The captain runs up to Eve.
“Did you find Nihil?” she asks.
The other shakes his head. “He wasn’t in the group.”
Eve gets in touch with her assistant: “At what point is the preparation of the search agents?”
“They will be ready tomorrow morning.”
“I want them to be spread as soon as possible.”
The hours pass slowly. The sky changes from black to deep blue, while the stars disappear and the horizon is tinged with pink. All of a sudden the first rays of sunlight filter between skyscrapers and rapidly descend towards the street, lighting up troops and vehicles. These are dark shapes against the blazing background.
“We are ready.”
“Let’s start,” orders Eve.
A flight of ovoids appears. They are spreading a luminescent cloud, which slips into the skyscrapers, the houses and the basements. Millions of microscopic programs that exchange information, behaving as a single being as big as the town, in constant touch with the headquarters, even able to recognize the enemies’ traces, to chase and kill them. The same programs which Eve began to prepare before her departure.
They start converging towards the terrace of a skyscraper.
“There he is!”
Eve beckons to a dozen soldiers to follow her and all together they run towards an ovoid. But halfway to it, she shivers, her sight grows dim, she staggers. Just before falling to the ground, she recovers her strength. Still dazed, the woman reaches the aircraft and collapses into her seat. The ovoid starts the takeoff.
Now the flying cameras are transmitting the first images from the skyscraper. There is their enemy, surrounded by whirls of light that he tries to keep away by shaking his cloak.
The ovoid approaches the skyscraper, a monument as dazzling as the sun. It performs a sharp turn, and then stops about ten meters above the terrace. Nihil, wrapped in the light, is running up and down with outstretched arms, like a blind man.
She addresses the pilot: “Let’s get down.”
FINAL FIGHT
@
Nihil is leaning his back against a low wall, at the center of a pool of light, drenched with a luminescent fluid. His stillness and lowered eyes make him seem to be unconscious.
But at a sudden noise of steps, he raises his head. In front of him stand Eve and her troops.
“I was waiting for you. I understood you were on the Caravels when your programs attacked me,” he whispers. His face lightens with a scoffing smile. “You will not win.”
“Kill him!” shouts Eve.
In an instant, the programs with which he is soaked, pierce his body like needles, covering every cell with a thin film. Nihil remains as motionless as a glass statue. A fresh breeze is sweeping the terrace.
“Nothing must be left.”
A thick smoke bursts out of his body.
When it vanishes, Nihil has disappeared. His cells have been dissolved into the single components, and the wind has dispersed them.
Other ovoids are hovering around the skyscraper. One of them lands on the terrace and a squad disembarks.
“I must go,” says Eve to the captain. She rushes towards the aircraft and slips into. “To the headquarters!”
During take-off, she calls C573Y: “I got rid of him.”
“Congratulations!”
“He carried out his revenge.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“He never limited himself to threats.”
“Our search programs have not pointed out any anomaly, even after being updated.”
“So it is a brand new virus! Move the population out to another server.”
After a few seconds, C573Y starts: “An unknown program makes the transfer impossible. I tried to stop the time, but the microprocessors do not respond!”
Eve half-closes her eyes, “We are trapped.”
The ovoid begins the descent towards the Security Headquarters. On the roof, a small crowd is waiting for her, ready for the celebrations. Among them, is Victoria waving her arm and the Chief of the Special Forces in full uniform.
Eve gets in touch: “Take shelter in the bunker!”
“What’s happening?”
“No time for explanations. Carry out the order!”
The group sways, then dashes towards the entrance.
Eve follows them, clenching her teeth. Matter of minutes.
Her throat starts burning. Beads of sweat are dripping from her forehead. When she wipes them away, her fingers get covered with a sticky substance. Her features are melting!
A shooting pain, as if her nerves were scorching; a series of convulsions, attacks so intense and prolonged that her muscles get torn and her organs reduced to a bleeding pulp. Bent in an unnatural position, Eve feels her life slipping away. Just when she has victory within her grasp, their dream dies…
When the ovoid lands on the terrace, the woman’s body is unrecognizable. Scattered around, the remains of her companions are slowly dissolving.
In the meantime the news of the victory spreads throughout the town. In a state of collective euphoria, the inhabitants mill around in the streets. They hug and kiss. Now the sufferings are only memories.
But the disease runs through the streets, crosses the squares and breaks into the houses, taking their occupants by surprise.
The following morning, while the moon vanishes and the sky lightens with blue, the sun caresses the skyscrapers, the palaces and the parks once again. Wing beats. A finch flies from a garden, whirls around an obelisk and alights on a roof. The air fills with birdsong.
But the town doesn’t wake up. A gust of chilly wind strips a cloud of dry leaves from a row of plane trees and makes them whirl around.
The bridge is in deep silence. A few androids are staring at the screens, concentrated on the images of the town. Their strained faces make them look one hundred years older.
C573Y moves away from the group. His rhythmic steps break the silence. He stops in front the panoramic window where he remains motionless gazing at the most sparkling star, Alpha Centauri. Apparently the android is absorbed in thought; broken-hearted.
