Chaos Quarter (28 page)

“Who are ‘Gods’?”

Chakrika laughed, “You’re on your own on that one, honey.”

She moved into the kitchen and began rumbling about. Second walked over and watched, to Chakrika’s chagrin. The striped woman went about making some sort of stew, dumping in various meats, vegetables, and broths from metal cans. As it cooked the smell filled the room. Second found it strangely enticing. An emptiness filled her, followed by a restlessness, then an almost pleasant feeling. She cocked her head as she watched, not sure what was happening.

“That’s called hunger,” Rex said, moving from one of the maintenance closets. “Be nice, Chaki.”

“She freaks me out!” Chakrika replied, ignoring Second’s presence altogether.

“You’re managing one child well enough,” Rex said, disappearing toward the bridge.

Chakrika sighed heavily and then retrieved a bowl from the cabinet. She ladled out a small amount and passed it, with a fork, to Second. Second moved to grab the bowl and pulled her hands back in pain.

“It’s hot,” Chakrika informed.

Second looked at her hands for a moment. The burning she’d felt inside she now felt on her fingers. But this time it was fading. Were these even the same pains? She didn’t know, nor did she realize that her subconscious made the connection between heat and pain and established a firm desire to avoid both. She simply picked up the fork and stabbed it into a potato.

She had many memories of consumption, but none of the strange anticipation washing over her. Something about this potato seemed to be inviting her to eat it. Unsure of why it should do this, she stared at it for a long moment.

“Make a decision,” Chakrika finally said about the peculiar human/spud stand-off.

Second didn’t exactly know how a decision was made, but didn’t really have to. Driven by some compulsion she couldn’t quite figure, she popped the potato into her mouth and chewed.

And chewed and chewed and chewed. Warmth and pleasure shot from her mouth through her chest, flooding her. An instinctive desire for
more
filled her, which she noted was oblivious to any of her thought processes. Was this why primitives ate so much? Did they always feel this good when consuming? Should she have felt this good every time she consumed in the past? Had she? She didn’t remember feeling this way. Until a few days ago, she didn’t remember feeling
anything
.

“Glad you like it,” replied Chakrika sarcastically. Second felt her facial muscles tighten at the remark, into a broad smile. Chakrika rolled her eyes.

“Unbelievable…”

* * *

“Why are you reading a bible?” Rex asked, sliding into his chair at the pilot’s station.

“Chaki got—
Chakrika
got it for me on Byzantium,” Lucius replied. He wasn’t in his normal spot. He paced slowly back and forth across the upper tier of the bridge as he read. Rex smiled at the man’s near-use of a nickname.

“I have never read anything like it. This Jesus claims to have risen from the dead?” Lucius spoke.

“Yeah,” Rex said, perplexed. “You don’t know who Jesus is? Was?”

“No. We were never taught that God had a son,” Replied Lucius.

Rex spun in his chair.

“Really? All that talk of being God’s Own amongst your people?”

“God is far beyond man,” Lucius spoke. “That is what we were taught to believe. This says He is with us always, walking at our side as some sort of guardian and friend.”

“That is what Christians believe,” Rex spoke.

“I am hoping they are right,” Lucius spoke.

Rex spun back around in his chair, saying, “Lordy, he’s Born Again!”

Lucius ignored the comment and kept leafing through his bible. Rex focused on the viewscreen. An image of Jake working filled his vision. The cyborg’s human face did not swell or rupture in the vacuum of the void. It remained firm, muscles tensed in concentration as he worked. Except those probably weren’t real muscles under that skin. And clearly that skin wasn’t
skin
.

The cyborg was welding something just within the engine housing, beyond Rex’s vision.

“How long until the bioship reaches us?” asked Rex.

“
Five hours, seventeen minutes at current velocity
,” replied the computer.

Rex mulled over the information.

“Don’t go wetting yourself, I’ll have it done in time,” Jake spoke over the comms.

“You’re wired into my computer?” Rex asked, his voice slightly suspicious.

“Hell, yeah,” Jake replied, oblivious to his fears. “And she’s a beaut. Got nothing like this on Cyberdan. All about making man into a machine back home, not making the machines more responsive to man.”

The easy-going tone eased Rex’s fears. He slouched back in his chair.

