David Simpson - Post-Human Trilogy

Something in his wife’s eyes sent a stab of ice into Craig’s chest. She’d described a nightmare world, yet she looked as though she were holding on to the worst of it. What could be worse? he thought. What could possibly be worse? “What is it?” he asked.

“Craig, it’s been fourteen years… and…” She stopped, overwhelmed as tears quickly welled and her voice choked.

“And what?” he asked, his voice filled with sympathy.

“Be on the ready,” Aldous said. “We might need to—”

“Power him down?” the voice suggested. “I understand. I’m ready.”

“Craig,” Samantha managed to finally whisper through a labyrinth of tears, throat tightness, and shortness of breath. “I’m—I married someone else. I’m remarried to Aldous Gibson.”

Craig lay stunned for several seconds before finally blinking. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m…I’m—”

“You married that old man?”

“He’s not old anymore.”

“I’m still alive!”

“I didn’t know—”

“Bull!” He thrust his head forward and then back down, hard against his pillow as he pulled hard on his restraints. “I’m going to kill him!”

“Craig, please—”

“I knew there was something going on between you!” he shouted accusingly.

“Never! Never while you were alive!”

“I’m still alive!” Craig screamed out.

As he did so, green sparks of energy suddenly formed around his fists. His face contorted into surprise. “What the hell was that?”

Samantha’s head hung in a mixture of surrender and shame. “It’s…Craig, so many things have changed. I can’t explain it all. I’m sorry. I tried.”

“What do you mean you ‘tried?’” Craig thundered in response. “What the hell did you try? You woke me up to tell me you’ve been cheating on me with a geriatric?”

She turned to the LCD wall and nodded.

“What the hell was that?” Craig said as he watched her strange gesture.

“I tried,” Samantha sadly repeated.

“Is he on the other side of that wall?” Craig demanded. “Has he been watching us?”

The green sparks suddenly returned to his fists, this time accompanied by what looked like ball lightning, obliterating his restraints. With his teeth clenched in fury, Craig tossed the ball of energy toward the wall, smashing a hole in the center.

In the center of the hole, framed by raining pieces of glass, Aldous Gibson slowly brought his arms down from the protective shield they formed around his face, revealing the countenance of a man in his late twenties.

“What the hell?” Craig whispered in disbelief before he quickly lost consciousness.

This time, there was black.

WAKING UP from the nightmare, Craig’s heart raced as he sat up in an awkward spasm. A little drool had run out of the left side of his mouth and was tickling his chin. He wiped it away as he looked out at snowcapped mountains in the east, a nearly violet twilight sky behind them, the mountains still softly glowing with the fading light in the west, which they faced. A looming, implacable shadow moved, slowly but perceivably, and cast itself over more and more of the mountainscape, threatening to strangle the soft glow of the peaks.

“It’s not real,” said a voice to Craig’s right.

Craig snapped his head around, following the voice. The man wasn’t looking at him, but rather at the landscape on the other side of the window. He was an average man. Average height, average weight, average looks. Even his hairline, which had a slight peak and appeared to have minor weakness above the temples, suggested a 50/50 chance of male pattern baldness in the future. It suddenly struck Craig that he was looking at the most unremarkable man he’d ever seen, yet he couldn’t take his eyes off of him. There was something about him. Something not right.

“The mountain range is real,” the man continued, elaborating on his earlier statement, “but that’s not a window you see.” The man gestured with his hand, waving his open palm over the vast expanse of the window. It was about two meters in height and appeared to be nearly 100 meters long, covering the entire east wall of the gigantic room in which they resided. “It’s a 3D, real-time image of extraordinarily high resolution. You can walk right up to the screen, peer at the mountains, at the tiny pebbles in the foreground, at the little trees in the distance, and you won’t find a flaw. It will fool you. If only all technology were so—perfect.”

Craig pressed his fingers against his temples. He expected to feel sluggish after having just awoken, but his mind was surprisingly clear. He looked up at the man, who continued to stare out at the simulated view. “Excuse me, but who are you?”

The man turned to Craig. He wore a slightly sheepish grin on his face as he replied, “I’m no one you know. No one you have an emotional attachment to. That’s why they asked me to speak to you.”

Craig took a moment to let the odd response sink in. He was sitting upright on a black, microfiber couch. They appeared to be at almost the exact center of the giant simulated view. Behind them, the room was decorated in a bad imitation of a ski lodge. The wooden flooring and beams on the ceiling were rough and purposely rustic in appearance. A gigantic fireplace large enough for a man to step inside without crouching crackled in the distance. It suddenly became clear to him that the room was meant to be soothing. “So. You’re the shrink.”

The man smiled at the assertion. “I’m afraid not. I probably know less about human psychology than anyone in this facility, though I am very well read on the subject. No, I am only here because I’m very good with facts and can answer your questions. In addition, the fact that you don’t know me should minimize your emotional responses, at least in theory.”

Craig listened, then sighed, putting his head in his hands. He was still inside the nightmare. “What facility are you talking about?” he asked resignedly. It was obvious that whoever it was who was pulling the strings wasn’t going to let him see Samantha, yet he wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity to find some answers.

“You’re inside a bunker built into the base of Mount Andromeda in the Canadian Rockies. This facility was constructed by a team of engineers and researchers, a team led by Professor Aldous Gibson. It is a safe haven from the world government and their super soldier program. The super soldiers hunt down anyone suspected of developing strong artificial intelligence.”

“So, this facility is illegal?”

“Yes. Very much so. It is fair to say that the people who inhabit this facility are the most wanted criminals in the world.”

There was something about the man’s frank assessment of the situation that caused an even more unsettled feeling to stir within Craig. There wasn’t a hint of guilt or indignation from the man: only emotionless fact. There was no sugar in his tone to help the bitter pill go down. “Why am I here?” Craig asked. “I don’t understand.”

“Samantha Gibson,” the man began, but he stopped when he saw the painful grimace her name brought to Craig’s face. “I’m sorry. I shall try to be more sensitive. Samantha took possession of your body once it was recovered from Maluan Mountain. You were in suspended animation, and she conjectured that it might someday be possible to repair the terrible damage that had been done to you—that she could reanimate you.”

“Then why did she marry someone else?” Craig interjected, his teeth clenched as he squeezed the words free.

“I cannot speak for what is in another’s heart,” the man replied. “They married eight years ago. At that time, the technology to reanimate you was far from certain. Perhaps she didn’t really believe she would ever see you again.”