Trans-Human (Post-Human Sequel) (2 page)

The trio stopped for a moment and let the spectacle of the falls sink in. James watched the power of the water as it churned so far below and couldn’t help but think of his former wife. He’d been considering naming one of the falls after her. It was so rare for a person to die these days—the art of commemorating someone’s life seemed to have been lost.

“You miss Katherine, don’t you?” a warm voice spoke.

James turned to Old-timer and smiled, surprised that his friend could read him so easily. “Yes. Of course I do.”

“What?” Old-timer asked, confused.

“I miss Katherine,” James said. Old-timer’s look of confusion didn’t subside. “Didn’t you just ask me if I missed Katherine?” James asked.

Old-timer shook his head. “No, I didn’t say a word.”

“Oh,” James smiled, embarrassed, “I guess it was...” He didn’t finish his sentence as he turned to see that Rich had floated several meters away and out of earshot. He was staring up at the white mist as it climbed hundreds of meters into the sky. “That’s the damnedest thing,” James said.

“What happened?” Old-timer asked.

“I just... I swear someone asked me if I missed Katherine. It was as clear as a bell.”

Old-timer could see the sudden distress in his friend’s expression. It was only natural that James was having a harder time getting over the death of his former wife than he would admit to himself. It was true that James loved Thel, but he would always be haunted by the death of Katherine at the hands of the A.I.. He put his arm on James’s shoulder and said, “It’s probably just the sound of the falls messing with your ears. Come on, kid. Let’s go see that woman of yours. And I could use a replicator right about now. I’m starving!”

James smiled and nodded. “Yeah, of course. Let’s go.” He activated his magnetic field and contacted Rich. “Let’s move out, buddy.” In seconds, the trio was blasting up into the sky and away from the waves, heading towards James’s Venusian hideaway.

The mystery of the voice haunted him all the way home.

3

Thel stood on the balcony of the third floor entrance of their beautiful lakeside home and waved the three men inside as they shut down their magnetic fields and landed softly on the lush carpeting. She wore a yellow sundress and was holding a glass jug of cold lemonade. “Hello, men!” she greeted them with a smile.

“Hello, woman!” Old-timer responded as he embraced her and then pulled back immediately to take in the changes in her appearance. “You’re so brown!”

“I’ve had a nice vacation, as you can see,” she replied, continuing to smile. “And your flight suits are all damp from the falls. I can see he took you in for a close look.”

“Oh, sorry about that, my lady,” Old-timer smiled as he stepped back from her. “Yes he did. They were spectacular and spectacularly wet.”

“Thel, hi,” Rich said as he eyed her drink, “it’s nice to see you. Say, that lemonade looks pretty good and it’s awfully hot.”

“Hello to you too, Rich” Thel replied, “and you’ll get some lemonade once you’ve dried your clothes. You and the boys can use the dryers in the bathroom.” She pointed towards the back of the house.

“Much obliged,” Old-timer replied with a small bow as he and Rich withdrew.

James met Thel’s eyes and then stepped to her and kissed her. “I missed you.”

“You’ve only been gone for an hour and a half and I was sleeping through most of it,” Thel replied, kissing him back.

“I stand by my statement of missing.”

She laughed and gently pulled herself away from him. “You’re all damp too, flyboy. I think you better join the boys in the locker room and dry off.”

“Fine,” James replied before kissing her once more. “I’d rather be with you in the locker room, though.”

“Tonight,” she replied. Thel made him feel as though he were the luckiest man alive.

Old-timer and Rich were already under the air vents as James entered the white tiled bathroom. “How do you point the vents down to dry the pants too?” Rich asked Old-timer; he responded by doing it for him with his mind’s eye. “Thanks,” Rich replied.

“So what do you guys think of the place?” James asked.

“It’s paradise,” Old-timer replied. “Are you sure you want to tell everyone about this? I’m sure you could keep it a secret a little longer. Since the Council cancelled plans to terraform Venus for the foreseeable future, no one is going to be looking your way.”

James smiled. “Are you thinking you and Daniella would like to put up a little villa somewhere?”

“Maybe,” Old-timer smiled back.

James laughed. “Well, you’re welcome to, but I think the longer I keep it a secret the more upset the Council is going to be with me when they find out about it. Six months is probably bad enough.”

Suddenly, James’s mind’s eye flashed open. It was an emergency call from the Chief of the Governing Council, Aldous Gibson. James sighed. “Speak of the devil.”

“What is it?” Old-timer asked.

“It’s Chief Gibson. This should be interesting.”

“Wow. I’m not here,” Rich said before James answered.

“Keats here.”

“Commander Keats,” Gibson began before pausing; he seemed to struggle to finish his sentence, “we have an... extremely serious situation brewing. We need you here at headquarters immediately.” The most concerning part of the call was that, for Gibson to ask for James’s help, it meant that he had run out of alternatives. James patched Old-timer, Rich and Thel into the call immediately so that they could listen in.

“What’s going on?” James asked.

“Our long range sensors have picked up something... something massive. It’s headed towards Earth at an impossibly fast rate.” An image of the mass suddenly appeared in front of James on a map of the solar system that was sent by Gibson. A dark red smudge representing the mass had just passed Neptune. “We’ve already calculated its speed and trajectory and we’re expecting it to reach Earth within the next eight hours.”

An instant realization struck James. “My God,” James whispered.

“We need you here, Keats. We’re formulating an emergency plan as we speak.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” James replied, awestruck by the news.

“Immediately,” Gibson asserted.

“It’s going to take me a little while,” James stammered.

“Keats, did you not hear what I just said?”

“I did. It’ll still take me a little while.”

“What’s your ETA?” Gibson responded tersely.

