Aldous had just reached the densely populated center of the city and not a moment too soon. The sun, weak as it was, was beginning to threaten the flat prairie horizon line. As dilapidated as the makeshift city was, sunlight dramatically increased the effectiveness of facial recognition and he knew there were bound to be military cameras spattered across the ten blocks that made up the bulk of the habited zone. One camera would be all it would take-he needed to get out of the open-now.

He pulled the Jeep to the crumbling curb at the edge of the street and hopped out of the vehicle, his feet immediately becoming soaked by the frigid water that pooled ubiquitously on what was left of the pavement. He splashed through the water, jogging toward a large concrete building that appeared to have been built before the war. Although its outer sh.e.l.l had certainly seen better days, incased in ice that had clumps of debris frozen within it, likely from a rainstorm during the initial days of the fallout, the building seemed to have held up better than any other structure in the city. Aldous's eyes fell on a makeshift street sign that bore the name of the street; a crude wooden plank with "7 Ave." scrolled in silver spray paint.

Pulling the collar of his black jacket up and holding his hand over his mouth as though he were stifling a cough, he entered the building and was surprised by what he saw. The interior was clean, showing only minor damage as a sign that it had been through World War III. Aldous felt as though he'd stepped back in time-a time before the war, when the illusion that humans were a civil species still reigned. Concrete and gla.s.s, the interior was designed to be aesthetically pleasing and an escalator in the lobby stretched up to the third floor; amazingly, the old relic still worked.

Aldous stepped onto the escalator, keeping his hand over his mouth to confuse any facial recognition programs that might capture his image as he made his way up. It was still early in the morning, and the businesses within the complex weren't likely to open for a couple more hours. When he reached the top floor, he walked toward the entrance to an optometrist's office. He turned when he noticed something on the far wall, a rehabilitation clinic specializing in prosthetics for workers injured working in the oil fields. He sighed and put his back to the gla.s.s, letting his exhausted legs finally rest as he slid down to a seated position.

"Sam," he said to his wife over his mind's eye as she continued to be tortured, "hang on, darling. I'll be there soon."

20.

Craig lifted off from the deck of the t.i.tanic and flew forward to the bow of the ship. Almost immediately, the iceberg came into view. "A little help?"

"You'll have to guide me, Craig," the A.I. said. "I still have not established a link to your optics."

"t.i.tanic's headed straight for the iceberg, not turning. Looks like it needs to turn to the port side to miss. Can we use our power to help with the turn?"

"I'd advise against it," the A.I. replied calmly. "First officer William Murdoch will attempt a port-around maneuver, but because he will try to reverse the engines, there will be a delay of thirty seconds, and the deceleration will cause the ship rudder to be far less effective."

"Isn't that exactly why we should help push the bow to the port?" Craig asked, baffled as he flew to the starboard side of the ship and prepared to generate a field that would nudge the ship to the port side.

"It would almost certainly fail. Although you might get the ship to turn more quickly, sparing the front of the starboard side from the collision, the aft side would likely connect, causing the same level of damage."

The iceberg was only seconds away now, with t.i.tanic heading straight for it.

"Then I need an alternative!"

"I suggest preventing t.i.tanic from turning to port," the A.I. said coolly.

"What? Why?"

"Contrary to popular belief, the t.i.tanic was actually an extraordinarily st.u.r.dy ship, as evidenced by her sister ship, the Olympic. She served for twenty-five years, surviving several major collisions. She even rammed and sank a U-boat, U-103, with her bow. The collision twisted the hull plates on the starboard side, but the hull's integrity remained intact."

"Okay!" Craig shouted as he flew over the deck, a small group of mesmerized crew members watching his uncanny aerial display as he did so. He positioned himself on the port side of the t.i.tanic, near the bow. "I'm on the port side! What do I do?"

"Allow me," the A.I. replied as he triggered the green energy, causing it to emanate once again from within Craig. The green aura became a wall of magnetic energy that cradled the side of the ship and shone so brightly that it bathed the expanse of the t.i.tanic, as well as that of the iceberg, in a green glow.

