Exile: Arc

by Jack Lance

  It was a harmony on one hand between man and his nature, but also with powerful artificial intelligence, made conscious to the point of a new life form itself. Under jealous and suspicious regulation, these new robot-programs took the reigns of their world, evolving and conserving it for mutual benefit to both.

  This ascension of man and robot grew more powerful with every minute of every year, on and then up into the space age, where they encountered similar cultures with more or less success in their harmonization.

  The Eclipse Empire and its mainframe had taken them into space. The Greys had contacted them eventually, as was the way, only when it was judged that they had fully entered into the Age of Harmony. It was written in stone that they would not interfere with any civilization until a crux point such as this.

  The Grey aliens that began the empire brought with them a powerful Artificial Intelligence that they called simply The Lord. It was in fact a chimera of multiple virtual personalities, almost schizophrenically harmonized as one in service to the peoples of the empire. Their own artificial intelligences were offered up to integrate into it as a trust gesture, then allowing them to share in the mutual benefits of The Lord. This mega-mainframe served to accommodate the AIs of each homeworld, while empire space was open and free to the humans, and any of those rare species that had evolved in a non human way.

  Under the Grey’s imperial reign, all citizens were allowed a basic Harmony set, halting their aging and conserving their health, with the option of more intense technologies on a scale closer to the bio-androids that The Lord used like gloves to service the people. With little or no necessary employment remaining, The Lord and its robotic hands had taken away the old pressures of nation and state, and replaced it in their lives with a unique kind of bliss.

  A unique kind of boredom...

  Such was the technology, and the responsibility, but there was none of that here in the world of exile, but for scraps here and there as a small mercy.

  As he surfed each social networking hub he looked over identity after identity, and what limited information they used in shorthand to get to know one another, those times when they bothered to do that in any real way.

  He closed down the hovering internetwork windows and sighed, and although he felt empty and directionless he had a sense that he had gleaned all that he had needed in that small space of time.

  Following the darkness within him, he took 3D photographs of himself with the social networking camera built into a holo-projected screen. With various images of his head and shoulders rotating slowly he rescaled them to a thumb size and set them to ‘print out’ on 3D paper. Beside the crystal sphere, after a slight yellow flicker and gaseous blur the piece of paper materialized on the table. He picked it up and looked at the rows of self images rotating before him. Lastly he cut away the ones he liked and glued a small piece of a metal paperclip to the back.

  After a moments churn of thought he got up and returned to the house, and brought from the kitchen some work tools, cutlery, and bottles of detergent. He placed Gen Colec’s ID cards on the garden table and began applying a combination of detergents, before peeling back a few layers of protective lining. He peeled back the final lining only enough to access the text on the left, without breaking an electronic seal that ran down the middle over a spinning DNA graphic. He used a combination of slicing away the embossed numbers of the date of exile, rearranging what he had stripped away, and then filling in any blanks left over with simple black pen. He then resealed that side and peeled back the right side so to access the spinning photograph of Colec. He sliced within a golden electronic seal, designed to prevent the removal of the photograph, and using the knife as an electric bridge to the earth at the back, slid in the photograph he had taken. He then resealed the right side of the card and carefully placed back the rest of the protective layering.

  At the last he glued them all into one with the common stationary glue.

  With this technique he did the same with the rest, until each of the ID cards read “Gen Colec, 30 years natural age” and with his own photograph.

  The Biometric DNA print within the card was still that of Colec’s however, and this is all that would be read by authenticating programs, unless he happened to be stopped, at which juncture the face and name would match himself. There were risks involved in such a technique, but without more time it would have to do. Bailey had understood all of the commands the darkness had provided, but still doubted whether a full identity print could realistically be achieved in a place such as this.

  We need to steal his entire life, and it's doable. These biometric systems make a thousand mistakes each day. Our trick is finding these gaps, and constructing a tunnel through them.

