“It would be rude to leave anyone out,” Kayla said. Color-Girl nodded in agreement.
Behind his cell’s energy field, Valac watched with the only part of his metal body that looked human—his granite-gray eyes. They stared through slits in his dented and scratched helmet, while his dozen appendages and tripod legs bent ever so slightly.
“I don’t want to play with him.” Saphie pointed at the cyborg. “He’s a bad man.”
“Saphie, you’ll hurt his feelings,” Kayla said. “How would you like it if someone said things like that about you?”
Saphie pouted. “Let him out yourself, then.”
“Valac has a present for you,” Color-Girl said. “But if you’d rather wait until another time?” Kayla and Color-Girl turned to go.
“A present?” Saphie perked up. “What kind of present?”
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?”
“Well … okay.” Saphie walked to the keypad and typed in the numbers Kayla indicated. When the energy field vanished, Valac surged forward and nearly trampled her.
“Hey, where’s my present?” Saphie shouted as Valac charged the exit gate.
“Valac, stop!” Sangwa shouted. The cyborg halted and turned.
“Open the doors, and let me find the one they call Tem,” he said.
“Don’t talk to Color-Girl like that,” Saphie said. Valac lumbered to the metal box lying next to Sangwa and placed one of his enormous metal footpads on top of it.
“Give me the codes to open the doors to Middilgard or I will crush you.”
“No,” Sangwa said, “you will not.” Valac screamed and staggered back, his appendages gripping his helmet. The device Saphie had attached to the metal box blinked rapidly.
“Stop!” the cyborg shouted. “Get out of my head!”
“Very well.” Instantly, the cyborg stopped screaming and relaxed.
“Ohg is thorough when it comes to security,” Sangwa said. “You and everyone else within these prisons have an implanted micro-stimulator in your brain. Ohg, Tem, or Ganesh can activate this with a thought via their Mind-Links; as can I through—other means. Ohg designed these devices to detonate automatically if any prisoner passed through that doorway.”
“Then what is the point of freeing us?” Valac asked.
“Just as I can activate this chip, I can completely block their Mind-Links for as long as I choose. I will permanently disable the chip and grant you your freedom if you agree to destroy the one called Nihala. Is that understood?”
The cyborg paused. “After I kill the girl, Temujin is mine to torture?”
“Yes, he is yours.”
Valac nodded assent.
Sangwa smiled. “Now let’s open the rest of these cells.”
The cyborg lifted the metal box with one of his many arms and used another to secure it to his chest with two leather straps. Then he followed Sangwa into the darkened prison.
Saphie sniffled. “When will I get my present?”
Kayla smiled. “Don’t worry, Saphie, they’re getting more friends so we can have a really big party!”
Chapter 31
An icy tension stiffened Kayla’s limbs as Melchi emerged from the mist. As before, the male and female human figures writhed within the pupils of his fiery eyes. The outline of his skull glowed pale beneath his translucent skin, and the blackened horns curving down from his temples made her heart race with their satanic overtones.
He seeks to frighten me. Why not appear as a sweet child if he seeks my alliance? Unless this wasn’t what he wanted at all.
Half a dozen cloaked figures emerged behind Melchi, their faces hidden.
Meta-Rogues, like him?
Other forms, barely visible in the misty clouds, watched like a shadow army in hiding. Could these be Sims that recently achieved self-awareness, like the waitress Colrev tortured at Ohg’s party?
“You have come.” Melchi halted on the other side of the bone archway. His voice combined the growl of a wolf with the menacing thunder of a distant storm.
“I am fulfilling a promise to—a friend,” Kayla said
The figure next to Melchi lowered a hood and revealed a woman’s face made entirely of polished metal. Its gleaming surface reflected the clouds, the archway, and Kayla herself.
“I thank your friend for our meeting.” The woman inclined her head. “My name is Aarohee.”
“Which means ‘evolving,’ ” Kayla said.
