Chapter Four
Electric Eye
APRIL 21ST, 2669
The whole building shakes a third time, more intense, closer, knocking over torches, their flames spreading through the camp. Everyone is screaming, crashing into one another, grabbing clothes and food, scooping up wailing children.
Felix follows the crowd as best he can, though the throng of people pressing against him makes his going slow.
Red lasers cut through the smoke and dust, erupting pockets of rocks which rain down from the ceiling. A large chunk of stone clocks a woman on her head, and she falls, dropping the child in her arms. Felix manages to grab them both, the child wrapping it’s arms and legs around his arm.
He carries them to the opening where warriors are guiding people through. Felix hands one of them the woman and her child, he smiles in thanks and takes the pair out of the door, away with the rest of the crowd.
The darkened cave flashes red behind him, accompanied by screams of dying nomads. Felix steps away from the door, letting the remaining people pass.
“Come on!” One of the warriors orders.
Felix turns to him. “No, you go on ahead, you can’t expect to outrun them.” He puts on his helmet and it clicks into place, “I will hold them off, stop them if I can, don’t wait for me, just get your people to safety.”
The warrior smiles and bows his head, “Thank you, you are as good as the legends say.”
Before Felix can say any more, the warrior disappears out the door and into the forest. Felix turns back to the chaos and starts walking, but is stopped by a hand grabbing his. He turns to see the boy with blue hair who he’d met on his way in, the one he’d given the blade too.
“Let me fight.” The kid demands as he ignites the sonic blade between them.
Felix is caught in the moment, the courage and strength this child showed, made him feel small and insignificant… weak. He puts a hand on the boys shoulder and kneels down.
“What’s your name?” Felix asks.
“Riot.” The boy says with a grin.
“Riot, today is not your day to fight, or die. Take this weapon, use it to defend your people, your family, train hard, I know you will be a great hero some day.”
“But I-” Riot starts but Felix puts up a hand to silence him.
“I will be fine, I will stop them from following, just promise me you will keep everyone safe.”
The boy stares at him, water filling his bottom eye lids, he closes them and nods.
“Good, now run along.”
The boy nods once more then run into the forest, following after the rest of his tribe. Felix stands and breathes deep. His suit scans the room, everyone still alive had made it out.
“Alright you animatronic fucks, lets dance.”
He punches the wall, causing rocks to fall and close off the exit. Through the dust, five targeting dots collect themselves on his chest, he holds up his hands.
There is a pause, as if they were processing. The translator in his suit kicks in.
DETECTING NO NETWORK NODES. IDENTIFICATION AND STATUS REPORT.
Felix chuckles within the suit.
“I’m not one of you freaks, I am Doctor Felix Eisenmann.”
He charges, raising his fist and activating the sonic blade in his forearm. His suit easily marks out the robots for him, and he brings the blade down on one and slices it in half. But as he turns to another, his actions are stopped.
Two of the robots have stepped behind him and they each grab an arm, lifting him off the ground with ease. He fights against them but even with his suits enhancements, he is powerless compared to them.
They take him back through the building and it was only then did his suit detect other nomadic humans who were not lucky enough to escape. Their wrists are bound, kneeling on the floor, with an alien robot guard standing over them.
Felix is carried back up the stairs, leading the party of robot overlords and human slaves as they march out the front door.
Awaiting for them outside is a large, cube shaped, flying machine which has landed in the clearing. It is surrounded by thick flanks of robot creatures, each, Felix noted, had slightly varying physiologies, maybe they could manipulate their bodies, he wonders.
The side of the machine facing them hisses open and lowers itself to the ground. Robots start dragging their uneducated prisoners onto the platform, holding up the screaming, kicking humans like they were just pigs for slaughter.
They force them onto white slabs, from the sides of which, thick black straps creep out and wind their way around every limb, binding their bodies tight to the table.
“What are you doing with them?” Felix demands, but there is no answer, not even an acknowledgment from the robots.