  Time was marching on, and soon the gangsters would arrive. He returned upstairs and fished through the walk-in wardrobe in the master bedroom, eventually finding something the darkness liked.

  The father of the household looked to be the outdoors type and with a few robotic refits he got dressed in the old clothes.

  Wearing a silk t-shirt and sandy suede jacket with tight jeans and hiking boots he wandered back outside, and sat at the table while staring at the expansive back lawn. He studied it in the late afternoon light, with its line of flowers at either side, leading down to a glass house at the end. The broad glass house looked to be full of a variety of plants, with a huge tree at the center practically bursting out the top.

  Over its roof he could see that old tree where the kids were still playing, including the one that had caused the trouble earlier. On catching sight of Bailey he took on a note of concern, but looked to be scheming still.

  He's obviously terrified, look at him... he will be.

  The other kids looked quite sweet and seemed to be happy at seeing Bailey’s return. Bailey smiled at seeing this but felt the darkness grimace.

  Bailey sat staring ahead at the gardens and the small wildlife that came to and from it, until he heard a voice behind him.

  “Sorry.” Barton said leaning around the archway, as Bailey calmly palmed the new ID cards from the table, and into his trouser pockets. “I couldn’t get an answer at the front.”

  He walked out onto the stone garden followed by Cix, who formally said “Hello, Mr Bailey.”

  Others followed behind them.

  First came two people that moved as if they were another couple. They were older, the man a tall and perfectly bald with a lightly muscular build, and the woman medium height and broad. All, including the others that followed behind seemed to be dressed in black but for the broad woman, that wore a heavy knitted cardigan and dress.

  “Come with me.” Barton said as he passed by the table

  “Doing a little spring cleaning?” Cix said as she passed, with an amused look at the detergents stacked up on the table.

  “No. I was actually going to pour them down the drain. I hate chemicals.” Bailey said, unable to think of a decent explanation so quickly, and then hoped they wouldn’t ask about the pile of cutlery and tools.

  As he stood up he noticed that one of the others following the old couple was none other than the man he’d seen being interviewed earlier that day. The sight of Morton Fincle of the now infamous Old Gang made his gut clench.

  Bailey made haste after the younger Beldins, while keeping ahead of the older couple.

  They marched down the lawn, within sight of the long line of lawns, most with a mass of white linen and clothes blowing on the lines in the flow of the wind.

  Bailey followed them as they walked into the glass house, and into the spread of tall leaves and growing trays.

  “Mr Bailey.” the heavily dressed woman said as she entered.

  Bailey leaned back against a water-filled tray at the glass wall, and stood there watching as the others filed in before him. He crossed one foot over the other as he wiggled his fingers in the shallow water.

  There was a damp metal table in the middle, just before the trunk of what he now found to be a th
ick growing fruit tree. They all gathered before it, while a younger man with what looked like a fat wire reaching out of the back of his head walked around the tree to the back of the glass house. He opened a door there and threw a pebble at the kids in the tree, who screamed and dropped to the ground, crying and ran away. He returned to the others with his wire gathered in his arms.

  “Are you sure this turkey can do it?” Morton Fincle wagged a dirty hand just before Baileys face, and Bailey stretched a silent smile back at him.

  Almost cutting into the conversation, the tall man stepped forward “Hello, Mr Bailey. My name is Lon Sagar of the Sagar East Syndicate. This is my fiancée Dora Beldin…”

  He gestured to the heavily dressed woman and then to a tubby man beside her.

  “And her brother, Rupe Beldin. Rupe’s son, Ting and you’ve already met his older son Barton and his wife. Finally, Morton Fincle representing Old Gang.”

  “All three syndicates? I’m honoured.” Bailey smiled at them all.

  Dora Beldin stepped up beside her partner and said “Well, you must have already guessed that we are in need of someone like yourself.”

  “Indeed, but I can’t imagine why.” Bailey lied, giving them just the right line to get on with what they had assembled to do.

