“Hmm. I see. I know the feeling,” said Karmen biting her lip.
“So… er… you and Max. Did you have a thing going?”
“Professional respect only,” she said quickly.
I had a light bulb moment. “So, you and... Conrad?”
Karmen fell silent and looked away.
“Ah. Sorry. I’ve hit a hit a raw spot?”
“You’re the first one to notice,” she stammered.
“I am? Well, that must be a first for me.”
“No-one really notices me. Not even after I choose the most outrageous and fanciful superhero costume of all time.”
“Well, that’s not true. Your costume does looks great and it’s not… you know.”
“Thanks but I know the score. All the probabilities. I model them. I understand the situation to five decimal places…” she said her voice fading off as she looked away.
“Of making it with the Captain?” I suggested.
“All I know is that nobody goes and builds a time machine altering the fabric of space-time to bring me into their life,” she whispered bitterly, her voice catching.
“You shouldn’t be jealous of Terri. Not jealous of her situation where Mad Max here, and his clones, are stalking her across millennia.”
“You may be right but I can’t help feeling torn. Perhaps I do feel some jealousy regarding all that attention.”
“As I said, there’s nothing to be jealous of.”
“But it destabilises the models.”
“The models?”
“The probability models. It should be so simple to resolve... these relationships,” she whispered.
“You’ve lost me again.”
“It’s a love triangle. I can see it as clear as day. Max loves Terri, Conrad loves Terri, I love Conrad. No-one loves me.”
“Conrad loves Terri?”
“Shh. Keep your voice down.”
“Sorry. But this is new news.”
“I don’t know whether he has always loved her but he’s never been the same since… since the accident.”
“Accident?”
“Terri’s death. He feels responsible.”
“That’s guilt, not love.”
“It makes little difference. Guilt or no guilt, Conrad loves Terri but won’t do anything about it because she’s Max’s girl.”
“Or perhaps he’s not into girls at all. I don’t what his orientation is, the heads-up has that data masked.”
“Mainly hetro...” she stuttered.
“Perhaps he just hasn’t been able to think about relationships since then? Perhaps he’s never considered you as a potential partner?”
“Why not?” asked Karmen frowning.
“Perhaps he thinks that you’re Max’s girl too?”
“Me? Max’s girl? Oh come on,” she said dismissively.
“Well, you did work together and he brought you into the club.”
“That’s just Re-Dic.”
“Re-Dic or not, have you ever told Conrad how you feel?”
“I’m not a teenager, Aaron. Neither is he.”
“And yet you’re not together. This seems like a real world disconnect problem to me.”
“We’re the very opposite of Virtualistas. We are as real as real can be.”
“And yet not talking.”
“Hmm.”
“Not a virtualista... yet you model your relationship probabilities in a computer?”
“You’re probably making a valid point…” she said though not sounding entirely convinced.
“Conrad will be catching up with us shortly. Are you going to talk to him then?”
“Of course.”
“About how you feel?”
“If the subject comes up...”
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
“That is a common quotation and very vague. I’m always doing something different.”
“You should show him the computer model.”
Karmen went silent. After attempting to reply several times, she said, “Let’s get lunch.”
***
Saturday, February 16, 2123, afternoon
I showed Terri my arm cast.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“Nah.” I love it when she expresses concern. I gave her a fruit juice sachet and gave her a hug. She hugged me back.
“Are we good?” I asked.
“I’ll give you some credit for your heroics today but let’s take it one day at a time, shall we? If we survive the next couple of days, I’ll put you on a marker system. Five black marks and your out: you can earn marks if you stop being annoying, earn some real money,make some new friends and stop making everything a game.”
“But you’ve just made our relationship into a game?”
“Right, you’ve already used up two marks!” she said teasingly and sucked on her straw.
“Ouch.”
“It’s your choice. You can work with me or against me.”
“Ok. This is something I can work upon. Work with you, yes. Especially that if part. If we survive… I’ll work on that definitely.”
We hugged.
“Oh and when Conrad catches up…” I confided.
“Yes?”
“Tell him he needs to give Karmen a big wet kiss.”
“What?”
“A passionate kiss. On the lips. In fact, make that a french kiss since we’re in France.”
“This doesn’t sound like their style. Either of them.”
“This has got to be their style. We all may be dead tomorrow and they both have to pick up their game quickly before it’s too late.”
“What have you been talking to Karmen about?”
“I’m Psychic Kid. Trust me! Everything will work out if Conrad kisses Karmen.”
“Why do I have to tell him?”
“He’ll listen to you. It would just sound daft coming from me.”
Terri settled into my arms. “Well you have a point there. It definitely sounds daft coming from you. But, ok,” she said with a smile. “I can’t argue with the Psychic Kid.”
I looked out into the darkness, “Anything out there?”
“Nothing of any note. No danger as far I can see. No nothing. It’s all monotone. Black, some white, lots of gray. It’s all desolate. It’s like the very definition of the word desolate. A gray-black desert. Like it’s been wiped clean.”
“With humanity is depending on us?” I suggested, laughing at our complete amateur status as world savers.
