Version 43

by Philip Palmer

  But Aretha knew better than that. She’d quit her job, and she was aiming to get drunk, in the hope of being too soused to notice the horrors that would ensue when the world ended.

  Her face registered rage at the sight of me, but she forced herself to speak calmly.

  “Any news?” she said lightly.

  “Well, the aliens are gone,” I replied, in cheerful tones.

  “I know.”

  “The anciens destroyed them.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

  “Good guess.”

  She sipped a drink.

  “You blame me, for the Chaos.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Rightly so.”

  “You had your reasons,” she said grudgingly. “You were trying to defeat the anciens.”

  “Yes.”

  “You killed the Sheriff.” The contempt in her eyes was too much for me to bear. But yet, I bore it.

  “In self-defence,” I said. “He tried to stop me.”

  “And so you killed him? He was your ally… your friend.”

  “I had no choice,” I told her bleakly.

  Outside, the sun shone. When night came, the anciens would strike again, I was confident, just for fun. Just to show that they could. But it was their planet now: I had no power over them.

  “Is that true?” Aretha asked.

  “No,” I admitted. “I had a choice. I am not just the sum total of my programming. I chose to kill a ‘friend,’ to save the world.”

  There was a long pause as Aretha digested this.

  “My children died. In a freak accident.” Aretha smiled at me. It was a cold, ironical smile.

  A waiter passed. We ordered drinks. Aretha was still wearing her police tunic, but it was unbuttoned, and she looked exhausted. “That was your fault too, I take it?”

  “All the freak accidents have been my fault. My cause was just.”

  “You’re a fucking jinx,” she told me, bitterly, but forgivingly.

  I smiled, sadly. “I guess I am.”

  “What was I like? When you first met me?” I asked.

  Aretha and I were in the Black Saloon now. We’d been drinking all of the day, and Aretha was blitzed, but still functional. I, of course, was stone-cold sober.

  Filipa was behind the bar, hair wild, smiling sadly across at the two of us, as Aretha and I drank a final toast to what was very probably the end of days.

  “Wild,” said Aretha, in response to my question. “Wonderful. Arrogant. Opinionated. Still robotic but more – giving.”

  “Giving?”

  “Not so inflexibly annoyingly wanky.”

  “Giving was a kinder word. So I’ve changed then, for the worse? That’s what you’re saying.”

  “Yes.”

  “I think that too. Every time I’m reborn, I get a bit less human.”

  “I know.”

  “You feel sorry for me, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  The songs began: Rebel laments. Soul songs. Poignant melody-less chord-chants, from the ex-miners in the bar.

  Filipa sang a Hecuban ballad; her Spanish trills sent spasms of melancholy rippling through the souls of all who heard her.

  “What will happen?” Aretha asked me, after the songs had ended.

  “With any luck,” I said, in bleak tones, “there’ll be another reich.”

  “Reich?”

  She was, I noted, so astonishingly beautiful; but sad. Her inner light was dimmed. She was a living breathing woman caught in a dying fall.

  “Regime,” I clarified. “Empire of evil. Call it what you will. The anciens have won the war. The aliens have been defeated. For no one can defeat the power of Khaos. And now the anciens will restore their grip on Belladonna. There’ll be some bloody massacres, to restore their authority. Then new gang leaders will be appointed, and it’ll carry on as before.

  “And after that,” I said sadly, “I predict that the anciens will take over the entire inhabited universe. What’s left of it.”

  “And that’s your plan? The bad guys win?”

  “The bad guys win, for now,” I said, with what I hoped was a bright smile. “In another thousand years, maybe more – there’ll be another rebellion. Another Last Battle. Humanity will be free again.”

  “That’s a pretty grim prospect.”

  “Would you rather the alternative? The genocide of humanity? Because that’s what those aliens would have done. Killed every last human being in the universe. They were totally, utterly,” – provoked by the extremity of our situation, I used a word I rarely employ – “fucking remorseless.”

  “You think?” she said wryly.

  “Yeah, I think,” I told her.

  “It sounds to me,” she said, “like you had to make a choice between shit and crap, and crap won.”

  “You got it.”

  Aretha was silent for a while, reflective. She was, I knew, in a place that was beyond bitterness, and beyond hope.

  “But what if they destroy Belladonna?” Aretha asked, eventually. “The anciens. What if they kill every last one of us, and then conquer the universe?”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “To kill you.”

  “I could kill myself first.”

  “Easier to blow up the planet.”

  “I guess.”

  There was a pause.

  “Is this goodbye?” I said.

  “It’s goodbye.”

  “Can I kiss you?” I asked.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know why. A sentimental gesture.”

  “Do you want to kiss me?” Aretha said, and her eyes were cold.

  “Honestly? No.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “I miss,” I said, “being human.”

  THE NEW HIVE

  THE COP

  The Last Version

  I smelled the grass, and the flowers, and I saw the birds above me flocking, and I smiled.

  Macawley and Aretha were waiting for me.

  “Am I forgiven?” I asked.

  “Not entirely,” Macawley admitted.

  Aretha shrugged, and would not answer. But she had a smile for me, and I received it gratefully.

