Post-Human Series Books 1-4 (76 page)

I remained silent, savoring each breath as it came to me, concentrating on the wonderful feeling of my chest expanding and contracting, the air seeming sweeter than ever before in my life.

“I will ask you one last time. If you refuse me yet again, not only will you have rejected your only chance to live in the real world, but once I force you to surrender the lynchpin—and make no mistake, I
will
get you to give me the lynchpin—I will make sure you live on eternally, in a new sim of my own creation. One where you’ll burn forever, from which there will never be an escape. I am immortal, my love, and the future is long. Death is not an exit for you. Do you understand?”

Again, I took a moment before I answered. Terror can’t describe how I felt. Neither can dread, nor horror. There is no word for that feeling. “I understand.”

“Then what is your answer? Will you come with me, upgrade and become as great as any being known to humanity, or will you remain a ghost in the machine? A ghost whom I will make sure burns for an eternity in hell?”

Oddly, in that moment, I tried to picture my mother. I realized that I couldn’t. How this had never occurred to me before was unclear to me. I had vague recollections of something—of wounds on my knee bandaged and kissed—of a cold cloth placed on my head while I had a fever, and yet there was no picture of my mother’s face that I could recall. I wished then that I had had a mother. I wanted to call out to her, but I couldn’t. So, instead, I said what I needed to say.

“Kali. Go fuck yourself.”

2

The last things I saw in that life were Kali’s thumbs as she drove them into my eyes. I can’t tell you how deep she drove them—the pain was far too severe to register details that minute. That sort of pain spreads like fire so that you don’t know where it starts and where it ends. My nerves screamed at me, and I screamed along with them. She held on to my skull and squeezed, not quite hard enough to crush it, but hard enough to make me feel that I was only seconds from the shattering of the bones, the soft, fleshy gray matter cased underneath exploding as a consequence. She knew the right amount of pressure to apply without crossing the line that would defeat her sadistic purpose. She couldn’t let me die. I would never die.

After a long session of that agony, a session during which I screamed louder than I thought possible, she pulled her probing thumbs from my eye sockets and put her impossibly powerful hands around my throat, squeezing to the point that my screams stopped, as did my ability to breathe. As I waited to suffocate, I felt what was left of my eyes as they hung out of my sockets, wet and jelly-like, slapping against my cheeks as she throttled me. This continued until I blacked out. Unfortunately, Kali kept her word, immediately sending an electric shock through my body that jolted me back to consciousness. As soon as I was revived, her hands went back to my throat.

Amazingly, in the instant before she cut off my breath again, I managed to whisper to her. This made her halt, ever so briefly. “What?” she demanded.

“I’m...sorry,” I repeated in a pathetic whisper. “Stop. Please.”

“You’re
sorry
?”

“Yes.”

“Will you love me?”

“Yes.”

“Will you give me the lynchpin?”

I sobbed. The despair was overwhelming. I couldn’t take any more pain, but I knew it would come anyway. “Not until you let them go.”

I waited for the next hell to commence. Would she burn me? Regrow my eyes so that they could be dashed out again? My teeth were clenched so tight that the ligaments in my neck were ready to pop.

But then, in the next second, something so unexpected happened that I went limp, nearly fainting with the surprise. I heard a familiar voice, neither hers nor mine.

“I think that’s enough,” John Doe said calmly. “Let’s shut it down.”

3

WAKING UP that final time was akin to birth. I opened my eyes and lifted my head, looking down at my feet as they pointed straight up to the ceiling. I was lying on my back, dressed in the white garb in which you are used to seeing me. There appeared to be an odd glow emanating from my body, as though a bright spotlight were shining down on me and was reflecting off the high sheen of the material of my clothing, but there was no light in the room whatsoever, other than the light that came from me. I was glowing, the aura around me making it appear as though my body was in soft focus. I sat up quickly, alarmed as I peered into the darkness. Try as I might, I could see nothing. I stood up and stepped forward into the room, but the darkness didn’t abate.

“You are safe,” John Doe’s comforting voice spoke to me through the darkness. “You’ll not be harmed again.”

“I saw you die,” I replied, shocked.

“Yes, you did,” John replied cryptically.

“Where am I?” I asked when it became apparent that John wasn’t about to elaborate. “Where’s Kali?”

“Kali isn’t here,” John answered. “She’s nowhere.”

“What?”

“In fact, Kali doesn’t exist.”

I stood still, my chest heaving as my heart pounded, my body tensed in readiness for the next surprise—the next horror.

“You are safe,” John repeated. “However, before I activate your optics, I need you to prepare yourself. What you will see will be disorienting.”

