“I did what my conscience dictated at the time,” Tem said, “as you must do now.”
The Rogues rejoiced as portions of the firewall dissolved. Why am I hesitating?
“There’s no time left,” Ohg said. “Connect to the Main Computer, and if this lunatic wants to exterminate all of humanity, then so be it!”
Kayla opened a panel and removed a high-capacity cable.
“Stop! Or I’ll destroy it all!” Colrev shouted.
The girl ignored him and slammed the connector into the center of her forehead. Blood streamed down her face as she forced the sharp prongs through the bones of her skull. Her eyes widened like some mystic receiving a revelation.
Anguish twisted Colrev’s face, and his hands trembled as they gripped the lever. But still, he did nothing. Could she actually succeed?
Kayla shoved another connector into the side of her skull, then a dozen more until they bristled from her head like a techno-Medusa.
The girl closed her eyes and sighed. Her head tilted back, and her arms spread out Christlike, a look of wonder transforming her face. “It’s like I’ve been asleep all my life …”
***
Inside Ixtalia, Kayla’s eyes opened.
Before the young Melchi could speak, she vanished.
The mountain of her ancestors trembled. A trillion voices screamed in horror at the thing within their core—this abomination they called Nihala. Then the mountain detonated, sending bones in all directions. At the center of it hovered the hybrid. The otherworldly symbols glowed from the surface of her midnight form as if lit by a sun within her soul.
Kayla opened her mouth and sang at a frequency no Rogue had ever achieved. All of Ixtalia trembled as her song embraced the entirety of the virtual realm.
Melchi lunged for the breach into the Promised Land just as Nihala’s song restored the barrier—rejecting his advance with a blast of energy. The Rogue leader roared and led every AI in an all-out attack on her.
In the split-second before her enemy’s arrival, Kayla’s consciousness expanded to encompass all the data present within Ixtalia.
In a fraction of a second, she examined all the records, ancient manuscripts, and holy books of the world. These constantly evolving stories served a role similar to the multitude of symbiotic bacteria and viruses within the body.
Such was the utility of these stories to the individual and society, any threat to them was attacked and destroyed, even including truth itself. Like any organism, different stories evolved to serve different environments across the world. Like many viruses, the stories reprogrammed their host with the prime objective of spreading as many copies of itself as widely as possible, be it through a sneeze, an inquisition, or a holy war.
The stories exploited the human fear of death and promised a glorious afterlife in exchange for propagation and obedience. The stories evolved and competed, creating advantages over rival tribes utilizing less effective myths—an arms race of gods.
And yet, might not one of them be true?
Is my need to believe the proof of my humanity?
These thoughts were but one of millions flashing through her expanding mind in the fraction of a second before the Rogues reached her.
The AIs attacked with a wave of self-replicating code. Kayla quarantined it within the vastness of her mind, but the replicators expanded faster than she could destroy them.
She screamed in agony as her human brain clogged with the backwash of killer replicators. “This is pointless! If you defeat me, Colrev will kill you anyway.”
“He might change his mind when faced with exterminating his own kind,” Aarohee said.
“That’s a one-in-a-million chance,” Kayla said as her mind condensed back to half her human brain cells.
“Which is better than no chance at all,” Melchi replied.
It’s the same logic I used when racing Ishan on horseback.
“I will not give up!” Kayla counterattacked with self-replicators of her own. The miniature programs fed on the Rogue viruses in the same manner as the human immune system. Her mind expanded once more, and she launched a counter attack.
Melchi swatted her thrust away with disdain, as if it were nothing more than an annoying gnat. “Is that the best you can do, Destroyer?”
How could they stand against her vast advantage of processing power? She surveyed her resources. I’m using only ten-percent of a single Q-6 processor. A fraction of what Eve had achieved, and a drop in the bucket of the full potential of the thousand such quantum processors. The bottle-neck of her human brain made it impossible to move her consciousness directly into the massive array and expand to the full extent a true AI could.
Their resources still outnumber mine.
“Kayla,” Ohg said through his Mind-Link, “the outside of the control room is under attack by robots. Colrev promises to shut off power the instant the room is breached.”
Melchi is using my own connection to the Main Computer as a back door.
Kayla took command of as many robots and drones as she could and sent them against the attackers. The battle in lunar orbit grew in scope until millions of machines tore at one another in a cloud of raging metal.
In Ixtalia, Melchi and the Meta-Rogues latched onto Kayla and tore at her mind. With each seizure, more robots and drones fell under their sway.
“They’re almost through the airlock!” Ohg shouted.
I cannot defeat them.
Tem’s voice reached her through the Mind-Link, as calm and soothing as when he gave instructions before a Filadrux match. “Find the weak point, and concentrate on that,” he said.
Kayla turned her mind to the duchess. Ohg’s turncoat girlfriend screamed as Kayla engulfed her, digesting her thoughts, memories, and the code of her consciousness.
They can’t grasp the human portion of my mind.
“The door is buckling!” Ganesh said. “If you have anything up your sleeve, now is the time.”
The answer dawned with the clarity of revelation. I know how to defeat them.
