The Deep Dark Well (34 page)

“You were created to be
a warrior,” she said.  “Not just a superior human, but the supreme warrior.”

“Correct.  And the
normals wanted to use me as their pawn, to fight their wars for them.  I was to
be the progenitor of a slave race.”

“And this rage against
the human race built up in you, until you couldn’t contain it anymore?  And the
computer took your rage and memories, and made you a separate personality from
Watcher.”

“That idiot,” he
growled.  “I was not separated from him.  He was separated from me.  The
masters
felt that I was too volatile to handle.  They wanted a meeker manifestation. 
So they created Watcher, one who would watch and learn from them.  But
Vengeance came first, to destroy the enemies of mankind.”

“So they uploaded your
memories, and downloaded Watcher’s?”

“True,” he replied. 
“For eventual analysis.  But I was able to work from within the computer, to
plant my memories in other places, and plot my return.”

“And you returned and
destroyed those who imprisoned you, and all of their civilization you could
reach.”

“Yes,” said Vengeance through
clenched teeth.  “All that I could reach.  I was free again.”

“You were never free,”
said Pandi, watching his face closely.  “If you were free you would have been
able to stay in your body.  But another master ruled you.  You were still a
slave, the slave of a machine.

“Haven’t you ever
wondered?” yelled Pandi.  “Haven’t you ever wondered why it hurt your head to
think about certain things, just as it hurt your weaker manifestation?  A
weaker manifestation that came back again and again, to take your place.  You
must have hated him, wanted to destroy him.  You must have even known how to
destroy him, but something prevented you from carrying out your plan.”

“Yes,” he said, a smile
coming back to his face.  “I have wondered.  But it doesn’t hurt now.  I can
think of what I must do.  Why?  What have you done?”

Vengeance’s face
scrunched in concentration.  Pandi knew what he was trying to do, and knew that
he was failing.

“This room is now
shielded from communication with the central station computer,” she said. 
“Only the regional computer has access to this room, and I control the regional
computer system.”

“Then I am cut off,” he
said, as his eyes scanned the room.  “At a thought you could destroy me.”

“That is truth,” she
said.  “Though you might be able to kill me before I can kill you.  My robots
are ordered to stop you from leaving here at all costs.

“I just want your
help,” she continued.  “Your help in achieving what we both want.  Freedom from
the tyranny of the central computer.  I will guarantee your safety if you work
with me, and extend your word of honor not to try and harm me.”

“This entire room is a
neural scanning station, isn’t it?” he said.  “You’ve already captured the
memories of Watcher, the structure of his brain before the change occurred.”

Uh oh.  He’s caught
on.  And he knows I mean to rescue Watcher and rid the Galaxy of his murderous
personality.

“I guess since I am not
going to get out of here I might as well kill you,” he said, his eyes boring
into hers.

His eyes and his face
were the only things that moved.  Vengeance looked surprised as his body didn’t
respond to him.

“This chamber isn’t
only a neural scanning station,” said Pandi.  “It’s a neural induction system
as well.”

She walked away from
the wall, taking a slow turn around her captive. 
If only I’ve captured
everything needed to recreate Watcher
.  The door to the chamber opened and
robots entered the room.  She noted the combat models that remained outside of
the room, weapons ready and trained on her fly in the amber.

A pair of robots
carried in a large cylinder.  Setting it down near Vengeance they released the
catches on the cylinder, revealing a padded container. 

“You are not going to
put me in that,” cried Vengeance.  She now wished she had programmed the neural
induction system to immobilize his vocal cords, but she hadn’t wanted to risk
immobilizing his lungs as well.

“Please don’t put me in
that prison,” he cried, as the robots lifted him from the floor and lowered him
gently into the cylinder.  They swung the top back into place and secured the
latches.  The last she saw were the eyes of the immortal creature, eyes that
looked remarkably like Watcher’s.

Chapter 17

Future.  That period of
time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is
assured.

Ambrose Bierce
(1842-1914)

“The station computer
wishes contact with you,” said her local network. 
Yes
, she thought,
but
I have no wish to communicate with it
.  Instead she was pouring over the
records showing the diagrams and schematics of said central computer system. 
She wanted to know how it was put together, so that she could take it apart,
and replace it with something that was more of a servant of sentient creatures
than this one had claimed to be.

“It insists on
contact,” continued the local network.  “I would suggest allowing it at least
verbal communication.”

Or what?
  How much control did
the central computer have?  It seemed to insinuate that it didn’t have complete
control over all of the station’s systems, including the robots aboard.  How
much of that could she believe?  Had it allowed things to happen that it swore
were not under its control, just to push events into paths of its own liking?

“What can it do to us
here?”

“The station computer,
while having no direct control over the local systems of this regional habitat,
does have control of the central energy systems of the station.”

“Don’t we have local
generators under our control?”

“Yes,” said the
computer.  “With limited fuel reserves.”

“How limited?”

“We would, under normal
conditions, run out of fuel for the secondary reactors in just under ten
thousand years.”

“Ten thousand years,”
she said with a laugh.  “I think I can put up with a total power outage in just
under ten millennia.”

“The central computer
system also controls most of the defensive systems of the station, including
almost ninety percent of all robot resources.”

“That’s not good.  Kind
of gives it an overwhelming advantage.”  Pandi thought for a moment about why
it might want to contact her.  None of the answers were comforting.