Finally, the bow of the ship began to turn to the port side, but it almost immediately came into contact with the green wall that the A.I. had thrown up in opposition. The ship actually collided with the energy, bouncing off of it and angling to the starboard side, setting itself on a direct collision course with the iceberg.

"It's working," Craig said breathlessly. "I hope you're right about this."

"Me too," the A.I. replied.

"What? You mean you're not absolutely certain?"

"It's only a theory," the A.I. replied, a hint of indignation in his voice. "I calculate that this will have a seventy-nine percent chance of being successful. It has the best chance among all alternatives."

"Oh Jesus," Craig whispered as he watched the ship, now only meters from the collision.

21.

Colonel Paine reentered the square concrete room that now served as an interrogation room. He had Sanha in tow. As he had earlier, he tossed Sanha roughly to the ground.

O'Brien saluted as soon as he saw his commanding officer.

Paine saluted in return before gesturing with his sharp, knife-like thumb for O'Brien to leave. O'Brien nodded and exited.

Samantha's face remained covered by the sopping wet cloth. Her mouth was opened into a wide circle as she desperately struggled to steal as much oxygen through the suffocating membrane of the cloth as she could. With the spray of water now stopped, it was possible for trace amounts of air to pa.s.s through the barrier of the cloth, albeit not enough for her to survive.

Paine watched the cloth suck down into her mouth as she desperately tried to breathe. The spectacle reminded him of fishing as a child with his father-the slow suffocation of their impending dinner on the dry plats of their rowboat coming to mind. Paine had always watched suffocation with fascination. Watching a life end was something that he had witnessed countless times since-the fascination had not abated.

As Samantha began violently shaking her head back and forth in a vain attempt to shake the cloth off of her face, Paine reached out with his clawed hand and removed the obstruction. Just as before, Samantha inhaled painfully, taking almost half a minute to regain her ability to control her breathing.

"h.e.l.lo again," Paine finally said as he watched Samantha panting.

"Why...why are you torturing me?"

Paine contorted his face into an ugly expression. "Torture? This isn't torture. You've never seen torture."

Samantha's heart suddenly chilled more than she could have ever previously imagined. "But...but, you're not asking questions," she protested as she struggled to speak through her gasps.

"That's because you're a zealot, Professor Emilson. Oh wait, I forgot. It's Gibson now, isn't it?" Paine slipped the cigar out of his mouth, the end of it nearly chewed to bits, and spat on the ground. "You ever wonder why we adopted water-boarding as an interrogation technique?"

"Semantics?" Samantha replied, a disgusted expression on her face as she concentrated on each breath, savoring every molecule of oxygen as she tried to calm herself.

"Heh," Paine replied. "Typical liberal response. Nah, it's not semantics. We did it because we found it was the best way to deprogram zealots like yourself." He popped the cigar back between his lips and resumed his habit of chewing the end until it came apart in his mouth. "See, if we wanted, we could electro-shock their genitals or pull out some fingernails. Those are much more painful approaches when you think about it. On the surface, it seems like we'd get a better response from inflicting real and lasting wounds that leave nasty scars, but that strategy doesn't work with zealots."

"I'm not a zealot," Samantha whispered.

"No?" Paine replied. "We started water-boarding as our preferred interrogation technique back when the biggest threat to America were radical Muslims. You see, once you've been indoctrinated into a belief system in which you think hijacking a plane and flying it into a building will lead to you being spat out into Heaven in the company of seventy virgins, you've convinced yourself that you're not afraid of death. You've convinced yourself that if you can just get over this one, frightening moment-the moment the plane hits the building or the explosives strapped to your chest detonate-then you will be handsomely rewarded. You become convinced that you don't need life." Paine strolled to Samantha and leaned over her as she remained strapped to her board, her chest still heaving as her breathing continued to slowly return to normal. "Water-boarding reminds you that you want to live."

Paine had lowered his face to within inches of Samantha's, and she could see every grotesque vein-every scar on his pockmarked face-and smell his tobacco-laden breath. "I didn't need a reminder," she said quietly.

