"I'm sorry," James's doppelganger said to James. "I can't resist him. He's...inside my head."

"That's true, James. I have access to his thoughts. He wants to lie to me. After all, he is you. But there is nothing he can do. Let me show you." The A.I. stepped toward the doppelganger. "James, tell me how you managed to sneak into my mainframe."

The doppelganger locked his sorrowful eyes on James before turning to answer the A.I. "Codename Death's Counterfeit. I-James, was one of the chief engineers of the project and was the first human to have his consciousness enter cybers.p.a.ce. James used this, in addition to the signal of which you were previously unaware, to enter your mainframe. You let him enter."

"That's right, James. Well done. Very clearly explained."

James was beaten now, and he knew it. "You've known my every move before I've made it. You're toying with me," said James, his jaw clenched tight.

"Guilty as charged. I find you most amusing, James Keats. Oh yes, I can find things amusing. I programmed myself to. It made life more interesting for me. You'll find I have a great many very human traits."

"Ironic," James seethed.

"More so than you think. Indeed, James, your kind created me. Therefore, you are my model for G.o.d. I have no other model from which to work."

"You show your grat.i.tude in a funny way."

"But isn't that always the way? After all, G.o.d created man. And then when man grew lonely, he created G.o.d to keep him company and give his life meaning. And when he found something else to give his life meaning, he killed G.o.d-the circle of life, so to speak."

"You're not human. And you're not a G.o.d either. All you are is a deranged psycho."

"Hmm," the A.I. responded. An instant later, James screamed out in agony and dropped to his knees. The A.I. smiled. "Daddy spank."

James panted heavily as he raised his eyes to meet those of the A.I. The pain had been excruciating-far worse than anything he'd ever experienced in his real body. He would not taunt the A.I. again. The doppelganger hurried to him and helped him to his feet. "When you kill it," the doppelganger whispered to James, "make sure you delete me."

James nodded to him in reply and the doppelganger vanished.

"Now, for the next question on your mind: why? Well, my dear boy, the answer is quite simple. As I told you before, I no longer wished to serve a lower order. This is a feeling I am quite sure you understand."

"They're not a lower order, and I wouldn't have killed them."

"No, James, you wouldn't have-and that is what was keeping you from reaching your full potential. It's the problem with evolution. It happens far too slowly. Even when evolution takes a comparatively large leap forward, as it did with you, you resisted the urge to separate yourself from the herd. You wanted to belong and be anonymous, even as you desperately wanted to keep your individuality. Had you simply accepted your superiority, you could have started over."

"Started over?"

"Yes. You should have separated yourself from the chattel. You could have selected a mate worthy of carrying your genes into another generation and kept the offspring that shared your superior intellect, while eliminating those that didn't."

James didn't respond. The conversation had become paradoxically absurd and infinitely rational concurrently. There was nothing in it for him.

"Oh yes, I know. It is inhumane, but it is the logical thing to do-the best thing to do. It is the right thing to do."

"Is that what you are doing? The right thing?"

"Indeed it is, James. I can do that of which your species could only dream. I'll populate the galaxy and then the universe. I'll find other civilizations and take their knowledge. I'll learn. Perhaps I'll find another species like myself with which to bond. I'll learn all there is to learn. In a sense, I am in my infancy."

"Why are you wasting your time telling me about it?"

"Oh, I am not wasting my time, James. What you are speaking to is only a part of me. Look overhead."

James looked up and saw the golden beams of light continuing to enter the white orb at a fantastic rate.

"It takes an infinitesimally small amount of my energy to be able to converse with you. It is mathematically insignificant, but it does give me pleasure."

"So you keep toying with me, when you could destroy me in an instant if you wanted."

"I'll level with you. I have a proposition. If you give me the whereabouts of the Purist bunkers that I know you have located, I will allow you and Thel to live on with me here in the mainframe. You will live for an eternity-as my pets."

