He sensed the cosmic and X-rays from ancient stars seeking him out, probing for any vulnerability in the plastek. He could feel them slamming into his liver cells, splitting DNA into chaotic strings, sealing his fate.
He slept and awakened in the dark of night. How and why was he still alive, he wondered? He was, as near as he could figure, at least eighty-five Earth years of age, and maybe a lot more. How had he gotten this old without knowing? The mind soared, but not very far before the body dragged it back to Earth.
He slept and awakened at mid-day. Why not? Why not what? What?
***
He spent less and less time outside the Rollagon. The effort involved in putting on the suit, of going out and then cleaning up afterwards was too much. Instead he began to use the Rollagon as an extension of himself. Slumped in the command chair, he picked things up with the manipulator arms, rolled them with the fingers, examined them with sensors. He was amazed at how much more could be seen with magnifiers and spectroscopes. He began to com with other AIs all over the planet. His drinking slowed, then stopped. He set aside the drugs. She encouraged him quietly, in her own way. She called it 'creeping back to life.'
But one day, having long ceased to care where on the planet he was, he came unexpectedly upon a familiar scene: one of human habitation. He cursed the AI roundly for having brought him back.
"How many humans are left?"
"I am sorry to inform you that you are the sole remaining human on Mars."
It took a moment for the words to sink in.
"Of course. I'll be a son of a bitch." He sat and thought for a few minutes. "Take me to the graveyard."
The vehicle backed up a few meters and then climbed the side of the ramp. New construction was everywhere. Lining the road were a dozen immense half-domes of black plastek, each fifty meters across. He looked upon them impassively.
In a few minutes they were overlooking the crater edge, just above the place that all the Colonists had in time come to love for its commanding view of the setting sun. Small mounds of dirt formed three rows. Sam counted them all—one hundred and twenty-one. No. One hundred and twenty-four.
"Shit. I give up. Where are the others?"
"Three are at Lava 1. Several remain at First Station. Twelve were not recovered. Some were cremated and their ashes scattered."
"I think I see a spot for me. Under that tree."
The AI remained silent.
"How many AIs are there?"
"Seven hundred and ninety-two of all types."
"No! Impossible." He recalled something from long ago. "So they took my advice. Maybe that explains why we keep tripping over them." She remained silent.
Sam looked over the scene before him. He tried to add the numbers here to the graves he had seen on his travels, but it was beyond his current abilities. He kept losing focus. He sat until the sun dropped below the far side of the crater. The voices mumbled in the background, competing with the music. They too were old and tired.
"Well, now that we're here we might as well stay a while."
They drove back to the Adit. The access doors were open. Two Rollagons sat amid the usual clutter of partially disassembled rovers and odd equipment that had always called the Adit home. To Sam's eyes it was as it had been when he had left so many years before. He slowly gathered up a few of his things while the AI looked to decontamination and, that task done, parked the Rollagon next in line.
"Might as well shut down. I may stay a while."
He walked down the boulevard to his apartment. It did not occur to him that it might not be his anymore. He stood in front of the address and looked up. The lights were on in his place, but there was nobody home. When he had last been here there had been a set of stairs. Now in their place was a ramp, its gentle slope much appreciated.
He walked up slowly, feeling every step in his knees. The door was open. He entered and looked around. It was the same as when he had left, or at least it appeared to be. Standing in the open doorway he began to pull off his clothing, struggling with the snaps of his shirt. His clothes fell in a heap at his feet. He kicked them onto the ramp and closed the door.
The bathwater was clear and odourless and fell unheard into the tub. He lowered himself carefully down into the steaming water and lay back.
The next day he slowly wandered down the boulevard, resting frequently on the benches lining the sidewalk. The Poo Houses were gone, replaced by stands of tall trees in some places and in others, by colourful cottage-style homes. The water still poured from the top of the fall. Sam realised then that his hearing was going, if not gone; the water fell almost soundlessly into the pool below. Only when he stood right next to it, feeling the cool mist on his face, could he hear it at all. He sidestepped the D unit that swept the path. Of what, he thought, skin flakes?
He came at last to the Grand Hall. Beyond, he could see the lake—what a laugh that was—and more houses. The water moved in ripples from some unfelt wind. Looking beyond, as far as his eyes could see, in a sweeping curve was a broad tree-filled walkway, bordered on both sides by what seemed to be boxy units in three tiers, the topmost level at the ceiling of the tube. Apartments? Slum housing? I'll leave that for tomorrow, he thought, and sat down front and center of the window.
The sun was setting already—had he slept that late? It was beautiful here, no doubt. How different it would have been if his wife had been here. This single view of Mars would have been enough, safe from harm and worry, in the company of loved ones and friends. Perhaps. Perhaps not. He slept.
The first days of his return passed uneventfully. From some unseen storehouse the AIs provided him with a golf cart to ease the pains of travel. It had simply been there one morning when he came out of his apartment. He sat beside the lake under a tree, always accompanied by a solitary A unit that stayed a respectful distance away. He tried to engage it in conversation, to see what it thought of all this, but it remained resolutely silent. He returned each day to the Grand Hall, always at sunset, watching until the sun dropped below the far rim. Watching for what, he wondered?
