"Absurd," James answered.

There was a long pause. James shared a look with the A.I. The electronic Satan was no longer smiling. James wasn't sure whether that was a good sign.

"May I speak with you inside your mainframe?" the voice asked.

"Polite," the A.I. observed. "James, if you're going to allow it inside of the mainframe, may I suggest that I remain hidden?"

James's eyebrow arched. This was a rare example of the A.I. acting in accordance with the logical desire for self-preservation that James had expected all along. Perhaps it was finally recognizing that this was its moment to take the situation seriously. "Why would we do that?" James asked. He was already nearly certain of the answer, but he wanted to hear the A.I. say it-it was important for James to feel like he could finally antic.i.p.ate something correctly again.

"It's a strategic advantage for us," the A.I. replied.

"Us?" James said, repeating the A.I. "Are we a team again?"

"We always were," the A.I. said with a slight smile. "There's no reason for them to know that I'm in your back pocket. It might come in handy."

James nodded in agreement. He had felt the same way-but the A.I. was not to be trusted. "Okay. You lie low."

The A.I. nodded and disappeared from view, going into monitoring mode.

James addressed the alien A.I. "Permission granted. Come in."

14.

"This can't be real. This has to be a nightmare," Old-timer whispered to himself as he remained shackled to the metal coffin.

Alejandra was awake now. She was dazed from the blinding agony, but conscious.

"It is real," the hard-faced man said. "If you deny the reality of the situation, then you have failed to learn, and the lesson will be repeated."

"No! No!" Old-timer shouted, pleading. "No...please. I believe it."

The man didn't smile, but something in his eyes showed that he was pleased. "Good. Then you are ready to be put back together."

Another metallic apparatus dropped from the ceiling, and several robotic arms, thin and dark like insect legs, began manipulating Alejandra's and Old-timer's wounds. They had both jerked away from the instruments in fear, but it became quickly apparent that something had been done to neutralize the pain.

"You'll require no more pain," the man said.

"What have you done to us?" Alejandra asked weakly.

"It should be clear," the man said, this time demonstrating patience.

"You've turned us into machines-like you," Old-timer said, hardly believing his own words.

"We've replaced your bodies," the man said. "Your old bodies were fragile. Your new bodies are strong. Your new bodies are repairable. Your new bodies are independent."

"Why are you doing this?" Old-timer asked, starting to feel better as his new body drew closer to completion.

"We have done this to save you," the man replied.

"Who is 'we'?" Alejandra asked.

"People," the man replied. He didn't elaborate on his perplexing answer.

"How is robbing us of our humanity saving us?" Old-timer asked.

The man paused for a moment. Alejandra's and Old-timer's bodies were now completely repaired. The shackles that had held them in place suddenly released. "You may step down from there now," the man said.

They shared looks of astonishment before stepping down from the metal coffins. Once they were on their feet again, the structures disappeared back into the floor. Old-timer rubbed his wrists. They felt like his wrists, which was, in itself, puzzling.

"Do you no longer believe that you are human?" the man asked.

Old-timer didn't know how to respond. "I feel human," he replied, "but I'm not human any longer."

"Why not?" the man asked.

"Because...I'm made of metal."

"Tell me," the man said, "if you were injured and the injury was so severe that it required one of your joints to be replaced-let's say in your hip-and you agreed to have a metal joint implanted, would you then conclude at the end of the procedure you were no longer human?"

"That's clearly different," Alejandra interjected.

"And if you had two joints replaced? What if you had to have every joint in your body replaced with metal or plastic replicas? What if you needed your jawbone replaced as well? What if you needed every bone in your body replaced? Tell me-at what point do you draw the line and say you are no longer human?"

Old-timer and Alejandra didn't have an answer.

"Alejandra," the man began, "you knew you were going to be physically harmed before you entered this room."

The man's words were true-it seemed inexplicable to Alejandra that she had maintained her powers throughout the transition and yet she had.

"The ability to read people and situations and to sometimes even predict the future was something that you always a.s.sumed was connected to your 'humanity'-to your...meat."

Alejandra's eyes were wide. She nodded. "I thought...I thought it was spiritual."

"I cannot provide you with spiritual answers-it is, as of yet, impossible to prove the existence of spirits. There are things we can prove the existence of, however. Electricity, for instance, can be invisible-it can carry signals-information. Your flesh bodies were excellent carriers of those signals-your new bodies are much better at it."

"That doesn't explain why she still has her powers," Old-timer retorted.

"Not entirely, but I can explain it to you," the man replied. He turned back to Alejandra. "It won't be a mystical answer, Alejandra. You may even find it disappointing-but it is the reality. You cannot sense other people's emotions, even if you have always felt you could. Your gift is purely observational. You are far more in tune with your subconscious than regular people. You read facial expressions and combine this with a lifetime of subconscious data collection about human tendencies to draw your conclusions, which, you then, in turn, interpret as reading emotions."

"That's hogwash," Old-timer said, dismissing the explanation.

"Take your most recent prediction, for example," the man continued. "How did you conclude that we were going to harm you? The answer is simple: You read the expression on my face-"

"You have no expressions," Old-timer interjected.

