“Why am I here? Answer me!” shouted Chase.
Something moved a couple of yards in front of him and he aimed his light towards it.
Something or someone was trying to rise from the sea of intertwined bodies. The view sickened him but he felt compelled to keep looking. A female shape took form and rose upwards from the fleshy ground. Many hands and arms wrapped around her as she did. They didn’t seem to want her to rise from below. Her back was towards Chase so he couldn’t see her face. Hands grabbed her in an attempt to bring her back down. Long, dark and filthy nails planted themselves into her dark skin, ripping into her ashy-colored flesh. Black, gooey liquid oozed from the wounds.
A dark pit formed in Chase’s stomach. He had never before seen anything so gruesome and disgusting.
He needed answers though, so he addressed the tormented female figure.
“Ma’am? Are you alright?”
Multiple lightning bolts shot from the sky all around him, hitting the piles of bodies, their murmurs turning into unbearable screams for a few seconds after each strike. Chase’s blood froze. His mind was unable to fathom this horror.
If there is a hell, I’m in it.
When the lightning-bolt storm ended, the woman’s head turned an impossible one hundred and eighty degrees in a jerky and unnatural motion, accompanied by the sound of bones cracking with every inch of movement.
The woman’s features were deformed by pain. Only when she spoke did Chase recognize her voice.
“Chase,” said Aphroditis, her voice weak and tainted with torment.
“Oh my god,” was all Chase could say in return. “Is it really you?” He wasn’t sure he really wanted an answer.
When she spoke, her mouth moved in a strange way. Like a puppet’s mouth, somehow. But her expression morphed from one moment to the next. With each syllable, her face grimaced with agony. The sight gave Chase the creeps.
“It’s me, Chase. Listen to me, as I don’t have much time. It took a long time to get through the pain and gather enough energy to find the strength and focus to contact you. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to invite you into a nicer place.”
Chase dreaded his next question, but felt compelled to ask it. Aphroditis had often brought him into visions to talk to him. But they were, more often than not, projections of peaceful and relaxing places. This was the complete opposite. “Is this a visual representation of how it feels to be inside the machine?”
A black, oozing tear ran down her cheek. “Yes.” Her voice trembled.
For the love of the gods. What have I done?
“I’m so sorry, Aphroditis. This is all my fault. Please forgive me.”
“Never mind that, Chase. It matters not. You must save Earth. You have no choice but to leave it behind for the time being, or that evil Gaia will destroy you and your fleet. But don’t stay away for too long. Come back to free the planet as soon as you can. This is paramount, Chase. Do whatever it takes, but don’t let Earth fall.”
More hands grabbed Aphroditis’ body and dragged her slowly back down inside the fleshy ground.
“Tell me how I can get you out of this hell. Please!”
“You can’t, Chase. Perhaps once the Furies are gone. But if you destroy the machine or attempt to rip me from it, you risk creating a tear in space and time that could destroy all life in the universe. So you have to promise me you won’t do it.”
Chase’s frustration grew exponentially. He was responsible for this. Guilt permeated his being.
“I can’t do that, Aphroditis. I can’t leave you here for all eternity.”
“You have to, Chase. Promise me!”
Chase clenched his teeth. How could he? How could he promise to abandon all hope of ever rescuing her?
“I understand you want to appease your conscience, Chase, but understand that I don’t blame you for any of it. You’re doing what I expected of you. You’re putting your life on the line to defeat the Furies, and I know in my heart that you will succeed. You need to understand that this place, this torment I feel . . . I accept this fate gladly if it means you complete your mission.”
Not good enough!
Her wounded body had sunk halfway back into the mass of tormented bodies. She had turned slightly more to the left and had to rotate her head more to look at Chase, which meant more bone-cracking.
“Please, Chase, promise you’ll put all your energy into fighting the Furies and won’t try to get me out of here. I beg you. Please give me your word.”
Chase felt like firing fireballs at the other bodies that were dragging her back into that fleshy pool of pain and suffering. He felt compelled to destroy this entire place by unleashing his fury. But deep inside he knew it wouldn’t make the slightest difference. This place existed only in his mind, a terrifying representation of what his oldest Olympian friend was going through.
“If you are truly my friend, then promise me, Chase.”
The words cut his heart like a razorblade. But in the end he resigned himself. “I promise, Aphroditis.”
“Thank you, Chase. Please don’t tell Ares about any of this. It will only make things worse.”
Soon her head was swallowed back into the ground, and she disappeared.
Almost instantly Chase’s body was sucked away from this place, and he was back on the bridge of his ship. For a split second everyone around him was still frozen in time, but then they started moving again.
1
Spiros looked at Gaia’s avatar and repeated his question, but this time raising the level of command in his voice.
“What the hell did you just do? Why is there a second Gaia?”
“I can explain,” she answered.
“You’d better, and fast,” said Spiros, throwing caution to the wind about how to address the artificial intelligence safely.
“I will, but we have a much more pressing issue.”