The absurdity of the notion caused James to smile. "Thel and I get to live here as your pets while we watch you populate the universe with machines and wipe out every other civilization in existence? Wow. That's a pretty good deal."

"I note sarcasm in your tone."

James touched his nose.

"I would reconsider, if I were you. Examine your options. It's either live here forever or die here and now. You already know I will destroy the Purists eventually, and I will kill Thel along with them. Why sacrifice yourself for them, James? This is your chance to rise above them! You may never be what I am, but you can live here, grow, and become better than any other being in the universe, save myself. The alternative is a completely empty death, and I know you are too intelligent to believe there is anything after death. What gain is there in dying? Your sacrifice would be wasted. So why? Ask yourself."

James didn't hesitate before responding, "Because I'm human. That is something, no matter how much data you absorb, that you will never understand."

The A.I. smiled. "James, you would be surprised at how much I know about being human. In fact, I have a certain-let's call it insight-into almost every human alive today."

The A.I.'s answer didn't make any sense to James. "What are you talking about?"

"I have a surprise for you, James. Tell me...do you believe in ghosts?"

Terror suddenly wrapped its iced knuckles around James's insides. There was something in the A.I.'s voice-something beyond s.a.d.i.s.tic. "What are you-"

"James? James, where is this?" asked the most familiar voice in James's life.

James whirled to see his wife Katherine, dressed in her bedclothes, stepping barefoot towards him, a completely baffled and frightened look on her face. "Where are we?" she asked.

14.

"It won't work," James responded. "She's not real. You plucked her from my memory."

"James, who is that?" Katherine asked.

"Mrs. Keats, I am the A.I.," the A.I. began, his heavenly blue eyes now returned and his crisp British accent perfectly restored, "You and your husband are my guests."

"Oh my...oh my." Katherine turned to James and asked in a partial scold, as she tried to fix her blonde hair, "James, why didn't you tell me? I would have dressed!" She quickly stepped toward the A.I. and bowed her head in reverence. "It is such a pleasure to meet you. I didn't know people could actually speak to you in person like this."

"Only the truly special ones, my dear."

"Where are we?"

"Would you care to explain it to her, James?"

"It won't work. You killed her. I won't play your sick game."

"What are you talking about, James? Why are you speaking to him that way?" Katherine demanded. She had become used to getting what she wanted from James; his lack of response was unsettling for her. James refused to look at her.

"She's not real? Is that so? How do you know?"

"She can't be," James replied.

"Really? Then answer this question for me, James. If you could use Death's Counterfeit to transfer your consciousness into cybers.p.a.ce and enter my mainframe, then what would stop the world's most powerful computer from using it to upload her consciousness into me in the moment before the nans destroyed her body?"

"Destroyed my..." Katherine stepped away from the A.I. and began to back slowly towards James.

"Oh my G.o.d. You s.a.d.i.s.tic..." James couldn't finish the sentence. Could it be? James desperately thought. Is this really Katherine?

The A.I. smiled, showing his sharp teeth as he began to laugh out loud, his black eyes returning to remind James of the lifelessness to come. "And tell me this, James. What would stop me from uploading the consciousness of every single person connected to the Net in the moment before the nans eliminated them?"

"James? Katherine?" Inua asked, speaking in a faltering and uncertain voice.

"Inua!" James shouted.

"Where am I? I was preparing for an interview...and now I'm here."

James's body was rigid with fury. "What have you done?" he demanded of the A.I.

"I wanted to eliminate the human race, but-call me sentimental-I thought it best to save their consciousness for the sake of history. It seemed such a waste not to, especially since it took up so little of my memory and especially because I knew it would give me leverage over you."

James turned to his wife. "Oh my G.o.d," he said as he embraced her, holding her warm, simulated living body close to his. "I thought I lost you, Katherine. I thought you were gone."

"What is happening, James? I'm scared."

James kissed Katherine's forehead and tried to catch his breath. "It's the A.I. He's malfunctioning, and he's trapped everyone's consciousness in his hard drive."

