Dark Phase (27 page)

“
Is there no end to this torture?” His wail was so pitiful and disturbing that Kadheera winced with shame as he saw a kind and sentient individual destroyed by the callous actions of her malevolent partner.

“
Must you do that?” Kadheera cried out enraging Alphin even further.

“
Be silenced, your part in this is now over.” Alphin barked, ending Kadheera's protest.

By this time, a small army of sentient
s had clambered through the narrow breach and were struggling to acclimatise to the bright light. They were all armed and appeared in the right mood to use their weapons to reap their vengeance on The Mother, a task that had been anticipated eagerly for hundreds of thousands of cycles.

“
Where is The Mother, old one?” Alphin interrogated Sarazen with a cool, calm tone. Sarazen was in no position to want to comply with his request.

“
I see no reason to tell you?” He replied with spite.

“
I could of course just end this for you now, it would be that simple. Oh, it might take a few cycles, but my technicians will soon discover her secrets in due course. Your cooperation would just save us the time and abort your imminent termination.”

Sarazen knew that Alphin was correct. It would not take long to deduce The Mother's location, the only benefit Sarazen had was that he knew the systems had an integrated data port which sped things up considerably. If he did not aid Alphin, then the leader would only enlist the aid of another sentient who did have the capabilities and the anatomy to achieve connectivity.

“
I don't know why you're resisting, Sarazen. You too yearn to discover The Mother's secrets, her cooperation is as important to you as it is to us. Why not at least achieve the fulfilment of seeing one of your personal goals come to fruition? Perhaps with your understanding of her technology, being so archaic yourself, you might aid us in our negotiations?”

Alphin was a persuasive individual. Sarazen understood that it would be easier for his captor to access The Mother's core functions with his assistance. However Sarazen assessed his predicament in his mind the outcome was inevitable. Alphin would use him to destroy The Mother and then have him terminated soon after. If not destroyed, The Mother would be used to do Alphin’s bidding. Control over the drones meant control over everything, he knew that. Sarazen could see no other conclusion to this state of affairs. The only hope he had was to go along with Alphin’s directives and hope that he could converse with The Mother in order to find an alternative solution. Somehow though, Sarazen felt that The Mother was not going to be as open to suggestion as he might hope or even for that matter, capable of such communication. Sarazen's hypothesis regarding his creator's existence was about to be tested, it might well be the final act of a very old, foolish and tired troubleshooter.

CHAPTER 39

Sarazen trudged through the dense forest, his destination far away, his pace determined by sporadic prods in his lower back by the hard muzzle of a weapon.

“
It is far, this will take some time.” Sarazen murmured, trying to convey the fact that the usual transportation network to this place was now non operational.

It was ironic that The Mother's sanctuary was only a stone’s throw away from a group of buildings that once made a home for a farmer, named Cole. It seemed absurd now that during those first precious moments of awareness, that deep beneath the ground, buried under a million tons of rock, laid The Mother, herself unaware at that point that a turning point had been reached in the civilisation that she had nurtured. The humans had prepared well, they knew the cataclysmic events from above would destroy all those who remained on the surface. They busied themselves, pummelling through the hard rock to build them a chamber of salvation.

Sarazen could relate to their predicament. The humans knew their fate was all but sealed, but there was something inside them that needed to be reassured that their existence would not be forgotten, lost in the passages of time. They had succeeded in their quest, now Sarazen would attempt to succeed in his. He knew that he would never be allowed to leave The Mother’s sanctuary intact, but there was still hope. The fate of the organics and the ignorant, but innocent, drones lay firmly in his hands.

The long trek to the high ground, as Sarazen knew it, gave him time to contemplate his past, present and future. As Alphin and his army trudged behind him with a selfish anticipation in their minds, Sarazen was consolidating his thoughts and preparing himself emotionally for his final moments. The overwhelming feeling that plagued his tortured mind was the vacuous emptiness which had always troubled him, but now it could not be more prevalent. He cursed his poor judgement and his gullibility. Kadheera had been the source of great hope, but ultimately savage disillusionment. The pursuit of her had blinded him from the startling truth, the truth that his true friend Kerrig had tried desperately to impart. Sarazen had cast him away like a used power cell - his selfishness had cost him the comfort of a kindred intellect. Even the destruction of his seter had a profound effect on Sarazen’s psyche. Cole was the only living entity with which he could impart his deepest and most personal thoughts. Cole's brutal destruction was more than just a loss of life, it was symbolic of Sarazen’s last vestiges of hope, the last remnants of faith in his fellow sentients.

The incline to the high ground began far back into the forest, but now the gradient increased and the foliage diminished. The Mother's chamber was situated deep underground. It might take a great deal of excavating. She had been sealed inside for an age, buried in the darkness, alone. Sarazen pondered her condition, her state of mind. She had lost her grip of power, her continued existence was now a matter not of her own choosing.

Climbing the rocky, perilously uneven surface, the soldiers complained and were heard to whine about their discomforts. Alphin remained determined and sinister. Kadheera had also travelled with them but had said nothing. Sarazen hoped that she would learn from this error of judgement, but somehow he doubted that. She was blinded by her ambition, her need for power.

Sarazen stopped and looked back over the landscape. He had not been this high. Even his old apartment did not have this altitude. The city stretched out before him, the green lush seters surrounding it on all sides for as far as the eye could see. It was a captivating view, it was fitting that Sarazen could experience this before his end; it gave him more pleasure than it ought to. It completed his journey as an intellect. Not even The Mother's revelations could overshadow this moment. He knew what The Mother had to say, if indeed she would say anything at all.

