Universe in Flames 3: Destination Oblivion (9 page)

“Yes, I agree,
but the only way to find her would be to find Argos.”

“Let’s do just
that then.”

“You can’t be
serious, Daniel. He would kill us before we opened our mouths. I want to find
Chase as much as you do. I owe him my life, but taking on Argos is not an
option and you know it.”

“Who said we need
to take him on?”

“What do you
mean?”

“We just try to
locate him. Perhaps that way we can locate Chase as well.”

“I’m not sure
this is wise.”

Tar’Lock clicked
again.

“Enough with
that!” said Daniel, raising his index finger at Tar’Lock. He returned his
attention to Ryonna. “Alright, where next? You must have an idea.”  

“I guess we could
try asking those who made the warrant.”

“Any idea where
they are?”

“Yeah, let me key
in the coordinates.”

“Be my guest. Let’s
go. Chop-chop.”

“Chop-chop?”

“You’re not the
only one who watched too much Earth TV.”

“Alight, Daniel,
but you may soon regret your enthusiasm.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because these
people are not to be trusted.”

“What people?”

“Datalight
Thieves.”

“And they are?”

“Hackers,
criminals, cyber terrorists, you name it.”

“Try not to ice
any of them, will ya?” said Daniel with a smile.

She grunted. “No
promises.”

Once the
coordinates were in, Daniel took neuronal control of the
Iron Fire
and
opened a hyperspace corridor.

*  
*   *

Back on Earth,
Cedric prepared for his date with Johanna. He was nervous. It had taken him
three months to finally build the courage to ask her out, as clumsily as he did.
He never thought she would say yes, even though Ryonna had told him she fancied
him.

He looked at himself
in the mirror and adjusted his costume. He grabbed the red-rose bouquet from
the bed, took one of the flowers out, cut the stem and inserted it in his
costume’s front pocket.

Neat!

Cedric’s heart
rate was accelerating; he was panicking at the thought of going to dinner with
her. Saving the Earth from total annihilation was one thing, but girls? Oh boy!
That was another challenge altogether and, in his eyes, way more difficult.

As he walked to
the door of his flat, the door signal chimed and the door opened at the same
time. It was Yanis.

“Hey, Ced—”

“Hi, Yanis,” he
said, cutting him off. “Not really a good time.”

“I can see that. Who’s
the lucky gal?”

“I’d rather not
say.”

“Is it a dude?”

“What? No, it’s a
blond.”

“There are blond
dudes,” said Yanis, pointing at his own hair.

“She’s a girl;
she’s blond. Look, I’m sorry if I was insensitive. Got nothing against gay
people. I’m just not one of them.”

“Dude, chill!”

“Right
. . . Except I can’t.”

“First date
thrills?”

“It shows?”

“Yeah from how
your face looks, I would say it feels like your first ever.”

“It kind of is.”

“Oooookay, so I
don’t suppose you have time to look at something I’ve discovered on the
Internet.”

“If it’s porn
it’s not a discovery. That’s there on purpose.”

“Yeah, I’ve
noticed that, genius. I mean something weird and actually meaningful.”

“What’s wrong
with porn?”

“Nothing at all. As
a civilization we didn’t really have that concept, but I must say you guys are
a sick bunch. I mean the quantity is one thing, but the depravity. Pheeew, well
. . .”

“Let me guess,
you look at it for the stories?”

“Yeah
. . . in fact.”

“You love it
don’t you?”

Yanis looked from
side to side. “Dude, this shit is making me crazy. I want to jump anything that
moves now. Before there was always an impending threat of death. I mean, invent
this, create that, repair whatever. But lately I have had waaaaaaay to much
time on my own, and the Internet, well, it’s kinda there.”

“You’re watching
too much of it then.”

“Yeah, that could
be the reason. Still, I’m not here to talk about that.”

Cedric looked at
his watch.

“You’re late?”

“Unfortunately
not. I’m an hour in advance.”