BEYOND DEATH
Men burn with the desire for eternity. Some prophets nourish the hope which promises afterworlds of bliss or horrors. Others guarantee rebirth as a new being. But many believe all this is an illusion.
We Net beings yearn for eternal life too. Our existence is certainly much longer, but like men, we cannot escape death. So, what should we expect?
0101 010101001
SHADES
“To the lake!”
The ovoid descends into the multitude of vehicles crowding the aerial freeways in the evening hours. It passes between two rows of skyscrapers dotted with lights, flies over the outskirts and skims over the treetops of a luminescent wood. Half an hour later it lands on a rock towering in the middle of a plain. The place where they are used to meeting almost every week, after work.
Victoria gets out the cockpit and walks for a hundred meters through a meadow and up to the brink of a precipice. A warm wind makes her blouse flutter. She sits down on a boulder, then bends forward and pulls up a blue blade of grass as smooth as silk. She fiddles with it nervously.
In spite of the night hour, it is not dark. The big star on the horizon tinges the plain with orange and lights the rippling surface of the lake with golden reflections. The sparkling dot of an ovoid appears in the distance.
"She has arrived."
The vehicle lands by the first one. A dark figure gets out, looks around, then gives a wave and approaches with long strides.
“Sorry I am late,” murmurs Eve while sitting by her side. “I had another crisis. The same anguish, my sight becoming blurred, then the faint. I still feel dazed.”
Victoria stares at her with a worried look. “At least we know the cause.”
Three months before, Eve rushed to her to tell about the artificial recollections she had discovered in her mind. Memories that hid a
n awful loss of memory: everything erased from the dizziness before facing Nihil till her reawakening in an icy room. “You and Adam were lying, a few meters away, dead,” told Eve with a pale face. “I was hugging you, when you woke up…”
She subjected them to the same controls, and when the result arrived, ran to the Admiral. May be it was a contagion, it was necessary to check the whole population. They started the analysis, the results were arriving: everybody in the same condition!
“I met the Admiral,” announces Eve enraged. “Security has ordered to stop the inquiry. We must keep everything secret!”
She stands up, walks nervously, shaking her head. “Why? And then, what happened to Nihil? Officially killed in a gunfight, but evidence was never provided... I want to find the truth. And Security will not stop me!”
Victoria listens perplexed, but doesn’t say anything.
From behind, they hear a voice. It’s Adam. They make him sit in the middle.
Eve reports the news. “It was Security, for sure.”
Gradually the atmosphere calms down. They start gazing at the star low on the horizon.
“It’s ten times brighter than the moon,” murmurs Eve. “But not for long…”
Alpha Centaury is a triple system. For half of the year the smaller star brightens the night, but for the other half the biggest one and a third deep red body come alongside, to light up the day.
They listen to shrill and prolonged cries. Tiny creatures take off from a shrub and go to hide in long grass.
“The Admiral will inaugurate the fifth town in a month,” announces Adam. “We are in advance against the timetable.”
Victoria smiles, she has never felt so useful, never met before such optimist people.
They turn towards the cable of the space elevator that joins the planet to the Santa Maria orbiting thirty thousand kilometers above. A platform loaded with big containers is rising slowly.
“Still six months,” says Eve.
Adams looks for the three sparkling dots of the Caravels. “I can’t wait to leave.”
Victoria gazes in silence at her companions. This is the right moment. “I wonder whether we should give up instead…”
Eve remains petrified for a few seconds. “What? Do you have doubts right now, only a few months from our departure?”
“Why should we abandon this planet, after all our efforts?” insists Victoria while tearing up the blade of grass abruptly.
Eve grumbles: “Don’t you see? The automatic factories and the robots are assembling the towns one after the other… Here they don’t need us anymore!”
“Man has lived on the Earth for thousands of years.”
“And then?” exclaims Eve. “We have a mission!”
Adam intervenes: “Our infinitely long life imposes on us a high price, Victoria. We must face challenges man will never see.” He stares into space, as if they are in front of him. “In ninety years a gigantic cluster of asteroids will collide with this solar system. We must stop it, now! Nothing in comparison with what is waiting for us in a more distant future: exploding stars, clashing galaxies… Perhaps we will be present at the end of the Universe! We must get ready. Certainly we cannot succeed by remaining confined to this tiny planet of the Milky Way. We are too few to acquire the knowledge we need and too far from where the threats will spread from, to rush in time.”
Victoria listens in silence, her eyes focused on her two companions. Her hands tremble a little.
“This is our task,” explains Eve, with such a sweet voice that she seems to sing. “Man gave us a lot of time ago, when he taught us to look into the future and made us understand that the real joy is building it all together. But you have understood this for a long time. When you speak about the project you are carrying out, your eyes shine. So, why do you want to give it up?”
She stares fixedly at the girl, leaving no escape.
Victoria pants.
The same feeling as before.