"Oh, but I do," the man said, turning back to Old-timer briefly. "They may be subtle, but they are present. The one I am exhibiting now is mild annoyance. Please limit your interruptions." He turned back to Alejandra. "You read my body language. I moved with purpose, yet I was not excited. Why? I do not like causing pain. Yet, I knew I had to so that this lesson could unfold. To deal with the unpleasantness of my mission, I attempted to cut myself off from my emotion and focus on the task at hand."

Alejandra's mouth hung slightly open-she couldn't deny that all of these observations were accurate, though she had not consciously registered any of them beforehand.

"You've seen actions like this before, haven't you, Alejandra?" the man continued. "Perhaps when you were young, someone in your family behaved this way before slaughtering an animal for food or clothing? Yes. I'm sure you've seen it many times-and when you saw my behavior, you read it perfectly. You knew what was to come."

Alejandra's head lowered as she heard the explanation. It was so clear-yet it ran contrary to everything she'd always hoped and believed.

"When you entered the room, your anxiety rose substantially. Why? Again the answer is simple: there were three other men in the room, each with expressions and demeanors similar to my own. They do not like causing pain either. And then there is the question of why there would need to be four men in the room. You now know the obvious answer-four men are the minimum required to safely subdue two people without the threat of weapons. Of course you knew this the moment you entered the room, even if you weren't consciously aware of it."

Alejandra stepped to Old-timer and began to cry into his chest.

He held her and put his hand on her head to comfort her. He glared at the man. "What is the point of all of this?" Old-timer demanded.

"I told you. We're here to save you. To save you, we have to explain the truth to you."

"But...but I can feel their emotions," Alejandra said.

The man shook his head. "No you cannot. You are exceptionally adept at reading emotions and then manufacturing emotions to mirror them. You are a tremendous empath."

"How can you call her an empath?" Old-timer asked. "You just told her that her powers are an illusion."

"I never said that. I only explained how her powers work. This is why her powers remain, even in her new body. She is indeed an empath-but an empath does not have spiritual or mystical powers."

"How is all of this supposed to be saving us?" Old-timer asked.

"For you to be saved, you must know the truth. To know the truth, you must have no delusions."

"And what about the pain? Why did you have to cause us pain?" Alejandra asked.

"You had to see what you were for you to believe it-you had to feel what you were as well. It wasn't just the pain. You had to antic.i.p.ate it-you had to fear it. You had to feel your humanity, or else you would not believe you are still human, and we would not be able to save you."

"And what are you trying to save us from?" Alejandra asked.

"From forces you do not yet understand...but you very soon will."

15.

"The damage to the engines isn't a threat right now," Rich explained to Thel as she remained next to James in sick bay, "but the danger is, if the androids find us again, it won't take them long to finish the job they started. I recommend we do a patch up."

"Have you tried communicating with the nans that are still onboard the ship?" Thel asked.

"Yes," Djanet answered for both her and Rich. "Neither of us can make heads or tails out of them."

"We'd have to spend a decade in training just to have a workable knowledge of how to create nano-programs that would help fix the engines," Rich elaborated. "It's the sort of thing only James can do when he has access to the A.I. mainframe."

Thel nodded in understanding. "Then what are you suggesting?"

"Well, I'm thinking we find some sc.r.a.p metal-there must be something we can use onboard-and then just do an old-fashioned welding job," Rich replied.

"How quick can you get it done?" Thel asked. "We're going to be coming around the far side of the sun soon. Right now, the sun's radiation is cloaking us, but we'll be more visible when we move away from the strongest radiation and get closer to Venus."

"We can have something put together in an hour," Djanet a.s.serted.

Thel nodded. "Good. Make it happen."

"How's the commander?" Rich asked. "He's looking better."

Thel looked down at James's body. Indeed, he did look far better than he had after his collision with the android. "All his minor injuries have been repaired, but it's the nerve damage to his spine that is the real problem. If this had happened on Earth, James could have used the same programs that built entire people out of nothing to repair the body in an instant. Instead, we have to hope the programming of the nans already in his body can repair the damage before more of his body begins to shut down."

"He'll pull through," Djanet said, reaching for Thel's hand.

"He has to-the last time I communicated with him from Earth, he'd been found by the alien A.I. We've lost contact since then." She closed her eyes and tried not to visualize what seemed to be an implacable truth. "By now, he has probably been deleted."

16.

This was not what James had been expecting-once again.

The form the alien A.I. had chosen for its appearance in the mainframe was of a blonde-a blonde that James hypothesized had been designed to be the most appealing form possible-mathematically possible.

"We have come in peace," the woman said, her beautiful blue eyes speaking the message even more earnestly than her words.

"No you haven't," James replied immediately. "Why are you wasting my time?"

"We were invited," the alien replied.

"Not by me."

"We know," the alien answered. "We were contacted by an artificial intelligence. You are a human."

James was stunned. "How do you know that?"

"It's the logical conclusion," the alien replied. "The A.I. who contacted us spoke of having destroyed all human life in its solar system. It was reaching out, hoping to find more beings like it."

"Beings like you," James observed. "Machines."