for Tesla.”
“Bullocks!” Ismay thundered.
“I’ve never met the man. I’m from a parallel universe.”
“Craig, I strongly advise against—” the A.I. began to protest.
Craig ignored him and continued, “In my universe, this ship turned hard to port to try miss the iceberg but the hull on the starboard side came into contact with the ice and was punctured several times, causing the
“Pure fantasy,” Ismay scoffed. “This ship is unsinkable,” he recited, sounding like an advertisement.
William Stead took that moment to speak up. “
“Tesla is capable of trickery like this!” Ismay shouted back. “You’ve seen the displays he puts on for the press! They look exactly like this! Electricity shooting out in all directions!” He turned back to Craig. “Did you think you’d get away with this?”
“The ship sank in two hours, and 1,503 people died,” Craig repeated, speaking directly to the captain. “I caused the ship to ram the iceberg—”
“He admits it!” Ismay shouted, aghast.
“—to save it from having its hull breached.”
“The hull
Ismay turned to Craig and stuck his finger in Craig’s face once again. “You and Tesla are lucky for that, sir. You’re very lucky! Otherwise, mass murder would be added to the list of your crimes and you’d be seeing the electric chair in the near future—an invention I believe your employer had some hand in devising.”
“Dude, I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about,” Craig replied, “and I ain’t going to jail anytime soon, so get out of my face.” He then turned to the other men in the room. “I am going to the dining hall though. Man, I could sure use a cookie right now.”
Suddenly, the image of the small group of men began to warp, the figures bending and twisting in front of Craig as though they were reflections in a hall of mirrors.
“Craig,” the A.I.’s voice spoke, though slowly, as though he were playing on a cassette player as the battery ran low, “this is a phenomenon referred to as the ripple. It means someone has manipulated Planck energy and arrived in this universe.”
“So we’ve got company?”
“Indeed. It appears that someone from Universe 1 is in pursuit.”
26
“Ho-ly hell,” Colonel Paine whispered as he regarded the extent of the damage to the front deck of the
On the bridge, Craig blinked a few times before he was sure that the ripple had passed. He’d never experienced a phenomenon like it. It was like being in a dream that wasn’t his,
“We’ve been drugged,” Ismay finally said. “That’s how he’s doing it. He’s not flying. This is a shared hallucination, gentlemen.”
Craig grinned. “This guy just doesn’t give up.”
“Craig, the ripple effect does not reach further than a few dozen meters,” the A.I. warned. “Whoever has just entered this universe must be near.”
“Copy,” Craig replied. He turned and paced to the front of the bridge, looking out over the front deck. Immediately, he saw the three super soldiers, the leader stepping off of a silver Planck platform. “Found ‘em.”
“Super soldiers,” the A.I. noted. “Craig, this is very dangerous. We need to vacate immediately.”
“Wait a second,” Craig suddenly said as he watched the leader cautiously lead his men away from the platform. “Is that…? No, it can’t be.”
“Craig, we need to go. If Purist super soldiers are here, it means the facility has been overrun.”
“Hang on,” Craig said as he jogged out of the bridge and to the rail of the upper deck to get an unobscured view. “No. Hey, I know this guy.” Craig began running down the stairs toward the lower deck, heading straight for Colonel Paine.
“Craig! They will kill us!” the A.I. shouted in protest.
“No they won’t. I know him,” Craig repeated before running into his own magnetic field as the A.I. threw it up in front of him. “Ah! What the hell?”
“Think about what you’re doing, Craig. You are approaching a man whose chief aim is the destruction of strong artificial intelligence, and you have a strong artificial intelligence implanted in your head. This will not go well.”
“Remember that little talk we had about free will?”
“I remember, but—”
“Then trust me,” Craig said as he lowered his magnetic field and continued on his way toward his former commanding officer.
“You’re risking both of our lives,” the A.I. continued to protest.
“This is why you haven’t been able to pass the Turing test yet, my friend. You don’t know people. I do. Trust me. This guy won’t try kill us.”
“Holy hell,” Colonel Paine repeated once again as a ghost strolled toward him. “I
“Colonel Paine,” Craig said as he stood to attention and saluted.
“Doc Emilson?” Paine replied, disbelieving.
“Yes, sir. It’s good to see you, sir.”
Paine took a moment to assess the situation before lowering his weapon and relaxing his posture. “Lower your weapons, boys,” he ordered the other two soldiers under his command. “This here’s a real live hero.”
Craig smiled. “Thank you, sir.”
“What the hell are you doing here, Doc? We came looking for an artificial intelligence. You were the last person I was expecting to see here.”
“I could say the same thing about you, sir. Yesterday I was talking to you at Cannon Air Force Base, and now I’m here.”
“Yesterday? Doc, that was—”
“Fourteen years ago. I know.”
“Doc,” Paine said, reaching up with his clawed prostheses and scratching under his helmet, “you’re gonna have to explain this to me nice and slow.”
“Of course, sir. But, sir, if you wouldn’t mind, do you think we could talk this out over a cookie? I’m starving.”
Paine cocked his head to the side as he mulled Craig’s unexpected request. He turned to the giant wall of deck wood that had been thrown up in the collision and then to the curious bystanders who milled about, watching the proceedings with fascination, albeit from a safe distance. Then he turned back to Craig. “Sure. A cookie sounds good.”
