Post-Human Trilogy

In the center of the hole, framed by raining pieces of glass, Aldous Gibson slowly brought his arms down from the protective shield they formed around his face, revealing the countenance of a man in his late twenties.

“What the hell?” Craig whispered in disbelief before he quickly lost consciousness.

This time, there was black.

3

WAKING UP from the nightmare, Craig’s heart raced as he sat up in an awkward spasm. A little drool had run out of the left side of his mouth and was tickling his chin. He wiped it away as he looked out at snowcapped mountains in the east, a nearly violet twilight sky behind them, the mountains still softly glowing with the fading light in the west, which they faced. A looming, implacable shadow moved, slowly but perceivably, and cast itself over more and more of the mountainscape, threatening to strangle the soft glow of the peaks.

“It’s not real,” said a voice to Craig’s right.

Craig snapped his head around, following the voice. The man wasn’t looking at him, but rather at the landscape on the other side of the window. He was an average man. Average height, average weight, average looks. Even his hairline, which had a slight peak and appeared to have minor weakness above the temples, suggested a 50/50 chance of male pattern baldness in the future. It suddenly struck Craig that he was looking at the most unremarkable man he’d ever seen, yet he couldn’t take his eyes off of him. There was something about him. Something not right.

“The mountain range is real,” the man continued, elaborating on his earlier statement, “but that’s not a window you see.” The man gestured with his hand, waving his open palm over the vast expanse of the window. It was about two meters in height and appeared to be nearly 100 meters long, covering the entire east wall of the gigantic room in which they resided. “It’s a 3D, real-time image of extraordinarily high resolution. You can walk right up to the screen, peer at the mountains, at the tiny pebbles in the foreground, at the little trees in the distance, and you won’t find a flaw. It will fool you. If only all technology were so—perfect.”

Craig pressed his fingers against his temples. He expected to feel sluggish after having just awoken, but his mind was surprisingly clear. He looked up at the man, who continued to stare out at the simulated view. “Excuse me, but who are you?”

The man turned to Craig. He wore a slightly sheepish grin on his face as he replied, “I’m no one you know. No one you have an emotional attachment to. That’s why they asked me to speak to you.”

Craig took a moment to let the odd response sink in. He was sitting upright on a black, microfiber couch. They appeared to be at almost the exact center of the giant simulated view. Behind them, the room was decorated in a bad imitation of a ski lodge. The wooden flooring and beams on the ceiling were rough and purposely rustic in appearance. A gigantic fireplace large enough for a man to step inside without crouching crackled in the distance. It suddenly became clear to him that the room was meant to be soothing. “So. You’re the shrink.”

The man smiled at the assertion. “I’m afraid not. I probably know less about human psychology than anyone in this facility, though I am very well read on the subject. No, I am only here because I’m very good with facts and can answer your questions. In addition, the fact that you don’t know me should minimize your emotional responses, at least in theory.”

Craig listened, then sighed, putting his head in his hands. He was still inside the nightmare. “What facility are you talking about?” he asked resignedly. It was obvious that whoever it was who was pulling the strings wasn’t going to let him see Samantha, yet he wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity to find some answers.

“You’re inside a bunker built into the base of Mount Andromeda in the Canadian Rockies. This facility was constructed by a team of engineers and researchers, a team led by Professor Aldous Gibson. It is a safe haven from the world government and their super soldier program. The super soldiers hunt down anyone suspected of developing strong artificial intelligence.”

“So, this facility is illegal?”

“Yes. Very much so. It is fair to say that the people who inhabit this facility are the most wanted criminals in the world.”

There was something about the man’s frank assessment of the situation that caused an even more unsettled feeling to stir within Craig. There wasn’t a hint of guilt or indignation from the man: only emotionless fact. There was no sugar in his tone to help the bitter pill go down. “Why am I here?” Craig asked. “I don’t understand.”

“Samantha Gibson,” the man began, but he stopped when he saw the painful grimace her name brought to Craig’s face. “I’m sorry. I shall try to be more sensitive. Samantha took possession of your body once it was recovered from Maluan Mountain. You were in suspended animation, and she conjectured that it might someday be possible to repair the terrible damage that had been done to you—that she could reanimate you.”

“Then why did she marry someone else?” Craig interjected, his teeth clenched as he squeezed the words free.

“I cannot speak for what is in another’s heart,” the man replied. “They married eight years ago. At that time, the technology to reanimate you was far from certain. Perhaps she didn’t really believe she would ever see you again.”

Craig jumped to his feet, grunting in frustration as he grappled with the notion that his wife was with another man. “Goddamn it!” he cursed as he balled his hands into tight fists and squeezed hard with fury. The green sparks suddenly ignited once again. Craig’s mouth opened in surprise, and he immediately opened his hand, relaxing the muscles and causing the sparks to disappear. “Okay. Okay. What the hell is that?” he stammered. “What’s with the fireworks?”

“That was a magnetic field. You generated it with your mind.”

“What the hell?”

The man smiled but bowed his head sheepishly so as not to maintain eye contact for too long. “My friend, you are no mere mortal any longer. Like everyone else in this facility, you’ve taken a first giant leap beyond being human. You are post-human.”

“What the hell?” Craig repeated.

“Post-human. It’s what the Purists like to call us. It was meant as derogatory, but we’ve adopted the term with affection. Would you like to know more?” the man asked, turning toward the exit and gesturing for Craig to follow him.

“Yes.”

“Then come with me, and I will show you.”

4

The man led Craig into a cream-colored room at the end of a long, fluorescent-lighted corridor. Various large pieces of machinery populated the room, and there was an audible electric buzz in the air that gave Craig the feeling that it was a room he wouldn’t like to remain in for long, lest the buzzing drive him mad. There was a tickle in his hair that reminded him of the static electricity he made as a kid by dragging his feet on the carpet. He also noticed that his saliva tasted of metal, as though he’d placed his tongue on a battery.

“This is the heart of everything in the facility,” the man announced, pointing to one particular round piece of machinery, with a diameter about the width of a bus. Although there were pipes and rectangular, tightly packed objects at the top and bottom of the spherical structure, the most striking features were the plethora of cylindrical structures that protruded from the circular center. “That’s a fusion generator,” the man informed, “magnetic targeted fusion, MTF for short.”

“Fusion?”

The man nodded and then craned his neck, pointing upward at the cylinders. “There are 200 pneumatic pistons. They hit the tank, which induces an acoustic compression wave in the liquid metal inside. That liquid metal