The Star had risen and began to fall as a frustrated and increasingly furious Alphin paced around muttering expletives and barking orders. Sarazen watched calmly, seated on a rocky outcrop, the frustration growing. Alphin had his soldiers comb the craggy landscape looking for clues, but none were immediately forthcoming until finally there was an excited cry from a distance, the soldier’s voice carried by the stiff wind. Sarazen stood only to be roughly seated again by Alphin who poked his large weapon into his face.

“
A small hole in the rock Alphin, a passageway!” came a message relayed by the line of soldiers.

“
Get up!” Alphin ordered his prisoner to his feet.

The soldier was indeed correct. There was a passageway bored into the rock, a slim but significant opening. Sarazen was once again pushed to the front of the line with arms trained at the back of his head. The darkness of the tunnel soon subsided as Sarazen's vision clarified and it was immediately apparent that this was no natural rock formation. The passageway was brief, ended by a large metallic structure, a door of some kind.

“
Open it.” Alphin disturbed the hushed silence. A panel by the side appeared to be a control mechanism. Primitive manual functionality with a simple encryption.

“
There is a code,
” Sarazen whispered.

“
Then break it,
” Alphin hissed in response.

It was a simple task for the troubleshooter, after removing the fascia, the systems were simple to manipulate. There was an audible tone to signify the portal safe to open and another forceful shove in the back to indicate that Sarazen move forward. Behind the large, heavy metal blast door, another darkened passage greeted the intruders, then a series of steps leading downwards, deep into the bowels of the mountain.

The group moved in relative silence, they were cautious, fearful. Sarazen, however, was not. What more was there to fear? He had accepted that The Mother was highly unlikely to have a localised defence - the humans that built this incredible creation were not anticipating hostile forces. They were scientists, not warriors.

As they descended, there was an increasingly apparent sound from below, moving up the lengthy staircase. It was a low frequency hum, a sound of power, a sound of life. The anticipation was more than enough for some of the soldiers who began to stumble, losing their footing then arguing with their comrades, with whispered exchanges of annoyance. The noise was getting more and more audible as the staircase appeared to level out and Sarazen slowed his pace as he realised that the path to The Mother's chamber was almost at an end.

Sarazen stood with mixed emotions of bewilderment and wonder as he surveyed the surprisingly small room in which The Mother resided. Alphin was heard to laugh in disbelief. Sarazen was not surprised. At the centre of the chamber, a terminal of sorts and behind, a number of large monolithic units which stretched back into the room for as far as his eyes could see. Sarazen approached the terminal. It was equipped with a screen for moving images, much like in his old apartment. There were a series of data ports - although he was not sure if he could achieve connectivity with this ancient behemoth. Upon the surface of the desk was a strange, rectangular object which appeared to be divided up into 102 uniquely marked sections.

“
Careful,
” Alphin spoke as Sarazen stroked his hand across the object. Sarazen almost laughed at Alphin's comment, it was clear that his captor was not concerned with his safety. Sarazen's weighty fingers appeared to activate one of the buttons and with great shock to all in the chamber, there was a sudden alarming tone and the screen flickered into life bathing the chamber in a cold luminescence. Utterances of hysteria were heard amongst the ranks and Kadheera's squeak was most prominent of all.

Sarazen looked at the screen and realised that the device on the desktop had some kind of manual input function. Subsequent use translated to text data on the screen. Sarazen shook his head in disbelief. The Mother was indeed the most primitive of machines, which led to the most profound question of all, how did she achieve such feats of engineering, organisation and innovation? Sarazen would have to bypass this confusing and limiting method of data retrieval if he was to discover the answers to these questions.

The soldiers shuffled about nervously whilst Sarazen worked, Alphin remained vigilant and constant in his aggressive posture. The leader was in no position to rush the troubleshooter, even he knew that he could not afford to lose out on the valuable information she had been keeping. He was determined to know the secrets behind The Mother's apparent control over the drones, the fact that she was of such a basic construction held great hope for him and his empire.

“
I have appeared to gain entry to The Mother's core functions. I will attempt to learn her methods of data flow,” Sarazen announced. The tension in the room was unbearable. Some of the soldiers walked around the room, investigating the larger structures which Sarazen believed to be the storage banks containing archive data input by the human builders.

“
Fascinating,
” Sarazen murmured, as he retrieved more revelatory data.

“
What is it?” Kadheera inquired, she seemed more tense than anyone.

“
I have gained access to The Mother's list of directives, essentially her primary commands which were programmed by the humans. I have also discovered that during the reactivation of The Mother after the cataclysmic event, she experienced several catastrophic malfunctions and much of the archive data was in fact rendered inaccessible.”

“
Continue,
” Alphin suggested persuasively, the suspense was difficult to control.

“
During her reactivation, severe power fluctuations caused a series of linked events which corrupted her primary command functions. In order to continue functioning, human intervention was required to either confirm or deny those commands as in the event of corruption, she could not continue in her function as set out by her creators. However, one of the primary commands that remained, was essentially an order to protect the integrity of both her core functions and archived data. As there were no humans left alive to act upon the information, she took it upon herself to accept the commands as they remained in order to 'survive'. Unfortunately these commands were incomplete and her continued function was based solely around the information that remained, the other prominent command being the continued preservation of organic life. In order to fulfil this command, she used what archived knowledge she had available to her to achieve this objective. Her archives were predominantly historical documents regarding the structure of human society and its culture. Using only the tools available to her, she attempted to recreate the human civilisation in order for them to do her bidding which ensured that the organic life remaining could flourish. The silicants were modelled in the image of the humans, their purpose was to nurture the organics and protect them from harm. Over the countless cycles of light and dark, the organics have evolved with great success, ultimately growing beyond the silicants’ control and encroaching on their space. The Mother could not see the organics culled and thus allowed them to continue to proliferate to the detriment of the silicants who have been forced to inhabit a smaller, more compact area.”