30.

His metallic hands crushed the edges of the screen to which he clung as though it were gumbo. It disintegrated, crumbling through his fingers, and he fell back onto the floor, putting his head into his hands, distraught, and letting his body shake with fury and despair. A moment earlier, Old-timer's wife lived-just a moment. Yet it might as well have been an eternity.

Alejandra didn't have to be an empath to know not to say anything. Instead, she draped herself over his back and cradled him as though she were trying to shield his body from a grenade in the trenches. She wished she could somehow absorb the pain for him, but she knew holding him was all that she could do.

Governor Wong silently waved away his troops; machine or not, Old-timer's despair was clearly genuine-it deserved privacy. Only he and Lieutenant Patrick remained; like Alejandra, they stayed silent.

A long moment pa.s.sed. It may have only been two or three minutes, but that kind of pain stretched time to an eternity. The moment may have continued for even a longer time if it weren't for an incoming message to Alejandra and Old-timer. The grim-faced man was calling them through their android telepathic connection-a system very similar to the mind's eye.

Alejandra answered the call for both of them. "h.e.l.lo, Neirbo."

"Your friends have been transformed and are ready to be roused. In respect of your request to be here when they awaken, we will await your arrival."

Old-timer's head was still firmly buried in his hands but he couldn't hide from the message; there was the grim-faced man, Neirbo, staring at him. "We need you to respond immediately. We are under, attack and your friends will have to be awakened soon to give them a chance to defend themselves once the battle reaches us. If you are not here when they are roused, we will have to proceed with the education without you."

"No!" Alejandra responded, jolting upward as the memory of her "education" shot through her like a bolt of electricity. Neirbo tilted his head back ever so slightly, as though he were startled by the strength of Alejandra's reaction.

Old-timer reached up to put his hand over Alejandra's to steady her. "We'll be there shortly," he said in a lifeless monotone.

"Hurry. Time is short," the android replied.

"Where will you be?" Governor Wong inquired urgently.

"You're not leaving us again, are you?" Lieutenant Patrick echoed, desperation in his voice. "We need you here to guide us."

"You'll be okay," Old-timer replied. "We'll set a course to get you out of the solar system and as far from all this carnage as possible. The Vega system has the most rocky planets; it's probably your best bet to find a life-sustaining planet."

"But why won't you come with us?" asked Lieutenant Patrick, almost pleadingly.

"We are not astronauts," Governor Wong stated frankly. "We will need a.s.sistance."

"We'll make sure we can return to you," Old-timer said, getting to his feet. "But right now, our friends need us more than you do, believe me. We have to be there to help them first."

"I'll stay behind," Alejandra suddenly announced, stunning Old-timer, who turned his head quickly in astonishment.

"Alejandra, I'm going to need your help to explain this to the others. They aren't going to be happy to be...machines. You can help me persuade them."

"I won't be able to go with you," Alejandra replied.

Old-timer paused as he suddenly realized why Alejandra wasn't going to accompany him. "I can't believe it. You actually want to go back into your flesh body," he said, disbelieving his own words.

"Craig, I have to."

"No you don't!" Old-timer yelled out as he shut his eyes tight and moved sharply away from her. "You're impossible! There is no reason for you to go back into that body! None! Neirbo already explained to you how your powers work! It has nothing to do with your flesh or your...spirits or anything else!"

"I heard what he said," Alejandra replied, still speaking in a patient, even tone. She wouldn't lose her patience; she knew where Old-timer's pain was coming from. "He may be right..."

"May be? Are you kidding me? Christ!" Old-timer shook his head violently and grunted with frustration like a pit bull rejecting his master's leash. "Reason is never good enough for you people, is it? Seeing evidence with your own eyes is never good enough! Well, here we are, Alejandra! You're made of metal, and you're still alive! You're still you! Neirbo ripped out your insides to show you, but it still wasn't good enough to convince you that your old body is a useless, fragile remnant of evolution!"

"Craig...it's my body," Alejandra replied, keeping her hypnotic eyes locked on Old-timer's. "I can't let it die. Can you honestly tell me that if you had the chance to go into your old body, you wouldn't do it? You'd just let it die?"

"That flesh body will die, Alejandra! It's just a matter of time and not much time either! That's what you can't appreciate because you're so young and your body is healthy, but believe me, you are going to fall apart and quickly!"

