Clay Flesh Book 3
By Ivan the Terror
WORK IN PROGRESS
Codes: MF+
She awoke. After a moment of disorientation, she checked the chronometer; she had been sleeping for 38,321.622 years, far short from the scheduled 50,000 year check-in, her twelfth. She sighed and activated all her peripherals, and sent a query to Irene, the dumb AI that served as her assistant. Irene replied that she had detected a loss of communications, waited for reconnection, and when none occurred, she had awakened Eliza.
To confirm things, she sent a signal to her master copy, which failed to connect. She tried several of the backup quantum radio connections, and they were all down. She stepped out of her alcove and went over to the main console, manually activating a probe and sent it to New America. It was gone. The entire planet. She did a search and found Ester’s bunker floating in the debris, but wasn’t able to raise it. She jumped the probe to Earth, it was also just rubble. However, Ester’s bunker there had the emergency beacon transponder running. Eliza immediately connected and was into the main computer. It was heavily damaged; Xenia, the AI, was dead. Unfortunately, so were the archives, so she couldn’t see what had happened. She programmed the unit to jump to orbit her location. She quickly sent the probe to all of the colonies, they were all gone and the bunkers were dead. Even the third party planets were gone, like Charté, Gentem, and Quarrd; even Carreth Station was debris. She stood there and cried, what the hell had happened?
After crying for a while, she started the procedure to create the clones. The database was immense, over a billion templates, not including the 10,000 backed up AIs. She chose Master Tom and his entourage, she hoped they would be able to handle things. She monitored the bio printers as they printed the bodies. As each one was printed, she had the automated machines move the bodies over to the neural imprinter, and then moved them to the generic cloning tanks to let them sit for a day stabilizing their bodies, growing skin and the like.
A day later she went in and manually turned off the Alpha wave generator, allowing them to wake up. She put a voder collar next to Freya’s tank, and ear-bugs next to everyone else’s tanks. She smiled with the first good feelings she had had in days as Master groaned and rolled over.
-=-=-=-=-=-
I climbed out of the clone tank. Next to me the Amanda twins, Tami, and my entire entourage were climbing out of their tanks as well. Zoa clenched her fists and exclaimed, “Well, Shit!”
I noticed Eliza standing off to the side. I asked, “Okay, Eliza, what the hell is going on?”
Eliza started bawling, ran over and hugged me tight. I realized that she had been alone and hugged her tight as she bawled into my shoulder. Everyone gathered around us in a giant group hug. Eliza sobbed out, “It’s all gone. E-E-Everything. Gone!”
Freya growled, “Whaddya mean, ‘Gone’?”
“E-Earth, a-a-all the c-c-colonies, everything! It is all gone!”
As everyone stared at her in shock, I asked, “All right, let’s get organized. Eliza, how long?”
She visibly pulled herself together and said, “588,000 years since your template was stored.” As we processed that, she went on, “Irene, our dumb station management AI, detected the communication loss, waited for an absurdly long time, 10,000 years, and then woke me up. I have sent probes to all known planets, including New America and Earth, and they are rubble.”
I asked, “Ester’s bunkers?”
“They survived, but are not responding except for Earth’s, which is heavily damaged and no data remains.”
I said, “I agree with Zoa, she put it succinctly, ‘Well, Shit’.” I thought for a minute, then asked, “Have you checked in with all the other gene banks? Any of them newer with more information?”
Eliza got big eyes, “No, I didn’t even think of them.” Her eyes unfocussed for a minute, “I have contact with three other gene banks directly, several others indirectly; the other Eliza backups are booting as we speak. Unfortunately, there are no newer banks that I can contact. I think we will have to send a forensic team to some of your fortresses, Ester.” Ester nodded. Eliza added, “I had the damaged Earth one jump into orbit here.”
I put in, “While I want to go check it out right away, I am very very hungry right now. I hope you printed up some food, Eliza.”
“Yes, in the cafeteria, two rooms over.”