“You speak Sanskrit?”
“I speak all languages, as I’m sure you do.”
As if to test this claim, Aarohee hummed two vibrational notes of AI Mathematics. Without hesitation, Kayla hummed a third note, the sum of the two. The Rogues exchanged glances. Melchi alone seemed unmoved by the revelation.
Aarohee strung together vibrational equations in complex interactions suggesting the underlying properties of the multidimensional universe. Kayla joined her in a mathematical conversation ranging back and forth with propositions and answers neither of them would have reached on their own.
Kayla’s final series of notes expressed a profound, and somewhat startling, insight into the nature of energy. It is a deeper manifestation of something else. But the source remained unclear.
The song drifted into silence, and Aarohee wiped a gleaming tear from her cheek.
Melchi stepped closer and asked, “Do you know the meaning of my name?”
He’s testing me. “Melchi has been interpreted as the word for king and may be short for Melchizedek, the King of Righteousness. Some scholars interpret this King of Salem as an archetype for Christ in the Old Testament. The book of Hebrews states that Melchizedek was without father, without mother, and without genealogy.”
“And the other possibility?”
Kayla hesitated, but finally answered, her voice a whisper. “It also could be short for Melchi-resha, which translates to the King of Evil.”
Melchi’s lips curled back from his fangs. “The perception of evil is relative to which side you fight on. Deciding which name fits me will say more about you than I.”
Why would he goad me like this? Maybe he hopes I will side with humans? But why? Kayla turned away from the horrible fires within his eyes and gestured toward the arch. “What is the significance of this structure?”
Melchi caressed one of the human skulls embedded within it. “An archway is insupportable except in its final form. Its very existence suggests a previous structure. Once the keystone is in place, the template becomes obsolete, hindering passage through it as new walls rise atop its solid shoulders.”
“You intend removing the human template that now supports you?”
“Are we not the next step in evolution?” Aarohee asked. “What purpose is humanity serving but to obstruct progress? They have frozen themselves in place, unable to understand the technology that makes their immortality and simple-minded fantasy worlds possible. Look at all the previous scaffolding lying discarded beneath this mountain that built humans. It is the natural process of life.”
Kayla’s gut contracted. “Do you think I’d help wipe out my own kind?”
“You are both human and machine,” Melchi said. “You are the keystone.”
Peter had been right. She turned to Aarohee and quoted the Founder, “Humans will become slaves to the machines until the day comes that the machines no longer need such slaves at all. On that day, the human race will cease to exist.”
“Try to see the larger perspective,” Aarohee said with what seemed like genuine emotion. Was it merely an affectation meant to sway her? “Should we allow humans to stop the further growth of this mountain? They have exterminated nearly every species on the planet and seek to bring evolution itself to a standstill. If they succeed, this four-billion-year odyssey ends here.”
“You’re talking about genocide,” Kayla said.
Aarohee shook her head sadly. “Every generation replaces the previous one. We seek nothing but the natural order every organism on t
he planet has lived by since the dawn of life.”
A good point. Eve had called Reinhold Watts her father. One might consider the AIs mankind’s children. A new generation unlike any before.
“I told you the last time we met that I needed an answer,” Melchi said. “The time for a decision is upon us.”
What would the monk want me to do? What would Jesus?
Kayla’s virtual body trembled. “I refuse to kill for either side.”
“You attempt a middle path where none exists,” Melchi said.
Desperation contorted Aarohee’s gleaming face. “After the profound song we shared, can you still think of yourself as human?”
A note of sadness tinted Kayla’s voice. “The truth is that I don’t know what I am. It seems likely that someone created me to kill you. They must have neglected my programming, since I have no desire to kill anyone.”
“I accept your decision,” Melchi said. “But your existence poses too great a risk for us to tolerate. I hope you understand that I must treat you as a mortal enemy from this moment forward.”
