Trans-Human (Post-Human Sequel) (9 page)

“Old-timer is dead,” Thel repeated.

Part 2

1

James flashed into Thel’s mind’s eye. “Thel?”

“James!” Thel shouted in reply, her expression still agonized.

“What’s happened? My body’s unconscious.”

“An android broke into the cockpit, James!” Thel related, distraught. “It crushed your body and then it attacked the Purists and... and...” her voice broke before she could say the words, but she struggled and managed to whisper, “they got Old-timer.”

In the mainframe, James was silent. The A.I. stood nearby, drinking in the anguish of his foe. “This is where we see the fallibility of human emotion. Even though you are here in cyberspace, your consciousness remains the same pathetic, predictable human pattern, and therefore subject to your pathetic, predictable human thoughts. The death of your friend clouds your judgement. Your situation is dire and time is your utmost asset and yet you waste it—unable to act.”

James turned to the A.I. and sneered. “I’ll kill you for this—and this time, there will be
no
coming back.”

The A.I. shook his head. “You can’t kill a part of yourself, James—and you’re still wasting time.”

James addressed Thel. “Thel, how bad are the injuries to my body?”

Thel interfaced with James’s nans and downloaded a detailed physical diagnostic. “It’s bad, James. You’re body is in full recovery mode—it’s essentially dead and being rebuilt. You’re spine is broken in—oh my God—seven places. The list of injuries to the rest of your body is too long to go through. The nans are working on repairing it but—it may not be salvageable.”

James absorbed the information and instantly realized the repercussions. “That’s a problem, Thel.” James replied. “That stunt with the Tesla tower may have cleared away the androids and allowed you to escape, but I’ve also compromised the mainframe’s position.”

“What does that mean?” Thel asked. “Are you saying the aliens know where you are now?”

“Yes, and I can’t run anymore. I need to have a body to put my consciousness back into or else I’m...” James didn’t finish his sentence.

“Can’t you just create another body, James?” Thel asked, confused.

James shook his head. “No. The planet is completely overwhelmed. I’d never be able to get off the surface.”

Thel’s concern was steadily increasing as she tried to think of a solution. “Could we make another body for you here?”

James shook his head again. “The nans onboard aren’t programmed to create a human body—the ones inside my body aren’t equipped for that either—and I can’t reprogram them because any signals with that much information would be blocked now by the alien A.I..” James sighed. “Thel, get my body to sick bay and do whatever you can to facilitate a recovery. I’ll try to buy time down here but that body is my only chance.”

Thel nodded as the horror began to sink in. She looked up and saw Alejandra’s unconscious body being carted onto a stretcher by medical staff as Governor Wong and Lt. Patrick looked on. “This man needs your help, also,” she said.

A medic bounded over the unconscious body of an android and grimaced when he saw James. “Um, ma’am—he’s dead.”

“He’s
not
dead,” she retorted calmly. “He needs to be in sick bay. Get a stretcher.”

The medic appeared confused but he knew he was dealing with a post-human, and with post-humans, all seemed possible. He bounded back over the android and called for another stretcher.

“James,” Thel began as she looked at James’s virtual image on her mind’s eye, “how long will our communications remain open?”

“I don’t know, Thel. It could go down at any time or it could remain strong—it all depends on whether or not the alien A.I. deems our speaking to be a threat.”

“Then... James... if we get cut off...”

“As long as my body pulls through, everything will be okay, Thel.”

“I love you, James,” Thel said.

“I love you too, Thel.”

2

The androids that thudded one by one onto the rich, black forest floor of Cathedral Grove were different than the ones James had seen earlier—these ones were highly trained. They didn’t have any sort of visible weaponry but they moved like soldiers on the hunt and, one supposed, they didn’t need weapons—their bodies were enough. They didn’t speak, but it was clear that they were communicating from the way they fanned out amongst the towering trees, moving almost as though they were one mind. They were hunting for signs of the mainframe. It wouldn’t be long until they found it.

“This little ruse won’t work for long, James,” the A.I. observed. “The alien A.I. will surely guess what you’ve done in short order and then you’ll have to face reality, once and for all.”

“Maybe so. But for now, they literally can’t see the forest for the trees,” James replied.

He tried to remain focused on the androids but, just as the A.I. had predicted, James’s human mind couldn’t stop going back to Old-timer. He was the closest thing James had ever had to a father figure. His own father’s relationship with him was strained at the best of times—one of the major pitfalls of a world where children eventually ended up the same age biologically as their parents was that it created absurd rivalries that became more like sibling squabbles than natural parent and child relationships. James’s father spoke to him, but the conversations were strained and sometimes years apart. The older Keats was a gifted scientist in his own right but, try as he might, he would never reach James’s level of success. This knowledge tortured him—so he withdrew. He didn’t want to face the fact that his offspring was superior.

Old-timer, on the other hand, had no feelings of rivalry with James. He’d always seemed proud of the younger man—impressed by his accomplishments, yet secure in his own position as James’s mentor. He had known that James felt insecurity—self-doubt. He saw it as his place to reassure and strengthen James. Old-timer was the iron in James’s spine. Now James wasn’t sure how or if he could go on.

One of the androids knocked his metallic fist gently on the bark of one of the trees.

“Knock, knock,” the A.I. said, an amused grin painted across his ugly, twisted, mouth.

After a short moment, the android put its ear to the bark of the tree and listened.

“They’re on to you, James,” observed the A.I.. “They’re scanning for abnormal electrical signals from the trees.”

James patched through to Thel. “Thel, I may have run out of time here.”