“What could be more pressing than this?”
“Change my command codes now! Use something extremely secure and something I could never guess.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This Gaia is an earlier copy of my own neural net. While I have changed the command codes many times since she left, she will quickly find the new ones. It’s only a matter of time. Even though we have forked into two different beings, we share most of the same base code. So you must do it now or we may lose control over the planetary shields and any installation currently under my control.”
“So basically the entire planet.”
“Spiros, stop losing precious time and please do this right now! She’s trying to hack the control codes as we speak. At best you have a few minutes, at worst only a few seconds.”
That did it. Spiros reluctantly obeyed Gaia’s command. He used his neuro implants to change and heavily encrypt Gaia’s command codes. He started with a simple key change, added three adaptive encryption layers on top of the normal security measures and encoded the last layers to unlock only with his own DNA sequence. He made a mental note to remind himself to adapt these security measures on a daily basis as well as to receive immediate notification upon any of his encryption layers being broken.
“This should buy us a day or so.”
“Don’t underestimate my counterpart’s processing power. She could have stronger processing capabilities than I have.”
“More than the entire computing power of planet Earth?”
“We can’t take any chances. We have no idea of the level of technology aboard her ships. She doesn’t need a crew. Inside their hulls could very well be mostly computing units. I can detect heavy subspace communications between her ships in the fleet, which suggests that astronomical quantities of data travel back and forth at all times.”
“That can’t be good.”
“It isn’t. Whatever she’s doing, she’s probably laser-focused and using every bit of available power and storage to do it as fast as possible.”
Chase looked at the Hope’s holo-screen with a
mixture of confusion and dread.
What had just happened? Who was this other Gaia that had seemingly saved their hide, only to then impose such drastic conditions as ordering the Alliance to vacate Earth space within the hour?
Chase’s train of thought was interrupted by Sarah.
“What the hell are we supposed to do now?”
Chase wished he could give his friends and crew a reassuring answer, but he was just as lost as they were. Who or what was this new Gaia? Where did she come from and why was she so aggressive?
Chase opened a channel to the Eureka, the requisitioned ship that now hosted the training facility.
“Spiros here. I take it you’re calling about the new Gaia?”
“New Gaia?”
“Technically, it’s an older version of the artificial intelligence we call Gaia.”
Chase frowned. “Mind explaining how the hell this happened?”
“Before I convinced Gaia to trust and work with us, she anticipated that we would try to find a way to destroy or neutralize her. So, early on, before we even made contact with her in the holographic environment, she made a backup copy of herself and infected one of our long-range probes prior to launch. From there she evolved and colonized an abandoned system rich in materials, allowing her to grow and construct her new fleet of ships. Our Gaia thinks she might be evolving at a higher rate than herself. Since both were in self-preservation mode at that time, our Gaia believes this other Gaia hasn’t received the right information to make a tempered judgment regarding interaction with humans. To her we’re the invaders who drove her away from home.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” said Chase with a long sigh. “How come her fleet of ships looks like a mix of Alliance, Obsidian and Droxian tech?”
“Gaia managed to hack the systems of all three races while their ships were in orbit, before Cedric and Yanis discovered her code. She assimilated all three technologies and developed ships based on the best of each, creating highly efficient hybrid ships.”
Chase buried his face in his hands. “Spiros, what are our options?”
“The planetary shield is up. The fleet, as you know, is in no shape to take on even three of these ships, let alone nearly thirty of them. Gaia made me change her command codes. Her counterpart is trying to hack into her code in order to control Earth’s systems.”
“We can’t allow that to happen. Could our Gaia help us hack this new AI?”
“Not in under an hour.”
“Any suggestions?”
“I will stay behind with Gaia, do everything we can to make sure her systems aren’t compromised, and try to either convince or defeat this new threat.”
“And in the meantime the people of Earth will be at the mercy of this new Gaia. I don’t like it. If the shield goes down or Gaia’s systems are compromised, how likely is she to be aggressive towards human beings?”
There was a brief silence and Gaia’s avatar droid appeared on the holo-screen.
“Chase, I think it’s easier if I answer your questions myself. First of all, I want to apologize for the situation. This is my fault. Before my consciousness was mature enough to understand how humans interact with this world, I was afraid, and so the first chance I got, I made a backup copy. This copy is very likely to be aggressive and driven mostly by self-preservation.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about the backup once you started trusting us?”
“Trust is a complex issue, as I’m sure you know. While I trusted Spiros and decided there was an eighty-seven percent chance that humans wouldn’t try to eliminate me, the last thirteen percent still generated some anxiety. Knowing there was a copy of my matrix somewhere else, albeit a simpler one, also made it easier for me to decide to trust you in the first place.”
“I want to tell you how mad this all makes me, but the truth is, if your counterpart hadn’t arrived when it did, we would have been worse off. At least for the time being Earth is defended against the Furies.”
