by E A Carter
What de Pommier doesn't know is when she upgraded me, my consciousness enmeshed itself in the data that runs this place, made me a ghost among the quadrillions of pieces of data fleeting through Alpha VII's core. Not just infrastructure shit for rebuilding a new home on Mars but everything. All the dirt. All the lies. All the crimes. Everything. And it goes deep. I thought Delta Force were mercenary and ruthless, but what DF have done even at our worst is nothing compared to what the inner circle of true power has done. To keep Alpha VII running they have torn apart entire ecosystems, and left billions of lives to die of starvation with nothing more than a digital signature and time stamp.
When they jacked me into the system one of the first things I looked at was my file. I am destined to be incinerated with everyone else. I found an order from de Pommier to shut me down, extract my memories into a data key and include it in the shipment to Mars one day prior to Blue's launch. I deleted it and scrubbed the data traces. Every day for the last month I have scoured the files for any new orders to replace the missing one but nothing has surfaced.
The mood in the war room is grim, but professional. No one in here is unaware of what's coming. They've got a countdown timer on the system for god's sake, every monitor has it. No one can escape it. I heard a couple of them talking during a break, how they weren't going to burn, but eat lead for breakfast instead of pancakes. I would be the same, if I were one of them. If I were still me. But I am not them, I am me, or whatever I have become.
I do the work for de Pommier while I scan into the depths of the system for the answers I need to ensure my plan cannot fail. I can't leave any traces behind so all I can do is look, and learn, and remember. It's going to be tight because when de Pommier expects me to be shut down is when I need to action my plan. I try not to think about how much this could fuck up because it can't fuck up. It has to work, no matter what.
I have to be able to survive this. For her. I won't leave her alone. Not again. Never again.
It's late when one of Blue's guards comes to get me. 02:17 hours. The war room is tense with focus, of suppressed urgency, every screen relentless with the reminder of our collective slide towards the end of all things. Thirteen days, seventeen hours, forty-three minutes, twenty-eight seconds. I count the seconds in my head as we pace the length of the corridor back to Blue's apartment. We reach the door, and the guard stands aside, his data enhanced eyes move over me, impassive, as he turns.
Thirteen days, seventeen hours, forty-two minutes, forty-nine seconds.
I open the door. In the gloom of the dimly lit space, Blue leans against the kitchen counter, a half-finished glass of water in her hand, clad in a fitted jumpsuit of pure white with dark red piping. She looks good, despite the dark circles under her eyes, the droop of her fatigue. She's gained at least five kilos, and even though she's still very thin, at least she is not skeletal anymore, every one of her bones exposed to my touch.
Miro emerges from the bedroom, blinking, slow, as if she hasn't yet woken up. After two and half months of feeding, she is a contented, sleek, gentle thing. She pads down the mirrored corridor towards Blue, her tail lifted in greeting, a little crook at the tip of her tail, like a question mark.
'Miro.' A smile lights Blue's lips. She picks her up like a mother would a toddler, settling Blue's front paws on her shoulder. She nuzzles her face against Blue's fur, and continues, 'You're going to come with me to a place very far away. I worked so hard for that. I couldn't bear to leave you behind.'
I close the door. A heavy metallic click cuts through her quiet interlude as the guard outside triggers the lock into place, the message clear. We may be living in luxury but we are de Pommier's prisoners. Blue's eyes meet mine. She doesn't know what I have the power to do. Doesn't realise we are not locked in here, or anywhere—that I am able to open every locked door in Alpha VII, can influence the data the Elites receive in their retinal implants. All I need is access to a wall panel—and they are everywhere.
Miro snuggles into Blue's neck, her throaty purr filled with pleasure as Blue strokes her, and whispers promises of a better life to the one I know kept her alive and fighting long after her hope was gone.
I go to her as she sets Miro onto the counter and feeds the cat cold slices of roast duck leftover from her dinner the night before. As Miro settles over her snack, Blue turns to me and smiles, soft and forlorn.
'Thirteen days,' she says.