“That’s humanity’s fault.”
“It is?”
“It’s karmic retribution for the destruction of the Brazilian Rain Forest. For that, they get us as their champions.”
“Shouldn’t the retribution just fall on the Brazilians?”
“No. We’re all to blame.”
I put two fingers onto my head and replied. “My psychic powers tell me that this is true.”
Terri holds up her sachet and proclaims, “Here’s to Psychic Kid!” and we bumped our drink sachets together.
***
Saturday, February 16, 2123, dusk
Conrad and Max-3 arrived at sunset. We had stopped at a river where a bridge should have been and they arrived in a three copter formation; three large quadcopter freighters, one carrying Max-3 and Conrad and the other two full of equipment. Mad-Sci-Soc travels with more gear than a 1970’s prog rock band.
It was really weird dealing with the two Maxes. Obviously they acted and behaved like twin brothers but after a while minor differences emerged. Max-3 seemed completely irrepressible and active while Max-1 seemed just a touch more laid back. The differences were minor.
Both of them fussed over the equipment, Max-1 started with an inventory as there was a lot of boxes. (I notice stuff like that).
Terri had spoken to Conrad and later Conrad and Karmen went off alone. They came back only a short time later not talking.
&nbs
p; I intercepted Karmen. Terri went after Conrad.
“Well?” I asked Karmen.
“The model is re-calibrated. Relationship convergence is now a 100%” said Karmen, not making eye contact.
“He kissed you?”
“Oh yes. A big wet one,” she smiled obliquely.
“I’d expected you to be bit happier…”
“Ah, the other model…”
“Other model?”
“Yes, the team’s chance of success tomorrow. It’s not very good.”
I went back to Terri. She was just returning from her discussion with Conrad.
“Did you get what I just got?”
“That Conrad and Karmen are an item but we’re all going to die?”
“Yeah. That.”
***
Saturday, February 16, 2123, late evening
Around a camp fire, I could see that Conrad and Karmen stood close, trying to disguise the fact that they were holding hands. We had formed a circle, a meeting to decide on a plan. To at least discuss what we knew. Actually what Max knew. Max-3 delivered some nerve wracking background information.
“I have some important information about the Château de Gruyère, the destination we’re heading towards and, I believe, the centre of the hive mind of the Big G.”
“Have you gone into a Legacy Net deep dive to extract the secrets?” I asked.
“No, the tourist information website. Château de Gruyère. It turns out, it is one of the most visited places in Switzerland. The whole town is, maybe was, a national treasure.”
“Hmm, I’m feeling a bit of deja vu here,” mused Conrad. “Mad-Sci-Soc and national treasures go together like oil tankers and coral reefs.”
“There’s some metaphor about having to break eggs to obtain some food stuff,” replied Max-3. “but my cookery skills are not good enough to complete it.”
“So people go there for the famous cheese? So it’s not just Terri that likes the stuff,” I said.
“Sure tourists go there to admire the Medieval Château, and to taste the famous fondue but that’s not the only reason they visit. While the castle is over 800 years old, the walled town is pretty and has largely remained unchanged for eons, one of the major attractions is only a century old. Adding to the Château’s gothic charm is a spooky museum; the Museum of Giger...”
“Giger?” asked Conrad.
“Hans-Ruedi Giger. He was an artist. An artist of the macabre… of nightmares.”
“An artist of nightmares?” Karmen asked, over our collective groans.
“Inspired by, if inspiration is the right word, the legends of Vlad the Impaler, Cthulhu mythology and Necronomicon, he developed an art form like no other, at least for that time and before the invention of photoshop. He created pictures of bio-mechanical creatures of frightening realism.”
“But art, right not real creatures?” asked Terri.
“Not real creatures per se, but such is the power of story-telling that they live on, in a very real sense. Giger’s designs were developed as props in one of my most famous twentieth celluloid two dimensional motion picture experiences. A science fiction horror story called Alien.”
“Ah, the one with the creature saying I want to phone home?” said Terri.
“No, that was a comedy. I’m talking about the one with demonic parasitic beast that transforms from a face-hugging acidic crab to a hyper-intelligent, giant mutogenic, two-mouthed killer with a maternity complex.”
“Ok, that one,” said Terri. So much for her studies into twentieth century Media Studies!
“I don’t want to make too many parallels but Giger’s master work purported to be a recipe book which would bring dreadful misfortune to mankind should it fall into the wrong hands.”
“It was just a bunch of drawings...” muttered Karmen.
“Drawings that may have inspired the Big G. The co-location of the cheese and Giger’s museum seems too much of a coincidence.”
“So er… besides scaring the frack-waste from my bowels, why is this of interest to me?” said Conrad.
“Because I think the Big G has not finished. I’m expecting something to envelope the central hive mind, but it will not be just another giant cyborg hiding in the castle but something else…”
“Something else? Like something even bigger?” asked Karmen.
“Bigger? I don’t know. Just something different.”
“What else do we know about Giger?” asked Conrad.
