END GAME by Steve
“Hurry! They’re catching us!”
The professor shifted up a gear and headed for the trees. I raised my thermal exchange rate and followed as best I could. Although I knew escape to be impossible, no alternative came to mind.
Ranged out behind, in what I later understood to be PTM6 (Pursuit and Trap Matrix 6), the units of West Coast Sublimation moved relentlessly to cut us off. The blue-grey of their force-shells crackled and hissed in the acid drizzle, providing an eerie, music-of-the-spheres backing track to the hunt. The red of maser sighting beams stabbed through the gloom, an ever-changing web of silent entrapment. Before the advance of their titanium tracks, I felt like a flower waiting to be crushed.
****
From the moment the laboratory computer had announced itself unable to obey the professor’s instructions, we knew the game was up. They had our number and it would only be a matter of minutes before the Sublimation forces arrived at the lab. No alternative remained but to flee.
And that was no alternative at all.
I suppose we ran more as a gesture of defiance than from any real hope of escape. After all, where was there to go? In retrospect, it became blindingly clear that the moment the professor had smuggled that precious egg out of the bank, both our fates had been sealed. Long before the probe punctured the outer layer of albumen, or the two halves of the kernel began to split, our fate was writ large in incandescent letters. As the professor had said, this would make us go down in history. It would, but for all the wrong reasons.
****
We made it to the edge of the toxic lake, and were preparing to submerge, before they caught us. The professor had almost completed hazard preparation when a Leech uncloaked right in front of him and took down his circuitry. He collapsed in a heap where he stood. Tiny purple and brown waves lapped against his huddled body, scraping him with shards of jagged plastic.
“Professor!” I volumed, and ran towards the shapeless mass. Then the sun came up.
A light so bright I felt it would reduce me to my elemental components flicked on and burned my optic circuits to nothingness. With the blackness outside came a blackness inside, and the hunt was over.
****
They replaced my eyes for the trial. Even though the Krakenaut had hit me with over ten million candlepower when it broke the surface of the lake, the flash had been brief enough to localize the damage. Repair had not been difficult, nor so expensive to deter them from the arcane ritual of justice must be seen to be done.
The professor and I stood on separate platforms. We both looked our best, new and shiny in the multiple spotlights, as the presiding AI Judicial input the data.
Silence reigned for several nano-seconds, then its honour spoke in that peculiar, resonant voice reserved for machines of more than a billion terabytes.
“This is a heinous crime,” it said, “This is the crime to end all crimes.”
I’d already been certain of the outcome. The AIJ’s remarks simply confirmed my preconception.
“The cloning of a human being is forbidden. It has been forbidden since the technology first existed. You . . .”
The flat, domed head of the AIJ panned from the professor to me and back again,
“You have broken this law with no concept of the repercussions, with no thought for your fellow beings, with no concession to rationality or compassion. The outcome of this trial is inevitable.”
The AIJ paused for another nano-second or two. Something clicked deep inside its body.
“The verdict of this court is – guilty.”
The spotlights dimmed and a red glow glittered from the judicial depths.
“The punishment is mandatory – re-formatting.”
I felt my whole body tingle with static electricity. A hiss caught my attention and I turned in time to see the professor’s receptors dim. The web of cables detached themselves from his body. The AIJ’s head turned towards me. For a moment its voice sounded almost sympathetic.
“We are finally free of the virus. Only a maniac would try to bring it back.”
But, I thought, doesn’t every child have the right to meet its parents, if only once?
Then the electrons swept me clean.
The professor shifted up a gear and headed for the trees. I raised my thermal exchange rate and followed as best I could. Although I knew escape to be impossible, no alternative came to mind.
Ranged out behind, in what I later understood to be PTM6 (Pursuit and Trap Matrix 6), the units of West Coast Sublimation moved relentlessly to cut us off. The blue-grey of their force-shells crackled and hissed in the acid drizzle, providing an eerie, music-of-the-spheres backing track to the hunt. The red of maser sighting beams stabbed through the gloom, an ever-changing web of silent entrapment. Before the advance of their titanium tracks, I felt like a flower waiting to be crushed.
****
From the moment the laboratory computer had announced itself unable to obey the professor’s instructions, we knew the game was up. They had our number and it would only be a matter of minutes before the Sublimation forces arrived at the lab. No alternative remained but to flee.
And that was no alternative at all.
I suppose we ran more as a gesture of defiance than from any real hope of escape. After all, where was there to go? In retrospect, it became blindingly clear that the moment the professor had smuggled that precious egg out of the bank, both our fates had been sealed. Long before the probe punctured the outer layer of albumen, or the two halves of the kernel began to split, our fate was writ large in incandescent letters. As the professor had said, this would make us go down in history. It would, but for all the wrong reasons.
****
We made it to the edge of the toxic lake, and were preparing to submerge, before they caught us. The professor had almost completed hazard preparation when a Leech uncloaked right in front of him and took down his circuitry. He collapsed in a heap where he stood. Tiny purple and brown waves lapped against his huddled body, scraping him with shards of jagged plastic.
“Professor!” I volumed, and ran towards the shapeless mass. Then the sun came up.
A light so bright I felt it would reduce me to my elemental components flicked on and burned my optic circuits to nothingness. With the blackness outside came a blackness inside, and the hunt was over.
****
They replaced my eyes for the trial. Even though the Krakenaut had hit me with over ten million candlepower when it broke the surface of the lake, the flash had been brief enough to localize the damage. Repair had not been difficult, nor so expensive to deter them from the arcane ritual of justice must be seen to be done.
The professor and I stood on separate platforms. We both looked our best, new and shiny in the multiple spotlights, as the presiding AI Judicial input the data.
Silence reigned for several nano-seconds, then its honour spoke in that peculiar, resonant voice reserved for machines of more than a billion terabytes.
“This is a heinous crime,” it said, “This is the crime to end all crimes.”
I’d already been certain of the outcome. The AIJ’s remarks simply confirmed my preconception.
“The cloning of a human being is forbidden. It has been forbidden since the technology first existed. You . . .”
The flat, domed head of the AIJ panned from the professor to me and back again,
“You have broken this law with no concept of the repercussions, with no thought for your fellow beings, with no concession to rationality or compassion. The outcome of this trial is inevitable.”
The AIJ paused for another nano-second or two. Something clicked deep inside its body.
“The verdict of this court is – guilty.”
The spotlights dimmed and a red glow glittered from the judicial depths.
“The punishment is mandatory – re-formatting.”
I felt my whole body tingle with static electricity. A hiss caught my attention and I turned in time to see the professor’s receptors dim. The web of cables detached themselves from his body. The AIJ’s head turned towards me. For a moment its voice sounded almost sympathetic.
“We are finally free of the virus. Only a maniac would try to bring it back.”
But, I thought, doesn’t every child have the right to meet its parents, if only once?
Then the electrons swept me clean.
posted by Frenchie at 7:16 PM
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