'Seventeen hours.' I answer. 'Let's make it last.'
And we do.
In the morning, I tell her I love her.
And she cries.
THIRTEEN | AMADI EZENWA
* * *
'Colonel Ezenwa.' An Elite, his beret tucked into his epaulette, salutes me, sharp. I glance at his eyes, blue light shimmers behind his pupils. He nods at me, coldness emanating from him. My interest in him deepens. I wonder if I am in the presence of one of the rare military upgrades I have had the clearance to hear about: The next generation of soldiers. Only the most elite get the offer: Give up your life, and GC will resurrect you, the ultimate soldier, a nanobot-enhanced killing machine, granted the right to marry, plus citizenship in Alpha VII.
So far, none of the twelve who had been selected wanted a woman. They were interested in one thing only: A near immortal life in Alpha VII and the wealth GC granted them for their 'sacrifice'. Of course, unknown to them, we had buried a kill switch deep into their coding, just in case they decided to stage a coup—or simply went mad with killing.
I eye his back as he leads me along a corridor, glass walled on one side and graced with the rarest of Rembrandts, Picassos, Matisses, Van Goghs, Monets, and Pollacks on the opposite. I bite back a scoff: I had been led to believe most of the pieces we passed had been forever lost. Apparently not. I wonder what other secrets I will learn today, here where I absolutely do not want to be.
'The Prime Minister is still at breakfast,' my escort informs me, as though he resents the effort of speaking. I nod, even though he can't see me. I don't like him. It. Whatever he has become.
We reach a massive pair of white doors without any handles, only the dark seam between the double-width panels breaks the monolithic monotony of the imposing barrier before us. On their right hand side, a blank smartscreen lights up in response to the cyber-soldier's presence and reads the data behind his eyes.
Although I can't see any, I sense the cameras, of being watched with a zealous, curious intensity. I clasp my hands behind my back, and feign ease despite my unease. This morning, I sat in my living room and watched the sun come up, aching with dread. No one I knew of ever met the Prime Minister in person anymore; he had become a recluse, never left his suite.
Soaked in rising paranoia of being assassinated and missing his ticket into G-II, he would only meet in virtual settings, at times in his bathrobe, his pale unwashed hair standing on end. An embarrassment. Worse, he would hijack critical issues to lay out complex conspiracies he had concocted in his solitary, isolated world, and all we could do was endure it, and wait for him to run out of steam. Sometimes it took hours.
At the stroke of midnight, a call from one of his Elites. The Prime Minister breaking his own rule of meeting in person disturbs me to my core. There is no positive way to spin this, no way to cut it with Hanlon's razor. Whatever is to come is going to be rotten. He always has an angle, a move, a strategy. Dirty work. Paranoia has only made him worse. And this conversation—whatever fresh hell it is going to be—can only be done in person. And I will be his errand boy. I exhale slow, measured, aware of the eyes on me. A cat with a mouse.
A faint beep comes from the smartscreen and the doors glide open in total silence, reverential. Inside, an intensity of white floors, walls, and furniture, blinding in the glare of the morning sun from the window screens. Mozart's unfinished Requiem in D Minor filters into the corridor, tragic and haunting. I sense it's intentional, a harbinger for what is to come. I recall that particular funereal Requiem was the last piece of music Mozart composed from h
is deathbed, as if in farewell to himself.
My escort turns. His eyes slide over me, assessing me. I sense his resentment as he strides back down the corridor, brisk and efficient. It disturbs me. Why would one of the most privileged citizens in the world resent me? He has more wealth than I possess. He can't die. At least, not like the rest of us. Left alone in the sanctuary of the most powerful man on the planet. I wait.