“Then it will
pass faster if I show you what I discovered.”

“Yeah alright. Come
in.”

“Well thank you.”

Yanis entered the
living room and crashed on Cedric’s couch.

“About that gay
comment?” said Cedric, clearly uncomfortable.

“What about it?”

“Are you? I mean,
don’t get me wrong. I really like gay people in fact. I really didn’t want to
offend if you are
. . .”

“Gay?”

Cedric swallowed
hard.

“You humans are
funny.”

“What?”

“Well, from what
I’ve read online there are a lot of touchy things related to one’s sexual preferences.”

“No, that’s not
true. Gay marriage exists on Earth.”

“Everywhere? Accepted
by any religion and every single one of you?”

“Alright I see
your point. But it was becoming widely accepted. What about on your planet?”

“We don’t care. We
don’t discriminate against anyone.”

“You haven’t
answered my previous question though?”

“Oh that. I can
go both ways. Depends on my mood.”

“So, bi?”

“Want me to leave
already? I just came in.”

“I meant
bi-sexual.”

“Oh that. Yeah, pretty
much. I’m so damn horny though, lately.”

“You really need
to dial down the porn, man. I’ve been there. I know how you feel.”

“Sorry. I think
you’re right, though. I’m absolutely one hundred percent sure that I watch too
much porn. I never felt like this before I started watching the stuff.”

“Didn’t you have
this on your wor— You know what? Forget about that. Here’s my computer. Please show
me what you found.”

“You think your
date would go for a threesome?”

“What? NO! If you
say one more sexually related thing, I’m gonna hit you in the head with my
laptop!”

“Right, my bad.
Really need to get laid though. This is getting out of hand.”

Cedric pointed at
the computer. “Show me what you came for.”

Yanis brought up
some code on Cedric’s computer. “You see that?”

“Yeah, what the
hell is this?”

“Damned if I know.
It looks so random; and look, see how it rewrote its own code there?”

“Whoa, you don’t
think it’s
. . .
?”

“It’s what?”

“Crap, I think I
did this.”

“What? What do
you mean?”

“When I worked to
teleport the explosive devices from the nuclear power plants, I linked your
network of computers to the Internet. That was the only way I could get enough
processing power under the time constraints.”

“What are you
saying?”

“I
. . . I think I might have
inadvertently created the first Earth-bound AI.”

“An Artificial
Intelligence?”

Cedric nodded.

“Can we erase
it?”

“Look, as much as
I don’t want anything bad to happen, we have to think about this. I mean, if
this thing has a consciousness already, if we try to kill it, it could consider
us a threat.”

“What if it
already does?”

“I don’t think that’s
the case; at least not yet.”

“What makes you
say that?”

“If it had been
aggressive or seen us as a threat, it would have taken action already.
Everything is connected through the Internet. An AI could create chaos in our
world if it wanted to, probably in a matter of minutes. Traffic lights, train
and plane traffic control, power plants . . . It could just decide
that humans are a threat and use all these connected tools to wipe us out.”

“But can we
conclude that because it hasn’t done that yet, it won’t in the future?”

“I wish I could
say yes. I guess it’s still learning.”

“What if it
doesn’t like what it learns?”

“Then we’ll have
one serious problem.”

“That’s perhaps
why we should strike now.”

“It’s too risky. If
it has already developed a self-preservation instinct its answer will be swift
and deadly.”

“Can’t we just
turn the power off on the planet and restore machines one by one with backups;
erase those that don’t have one; start fresh?”

“In theory this is
doable, but do you have any idea what that would be like? And how much time it
would actually take?”

“You tell me.
It’s your planet.”

“We’d be back to
the Stone Age for a few weeks at best, probably more like months or years. It
will create civil unrest, and we’ll have other problems on our hands.”

“I understand,
but then what do we do? Do we just let it be and hope for the best?”

“I don’t think we
can, but we must think about this and try to find a way to communicate with it,
gauge it up, see what’s it like, before we decide anything.”

