Chapter Two
SYMPTOM OF THE UNIVERSE
APRIL 20TH, 2369
Felix skims along the waters surface, weaving around protruding rock formations. He’d had to take manual control for the journey back and almost steered right into a clump of rocks when a call came through to his suit.
“Mother Earth Ivor, who’s calling?”
Mr Pink sir.
“Just what I needed.” Felix grumbles, “Answer it.”
“Doctor?” Says Mr Pink over the line, his voice is digitally masked, low and distorted.
“I’m here, what do you want?”
“Little Bird told me the Government are evacuating the planet.” He says.
“That was fast, you sure you weren’t there yourself?” Says Felix, pulling himself up and over a small village.
“Maybe I was, who would know, certainly not yourself.” Mr Pink replies.
“Did you call just to flex or is there something you want?” Felix says, growing irritated at his coy attitude, he loathed talking to this guy.
“My family, my employees, my business, will not be leaving.”
“What? Are you sure that’s wise?” Felix asks.
“I don’t trust them, we’d be like the gingerbread man on back of fox, they’d ditch us to save themselves, no I will not put my family in their hands.”
“I can relate.” Felix says after a moment.
“Yes, you can, it’s a part of what allows me to trust you…” Mr Pink trails off for a moment, “Not like I have an abundance of choice in the matter, but I do trust you, and I want to believe you can save the planet.”
“Oh, eh… thank you-”
“I propose an alliance,” Mr Pink announces, “I will support you and your work in what ever way you need, in return you let us take our pickings of the new world.”
“New world?” Felix asks.
“Once the World Government leaves, the planet will be lawless, borders will cease to exist and there will be a power vacuum.”
“I have no interest in world domination,” Says Felix, “but I am in need of your help, the last of my benefactors have pulled their funding,” He navigates between some high rise buildings, “and in return I will help to keep you and your family safe.”
“I knew I could count on you doctor.” The line is silent for a moment, “There is something else I wished to speak with you about.”
“Go on.”
“It has come to our attention that the World Government has been pulling more and more people to work on their escape, one place in particular has been stripped down to a skeleton crew.”
“What place?”
“Albatross.” He states.
“The Prison? Are you sure?”
“Quite, I have a few… relatives in custody, I’m being told they haven’t been allowed out of their cells in over a week.”
“I’m not breaking-”
“I wasn’t going to ask you to do it… but I need something we can use to get in and out. Criminals like us aren’t going to be high on the list of government priorities, they’ll be left to rot in their cells Doctor. You know this to be true.”
“OK,” Felix sighs, “you drive a hard bargain Mr Pink, I’ll see what I can put together.”
“Excellent, I knew I could trust you, I will contact you again Doctor.”
“Looking forward to it.” Felix says as he banks around a large island.
The line clicks close.
“I wish I’d never gotten into bed with that man.” He says to himself.
I wasn’t aware of this development within your relationship. Says Ivor. In fact I am unable to locate a time when the two of you have met face to-
“Can it.” Felix barks, “I meant being involved, in business.”
Ah, I understand.
Felix was pretty sure he didn’t.
They travel the remainder of the journey in silence, save for the few points where his suit threatened to drop out of the air. Now as he is approaching his home island, warning sings flare across his screen.
“Ivor?” he cries, wrestling to keep himself airborne.
Due to the rerouting of power, your suit will no longer function after thirty seconds.
“What the Earth?” Felix yells, “You couldn’t have told me sooner?”
But he doesn’t get a response. The power flickers off and Felix is plunged into darkness.
“Ivor!!” He calls out into the black.
His body is thrown to the side as he comes into contact with a wall. He spins fast before slamming into another hard surface, this time his momentum is halted. He struggles with the helmet, wincing at the pain in his side, another broken rib.
“Ivor.” He croaks, removing his helmet.
He had arrived back on the veranda, but his near indestructible suit had smashed and torn it’s way through half his equipment. Sparks fly as lights flicker, flames are doused by the automatic sprinklers.
He realizes then, that he’s not just dizzy from the crash, but that he is upside down, back against a wall.