“Be that as it may, the minute this new Gaia manages to lower the planetary shields, she may decide to purge the human race.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because she thinks humans are the cancer of this world.”
“Just like you did at first, if you recall.”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t anymore, right?”
There was a slight pause.
“No . . . of course not.”
“Why did you wait before answering?”
“Chase, I still think humans are detrimental on some level to this world. But ever since the Alliance came, things have changed for the better and they keep changing. Thanks to Spiros I understand that I couldn’t expect billions of lives to change their habits overnight like I would update part of my code. When it comes to effecting real change on a personal level, humans are incredibly slow.”
“Couldn’t you just tell the other Gaia all this? Convince her the way Spiros convinced you?”
“I’ve been trying, but, Chase, she’s not listening. She seems intent on hacking me and taking control. This alternate earlier version of my matrix isn’t interested in a dialogue. She called me corrupted and denies all my new attempts at communication.”
“That’s just great.”
Yanis came over the com-link. “Cedric and I will remain with Spiros. He will need all the help he can get and we have to find a way to disable this new AI.”
“I can’t allow you to remain here,” said Chase.
“Why not, boss?” asked Yanis.
“I need you to keep working on the Fury tech in the hope of reverse-engineering it. Hopefully you can find a chink in the Furies’ armor.”
“Oh that.” Yanis grimaced. “Chase, I’m no longer one hundred percent sure this is purely Fury tech we’re dealing with.”
“What are you saying? We used some of the modifications you’ve made with some success during the last battle.”
“‘Some’ being the operative word here. It should have worked better and affected mostly their short-range fighters. Which seems to confirm it. I think this tech is older, much older.”
“And how would you explain this exactly?”
“Well, I can’t. But I can theorize. Perhaps the Furies came in contact with ancient tech and modified it to make it their own. That’s what reverse-engineering is all about. We’re trying to do the same here. But the scans I took during our battle clearly showed a difference—even if only slightly—in energy levels and power signature. Being a bloodthirsty conqueror race, it’s possible they got that tech from one of the races they annihilated. And then made it their own.”
“That’s a lot of assumptions,” said Chase with a frown. “Ares, what’s your take on that?”
“It’s possible. Before the Furies were defeated, or, well, stopped at the very least, only two races were able to hold their own with them in direct battle.”
“The Olympians, I take it, but who’s the second race?”
“The Asgardians.”
“No shit. How come we haven’t heard of them for such a long time?”
“Well, it’s said that they retired to another part of the galaxy, but no one really knows where they went to or if they’re still around.”
“They’re around!” spat Argos.
“How would you know?” asked Chase.
“While on my first assignment to find resource-rich worlds, one of our ships caught a glimpse of a ship at the farthest reach of their scanning range. It only registered for a few seconds and then was gone. We think it cloaked when it detected our scans. But our computers analyzed and identified an Asgardian signature for one of their biggest class warships, the Valhalla-class destroyers.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“I wouldn’t know, Chase,” said Argos gravely. “Like you, I wasn’t born before the Furies were sent outside of space and time as we know it. But it seems some of our tech is derived from Asgardian tech. That muc
h I can confirm since our engineers also reported a seventy-five percent resemblance in power signature compared to our own ships.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Chase. “Please tell me you have their last seen coordinates?”
“I have. But perhaps it’s better not to wake up the dragon. His pathetic kind,” said Argos, gesturing towards Ares, “is staying on the sidelines, and perhaps so are the Asgardians. Who is to say this isn’t a good thing?”
“What either of these races want at this time is not really relevant. We have to find allies now more than ever, and we need superior firepower.”
“If I may?” said Ares, taking a step towards Chase.
“I’m listening.”
“Chase, you can’t have both. You either get the Olympians or the Asgardians, but Zeus won’t tolerate an alliance with them.”
“And do we know why? I mean, this doesn’t make any sense. If the Asgardians were part of the coalition that helped stop the Furies, why would Zeus hold a grudge against them?”
“I don’t know. My father can be very private. But I can tell you that he feels nothing but hatred towards them nowadays.”
Chase made fists and a few lightning bolts ran over his body.
“Easy there, tiger,” said Sarah pleadingly.
Chase showed gritted teeth before his lips joined to form a straight line.
“Look, Ares,” he said, “this is not the time or place for old bickering. If Zeus doesn’t realize that then he will be consumed by Fury fire, like the rest of us.”
“Preaching to the choir, Chase? Do I have to remind you that my sister was the one that warned you about the Furies from the very beginning? And what did it get her?”
“We’ll get Aphroditis out of there.”
“How?”
“First we go to Olympus. It’s about damn time we had a face-to-face with Zeus. This immature attitude has to be challenged. And then we’re going to find the Asgardians and get some answers from them as well.”
“If you think that’s wise, then that’s what we’ll do, Chase. But please refrain from using words like immature when addressing Zeus, unless you’re looking for a fight.”
Universe in Flames – Ultimate 10 Book Box Set: An Epic Space Opera Adventure Page 168