There is another hiss, and the tables rise up so the people were upright. Then metal plates close themselves around the victims, completely sealing them in.
Their screams and shrieks cause wildlife to flee, flocks of birds take to the sky as other animals race across the ground, getting far away from the scene.
From between the plates, smoke and light gushes. Underneath, blood and melted skin drips out.
Felix struggles to move, his captors immovable.
As suddenly as it had started, the screaming stops. A final hiss and the metal plates pull back, revealing no humans inside. Felix's stomach drops, his whole body shakes, legs and arms weak, paralyzed.
Where the humans had been a moment ago, out steps new alien robots. Felix’s heart quivers for the fallen.
“You… you really have assimilated them… Roboticized them… you’ve fucking murdered them!” He screams.
Every robot, including the new arrivals turn on him. One moves to stand before him, reaches for his head, and presses the button on his neck, causing Felix’s helmet to disconnect.
It removes this and examines his face. Then takes his arm from one of his captors, takes a wire from under his own chest plate, and sticks it into his suit.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Felix asks in a panic.
FIXING. It states.
Felix’s mind swirls.
“What?” He blurts, “Explain yourself!”
YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE, THIS PLACE, THIS TIME, WE ARE RETURNING YOU.
“Wait… How in the hell do you know how to do this? How do you know me?” His voice getting hoarse, “Tell Me!”
But there is no answer, a few seconds later the robot unplugs itself, returns his helmet to his head and steps back.
The two holding onto Felix let him go. He drops to the ground and as he stands to his feet, the robots all turn to walk away, the side of the cube sliding close.
“Wait, I need-”
A flash of blue light surrounds his body, unfiltered feelings wash through him, pulling Felix into a thousand directions. Then it stops.
Felix drops to his knees, panting hard. The suit had shut down, overloaded, and he has to disconect the helmet to see. He was no longer in the forest, the floor he was kneeling on was made of sterilized tiles.
“Ivor?” He calls out into the darkness that clings to his eyes.
Yes Sir. Comes the reassuring voice of his AI friend. I am pleased you have returned in one piece, how was your trip to the future?
“Terrifying.” Felix gasps, pushing himself to his feet as the lights began to turn back on. “We have a lot of work to do.” He removes a flash drive from under his elbow and plugs it into the main computer.
“This is everything I manged to capture while I was there. I want you to focus on these alien robots, extrapolate any details you can about their construction, find their weaknesses, and see if you can’t find out where they’re going to come from.”
I have gone over the recordings, are you sure these are aliens?
Felix is silent, he didn’t want to think of that. “There isn’t another explanation at the moment, whatever they are, they’re still a threat to humanity. We must do everything and anything we can to stop them.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Maybe it’s the result of the singularity.
Felix squints up at the ceiling. “Don’t you get your fucking hopes up.”
I’m just saying, I could: easily manipulate everyone on this planet to do as you wished, and they’d never know.
Sometimes Felix regretted letting IVOR run free of the robotic laws, he didn’t believe in them but was nevertheless still working on an alternative. For now IVOR couldn’t interact with anything outside of Felix’s network, they’d made a deal, so the world wasn’t at risk of him taking over. It was tempting though…
“Just examine the video, and edit out a sample to send to Bart.” Felix says as he climbs out of the suit. “Oh, and they did something to my suit before sending me back, find out exactly what they did.”
***
APRIL 21ST, 2369
It has been several hours since Felix returned from the future, he’d spent most of that time pacing his office, shaking his head and mumbling to himself as he waits for the call to connect.
The main screen eventually changes to show Captain Bart Loway, in full uniform as always, but not sitting at his usual desk. He was in some kind of lab, the plain white walls outline his thick form.
“Make it quick Eisenmann, I have a lot of actual work to do.”
Felix types into his computer as he speaks.
“I am sending over a file of a recording, have any spare scientists you have look it over and tell them to contact me.”
“And what am I to tell them is on this?” The officer grumbles.
“It speaks for itself.”