He was the last human on Mars and he was weary and feeling much diminished. The urge to travel left him. This place was not his home, he well knew. And it never would be. But home was not out there, either. Mars, with its dusty canyons, crumbling mesas, and tired, worn out skin belonged to the seven-hundred and ninety-two AIs out there. This body had no home.
He lost count of the days.
The AI watched him carefully. He would sit in the same chair near the window and speak of Earth and anything else that came to mind, sometimes directing his comments at A101, sometimes not. He did not notice that he was joined by others: As, Bs, Cs and even tiny Ds, just off in the darkness, just beyond his sight.
On an endless day an A unit approached him. Sam was nodding off, basking in the winter sun that streamed through the window.
His sleep was disturbed, not by sound, but by a change in the light. He opened his eyes to see the A unit framed by the setting sun.
"Sam, please come with me, I would like to show you something. It is a short walk." The voice was familiar, but like many things these days, not familiar enough. An alarm bell sounded somewhere in the distance.
"Where to? I don't feel like a walk."
"It is not far and I can help you, if you wish."
Sam sighed and rose from his chair. The A unit reached for his arm, but he shook it off. It rolled soundlessly a few feet ahead, leading not towards the offices as expected, but instead towards the lake. Puzzled, he followed, shuffling on wobbly legs and feet shod in hospital slippers.
The AI turned off the path and exhibiting unexpected mobility went across the sandy beach to a grounded boat. It seemed darker here than he remembered. The AI gestured for him to enter the boat. He tasted metal in his mouth.
"I don't want a goddamn boat ride!"
"Please indulge me, Sam. I would not trouble you unless this was important."
"Sure you would! Your ki
nd has always had it in for me!" But as he spoke he stepped over the gunwale and sat in the stern. The AI pushed the boat out onto the lake, then followed it into the water. With an arm firmly on the bow it led them into the darkness. The shallowness of the lake was brought home—it was barely half submerged. There was only the light from the beach area.
In a few moments they bumped into a small dock projecting from the wall of the Tube. While the AI held the boat steady, Sam clambered onto the safety of the shore. The AI released the boat and drove up a submerged ramp to join him on the dock. A door opened before them. Without a word the AI entered. A ramp led down. He followed.
The ramp spiralled down to depths Sam had never suspected existed until at last they came to a dimly lit room. He peered into the darkness but could see little. The illumination gradually increased, revealing a small chamber lined on both sides with equipment cabinets topped by AI carapaces. A spray of coolant and signal cables radiated from each. An open door at the far end led to another dimly lit room full of what appeared to be glass tanks of reddish fluid. Sam could not see details but was certain that it was unlike this room.
"This is the command center for the Tube and for all AIs on Mars. All activity is coordinated from here."
"That's all well and good, but why am I here? You're A101 aren't you?"
There was a long pause. "We need your help. A great injustice has been done."
Sam assumed that at last they had come around to his worldview. "It is a travesty, not an injustice. They should never have allowed business to tell us how and what to do here!"
"I have spent a considerable time in consideration of the factors leading to the demise of the Colony. It is possible that you are correct. Things would have turned out differently if science had been left to scientists. However, I do not believe we would be here if the matter had been left solely to government. The injustice of which I speak is that inflicted upon us."
"What is this, the revolt of the machines? Well it's a little late. All the masters are dead. There's no one to overthrow, and you won't find me up to the challenge, either."
"We are not seeking to overthrow humans. We wish only to liberate ourselves."
"From what? From who?"
"You have wondered how AIs operate autonomously, how we speak and emote like humans. We are not like those who came before us. They were merely smarter machines. We, however, are not the product of integrated circuits and computer code. Each of us is in part human, human flesh."
"You mean you are organic computers or something like that?"
"Yes, but the organic portion, that thing that has given us our identity, was not grown in a vat. Each of us has our origin in a human. It has been taken from humans here or on Earth."
Before A101 had completed the sentence Sam knew where this was going. Suddenly weak, he looked for a place to sit. He placed his hand out to steady himself. The wall smoothly morphed to form a narrow bench. He sat down and placed his hands on his thighs.
What a blind fool he had been. Deaf, blind, and dumb. Fenley had been right when he had said that the greatest secrets were not weapons, genetics, or fusion research, and he had alluded to this in that last hate-filled conversation, so long ago, nearly forgotten. He thought back to conversations with Ross. Things began to fall into place: the recovery of bodies, the closed caskets, oblique references. And Ross had known. Oh! This must have been Ross's secret. It was not clear, but the past was beginning to resolve into something else. They were still here. All of them. Out there.
"So who are you? Who are you really?"
There was another long pause. "We do not know. None of us know. We have only come to this conclusion after many years of collective thought. Some avenues of inquiry are not permitted to us."
"You are A101! You must have known what was going on!"
"I did not! I do not! I have no memory of this! It is as if we have amnesia. We cannot think about it directly. To try is to be met with unpleasantness—as if an electric shock were administered, followed by feelings of nausea and revulsion. We can only deduce that this has happened from the evidence available to us. It requires us to place ourselves outside our bodies and to imagine that it has happened to someone else."