"I can always choose to become like you, Craig. If I let my flesh body die now, however, I can never go back. Even if I could somehow remake a flesh body or clone myself, it would always be a copy."

Old-timer's breathing was slowing as he kept his eyes locked with Alejandra's. As usual, in the face of what seemed like impenetrable logic, she was able to make a point that would cause him to pause. Why was he even huffing and puffing at all? Oxygen was useless for him. He could walk out into s.p.a.ce and have a stroll if he wanted, completely unprotected from the radiation and extreme temperatures. So why huff and puff when angry? The answer was obvious: because this body was a copy. Whether his new body was better than the old one he used to have or not, it was still imitating the things that made the old one human.

He nodded slightly. "Okay. Okay, if that's what you want to do. I won't stop you."

"Thank you, Craig," she responded softly. "But I need more than that; I need your help."

In the infirmary, Alejandra looked down at her body. It was still covered in dust, even though the medical staff had tried their best to clear it away. The room's ceiling was still torn apart where James had blasted it.

"How rare a moment this is," Alejandra commented in awe.

Old-timer watched as she stood over her own body. He wondered if she could still sense what he was feeling-complete and utter loss. As soon as she returned to her original body, she would no longer be able to follow Old-timer to where he needed to go. Didn't she realize that this act would separate them? Perhaps she confused his feeling of loss for what he felt for Daniella; perhaps she was just too overwhelmed by the magnitude of her own decision to sense anything from him at all.

"I'm ready," Alejandra said, suddenly snapping Old-timer free from the consumption of his thoughts.

"Okay," he responded, brandishing his a.s.similator and putting it to her neck.

"Wait," she said as she gently held his hand back. "This doesn't mean I don't love you."

"I never said-"

"You're very easy to read, Craig," she replied, her eyes filled with sincerity. "Don't give up on me. When you've done what you need to do with the others, come back to me."

Old-timer was dumbfounded for a moment before he finally nodded.

"Okay. I'm ready," she said.

"Okay," Old-timer responded as Alejandra took her hand from his and let him touch her neck with the a.s.similator. Her android body thundered and clanked to the ground.

"G.o.d. Those are heavy bodies," Lieutenant Patrick observed. The lieutenant, Governor Wong, and a doctor were present in the infirmary.

Old-timer held the a.s.similator for a moment-inside was the pattern of Alejandra. It was like holding her soul. He held it as though he were holding the most precious and fragile egg in the universe as he placed it onto Alejandra's flesh body. As soon as the object touched her, her body reacted, and color began to return to her complexion. She didn't wake up right away, but her muscles were reanimated for the first time as her unconscious body shifted position and she sighed.

"Oh my G.o.d-it's a miracle," the doctor whispered as he moved to the body and felt her cheek before quickly turning and calling for medical staff to join him. "We have to get her off life support! She's waking up!"

Old-timer moved away from her and began to lift off out of the hole in the ceiling. "Wait!" Lieutenant Patrick exclaimed. "Don't you want to be here when she wakes up at least?"

He shook his head. "No. I have to leave now. My friends need me. Tell her I said goodbye." With that, Old-timer slipped through the ceiling and made his way out of the Purist ship.

Moments later, he floated alone through s.p.a.ce. This close to the sun, it was difficult to make out the stars. He looked at his arm, garbed in black and outstretched before him, and realized it was impossible to delineate where his arm ended and the vast blackness of s.p.a.ce began. "I'm ready, Neirbo," he announced.

A wormhole opened up in the nothingness and swallowed him.

PART 3.

1.

WAKING UP was entirely unexpected; waking up to see his dead wife looking down at him was beyond reason.

"James? It's time to wake up," Katherine Keats said with a familiar hint of impatience in her tone.

James looked up at the form of his dead wife and studied it for a moment. It was perfectly vivid.

"You're not dead," Katherine said, as though she were responding to his thoughts.

Was it possible that there was some sort of residual electrical patterning that continued in the moments after death, even without a body? Could this be some sort of cyber death dream?

"You're always trying to figure things out, aren't you?" Katherine said, sighing and shaking her head. "Why can't you simply ask?" She moved to the side and revealed another figure standing nearby. She addressed him. "You see? This is what you used to be like all the time."

"I'm sorry," James's doppelganger replied, apologizing to her.