“Felix,” He sighs, “I’m not wasting anyones time on your pointless-”
“I traveled to the future Bart.” Felix states, cutting him off. “I wanted to see if there was a future for us to work for, to know if everything I was doing was in vain or not.”
Bart’s expressionless face stares back.
“Just putting aside the fictional time traveling for now,” Bart says, “I assume you’re going to tell me that life returns to our dying planet?”
“Yes, but… there was something else, another species had taken over the planet, something… alien.”
“Aliens?” His military composure slackens a little.
“That’s what I’m thinking, they were androids, robots, and… there were humans still alive, but these aliens captured them, and… assimilated them.”
“Assimilated?” Bart breathes, nodding and looking off to the side.
“Yes.” Felix says, “With or without your help, I am going to develop something to counter this threat, I don’t imagine that you or anyone you work with to believe me-”
“Felix,” Bart says. “I appreciate your mind, your ideas and opinions, but you are no longer a part of this organization, just a third-party contract.” He hesitates, tapping on his desk. “The only reason I still entertain your calls is I’ve owed you since college, but that debt has been paid many times over, my hands are tied Felix, the only thing I can do is pass this along and see if anyone has the time to look at it… I’m sorry but there isn’t much I can do…”
Bart hesitates, thinking the news over, “Felix?” he asks.
“Yes sir?”
“I hope for all our sakes, that you are very, very much wrong about this one.”
“For once sir, I wish I was too… But I’m not.”
“Keep me up to date.” The captain says before signing off.
“Fucking prick.” Felix says at the dark screen, then louder, calls to his AI companion. “Ivor, bring up the drawing cubes, put on some jazz, open up an order form, and keep it open, we’ll figure out the money later, but for now we need to get to work.
Of course sir.
The ancient sounds of Miles Davis stalk through the air as four white cubes glow into existence around Felix. He picks up a small black rod from the table and starts scribbling.
He writes everything he has learned about the alien robots on one cube. On another scratches down ways humans could survive a hostile environment, and weapons they could use against these aliens.
On the third he starts plotting practical implementations of the environmental control device, the problems and draw backs he’d encounter, the most obvious was finding a way to keep power flowing to these machines far into the future.
And on the last cube, a question mark.
Why did they assimilate humans?
How did they track him?
What was the secret weapon, which that device he fixed was supposed to find?
And…
Why did they, not only let him go, but return him to his own time?
He quickly moved away from that train of thought, of the implications that his work would be in vain.
Felix instead writes down all the words that they had said to him.
IDENTIFY YOURSELF
IMPOSTOR
DETECTING NO NETWORK NODES.
IDENTIFICATION AND STATUS REPORT.
FIXING.
YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE, THIS PLACE, THIS TIME, WE ARE RETURNING YOU.
What did it all mean?
Felix stares at the words till his eyes start to burn.
“Ivor, make us some coffee, it’s going to be a long night.”
An oval shape lights up on one of the walls, then a sparkling of colored light as the beverage materializes.
Three empty cups later and the cubes are covered in even more writing. His back is to them at the moment as he swipes over another holo-screen.
Felix pulls up an image of all the satellites orbiting earth and Mars, the one’s which he can gain access to anyway, adds some filters to his search and pulls up eight units.
“Are the scout programs ready?”
Just as you instructed sir.
“Are the protocols in place?”
There is a noticeable pause before he replies.
Yes sir.
Felix groans, “Please don’t fuck with me now, the last thing I need is for you to be sneaking your way out into the universe.”
Just some humor. You know I could have done this already if I wanted to.
“Lets just keep it that way. Upload the scout programs into these eight satellites.”
He picks up his fourth cup and knocks it’s cold contents back.
Upload complete.
“Perfect.” He brushes his fingers over the keypad. Each satellite changes from a white dot to a green dot. Then the screen returns to show the network, overlaying them with an image of their solar system.
It shows the eight units leaving their respective orbits and mapping out new trajectories, all leaving towards their own destinations outside the system.