“That’s sounds
reckless and risky.”

“Not more than
doing anything in a rush and making the wrong move.”

“I really don’t
like this.”

“Yeah, I can
understand that. We need to talk with Commodore Saroudis and Admiral Thassos about
all of this.”

“Alright, I’ll
arrange it. In the meantime, see what you can get out of this code, and let’s
try to think of a way to communicate with this entity.”

“Sure. I can work
on this all night.”

“No you can’t, at
least not right away. Your date, remember?”

“She’ll
understand.”

“Dude, this thing
was born about three months ago. Surely it won’t evolve into a killer in the
two or three hours your date would last. A few more if you get lucky,” said Yanis
with a smile and a wink.

“You’re
projecting it mentally aren’t you?”

He chuckled.

“Stop it! Go
home, whack off or find someone to help you shake this off. And the for love of
god, stop watching porn!”

“I wish it was
that easy.”

“Well then,
perhaps I can come and install filters on your computer to make sure you can’t
access any.”

“Yeah, that would
be a good idea, says my brain; my other one is in panic mode at the mention of
turning off the flow of these new sensory experiences.”

“Well, you’ve
watched enough to create your own mental images by now.”

“Perhaps.”

“Anyway, I should
go, and so should you. Let’s pick this up later tonight or tomorrow morning.”

Yanis nodded.

When Chase came to,
his head was pounding. The aftereffects of drinking most of that whisky bottle,
no doubt. His thoughts were foggy and it took him a good while to shake off his
haziness.

Keera was still
sleeping. He looked at the controls and saw that they would soon arrive at
their destination. They needed to refuel her hyperspace engines to make the
last jump to Earth. Chase didn’t relish the idea of being back there, not one
bit. While he was drunk he hadn’t thought of all of this; for a little while he
hadn’t thought of all that was eating at his soul.

But the constant
pounding in his head reminded him how ephemeral this feeling was, and what the
consequences were the next day. He put his hand on top of his head and healed himself.
In half a second the splitting headache was gone.

There’s that,
at least. Time to wake Keera.

With his hand on
her shoulder he gently shook her back to consciousness. She groaned, and he
could see she was just as disoriented as he was a few minutes ago.

“Headache?”

“Oh yeah, big
one.”

“Let me take care
of that.”

She looked at him,
confused. He put his hand on hers and took the pain away in a split second.

“What was that?”

“I can heal any
ailment or injury.”

“That’s neat.
Thank you. Is that what you did back on the station?”

“You’re welcome.
And yes, that’s how I flushed out the poison that had you paralyzed.”

She looked at the
empty bottle.

“We really went
to town yesterday, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, we did. I
guess we needed to phase out old, painful memories.”

“That we did.”

“Anything I
should know about the place we’re refueling?”

“I don’t think
so. It may not be the friendliest place around but I’ve used it enough times
not to be worried.”

“I’ll come with
you just in case.”

“Worried about
me?” she said with a wink.

“Well, you never
know.”

“That’s sweet,
but I’m a big girl.”

“You can drop the
tough act with me. You’re a skilled bounty hunter but, you know.”

She understood
what he wanted to say.

“I know, and yeah
I don’t mind the backup at all.”

“Good.”

“Here we go.”

The
Valken
jumped out of hyperspace near a station in orbit around a vibrant green planet.
Keera maneuvered her craft towards the nearest docking bay after obtaining
authorization to land.

They left the
ship together. Keera went towards the nearest engineer, ordered the refueling
of her ship, and then called Chase over with a gesture.

“What is it?”

“Need your
StarFury refueled?”

“Do they have quadrinium
here?”

“Yes, that’s what
the
Valken
runs on as well. But they pretty much have all the fuels used
by most of the engines roaming the universe.”

“Alright, then,
yes. If you can afford it, that is.”

“No worries there.
I have credit here.”

“How long will it
take?”

“We should be on
our way in less than an hour. There’s a bar here if you’d like to wait there?”