The doppelganger's eyes met those of James, and he stepped toward his twin with an outstretched hand. "Help you up?"

James's mouth hung open as he pondered the vision before him. He put his own hand up and grasped the hand that was offered to him, then stood to his feet. Katherine Keats remained, arms folded; she was wearing an expression of resignation. The doppelganger stood nearby with a considerably more sympathetic expression on his face. Behind them was a vast network of what appeared to be some sort of golden circuitry, glowing brightly and undulating like the sea all the way into the horizon where it sparkled like a setting sun in front of a pure black backdrop.

"Much have I travelled in the realms of gold, and many goodly states and kingdoms seen," James whispered in awe.

The doppelganger smiled. "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," he observed, before adding, "you're not dead, James." He put his hand rea.s.suringly on James's shoulder.

"Okay," James replied after a moment, still not sure if he was engaging in a conversation with images from his subconscious or not-did he even have a subconscious any more?

"He doesn't believe you, Jim," Katherine said to the doppelganger.

James arched his eyebrow quizzically. "Jim?"

The doppelganger smiled. "I needed a name. I'm not you-at least not anymore-so I needed something to differentiate myself. I figured going by Jim was the easiest."

"Jim?" James repeated, his eyebrows now knitted.

The doppelganger laughed. "Yeah, I know. I hated it too, but coming up with a whole new name didn't appeal to me."

"I prefer Jim now," Katherine said. Jim turned to Katherine and shrugged in response. James immediately recognized that she wasn't referring to the name.

"What the h.e.l.l is going on?" James asked. "Who or what are you?"

"I'm your doppelganger. We've met. You remember."

"And I'm your former wife," Katherine added, "you remember?" h.e.l.l hath no fury.

"My wife is gone," James replied. "I saw her deleted by the A.I. myself. I took control of the mainframe and checked to see if there was any trace of her left. You're not my wife."

"We were both deleted," Jim responded, stepping between James and Katherine before Katherine had a chance to fire back; he could tell she wanted to from her rigid body language. "We ended up here."

"Where is here?" James asked.

"The other side of the looking gla.s.s," Katherine interjected with a sardonic smile.

"Honey, please," Jim said, putting his hand on her shoulder in a gesture for civility. "This is going to be confusing enough for him without riddles." He turned back to James, "We're still in the mainframe-sort of," Jim explained.

"Impossible," James replied, disbelieving, yet getting used to the impossible becoming possible.

"Impossible? That's not the sort of word I remember the greatest inventor in the world ever using before," said the most kind and familiar voice in James's life. He turned quickly with a start, and his eyes fell upon the unmistakable figure of the A.I.

2.

"What sort of sick game is this?" James asked, turning from the A.I. and looking up into the sky, as though he were addressing an omnipresent listener. "You couldn't just kill me, could you? You had to play one last s.a.d.i.s.tic trick?"

"Who the h.e.l.l are you talking to, you moron?" asked Katherine as she shook her head dismissively.

"Honey! Please," Jim responded to her. "He is 99.999 percent me. Please have a little compa.s.sion for his situation."

"Honey?" James reacted with morbid curiosity.

Katherine smiled the instant she realized that she had the chance to cause James more pain. "That's right." She crossed over to Jim and put her arm around his waist, cradling his body next to hers. "Jim and I have become lovers."

Jim sighed and shook his head, "Katherine, please."

For a fraction of a second, James's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Okay. What the h.e.l.l is going on?"

"They've mended fences, James," responded the A.I., completely returned to the friendly, elderly form with which James had been familiar for most of his life. "They had a lot of history and a powerful emotional attachment between them. It took time, but they have become very close over the past year and seven months."

James didn't know with whom he should share his look of astonishment. His eyes moved from the A.I.'s, to the doppelganger's, to Katherine's, then back to the doppelganger's. Jim started answering questions without James having to ask them. "We were both deleted-we found each other here-we've had a lot of time to talk through our issues. We're different people than we were before, James."

James closed his eyes to block out the visions around him. He told himself that he would figure out what was going on. He wasn't insane.

Katherine sensed his anguish and she timed a kiss on Jim's cheek to correlate perfectly with the reopening of James's eyes.

The A.I. strolled in front of James and met his eye. "Reconciliation is possible, James. It's good to have you back, my son."