"No?" Paine said again, mocking her a.s.sertion. "Are you telling me you weren't prepared to sacrifice yourself for your beliefs? For your husband?"

She had to admit, he had a point. Indeed, despite the post-human collective's belief that life had to be protected above all else, she, Aldous, Sanha, and many others had been willing to sacrifice themselves to save at least some of their number. It had seemed so right to do it at the time. So brave. So righteous.

"Weren't you willing to sacrifice yourself to protect your A.I.?" Paine added, his face now locked in a gruesome seriousness.

Samantha nearly stopped breathing once again at the mention of the A.I. How could Paine know about that? Was he just fishing? Suddenly the answer donned on her. Her eyes fell to the pathetic figure in the corner of the room, cradling himself as he kept his eyes shut tight.

Paine grinned. "Professor Sanha there is not a zealot. He wants to live. No reminder needed."

Suddenly, Paine planted one of his powerful, heavy arms on Samantha's chest, digging with his clawed fingertips into her collarbone, causing her to scream out in anguish. "Now, tell me where the A.I. is...if you want to live."

22.

"Samantha, tell him what he wants to know!" Aldous urged as he watched his wife's desperate plight through their mind's eye connection. Simultaneously, three men with suspicious expressions were reaching the top of the escalator, each one of them eyeing Aldous directly. Aldous was already on his feet, ready to meet them.

"Can I help you?" asked the elder one in the trench coat-a man with a mostly bald head, save a few wisps of white hair clinging to the sides and back. His face was so badly worn that he appeared to be wearing a saggy, tired, flesh-colored mask. The two younger men that accompanied him didn't look much better, but it was clear from their garb that they were security.

"Are you the optometrist?" Aldous asked.

"Yes," the man replied. "I'm Dr. Lindholm. What is your business here?"

Aldous eyed the security officers. "I want to talk to you privately. I need your help."

Lindholm scoffed. "I know what you need," he replied with disdain. "I traveled a long way to get away from people like you. If you want to see my facilities, show me a warrant. I won't tolerate spies."

"I'm not a spy," Aldous protested. "I don't work for the government."

Lindholm nearly laughed at Aldous's a.s.sertion. "Is that right? You have that baby face, but you're a local? Tell me, then, what is your secret? Why is it that the fallout is killing the rest of us but leaving you baby fresh?"

"If you give me a moment in private, I'll explain."

"I don't need your explanation," Lindholm snapped back. "I know where you're from. You've lived your whole life in one of those government bio-domes in California! You're a petulant little boy, and everyone knows it, so you're trying to prove that you're a man by volunteering to be a spy in this frozen, G.o.dforsaken h.e.l.l! Well, if you wanted to have a chance in h.e.l.l of fooling us, you should have taken a radionuclide polonium-210 pill and removed the shine from that pretty face of yours. As it stands, your mission has failed. You were detected immediately. Go back and tell your superiors to shove it up their collective baby-fresh a.s.ses!"

While Lindholm ranted, Aldous watched his wife crying as Colonel Paine continued to dig his claws into her chest. "Samantha, for Christ's sake, tell him!"

Lindholm and the two security officers exchanged quizzical expressions as they watched Aldous's exchange with a person that only he could see. Their suspicions suddenly shifted from government affiliation to schizophrenia. Either way, they wanted nothing to do with him.

"Get him out of here!" Lindholm ordered the two guards.

Aldous waved his hand through the air in front of him, green energy flashing from his hand and dropping the two guards instantly, leaving them unconscious. He looked up at Lindholm. "Open the door now."

Suddenly terrified, Lindholm fumbled to remove a security ID card from his wallet, his hands shaking as he swiped it over the lock, the gla.s.s door immediately clicking open. "Wh-who are you?" Lindholm asked.

"Help me get these two men inside," Aldous said, ignoring the question.

Lindholm acquiesced and bent over, grunting as he grasped one of the two men under the arms and began dragging him inside his office.

"I'm sorry I don't have time to be gentler about this," Aldous began to explain as he dragged the second man through the threshold, "but I've run out of time. I need you to help me save my wife's life."