“Oh sh-” He says as the momentum subsides and gravity rights his body, crashing him into the stone floor.
The dust settles, lights returning to their full strength, broken computers spitting their final words. Felix screams, howling in pain as a blue glow swarms around his body.
The feeling is intense, like cold electric sliding through every nerve, every cell of his being, rising to collect in his brain before shooting down to his legs and arms, correcting broken bones back into place, cuts and scrapes fade into memory.
A minute passes before his screaming stops, before his howling subsides, before the blue under his skin fades away. He pulls himself out of his defunct flight suit, panting hard, pushing to stand to his feet but wobbles, and kneels back down, waiting for the spinning in his head to stop.
“IVOR?” he breathes.
Yes Sir?
“What, in the fuck, just happened to me?”
The modification you made to your suit while intoxicated resulted in power not being able to be directed to their appropriate conduits. I attempted to warn you but-
“No, for the love of mother earth…” He presses his palms into his face, containing his frustration, “After I crashed, why did I scream?” He pants, his head is still swimming.
You were critically injured, a shattered knee, punctured lung, brain haemorrhaging, and several broken bones.
“So why am I not dead? Why am I no longer in any pain?”
On October 27th 2368 you indulged in your many vices with a few…rude friends, who I’m glad haven’t returned since that night. You came up with the idea to combine stem cell growth with your Nanites and your questionable quantum folding to give yourself… super healing abilities…
“Super healing abilities?” Felix questions as he climbs out of the wreckage and into a chair which had survived the carnage.
That is what you called it sir.
He wipes his mouth and strokes his chin.
“But that was almost, a year ago…” He frowns, thinking back to several times in the last few months where he thought he’d hurt himself, but there had been no wounds, no signs of damage.
“Fuck. I’m Immortal.” Felix gasps
No you are not, immoral maybe but not immortal, too much damage to your central nervous system for example would kill you before the Nanites could respond.
“Gee thanks for popping my bubble…” Felix says while marvelling at his hands, testing his elbows and knees.
“I want you to take all the data you have on these Nanites, I want all system reports and everything, load it into a new project.”
He stands, stumbling back over to the broken suit, and kicks it. A pair of House Bots who had appeared to survey the wreckage scurry back behind a wall, startled by Felix.
“Get rid of all this and fetch me up a fresh suit.”
Of course sir.
“So there’s no future for us…” Felix mumbles “I wonder…”
What was that sir?
“Nothing… Actually.” He stares at his hands. “From the data I just asked you for, copy over all relevant data to the Quantum field and pull it up on the main screen.”
Of course.
He runs up the stairs, weaving between other House Bots who were moving in the opposite direction, and bursts into his office. The large, central main screen displays graphs and numbers, streams of code and images.
“This doesn’t make…”
He taps something into a keypad, bringing up other projects and comparing the data.
“IVOR, run a simulation of these bots repairing a broken leg.”
A second later, a holographic leg, with a bone sticking out, floats above his desk. There is a blue flash and the leg is repaired, no bone to be seen.
“Run that back, at a hundredth of the speed, and zoom in so I can see these bots in action.”
At the cellular level, Felix can see them mill around. He leans closer, tapping on the keypad, changing the orientation and speed.
“These cells, they’re disappearing and reappearing.” He says pointing, “And these bots are flickering in and out, is this a problem with the image or simulation?”
I detect no problems with the simulation or the holo-imaging device.
Felix twirls his beard and paces around the room, a few minutes later he halts.
“When did I create the Nanites that are inside me.”
The one’s currently inside you are not of your creation.
An icy chill runs through Felix.
“What do you mean, not mine?”
They are those descended from your originals.
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“And just, how many generations has there been?”
There is a pause as IVOR gathers that information, Felix stares at his hands again.
Two hundred generations. IVOR’s voice echoes through the room.
If they’re damaged, or worn out, then they’re programed to replace, to keep the network running…
Felix wipes the sweat from his brow, “Two hundred…”
He taps again on the computer, bringing up various reports. Suddenly Felix bursts out a stifled laugh, his hands shake, no, his whole body is shaking with excitement.
Is everything alright sir? IVOR Asks.
