Post-Human 05 - Inhuman Read Free

perception of time dramatically: his electric-fast thinking capacity allowing him to perceive the android ship, remarkably similar to the one the androids had used when trying to destroy the sun with an anti-matter missile just weeks earlier. Like the previous ship, its skin was translucent, and James could see the androids who’d either been forced or manipulated into volunteering, bracing for impact as they performed their suicide mission, the plan obviously to crash into the A.I.’s mainframe and destroy it, like kamikazes. James examined the contents of the ship and noted that it contained yet another anti-matter missile. Had he not detected it and intercepted it, this would’ve not only destroyed the mainframe—it would’ve destroyed the entire planet.
    Fortunately, his early-warning system had allowed him to anticipate the exact moment the wormhole was about to open and to warp the gravitational field around the ship, creating a nearly impenetrable vice of space-time, catching the ship as though in a gigantic, invisible baseball glove. Unfortunately, he also knew he had to crush the ship and the device before it could detonate, and he closed the vice until all that was left was a tiny marble that appeared perfectly black. It floated gently into James’s gleaming hand as he further manipulated the gravitational field around it, drawing it toward him. James examined it when it reached him, almost expressionlessly, but the A.I. could see the pain in the post-human’s eyes.
    “You had no choice,” the A.I. pointed out, his tone consoling. “If the anti-matter missile had detonated, not even your warp bubble could’ve contained it. You just saved every life in the solar system.”
    “I know,” James replied, “but I just killed five people.”
    “You had no choice,” the A.I. repeated softly. “And their patterns were no doubt recorded and uploaded to the collective before they set forth on this suicide run.”
    “The fact that there are copies of these people being rebuilt by the android collective makes the deaths of these individual entities no less tragic,” James replied. “They’re still dead...by my hand.”
    “My son, since we’ve yet to determine the mechanism they use to upload their patterns to the collective, we can’t be sure that these bodies they’re sending on suicide missions are not the copies , so to speak. You may have just terminated drones and nothing more.”
    “You’re grasping at straws.”
    “Regardless, even if these androids have died, their deaths are on another’s hands, and we both know who that almost certainly is.”
    James closed his eyes for a moment before he turned and walked back toward the mainframe, most of his attention returning to his pattern, next to the A.I. in the operator’s position. There, his appearance mirrored his biological human form, the form he still preferred to present himself in when in cyberspace. “Yes, we do. 1 clearly survived my destruction of her body, yet I haven’t been able to detect her pattern in the android armada.”
    “Neither have I,” the A.I. replied. “However, we both know that it’s possible to hide a pattern if it’s divided and kept in small enough portions.”
    “That would explain how she avoided my detection,” James returned, “but it doesn’t explain how she’s still calling the shots. If her pattern is in pieces, then she’d be dormant. This was clearly a plan initiated by her, but we should’ve been able to detect her if she’s currently conscious and operating.”
    “As I warned you before your last confrontation with her, she’s not to be underestimated. She’s a far more worthy foe than we previously realized.”
    James nodded. “She is.”
    “Still, attempting to destroy the mainframe and the Earth along with it, had no chance of success,” the A.I. began, his tone ponderous. “She would’ve known that we’d detect it and thwart it.”
    “That’s not entirely true,” James