23.

Craig watched helplessly as the bow of the t.i.tanic slammed head on into the iceberg. The iceberg and the ship suffered equally in the collision, each one seemingly crumbling at the point of impact. As ice exploded in a thunderous percussion, cracking off the side of the iceberg and spinning into the ocean and onto the deck of the t.i.tanic, so, too, did the wooden deck of the t.i.tanic explode into a shower of splinters, a portion the size of a basketball court peeling itself back as though some ma.s.sive invisible can opener was at work. The outer hull on both the port and starboard sides crumpled, folding accordion-like as the entire weight of t.i.tanic collapsed upon the ship's front before both the iceberg and the ship threw each other off, each one bouncing back from the other, bobbing violently like children's toys in a bathtub as waves more than a meter high radiated out in every direction.

"I've established an auditory connection, Craig," the A.I. Informed, "just in time to catch the violence of the collision. That was far more violent than the collision that occurred in our own timeline, but hopefully the hull will have kept its integrity. How does it look?"

"It looks...bad," Craig said, barely able to blink as he watched the world's largest ship bobbing in the ocean as though it were G.o.d's plaything. "We may have just done more harm than good."

"We should investigate," the A.I. suggested. "Stand by for a moment. I think I am close to establishing a visual connection. I can help you look for holes in the hull below the waterline."

Craig nodded as he continued to pant, breathing heavily as the adrenaline rushed throughout his body. "I'll stand by. I don't really have anywhere to go." He suddenly remembered how cold he'd felt just minutes earlier, but the adrenaline had sent his heart racing, warming him quickly. "How's my body temperature? Am I going to be okay?"

"It's rising," the A.I. replied. "I've managed to tap into some of your nans' systems and was able to facilitate a warming process by having the nans artificially produce extra adenosine triphosphate. That, along with your high heart rate and increased cortisol levels, had your body temperature rising. The nans broke down a lot of glucose to generate the extra ATP, so you'd better grab something sweet to eat when we go back onboard. You need to replenish yourself."

"Heh. I was wondering why I was so hungry. Thanks. Hey, if I have all these nan.o.bots in my body, then why wasn't I able to stop breathing earlier when I did the Freitas test?"

"Freitas? You are referring to respirocytes?"

"Yes."

"You do not harbor any of those at the moment. Respirocytes were a first-generation nan.o.bot technology. In fact, it is a bit of stretch to even refer to them as nan.o.bots. Each one, in essence, consisted of eighteen billion atoms arranged as a tiny pressure tank, filled with oxygen and carbon dioxide. The nans you currently have in your system are far more sophisticated."

"Well, excuse me, but I liked respirocytes, and I sure as h.e.l.l coulda used 'em to breathe for me when I was stuck underwater going through useless set-up screens."

"I understand your frustration. I've logged your complaint, and I will take your concerns into consideration in future iterations of the system setup."

Craig looked up at the stars and shook his head, disbelieving. "Amazing. I've got tech support in my head, and I'm still getting brushed off. Hey, why don't you put me on hold and blast me with some elevator music?"

"Elevator music?"

"Never mind."

"Craig, I've established an optical connection," the A.I. said, a hint of excitement in his voice. "I can see the t.i.tanic."

"Look at the damage we've done!" Craig said as he flew to the bow of the ship and let the A.I. get a closer look at the hull's rippled surface. "I don't see how she'll stay afloat now."

"In 1907, the German liner, SS Kronprinz Wilhelm rammed an iceberg and suffered a crushed bow, just as the t.i.tanic has. She was able to complete her voyage unaided. As I said earlier, the t.i.tanic was, and is, a much st.u.r.dier ship than people realize. It was the fact that it hit the iceberg with a glancing blow and suffered several small breaches of her hull as she pa.s.sed by, filling too many of the water-tight compartments, that led to her foundering. Unless there is a ma.s.sive hull breach below the waterline, she should be fine."

"Okay. So I guess we should have a look?"

"Indeed. With your permission, Craig, I am ready to take control of your flight systems."