David Simpson - Post-Human Trilogy

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 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 steadily increased 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 on a stretcher by medical staff as Governor Wong and Lieutenant 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 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 in her mind’s eye, “how long will our communications remain open?”

“I don’t know, Thel. It could go down at anytime 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.”

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/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 far 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. Hole up somewhere on the surface and hide.”

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

“I can still return to that body, Thel. If the body pulls through fast enough, I’ll wake up safe and sound.”

“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.”

“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 acknowledgment, then stepped back from the tree and craned its neck, looking upward 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 treetop.