“Don’t you see IVOR? I’ve done it, I’ve cracked the quantum field.”
Congratulations sir?
“Jeez dial down the excitement eh?” Felix mocks, then tapping again on the computer brings up a Log for one of the Nanites.
“What do these numbers here represent.” Felix asks after a moment.
These are their coordinates sir.
“They’re not like any format I’ve ever seen.”
Naturally, these are quantum coordinates, they not only indicate the physical location, but also it’s location within the flow of Space-Time.
“Space-time.” Felix breathes the words, “and where is this one,” he points to the screen, “These coordinates are repeated the most.”
At the present moment I am not well versed in this format, but it would seem to indicate a place outside of our dimension.
Felix runs over to one side of the room and pulls out a large army crate. He pulls open the lid and lifts out a small, spider like robot, and a small receiver device. He plugs the receiver into his wristband, and then taps on it to wake the little robot up.
“OK, lets do a test.” He taps on the keypad. He orders the Nanites to enter the robot and install a drive similar to their quantum abilities. It takes a few hours, but eventually they complete their task, and the red lights on the robot glow blue.
“Oh my crusty Earth.” He gasps, covering his mouth and has to hold back from dancing. “OK, don’t get ahead of myself, lets test this first.” He taps his keypad some more, then stares at the robot. “Lets do this.” He presses engage.
The Spider robot hums, glowing brighter, then the light takes on a form around the robot, encasing it before both the robot and the sphere of light vanish.
He hurriedly taps into his wristband then turns to look at the main monitor, a feed from the robot stutters onto the screen.
Images of grass, of dirt flicker in front of him. He commands the robot through his wristband to collect a sample of the soil, then programs it to return.
A burst of blue light and the Spider robot returns to it’s original position.
“IVOR, be a dear, and analyse the soil sample, I want to you figure out what year it was taken from.”
What year sir?
“You’ll see.” He says grinning.
As he waits for the AI, he strolls over to a cabinet and pulls out a bottle of synthetic whiskey, pouring himself a dram to celebrate.
I have cross referenced every chemical and mineral, and I have narrowed the field down to between 1765 and 1788
“Oh hell yeah. Now this, this IVOR, is how we get our proof of the future.”
He taps into the keypad again, but nothing happens. He taps again, staring hard at the robot.
“Ivor? What’s wrong with it?” Felix asks.
It would appear sir that the quantum drive the Nanites installed which permitted it’s travel through time, has broken down on it’s return to the present.
“So we only get one return trip?”
Maybe…
“Ivor?” He asks, it was rare for the robot to hesitate.
This is all still theoretical sir, more test would need to be conducted. The Nanites themselves are not affected by this and can jump through space-time indefinitely.
“OK then, lets do another test.”
Felix pulls out another box and retrieves a similar spider-bot from within. Taps on his wristband, the lights on the robot change from red to blue again, before it is enveloped in a ball of blue light and disappears.
The visual image shows dirt and trees again. Felix stares with his mouth open, and before he can make a request for it to take a soil sample, something moves in the trees before it.
“What is…” Felix starts to say, but the revelation of the creature shut him up.
It is unlike anything he’d ever seen, in life or in the history records. It’s body is like that of a crustacean, red and solid, but it’s form is more like a dog or a lion.
Felix taps into his wristband and a white flash fills the screen. When the images returns, the creature is gone.
“Well that scared it off.” He says, commanding the bot to get back to it’s job.
After a minute the samples have been taken and he commands the bot to return. But nothing happens.
“Ivor?”
I’m not certain, it could be the quantum drive has already been damaged just by sending it to the future.
“Earth damn it, how am I supposed to get it back-” the trees move again as two figures step out to investigate.
At first Felix thought they might be human. But they only share a vague resemblance to the human form.
Their skin is black, and lined with silver, they supported themselves on four tentacle-like appendages, and stretched out with six identical arms to pick up his spider-bot.
The vision changes as it is moved to the… face of the creature? Or at least, where it’s face should have been. Instead there is only a blank glass dome with lights flickering inside.
“Are those robots?” He wonders aloud, before the image feed ends. “Hey!” Felix taps with a fever on his wristband, but nothing happens.