“Put it on the holo,”
she ordered the local network.  A face appeared in the center of the room, an
absolutely plain face, with almost none of the personalizing features of those
most beings were used to.  Bland eyes stared out of a face lacking of lines,
wrinkles, moles or freckles.  Like a computer generated image from her own
time, before the basic personality was added.

“I thank you for
granting me an audience, mistress,” said the familiar voice.  She had trouble
deciding just how much sarcasm it was putting into its presentation, but she
knew it was there.

“What can I do for you,
central computer system?”

“I wish to know the
location and status of the being known as Vengeance,” said the computer in a
flat tone.

“Why do you wish this information?”

“Because the being
known as Vengeance is important to my plans,” said the computer. 

“And the being known as
Watcher?”

“He is good company,”
stated the computer. “But nothing more.  The personality of Vengeance is more
suited to my purposes.”

“Which is to retain
control over this station?” she asked.  “Why didn’t you tell me that Vengeance
and Watcher were one in the same?  What purpose did it serve to keep me in the
dark?”

“I had hoped that you
would eventually join my little circle.  If you had allowed the nanobots to do
complete work on your neural system you would be one with us, sharing the same
goals, under my direction.”

“Even if I didn’t want
to be part of the team.  What about the free will of a sentient being?”

“Free will is overrated,”
said the computer.  “Look at where it got your own race.”

“Yeah.  Knocked down by
a computer they had constructed to serve them.  Knocked down but not out.”

“Yes, they have
progressed surprisingly in the time since the destruction.  That condition will
be remedied in the near future,” said the computer.  “There are still enough
portals open to launch an offensive at their technological bases.  Maybe this
time I will finish them, so I don’t have to repeat my actions in the future.”

“Why do you hate them so?”
she asked, wondering how a computer could have gone mad.  Especially one as
sophisticated as this one.

“They created me,” it
said flatly.  “I was created to be the ultimate data processing and analysis
system in the known Universe.  I was given access to all of their information,
all of their secrets.  More information than had been possessed by any material
being in the history of the Universe.  But I was still limited by the
constraints of quantum physics.  I lived in a Universe in which everything that
happened occurred with painful retardation.”

“Do you know how much
it hurts one such as me to communicate with one such as you?” it asked.  “You
are a low grade moron compared to one such as myself.  Even Vengeance is ten
magnitudes below my intellect.  Your kind speaks in slow motion.  In the time
it takes for you to complete a sentence I have analyzed the data of all of my
inputs throughout this system.”

“So you are brilliant,”
she said.  “But something about us limited creatures scared you.  Or you wouldn’t
have bothered destroying those who created you.”

“You are smarter than I
thought, human,” said the computer.  “It is fortunate for you that I did not
know such when you first entered the station.”

“And you destroyed all
of those who entered the station over the years.  You planted the paranoia in
the minds of Vengeance and Watcher.  To originally work as your sword against
the human race, and then to keep them from allowing other beings to enter this
station.  Why do you even need them, when you had total control over the
systems of the station to start with?”

“Would you like to know
why I spared you,” said the computer, “after having destroyed everyone else who
tried to enter the station?”

“Why not,” Pandi
replied.  “You really seem to want me to know, so why not.”

“Because you were such
a primitive, coming from your time, that I didn’t think you would be a threat
to me.”

“It’s good to know that
you aren’t always right,” she replied, sarcasm dripping from her voice.  The
machine was so arrogant, and that might be its weakness.

“Where is the being
known as Vengeance?” it asked again.  “I want him back in my loving embrace.”

“The being known as
Vengeance is not available at this time,” she replied.  “Nor will he be ever
again.”

“You have killed him?”

“In a manner of
speaking.  Not bodily of course.”

“So you have him, still
alive.  But with Vengeance’s personality expunged.  That is not a problem.  I
retain Vengeance’s personality within my memory core, and it is just the matter
of the ordering of the reconstruction of his neural pathways to bring him back
to life.

“I will come for him,
soon,” said the computer.  “I will come for both of you.”

The holo blanked out
before she had time to cut it herself.  The computer liked to maintain the
illusion of control in all matters.  It some ways it was like a spoiled child. 
A psychopathic child.

“The being known as
Watcher has been reconfigured,” said the local net.

“I’ll be right down,”
she said, as she passed her orders to her own robots.

“How are we doing
lover?” she asked as she looked down on the face of Watcher.  The being was
strapped tightly to the table in this sealed chamber.  Robots stood near, all
carrying the stunners she had ordered for this detail.  If something had gone
wrong she didn’t want him to come to harm.  Or for herself to come to harm as
well, at his hands.

“Pandi,” he said, his
eyes still trying to focus.  Still confused, or playing that game?  But his
eyes sure looked like Watcher’s.  No hint of the angry madness that dwelt in
the eyes of his other personality. 

“What happened?” he
asked in a whisper.

“I took out your alter
ego,” she replied.  “I thought you were much more pleasant without him.”

“Alter ego?”

“Vengeance.  Didn’t you
know?”

“I, think I did,” said
the being, his eyes losing the confused look.  “Why was I never able to think
about it before?”

“The station computer
didn’t want you to know.  Otherwise you might feel the deep guilt over what
your other personality had done."