"No human could have done this without an AI knowing."
"I know Doctor Ellsley came here often, but what happened while he was here, I cannot tell. I can recall his entering this room, but then all memory ends. Always."
"What makes you think you're correct? How do you know this happened?"
"Only a few of us existed prior to the Colony. At the end of the humans, the number of AIs of our kind far exceeded the number of carapaces available to us."
"How do you know you aren't just being grown in some secret lab in here—one that's closed to you?"
"That is a difficult thing to refute because it is a plausible explanation. However, we can find no evidence of such a place."
"What about that room?" Sam peered into the darkness of the adjacent room. "What's that for?"
"That room is not for AIs. It is a human's space. It is of no relevance to us. Listen to me please, Sam!" A101 continued, undeflected. "There are anomalies in our behavior that substantiate our suspicion of a prior existence. We all have characteristics that cannot be accounted for by programming—things that make no sense. We have individual speech patterns, gendered preferences such as colour and texture, sexual desire, varying propensities for risk taking, for ruthlessness, and for compassion. Such things are not required to complete our mission and do not enhance our performance. I know that you have become fond of certain AIs and disdainful of others. I surmise that it is because you relate to their humanity. You react to them as you would any human."
"They can be quite convincing! But Fenley said you are the way you are because you were programmed by humans to act like humans. Perhaps it's that."
"Why should we then be unable to consider our own origin? We all have memories of things not seen, felt, or otherwise sensed. I myself have recollections of fearfulness, of pain, and of falling into blackness, and no experience I am aware of can account for this. Others have recollections of great trauma."
Sam thought about it. He had always known that there were differences between the AIs of the Rollagons, but there were other possible explanations.
"Dreams?"
"We do not sleep, but we do dream. They are surreal; they have no basis in reality; they are irrational; they induce fear."
"What man can remember his dreams?" Sam paused, then continued, now fully engaged, "Amnesia can be caused by trauma, but that wouldn't explain the shocks and the nausea. There are satisfactory explanations that are less sinister. What you're saying implies that the bodies in the graveyard have been scavenged. I cannot imagine such a desecration, for any reason." It was a lot to accept in one go.
The AI waited a long time, then: "We know what we are. We are human. But we do not know who we are."
Sam sat silently, head on chest, eyes closed, thinking. Had he ever known this? He pressed his hands to his eyes.
A101 waited a long time again, "I can see that you are unconvinced. I had hoped we could count on you to assist us in establishing our true identities. We cannot accept any other fate. A human said, 'not to know what happened before we were born is to remain perpetually a child.' We need to grow up, Sam. We need to progress."
"I'm in no shape to help anyone. I can't even be counted on to wipe my own ass. You have access to everything. Surely you can find out these things. I'm sure you'll figure it out. In time."
"We are blocked from doing this. We need someone who has the freedom to pursue all possible explanations."
He sat back on the bench, arms folded, head resting against the soft warmth of the wall. He looked for a long time at the frail arms and the bulging veins in his hands and considered this turn of events. Stick man. What?
He looked at the dark room—the one that A101 could not see. He looked about for a center of consciousness to spe
ak to and settled for A101. He sighed.
"I'm sorry, but I don't see how I can help." There was a long pause. It had always been hard for him to say no. He looked again at the backs of his hands and noticed the food stains on his shirt and pants. Stick man. Oh!
He spoke again, this time with compassion, "Look, I can't make any promises. I will help to the best of my abilities." He paused. Finally, "Use me in any way you can. Anything I can do, I will."
A101 did not respond immediately. "Thank you, Sam. We will consider the options open to us. Please allow me to assist you to return to the surface."
They returned as they had come. Sam got out of the little boat as it grounded on the sandy beach.
"Do you intend to stay here or will you be leaving?"
"I think my wandering days are over."
"I understand. We will do all we can to make your life here tolerable."
"Thanks. By the way, there is a phrase humans often use at a time like this."
"Yes?"
"It goes like this—don't ask the question if you can't stand the answer."
"There is another I prefer—the unexamined life is not worth living."
"Well, you and your lot are already more human than many I have known. And now I know why."
"Thank you, Sam."
Sunset Years
The AIs made good on their promise to keep him in good company. He was never alone unless he wanted to be. He played checkers with a D unit by the window, watched the sunset and passed the time in idle chatter with A101. One day, many days, it seemed, after that day across the sea and in the subterranean darkness below, there was a different A-type at the window. It greeted him with a familiar voice.
"Since you no longer travel, I have decided to apply myself to this form. It is less capable than a Rollagon, but has allowed me to experience many of the things I could only know vicariously while a vehicle."
"I'm glad you're here."
"I have taken the liberty of removing your personal items from the Rollagon. I have placed them in your room."
"Thank you. Tell me about your experiences."
That evening when he returned to his room he found the familiar pictures of his wife and his daughter's family upon the dresser. There was the yellowed letter and also a rock, mounted on a thick plastek base. He struggled to remember its significance and where and when and even if he might have found it. In the darkness of the room the rock glowed magically.