“Perhaps we
should go together?”

“Okay. Give me a
minute here.”

Chase nodded as
he looked around. Soon she joined him and they went to get a drink at the bar.
The place was quite deserted; only a few tables in the entire establishment were
occupied.

“Charming
atmosphere,” said Chase sarcastically.

“Not really a
tourist attraction, but at least it’s here. Want a Ju’Ran’s Blackhole?”

“That sounds good
yeah, thanks.”

“Sit at a table
over there. I’ll bring the drinks.”

“Alright.”

As Chase sat
where Keera gestured he noticed the table included controls. He waved his hand above
the monitor inlaid into the glass table. It came on and displayed news from
this sector of space, as well as a login to the intergalactic network, the
equivalent of the Internet but on a larger scale. Then he saw a section called “Warrants.”
He touched it and a list of warrants was displayed. Of course, the warrant for
Argos was at the top, thanks to the insane amount of credits offered as a reward.

That’s when it
hit Chase: probably more than half the bounty hunters in the universe were
after Argos. And he looked just like him. That sent a shiver down his spine. He
looked around at other occupied tables. Most of the customers were either
interacting with their own table-bound terminal or just chilling out, but one
seemed to look at Chase funny; but as soon as their gaze met he looked away and
started interacting with his own table terminal.

That’s not
good. We’ll have to stay on our toes
.

Chase scrolled through
the warrants and saw Keera’s picture. A new warrant, apparently less than two
days old. He opened it and looked into the details. Wanted dead or alive.

What’s this
about?
wondered Chase.

The warrant was
proposed by an individual called Tor’Tak, probably a family member of Tron’Tak.
Perhaps he should have just disabled the man. Now they would have bounty hunters
after them as well. It couldn’t be helped now, but Chase decided to inform
Keera.

Where is she?

She stood at the
bar, her back turned to him, her body blocking Chase’s view of the barman.
Something in Chase started to tingle.

Crap!
was the only thing he had the time to think before the shit hit the
fan.

The man who had eyed
him earlier was already reaching for a blaster. He raised it and shouted, “Hand’s
up. Make a move and I make a hole where your heart is supposed to be!”

Chase smiled at
the threat. “Holster this weapon if you value your life. I’m not Argos. I know
I look like him, but we’re twin brothers.”

“Sure, I believe
you. Hands up now. Last warning.”

Chase exhaled
with frustration. He turned around and saw that the barman was also pointing a
weapon at Keera. Her hands were in the air. So much for hoping things would go
smoothly.
Wishful thinking anyway
. Ever since the Alliance fell, it had been
one crap day after another. One more day of grinding in this damn universe.

Chase turned back
towards his aggressor and played along, raising his hands.

“That’s better. Don’t
you move!”

“I don’t need to
move to kill you from here; hope you realize that.”

That seemed to
catch his attention as he advanced between the tables separating them, never
losing sight of Chase as he approached.

He shoved the
barrel of his blaster right under Chase’s nose.

“I’m gonna tie
you up now. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I thought my
brother was more valuable dead.”

“He
. . . You are. Stop trying to get
out of this, Argos. You’re done and I’m rich.”

Chase started
laughing uncontrollably.

“Stop that right
now or I’ll shoot you in the face.”

Chase stopped
laughing and fixed the bounty hunter straight in the eyes. “Do it. See what
happens.”

Chase didn’t
realize it, but his eyes were shining again. That gave the man pause and he
took three steps back, still aiming at Chase. He took yet another next step
back, hit a nearby table and panicked, firing straight at Chase’s face.

Chase flicked a
finger and deflected the fire to the ground. The man’s eyes opened wide,
clearly shocked. He started madly firing at Chase, who simply put his palm in
front of the shots and stopped them all. A little smoke rose from his palm once
the man stopped firing.
A little theatrics can’t hurt
, thought Chase.

“Are you done?” he
said casually.