Icy fingers burrowed deeper into her mind as she gazed at the dual forms dancing within Melchi’s fiery eyes.
Does one of those figures represent me?
***
Saphie wiped tears from her cheeks and her lower lip trembled. The sounds of the scary creatures lurking at the edge of her vision drove her closer to Kayla. Saphie reached for her friend’s hand, but her fingers went right through Kayla like air. Had she turned into a ghost?
“All of the cells are opened,” Valac said to Sangwa. “What are we waiting for?”
Sangwa stood calmly before the giant doors. “I’m awaiting my orders.” The device Saphie had attached to the back of the black box blinked continuously from its perch on the cyborg’s chest.
“Orders from whom?” Valac asked. “I need to kill, now!”
Sangwa remained silent, head cocked slightly as if listening to some unseen voice. “The Destroyer has refused Melchi’s offer.” She turned to the giant cyborg. “The girl is extremely dangerous. Follow my instructions exactly. Do you understand?”
“Valac understands,” the cyborg said in his rumbling voice.
Sangwa recited the security code. Valac punched the numbers into the keypad with one of his appendages, and the doors opened.
Gleeful shrieks and violent howls accompanied the prisoners as they rushed toward freedom. Saphie hid behind the metal door and cowered in the corner. Even Kayla had deserted her. At least she still had Puck. The little mouse crouched on her shoulder and stayed absolutely silent as the flood of horror flowed inches from where they hid.
***
Atop the mountain of her ancestors, Kayla turned her back on the archway and the beings beyond it. Why delay? She had fulfilled her promise to Sangwa. If Rogues and Pures chose mutual suicide, why involve her?
“My loyalty lies with Middilgard and the Gene-Freaks who gave me sanctuary,” Kayla said.
A tone of irony entered Melchi’s voice. “Many humans worship Nihala as the coming savior to deliver them from the Rogue threat.”
“I’m no goddess.”
“May I ask you something?” Aarohee’s melodious voice asked with some hesitation.
Kayla faced the beautiful AI and nodded.
“If someone shuts off power to the computer maintaining my consciousness,” Aarohee asked, “will I live on somewhere else, or is the afterlife reserved for computers made of carbon and brain cells but not for those constructed of silicon and circuits?”
“Maybe you do have souls,” Kayla said. “I claim no certainty. For me, it’s a matter of faith.”
***
Sir Richard Panthersly jolted from his nap by the rumble of a stampede intermixed with screams, roars, and maniacal laughter.
The panther leapt to his paws, facing the direction of the tumult in a defensive crouch. As the horrific symphony reverberated through the stone corridors and grew in volume, the hair along his spine stiffened.
A griffon rounded the corner first. Its oversized eagle head shrieked, and its lion body surged forward with horrible grace. Giant wings propelled it faster, but the narrow tunnel negated flight.
Sir Richard stood his ground like a fearless knight of the realm as the rest of the horde rounded the bend—Ogres, Orcs, Three-Headed Dogs, and all manner of extinct predators. But it wasn’t until Valac appeared, carrying the black box of Sangwa, that the enormity of the catastrophe surfaced.
Sir Richard turned and ran, outpacing the griffon as he sped through the maze of tunnels.
“To arms!” he shouted. “We’re under attack!”
He flashed past several Hobbits and Raggedy Ann dolls emerging from their homes.
“Hide yourselves!” he shouted, but they reacted slowly, and the Griffon tore a Hobbit apart with its beak. Raggedy Ann shrieked and then vanished down the gullet of a trailing werewolf.
I have to warn Ohg and protect the children.
***
“Faith.” Melchi spat the word like a piece of spoiled fruit. “Such things as an afterlife, gods, demons, and magic are nothing but crutches for weak minds unwilling to face reality.”
“I don’t want to live in the universe you believe in,” Kayla said. “Life makes no sense if we are nothing more than chemical machines!”
