David Simpson - Post-Human Trilogy

Craig jumped to his feet, grunting in frustration as he grappled with the notion that his wife was with another man. “Goddamn it!” he cursed as he balled his hands into tight fists and squeezed hard with fury. The green sparks suddenly ignited once again. Craig’s mouth opened in surprise, and he immediately opened his hand, relaxing the muscles and causing the sparks to disappear. “Okay. Okay. What the hell is that?” he stammered. “What’s with the fireworks?”

“That was a magnetic field. You generated it with your mind.”

“What the hell?”

The man smiled but bowed his head sheepishly so as not to maintain eye contact for too long. “My friend, you are no mere mortal any longer. Like everyone else in this facility, you’ve taken a first giant leap beyond being human. You are post-human. ”

“What the hell?” Craig repeated.

“Post-human. It’s what the Purists like to call us. It was meant as derogatory, but we’ve adopted the term with affection. Would you like to know more?” the man asked, turning toward the exit and gesturing for Craig to follow him.

“Yes.”

“Then come with me, and I will show you.”

The man led Craig into a cream-colored room at the end of a long, fluorescent-lighted corridor. Various large pieces of machinery populated the room, and there was an audible electric buzz in the air that gave Craig the feeling that it was a room he wouldn’t like to remain in for long, lest the buzzing drive him mad. There was a tickle in his hair that reminded him of the static electricity he made as a kid by dragging his feet on the carpet. He also noticed that his saliva tasted of metal, as though he’d placed his tongue on a battery.

“This is the heart of everything in the facility,” the man announced, pointing to one particular round piece of machinery, with a diameter about the width of a bus. Although there were pipes and rectangular, tightly packed objects at the top and bottom of the spherical structure, the most striking features were the plethora of cylindrical structures that protruded from the circular center. “That’s a fusion generator,” the man informed, “ magnetic targeted fusion , MTF for short.”

“Fusion?”

The man nodded and then craned his neck, pointing upward at the cylinders. “There are 200 pneumatic pistons. They hit the tank, which induces an acoustic compression wave in the liquid metal inside. That liquid metal then travels to the center of the sphere. The compression wave intensifies and collapses the vortex cavity and the plasma within it, creating thermonuclear conditions.”

“I…uh…I understood some of that…I think,” Craig replied.

The man smiled. “It’s complex. I understand that it is difficult to grasp at first, but basically, enormous advancements in computer processing power have allowed for precise timing of the pistons, which is necessary to control the shape of the cavity as it collapses. It adjusts to thermal effects and other variations that are difficult to predict, but it can compensate in a microsecond, which makes this process possible.”

“The fusion process?”

“Yes,” the man replied. “Each fusion pulse results in 100 megajoules of electrical output, which translates into 28 kilowatt-hours. What you see here is limitless energy.”

“Does the world government know you have this?” Craig asked.

The man shook his head. “We’d tell them if we could, but that would mean revealing our location, and that’s not something we are inclined to do.”

“But you have access to unlimited power. Surely you could fight them off.”

The man grinned but continued to avoid full eye contact. “Fighting is not always the best alternative. However, you are right. We do have enormous power.” He turned back to the MTF generator. “When this technology was developed, it was an incredible breakthrough and an impressive improvement on former fusion technologies, which required much larger structures and elaborate processes. This trend toward miniaturization continued, as it does in all technologies that become informational.” The man turned back to Craig. “In fact, after a major breakthrough in neutron shielding just a few years ago, the technology improved enough that it became possible for a person to take it along, wherever he or she may go.”

Craig’s eyes narrowed as the man’s explanation of his technology became more and more surreal. The boundary between magic and science had blurred until it was unrecognizable. “Are you saying you people have portable versions of that…” Craig looked up at the spherical structure that loomed in front of them. “…of that thing?”

The man continued to smile. “Portable? Oh, most definitely. You have one about the size of a small plum implanted in your lower back, next to your spinal cord.”

Craig’s lips tightened into a grimace as he reached with his right hand and pressed it against his lower back. Indeed, there was a strange structure there below his skin, deep enough to feel as though it were part of him, yet alien all the same. “Wh-what have you done to me?”

“Will you let me show you?” the man asked earnestly, daring to dart his eyes up to Craig’s for a moment. There was still something not quite right about the man—something off-center about his gaze.

“I think you’d better,” Craig replied.

“All right,” the man replied. “Craig Emilson,” he began, “ wake up. ”

As soon as the words were spoken, a heads-up display appeared in Craig’s vision, startling him. His name appeared in the left-hand corner, as well as the time of the day and even the weather report from outside of the facility. He rubbed his eyes to see if he were wearing LED contacts. When he reopened them, the HUD remained.

“It’s called your mind’s eye, ” the man related. “All post-human’s have one. From there, you can access the Internet, your communications, your magnetic field generation, and your flight system.”

Craig was momentarily dumbfounded. He stepped back onto one heel before blinking hard. “ My flight systems? ”

“Yes. You can fly now,” the man replied frankly and emotionlessly. “You can also generate magnetic fields that can both cocoon you and propel you. All of these systems are controlled mentally.”

“But…how? I mean…how is it possible that I can—”

“You’ll have to go through the start-up process and tune your nans.”

“ Nans ?”

“Yes. I know you are familiar with nanobots, Craig. Like the respirocytes, only much more complex. You now have over 200 different types of nans in your system, and 4.6 million inside you in total, all of which are performing different tasks. Some of them are designed to transgress the blood-brain barrier and form connections to neurons in your brain. Some connect to the visual and aural centers so you can access your mind’s eye, while others connect to the motor control centers so you can control your powers.”

Craig’s knees began to shake, and he slowly lowered himself onto the cold concrete floor of the room, covering his eyes with his hands. “How do I turn this thing off?” he asked, outwardly calm but quelling a quickly bubbling claustrophobia.

“Are you not well?”

“I’m fine. I just want this mind’s eye thing to shut off.” He felt as though he were drowning in technology that he didn’t want.

“I’m sorry, Craig, but once the start-up has been initiated, you’re going to have to go through the set-up process. Only you will be able to shut it off once you’ve gained control over your mind’s eye.”

“How long is that going to take?” Craig asked impatiently, suddenly pulling his hands from his eyes and looking up at the man. The man immediately turned away, but in the moment before he did so, Craig had caught him staring down at him in a way that was so unsettling that it caused Craig to forget his annoyance with the mind’s eye and get to his feet. Something wasn’t right about the man.