Paul Hardy - The Last Man on Earth Club

My world has been infiltrated and attacked repeatedly. We concealed this from our own public to avoid mass panic and because we feared full disclosure would force the interversal powers to act against us in unpredictable and disastrous ways.

We made numerous attempts at negotiation and begged for truce at every opportunity, but the Interversal powers refused all contact and continued their attacks. It was only through the efforts of defectors who were later murdered that we discovered the existence of the Interversal Union. We have been trying to contact you for the last ten years in the hope of finding assistance.

I do not regret that we were found by the Antecessors before you reached us. You must rest assured in the knowledge that my species is safe now from any further depredation. My fear is for your own safety. I believe the powers who attacked us may have been responsible for the recent attack upon Hub. There may also be a connection to the genocide on the world of Liss Li’Oul, but upon that I can only speculate.

I wish to assist you in every way possible. To this end, I append full access codes to all Department Zero facilities and grant you full use of the files and data we gathered.

I also grant the Interversal Union full title to all technologies existing on my world, whether directly of Antecessor origin, subsequently derived from Antecessor artefacts, or based on original work.

I wish you the best of luck in the days and years to come. May the Antecessors guide you and protect you.

He was looking out over the peaks as I finished reading. Clouds wrapped around our nearest neighbour, and the setting sun tinged them with red. It was already growing late in the year.

“Well,” I said, surprised. “Colonel…”

He tapped away on his pad. Rank means nothing.

“Why did you change your mind?”

Could have prevented attack.

“There’s no way to know that, Iokan. The terrorists might be completely unconnected to the people who attacked your world. The problems between humans and machines have been going on since long before the IU started…”

Should have acted anyway.

“You can’t blame yourself.”

He sighed. What happens now?

“What happens now for you is therapy.”

He nodded. Never doubted that.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

An important announcement relevant to the future of the Interversal Union will be made at a press conference to be held at 10:00 HT on HD y276.m9.w1.d1 at the Interversal Assembly Building, room AA20. This will be followed by a brief question and answer session.

All accredited news organisations are invited to send one (1) representative.

Video, audio and data will be streamed live from the conference to all universes inhabited by IU members, prospective members and contacted species.

The text of the announcement will be available to news organisation representatives ten (10) minutes before the announcement, and will be under strict embargo until after the announcement.

Please contact the Press Office for interview slots with relevant IU personnel.

ENDS

I was summoned to the remote meeting room to come before the supervisory committee, but they did not say why. As I took my seat in the empty room, I feared the worst. The apocalypse watch had been reporting a deterioration on several worlds: new projections of eventual extinction on the radioactive wastelands of Llorissa; an imminent though minor comet strike upon Schviensever; and a worrying series of coronal mass ejections from Ardëe’s star. Nothing to suggest an imminent evacuation that could force my reassignment to other duties, but perhaps the meeting was intended to discuss some apocalypse that wasn’t yet public knowledge.

The truth was rather different.

The committee members shimmered into existence around me. We almost had a normal datalink up and running by this point, so there was just a little fuzz of interference around the edges of objects. It looked like I’d come in at the end of a very long meeting, judging by the empty coffee cups, demolished biscuit platters and scattered pads. Koggan BanOrishel from Security was not there this time, replaced by someone else, and Baheera Isnia had actually shown up from the Diplomatic Service.

“Dr. Singh. Thank you for joining us,” said Henni Ardassian. “You’ve probably heard something very important is about to happen…”

“An evacuation?” I asked.

Henni smiled. “No, thankfully. That would put an end to all this, wouldn’t it?”

Baheera Isnia frowned.

“It’s a little less apocalyptic,” continued Henni. “The IU is about to announce the formal activation of the Interversal Criminal Tribunal.”

“…oh.”

“We’ve been meeting to decide our response. Mr. Ai?”

The man from the ICT, Eremis Ai, spoke up. “Each of your patients will need to make a formal representation to the ICT. We’re ready to start full investigations on behalf of any of them.”

“Really, Mr. Ai?” Henni raised an eyebrow.

“Well. In due course. We’ll have to prioritise to begin with, but in principle—”

“Let’s be realistic, shall we? These are going to be some of your first investigations, so it’s not going to be fast.” She looked to me. “Please bear that in mind and make sure your patients don’t have any unrealistic expectations.”

“Of course,” I said.

“And Iokan?” asked Baheera. The air between her and Henni chilled fifteen degrees, even though they weren’t in the same room.

“Yes, of course, him as well,” said Henni.

Baheera looked at me. “I trust you’ll give him every assistance with his representation.”

“I can’t comment on what he might do, ma’am,” I said.

A frown came from nowhere. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s a confidential matter between patient and therapist.”

“But he has been more co-operative recently? I believe he allowed us access to the Department Zero archives…?”

“Yes, I know. I’ve been reviewing the data. But I can’t talk about specifics of therapy.”

She looked a little frustrated, while Henni seemed rather satisfied. I could usually ignore the political games going on above my head, but perhaps those days were ending, if Baheera was suddenly looking for ‘results’ in her mission to find out what happened on Iokan’s homeworld.

Eremis cleared his throat. “When do you think we’ll be able to see representations?”

“It depends upon my patients. And how much information you need.”

“Just a short statement for now.”

“I expect you’ll get something from us in a week or so.”

The press conference was scheduled on the same day as a group therapy session, so I changed the session time to the same as the press conference, and personally made sure everyone attended.

“What’s so bloody important?” asked Olivia.

“There’s going to be a press conference in a few minutes,” I said, bringing up the feed from the IU media channel on a wall, “and it concerns all of you, so I thought we’d watch it before we start on the group session.” A graphic came up; the broadcast hadn’t begun yet.

“What’s it about?” asked Liss. She still had polymer casings on her arms, but her burns were nearly healed.

“Is it… the ICT?” croaked Iokan, his throat still affected.

“Yes. Things have been happening fast.”

“They actually did it…?” said Liss, shocked.