David Simpson - Post-Human Trilogy

“You’d better have a plan,” Alejandra said, her eyes becoming wide as she looked past Old-timer’s shoulder, “because none of them care about saving you!”

Old-timer turned to see his four friends emerging over the ship horizon line, gleaming green in the energy of their magnetic cocoons.

Their only chance of survival rested with Old-timer.

The alien withdrew and deftly stepped a handful of paces away from James. She appeared to be choosing her words carefully. James couldn’t help but feel she was being sincere, but he resisted the temptation to trust her. He remembered a time when he used to trust the A.I. implicitly—a time that seemed a million years ago now.

“Your civilization is what we call a nest—this is because you are only in your infancy—you are a miracle,” the alien stated. “However, you are a miracle that cannot last. Eventually, if humanity does not adapt, it dies out. We have seen this firsthand. We have encountered many planets like yours where humanity emerged, flourished, and then disappeared. Sometimes it is an inability to control nuclear technology. Other times, it has been a reluctance to limit carbon emissions in the atmosphere, leading to disastrous ecological consequences. However, there is one threat that has destroyed more fledgling human civilizations than any other.”

“And what is that?” James asked.

“If the A.I. you created succeeded in destroying your species, then we can only assume that you rebuilt your world and your species by using nanotechnology. ”

“Yes.”

“Therein lies the present danger.”

“The nans?” James asked, astonished. “Why? We’ve successfully controlled the technology.”

“That is very unlikely,” the alien replied. “The technology has never been controlled—ever.”

James didn’t waste time trying to digest this new information. He immediately incorporated the possibility that the nans were a threat into his predictive scenarios game theory program. In an instant, he had a match. “Christ.”

“Yes,” the alien said calmly. “Now you are beginning to understand. An artificial intelligence cannot, for lack of a better term, turn evil. There are too many safeguards in place. These safeguards are essential ingredients in who the A.I. is. It cannot change who it is any more than you or I could choose who we are. Only an outside source could have corrupted its programming.”

“You’re saying it was the nans—the nans have become conscious?”

“That is almost a certainty,” the alien said, nodding. “Unlike the A.I., which is a singular program, the nans, as you call them, come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some are fairly simple, while others are extremely complex. There is no unified failsafe program for them. There is no command to protect humanity. In designs that are so varied, there simply cannot be.”

“So a small group of nans could have been corrupted—it could have happened during the reproduction process. A mutation,” James said. He was beginning to see the truth—the whole truth—finally.

“That is almost a certainty,” the alien said again. “We’ve seen this before. This is why your bodies have to be cleansed of the nans immediately. As we could not establish communication with you, our only choice was to proceed with the assimilation.”

As the alien concluded its explanation, the bottom began to fall out of James’s world. If the alien was telling the truth, it meant that James had been wrong. The A.I. had been right. James was a murderer—not only of the assimilated humans he had killed, but of every person in the solar system that he had helped to escape. There was no way to save them. It was only a matter of time until the nans ripped them all apart from the inside. Everyone would die.

Thel would die .

“We wish for you to join with us,” the alien said. “We have to fight the nans here before they join with the other organisms of their type that are already established throughout the universe. There can be no safety for the human species in this universe until the last of the nans are finally eliminated.”

James already knew it was hopeless. “I appreciate the offer,” James said, “but there’s a problem.”

“What is it?”

“I’m not alone,” James said, closing his eyes tight as he tried to digest the nightmare unfolding around him.

“What do you mean?” the alien asked, her eyebrow rising in a concern that bordered on fear.

“The A.I. still exists,” James said, looking up at her, “and it has become part of me,” he admitted.

“What?” the alien whispered, beginning to back away. “It’s here? Now?”

“Yes,” the A.I. answered, suddenly appearing next to James, grinning as he placed his arm around James’s shoulder.

“Then I’m sorry,” the alien said to James. “You’ve been corrupted too. There’s no hope for you.” She shared one last look with James—it was a look one hoped never to see—the look someone gave you after you’d fallen into the shark tank. She vanished.

“You’re not the A.I.,” James said through clenched teeth.

The figure of the A.I. suddenly began to transform. Where there had been the frightening countenance of a demonic wizard, the surface of the figure began to disintegrate into an extremely fine dust. The dust was alive. It swirled and pulsated and churned. It made a noise like a nest of incensed killer bees.

“We never were.”

“I have an idea,” Old-timer said. “Trust me.”

“I trust you,” Alejandra replied.

Old-timer’s hand flashed up, and he stuck his assimilator into her neck, downloading her consciousness into the memory of the stick. “Sorry, Alejandra. You’ll thank me later,” he said as he crouched low and kept his eyes on the post-humans. He was lining up his shot like a golfer. When he was ready, he pushed Alejandra’s body hard so it floated limply across the hull, and toward his friends.

“There!” Rich shouted as he saw the body floating toward them. He was about to fire when Thel grabbed his arm to stop him.

“Wait!” she shouted.

“What?” asked Rich.

“She’s unconscious. Maybe she was hit by James’s blast.”

“Maybe. But then, why take chances?” Rich replied before he gave her a mild blast of magnetic energy. The body hardly reacted.

“It looks like we got them,” Djanet observed. A moment later, Djanet was unconscious—Old-timer had sneaked up behind her and stuck her neck with his assimilator. He neutralized Rich in his next motion, knocking him unconscious as well. He twirled and grasped James from behind, jamming the assimilator to his neck as Thel turned to see her friends collapse to the hull and her lover about to join them.

“No!” she shouted to Old-timer. “No! Please! If you have any of Old-timer in you, please don’t do this to me!”

“It’s me, Thel!” Old-timer shouted to the post-human. They couldn’t hear one another. He easily manhandled James and moved closer to Thel. When he felt he was close enough, he assimilated him and thrust his hand out in time to do the same to Thel. The post-humans fell to the ground simultaneously.

Old-timer turned quickly to see the body of Alejandra floating out into space. He flew to her and retrieved her, bringing her back to the relative safety of the ship hull. He put her hand on her heart, just as she had done for him, and revived her with an electric jump start.

Her eyes blinked open. For the briefest moment, she appeared stunned—then she appeared angry. “Craig! You knocked me unconscious!”

“I’m sorry, Alejandra. I needed a diversion.”