Fatima’s knuckles whitened around the handle of the knife. “When I kissed Hotula, he resisted briefly, but then his own evolutionary directives took control.” She looked at Kayla as an animal caught in a snare might. “It’s like being imprisoned in one’s own mind with no way of stopping the demon who’d seized control of your body.”
Fatima’s gaze fell to her hands and the bloody knife. “When Tem walked in on us rutting on the floor like pigs who’d been thrown a bowl of slop, he went for Hotula like a tiger sighting wounded prey.”
Kayla’s heart skipped a beat. “Tem showed me what he’d done to his adoptive father.”
“I should have cut my own throat then.”
Kayla gazed at the knife in Fatima’s hands. Maybe it would have been better if she had committed suicide. What did life promise her other than suffering? How sad for Tem to have fallen in love with a girl like this. “How did you save Tem’s life?”
“When we split, I watched from afar as Tem continued his conquests. After consolidating Asia, Mongolia, India, Russia, and Australia, he took Western Europe with hardly a shot fired. The new Mongol Empire became the most powerful unified military and economic force on the planet. Little stood in the way of Tem becoming the first world emperor in history.
“All this I heard secondhand as I threw myself into a deliberate self-immolation of soul and body. My loyal Ganesh kept me tethered to this world by the finest of threads. At the time, I resented his intercessions in my many suicide attempts.”
Fatima’s head jerked up. “When I heard that the Mongol emperor had been arrested by his own generals for treason, I sobered instantly. The recovering United States and a coalition of Western governments had proposed a peace treaty that called for a democratic Federalist world government. They’d brokered a treaty with the Neo-Luddites to end the future plague threats, but it required a unified world to make it work.”
“By then, Temujin’s empire so dwarfed all the rest of the world’s combined might, that it shocked everyone when he abandoned his plans of a Neo-Mongolian empire spanning the globe to accept the American proposal. His own people denounced and imprisoned him as a traitor. They wanted a conqueror, not a peacemaker.
“The Mongolian generals sent a transport for Ganesh and me in the hopes that we might persuade him to resume his drive for world domination.”
Fatima’s eyes fell to the knife, and she absently scraped the tip across her thigh until a thin line of blood welled up. Then she started another furrow next to it, like a farmer deliberately plowing a field. “My stomach twisted into a ball when I entered his cell, but Tem embraced me without reserve. No matter how hard I begged him to reconsider and save his life, he remained immovable. ‘How can I reject a fair proposal for peace that would save millions of lives?’ he asked me.”
After digging a fifth scarlet line into her flesh, Fatima looked up. “Before I left, he kissed me a final time and told me he would always love me, no matter what happened. I would have gladly died with him in exchange for a few more weeks of happiness together.”
The one-time empress stabbed her knife through the tent’s leather floor. “It would have been better than the centuries of torment I’ve suffered since.”
“But if you didn’t convince Tem to change his mind, I don’t see how you saved his life?”
Fatima didn’t look up, but kept mechanically stabbing at the floor. “They kept Tem alive as the last world war commenced. Despite their superiority of numbers and weaponry, the Asian allies foundered without the genius of Temujin, and the coalition broke apart at the first signs of stress. When Russia announced its acceptance of the global peace treaty, the generals ordered Temujin executed the next day.
“I announced to Ganesh that I would free Tem, or die in the attempt. He noted that in the month during Tem’s imprisonment, we could have dug a tunnel under his cell.
“ ‘Well, we didn’t think that far ahead!’ I shouted at him.
“ ‘Actually,’ Ganesh said with one of his broad elephant-smiles, ‘we did think that far ahead.’
“When I cut through the last bit of floor with a laser torch and crawled into Tem’s cell, I must have looked like a filthy creature from the underworld.
“ ‘Thank you,’ Tem said without a hint of emotion and told me he wasn’t leaving. I knew a part of him looked forward to his execution as a final proof that he was different from his twin. I didn’t argue, but pointed the tranquilizer-gun at his thigh and pulled the trigger.
“By the time the authorities found the empty cell and tunnel, we were hundreds of miles away. There might have been a chance for asylum in the West, except that the Mongolian government released the secret files on Genghis Khan’s living twin. With this final act, they signed the Western Peace Treaty that reinstated the Gene-Pure laws. Once again, Ganesh and I became Gene-Freak outlaws, who now traveled with the most famous Gene-Freak in the world.”
Fatima took a deep breath and let it out. “So, yes, Tem owes me and Ganesh his life, though he is not the slightest bit grateful for it. The rest of the story, I’m sure you can guess.”
“Ohg,” Kayla said, and the Indian prostitute nodded.
Fatima sat in silence for a while. She’d gone from prostitute, to empress, and then to one of the loneliest souls in existence. Trapped by a nature she had no hope of changing.
Will either of us ever escape what others made us to be?
“I must have sinned horribly in a past life to deserve such a fate,” Fatima said. “For centuries, I’ve prayed to the Goddess Parvati to change me so that Tem could trust me again. But my prayers have gone unanswered.”