“Many of his most gruesome works were based on the image of a single woman, an actress called Li Tobler, She was an ethereal, beautiful women but Giger’s painted her wrapped in snakes, disembodied or pierced by needles and attached to bio-mechanical apparatus. She was already a fairly depressed woman but people wonder if it was Giger’s art that drove her to suicide. Only after Li’s death did Giger find fame.”
“Were they lovers?” asked Terri.
“Giger was always madly in love with her but not always terribly coherent and so he was little help when it came to her personal agonies. They were both promiscuous and used unlicensed mood and reality distorting substances. I can assure you the drugs they used in the twentieth century were much stronger than tea or the mood enhancers we use today.”
“Yes, so I’ve heard...” I said.
“I’m guessing that fame was little consolation to him after her death,” suggested Karmen.
“Rumours of Giger’s bizarre life style circulated but the only story that seems to have reliable sources is the story of Li’s death. She committed suicide with a bullet through her head in front of a stack of Giger’s artwork. The bullet travelled through a set of pictures. Apparently Giger never closed up the bullet holes and the bloody remains splattering the outer-most painting incorporated into the final exhibit.”
“And the painting went on display that way?” asked Karmen.
“Apparently so.”
Silence.
Conrad perked up. “Well, this is a great chat to have around a camp fire. Anybody else with any horror stories?”
***
Sunday, February 17, 2123
I still had my arm in a cast. Terri kept me company and we spent most of Sunday by the river bank watching debris float past and trying to guess what it was. Terri won.
It was deceptively quiet. It felt like we were the last people on the planet, although we could receive broadcast news and hear of invasions of giant robots around the world proving that we were not. Clearly we were not identified as a threat to the Big G. Like a flea on a woolly mammoth, we were not even big enough to cause an itch.
Max, Max and Conrad messed with equipment, with Karmen second guessing what they were about to do next.
In the evening, as we gathered for dinner in the bus, I celebrated the removal of my cast. As I made some comment that the team was back up to full strength, to various dismissive sighs, the subject of the plan came up again.
“So what is it? What is the plan?” asked Karmen.
“I’m glad you asked. It’s not going to be too pretty. Three stages: Surveillance, Penetration and the Final Attack. Three stages, three teams,” said Max-1.
“Max, there are only six of us!” said Karmen.
“I’m suggesting three teams of two,” said Max-1.
“Conrad and Karmen, PK and Terri, Max One and myself,” said Max-3.
“Hang on,” I said. “Weren’t we supposed to keep you separated?”
Max-1 replied. “Well I do understand your concern but put it this way, all our probability models have suggested that the first two teams will be annihilated.”
“You mean killed?”
“Pretty much.”
“So this is a suicide mission?” I asked with a faltering voice.
“I’ll get to that. The first team, with the aid of a drone swarm, will survey the environment and find the best route into the Castle.”
“Right, and then retreat?”
“Retreat, yes. If possible. But probably…” M
ax-1 wobbled his hands. “Probably not.”
“So the second team?”
“The second team’s job, I presume, is to disable the defenses and provide a route to the cortex of the hive mind,” suggested Conrad
“And kill it!” added Karmen.
“Kill it, yes. Yes, that’s the aim if possible. If it was that simple then great. We go home, receive glory. Retire, and live a long elite life-style happily ever after but probably…” Max-1 wobbled his hands again. “Probably not.”
“Why not?”
“The basic tactics of any megalomaniac, one-of-a-kind tyrant is to increase their defences in an exponential fashion around its most precious assets. In fact I’m relying on that fact in order to understand where to strike. It will have at least one, if not two back-up systems. It will have not one or two, but countless layers of defence systems. The chances that we can outwit and defeat them all are an inverse scale to the exponential increase in its defense…”
“So you are saying, our chances are next to nothing?” said Karmen.
“Well, I don’t need to remind you, Karmen, but for the others here, an exponential factor will tend towards but never reach a final limit. Unbounded as we are, we have two limits, either infinite or zero. So yes, our chances are tending towards zero. But. But, since Gruyère cannot build an infinite number of defences then our chances cannot be zero either.”
“That’s comforting,” I said sarcastically.
“But the other factor to bear in mind,” said Max-3, “is bifurcation theory! Gruyère’s defences cannot be well tested or embedded, hence a severe testing of its systems is likely to create a cuspoidal break. And that will be our opportunity.”
“You’re saying that we need to find a weakness and exploit it,” suggested Conrad.
“Exactly,” said Max-1.
“This is no different to the climax in Star Wars,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Fire a missile at an open vent and blow up the Death Star.”
“Except that we have to find the Death Star, find the vent if one exists, blow it up and probably not escape,” said Max-3.
“So that’s why we need three teams. But why are the magical Maxes together, couldn’t you just bunk off into a different time zone?”
“And time-jack us?” suggested Terri.
“Time-jack?” asked Conrad.
“Terri believes that I am responsible for subjunctive crimes. Could-have, may-soon-have-had, could-would-have type situations. Changing time-lines to help us in the present, “ explained Max-1 helpfully.