Uneasiness rises from the bowels and spreads to the whole of her body. Six months before, when the same pain appeared for the first time, she thought it was momentary. She pushed it back with willpower. But it remained in a black corner of her mind, and increased day after day; fears she had forgot the existence began to surface. For the first time, she is assailed by doubts.
“I don’t know what is waiting for us…”
Now Eve is straight in front of her, gazing deeply into her eyes. “You are afraid.” She sits by her side. “This is a heritage of the humans, once again; essential for them, as they have a life which is too fragile and short for such ambitious projects. An unacceptable weight for us. Don’t you realize? We have started a scientific revolution, technology skyrockets towards goals unconceivable till few years ago, the Alpha Centauri colonization is a sensational success. And now we are here speaking about eternity…”
Victoria perceives their warmth. With Eve there is never any friction, only immediate understanding. And Adams knows her so profoundly, that she has the feeling he can read her thoughts. So much that even when she is alone, she feels him near.
Her family, in whom she has an absolute trust.
Now Eve is speaking to her mind. Words as sweet as caresses: "You must follow your new nature, Victoria. We will be standing by you, whatever happens. But most of all, accept every experience with joy, although it can seem difficult to you, and always look for new ones! Only in this way will you have the opportunity of knowing yourself as never before and making enormous progress all in one go. And one day, nothing will frighten you."
SECRETS
The Admiral’s office, three months later.
“The government of the Confederation has decided to answer your request AZ3821 about the loss of memory of the Alpha Centauri population,” says a voice. “Even though a century has passed since the facts happened, this information is still protected under state secrecy rules.”
The Admiral and Eve listen in silence.
“When Nihil realized his defeat was unavoidable, he avenged himself by spreading deadly viruses. All the population died. Only the few guarding the bridge survived.”
The voice pauses. “Obviously you are wondering how you can be here, since the population backups were destroyed. During the assault on the bridge, C573Y transferred the responsibility for operations to a Defense program. This program succeeded in duplicating the inhabitants and stored their copies in a military server, immediately before your death. The whole operation was carried out so secretly, that Security itself was informed only the day after.”
“Why didn’t you make the news public?” asks the Admiral.
“The President would have been attacked because he supported the Alpha Centauri project. Corrupt politicians would have tried to rise to power. Democracy was in danger.”
“The memory loss starts when I was going to seize Nihil,” recalls Eve. “I felt stunned. The copy was made just then, I imagine.”
“Exactly.”
“What became of Nihil?”
“Identified and killed by the programs you had spread, Doctor Dirac. The following day we restored the population and inserted artificial memories. But we went even beyond that. During your stay at the Defense simulator, you supplied information essential to develop a new treatment. We could recover almost all the population.”
“Only me and Adam are stricken by the crisis,” remarks Eve. “It is because of the programs we have installed…”
But the voice doesn’t answer.
“Explain to us the reason,” demands the Admiral.
“Eve Dirac has never been a normal person, but the real cause is previous to her entry into Net. After the military academy, she accepted to undergo a treatment able to improve her mental and physical characteristics. A very secret experiment, that Defense was trying for the first time on a human being. Her memory of the cure was erased, in order not to influence her behavior.”
“My crises are due to those modifications, then!” cries the wom
an. “The same ones I transferred to Adam!”
“When you resigned from the Defense,” keeps on the voice, “we had a moment of hesitation. Finally, we set you free; surely your behavior in other fields would be very interesting as well. This regularly happened.
The scandal was a surprise to us, but the enquiry removed every doubt: you were innocent.
With the brain digitization, you became a virtual being with unique characteristics. New unforeseeable developments were going to come.”
“Go on,” insists Eve.
“You got in touch with the Elects, an organization we appreciated for its participants’ merits. You started transferring your characteristics to its members. Thanks to you, the Elects succeeded in escaping Security, but most of all they began transforming into a new race.”
The two listeners are dumbfounded.
“Finally came the Alpha Centauri project: the occasion for promoting the development of a whole people, and maybe a jump of the species. We informed the President, who in agreement with the Net representatives, decided to let you go on. We intervened only when Nihil revealed his intentions, making you embark on the Caravels. But this is well-known to you already.”
FOR EVER
The big star inflames the clouds on the horizon and covers the plain with red. Circling dark shapes are approaching. A few hundred meters away, majestic hook-beaked birds with yellow and red scales turn towards a rock and perch with a beat of their wings.
Slowly the celestial body disappears leaving a pink glimmer, while on the opposite side the dawn peeps out. The smallest star rises, lighting up trees and bushes again.
Two androids are sitting on the grass. They listen to the melodies of nature: the clinking from the glassy leaves of the bushes shaken by the wind and the excited singing of a flock hidden among the red filaments of a meadow. In the sky, half way between day and night, in a timeless twilight, three dots shine brightly.
James arrived via a laser beam two weeks ago, after his death. He speaks in an excited voice: “I met the Admiral. He wants to speed up the colonization; he intends the governors to assist him…”