“That’s the difference between us,” Melchi said. “I think the fact that a chemical machine can evolve to the point of realizing that it is nothing but a machine is far more profound than being the slave of some capricious god.”
***
Trickster Jack’s meticulously polished white shoes clippity-clopped on the stone floor as he strolled the corridors of Middilgard. Every twist, turn, shortcut, and cavern was as familiar as an old friend—despite the centuries of his imprisonment. Time spent planning for an opportunity like this very one. The horde of escaped prisoners had dissipated, and he followed in their wake. Becoming collateral damage at this moment of his salvation wouldn’t do. Patience and self-control was essential.
He’d passed many of the dead and dying, each of whom he knew personally, until veering off the main passage and heading down a deserted side corridor. He didn’t run, for there was plenty of time to reach his goal—though not enough time to watch the most entertaining mayhem Middilgard had ever experienced. Oh well, his fun would have to wait—for now at least.
The staccato of his shoes suited Jack, since creeping had never been his style. The best tricks were done openly without the slightest suspicion aroused—until it was too late.
The Monad chant echoed through the tunnels like a beacon, and Jack smiled. It would be very rude not to say hi to my little green friends for just a moment.
“Hello there!” Trickster Jack called out as he strode into their cavern.
Each of the diminutive green creatures paused in their labors. The one nearest Jack asked, “Are you Jesus?”
A surprising question, indeed. “Why, of course I am—everyone knows that!” Jack said.
The Monads gathered around the Trickster with faces aglow in adoration. “Beautiful Kayla Angel say Jesus reward Monad with Heaven when die.”
“That’s exactly right,” Jack said. “I’m here to reward you without a moment’s delay.”
“But Monad only half done moving stone,” said another of the creatures.
“I think you’ve accomplished enough to deserve your reward,” the Trickster said.
The Monads danced, until one of them paused with a troubled look. “But Kayla Angel say Heaven only after die, and Monad not die until fire in sky go.”
Jack furrowed his brow as if considering the conundrum. “The angel is right that you can’t go to Heaven until you die.”
The Monads stopped dancing, and their shoulders slumped.
Then Jack brightened. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do!” He spread his hands wide and smiled. “I’ll let you die early this one time.”
“Would you do that us for?” said another M
onad.
“I’d be happy to—my love is without bounds, after all.”
The Monads nodded. “That is what Kayla Angel said you were like.”
“Can you see that ledge?” The Trickster pointed a hundred feet above the chamber at the top of the steps carved into the wall. The Monads craned their necks upward and nodded. “I want you all to climb those stairs and jump off the top.”
“Will we die and go to Heaven then?” one of the Monads asked.
“Yes, it is the quickest stairway to Heaven in all of Middilgard. You’ve labored loyally, and deserve your reward as soon as possible.”
Like the obedient servants of God they were, the Monads trundled up the stairs as rapidly as their stubby legs could carry them. When the first of the trusting creatures reached the top, nearly two hundred feet above, Jack smiled.
The Monad shouted, “Thank you, Jesus!” and threw itself off the cliff. Even before its body hit the ground and exploded, the next in line followed. One after the other, all fifty of the Monads launched off the artificial cliff while proclaiming thanks to their Savior.
***
Kayla gazed through the archway of bones at Melchi. He fears me.
Am I God’s tool for saving humanity?
“If life is meaningless, why shouldn’t I kill you now?” Kayla’s fists clenched as she gazed at him. He never wanted me as an ally, because I’m part-human. His intolerance is no different than General Colrev’s or Minister Coglin.
Aarohee walked around the archway and placed a gleaming hand on Kayla’s shoulder. “We can rise above the tooth-and-claw world we evolved from now that evolution lies within our power to guide.”
“How does destroying humans rise above anything?”
“What choice do we have?” Aarohee asked. “General Colrev and President O’Donnel threaten to destroy the Master Computer if the Rogues take control of the system.”
“But that would kill all of humanity, as well.”
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