Footsteps approach from beyond my range of vision. The Prime Minister appears in the doorway, a crystal-cut tumbler with two fingers of whiskey in his grip. It's barely past breakfast. I pretend not to see it. He's wearing a dark blue suit, his hair combed back. The woody scent of oud reaches me. Once, my father took me to visit the vault where the lost scents of a dead world were kept locked in a glass chamber of perfect humidity. Oud had been my favourite. My father had smiled and said I had expensive taste, just like my mother. I later learned oud was produced from the resin of mould-infected Agar trees, tropical trees which once thrived in India. Before. I keep my face blank, but the irony tears through me, bitter and hot. Agar trees in Greenland, grown to provide the Prime Minister with his cologne, the cost would be insane. And I murdered a million starving people because it was necessary.
'Amadi,' he says.
I salute him, sharp. 'Prime Minister.'
He turns, and gestures into the glacial cool of his residence. 'Walk with me.'
I fall into step beside him. His unexpected togetherness shoots my expectations in a far more dangerous direction. I sense his paranoia and conspiracy theories have been intentional, a way to control us, to keep us distracted while he did whatever it was he was really doing. A clever, calculating, amoral man with limitless power. And now, he’s revealing his true self to me. And whatever that means, it means I am now in the inner circle—whether I like it or not.
He crosses the expanse to the wall of glass. We are in the middle of six months of living in utter darkness, but in here, inside, beams of sunlight warm my skin. One of the many perks of Alpha VII, where the smart glass grants the full sensory load. Reality is what we create, and right now, it's July even though it's early January.
He sips. Swallows. I drink in the view of the sunbathed order, symmetry, and white harmony of a summery Alpha VII. A paradise. An architect's wet dream. Heaven on earth. Man become god.
'It's all over,' he says.
I cut a look at him, seeking—hoping—he is mad after all. But as in all things, I am to be disappointed.
'de Pommier and me, we don't see eye to eye,' he takes another sip, makes a small sound of appreciation. I can understand, his whiskey's amber, smoky notes are close enough for me to taste. It surrounds me, expensive, and old. Very old.
He lifts his glass to me. 'Macallan. Distilled in 1938, just before World War II. Label is handwritten. Rarest bottle of malt left in existence. And now it's being consumed, for breakfast. The very last of its kind.' He swirls the malt and slides a sidewise look up at me. 'Would you like to try it?'
Of course I do. But I want a clear head. 'Maybe later.' I turn my attention back to the view.
He nods, thoughtful, and takes another measured sip. He lets out a heavy breath and the perfume of a lost world of wealth, hope, and decadence surrounds us.
I wait. He has already dropped his breadcrumbs. The rest is sure to follow. Silence is power, and I am good at silence, especially ever since that day. The day I knew nothing was left for me.
'What do you know of The Oracle?' he asks.
'Enough. Many have died because of her.'
'She's here. Right under our noses.'
This catches me by surprise. The last I heard she was lost somewhere beyond the barrier. Presumed dead. I keep my expression neutral. Say nothing.
'I like you Amadi, so cool, calm, and collected. Just like your father.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'A little pet project of de Pommier's,' he continues after another sip of history, 'to undermine my solution.'
Genesis II. This, at least is not above my pay grade. Billions have been poured into this project, paid for by the elite who want a ticket to a new world. A one thousand year sleep while the rest of the human race dies out and the Earth regenerates. The chance for another life where the planet is theirs for the taking all over again.
I don't have to wait long for him to tell me the rest: The resurrected Delta Force Captian: Ryan Maddox. The name rings a bell. I file it for later. The Oracle's rescue from London. de Pommier's intention to terraform Mars with the Oracle's abilities, to use them for good instead of harm. To send ships out in the next two days with a select few including the Oracle. An ark of life. The Oracle's prediction that everything will burn in less than five days. Everything.
He falls silent and turns his glass round in his hand. The amber liquid sparkles, innocent, washed in sunlight six months old. The truth hits me, surreal, like a cold, metallic slap. In less than a week all life will be obliterated. Including mine. I realise I don't mind. Adiana.
'How?' I ask when the silence stretches too far.
He shakes his head. 'Never clarified. But she's the Oracle. And—' he drinks, grim, as if to give himself the courage to finish the sentence.
