“Is there enough time?” the A.I. asked.
“I’m confident, yes, albeit barely,” Aldous confirmed. “I’ll get you out of there alive.”
“Okay,” James replied. “Aldous, when the mainframe is destroyed, we’re going to lose our communications. You’ve got to reach Old-timer—Craig Emilson—before then. He’s the key to getting us out of here and back into our bodies. Do you understand?”
“I’ll do my best to reach him,” Aldous replied. “Stand by.”
“Aldous,” James began with emphasis, “Craig’s the only one who can get us out. If you can’t find him, we might be trapped in here permanently.”
“I understand,” Aldous replied. “Stand by.”
30
Old-timer couldn’t help but be in awe as he neared the android mothership—the Constructor—and marveled at a structure that was larger than any of the other ships in the android collective. It was oblong in its overall shape, but the closer one got to the surface, the easier it was to see the randomness in the design. The ship itself appeared reminiscent of a brain, but with the neurons reaching outside of the enclosure and snaking away from the hull in patterns that didn’t seem to make sense, as though the entire ship was an organic, growing thing that continued to expand, snaking further and further out with every passing day, its grotesque fingers reaching out for more and more space to occupy.
“This is it,” Anisim said reluctantly as he flew toward the Constructor, Old-timer’s tendrils still embedded in his body, the worst intrusion being the one that had jacked into the base of his skull. The pain was excruciating for Anisim, but it was a pain so intolerable that he’d made up his mind not to disobey Old-timer in the slightest, as the post-human had already demonstrated his ability to make Anisim’s discomfort a thousand times worse.
“Where will my friends be replicated?” Old-timer demanded.
“It’ll be easy to find their location,” Anisim replied, his lips unmoving as their communication remained entirely telepathic, “but there’s stringent security built into the replicator system. The new replicants aren’t to be awakened until they’re scheduled for education. You’ll need someone who works there to get you inside and who can override the computer systems.”
“You better know someone, son,” Old-timer snarled in response.
“I-I think I do,” Anisim replied, a flood of thoughts contradicting one another and causing self-doubt. “I dated her briefly, but she’s assigned to the replicator. I’ll take you to her.”
“That’ll suffice,” Old-timer replied. As they neared the surface of the monolithic hull, a surface that reminded him of the frozen surface of Europa that he’d so recently had an up-close encounter with, they started to come into visual contact with an innumerable amount of androids, who were flying in the opposite direction. The prying eyes of the multitudes made Old-timer uneasy.
“What’s going on?” he asked, warily. “What’s with the mass exodus?”
“They’re headed for Earth,” Anisim replied in a pained voice. “As long as we behave like we have a purpose, they’ll ignore us.”
“They’re not ignoring us now,” Old-timer observed as he made eye contact with android after android, every one of the expressions they returned filled with suspicion.
“They’re just curious,” Anisim replied through their mental connection. “They’ve been sent to assimilate Earth, yet the two of us are moving against the flow of traffic. They’re wondering why we’re important—why we’re special. Members of the collective are rarely ever special. Just don’t look them in the eye. Look like you’ve got a purpose.”
“That’s not a problem,” Old-timer replied. “You people give me the creeps.”
They flew inside one of the gaping openings of the hull and entered the seemingly endless internal labyrinth of catwalks and bizarre architecture inside of the ship.
“Where’s this former love interest of yours?”
“Not far,” Anisim replied. “Listen, I barely know her, okay? We went out once, it didn’t go all that well.”
“Why not?”
“She made it pretty clear she wanted children.”
“Children? “Old-timer exclaimed out loud, unable to internalize his shock. “Androids can breed? You have children?”
“Yes. Lots of us. Most of us actually. I just—I’m not ready.”
Old-timer remained silent for a moment, stunned as they continued moving deeper into the Constructor. “Robots having babies. Weird, Anisim. Really, really weird.” He paused for a moment, trying to shake the perversity of the notion out of his mind before adding, “It’s also weird that she brought up children on a first date.”