“A world of cyborgs has less advanced computers than the Commonwealth?” Rex asked.

“Different uses, you know?” Jake spoke. “Like one athlete going for football and another for lacrosse. Both great at sports, but neither much good playing the other person’s game.”

Rex nodded, “Guess it makes sense. Since you’ve probably downloaded every bit of data on my ship into your drives—”

“Guilty as charged,” Jake replied. “But I gave her a copy of my non-organic data stores. Fair is fair.”

“Oh…uh, good. Mind if I ask you questions directly anyway?” Rex spoke.

“Sure, just doing some welding anyway. Don’t need my whole mind on it,” Jake replied.

“You guys ever achieve artificial intelligence?” Rex asked.

Jake laughed loudly, the force of it even pulling Lucius from his holy book. Rex wondered how he was laughing since he was no doubt communicating internally from some sort of computer. He couldn’t be actually laughing, outside in the airless vacuum of space.

“Artificial intelligence is impossible,” Jake replied. “Hell, even your own scientists say that!”

“Figured being mostly mechanical, your people might have figured out something our guys missed,” Rex spoke.

“Nope. Machines don’t do squat without somebody giving orders. No impetus! Even your boat here is just a few trillion if-then lines of code designed to respond to your commands. If it ain’t got a soul, it ain’t doin.”

Rex grinned at the words.

“Yeah, that’s what we got taught in the academy.”

“Sure, our people have tried and all. But they get the same result everybody else has for the past five hundred years. Squat! Something about the cybernetic just doesn’t lend itself to life and will and all that phil-o-sophical/meta-a-physical stuff.”

“Well, maybe Lucius can ask Jesus to give them souls,” Rex spoke.

“I’m under the impression that this ‘Father’ came first and established souls…but I could be mistaken. This is a lengthy book,” Lucius spoke, only half-paying attention.

Jake laughed again and said, “Give ’em a soul and they’re not machines anymore. Souls are illogical, emotional, irrational things. Can a machine really be a machine if it’s run by the same crazy stuff that drives us? Eh?”

“No idea, Jake,” Rex replied, “Sounds like you’ve given it some thought.”

Jake’s laugh turned bitter.

“Yeah, enough thought to get me exiled.”

Rex raised an eyebrow.

“They kicked you out for wondering about souls?”

“They kicked me out for suggesting that there could be powers beyond our knowledge that started the evolutionary process,” Jake grumbled.

“That’s…ridiculous.
Everybody
wonders if there is something more to the universe,” Rex asserted.

“Sure they do. But ya’ see my people, being part machine and all, got this obsession with logic. Computers and machines are creations of logic so they think that, evolutionarily, their adapting machine bodies is a form of embracing logic and reason and leaving behind all that primitive fleshling stuff
,
” Jake spoke.

“Remind me to introduce you to Second’s people,” Rex said sardonically.

“Huh?” Jake spoke, confused. “Anyway, they like to pretend they’re more logical than the rest of the universe. They’re not, but they like to pretend they are. Central to their beliefs is that evolution led humanity to this point. We went from primitive animals to sentient beings and from sentient beings into indestructible, ultra-capable, cybernetic organisms. I wrote a paper saying that logic cannot be relied on solely to deduce what started evolution or what gave life its impetus, its soul. They decided that was too irrational and superstitious. Told me I was taking an evolutionary step backward by indulging in the religious dogma of fleshlings. Can’t have that!”

“They kicked you out for believing differently?” Rex surmised.

“Yeah. Real fucking evolved,” Jake griped. “So I float around space for eighteen months until my jump engine gives out, and then I wait another eighteen months until you show up.”

“Sad story, man,” Rex replied.

“Yessir. Hey, your computer’s telling me that something in the kitchen smells really good. Can you make sure they save some for me?”

“You eat?” Rex asked.

“Yeah. Don’t have to, but I enjoy it. Hell, who doesn’t?!”

“Uhm, sure. I’ll tell Chakrika.”

“Thanks. And damn if she ain’t a hot little—”

“Watch your words, Jacob!” Lucius snapped.

“Uh, right. Sorry, didn’t know…”

The line went dead. Jake turned his full attention back toward the engine. Rex glanced over at Lucius. The Europan’s face was a stern mask, tight with tension.