  “Well, here’s the crux.” Lon said, while ghouling over a computer crystal of his own. “Collectively we have decided that we simply cannot live here anymore. We are, all of us, ascended men and women. Ascended in our mind, body and spirit, and used to much more opulence in our lives. Our syndicates are at war back in the colonies, but here we are all in agreement on one thing, we need to get out.”

  “We are of course too old to escape ourselves, but our children can escape from this place.” Dora carried it, as her partner began to waffle. “Escaping this moon, the system, maybe even exile itself. Ideally they’d like to return to empire, but it might not be possible.”

  Lon continued “They may not need to if we can pull this off. But in order to do this we need someone like you to do the complicated shit.”

  Dora went on, “Cix seems convinced that you can hack the solar grid, so that’s good enough for me. But what do you say? Most people would jump at the chance to get out of here.”

  Bailey smiled an embarrassed smile as all eyes suddenly fell on him, for that answer they had all come here to get. He shrugged and said “Well, it sounds good enough. I’d need to know more about it of course.”

  Shut the hell up fool! Just agree!

  “But of course.” Lon said and slid his crystal onto the wet tabletop behind him. “I’ve brought with me a crude diagram we’ve created, mapping out the basic scheme of the escape.”

  Above the table a hologramatic representation of the marbled planet and its moons sprouted into living colour. A bird that was on its way to drink some of the collected water stopped in mid air and flapped madly around the top of the planet before turning and flying back out of the skylight. The diagram zoomed in to center on one of the orbiting moons. It was an ice covered world.

  “The planet you see is the sixth in the solar system, a non ignited star stabilized as a gas giant in a binary orbit with the sun, Narcosia. We are on its largest moon, a planet large enough to swallow our homeworld three times. We have no idea where we are in the galaxy, but it must be remote. Somewhere deep in the Outlands.”

  Lon walked around the model slightly and pointed at one side of the moon.

  “We are there, in a domed city.” he then pointed at a small space station orbiting overhead. “This is the Narcoisa weather station. Every season a rocket is launched from the side of the dome, taking samples of the atmosphere as it journeys into orbit.”

  Lon had begun a demonstration, and Bailey watched as small dot lifted from the moon’s surface trailing a comical line behind it. The weather station journeyed almost too perfectly toward it.

  “Once in orbit it is collected by the weather station for analysis.” Lon said and turned to Bailey.

  “And you’re going to use that to get into space?” Bailey said with a note of sarcasm.

  “Precisely. Once on board the weather station you can take control, and our compscans have shown that it is fitted with an old but working Backspace drive. If you take the station you can go anywhere you wish, but only if the solar defence grid is disabled. That’s where you come in.”

  “Do you think you can do all of this?” Morton said bluntly.

  Agree.

  “Oh yes. It’s like second nature to me.” Bailey blurted nervously with an inane smile.

  Dora pointed up at the weather station and said “If you can escape in this vehicle you can live there indefinitely. It was designed as a home for army and navy units, as part of the original pioneering years. You can sell space merchant services to the Outland colonies and live out there like kings. You’d need to stay on the move of course but you’ll be free. At least that.”

  “Sounds perfect.” Bailey said quietly and smiled up at her. “Consider me on board.”

  Just then the artificial sunlamps went out, immediately replaced by the cool blue moonlight lamps of evening.

  “Drat.” Dora said, smiling at Bailey. “I guess its time for bed.”

  “Barton will fill you in with the rest. It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Aaron Bailey.” Lon said and shook his hand with a gentle firmness. Behind him Dora scooped up the computer crystal and dropped it into her cardigan pocket.

  “Thanks.” she smiled as she passed him by.

  Morton followed them and then Bailey walked out onto the grass with the remaining Beldins.

  Barton walked up beside him and smiled “That went well. I think you have a lot to add to this.”