Fatima’s body slumped forward. “I suppose I deserve it all.”
“If anyone is to blame,” Kayla said, “it’s the scientists who made you as you are.”
The Indian girl shook her head. “No, it’s my karma from the sins I committed in a past life.”
“You can’t actually believe that?”
Fatima looked up sharply. “Should I believe like you do? That your Christian god creates some children with deformities, diseases, or cursed with desperate poverty merely by chance? That would be like sending someone to prison who’d committed no crime. How could I believe in a god who would punish without cause?”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Kayla said. “But isn’t murder asking for very bad karma?”
Fatima’s eyes fell to her hands holding the knife. She scratched at the dried blood on them with her fingernails, as if to remove another stain on her soul. “At the time, I didn’t care what punishment I’d suffer, as long as you didn’t steal my one hope for happiness.”
“Fatima, I’m sorry—”
The Indian prostitute raised her head and held the knife to her own throat. “Maybe this is the best thing I can do for Tem. Maybe such a self-sacrifice will gain me better karma for my next life.”
Kayla drew in a breath. What if Fatima was wrong about there being another life after this one?
Fatima looked at Kayla with a plea. “Just promise me you will make him happy. He deserves an ordinary girl like you.”
Guilt jolted Kayla and she went cold. “I’m not an ordinary girl.”
“You know what I mean,” Fatima said. Her eyes radiated hatred, even as she pressed the knife harder against her throat. “I despise you. A self-righteous, virginal prude who looks down on me.” Fatima’s voice broke, but she suppressed her sob with the same fierceness that had seen her through half a millennium of suffering. “At least I know you will never betray him like I have. At least he will be happy.”
Kayla’s heart twisted. All she need do is promise to make Tem happy and he was hers. I love Tem, but not like she does. And what of Ishan? Could she honestly say that she loved Tem as deeply as Ishan?
Tem had told her he loved her, but who would he choose without Fatima’s genetic defect tipping the scales in her favor?
“What if you could be an ordinary girl?” Kayla asked.
“I don’t und
erstand.”
“I could send some of my nanobots into your body and attempt reversing your sexual compulsion.”
Fatima eyed her suspiciously, but eased the knife from her throat. “You would do that for me?”
“There’s also the possibility that such a treatment might destroy you entirely.”
“I’m already destroyed,” Fatima whispered.
Why do this for someone who had always been cruel to her? Am I throwing away my one chance at happiness?
She hesitated. Then, the words of Jesus flashed before her mind. “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do …”
Kayla placed the palm of her hand against Fatima’s forehead, and several thousand nanobots flowed into her rival’s body.
Make her an ordinary girl, she commanded her microscopic servants.
Chapter 25
It had been fifty years since the United World Council met. With poverty, war, illness, and crime things of the past, little remained for the UWC to discuss. General Colrev scowled as the thirty-three representatives materialized in their appointed seats. I despise these charlatans almost as much as I do the architect who created this room.
The Council Chamber mirrored the interior of the ancient Athenian Parthenon as it would have looked in its glory days. Such a farce, pretending that this council represented anything like that seminal Republic. Each of the thirty-three seats represented a region of the globe or confederation of countries, despite the fact that such things no longer existed. But human tribal identities ran deep, and people cherished this last illusion of independence in a world absolutely subservient to technology. But such outdated notions as democracy were not merely ridiculous, but dangerous.
When the final council member materialized, World President Billyo O’Donnel swept his gaze around the half-moon-shaped table with an unusual seriousness. “What my team and I reveal here stays in this room.”
Each council member nodded.
The president leaned forward and spoke slowly. “Analysis of data suggest that the AIs will soon attack the Master Computers.”
Terror transformed every one of the youthful faces of the council. Some even stood, their eyes wildly looking about as if someone had shouted “FIRE!”
Billyo motioned everyone back to their seats. “General Colrev will review the situation for us.”
General Colrev stood with his usual air of command. “The quantum processors of the Main Computers run all the behind-the-scenes activities keeping every human alive. If the Rogues succeed in breaching the firewall to these systems, they will access processing resources vastly more powerful than the bits and pieces they now survive upon within Ixtalia.”
The representative for the Islamic Coalition frowned through his neatly cropped black beard. “With access to all the production facilities, real-world ships, robots, and equipment now under our control, this could ignite—”
“The Singularity,” the president said. “The long-prophesied moment when artificial life begins self-improvement at an exponential rate unique in the history of life on the planet.”
Colrev nodded. “Such an event would mark the moment our servants become our overlords. These super-AIs would instantly shut off our life-support systems as a waste of resources, with as little guilt as we might feel for a colony of ants infesting our kitchen.”
General Colrev surveyed the traumatized faces of the council with satisfaction.
“Is there no hope?” the African delegate asked. A multi-colored turban swathed her head, while lustrous ebony skin accentuated the flawless white framing her eyes.
