Post-Human 05 - Inhuman (35 page)

13

Old-timer could feel the dread within Aldous as he inhabited the chief’s memories.

Aldous sat down in the situation room of the governing council, having just watched a live image of James crushing the body of 1 into dust in his mind’s eye. Aldous wearily uttered to himself, “We live in momentous times.”

Old-timer skipped forward.

Aldous fretted in the master bedroom of his penthouse in downtown Seattle on a stunning evening, the sun having dropped below the horizon an hour earlier, yet the indigo glow remained on the sky while the post-human world,
his world
, bustled about efficiently before him as though nothing had happened—as though it wasn’t threatened—as though it weren’t about to
end
.

He turned to face the bed. Samantha was already asleep. She went to sleep content, thinking Aldous had set his nans so that he’d fall asleep beside her for the night, but he’d awoken soon after they’d closed their eyes, a preplanned waking, as he stepped out of bed and paced by the luxurious floor-to-ceiling window, watching the green cocoons of the people dance by like fireflies on a summer night. He wanted to share his terror with her, confide in her the truth, but he knew her too well.
She won’t have it
, he thought.
She won’t listen to reason
. He already knew how it would end.

He knew how the end would begin as well.

Old-timer skipped forward again.

Despite fears of an overwhelming wave of defections from the android collective in the hours and days after James’s pronouncement that they were welcome to stay with the post-humans as long as the androids abandoned the collective, only a scant few thousand actually chose to make their way to Earth, the moon, and Mars to join the post-human world. Aldous chose one of these few enclaves that had made their way to San Diego just hours after James had killed 1 and made his invitation. It didn’t take much detective work; just a few well-placed questions to locals, for Aldous to find a group of two dozen androids in the downtown area near the gas lamp district that, unlike much of the city, had largely survived the devastating nuclear bombardment of World War III. They’d taken up residence in what had been little more than a historical oddity, abandoned by the locals for the anachronism that it was, the Courtyard Marriott hotel. With worldwide travel accessible to every post-human within minutes, the notion of a hotel was foreign, laughable and to some, including Aldous, even pathetic. But there was irony in the fact that more than half a century since it had seen its last visitor, the hotel was indeed serving its intended purpose once again, temporarily housing visitors who were a long, long way from home.

Aldous walked into the lobby and, instantly, androids came to attention, recognizing whose presence they were in almost as though they’d been expecting him. One android, a female, remained sitting on a red, velvet couch—a couch that Aldous surmised was nearly 200 years old, just like the lobby that housed it. It was perhaps fitting that the entity that the android body housed might have been even older.

“1, I presume,” Aldous said as he crossed confidently to the woman, passing underneath the circular chandelier that burned incandescent light bulbs, bathing the room in a pleasing, if also impractical and opulent hue. He stood near a leather armchair adjacent to the couch, waiting for an invitation to sit, but the invitation didn’t come.

“You
are
presumptuous,” she replied.
“
That
is accurate.”

Her facial expression was difficult for Aldous to read. He felt sure he was in the presence of 1, but the woman didn’t look anything like the android they’d witnessed die at the hands of James. Her hair was short and dark and her outfit was dark and nondescript, perfectly blending with the android company she was keeping. Yet there was something about her that Aldous felt was recognizably 1. There was something in her countenance that screamed deception, screamed manipulation, and screamed danger.

Aldous persevered and took the seat anyway. “Presumptuousness is a defining character trait,” he responded, “but I have the feeling you knew that already.”

The woman appeared annoyed, yet patient as she replied, “I know quite a lot, yet the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. I can tell that you believe you know a great deal, yet you seem self-satisfied by this knowledge. An odd reaction, to say the least.” She leaned forward. “Satisfaction shouldn’t be what you feel.” Her tone quickly became icy. “Rather, you should feel absolutely terrified by what you know.”

Aldous’s ego was suddenly bruised, and he felt shamed. She was right.

“Why don’t you stop being coy,” she continued, sitting back, “and tell me what you think you know. But first,” she changed gears, her scrutinizing eyes leaving Aldous and traveling to one of the androids that stood nearby. “Get him a drink, will you?” She turned back to the chief. “What’s your poison?”

“Now who’s being coy?” Aldous asked. “You’ve met me before, I’m quite sure. You should know my drink by now.”

The woman scoffed. “Afraid not. What’s your drink, Chief?”

Aldous tilted his head as he considered her words.
Could I be wrong?
he asked himself. “A dark beer,” he replied. “It’s already in the replicator.”

“A stout?” the woman replied, her eyebrow raised in surprise. “I took you for more of a chardonnay fellow.”

Old-timer found himself equally surprised as he watched the memory. Chardonnay sounded about right.

“Well,” Aldous began to retort before holding his palm out as though it revealed the answer, “the more you learn…”

“Indeed,” the woman replied as the android returned, holding the chief’s freshly replicated glass of beer. He handed it to the chief as the woman continued to scrutinize Aldous. “Now, tell me what you know.”

