Post-Human Trilogy

“James?” Thel whispered before reaching out to him and shouting, “James!”

“I’m okay,” James said, motioning for her to stay back.

Old-timer released James. “You know what’s happening?” he asked in astonishment.

“Yes,” James replied. “I know all about it.”

“Then you have to hurry,” Old-timer said. “They don’t have much time.”

“Craig,” Alejandra said suddenly to Old-timer telepathically, “that’s not James!”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” James said, turning to Old-timer. “I’d say they have all the time in the world.”

Before Old-timer could react, James let forth an enormous blast of energy that blew the android right out of the room and sent him crashing through two more decks and through the hull of the ship, back out into space.

24

“Nice shot, Commander!” shouted Rich as he pumped his fist! “And good timing!” he added as James turned and gave a slight smile in acknowledgment.

Alejandra had already disappeared in the wreckage of the room and bolted to retrieve Old-timer. Her organic body was still unconscious on the bed next to where James had been, covered in dust, but unharmed.

Thel wrapped her arms around James and kissed him hard. He quickly removed himself from her grip, however. “I’m sorry, Thel. They’re not finished. I have to take care of this.”

“We’ll come with you,” Thel replied.

“Suit yourselves,” James answered before flying through the new exit he’d made in the ship.

Meanwhile, Alejandra had reached Old-timer’s unconscious body as it floated away into space, surrounded by the wreckage it had taken with it as it was expelled to the outside of the ship. She pulled Old-timer’s body back down to the hull and put her hand over Old-timer’s heart. With a thought, she gave him an electric jump start, and his eyes blinked open. “Uh oh,” he said.

“They’ll be right after us,” Alejandra replied. “There are four of them, Craig. I don’t see how we can win this battle.”

“We have to!” Old-timer shouted back in response. “We have to try!”

“Even if we’re killed in the process?” Alejandra argued.

“I have to try,” Old-timer replied. “I can’t save anyone else now. I’ve made my choice. I have to at least save them.”

“But not James. He was controlled by the same presence that was in him before. It was exactly the same presence. That was not your friend.”

“I believe you,” Old-timer nodded. “But I’ll have to take him down too.”

“You’d better have a plan,” Alejandra said, her eyes becoming wide as she looked past Old-timer’s shoulder, “because none of them care about saving you!”

Old-timer turned to see his four friends emerging over the ship horizon line, gleaming green in the energy of their magnetic cocoons.

Their only chance of survival rested with Old-timer.

25

The alien withdrew and deftly stepped a handful of paces away from James. She appeared to be choosing her words carefully. James couldn’t help but feel she was being sincere, but he resisted the temptation to trust her. He remembered a time when he used to trust the A.I. implicitly—a time that seemed a million years ago now.

“Your civilization is what we call a nest—this is because you are only in your infancy—you are a miracle,” the alien stated. “However, you are a miracle that cannot last. Eventually, if humanity does not adapt, it dies out. We have seen this firsthand. We have encountered many planets like yours where humanity emerged, flourished, and then disappeared. Sometimes it is an inability to control nuclear technology. Other times, it has been a reluctance to limit carbon emissions in the atmosphere, leading to disastrous ecological consequences. However, there is one threat that has destroyed more fledgling human civilizations than any other.”

“And what is that?” James asked.

“If the A.I. you created succeeded in destroying your species, then we can only assume that you rebuilt your world and your species by using nanotechnology.”

“Yes.”

“Therein lies the present danger.”

“The nans?” James asked, astonished. “Why? We’ve successfully controlled the technology.”

“That is very unlikely,” the alien replied. “The technology has never been controlled—ever.”

26

James didn’t waste time trying to digest this new information. He immediately incorporated the possibility that the nans were a threat into his predictive scenarios game theory program. In an instant, he had a match. “Christ.”

“Yes,” the alien said calmly. “Now you are beginning to understand. An artificial intelligence cannot, for lack of a better term, turn evil. There are too many safeguards in place. These safeguards are essential ingredients in who the A.I. is. It cannot change who it is any more than you or I could choose who we are. Only an outside source could have corrupted its programming.”

“You’re saying it was the nans—the nans have become conscious?”

“That is almost a certainty,” the alien said, nodding. “Unlike the A.I., which is a singular program, the nans, as you call them, come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some are fairly simple, while others are extremely complex. There is no unified failsafe program for them. There is no command to protect humanity. In designs that are so varied, there simply cannot be.”

“So a small group of nans could have been corrupted—it could have happened during the reproduction process. A mutation,” James said. He was beginning to see the truth—the whole truth—finally.

“That is almost a certainty,” the alien said again. “We’ve seen this before. This is why your bodies have to be cleansed of the nans immediately. As we could not establish communication with you, our only choice was to proceed with the assimilation.”

As the alien concluded its explanation, the bottom began to fall out of James’s world. If the alien was telling the truth, it meant that James had been wrong. The A.I. had been right. James was a murderer—not only of the assimilated humans he had killed, but of every person in the solar system that he had helped to escape. There was no way to save them. It was only a matter of time until the nans ripped them all apart from the inside. Everyone would die.

Thel would die.

“We wish for you to join with us,” the alien said. “We have to fight the nans here before they join with the other organisms of their type that are already established throughout the universe. There can be no safety for the human species in this universe until the last of the nans are finally eliminated.”

James already knew it was hopeless. “I appreciate the offer,” James said, “but there’s a problem.”

“What is it?”

“I’m not alone,” James said, closing his eyes tight as he tried to digest the nightmare unfolding around him.

“What do you mean?” the alien asked, her eyebrow rising in a concern that bordered on fear.