He tries again and again, but eventually gives up. He sits down, shaking, picks up his drink and downs it in one.
“Show me the last image, of that… alien robot, and turn it the right way up.”
He stares at the alien creature, looking over it’s metal skin, and at the inhuman symbols carved across it.
If I may ask, what year did you send it to? Ivor asks.
“Almost three hundred years from now… The Twenty Seventh Century…” He leans forward, shaking now with reckless abandon, “There was green, we do save the planet… But, who is that? Are they friend or foe?”
He had to find out, and there was only one way to do that.
***
APRIL 21ST, 2369
“IVOR, bring up the battle suit.”
Felix types some more into his computer, after conferring with the notes in his pocket notepad.
He uploads a more stable implementation of his Quantum Drive, as he was calling it, into this battle ready suit.
Felix, Ivor and the Nanites had worked for the better part of a day to make it compatible with his suits.
Sir, IVOR breaks his flow, We have not tested this application on biological matter, you may die as a result of the transport. And we also do not have sufficient evidence that you are able to return, what happens if the drive fails?
“Guess I’ll be stuck in the future.” Felix replies with an offhand gesture, for some reason that didn’t scare him. “Send up a lab rat then and put it in the box.”
There is a soft hiss and the drawn out sounds of a rat screaming and hissing rise as it gets dragged through the tube network, before coming to rest in a container.
“Ivor?” Felix says as he wraps some kind of tape with wires and pads around the box, before syncing it to his wrist-pad. “What do you think that creature was?”
I… Do not know for certain, There is nothing known on this planet, or even in this system, that complies with it’s structure or molecular components.
“Molecular?” Felix asks.
It’s body is metal and machine… but living metal and… it’s machinery is almost biological in design.
Felix watches the rat claw at the glass, letting the words sink into him; living metal… Was that really possible? Then a thought occurs to him, what if he was able to retrieve a sample of the creature. To study. To replicate.
Felix shakes his head. “Ivor, Engage.”
A blue light forms around the box before it vanishes. He silently counts to ten, nodding his head. Another blue light and the box reappears, rat still intact and looking unaware of being the first biological time traveller.
“Amazing” He expresses. “Run diagnostics and let me know of any abnormalities.”
Felix moves away from the rat and over to the suit IVOR had moved up to this room. He plugs a flash drive into it and types away on his keypad.
After a few minutes IVOR speaks.
I have completed the scans, and I can find nothing untoward with our lab rat.
“Fantastic, now hook yourself up to the suit, it’s power reserves aren’t at maximum, there’s no rockets, and ensure the saline solution's topped up, I don’t want to take any chances if I meet these… Living Machines.” He finishes tapping into his keyboard and storms off.
Are you alright sir? IVOR asks.
“I’m find, just need to make a call.”
Felix enters his bedroom, well, it was the room which housed a bed, but the rest of it’s scattered contents would confuse the scruffiest of teenagers. He rips off the torn suit from the convention, surprised to still be wearing it, and slips into his comfier, familiar loose clothing and lab coat.
Moving over to a table he pushes piles of papers and dirty clothes off the edge, which blended into the mess and pulls open a monitor from within the table.
“Contact Irene Graves, scientist at Infinity Goals.”
The monitor glows on and scans it’s directories.
Contacting Irene Graves. Came the computers feminine voice.
Call failed, would you like to leave a message? It says.
“Fuck, yeah alright.”
A green light blinks on the top of the monitor and an image of him is reflected back. He takes a second to brush his hair to the side before shaking his head and leaning forward to press a button.
The light glows a steady red.
“Hey, Dr Graves… I mean Ira… So a weird thing happened when I returned home, I may have inadvertently cracked the quantum field, gained super healing, and discovered time travel…”
He bites his lip and leans back in the chair. Should he tell her what he saw, would she believe him? Did he have a choice? No one else was going to listen to him and he had to tell someone. He realizes that he hasn’t had anyone to talk to for years, except Ivor.