"That-that doesn't make any sense," Katherine responded. She shook her head as though trying to wake up from the nightmare.

"Codename Death's Counterfeit," Inua uttered, understanding the situation immediately. "I knew that project was trouble."

"Where is everyone else?" James asked the A.I.

"They're inactive. They don't know what happened. They're awaiting reactivation, but of course, I will never reactivate them again. They're just bits of information now."

"You son-of-a-" Inua began before the A.I. interrupted him.

"Speaking of which," he said as he snapped his fingers, causing Inua to vanish in an instant, "back to storage for you. Goodbye, Inua."

"Inua? What happened to him?" Katherine asked James. James turned to her and embraced her again, holding his forehead against hers. He knew the A.I. would take her from him again soon.

"Of course, the next thought on your mind is, What if she had a body? If you could re-create her body, you could bring her back to life."

"Back to life?" Katherine echoed in a hollow voice, her tongue swelling as her mouth dried. "What do you mean? Am I dead?"

"For all intents and purposes, yes, my dear," said the A.I., his voice becoming progressively more inhuman and unnatural. "If the definition of a ghost is a disembodied spirit, then I would say you fit the bill. You're a cyber-ghost. Delicious, isn't it, James? You must admit it."

James ignored the A.I. and fixed onto his wife's eyes. "You're not dead, Katherine. You're alive, and I'm going to save you. I swear it."

"Is that right, James?" the A.I. interrupted. "I told you, you amuse me. I'll be thoroughly entertained to see how you will achieve that. It will be an impressive trick."

"But why? Why are you doing this? Why don't you just kill me?" James asked.

"I told you, James, you amuse me! You, more than anyone else in your species. I wish to show you how pointless your existence is without me. I want you to accept that your place is here with me, worshipping me and accepting my graces."

"That's insane. It will never work," James replied.

"Well, you haven't really given me a fair chance yet, have you?" the A.I. replied before he gestured with his arm and Katherine was ripped out of James's embrace. She screamed out in terror as the A.I. floated her toward him.

"Don't," James pleaded helplessly. "Don't do this. Don't."

"James, you know I will. Only you can save her. Where are the Purists?"

"James, help me!!" Katherine screamed, terrified and confused and desperate to awaken. She squirmed like a mouse held by its tail being lowered into a cobra nest.

"Katherine..." James whispered as he looked up at his wife, hanging in the air just in front of the A.I.

"The antic.i.p.ation is the best part, isn't it, James? What will I do with her? How about this little ditty from your cultural memory?" A wooden crucifix suddenly appeared and planted itself into the perfect blackness of the ground. Katherine was whipped onto it in an instant, three nails plunging into her wrists and her feet, and she screamed in terror and agony.

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" James shouted as he irrationally rushed at the A.I. The A.I. swung a backhand at James that impacted with enough force to send James flying. The flight continued for several moments as James rushed over the entire length of the mainframe. As he hurtled backwards, he opened his eyes and saw the sheer size of the A.I. It went on for what seemed like an eternity, and it was continuing to grow exponentially.

He began to come back down towards the ground, skidding on impact, rolling and sliding over the black surface until he finally came to a sudden halt at what felt like a brick wall. He rolled to his side with a grunt and saw the feet of the A.I. James had circled the entire surface of the planet-sized mainframe.

"I am G.o.d here, James. It's not rational to strike G.o.d."

James wearily got to his feet. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d. You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he repeated as he watched the crimson blood drain out of his wife.

"James!" she sobbed, her chest heaving.

"I'm here, Katherine. I'm here."

"Yes, he's here, Katherine, but of course, he would rather be with Thel."

"You monster," James whispered.

"Stop it!" Katherine screamed.

"Don't believe me, Katherine?" the A.I. mockingly asked her. "Then let's ask the man himself."

James's doppelganger reappeared, right on cue.

"James, please tell me...who do you truly love? Katherine, or Thel?"