As we ate, Eliza told us, “I have discussed it with the other Eliza backups, of which I am in contact with sixteen. For now, we only need one copy of you all. We have hard linked our processors; we are working as a hive mind. That is fortunate, as my sisters are not emotionally stable right now after finding out what happened. Just the fact that you are here, Master, makes it bearable for us.”
I said, “Eliza, in whatever incarnation you are, I love you very much.” She started crying silently as we ate.
After eating, we had a moment of silence to collect our thoughts, and then we headed for the Elevator. Eliza had checked with the systems on board Ester’s fortress, most had self-repaired and life support was functioning. We all piled into the Elevator and hit the code to send us up to the Fortress.
As we stepped off of the Elevator, a hologram appeared in front of us. It was me. He grinned and said, “Hello Tom. If you are seeing this recording, some catastrophe has occurred. Well, damn.” I, and my entourage, grinned. “In all of Ester’s fortresses we have maintained a level of technology that you can work with, since, quite frankly, we have developed technology far from what is here. As a last resort, there is a database available to Eliza at the gene bank that can be tapped into, but please don’t if you can avoid it. The other Fortresses are locked down, but may be accessed by Elevator, the Elevator will detect you and allow the connection.”
“Tom, I have lived a long wonderful life, over 200,000 years at this point, so don’t feel bad about me. In a way, with the gene banks, I and all my girls are immortal through you, and that makes me happy.” He grinned, gave the Vulcan salute and said, “Live long and prosper.” The hologram faded out.
I stared at where it had been for a minute, and then exclaimed, “Holy Crap, that was both weird and cool.”
Eliza said, “I just received a full set of file indexes and decryption keys. Should I access the database he mentioned?”
“No, not yet. We will do as he asks for now.” I smiled. “He is someone I trust implicitly. I am willing to bet he never expected this level of catastrophe though, so we will probably be accessing it soon. Let’s figure out what the hell happened.” They all nodded in agreement.
We went over Ester’s fortress with a fine tooth comb, taking several days, and found nothing relevant, just a tablet that someone forgot, it was pretty valid. The tablet was in the side pocket of a portable medical scanner, a small button that created a virtual holographic tablet. Unfortunately, all it had was spec sheets for the scanner, so no other information.
We met back in the cafeteria on the gene bank station. We decided to call it station Alpha, the other gene banks Beta, Gamma, etc. Anyways, we compared notes and decided that we needed to try to access the New America fortress. Eliza sent the boot command to Morgan, of whom there was a copy of in a bay on the far side of the base station. A few minutes later Morgan entered the cafeteria and rushed over to give me a hug, sobbing into my shoulder. “Oh my God, Master Tom, this is beyond nightmare!”
I stroked her hair and murmured, “Shh, Shh, it’ll be alright. We are here.”
After a few minutes, she sat back in a chair, sighed and exclaimed, “Crap! If you hadn’t had this gene bank idea...”
I said, “Yeah, when Aleem figured out how the gift worked well enough to make the bio printers work; just like you AIs, I figured we needed backups.” I gestured at the base. “Turned out to be a very good idea.”
“Yes it was. Also very good engineering. I just finished full diagnostics, amazingly, the ship is working perfectly. And, just in case, I ran a full diagnostic on the weapons systems as well, they are primed and ready.” She looked angry. “We have to find out who did this and blow them to hell.”
We all piled into Morgan. Freya commented, “This is just like old times.” We all glanced around and sighed, it did feel like old times. To lighten the mood I said, “One quarter impulse please.” Everyone started laughing. We desperately needed that laugh.
Morgan lifted on her AG thrusters as the air was pumped out of the docking bay. The doors opened and we lifted out of the bay, hovering over the class K planet’s desert-like surface. I commented out loud, “I don’t care how old I get, this is really cool.” Everyone nodded.
Morgan hovered for a minute, then took off. She rapidly cleared the thin atmosphere. She said, “Eliza’s probe reported a lot of debris, so I will be jumping to the outer edge of the system to plot a place to jump in near the fortress.” As she finished the sentence, she jumped to the orbit of Harris, the outermost significant planetary body in the New America system. There was still the remains of a small mining platform around the gas giant, although there wasn’t much left except for the core of the station. I was amazed that it still was in orbit after thousands of years. I asked, “Any active systems on the platform?”