“I think you just intimidated a man who can snap us in half like a twig,” Rex spoke.

Lucius stared at the screen a long moment and went back to his bible. His steps were noticeably heavier. Rex grinned and turned his attention to his console. It was refreshing, really. To scare off a man who was God-knows how many times stronger than you? Without hesitating?

It had to be true love.

* * *

The five hours passed, and Jake returned. Rex watched as he clomped his way into the common room. He moved to the head of the table and then crouched down in a squatting/sitting position that would be uncomfortable to any being with organic muscle. It didn’t seem to bother him. Across from him, eating her third bowl of stew, sat Second. From his spot in the middle of the table, Rex glanced from one to the other, basking in the oddity. To his left was a human being who looked anything but human and to his right, a human being who, until recently, was anything
but
human. If Lucius’s new God did exist, he had an odd sense of humor to make the machine more human than the shapely form of Second.

She’ll get there
, his optimistic side countered,
give her time.

He shook his head at the thought. Time. Didn’t matter how many hours they sat waiting to be caught, or waiting to jump, or waiting to get across one system or the next. They never seemed to have any time. Second, for all that mattered, was four days old. And he had no idea if she would live to see five.

“Spotted a direct outlet in the maintenance closet,” Jake spoke as he ate. “Gonna plug in and sleep after this.”

“You sleep?” Rex asked.

“Brain needs to go into a REM–cycle just like yours, and it never hurts to top off the juice,” Jake explained.

“You sure you want to? Two hours from now, we could be charred debris,” Rex spoke.

Jake paused his eating, the brows of his human face etched in concentration.

“Short nap then. Hour or so,” Jake said, shrugging his massive metal shoulders.

“How can we be dead?” Second asked.

“What?” Rex spoke. Jake raised a confused eyebrow.

“I see images of us dead. But we’re not dead,” she replied.

“You’re imagining things,” Rex spoke.

She cocked her head quizzically, thinking deeply.

“I do not understand,” she spoke.

“Your mind is creating images based on possible outcomes, none of which have happened,” Rex continued.

“Why does it do this?” she asked, placing her spoon down next to her bowl.

“Uh…don’t know. Helps us think things through, I guess,” Rex spoke.

“I do not remember doing it,” Second spoke.

The idea struck Rex hard. Her enslavement had been so complete that her mind had been kept from
imagining?
It made sense, in a purely evil, utilitarian way. If a slave could imagine freedom, they could have a goal to work toward. If they imagined nothing…

“It’s part of being human,” Rex spoke, more to break his thoughts than reassure Second.

“Yeah,” Jake concurred. “A good part.”

She shot him a piercing glare. The cyborg turned away, not willing to meet her eyes.

“You get used to that after a while,” Rex spoke.

“She is
strange
,” Jake whispered.

“Sure is,” Rex replied.

Second’s gaze shifted, focusing back on the bowl.

“I feel a painful sensation now. I previously felt a warmth about eating,” she spoke.

“You’re full. It means you don’t need to eat any more,” Rex said without turning from his own meal.

She stared at the bowl for a bit longer and then abruptly got up and left. Rex watched her disappear into the main corridor.

“And you call me the robot,” Jake laughed, finishing up his stew. Rex chuckled. The cyborg shuttled his and Second’s bowls to the kitchen, then waved good-bye as he stalked down the aft port corridor, toward the maintenance closet. Rex hoped he would fit in there.

He finished eating, dropped off his bowl, and headed for the bridge. As he passed the medical bay, he noticed Second, standing over the clear plastic box enclosing the ambassador’s body. He stepped in, moving up behind her.

“How can he be dead?” she asked.

Rex rolled his eyes in frustration.

“You’re just remembering him alive. It’s a mem—”

He stopped dead in his tracks when the corpse’s cheek twitched. Stepping closer, he looked at the man for the first time in days. It all clicked together in his mind. The man’s ribs looking intact, the skin on his face looking healed, Second’s inability to comprehend that he was dead—

The ambassador roared in pain, his eyes shooting open. The anguished wail cut through the thick plastic. The hermaphroditic freak flailed out with his hands, hitting the plastic with an inhuman amount of force. It lurched upward from the impact, barely holding.