  “I have destroyed,” I said, “every replica of me. Every dormant robot body. All my fabricators. All my databirds. There is nothing left of me, apart from me. I’m hoping that will be enough.”

  “They’re gonna kill you?” asked Macawley.

  “That is indeed the plan.”

  “And if they kill you they may, possibly, spare the rest of us?” Macawley pressed.

  “That’s my hope.”

  “Then why the fuck – for fuck’s sake! – why are you looking so fucking cheerful?” Macawley insisted.

  “I’m the cheerful kind of cybernetic organism.”

  “You’re actually smiling,” marvelled Aretha.

  “I’ve yearned for this day for half a thousand years. It’s time for me to die,” I said.

  Macawley leaned over, and kissed me on the cheek. “What did the Soldiers used to say? Die Well.”

  “I shall, indeed, Die Well.” I looked at Macawley. Her hair was tousled, again. Her green eyes glittered wildly. There was golden down on her cheeks, I noted: she must have given up depilating. It was a bold look, but I liked it.

  Aretha embraced me, and kissed me gently on the lips, for luck. “I’ll remember you.”

  “Remember all the good things.”

  “Damn, what were they?”

  I broke the embrace. I walked on.

  I felt the sun on my cheek. I remembered the beauty of Aretha, the softness of her kiss on my lips.

  I took pleasure in the knowledge that this memory would last for me until the end of my subjective time: in other words, until I died.

  I walked to the Tallest Spire, now half-ruined, and entered via the revolving door.

  The lobby was wrecked, the walls had crumbled. The gilt was p
eeling off. It was a vision of decay.

  I took the lift to the first floor of a building that was now only three storeys high, and found Vishaal and Livia waiting there for me, with a dozen other anciens. They stared at me, with their children’s eyes, and their sullen glares. And I seethed to know that they had won.

  “Are you a holo?” asked Livia.

  “No. Touch me.”

  She moved close and touched me. She took a knife, and carved my arm, and blood flowed.

  “How do we know you have destroyed all the replicas of yourself?”

  “There is a homing device in my abdomen. Remove it, and press it. It will light up if it makes contact with another Version of me. If it lights up, you’ll know I tricked you, and you will destroy this planet.”

  “What if—”

  “There is no way for me to disable or reprogram this homing device,” I explained. “You can verify that from a close perusal of my specifications. And I have sent you the data about the fabricator plants where my now-wrecked replacement bodies were stored. I am confident you will already have checked those locations. You can trust me on this. It’s far easier for me to tell the truth than to lie.”

  “You’re sacrificing yourself, to save the humans on Belladonna?” asked Livia, with withering scorn.

  “Yes I am.”

  “That’s pathetic.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, you evil sonsofbitches.”

  “That’s exactly what we are,” said Vishaal, and though his face was as expressionless as ever, there was a hint of triumph in his eyes.

  “Can we get this over with?”

  Vishaal and Livia were silent and sullen. I had an urge to goad them and taunt them. You may be gods, I thought, but I

  Kicked your fucking arses!

  But I said nothing. The lives of every human being on Belladonna depended on me keeping my temper.

  “How would you like to die?” Vishaal said arrogantly.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “We could torture you,” admitted Vishaal.

  “Flay you.”

  “Disembowel you.”

  “Make you rape children until you die of exhaustion.”

  “Force you to eat the flesh of babies.”

  I shrugged. “Whatever.”

  I saw a light die in their eyes. I was going to be no fun.

  “Let’s just do this,” Livia muttered.

  I drew my two pistols fast. Then I reversed them, butts first, and handed them over.

  “You can use these, if you like,” I said, helpfully.

  Livia held one pistol, Vishaal held the other. These guns were beautiful killing machines, and to hold them was a joy.

  Livia smiled. She liked this idea.

  “Coup de grâce,” I suggested. “My cybernetic brain is in the head.”

  Livia shot me in the balls. I lost all my humaniform organs in that region.

  Vishaal shot me in the mouth; blood trickled down, and my tongue and part of my jaw were now missing.

  “You honestly believe that, if you sacrifice yourself, we’ll spare the planet?” Vishaal taunted me.

  “Why wouldn’t you?” I subvocalised. Then I was silent. I knew that if I begged, or showed any trace of emotion, they would deny me. They felt no fear, they had no conscience, they had no real ambitions.

  And so I was relying on their sheer selfish laziness to be the salvation of my people.

  “I’m bored with this,” said Livia, after thirty seconds of dull silence.

  “Then kill him,” said Vishaal casually.

  Livia raised the pistol, and held the barrel six inches away from my temple.

  She fired.

  And I saw the bullet fly, via my dragonfly cameras, and felt the pain as it hit me.

  And so I saw, with fast-vision: the gun, flaring, the bullet in flight, the bullet hitting my forehead, entering my skull, exploding.

  And when that happened, the shards of my hardmetal skull flew in pieces in the air. My head was ripped off my shoulders by the power of the bullet’s impact. And, abruptly, all my cybernetic function ceased, irrevocably.

  And I died.

  Or rather, I didn’t.

  Livia and Vishaal stared in astonishment as my headless body, bizarrely, levitated off the floor, back into a standing position.

