There's a lot of traffic."
"You can monitor all of the command traffic through the single implant?" Mitchell asked.
"Not specific commands. Only general throughput."
"Can you guess the volume based on that?"
"An estimate? I would say close to five thousand. Those are only the modules that are actively receiving commands."
"Five thousand?" Katherine said, surprised. "That's unbelievable."
"Watson has had twenty years to prepare," Teegin said. "We have not."
"Negotiating," Michael said. "Here we go."
"How do we know when it's-" Lyle tried to finish the sentence, but it trailed off into silence.
Then his expression changed, twisting into an awkward grin.
"Mitchell," Watson said calmly. "I hope you got what you wanted from this. You just killed Detective Lyle."
Mitchell felt his heart skip at the Tetron's words. Could he really do that?
"We have it," Kathy said.
"Shut it down," he snapped. "Now."
"Too late, Mitchell," Watson said.
Lyle started to convulse, his body shaking violently in the chair. The tablet was yanked from Michael's hands as the chair tipped and Lyle fell onto the floor.
"Shut it down," Mitchell repeated.
"I can't," Michael said. "It isn't responding."
Mitchell surged forward, falling to his knees beside Lyle. This couldn't be happening. "Do something," he shouted at the Core.
Teegin knelt beside Lyle. "Hold him."
Mitchell grabbed Lyle and held him steady. Teegin reached to his back, a small arc of energy flowing from his fingers. It dug into the flesh to the control module, causing it to smoke a moment later.