her with you.”
“She wanted to go back to her old body,” Old-timer responded. “You said we were free to choose. That’s what she chose.”
“We granted you the right to try to persuade them because we felt the empath could achieve this and allow us to avoid the standard education. We are running out of time.”
“Just give me two minutes,” Old-timer pleaded. “Just give me two minutes, and I can make them understand.”
“Understand what? What’s happening?” Thel asked again.
“The nans have turned against us,” Old-timer explained. “The andr…these…metallic humans came here to save us, not to harm us.”
“To save us?” Rich reacted with exasperation. “By destroying our bodies and making machine copies?”
“By transferring you to new bodies,” Neirbo interjected, “and discarding the infected ones.”
“They tried to contact us, but the nans blocked their communication,” Old-timer furthered.
“Old-timer, how can you possibly know they’re telling you the truth?” Thel replied.
Old-timer remained silent for a moment, his eyes locked with Thel’s. He could show them how he knew, but he didn’t want to.
“Show them,” Neirbo urged. “Show them now.”
“There must be another way,” Old-timer replied.
“There is. Would you prefer that?”
“No!” Old-timer shouted for a third time. “No,” he repeated immediately, this time more softly. “Of course not. Fine. Show them,” he said, turning his back and facing the wall.
A recording began to play in the mind’s eyes of the three prisoners, a point-of-view shot of James in the A.I. mainframe.
4
“James!” Thel exclaimed. “When was this recorded?”
“Alejandra and I saw this live just before we came to get you on the Purist ship,” Old-timer replied.
“Who is talking to James?” Thel asked.
“It is 1,” Neirbo replied.
“1?”
“There must be a voice for the human race,” Neirbo explained. “Since we are all of equal intelligence and ability, we randomly select a person to be our leader every 1,000 days. This person takes on the moniker of 1 and spends that time jacked into our collective consciousness. She is the only person who can communicate with all of us at once; she leads us. It is a tremendous burden—but also the highest honor.”
“Why is she talking to James?” Thel asked, still confused.
“Listen,” Neirbo said in his typically toneless voice.
Thel watched the exchange from the point of view of 1. “We wish for you to join with us,” 1 said to James. “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’s expression was terrifying—Thel could read the hopelessness in his eyes. “I appreciate the offer,” James said, “but there’s a problem.”
“What is it?” asked 1.
“I’m not alone,” James said ominously.
“What do you mean?” 1 asked.
“The A.I. still exists,” James said, suddenly meeting her eyes, “and it has become part of me,” he admitted. Thel gasped with fright.
“What?” 1 asked in a whisper. 1’s terror could be felt by those watching. “It’s here? Now?”
“Yes,” the A.I. interjected as he suddenly appeared with his all-too-familiar sadistic grin exposing his razor teeth.
“Then I’m sorry,” 1 replied with regret, “You’ve been corrupted too. There’s no hope for you.” She paused for a moment, eyes locked with James. Thel was able to look right into his eyes and see the terror—she had never seen him like that—the blackness of all hope lost. She knew he was gone.
“No!” she yelled out as she twisted her body in agony. “No!” she yelled out again as she began to sob. “No,” she said one last time before the sobs consumed her.
Old-timer turned to Neirbo. “Let them go,” he whispered.
Neirbo nodded in silent agreement and, with a simple thought, the three prisoners were freed. Rich rushed to embrace Djanet, who touched his damaged face lightly and carefully; she was unable to find words regarding the ghastly appearance of the metal structure underneath where his cheekbone should have been. They both quickly turned to Thel and comforted her as she sobbed. Djanet held Thel’s head on her shoulder, taking the guttural heaves of utter agony against her chest, while Rich held her hand tightly.
Old-timer stood and watched the misery. This is the future? he thought to himself. The optimism that he had worked his entire life to cultivate about the destiny of humanity was wrong? How could this be? How could he have been so wrong?
“You’d better tell them the rest,” Neirbo said, breaking the silence.
“The rest?” Rich reacted. “How much worse does this get?”
“A lot worse, old buddy. The nans were waiting to attack us. They were in our bodies and in everything that James had re-created—absolutely everything. Alejandra and I tried to warn as many of the survivors as we could, but—”
“But what?” Rich asked, the dread of realizing that his family still had the nans within them gripping his insides and drying out his mouth.
“They didn’t have much warning. I…I saw Daniella die. They didn’t deactivate quickly enough…” Old-timer couldn’t say another word.
Djanet, Rich, and even Thel were silenced by Old-timer’s revelation. If Old-timer hadn’t been able to save his own wife, then what were the chances that any of the other survivors had made it? They’d been ripped apart by the nans—
“The nanobots from this solar system are currently attacking our collective,” Neirbo stated, adding to the implacable ghoulishness of the circumstances. “Every moment, they are killing millions of our numbers,” he said, making sure to meet the eyes of everyone in the room, “and they are headed this way. Soon, it will be us they are consuming.”
“Then why don’t you retreat?” Old-timer demanded. “Why don’t you get all of us the hell out of here before it’s too late?”
“If we do that, our billions of lives—your billions of lives as well—will have been sacrificed for nothing,” Neirbo snapped back.
“But what alternative do you have?” Djanet asked.
Neirbo opened his mouth to respond before suddenly jolting back, as though coming to attention for a superior—this was indeed the case.
“We can fight back,” said 1 as she stepped into the room in her physical form, “and we can destroy them all.”
5
1’s beauty was astonishing. She was the kind of woman that made it so that it didn’t matter how a man might love his wife, he would still find himself drifting off into pleasant daydreams around her. Her hair was blonde,