  Cix approached and said “We’ll be back tomorrow, and we’ll take you to one of our labs. You’ll be assigned a compartmentalized team and report only to them, and to the overall project coordinator, Dr Chester Barron.”

  “You may hear gossip about Dr Barron. He was on other escape attempts that failed. Just remember we have every faith in him, and that should be good enough for you.” Barton said.

  “Certainly.” Bailey lied.

  “You’re really a solar hacker?” Barton’s younger brother, Ting leaned at him in the moonlight.

  “Err, well yeah?” Bailey said with a sardonic note.

  “I play a solar hacker in my Star Marines RPG. South Syndicate runs Star Marines. I can get you a free account. Do you want a free account?” Ting said as he walked around him like a circling shark. His brain-link wire trailed along the lawn behind him, leaving a small trace of blood on the dark grass as it did. It was a primitive technology used to connect these virtual reality junkies into the fake world of RPGs and the like.

  “We’ll see how it rolls.” Bailey said and turned away from him, to his older brother.

  “Nine tomorrow morning. Be ready for a full day.” Barton said.

  “And stay indoors tonight.” Cix added as if suddenly realizing something. “We have syndicate guards all around here but the dickheads still get in sometimes. We don’t want any harm coming to you… and maybe keep the curtains drawn too.”

  “Anything you say.” Bailey said, pointing at her cheesily on the ‘you’.

  Their father, Rupe stepped around them and put his hand on Tings shoulder.

  “Take this multi-com phone.” he said handing him a small pebble shaped computer, that fitted just perfectly inside the hand. “I locked all the important numbers and addies you’ll need into it. Also the diagram you saw earlier. Nerd up on this stuff as quick as you can.”

  Bailey nodded slightly while looking down at the multi-com, which was basically a more ergonomic version of the computer crystals.

  “Good evening, Mr Bailey.” he said, and with that they all left across the gardens.

  Bailey watched them until they were out of sight and then began to walk back up to the tall house. Inside the lobby he stood on the hovering elevator and leaned against the wall as he watched the cars of
the visiting party pull away along the street.

  There was a piercing screech from a distance behind, followed by a set of gunshots and then more screeching.

  “Attic.” he said, and stood straight as the elevator lifted the full height of the house to the topmost floor.

  He walked into the long, dusty room stepping by sets of wooden boxes toward a boarded up window he had seen from the garden below.

  He stepped up to it and looked through one of the gaps in the old boards. With a clear view over the fields of the district he was able to see figures running at a distance while colony robots tried to chase them down. They looked insane, possibly high as kites and running with their arms flailing. There was the flicker of laser light and two of the figures fell to the grass. Other figures turned and ran toward one of the many tunnels out of the district.

  We can’t stay in. The night is young. We need to find Gen Colec’s pad.

  “Looks fucking dangerous out there.” Bailey muttered and then looked down at the nearest wooden removal crate. It's lid had been popped and inside he could see a few living photographs of the parents and child that had lived here. From the scattering of snaps he could see the hopes and faiths of them, and that coldness in knowing that they had died quickly somewhere out in that dangerous place.

  He picked up a pair of sunglasses that had been resting on a holiday snap. It was a moving picture of the family burying their father in the sand, most probably one of the shores up in the biosphere.

  We can’t waste time. So much yet to do.

  He watched as it looped again, and then put on the sunglasses and walked up to the closest light.

  He gazed at the flickering lightbulb through the sun shades and sighed slightly before turning away.

  “Let’s ride.” he muttered sombrely and moved toward the elevator again.

  Moments later he walked down the drive to the night-lit street and pressed the button on the stable key, calling his car from the garages.

  After a moment of standing in silence there was a hollow growl from within the subway at the end of the road and then the roof of the car came to view as it turned to mount the ramp. It popped its headlights on as it sensed the night and cruised up onto the street, and then along to park where Bailey was waiting. There was a slight screech as it did, and then Bailey began to walk around it looking the beast over in the artificial moonlight.