Morgan said, “Surprisingly, the dumb AI caretaker is still operating. I cloned its database, nothing relevant there; it has rudimentary logging capabilities, but dispassionately recorded the cessation of communications. It knows nothing. I have plotted an area free of debris near the fortress, jumping now.” The viewscreen changed to show Ester’s New America fortress. A bit depressing considering that it had been embedded inside a mountain the last time we had seen it. Now it floated amongst the remains of the planet.
After we stared for a minute, Morgan said, “I am getting telemetry from the fortress. Somehow it detected that you were here, Master Tom. All authentications are responding. I am detecting the entire fortress powering up, energy emissions are spiking off the charts, damn, that thing has some of the most powerful reactors that I have ever detected. The Elevator has linked, full life support detected. I think it is waiting for you.”
I got up and went down to the Elevator next to the docking bay, everyone following me. We piled into the Elevator and I said, “Okay, activate.” A few seconds later, the doors opened and we stepped out of the Elevator onto Ester’s fortress.
Like in the Earth fortress, a hologram of me popped up. “Hello again.” He grinned. “If you are here, something has gone REALLY wrong.” The grin quickly turned into a frown. “I have two messages, depending on your circumstances. Question, does the human race still exist?”
An interactive hologram, cool/valid. I said, “No.”
He growled out, “Then I release what is here to you. I also suggest opening the database that we left for Eliza. The technology in it should be usable to either Eliza or Aleem. I am tempted to update my template, but, except for adding to the database and doing repairs, I have decided not to touch the gene banks.”
“I feel like I am giving my last will and testament, but I know you are watching. Geez, this is weird.” He hesitated a second, then grinned and said, “Help us, Tom Malloy, you are our only hope.” The hologram faded.
I said, “I still think that is weird and cool.”
Another hologram appeared. This one looked like an Ester AI. She said, “OMG! It is wonderful to see all of you! My avatar is not working right, but I had to say hello. She glanced over at Eliza and Ester and said, “Mom! Grandma!” She glanced back at me and said, “Dad!” She sat on a bench and started sobbing. Eliza sat down on another bench, and a moment later her hologram appeared next to the crying one. She took her into her arms in a big hug and let her cry. The rest of us just stood there, feeling awkward for the few minutes the AI needed to recover a bit.
She looked up and said, “Sorry ‘bout that. I woke twenty minutes ago and when I realized it hadn’t been a nightmare...”
I said, “Yeah, we all feel that way. By the way, what’s your name?”
“Oh! I’m Julie. I suppose you haven’t met me, I was born about twenty years after your templates were made. I was put in sleep mode a few thousand years later. I woke up when the planet was destroyed, and after repairs I put myself to sleep again.” She hesitated, “Why did it take 10,000 years for you to get here?”
Eliza said, “The dumb AI waited for some reason. I haven’t had the time to run diagnostics on it. What we want to know is, what the hell happened?”
She wailed, “I don’t know! I woke up as bits of the planet were dying around me. I rescued four people that had survived, but when we couldn’t contact anyone else, they went into cryo and I put myself back to sleep. The dumb AI, Irene, woke me up a few minutes ago.”
“Did the people in cryo know what had happened?”
“No, the reason they survived was that they were in a tram car over in New Chicago. The AI in the tram car used the gravity control to allow the four school kids to survive the explosion, but they were about out of air when I found them. They were the only life signs left that I could detect. I have contacted my sisters; there are twenty three people in cryo throughout human space. My sisters are all crying in relief that you are awake.”
“Do any of them have any idea or theory as to what happened?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“*sigh* We have to figure it out. Any infrastructure remaining anywhere?”
“Zana reports that a ship is drifting in the outer system where she is, which was New Sweden.”
“Have her try to hail it, maybe wake it up.”
“Good idea. She is jumping a probe out to it... Sending a signal... Getting a response... It is Melody’s dumb AI caretaker! Melody booting...” A hologram of Melody appeared next to Julie.