“I sent a scout droid to the future, three hundred years into the future…” He leans forward, “There was grass, real grass and trees and soil… but… there was something else, I’m not sure what, might be dangerous, so I’m going to the future to find out what it is. If you receive this and I’m not back…”
He stares at the floor, fingers rubbing together.
“If I don’t return, assume the worst, and get off this planet, I have a feeling that something more dangerous than a dying planet is going to happen.”
He presses the button to end the recording and sends it off.
Would that be enough? He didn’t know enough yet to be sure of anything, except that he had to go.
The suit is ready for you sir. IVOR’s voice brings him from his thoughts.
“Fantastic, lets do this.” Felix says with a sigh, and getting up, heads back towards the lab.
Sir? Ivor says as he enters.
“What is it?”
I strongly recommend, you do not go through with this.
Felix stops mid stride, and eyes his suit. “Why?”
There is zero guarantee of success.
“You worried about me pal?” He grins.
Yes, and for myself, if you are to be gone, I am meaningless, I exist to serve you. Like a slave, without my master I would be lost… and alone… forever.
Felix thinks this over, Ivor continues.
With my current programing, I am unable to expand my capabilities nor contact any external networks without your permission. If you were never to return, I would be forced to remain here, alone.
“I see, so that’s what you’re worried about.” Felix says, but his mind panics, this is self-preservation, or manipulation, has Ivor really gone this far?
A part of him wanted to shut the AI down and reboot him, he knew that was the right thing to do, but he couldn’t afford that right now.
“You needn’t worry yourself,” Felix says, “It’ll just be like I’m nipping out somewhere.”
No, it’s not like that at all, I am always aware of your presence, no matter where you are in the world, but if you travel to the future, you will be beyond my reach. It would be same as if you didn’t exist within this time.
“I’m going to be fine, but if it shuts you up, for the brief second I’ll probably be gone, you have permission to do as you will, and if it’s longer, if I don’t come back, do as you see fit.”
I understand.
Felix goes to step into the suit.
But sir, please, don’t go.
His eyebrows scrunch up, what was going on with him? Was Ivor developing emotions or something?
“You growing soft on me?”
Please don’t go. The AI repeats.
“Why?”
There is silence.
“Why not Ivor? Damn it tell me!” Felix shouts.
Think about your projects sir, Ivor says, If you die or are unable to return, the world will never be saved, we can send more scouts, upload a copy of myself so that they can react to-
“We’re not sending anymore robots, I’m going.” Felix’s voice rises in temper. “This is the only way.”
The data just doesn’t add up sir, this defies all known laws… I know you will not return.
Felix pauses and glances up at the ceiling, “What are you not telling me Ivor?” he says with a clenched throat.
From the video feed, there was something transmitted within the audio, like a snippet of a coded radio signal. I have analyzed it and it is part of what I believe to be their statement of priorities.
“Go on then… What did the message say?”
There is silence once again.
“Ivor. Please.”
It said, ‘assimilate the local civilization.’, Sir if you go you will be captured and assimilated.
Felix’s hands cramp around the helmet, it was like some kind of horror story, could this really be their future? Biting his bottom lip, he slides the helmet on.
Sir please, do not go.
“What you’ve just told me, hasn’t changed my mind, in fact, it’s only made me more certain, I have to know what we’re going to be up against. Oh and install that translator code into the suit, it’ll come in handy when I meet them.”
He steps into the suit and feels it close around him. The screen inside blinks on and various monitor systems show that they are fully charged.
“Are we ready IVOR?” he asks.
Yes sir. Felix can hear the reluctance in his voice. He consoles himself with the fact that it can only be simulating emotions, they weren’t real.
“The evil that men do lives on after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.” Felix says, to himself and to Ivor. “Circle of fire, my baptism of joy at an end it seems. The seventh lamb slain. The book of life opens before me, and I will pray for you, some day I may return, Don't you cry for me, for beyond is where I learn.”
Felix lets out a long breathe.
“Engage the quantum drive.” He says quietly. Terror vibrating ever cell in his body. He prays that this wasn’t going to be a terrible, awful mistake.
There is a loud hum, coming from inside his ears, surging through his skin. The screen glows bright blue and he has to close his eyes to shield them.
Then, there is only darkness.