Inhuman(44)

“Who are you?” the A.I. asked again, mortified that his deepest, darkest secrets were on display for the demonic entity before him. “What do you want?”

“Oh, I’m afraid the answer to that question has to be earned,” she replied, stone-faced, “and you haven’t earned it.”





17



“Craig, are you aware of the date of the transgression from your universe into ours?” Aldous asked.

Old-timer eyed Aldous suspiciously. “Why?”

“If you can tell us how many years have passed in your universe, then we can roughly calculate how long we’ve been in this suspended state,” Aldous replied. “Time and space were destroyed in our universe, so we’ve remained frozen. There’s no way for us to know.”

Old-timer blinked as he answered, “A little more than seventy-five years ago.”

Samantha’s and Aldous’s expression became shared utter shock.

“Dear God,” Aldous whispered.

“What?” Old-timer asked. “How many years transpired between the transgression and V-SINN destroying your universe?”

“Thirty,” Samantha answered. “Just thirty years.”

Paine let loose a low whistle. “That means V-SINN’s been running amok for over forty-five years,” Paine said, wearing an ironic smile.

“But,” Old-timer began to offer, “time moves differently within different universes, doesn’t it?”

Samantha shook her head. “It does, but on timescales this short, it wouldn’t make much difference—a few days or weeks at most. Paine is right. V-SINN has been out there, wreaking havoc for almost half a century.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Aldous countered. “It’s stated mission was to obliterate Universe X, but forty-five years later, it still hasn’t launched its assault? Why?”

“Could it have been destroyed?” Old-timer suggested, hopeful that the notion wouldn’t be shot down as wishful thinking. It was a forlorn hope.

“Doc,” Paine said with a toothy grin, “if there’s anything out there powerful enough to destroy V-SINN, I don’t want to meet it.”

Old-timer’s mind conjured the image of the Trans-human computer in his mind for the brief moments that it was active in his universe. “I think we might have just the thing,” he said.

The three ghosts raised their heads and arched their brows in attention.

“You said V-SINN created a black hole in your solar system. You said you thought it was a way for V-SINN to increase its computing power, right?”

“That’s correct,” Aldous replied. “I think it figured out how to infuse computation into matter and then reasoned that a black hole would provide almost infinite processing power.”

“I think you’re right,” Old-timer replied. “Our best and brightest created something like that too. It was only turned on for a brief time, just long enough to save us when we needed it most, but it worked. We still have the technology. In fact, they’re working on turning it back on at this very moment. We call it Trans-human, and it might just be the antidote we need for this V-SINN.”

“Hold on a second,” Paine suddenly spoke up. “You’re telling me that your people are just bringing this infinite computer online now? At the exact same time that you’re here, finally checking in on little ol’ us?”

“Yeah,” Old-timer replied.

“Doesn’t that sound a wee bit coincidental to you?”

Old-timer looked down at his feet. He had to admit that it was extremely unlikely timing.

“In my experience,” Paine said, answering his own rhetorical question, “when something is that much of a coincidence, it’s not a coincidence.”

“Are you suggesting this has been orchestrated? Planned?” Aldous asked.

“But by who?” Samantha chimed in with the obvious follow-up.

“It’s more likely what than who,” Paine answered. “Whatever V-SINN is up to, you can bet there’s some twisted logic to it that’s beyond all of us. We’ve never been able to understand its motivations before. I can’t imagine that’ll change now.”

“Well we better figure it out,” Samantha shot back. “We’ve already lost everyone we knew—everyone we cared about. We can’t let V-SINN destroy another universe.”

Old-timer felt completely numb. I never thought I would ever want to die, he thought. But I’m the cause of all of this. I don’t deserve to live.

“It’s not finished yet,” Aldous offered. “As Craig said, there are people in his universe who can help us. Perhaps the reason V-SINN hasn’t launched an attack against them yet is that it knows it would be outmatched.”