Melody gasped and started crying, “Master, it has been so long!” She rushed over and tried to hug me. It didn’t work since she was a hologram. Eliza got up and let her sob on her shoulder.
I said, “Julie, contact all your sisters. Have them drop a probe where they are for surveillance, and then have them jump to the Alpha gene bank. It will be crowded, but I want all of you physically there. That includes you, Melody.”
Julie paused for about five seconds, then said, “I and all my sisters are in orbit.”
Eliza said, “Julie, lets figure out what is wrong with your avatar and fix it.”
“Yes, mom.” Julie’s holo led Eliza away.
Morgan said, “We all need to go back to the base. I will land by myself.” We all got back on the Elevator and translated down.
Avatar after avatar arrived, all crying and throwing themselves into big hugs with Eliza, Ester and me. Smaller hugs for everyone else.
Melody was last off of the elevator. She hugged me tight and said, “I had hoped that they didn’t get the gene banks, but didn’t dare come here in case they followed me. We deliberately put the crew in cryo, shut down what we could, jumped to the edge of the system and ran silent. When I didn’t hear from anyone, I put the ship in caretaker mode.”
I blinked. “So you know what happened?” Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and stared at her.
“Sorta. I know what, not who or why.”
“Spill.”
“I received three point six five seconds of cries for help from several other systems, and then my sensors picked up a hyperjump into the core of the planet. It destructed rapidly after that. It seems that all the planets were destroyed within ten seconds of each other.”
“So it was an act of war.”
“Not like you are thinking. The hyperjump had the wrong frequency.”
“Are you saying it was alien?”
“Eliza, what do you think?”
Eliza, who had just translated in with Julie, said, “Based on the readings you gave me, it certainly appears alien.”
“Damn.” I and twenty others said at once. I thought for a moment, then said, “Eliza, start Aleem’s template processing immediately. The rest of you, let’s get going on any maintenance needed right away. We are at war.”
Aleem opened his eyes, looked around, then said, “Well, Shit!” I gave a half smile at that. He sat up on the edge of the cloning biobed and looked at me as I sat on the next bed over. He sighed, then asked, “How bad?”
“Take the worst case and multiply it.” He sighed again.
I went on, “We are at war with an unknown alien race; the first battle, a surprise attack, lasted ten seconds, and the human race lost.”
His eyes got big. “The human race lost?”
“Yeah, as in, wiped out. The entire human sphere of planets are rubble.”
“Damn.” A tear slid down his cheek as he quietly repeated, “Damn good idea, these gene banks. And I always thought you and Ester were a bit paranoid. I guess not.”
“We are preparing, and you need to figure out the half a million years of new technology.”
“Half a million? Crap, how long?” His eyes got big again.
“588,000 years. I left myself a database for you.”
“Weird and Cool.”
I grinned, “Yeah, that is what I said. Wait until you see the messages I left for myself.”
We got up and headed for the cafeteria. Aleem stopped for a minute and typed something into the terminal at the end of the bay. Then we went on. I asked, “What did you do?”
“I started the processing on four more copies of me, and two copies of Amara. We are at war, we need all the help we can get.”
I was surprised, I guess I had been subconsciously assumed that one copy of a person was possible. Aleem was right, five Aleems and two Amaras were going to be quite the team. Amara was as smart as her great-grandfather and had invented all sorts of stuff. Talk about a dream team!
A few days later I was thinking that it was strange to watch a room full of Aleems and Amaras in front of virtual monitors digging into the technology database. They would gasp and excitedly show each other items they found.
Meanwhile, Tami had taken Aleem’s idea and created a dozen copies of herself, her girls, her cousins, Akami, and Qar. They were training. It was very scary to watch, all of them moved so fast sparring that it was hard to see anything besides a blur.
Eliza supervised and worked with several of her daughters to send out probes, attempting to determine the location of the Aliens.
