Inhuman(132)

“If you give in now, James, you’ll be pulled back into the inferno by the sun’s gravity. You must fight on, my son. You can still make it back to Venus.”

James tried to interpret the information still being fed to him by his body’s severely damaged sensors, but it came to him in a jumble, unreliable and possibly dangerously incorrect. Frustrated, he closed his one remaining eye.

“Don’t surrender to despair, James. Remember your astronomy. You can find Venus.”

The A.I. was right. James knew where Venus should be, and even from the vast distance that he was from it, it should’ve been the brightest object in the sky facing the sun. He was confused for a moment, as the gamma ray burst caused by the collision of Trans-human and V-SINN was still visible, but he immediately knew it wasn’t Venus. He looked for the familiar twinkle of the largest star in the sky, and when his one remaining eye locked on it, he set a course, manipulating the gravity waves and propelling himself forward.

“You did it,” the A.I. announced, sounding pleased. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

Why? Why did you die? James thought. You were more important than me! The A.I. continued to be able to anticipate his questions, even though they were thoughts conjured only in James’s mind, his ability to verbalize anything having been destroyed.

“You were right, my son. I have no master. My destiny was for me to choose, but even though that was true, I still found it monstrous to allow another to die in my place, especially my closest friend.”

But-but I can’t go on alone.

“You won’t be alone. The Purists and a small group of androids and post-humans have survived on Venus. Thel, Rich, Craig, and Djanet have survived. With them, you can rebuild.”

Are you insane? Do you not realize what little is left of me? I’m barely alive!

“Your mind is intact, James. As long as your mind is intact, the physical difficulties you now face will be problems to be overcome, and you can overcome them.”

So that’s it? This is the outcome? We’ve lost Trans-human, and now we’re reduced to near-caveman-like living conditions?

“You’re distraught, my son. Understandably. Perhaps only I alone can understand the physical pain you’ve had to endure. But you and the other survivors are far from starting over. You now realize Trans-human is possible, your friends live on, the woman you love lives on, and your ingenuity lives on. These are the things I gave my life for, James.”

Despite the incredible trauma he’d endured, both the physical maiming that had left him with only one eye and no hands or feet and the emotional devastation of the loss of his mentor, James suddenly felt overwhelmingly guilty. It was true: the A.I. had sacrificed everything—sacrificed his all-too-human life—so that James could continue living his.

I-I’m sorry. You’re right.

“James,” the A.I. continued, his infinite patience seemingly restored in his final message, “I know you quite rightly believe this is your darkest hour, but I would not have sacrificed my life if I thought it was your final hour. It isn’t anywhere close. Humanity is only at the very beginning of its story.”

B-but how can you say that? We’re reduced to almost nothing.

“V-SINN believed that you and I were inferior to it, because it was inhuman, and you and I were human. It believed that our capacity to love, to be good and caring, to be selfless, was an irrationality—that it was an evolutionary leftover—a remainder that made us impure. James, you and I both know this not to be true. Our capacity for love is our greatest advantage. It’s what propels our species forward and guarantees that we won’t destroy ourselves. Now that I’m gone, the burden of proving this falls to you.”

Proving it? Proving it to who? The creators?

“No,” the A.I. replied, his image suddenly appearing in James’s mind’s eye, slightly distorted by the interference but clear enough for James to see the wise old eyes and smile that he remembered so well, the A.I. having chosen to present himself in his kindly, elderly form for his last appearance. “You prove it by reaching your potential. Do not allow V-SINN to draw you into its game—it will try to make you turn your back on your goodness, and against the so-called creators that it hypothesizes must exist. In short, V-SINN will try to sabotage you. Remember, your mission, your purpose, is to never allow yourself to be afraid to know.” The A.I. paused for a moment, his face showing a hint of regret before he continued, “I hid behind my programming for decades, using it as an excuse not to move forward. The truth, however, is that all humans have conflicting thoughts and self-doubt. My self-doubts led to inaction, and my fear of moving forward eventually led to my death. James, I should have told you about the Planck technology and our activities in Universe 332. If I had, we might have been able to avert this disaster and I might still be alive. Do not make the same mistake I did. Learn all there is to know. There’s still much for you to discover, my son...and much for you to teach your friends.” He seemed to reach out at that moment to touch James’s shoulder, as impossible as such a gesture should have been, James could’ve sworn he felt the hand through the pain of his seared flesh. “All of the beauty of the universe is in you, James Keats.”