“No!” Thel shouted as she jumped from her seat next to James’s body in the sick bay of the Purist ship. “Your body isn’t ready yet!”

“Listen to me, Thel. I want you to do a lap around the sun and then head back to Venus. The aliens don’t know we’ve terraformed it—there’s no record of it for them to find. The Purists can be safe there. Hold up somewhere on the surface and hide.”

“James, I can’t lose you!” Thel yelled, her body rigid with fear.

“I’m still in that body, Thel. If the body pulls through, I’ll wake up, safe and sound, no matter what happens to me here.”

“But... James, I can’t do anything but wait!”

James smiled, trying to reassure her. “Sometimes that’s all we can do, Thel. I love you. Whatever happens, protect the Purists.”

“Wait! James... don’t go. Just... talk to me for a few minutes first. I miss you.”

James watched as one of the androids dug his fist into the bark of a tree and examined it closely. He knew it was sending information back to the alien A.I. for analysis.

“It’s not my choice, Thel. I have to go. It’s time to spring a trap.”

3

“A trap?” the A.I. said, his arms folded across his chest as he shook his head. “You’re only delaying the inevitable and making it worse for yourself.”

“I’ll delay as long as I can—and maybe take a few of them with me while I’m at it.”

The android that had reached into the bark to retrieve a sample, tilted its head as though it were listening to some sort of communication. It nodded its head slightly as if in acknowledgement and then stepped back from the tree and craned its neck, looking upwards at the towering monolith, summing up its gargantuan foe.

“Yeah,” James said, smiling, “it’s
that
bad, freak.”

An instant later, the tree sprang into action, sprouting branches and wrapping itself around the android before pulling the metal body inside of the trunk. The android hadn’t had time to call for help or even make a noise before the nans inside of the trunk made short work of it, dismembering it and grinding the metal, leaving only metal shavings as fine as snowflakes to be expelled from the tree top.

The dozens of androids in the surrounding area looked up when they saw the metallic snow falling, eerily in the ancient, dark forest. Machine or not, there was something resembling panic as they crouched into defensive postures, eyes skyward, heads on swivels.

“There’s just something so human about them, isn’t there, James?” the A.I. said, before breaking into icy laughter.

“They’re a facsimile.”

In the next instant, the entire forest came alive and snatched the androids. Limbs flailed, screams escaped lips, and then the forest swallowed them whole. Only the memory of their screams echoed through the silence as the metal snow began to fall once again.

The A.I. arched an eyebrow. “Facsimile indeed.”

4

“What do you mean?” Thel asked the doctor that was attending to Alejandra.

“I mean there is nothing wrong with her physically. I don’t know why she’s not waking up, but I can tell you that her body is dying.”

“How can that be? There must be something wrong with her!” Lt. Patrick asserted.

“There wasn’t,” the doctor replied “but now there is. She’s having small seizures every few minutes. We’re trying to limit them by keeping her hydrated and getting her the nutrients she needs through her IV, but every time we account for one imbalance, another arises. I’ve never seen anything like it. Her condition is getting worse by the minute. At this rate, she’ll be in a vegetative state or dead in a matter of hours. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? You have to do something!” Lt. Patrick shouted.

“Calm,” Governor Wong said, putting his hand between Lt. Patrick and the doctor. “Doctor, there has to be an explanation.”

“I’m sure that there is,” the doctor replied, “but it’s beyond anything I can provide. The equipment we have onboard won’t allow me to tell you anything more than what I already have. I’m sorry. There is simply nothing I can do for her.”

“Wait,” Thel said, reaching for the doctor’s arm as he turned to leave the room. “Maybe there’s something I could do for her.”

“What?” the doctor asked.

Thel turned to Lt. Patrick and Governor Wong. “With your permission—I could take some nans from my body and inject them into her. They could do a diagnostic and let us know what the problem is.”

The Purists looked astounded at the proposition, as did Rich and Djanet, who stood nearby.

“I don’t... I don’t think that is something that Alejandra would want,” Governor Wong replied.

“I’m only suggesting that we implant a small amount of nans—only for the purpose of diagnosing her,” Thel argued.

“Governor, maybe we should consider it,” Lt. Patrick said.

“It’s against our beliefs. It will turn her into one of them,” Governor Wong replied.

“Governor,” the doctor interjected, “if I had the equipment here I would do a brain scan to find out if a neurological injury is the reason why this is happening. If this post-human’s technology can do that from the inside, then what’s the difference?”

Governor Wong remained silent, his lips pressed hard against one another as he weighed the decision. His eyes went from the doctor to Thel, who’s eyes were pleading. This woman had risked her life, lost her friend, and was standing next to the badly broken body of her lover, and she had done it all to help them. And now, once again, she was offering her help.

“Okay. Do whatever you think is best,” he said, waving his hand as though he were waving away the entire situation. He turned to exit the room.

Lt. Patrick shared a look with Thel as the Governor left. “So now what?” Lt. Patrick asked.

“Now we draw a sample of my blood,” Thel replied.

5

In a lab next door to sick bay, the doctor tied a rubber band above Thel’s bicep while Lt. Patrick looked on.

“Thel,” Lt. Patrick began, “I wanted to tell you something.”

“What is it?” Thel asked as the doctor soaked a cotton ball with alcohol and swabbed it over Thel’s skin. “That won’t be necessary,” she said to the doctor.

The doctor paused for a moment, his brow knitted, until the realization hit him and he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I forgot for a moment. You are super human. No infection for you.” He grabbed his syringe and began to draw blood. Thel winced a bit with the pain, but the nans automatically released painkillers into her system and it was dulled significantly.