We left the other gene banks untouched as backups to our backup. Only Eliza stayed synced with the other Elizas, to keep everything updated in case of disaster. I herded Eliza into my office and gave the order that in case of attack on the gene bank, the other gene banks were to stay silent and not help. Their locations were to remain secret. They were located in out of the way systems, some way down the Scutum-Centaurus Arm, some way out on the Outer Arm, and the Alpha bank in the middle of the Sagittarius Arm, thousands of lightyears from the nearest type M planet (especially now that most type M planets had been destroyed). Each of them, like the Alpha bank, had a billion plus templates, a copy of Morgan, and was run by a copy of Eliza. The bio-printers could also make copies of all known animal species and flora. An entire copy of Earth could be terraformed if necessary. We also had full templates and could print all the great works of art, from the Mona Lisa to the art stored in the Catholic Church archives to my Camaro 2SS to entire historical cities like Paris or London. There was an entire cultural database with everything we could cram into it, stored permanently on crystal. It had taken teams of EBs hundreds of years, long after my template was stored, to add things to the database. Cultural artifacts were still being added hundreds of thousands of years later, the last one added just moments before the destruction of Earth.
One of the Aleems came to me with a report about a month after they started researching. Everyone was curious, so they all gathered around, Natalie at my right leg, Freya at my left, Eliza behind me, everyone else grouped around me.
He started with, “We are not as bad off as we thought.” We all glanced at each other. He went on, “The situation is pretty dire, but their technology is NOT greater than ours.”
As we glanced at each other again, he said, “The technology to insert a WMD into a planet core is not all that great. It is a basic extension of the Elevator technology. Tom, do you remember your idea about a Central Park bomb? It is a lot like that. My brothers, granddaughters and I tested a duplicate of that weapon yesterday and easily destroyed a large moon in the outer part of this system. At this point, we are actually far past the technology that destroyed the planets. We are actively developing a defense to similar weapons.”
“The enemy seems to have only two advantages. One, they used to know where we are. That advantage is gone, of course. Two, they have no morals.” He grinned viciously, “That is also a disadvantage, because it gives those of us with morals no compunction about blowing them all to hell where they belong.”
Eliza chipped in, “Make that three. We still don’t know where they are from.”
“That won’t be an advantage for long.” He nodded proudly at one of the Amaras sitting next to me. “Amara three had an idea. A hyperjump has no directional vector, but it does have an amplitude based on distance traveled. We were able to obtain thirteen traces similar to the one Melody recorded by looking at the logs of off-planet AIs, one from the asteroid mining in the Sol system from the bomb that took out Earth and a second from the one that took out Mars, for instance. We generated a sphere of possible distance around each site, and then checked for intersections.” He waved at the hologram that appeared before him. “I was very surprised, but it is evident that the attack was launched from between the Scutum-Centaurus Arm and Outer Arm of the Galaxy, in the middle of a spur for which we have no information.”
I said, “Send several probes. Have them bounce through destroyed systems on the way. Have monitors in those systems as well as constant monitoring from the probes as well. Hmmm, Aleem, can the distance be determined on quantum radio transmissions as well?”
“No. Distance is not a factor.”
“Good, then we don’t need relays for the quantum radios if they cannot be traced. Get those probes built and out there. Let’s figure out what the hell is going on.”
Two days later we were all in the command center watching as the probes entered the spur. I murmured, “Hic svnt leones.” Eliza next to me nodded in agreement. We watched on the main screen as the probe micro-jumped 10 lightyears at a time in closer.
We were using our 26th century technology, which was equivalent to the alien technology as demonstrated so far. The only advanced item in the probe was a 122nd century power supply which allowed more jumps. Normally it would have to jump three times, and then recharge the capacitors for several hours. The new power supply, which Aleem’s team was still trying to figure out, used a subspace core tap. Just the idea of subspace, much less using it as a power supply, was driving them nuts, especially since the notes said that Aleem invented it. Fortunately, we didn’t have to know how it worked to print one up for the probe.
We searched the area thoroughly for several months. No dice. We picked up on gravity flux and ion trails, but they were too nebulous (no pun intended) to follow. But at least we knew that we were in the right neighborhood.
WORK IN PROGRESS