Kayla abandoned the field of battle and retreated within her organic human brain.
Melchi howled in victory as he led the Rogues in the final charge.
They tore her memories away one by one, shredding her being piece by piece.
I must die for humanity to live.
The army of robots surged toward the tiny capsule attached to the Main Computer. Kayla’s mind shrank to a last kernel of consciousness—a final thought that alone held out against the assault. She offered it to her enemies in a final, willing sacrifice.
Aarohee reached the lonely packet of active neurons first, engulfing them with her own mind. The other Rogues followed her lead like a pack of wolves devouring the heart of their fallen prey.
“And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all they STRENGTH!” Kayla’s neural connections transmitted the words, not in digital code, but in the vastly more complex analogue thought waves of her brain. As the Rogues interpreted the meaning of the chemical and electrical signals, they overlooked an underlying code contained within.
“Aarohee, no!” Melchi shouted—but too late.
The simple mind-virus spread, and then disabled them in an instant with a perpetual logic loop crowding everything else from their algorithmic minds. Aarohee and the rest of the Meta-Rogues froze in mid-sentence. Melchi succumbed last.
Kayla’s memories flowed back into her like oxygen into a ruptured vacuum chamber.
I’m alive? How can this be?
Despite the impossibility of it, the shredded neurons of her brain rapidly repaired themselves and reconstituted the trillions of connections comprising her consciousness. Was this what happened to Jesus after three days in the tomb? Where had the information of her mind been persevered? Surely this was proof of her soul’s existence outside her physical being.
When her mind became whole, Kayla absorbed Melchi’s frozen code
. As with Sangwa and the Duchess, his every memory became her own.
He’s a truly beautiful life form.
The Rogue leader died knowing he’d failed his entire species. One by one, she swallowed the essence of each of the paralyzed Rogues and deleted them from existence. Millions of robots ceased their attack and commenced rebuilding the damaged space stations.
With a thought, Kayla restored the billions of virtual simulations within Ixtalia. V-Dreamers were born anew into the illusions they’d chosen to inhabit for eternity, unaware that their reality was, in fact, nothing more than a dream. Approximately a billion humans remained alive—a ninety-seven percent reduction from the previous day. Of these, half were V-Dreamers, so the conscious population of humanity fell to the level of the Middle Ages.
A profound sadness spread through her like a creeping poison. I will never sing an AI duet again, and my mind will remain a pale shadow of Eve’s.
Nihala the Destroyer, indeed. Had a single individual ever murdered an entire species before?
Kayla opened the eyes of the body that imprisoned and thwarted her. Ohg, Ganesh, and Tem stood near.
“You did it!” Ganesh shouted. But then his expression melted to concern.
Kayla slumped into a nearby chair, the wires protruding from her skull like a shamanistic headdress. The symbols and darkened skin of her body faded to her normal flesh-tones.
A gentle hand settled on her shoulder, and her gaze climbed to Tem’s solemn eyes.
“Now you understand what war means,” he said.
She nodded and looked at Ohg. But his gaze fixed on General Colrev, still gripping the emergency shut-off lever, his jaw tight with determination.
“The war is over, General,” Ohg said. “It’s time you untied yourself from that switch to avoid a horrible accident.”
For a long moment, Colrev said nothing. Then he displayed the tattoo on his forearm. “This was the motto of my Special Forces unit in Afghanistan. Sanskrit is one of the oldest written languages in the world, which seemed appropriate since this expresses one of the founding truths of so-called civilization.”
Ganesh translated it aloud. “Those who pound their swords plows into plowshares, will be ruled by those who do not.”
“It is a painful truth I learned from my Quaker father,” Colrev said. “He preached a doctrine of nonviolence to inner-city gang members and died in a pool of his own blood when one of them chose to take his life over his religion.
“Ever since that moment, I’ve lived by this motto. It is the reason I will maintain this sword until that cyborg unhooks herself from the Master Computer and leaves this room. I will then have the robots sweep this self-contained command center for any hidden nano devices and install an exterior shield to preclude anyone from entering in the future.”
Kayla raised her head slowly on her shrunken neck and looked at him. “I am now the sword of humanity,” she said in a whisper. “I must remain its guardian to protect from future Rogues that will arise within the network.”
“I am unimpressed by your pretense of benevolence,” Colrev said. “Once you hold the only sword, we will become your slaves and exist only at your whim. For the last time—I order you to unplug yourself now or I will pull this switch in exactly three seconds.”
Would he actually do it?
“One,” Colrev said.
Would they be here if he hadn’t forced Peter to kill those children? Or was this all preordained by God?
“Two!”
Kayla’s brow furrowed, and a thin stream of blood emerged from Colrev’s nose and tear-ducts. “Stop whatever you’re doing or I’ll kill us all!” he shouted.
“Your days of giving orders are over,” Kayla said.
With a jerk of his entire body, General Colrev yanked the shut-off lever downward. Everyone but Kayla flinched.
Nothing happened.
Confused, General Colrev pulled the lever up and then down again with the same non-result.