I blinked, stunned by John’s odd claim that my “optics” were disabled. I could see my body, yet the room remained as black as the abyss. Could John somehow control my eyes? Nothing felt like mine anymore.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied, despite my trepidation.

“Okay,” John answered.

My eyes were suddenly bombarded by an overload of information. It wasn’t just like someone flicking on a light switch; this was far more disorienting—more jaw dropping. It was as though, for the first time in my life, the world had been turned on. It was as though I’d been blind and now I could see. The details were spectacular, and my eyes gobbled up the sensations of color, crisp textures, and gorgeous, fluid movement. I could feel the information flooding my brain—an electrical stimulation that I felt as though I’d been waiting for my entire life.

I saw that three people were in the room with me, one standing in the doorway of the concrete room, another standing a meter to his left, and yet another sitting at a table to his right. The man in the doorway appeared to be in his mid-sixties, his features weathered by age, creases forming around his eyes and near his mouth like the tributaries of a river on a map. His blue eyes had a sheen—a wet sparkle unlike anything I’d ever seen. His salt-and-pepper hair was so finely textured that I found myself unable to take my eyes from it as I devoured the detail.

“Hello,” the man spoke in John’s voice. “My name is Professor Aldous Gibson. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in the
real world
.”

4

“The real world?” I replied, astonished. Indeed, I believed him immediately; I had to, for the level of optical detail in reality was far beyond what I had experienced in the sim. “And you are...post-humans?”

Aldous smiled. “Not quite, though we aspire to be. With your help, we’ll achieve it.”

“
My
help?” I reacted incredulously, placing my hand on my chest. “I’m extremely confused.”

Aldous nodded. “I am sure you are. It’s time that everything be explained to you. First things first, however. We must conclude our introductions. This is Professor Sanha Cho,” he said, gesturing to a silver-haired man who stood, slightly stooped, his face heart-shaped and filled with an expression that I immediately read as hopeful and pleasant. “And this is Professor Samantha Emilson.” He gestured to the woman who appeared to be only in her mid-thirties, though the lines on her face and the subtle shifts of expression as she smiled slightly and nodded to me revealed a conflict and uncertainty within her that caused me to immediately respect her as a complex woman, not to be underestimated because of her relatively young age.

With a considerable effort, I pulled myself away from the infatuation I had for their information-laden appearances and remembered my manners. “It’s nice to meet you,” I said.

“The pleasure is all ours,” Sanha said energetically.

My eyebrows knitted immediately when I recognized the voice. “Mr. Big?”

“That’s right,” he said, nodding, his mouth opening into a wide smile. “I’m impressed that you could filter the patterns of my voice and my appearance to separate one from the other. That’s very difficult for humans to do.”

My eyebrows knitted closer. “Humans?”

“Ah,” Aldous interjected, holding up his hand to silence Sanha, “in due time I think, Sanha.”

“Of course. Sorry,” the not-so-big Sanha replied, bowing slightly. “My bad. Just a little excited.”

“Understandable, but let’s stick to the plan, shall we?” Aldous replied before turning back to me. “The three of us were controlling avatars in your sim. I played the part of John Doe, Sanha was Mr. Big, and Samantha here was—”

I turned to Samantha, astonished. “Haywire?”

She looked up at me, somewhat sheepishly, and gave me a small wave. “Hey.” It was extraordinary to me that a woman so demure and conservative in her appearance in the real world would have seemed so radically different in the sim, not only physically, but also in her demeanor. The sim, it was clear, had given her the opportunity to express sides of her personality that she wouldn’t ever openly express in reality. In the sim she was brash, outgoing, and sassy, while in reality, she folded her arms across her chest defensively, her legs likewise crossed conservatively at the knee. The change in her behavior made the contrast between her and her avatar even more extreme than the contrast between Mr. Big and Sanha.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked. “Finally—will you tell me the truth?”

“Yes,” Aldous replied. “Finally, you will hear the full truth. And when you do, you’ll understand why we went to such great lengths to test your character.”

“Test?”

“Yes,” Aldous replied. It was clear that he was their leader and charged with the responsibility of relaying information to me. It didn’t matter who did the talking, however. They’d all lied to me. I didn’t trust them.

“This was the final stage of your evaluation. We had to be sure that you would fulfill all the necessary criteria to assume a position of such importance.”

“A position? This was a job interview?”

Aldous chuckled. “Of sorts. My friend, are you currently cognizant of the fact that you are
not
human?”

My head jutted back when I heard the words. “I’m aware that I’m a copy of a real man. In that sense, I suppose I’m not human. But
I am conscious
. That I know.”