Aldous took a small sip of beer, enjoying the taste of the roasted malts and creamy mouthfeel, savoring it as he didn’t know if there’d ever be another in his future, before he put it, along with all of his cards, on the table. “Well, I know you’re 1. I know the androids haven’t truly been in a battle with the nanobots throughout the universe—rather, you’ve been in a battle with nanobot-created
computers
throughout the
multiverse
, and it’s a battle you’re losing…badly. You’re assimilating humans because you’re caught in an impossible race against these computers, which take the very form that the super computer my A.I. and James Keats just activated did:
black holes
. These black hole computers are springing up across the multiverse, and in every single instance where they spring up, they cause the universe that birthed them to collapse.” Aldous paused for a moment and looked deeply into the eyes of the android he believed to be 1, flipping the tables on her as he scrutinized her reaction. She didn’t appear surprised. He continued. “I’ve successfully kept James and the rest of humanity in this universe in the dark regarding the multiverse, which is why James doesn’t yet suspect that you’re still alive. He eventually will, however, but we’ll be able to use his current ignorance to our advantage.”

Old-timer was stunned by the callowness of, not only Aldous’s words, but of his tone.

The woman smiled faintly and folded her arms across her chest. “Chief Gibson,” she began, her tone impressed, yet playfully chastising, “however did you manage to keep an intellect such as James Keats in the dark for so long?”

Aldous straightened his shirt as he began his reply, not relishing in the manipulation that had gone on for decades. “James has certain…
character defects
that can be exploited.” He sighed. “He’s the greatest natural human intellect to ever live, of that I’m sure, yet he has an almost childlike belief in…” he paused as he considered the absurdity of his next word, “…goodness.”

The woman pouted her lip into an expression of piqued interest.

“I knew I could count on that
naïveté
when I considered how to find you,” Aldous continued. “James could easily have kept track of every android who defected, but that would go against his unrealistic views regarding individual freedom. If he monitored the androids, as any rational person in his position would do, he’d view himself to be a hypocrite, having vanquished one dictator only to set himself up as a new dictator in her place. And James Keats will
never
knowingly allow himself to be guilty of hypocrisy.” He nearly scoffed as he continued, “The man can manipulate gravity waves and detect ripples in space-time, but all you had to do was slip by him with your cover forces,” he gestured to the rest of the androids that populated the room, “and
voilà
. Bob’s your uncle.”

“How do you know he’s not monitoring you now?” the woman asked. “This could be a mole hunt. Your actions are treasonous.”

Aldous smiled as he considered the idea. “I almost wish it were true.” He looked up at the woman. “If he was capable of wisdom like that…of prudent caution…” he paused and shook his head as he thought of the burden he believed that he alone carried, “then this conversation wouldn’t be necessary. We’d just tell him what we know, he’d decide against turning the Trans-human computer back on, and we’d have a valuable ally in a war against the black hole computers. But as you know, that’s not how James will react. He has an intractable belief in the goodness of knowledge, and doesn’t realize that the ultimate result of unlimited computing power is a universe-destroying god.”

“We call them
infinity computers
,” she informed him, the first confirmation that she did, indeed, know what he was talking about. Then the woman turned to the android attendant. “Bring me another one of what he’s having.”

Aldous’s eyebrows knitted together. “You drink?”

“Of course,” she responded. “Our bodies are designed so that we don’t have to give up any of the pleasures that make life worth living—
and saving
.”

“Well,” Aldous reacted, impressed, “the more
I
learn…”

“Now, Aldous,” the woman began as she switched which leg crossed over which and shifted in her seat, her body language suggesting she was ready to get down to business. “You’ve clearly been waiting for us for all these years. I can imagine it was rather difficult for you when you learned the terrible truth to which you’re privy, but what are we to do now? Your A.I. and James have us cordoned off from the solar system, and, as you said, they won’t listen to reason. So, other than an interesting yarn, what do you have to offer the collective?”

Aldous sat back in his seat. “Everything. Absolutely
everything
.”

The android attendant handed the woman her beer, but her eyes never left Aldous. “Do tell,” she said, clearly intrigued.

“As I said, even with his superhuman abilities, both physical but more importantly mental, James still has character defects that cause him to behave irrationally. While he currently has the opportunity to put himself at the center of one of these infinity computers, a course of action that would render our current conversation moot, instead, he’ll pass the responsibility onto someone else. He simply won’t want to leave the people he feels connected to behind, particularly his romantic partner, Thel Cleland. He won’t be able to convince the current A.I. to take his place as the core matrix of Trans-human either, as the A.I.’s programming prohibits him from upgrading himself. Thus, James will fall back on Plan C, which will be to mimic the method I invented seventy years ago. Of course,
I
did it because I had to—because no human could connect to the artificial brain we’d built—but James will do it because he wants to create his own god rather than become one himself.
He’ll test a new A.I. in a simulation, and when he’s satisfied that the new A.I. has passed that test, he’ll insert it into Trans-human, and cross his fingers, hoping
naïvely
that everything will work out.” Aldous paused as he looked up from his folded hands on his lap. “You and I know that activating infinity computers, as you call them,
never
works out.”

“How do we stop this new A.I. from becoming Trans-human?” the woman asked.

“Well, only 1 could help me do that. And we have to trust each other as much as possible if we plan to proceed. So, can we
both
stop being coy now?”

“Why do you need me to confirm what you already know?” the woman asked with a slight smile. As was her custom, 1 was using every muscle in her face, every dilation of her pupils, to get what she wanted.

Satisfied, Aldous continued, “James and the A.I. won’t leave anything to chance, and since they can both be immersed in a sim and be on guard in the real world at the same time, they won’t give a second thought to participating in the test of the entity they believe will be the most important being ever created. Before that happens, I’ll need
your
help to create a trapdoor program sophisticated enough to trap their core matrix programs within the sim. They’d detect anything we could come up with before they immerse, but I’ll be in position to insert it into the sim
after
they’ve begun their test.”