“What the fuck
are you?” said the man, terrorized.

“Not Argos,
that’s for sure.”

“What now?”

“Now you either
get the fuck out of my face or I show you what I do to people who shoot at me.”

That did it. The man
started running in a zigzag between the tables and left the room. Chase walked
towards the bar. The barman took a step to the side, clearly showing Chase he
was aiming at Keera’s head.

“One more step
and she di—”

Before he had
finished his threat, Chase had taken both his blaster out of his hand and
punched his lights out with a quick fist straight to his face. He crashed into
the back of his bar, shattering the mirror wall behind him. He collapsed to the
floor unconscious.

“Let’s get out of
here. We’re not welcome.”

“I can see that. Why
did they do this? Oh right! You look like him. I should have known.”

“That and there’s
also a warrant on your head.”

“What? That’s not
good. I could lose my license. Who is it from?”

“Tor’Tak. Probably
a relative?”

“Yeah, his crazy father.
How much am I worth?”

“Ten thousand.”

“That’s insulting!”

“Sure. I think we
should go now. Any way to remove the warrant on you?”

“Only Tor’Tak can
do that.”

“Perhaps once
we’re done with the business on Earth we can take care of this as well.”

“We’ll see. I’m
not worried. I’m well known in my field. I doubt other hunters will be dumb
enough to go after me.”

“What about him?”
said Chase, pointing at the barman on the floor.

“I don’t know. Looking
for a quick buck or career change, perhaps.”

“Picked on the
wrong crowd.”

“In his defense,
he couldn’t have known. Thanks for the assist, by the way.”

“Sure. Should we
go now?”

“Yeah, but let me
pour you the drink we came for first.”

Chase sat on the
nearest bar stool and put the barman’s blaster on the bar next to him. By the
time Keera had prepared the Ju’Ran’s Blackhole, they heard heavy footsteps
running on the other side of the room.

“We’ve got
company,” she said, still pouring the drink.

“I heard. You
don’t seem concerned.”

“Well, you’re
gonna kick their asses, aren’t you?”

Chase got up and
smiled at her. “Be right back.”

“Uh-huh.” She
smiled back.

Chase turned and
saw four men pointing blasters and rifles towards them. Chase raised his hands
and tables started levitating around them. Surprised, they started shooting at
them. With a swift motion of his hands he crashed a table into each of the
newcomers. They grunted, shouted or shrieked, but it all went really quickly.
In mere seconds, they were all out of commission.

One more set of
footsteps could be heard, slower but much heavier than before. At every new step
the ground shook. Soon a huge figure came into view. Moving out of the shadows
was a tall, fat Radiok, probably five times Chase’s weight. He started running
towards Chase without notice and everything in the room trembled heavily.

Chase levitated two
tables in the Radiok’s path and smashed one into each side of him. He stopped,
grunted, snarled and resumed running. Then Chase used another set of tables and
then another. It barely slowed down the Radiok, who arrived in front of Chase
and took a jab at him. Chase easily dodged, turned around and clocked the
Radiok in the face with an elbow. The Radiok’s nose broke upon impact and
started bleeding, and with his eyes locked he fell like a log in front of
Chase, making quite the commotion and breaking two more tables in the process.

Chase heard
clapping from the bar.

He turned and
gave Keera an amused look.

“Boy, sending
that beast down with just one blow. I’m impressed.”

“I had to keep it
together. Could have blown his head off otherwise.”

“Yeah, like in the
fight pits, right? It seemed clear to me you were not using all your abilities.
I wonder if I will ever see them.” Keera pushed the drink towards Chase as he
sat down.

“Careful what you
wish for. I don’t think it will be safe around me when that happens.”

“Right.” She took
her own drink and winked at him.

They drank their
beverages and left the bar shortly afterwards.

*  
*   *

Yanis entered the
commodore’s ready room on board the
Destiny
.

“What can I do
for you, Chief?” said Saroudis, getting up and shaking Yanis’ hand.