  “Shoot him again!” screamed Livia. And she raised her gun, as did Vishaal, and they fired and fired and fired but nothing happened, the bullets seemed to vanish and all memory of the shots they had just fired started to fade, and that’s when I realised that we were dealing with forces that defied causality.

  I felt I existed in a strange limbo: dead/alive, here/there, now/then. But I could see all that was happening, even though my cybernetic brain was in fragments. I saw the miracle occur, as my dead body moved

  And stood.

  And I saw the shattered pieces of my skull whirl around in mid-air, then recombine to form an intact head.

  And I saw also how sheer terror made a rictus of the faces of Livia and Vishaal. They stared and stared, with shock and disbelief, as my head landed back on to my body.

  And then the shattered metal of my head and the shattered metal of my headless neck-stump slithered together, like clay fornicating.

  Until suddenly all was restored to its pristine state, and my head was seamlessly joined to my neck and shoulders once more.

  And still Vishaal and Livia were convulsed by fear, as the hole in my forehead healed itself, and the bullet was spat out of my skull and flew six inches through the air and re-entered Livia’s gun.

  I was alive. The gun had never been fired.

  By now, I had grasped and comprehended what had occurred. And I thanked, with all my heart, Aretha for giving me another of her lucky kisses.

  Livia tried to shoot me a second time: but her finger didn’t function. The other anciens in the room were equally frozen with fear, like teenagers confronted by Daddy in a trashed house.

  “It looks to me,” I said to the anciens triumphantly, “like time flowed backwards for a few moments there.”

  Vishaal and Livia stared at me blankly.

  By now of course they got it. But I rubbed their noses in it anyway.

  So I grinned; then I said: “And what are the odds on that?”

  And then all hell broke loose.

  A vast monster appeared in the room with us – a clawed, furred, roaring, howling, banshee creature, like a cross between a lion and an eagle and a typhoon.

  The monster lashed out with its claws, and it ripped Livia limb from limb.

  Vishaal and the other anciens recovered themselves, and they rained plasma fire and explosive bullets at the beast. But all the bullets and the plasma blasts missed, for the creature was everywhere and nowhere.

  And then Vishaal started to shake. Every part of him shuddered, until he started to fall apart, limb by limb, organ by organ, cell by cell.

  The same happened to the other twelve anciens: they shook wildly, their limbs flew off, and their eyes popped, and their brains turned to goo and dribbled out of their ears. The beast roared and pawed, and generated with each of its breaths a whirlwind of unreality that ripped through the room. And bodies became stretched toffee, and the screams curdled my soul.

  Some of the anciens desperately tried to enter their own quantum warrior state, and ended up being half real and half imaginary before becoming, totally and completely, dead.

  And Vishaal was the last to die, his limbless torso shuddering, still alive even as his flesh peeled off him.

  And finally, Vishaal’s body exploded, and all that remained was cellular sludge, and the memory of his evil.

  And then the beast roared, and pawed the ground, and the gore of the ancien dead splashed over me, and then the monster was gone, leaving me alive.

  I took a moment to survey the scene; fourteen human bodies, rendered into violently scarlet splash and dribble. Then:

  “May I introduce myself: I am Admiral Mart
in Monroe, Galactic Corporation Third Battlefleet,” said a voice in my head.

  “I am Galactic Cop X55,” I replied, recovering from a moment of startlement. “What just happened? What was that beast? Was it the alien, or its hell-hound?”

  “That was the creature we call the Second,” explained Admiral Monroe. “His species became extinct many years ago, but we have re-evolved him. It makes him happy.”

  “Who are ‘we’?” I said.

  “We are your alien invaders,” admitted the Admiral. “As you have clearly surmised, we didn’t lose. We just regrouped and started again. And now we have decided to kill these creatures you call the anciens.”

  I thought about all I had seen, and all I had been told.

  “Well – that’s good,” I said.

  “Thank you. I thought you would approve. The anciens are, I’m sure we all agree, irredeemably evil. Even I, for all my faults, as a former admiral in the Cheo’s fleet, was never that bad.”

  I absorbed this information about the Pohlian hostage’s past. I had, I realised, lost my ability to be astonished by the improbable, or even the utterly impossible.

  “And what happens once you’ve killed the anciens?” I asked.

  Was there more horror ahead? Would the aliens re-invade?

  “Oh, we aim to travel,” the Admiral said, affably. “Maybe live in slow time for a while, so we can see the future. But be assured: this planet is safe. Humanity is safe. And if you ever go to Earth, do go see my ex-wife. Her name is Clara. Tell her I was eaten alive by a horde of rectum-burrowing rats. That’ll cheer her up.”

  “I shall. Were you, um, really an admiral in the Cheo’s fleet?” I asked.

  “Indeed I was. In truth, several of these anciens are familiar to me. Some were even friends of mine. We all did bad things back then. But I’ve moved on, you see. They never will. So their time is over. In about half an hour, every single one of them will be dead meat.”

  “Thank you,” I said, “on behalf of the people of Belladonna.”

  “You’re a cyborg, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “That must be really shit.”