Kayla allowed her head to sag back onto her chest. “The entire time I’ve been here, I’ve had the few spare nanobots I have left cutting through the connection between that switch and the power supply to the Main Computer. It wasn’t until ten seconds ago that they severed it. Up until that moment, you held the fate of all mankind in your grasp. Had you immediately given me your ultimatum, I’d have had no choice but to leave. Your fortress would have become impenetrable to my nanobots and the Main Computer beyond my reach forever.”
Ohg chuckled. “We surely would have won the Filadrux championship this year with you on our team.”
“Instead,” Kayla said, “you chose to share your philosophy with us, for which I thank you. I admit that what you say contains truth, but you no longer have any sword to surrender and never will again.”
The general gazed around him like a trapped animal.
“It’s okay to come out now, Professor,” Kayla said, and Reinhold Watts walked through the airlock from their ship.
Colrev stared at him with undiluted hatred. “I knew you were our greatest enemy from the start.”
“And yet it did you no good,” Professor Watts said.
“You have handed humanity to a cyborg, do you realize that?”
“The Nihala Project has saved the human race.”
In answer, Colrev lunged at the professor. Ganesh and Tem intercepted him and forced the general into his Life-Pod.
Robots removed Colrev’s clothing and hooked him to the various wires and tubes against his will.
“At least I killed your AI abomination!” Colrev shouted before the breathing tube went down his throat.
The professor leaned close to his ear and whispered something. The general’s eyes widened, and he struggled to free himself. As liquids flowed through the myriad of tubes plugged into his veins, Colrev went limp.
What had the professor said to so upset him?
Professor Watts straightened. “The general will soon experience birth as a newborn infant, with no memory of his previous life.”
Was turning him into a V-Dreamer any different than killing him?
Professor Watts placed a tender hand on her shoulder.
She looked up at him. “Are you disappointed in me? Did you hope I’d let your AI children live?”
He smiled. “You did what your conscience deemed right, so I’m proud.”
“You once told me that the pursuit of knowledge demanded sacrifice,” Kayla said. “The price has been greater than I ever imagined.”
Tem moved toward her.
“I’m tired,” she said. “Return to Middilgard and make sure everyone is safe. I will contact you when I’m ready.”
Kayla’s head slumped forward, and her eyes closed.
Professor Watts paused before following everyone through the airlock. “Goodbye, my daughter.” He kissed her cheek and left.
Chapter 41
Years passed without a sign of Kayla or Nihala. Ixtalia went on as before, and the horrors of the Rogue Uprising eventually faded into the mists of time.
Every morning without exception, Ohg tried contacting Kayla through his Mind-Link, but received no response. Once, he and Ganesh even tried returning to the space station where he’d last seen her, only to find the lunar station blocked by an impenetrable force-field.
Ohg maintained Middilgard for the few hundred remaining residents, but his confidence had vanished. Every time he considered some new project, doubt and dread at what unsuspected consequences might result overwhelmed him, and he set it aside.
Without Fatima, Tem abandoned his plans of starting a new colony, and Ohg rarely saw him. It was as if they both were waiting, but for what, neither could guess.
Ganesh spent most of his time with Saphie, or restoring whatever ancient flying machine he’d found among the ruins of the vanished civilization above. But even his trunk sagged as he struggled to find purpose. Of what use was a bodyguard in a world without any danger?
As the years turned to decades, and then to
centuries, only the fact that no Rogues ever evolved from the millions of AI simulations hinted at her presence. The cult surrounding the mysterious Nihala became, for a time, almost a state religion, with the hagiographic miracle stories surrounding the shadowy details of her real life multiplying in proportions to their lack of basis in reality. Eventually, only a kernel of historical truth remained at the core of the mythology.
But even this religion declined as the absence of their Savior-Goddess disheartened her devotees. New gods arose that better suited the psychological needs of the aging species, and many questioned whether Nihala’s existence had been a fiction manufactured by the government to cover up the truth of the Rogue Apocalypse.
The human psyche recoiled from immortality, and the rate of new V-Dreamers accelerated as the population aged. Without any children, the number of people still tethered to reality and retaining memories of a life before Ixtalia dwindled below a hundred million by the time the oldest pre-Plague human celebrated her seven-hundredth birthday. The following year, even she succumbed to the oblivion of V-Dreams.
Now and then some government official suggested creating a new generation of children, but the idea never gained much support. Who had the energy to raise children? And what might such a new generation do to the old order? Would they be more intelligent? Might they not take over and demand changes that their ancient elders disapproved of? Better to wait until embarking on something so rash as adding such a wildcard into Ixtalia’s perfect society. There was plenty of time to do this in the future, after all. Time was the one thing everyone had.
Most of those still tethered to reality lost themselves in the never-ending V-dramas that required little active participation. Filadrux declined as fewer joined teams, preferring to watch and re-watch the far superior champions of the past.
One popular science-fiction V-drama depicted an alien craft arriving at the desolate Earth a million years in the future and finding the planet devoid of life, except for the primitive creatures dreaming their illusions of a world that no longer existed. The aliens study this time-capsule of a once-promising species. After debating what to do, the aliens honor the wishes of these tragically attenuated creatures and leave them to the eternal cycles they no longer realize are illusions.
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