David Simpson - Post-Human Trilogy

“Semantics?” Samantha replied, a disgusted expression on her face as she concentrated on each breath, savoring every molecule of oxygen as she tried to calm herself.

“Heh,” Paine replied. “Typical liberal response. Nah, it’s not semantics. We did it because we found it was the best way to deprogram zealots like yourself.” He popped the cigar back between his lips and resumed his habit of chewing the end until it came apart in his mouth. “See, if we wanted, we could electro-shock their genitals or pull out some fingernails. Those are much more painful approaches when you think about it. On the surface, it seems like we’d get a better response from inflicting real and lasting wounds that leave nasty scars, but that strategy doesn’t work with zealots.”

“I’m not a zealot,” Samantha whispered.

“No?” Paine replied. “We started water-boarding as our preferred interrogation technique back when the biggest threat to America were radical Muslims. You see, once you’ve been indoctrinated into a belief system in which you think hijacking a plane and flying it into a building will lead to you being spat out into Heaven in the company of seventy virgins, you’ve convinced yourself that you’re not afraid of death. You’ve convinced yourself that if you can just get over this one, frightening moment—the moment the plane hits the building or the explosives strapped to your chest detonate—then you will be handsomely rewarded. You become convinced that you don’t need life.” Paine strolled to Samantha and leaned over her as she remained strapped to her board, her chest still heaving as her breathing continued to slowly return to normal. “Water-boarding reminds you that you want to live. ”

Paine had lowered his face to within inches of Samantha’s, and she could see every grotesque vein—every scar on his pockmarked face—and smell his tobacco-laden breath. “I didn’t need a reminder,” she said quietly.

“No?” Paine said again, mocking her assertion. “Are you telling me you weren’t prepared to sacrifice yourself for your beliefs? For your husband?”

She had to admit, he had a point. Indeed, despite the post-human collective’s belief that life had to be protected above all else, she, Aldous, Sanha, and many others had been willing to sacrifice themselves to save at least some of their number. It had seemed so right to do it at the time. So brave. So righteous.

“Weren’t you willing to sacrifice yourself to protect your A.I.?” Paine added, his face now locked in a gruesome seriousness.

Samantha nearly stopped breathing once again at the mention of the A.I. How could Paine know about that? Was he just fishing? Suddenly the answer donned on her. Her eyes fell to the pathetic figure in the corner of the room, cradling himself as he kept his eyes shut tight.

Paine grinned. “Professor Sanha there is not a zealot. He wants to live. No reminder needed.”

Suddenly, Paine planted one of his powerful, heavy arms on Samantha’s chest, digging with his clawed fingertips into her collarbone, causing her to scream out in anguish. “Now, tell me where the A.I. is… if you want to live.”

“Samantha, tell him what he wants to know!” Aldous urged as he watched his wife’s desperate plight through their mind’s eye connection. Simultaneously, three men with suspicious expressions were reaching the top of the escalator, each one of them eyeing Aldous directly. Aldous was already on his feet, ready to meet them.

“Can I help you?” asked the elder one in the trench coat—a man with a mostly bald head, save a few wisps of white hair clinging to the sides and back. His face was so badly worn that he appeared to be wearing a saggy, tired, flesh-colored mask. The two younger men that accompanied him didn’t look much better, but it was clear from their garb that they were security.

“Are you the optometrist?” Aldous asked.

“Yes,” the man replied. “I’m Dr. Lindholm. What is your business here?”

Aldous eyed the security officers. “I want to talk to you privately. I need your help.”

Lindholm scoffed. “I know what you need,” he replied with disdain. “I traveled a long way to get away from people like you. If you want to see my facilities, show me a warrant. I won’t tolerate spies.”

“I’m not a spy,” Aldous protested. “I don’t work for the government.”

Lindholm nearly laughed at Aldous’s assertion. “Is that right? You have that baby face, but you’re a local? Tell me, then, what is your secret? Why is it that the fallout is killing the rest of us but leaving you baby fresh?”

“If you give me a moment in private, I’ll explain.”

“I don’t need your explanation,” Lindholm snapped back. “I know where you’re from. You’ve lived your whole life in one of those government bio-domes in California! You’re a petulant little boy, and everyone knows it, so you’re trying to prove that you’re a man by volunteering to be a spy in this frozen, Godforsaken Hell! Well, if you wanted to have a chance in Hell of fooling us, you should have taken a radionuclide polonium-210 pill and removed the shine from that pretty face of yours. As it stands, your mission has failed. You were detected immediately. Go back and tell your superiors to shove it up their collective baby-fresh asses!”

While Lindholm ranted, Aldous watched his wife crying as Colonel Paine continued to dig his claws into her chest. “Samantha, for Christ’s sake, tell him!”

Lindholm and the two security officers exchanged quizzical expressions as they watched Aldous’s exchange with a person that only he could see. Their suspicions suddenly shifted from government affiliation to schizophrenia. Either way, they wanted nothing to do with him.

“Get him out of here!” Lindholm ordered the two guards.

Aldous waved his hand through the air in front of him, green energy flashing from his hand and dropping the two guards instantly, leaving them unconscious. He looked up at Lindholm. “Open the door now.”

Suddenly terrified, Lindholm fumbled to remove a security ID card from his wallet, his hands shaking as he swiped it over the lock, the glass door immediately clicking open. “Wh-who are you?” Lindholm asked.

“Help me get these two men inside,” Aldous said, ignoring the question.

Lindholm acquiesced and bent over, grunting as he grasped one of the two men under the arms and began dragging him inside his office.

“I’m sorry I don’t have time to be gentler about this,” Aldous began to explain as he dragged the second man through the threshold, “but I’ve run out of time. I need you to help me save my wife’s life.”

Craig watched helplessly as the bow of the Titanic slammed head on into the iceberg. The iceberg and the ship suffered equally in the collision, each one seemingly crumbling at the point of impact. As ice exploded in a thunderous percussion, cracking off the side of the iceberg and spinning into the ocean and onto the deck of the Titanic , so, too, did the wooden deck of the Titanic explode into a shower of splinters, a portion the size of a basketball court peeling itself back as though some massive invisible can opener was at work. The outer hull on both the port and starboard sides crumpled, folding accordion-like as the entire weight of Titanic collapsed upon the ship’s front before both the iceberg and the ship threw each other off, each one bouncing back from the other, bobbing violently like children’s toys in a bathtub as waves more than a meter high radiated out in every direction.

“I’ve established an auditory connection, Craig,” the A.I. Informed, “just in time to catch the violence of the collision. That was far more violent than the collision that occurred in our own timeline, but hopefully the hull will have kept its integrity. How does it look?”