“Lets see if I can’t find you fuckers first.” Felix says to the image.
Sir you have an incoming call.
“Put it through.” He says.
“Felix! I’ve just seen what you sent to Bart, it’s crazy. There was actual green!” Dr Irene Graves bursts onto a nearby screen. Her eyes wide, like a kid’s on Christmas morning.
“Yeah, but it wont be enough to save the world will it?” He grumbles.
“Those androids?” her face falls and she looks down. “They were terrifying. So… Alien. But… I can’t stop thinking about what this all means if it’s true.”
He moves to sit and a chair materializes beneath him, she continues without a breath.
“Not that I don’t doubt you, of course… But…” her voice rises an octave “Time Travel! Like that is just-” She places her hands on either side of her head and mimes it blowing up. “Be straight with me, please.” She puts her hands together and whispers “Is it true?”
“Unfortunately.”
She nods, suppressing a squeal and sits back, bitting her lip as she looks around her cubicle. “I need to be honest with you Dr Eisenmann, I’m the only one here who believes you, I heard Captain Loway and the others talking about you…”
“Was it about my birthday?” He sneers, picking up a stress ball and working it.
She raises an eyebrow. “Not funny. The raw data is that; they believe you faked the whole thing for attention, and if it is true, they don’t care, they’re leaving tonight.”
“You’re leaving already?” The stress ball in his hand bursts.
“No, I’m not, neither is the Captain. But the World Presidents are, and most of the worlds Capitol mayors and the ‘One Percent’ are evacuating tomorrow.”
“What about the rest of fucking humanity?” Felix snarls.
“They’re going to take longer to evacuate.” Ira sighs. He could see the disgust in repeating back her Superior's words. “9 Billion is a lot of bodies to move… and those who are leaving now have planned, paid and built, or just bought, Interstellar Ships to take them out and ‘colonize’ new worlds.”
“History has a funny way of repeating itself.” Felix growls, “What planets have they decided to colonize?”
She shakes her head a little, not saying anything though her eyes speak volumes.
“Wait, they’re not really going to bet the continuation of our species, on… on random guess work?” Felix stands and kicks at the chair he was sitting on but it fades away from the material realm and he ends up stumbling into the stack of empty coffee cups, which also vanish into the air.
The counter, on the other hand, is real and he feels it, hip, elbow and fore head.
“Mother-loving-earth” He spits.
“You alright there?” Ira asks, looking around the office again.
“I’m fine, so when is everyone else getting to leave?”
“The civilian escape shuttles will be ready in a year.”
“You going to be on one of these life rafts?”
“No I’ll be on board Loway’s ship before then. All the remaining engineers and researches will be going with him too.”
“On that thing?” Felix scoffs. “At least you’ll be protected if someone wants to start a dog fight with you.” He grimaces as he sits down again, rubbing his elbow.
“Sure… So… I need to stay here and work, but… I get some leave soon to… Say goodbye and tie up loose ends…”
“But?” Felix says, picking up on her hesitation. “You haven’t got anyone to say bye to?” He guesses.
Ira nods. “Parents are dead, friends have moved on or died. Works been the only constant for me.”
Felix nods. “I can relate.”
“Could…” She starts, “Could you send over anything you work on, I don’t feel right just pushing away probably our last chance at saving the planet.” She looks into the camera, whispering, “I want to help you.”
Felix smiles. “Thanks, thats… thank you. I will.”
“I need to go, talk soon.”
The screen goes dark. Felix leans back in his chair, grinning like a wild man. Ivor speaks, filling the silence.
Sir, do you think it is wise to include the government in this?
“You heard Dr Graves, they’re not interested, though I was hoping that it might convince them to at least throw me a bone.” He exhales loudly, it felt like days since he’d last slept. “Besides, Ira’s got a good head on her, I read her work, almost a genius, she might help with getting Bart to change his mind.”
We shall see sir. Says Ivor.