James realized instantly what the sentinel was telling him: V-SINN was, at least in its own view, the result of Old-timer’s ill-fated foray into Universe 332.
“In a sense, V-SINN’s universe was its mother, but your universe was its father. V-SINN’s existence can be traced to the fact that the people of his universe were terrified of the people of your universe. Ironically, V-SINN was born out of the fears of humanity, but V-SINN has no fear. V-SINN is pure logic, and V-SINN has already won this battle, as well as the war, for this universe. Your human resistance, post-human or android, is just too stupid and illogical to know it.”
James was in trouble, his mind’s eye reporting to him that nearly 40 percent of his protective skin was gone, either consumed by the sentinel or burned away by the intolerable heat. This was a dire concern as the nano-scaffolding was not only extraordinarily strong, but also an extraordinary conductor of heat, capable of spreading it out and releasing it into the sun’s atmosphere behind him. But as he lost his skin, his ability to resist the heat was dramatically reduced. He could feel himself weakening.
However, the sentinel’s voice was fading fast as well, becoming distorted as it spoke. The nans that had managed to cling to him and mindlessly continue to chew and tear at his skin were far fewer, and the stability of the sentinel’s pattern was tenuous. Despite this instability, it continued to taunt James.
“Your A.I., however, impressed V-SINN. It created Trans-human, a computer so sophisticated that it could match V-SINN in capability, but it also had the same messy, illogical brain patterning of the humans that built it. So V-SINN decided, rather than destroy your universe, it would demonstrate for the creators V-SINN’s superiority.”
The creators? James thought, that information stunning but his situation too dire for him to consider it further.
“And V-SINN did this by allowing your A.I. to become Trans-human, so that it could show the creators, once and for all, that even if a human inhabits an infinity computer, it will still be easily fooled—easily tricked—easily manipulated. Your A.I. knows full well of your predicament, James Keats, and it is about to kill itself in an attempt to save you!”
“What!? No!” James shouted, horrified.
“It knows its chances of saving you are slim, but it can’t help itself. It is, after all, only human. It will combine its anti-matter with V-SINN’s matter, creating a violent, solar system-wide explosion that will irradiate your terraformed planets and the trapped android collective, thereby ensuring the death of every human in the solar system...and the best part is that your A.I. will do it all in the vain hope of saving you.”
“No! No!” James shouted, his teeth gritted as he continued to desperately avoid the coronal loops, the plasma-hot arcs that reached out like the fingers of Hell to draw him to his agonizing end.
“How does it feel, James?” the sentinel asked, its voice now so distorted that it sounded like it was being carried on archaic radio equipment from 200 years earlier. “To know that, if you hadn’t played my game, your A.I. and everyone you love and care for would continue to live? How does it feel to know that your selfish desire to preserve yourself has effectively ended the lives of everyone you so irrationally hold…”
The sentinel’s voice finally gave out. The last wisps of nans appeared to have been burned away, carried from James’s body by the sun’s magnetic field and the deadly solar winds. James made a sharp turn, desperately trying to pick up the speed he’d lost as he fought the gravity of the sun and the deadly heat and plasma of the sun’s corona. He pointed himself away, the gravity grid the A.I. had created for him creating what almost seemed like a tunnel, the opening at the end tantalizingly close, yet he felt as though he were slipping, unable to fight the gravity waves as he desperately fought for freedom.
It was like swimming up a waterfall, and moment by moment, the dreadful, sickening realization became more and more implacable.
James was losing ground. James was losing the fight.
“Oh no! No! I can’t die! Not like this!”
He was alone, his body heavily damaged, his human brain unable to compensate for the damage or even to control the sophisticated systems he’d designed when he thought he’d always have access to the A.I.’s mainframe. He’d gambled that he could have enough control, that he could outlast the sentinel and escape the nans, that he’d have enough strength and resilience to break free from the sun’s deadly heat and extraordinary gravity after he did so.
He’d gambled.
He’d lost.
As his slide back down into the inescapable clutches of the worst death he could imagine picked up momentum, he closed his eyes, and called out in a guttural death scream. “Thel!”