David Simpson - Post-Human Trilogy

“Yeah. Obvious,” Craig scoffed. “High probability of death it is then.” Craig dropped his rifle.

“Now, that was a good choice, Doc,” Paine replied as he strode through the dust, his imposing form seemingly materializing with each step until he stood, completely unobscured, just a meter away. “You may not believe this, but I’m really trying my damnedest not to kill you, Doc.”

“It’s too bad you didn’t show my wife the same consideration,” Craig seethed in reply.

Paine’s face remained frozen for a moment. “Drummey told you.”

Craig looked up into the golden irises but didn’t reply. The atavistic snarl on his curled lip said it all.

“Damn it. Loose lips while I was busy sinking ships. Heh.”

“You kill so much that it’s become a joke to you?” Craig growled.

“Hey, Doc, you’re the one who keeps making me have to go and kill people.”

“What?”

“They’re all supposed to be dead. You think I’m enjoying having to put things right?”

“I swear to God, if I get the chance, I am going to kill you.”

Paine sighed. “I’m sorry to hear that, Doc. I really am. I’m not the murderous Luddite that you think I am. I have a lot of sympathy for you. You’re a victim in all of this. Hell, you killed Drummey, and I don’t blame you. It’s not your fault. You’re a pawn of the post-humans. I blame Aldous Gibson…and I blame his wife.”

Craig shook his head in violent frustration. He wanted desperately to get to his feet and strangle Paine, but his legs were numb and could barely move. He was helpless—a captive audience for Paine’s attempts at explaining himself.

“You want me to feel sorry for a woman who betrayed her country? Betrayed her species? Betrayed you? Doc, in case you haven’t noticed, it’s because of that woman’s actions that I’ve had to go chasing you through these alternate timelines. It’s because of her that I’ve had to kill to put things right. You want me to feel sorry for her? Hell, Doc. I was glad as hell when I killed her, and I’m twice as glad now.”

“Stay calm, Craig,” the A.I. cautioned.

“Go to Hell,” Craig replied as he began trying to get to his feet. The attempt was pathetic, but there was nothing else he could do. He was blind with rage.

As Paine stood, wearing a smirk on his face as he watched Craig try to stand, a sound suddenly alerted both of them. Paine turned to see the silhouetted outline of four men; Craig’s SOLO team members had arrived.

“Of course, Doc, I’m gonna have to ask you to stay quiet,” Paine said as his cybernetic arms moved with preternatural speed, driving the butt of his rifle into Craig’s mouth, splitting it open and causing him to nearly lose consciousness.

Paine turned away and strode toward the four SOLO members. “Friendlies,” he said as he pressed a button on the earpiece of his helmet, disarming his automatic firing program. Then he held his rifle up above his head and shouted out, “I’m a friendly!”

Commander Wilson trained his rifle on the approaching figure as it materialized from out of the yellow dust. “Identify yourself!”

“Colonel Paine, U.S. Air Force!” Paine shouted back. He stopped just a few meters from the four SOLO members.

“Colonel Paine?” Lieutenant Commander Weddell reacted with astonishment, “of Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico?”

“That’s correct,” Paine replied, standing far enough away that the dust obscured the more disturbing details of his appearance.

“Holy…he’s the C.O.,” Wilson realized as he called Paine’s name up on his HUD. “Sir!” he shouted immediately as he lowered his weapon and saluted his superior, causing the rest of the team to follow suit.

Paine saluted in return, holding the salute as he gazed at the four ghosts that stood before him. “It’s not every day you get to salute true heroes,” Paine observed.

“Sir?” Wilson replied.

“It is an honor to meet you, men—a damn honor.”

Paine slowly lowered his salute, and the SOLO members did likewise.

“Sir, permission to speak freely?” Wilson asked.

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to grant you that permission,” Paine replied, his voice filled with regret.

“Sir?” Wilson asked again as he peered through the dust. “Can I ask why you’re here? How?”

Paine remained silent and unmoving.

Confused and terrified, Wilson stepped forward, daring the wrath of his superior after deciding answers were more important. By the second step, his mouth had fallen open. The crosshatch of stretch marks surrounding the ocular implants and the cybernetic prosthetics dumbfounded Wilson, and he froze in place.

Paine grimaced before lifting his rifle and aiming it. A short burst of gunfire later, and all of the SOLO members were dead—again.

“Craig? Craig?” the A.I. said. “You’ve been concussed, but the nans are already repairing the damage. You should feel completely better in a few minutes.”

“The team…my team,” Craig replied, dazed, his head swimming in waters of agony.

“I’m afraid Colonel Paine has already eliminated them,” the A.I. answered.

As if on cue, Paine returned to the scene, dragging the decapitated body of Robbie the robot with him. He tossed it next to Craig, the heavy body hitting the ground with a percussive thud . “The suspended animation body bags—where are they?”

Craig turned on his side and pointed at a minute crevice in the small of the robot’s back.

Paine drove his powerful fist into it, causing the flap to snap down and the body bags to tumble out. He retrieved one and then grabbed the foot of Craig’s twin, pulling the body toward him. “I’m not a hypocrite, Doc. It’s all about setting things right—setting things the way they were meant to be. I hope to Hell your ex-wife isn’t able to bring you back in this universe, because if she does, there’s a Colonel Paine in this universe that will have to come looking for you to fix all the damage you cause. I hope she chokes on a chicken bone and dies first, but it’s not up to me,” he explained as he finished putting Craig’s twin into the bag. “It’s not up to anyone outside of this universe. You understand?”

Craig watched as Paine sealed the bag, the open, vacant eyes the last thing he saw of his twin as they disappeared into the darkness.

“I am fortune’s fool,” he whispered.

WAKING UP intermittently over the next few hours, Craig only remembered hazy clips of his journey in Purist custody from the post-human facility at Mount Andromeda to the dark, circular room in which he now found himself. He remembered being roughly dragged off the Planck platform, and he remembered someone sticking his neck with a needle. After that, it was a whirlwind. The cold wind stirred him briefly as he wheeled through the darkness on some sort of stretcher, his wrists and ankles cuffed so he couldn’t move. They were on a tarmac, the sound of a jet engine from a transport nearly deafening. After that, he remembered being taken out of a shuttle bus, the stretcher roughly thudding onto the ground. For the briefest of moments, Craig saw what appeared to be the underbelly of a gray dome, so high and sprawling that it seemed like the sky had suddenly sprouted fluorescent lighting.

And now, here he was, finally able to keep his eyes open. He was still cuffed to a bed, both his wrists and ankles secured, and the bed was inclined at a twenty-degree angle.

“You are in a military facility within Endurance Bio-Dome in the former city of Seattle, Washington,” the A.I. said in his usual calm and informative manner. “It is one of 431 super bio-domes constructed to shelter large populations from the worst effects of the nuclear winter.”