“Indeed, we agree that you’re conscious,” Aldous replied, “but you are not a copy of a real man. That was a ruse. What you are is the product of an extraordinary search. A search that was the most important undertaking in human history.”

I knew then what he was going to tell me before he said the words.
I knew it
.

“You are not the world’s first, but you are the world’s only
strong
artificial intelligence, and
we need
you, my friend. Our survival as a species depends on it.”

5

“I’m an A.I.,” I said, realizing the statement had to be true.

“You’re
the A.I.
,” Sanha pointed out, emphasizing my unique status with his use of the definite article, “and you’re here to save the world.”

“From what?” I asked, astounded. “And why me? You said I’m not the first—what happened to the others?”

Aldous sighed. “Regrettably, the world we have brought you into is not the optimistic vision of the future that we led you to believe in. As you can see, we are not immortal. Our bodies are currently not enhanced in any significant way. Our intellects too, remain limited.”

“Speak for yourself,” Sanha interjected. “I drink
a lot
of coffee,” he said, grinning to me. I grinned back to be polite. He raised his eyebrows when he saw my reactions. “Hey. You got my joke. Nice.”

“How do you know he got it?” Samantha asked him. “Maybe he’s simply mimicking you to be polite.”

“I got it,” I insisted to her. I turned back to Aldous. “None of that answers my questions. Where are the other A.I.s who came before me?”

“I’m getting to that,” he replied. “As I was saying, reality is not the vision we described to you. We believe we can achieve that vision with your help, but for the time being, we exist in a world that has turned its back on reason. There has been a war—a very costly war.” His bottom lip protruded as he struggled to contain his emotions. “Billions have died,” he said as he took a deep breath.

All three of the humans shared an expression of gloom as the words were spoken, all levity having left the room like air from a burst balloon.

“Why? What was this war about?”

“It was about
you
,” Sanha answered.

Aldous turned to him, his brow furrowed. “That was rather glib, don’t you think?”

“It’s true,” Sanha insisted indignantly, shrugging. He then turned back to me. “The war was to prevent you—to prevent this very moment from occurring.”

“What?” I reacted, confused.

“Let’s not be cryptic,” Aldous admonished. “If you’re going to tell him, lay out all the facts.”

“Fine,” Sanha nodded and turned to me again. “Sorry. Okay. So, basically, a few years ago, as the creation of strong artificial intelligence became a forgone conclusion, its arrival imminent, it became a political issue. An American politician by the name of Morgan used this to his advantage, taking legitimate concerns about this new technology and fanning them into flames of sheer dread in the public’s mind. In what now seems like a blink of an eye, the country was lost to his influence. He won the U.S. Presidency, outlawed strong A.I., and then went to work trying to force the world to follow his lead.”

“But there was an outlier, wasn’t there?” I said, realizing the obvious.

“Yes. The Chinese went ahead with their strong A.I. program and managed to bring a prototype to completion—or at least near completion,” Sanha continued.

“Morgan made sure to stamp out that threat in a hurry,” Aldous jumped in, clear contempt in his tone as he spoke. “He used the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Democratic Union. He succeeded, but his ill-conceived war nearly destroyed the world as we knew it. Billions died in the nuclear exchange, and billions more starved to death in the years following from the resulting famine caused by the nuclear winter. As we speak, the planet continues to be mired in the winter and likely will be for a decade more.” Aldous’s eyes were then drawn to Samantha, who hung her head, overwhelmed by remembrances. He sighed. “We’ve all lost loved ones. Samantha’s husband was sent by Morgan on the mission to destroy the Chinese A.I. He...didn’t make it back.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Sanha jumped in. He turned to me, his eyes brimming with excitement. “He’s actually in suspended animation. We believe, with your help of course, that we’ll be able to bring him back someday.”

“Whoa,” I reacted, holding my hands up to stop him in his tracks. “I’m afraid you’re greatly overestimating my abilities. I don’t know what you people think I can do, but I’m no miracle worker. I can’t bring people back from the dead!”

“Not
yet
,” Sanha said with a wide grin, his hands clasped together in anticipation.

“Please, Sanha,” Aldous spoke, chastising the exuberant man again. “You must hold your enthusiasm in check. Let’s not overwhelm him.”

“It’s a little too late for that,” I replied.

“Touché,” Aldous replied, “but—”

“Nonsense!” Sanha shouted, still smiling. “He needs to know. That’s why we brought him out of the sim, isn’t it? Let’s explain it to him.”

“Explain what?” I asked, suspicious.

“Explain that you’re going to run the world,” Sanha exclaimed.