James paused for a moment. “An hour. Maybe less.”

A flabbergasted expression contorted Gibson’s features. “Where in the hell are you that it is going to take you an hour to get here?”

“That’s my business. I’ll be there as soon as humanly possible,” James replied before shutting off the communication.

“James, what the hell was that thing?” Thel asked over James’s mind’s eye.

“I have no idea. But you better get your flight suit on. We’re heading for Earth.”

4

Just under an hour later, James and his three companions entered the atmosphere of Earth, generating a glowing inferno as they did so. James had analyzed the available data a number of times as he made the journey, barely speaking to his companions as he worked his way through the possible explanations. Only one fit—and it was mortifying.

When they reached the front entrance of the Council’s headquarters, Djanet was there to greet them. Her face appeared stricken by worry and she began walking with them in step as James hurried into the building. “The situation appears very bad, Commander. No one has any idea what’s going on. The anomaly doesn’t appear to make any sense. And the chief is furious with you for taking so long to get here,” she informed James, her eyes on his flight suit. It would be very difficult for James to explain himself.

“It’s okay, Djanet. That’s a minor concern right now,” he said without even looking at her as he marched toward the door of the emergency strategy room. As soon as he entered, the eyes of all of the Council members who were present, as well as the dozens of assistants and advisors, fell on him.

“Keats, just where in the hell were you?” Gibson thundered as he saw James’s flight suit. His eyes narrowed. “You better have one hell of an explanation, son.”

“I’m not your son,” James replied. “I want to know everything that you know, and I want to know now.”

Gibson was aghast at James’s insubordination and exhaled as though he had been punched. “You arrogant, impudent dog! Who the hell do you think you are, Keats? Flying around in space on some kind of adventure and then marching in here and giving orders? I should have you thrown out!”

“But you can’t and you won’t and we both know it. You need me so stop wasting my time and tell me what’s going on.”

“Wasting time? You have the nerve to...”

“Will you shut up, please?” James said, putting his hand up to block Gibson’s face from his vision and stepping further into the room. “I want to know exactly what’s going on here—from the beginning.”

Djanet spoke in response. “The new upgrades that you made to the A.I.’s long range sensors before you transferred your powers to the operating program detected something about two hours ago. At first, we thought it was the sensors malfunctioning because the size and speed of the anomaly didn’t make any sense. But the object has continued heading this way, directly towards Earth, and it doesn’t seem to be affected by gravitational pull or any of the natural forces that would alter a naturally occurring phenomenon’s trajectory.”

James remained silent for a moment as he took in this information. It meshed perfectly with the analysis that he had made on the way back to Earth. It was time to share the horrifying truth with those assembled. “That’s because it isn’t a naturally occurring phenomenon.
It has a purpose.
”

5

The room remained in stunned silence for a moment until Chief Gibson finally scoffed, “Have you completely lost your mind, Keats? Something that big cannot have a purpose.”

“Why not?” James challenged his superior.

Gibson was at a loss for words at first as he tried to assemble an appropriate line of reasoning. “Because it’s impossible for something that big to be alive! Have you not seen its size? We’ve calculated it at...” Gibson paused for a moment as he tried to call up the correct figures in his mind’s eye. After a moment of flustered searching, he looked desperately for someone to help him—his eyes fell on Djanet. “Girl! You were the one who told me the size! Tell him!”

Djanet tried to keep her composure but exhaled deeply before answering. “It is well over 1 million kilometers in diameter. It’s nearly ten times the size of Jupiter.”

“Ho-ly,” Rich said under his breath.

“You see?” Gibson shouted. “How can something that large be alive?”

“It depends what your definition of
alive
is,” James replied.

Gibson turned away in disgust and threw his hands into the air in frustration as he gestured toward the other six Council members who were there in person. “It’s always riddles with this man! Insufferable!”

One of the other members of the Council, Jun Kim, tried to remain even keeled. “Commander Keats, can you explain what is happening so that the Council can understand and act appropriately?”

“Certainly,” James replied before answering frankly, “You’re almost certainly about to be wiped out by an alien race of machines.”

The room became deadly silent and even Gibson had nothing to say as he whirled around to fix his disbelieving eyes onto James. With no one willing or able to respond to his statement, James continued. “We have less than seven hours to evacuate the entire planet and the solar system. The faster people get out, the better chance they’ll have of escaping. The people on Mars will have even less time so you better issue the orders immediately.”

Again, it was a long moment before Gibson finally let out a guffaw. “You want us to abandon the solar system?”

“You have no choice,” James said.

“We have no plan for a solar system evacuation. What do you want us to do? Where do you want us to go?” Gibson demanded.

“It will be everyone for themselves. There will be no rendezvous point—the alien machines would be able to use that information to pursue us and kill the last of humanity.”

“The last of...” Gibson couldn’t finish the sentence. In his worst nightmares, he had never dreamt of anything as horrifying as this.

“James,” Thel began as she stepped beside him and laced her fingers around his arm. “What’s happening?”

“You must be mad,” Gibson finally said as he leaned against a work station, his legs feeling as though they might give out on him.

“I’m sorry, but you simply do not have time to debate this,” James said.

“Why?” Gibson demanded. “How do we know you’re right? You want us to evacuate the entire species based on what? You’ve barely looked at our data!”

“I studied the data you sent me on the way here and I’m telling you that there is only one explanation for what we’re seeing,” James explained in an even but urgent tone. “If I’m wrong, I’m sorry in advance. We’ll know in a few hours and everyone can return to Earth. But if I’m right, and I’m almost certain I am, then there’s an alien race of machines heading this way and their numbers are so vast that we don’t have a hope in hell against them.”