'Never been wrong,' I breathe. I turn to him. 'Why am I here?'
'I need someone to protect me.'
Not the answer I expected. I lift an eyebrow. My eyes move back to the entrance of his residence, towards the cyber soldier on guard outside and let the obvious hang in the air between us.
'Not them,' he throws back the last of the whiskey. 'Definitely not them.'
'Why not?'
'They're hers.'
Ah, there it is. The paranoia. Somehow this comforts me, that at least this much is certain. Who I understood him to be, he still is underneath the slick suit and cologne. This I can handle. The end of all things? An ark of select humans destined for Mars? The Oracle being right under my nose without my knowledge? A dead soldier brought back to life? Things to think about. Later.
'I am a strange choice, sir, to select for your protection. I am an engineer, not a soldier.'
'That's exactly why I want you.'
I bite back a wave of irritation. I don't have time for his nonsense. I will this meeting to end.
'You are going to go down into G-II. Today. As soon as this meeting is over, in fact. And you will not come out again for one thousand years.'
'Sir?'
He walks away, leaves me disoriented, confused and more than a little angry. If he thinks I am going to go into a hole in the ground to sleep for a millennium to wake up again to god knows what, he can forget it. I want out. I'm ready to check out. I have no intention of sticking around.
He stops at a sideboard where the bottle of 1938 Macallan waits. A soft pop as he uncorks it and pours two fingers into a clean glass. I assume it's for himself. I'm wrong. He comes back and hands me the glass.
I take it, but don't drink.
'The game has changed.' He folds his arms over his chest and looks out over the city, innocent and gleaming in its preserved sunlight. It's hard to imagine it all gone, a burned wasteland.
'G-II was meant to be nothing more than hibernation,' he continues. 'We would sleep while the rest died of hunger, as the human race ground to its miserable halt, leaving only its cities behind. It would not be easy, but once we woke up at least there would be something to start again from.'
I see where this is going. I drink. The Macallan sears my throat. Burns my mind. I like it. The drink of men filled with the promise of themselves. Of their capability to create. And to destroy.
'So now you are caught with your pants down,' I say, cold. 'And you want me to help you out of your mess one thousand years from now. The answer is no.'
His eyes meet mine. 'I am offering you a way out that's worth a billion dollars.'
I scoff and take another sip of the whiskey. 'You assume much to think I want out.'
Silence falls. He eyes me. 'It's been four years since Adiana,' he says, 'I
had thought you were over it.'
'Well. I am not. Find someone else to save your neck from the others once they realise where you have taken them.' I laugh. 'It's what you deserve, for what you have done to this world with your insatiable greed. It would almost be worth it just to see you scrabbling in the mud for something to eat.' I take a drink, caught in an undertow of bitterness. 'Because of them Adiana is dead. And now you will die, too. Poetic, isn't it?'
He waits. I empty the glass, drinking my way through a four year haze of rage, of the buried fury I eat, sleep and shit twenty-four-seven.
'Then come and watch us die.'
I hand him the glass. He takes it. I go to the sideboard and heft the bottle of Macallan and cradle it in my palm. Run my finger over the letters, written almost one hundred fifty years before. He thinks I will change my mind when I get there. Will try to survive. He's wrong. This isn't about me. It's about her, and her loss. I won't give up until every one of them is dead. I will be the last man on Earth, and her death will be avenged. At last. Purpose. I turn to him and hold up the bottle. 'This comes with me.'
He smiles. He thinks he has won. Just like always. But not this time. Not this time.
A billion dollars. That's what it costs to get a second chance these days. Buried deep under Alpha VII, I keep my expression neutral even as I marvel at the ultimate representation of man's determination to become a god.
It took several trillion dollars to carve and build this underground sanctuary out of solid rock. And it shows. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't this: Sleek. White. Curved walls with perfect lighting. It's like a set from a slick sci-fi film. Except it's not. It's real and chills me to the bone. The hubris of what Genesis II can potentially accomplish is stunning, a mortal dare that screams to be crushed into dust.