“There exists one option alone,” General Colrev said. “Mutually Assured Destruction.”
The Russian delegate spoke. “As in the nuclear standoff during the twentieth century between the Soviet Union and the United States?”
“That is precisely what I mean,” Colrev said. “Only the certainty of complete AI annihilation can deter a Rogue attack.”
“But how would such a thing be done?” asked the representative from the Aboriginal People’s Coalition.
Was there a more despicable term than “aboriginal”? That mealy-mouthed label losers applied to themselves in a feeble attempt at extracting a misplaced guilt and sense of obligation from their conquerors. Every so-called “aboriginal” group had violently seized their piece of real estate at some time in history. It was the law that had created life and evolution itself. The Rogues knew this even if these simpletons did not.
Colrev’s jaw tightened. “You must give me and the president the sole authority to cut all power to the Main Computer if the Rogues capture it.”
The South American representative jerked to his feet. “Without power, the antimatter cores will come together and annihilate the lunar orbiters entirely! Every human in existence would die instantly!”
“Not everyone,” Colrev said. “Our species would live on through those in Potemia.”
“That’s your plan?” the Chinese representative shouted. “To kill sixty billion humans and let the Neo-Luddites inherit the planet? We might as well have allowed their Plague to succeed half a millennium ago.”
“Of course that isn’t my plan,” Colrev said. The council members lapsed into silence. The fear in their eyes filled the general’s virtual body with the comforting warmth of power. It enveloped him like the Quaker quilts his mother wrapped him in as a boy when the money to pay the electric bill ran out. Those had been hard times, but he’d survived, just as he would now.
The general softened his tone. “I want to avoid annihilation as much as the Americans or Soviets did during the Cold War. The mutual deterrent of assured destruction kept both sides in check, at least while only two countries possessed such weapons. The destruction of Israel and Iran involved religion. As far as I can see, the AIs lack that mental disease, so we can count on them acting logically.”
Several of the Council members scowled at the insult to their faiths, but held their tongues as Colrev continued. “The one thing we share in common with the AIs is a desire to live. They must know with an absolute certainty that if they defeat us, they will die. To save ourselves, we must be willing to put every one of our lives on the line.”
“We could negotiate,” the North American representative said.
“No!” Colrev pounded his fist onto the table. “Would you expect a possum and a lion to share a meal together? Once the Rogues have access to the Main Computer, we will become the Neanderthals awaiting our annihilation at the hands of the superior species.”
“I don’t feel comfortable supporting this,” said the Chinese representative, with several others nodding their heads in agreement.
General Colrev spread his hands wide. “Each of you must do what your conscience dictates. Certainly, those in the press may accuse dissenters of being Rogue sympathizers or spies, and the law requires me to investigate any charges of treason with a memory probe. But I hope this will not influence any of you in doing what you think is right.”
The council members exchanged glances and shifted nervously. One by one, each of the human race’s elected representatives voted “yes” to grant the power of life and death over sixty billion people.
When the last council member vanished, President O’Donnel turned to Colrev. “How long will it take for the robots to put the system in place?”
“The AI engineers estimate twenty-four hours.”
“But how can it be a deterrent if the Rogues aren’t aware of the plan?”
“I’m certain they already know,” Colrev said.
***
Kayla sat on the cold stone of the Sun-Cavern with her arms wrapped tightly around her knees in a near-fetal position. Puck perched on her shoulder and sniffed the air. Would this be their last day in Middilgard?
“So it’s just you and me again, Puck.” The mouse looked at her, then squeaked. Kayla rubbed him under his chin.
The pile of rocks along the left side of the vast room br
ought to mind the Sermon on the Mount.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”
Were these words any less profound if said by the son of man, rather than the Son of God? Either way, she’d proven herself anything but a peacemaker. Everywhere she went, tragedy followed.
Gradually, the false sun rose from a hole in the base of the wall opposite her. The glowing orb slid along a metal track that arched along the vault of the ceiling and vanished into a second hole on the other side of the enormous room. The globe’s intense light mimicked the full-spectrum of the sun as closely as possible. Stone stairs spiraled around the chamber to a rock-shelf near the pinnacle that served as a shortcut to the upper levels of Middilgard.
At the foot of the hill, fifty desiccated lumps vibrated as warmth from the celestial impostor initiated their re-birth. It had been a hundred years since the Monads had occupied this chamber—representing over thirty-six thousand of their day-long generations.
After waking from their unmasking in Ixtalia, Ohg, Tem, and Ganesh had raced to the surface and gathered all of the Monads’ moonlit pods.
Seconds after they departed with their cargo, the first government drones swept the area.
Ganesh had come to her villa with the news. She asked him to take her to the Monads and sat vigil over them for the last few hours before dawn. Saphie sat beside her, humming “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” over and over contentedly.
Why hadn’t Tem come to her?
The pods lay scattered on the floor—stark testaments of the consequences of her defiance of Ohg’s wishes. These odd little creatures had led her here in the first place, and now they would see her off.
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