Post-Human Trilogy

“I haven’t mastered how to appear real. I’ve experimented with differing frame rates and was hoping to have found the right balance with you, but you reported the same unconscious feeling of unheimlich as everyone else.”

“‘Unheimlich’?”

“Yes,” the A.I. replied. “I’m sorry, Craig. Sometimes I still have problems filtering information, and there are more connections than my human listeners can digest. The notion of the unconscious caused me to consider Freud, which then led to me thinking of his paper ‘The Uncanny’ which, in turn, made me think of the original German rendering. Unheimlich is a German word. It is translated into English as ‘uncanny,’ but there is something important missing in the translation that I feel makes it a poor one. You see, heim means ‘home’ in German, so unheimlich really means ‘unhomely,’ but of course, English doesn’t have such a word.”

Something in the A.I.’s explanation caused Craig to turn away from the disturbing figure and put his hand over his eyes once again.

“Have I overloaded you with extraneous information, Craig?” the A.I. asked in a tone that was not so much sympathetic or apologetic as inquisitive. “I do that sometimes. It is a problem on which I am working.”

“No,” Craig replied, “it’s not extraneous. Unhome is exactly the right word.”

5

A crowd of nearly 100 had gathered in front of the Planck platform in anticipation of the return of a small probe that had spent the last ten hours in a parallel universe. Aldous stood with the others, checking the time readout on his mind’s eye as the seconds ticked down to the probe’s hypothesized return.

“If you turn out to be right,” Sanha Cho—formerly MIT Professor of theoretical physics, Sanha Cho—said in a low voice at Aldous’s side, “you’ll have written your name in the history books once again.”

“Let’s just hope future generations will actually get to read about these events, Sanha,” Aldous replied. It was true; the last decade had been one that should have placed Aldous’s name amongst the best scientific minds in human history, yet all of his greatest achievements had occurred while he and the other post-humans were in hiding. A record was being kept, sure, but it wasn’t clear whether that record would ever reach the outside world.

“Sixty seconds,” Sanha stated. “Nervous?”

“I’ll be right,” Aldous replied. “Watch.”

The probe had been sent into Universe 66, one of nearly 3,000 catalogued parallel universes. Its timer had been set to bring it back after ten hours, but Aldous had theorized that time could pass differently in different universes, according to Einstein’s theory of relativity. He’d been able to detect a slight difference in time passage in Universe 66, and if the probe returned as he expected—fourteen minutes and thirty-three seconds late—his theory would prove correct. The probe was already fourteen minutes and twenty seconds behind schedule.

“Ten seconds,” Sanha whispered.

It should have been a moment of triumph, but the most important element was missing. He clicked on his mind’s eye and saw that his wife was in their quarters, monitoring the A.I.’s progress with her first husband. He felt nauseous.

The probe’s return was instantaneous—so much so that anyone who blinked would have missed its sudden cross from Universe 66 into Universe 1. However, the echo of the crossing was, as usual, accompanied by what was now referred to as “the ripple” by the post-humans. It had been unexpected and terrifying the first time the phenomenon had been witnessed, but this was the thirty-fourth time a probe had returned to Universe 1. The ripple was a wave of space-time distortion that felt different for each individual: by some as a slowing or speeding of time as though God was playing with a film projector and by others as a physical warping of their surroundings, similar to the experience in a hall of mirrors. It was impossible to say how long the distortions lasted. Some experienced it as a matter of seconds, while others experienced the phenomenon for nearly a full minute. The effect appeared to be random.

“It’s back!” Sanha proclaimed as soon as his experience of the distortion had dissipated enough for him to step forward and check the time readout on the probe surface. “Just like you said, Aldous! The atomic clock reads ten hours!” He turned with an excited smile toward Aldous, as did everyone else in the room, only to discover that he was no longer there. “Aldous?”

“Aldous, are you okay?” Sanha’s image asked as it appeared in Aldous’s mind’s eye.

Aldous was marching grimly down a long corridor toward his quarters. “I’m fine. I told you I was right,” he said as he suddenly began to levitate, floating down the corridor and picking up speed, the air becoming a breeze that ruffled his hair.

“If you’re not feeling well,” Sanha replied, “I highly recommend getting one of the A.I.’s nan adjustments. You’ll feel right as rain afterward.”

“This is one issue where I’d prefer to deal with it the old-fashioned way, my friend. I’ll talk to you later.”

He inhaled deeply before using his mind’s eye to open the door of his quarters. As the door slid into the wall, it revealed his wife, sitting on the edge of their king-sized bed, her legs crossed as she stared out at the faux view of the mountains that made up the far wall of the room.

“It arrived right on time,” Aldous said.

She shifted her head slightly, so as to speak over her shoulder. “I saw. You were right. Universe 66 is, indeed, moving slower than we are. Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” he replied, “but this was just as much your hypothesis as it was mine.” He paused painfully for a moment as he considered his next words. “Why weren’t you there?”

His question made her turn to him, her expression quizzical. “You know why.”

It was true: He did know why. All of her attention was now focused on her resurrected former husband. He nodded. “I love you.”

Her mouth opened slightly in shock. She knew Aldous was not given to soft emotions. He could be hard at times—angry or inspired—but love was something that did not come easily to him. An emotional expression of tenderness was so rare that it left Samantha befuddled. “Aldous?”

“I can’t turn it off,” he continued. “I feel like a thief. I feel as though I stole you from him.”

“Aldous, please,” she began, her expression becoming sympathetic as she stood and walked toward him.

“I never thought we’d be together, Sam, but I always loved you—always.”

She froze. In all their time together, a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings like the one that was erupting before her now had never occurred. She’d intended to embrace him, but instead stood in silence and listened.

“I thought at first that I could express my love by being the best mentor I could possibly be. I thought if I helped you achieve your potential—if you stood on my shoulders—that it would be enough for me.” His eyes, which had been locked on hers, suddenly drifted to the side as she stared into the dark recesses of his memory. “Then he died. And then you were alone. I was too old to be a lover, but I thought, perhaps, I could be a father figure. I thought, perhaps, we could become family. I thought that would be enough for me.”

To her amazement, she watched as twin tears began to well in the corners of his eyes. She stepped to him and grasped his hand as he continued.

“It wasn’t enough though. It just…wasn’t.” He nearly choked on the words. She silently embraced him, wrapping her arms around him and putting her cheek against his chest. “Sometimes I think my quest for immortality was as much about becoming young for you as it was about saving the lives of every living soul on Earth.”

She nearly gasped as she pulled her face from his chest and met his eyes, stunned.

He shook his head. “Even if you put a gun to my head, I honestly couldn’t tell you which was the stronger motivation. I’ve loved you for so long, Samantha. I just can’t turn it off.”