"Your science makes you smug and arrogant," 1 stated coldly, "but you have absolutely no idea in which direction it is taking you, do you? You're just blindly moving forward, unable to even realize the simple reality that your science has taken away your humanity."

"It hasn't taken away my humanity-it has transcended it. But you are right about one thing," James conceded. "I cannot see where we are going or what our distant future will hold, and I hope I can never see the boundary of human ingenuity and progress."

"You have become too arrogant to admit it, but we were meant to have limits," 1 retorted. "If we do not respect them, we will inevitably destroy ourselves."

"That's the same fear I've been fighting against my entire life," Old-timer countered. "You sound like a broken record."

Neirbo's head tilted slightly as 1 sent a command message to the troops on the ship. With negotiation at an impa.s.se, she had decided to eliminate James and his companions. In a flash, each of them drew their weapons and fired.

Equally quickly, James held his hand up to dissipate the bullets. However, this time, he didn't stop with only the bullets. He waved his hands in front of his adversaries, and their entire bodies simply evaporated into a white smoke that hung in the air.

A brief moment of astonishment from his companions followed. "Where'd they go?" Djanet asked.

"I think you're breathing them," Rich replied.

"You killed them?" Thel uttered, aghast.

"They will live again," James replied. "I've just removed them for the time being."

"Removed them? James!" she shouted, stunned.

He grabbed her shoulders with his diamond-hard hands and pulled her to him. "You're going to have to trust me. I don't have time to explain."

He kissed her.

"But I don't want you to forget everything that's happened," he said. He turned to Old-timer. "Do you still have the device they use to download consciousness?"

Old-timer reached in his pocket and pulled out the small, black stick. "They call it an a.s.similator." He handed it to James.

James took it and placed it on Thel's neck.

She jerked away from him. "No!"

"Honey," he said, "you have to trust me. 1 can reenter any of your bodies at any moment. She wants to destroy the solar system. I want to save it-and I can bring everyone back."

"Bring them back?" Djanet gasped. "How?"

"I don't have time to explain it," he replied. "I can do it though." He turned back to Thel and looked deeply and earnestly into her eyes. "I can do it."

She looked back at him, at his new body, this incredible, almost magical achievement, and replied, "I know."

"I love you, Thel."

"I love you, James."

"See you soon," James said, winking his left, glowing eye. He placed the a.s.similator on her neck, and she immediately lost consciousness, her body curling up into the fetal position as she floated gently in the zero gravity. He temporarily transferred the pattern from the a.s.similator to himself before sending it back to the A.I. on Earth, where it would safely survive the inception of the Trans-Human program and subsequent reversal of the solar system. He then turned to Djanet and Rich. "Your turn."

Rich winced. "I don't know about this, Commander. The last time I got stuck with one of those things, I woke up as a robot. I'd really rather not go through that again."

"This time when you wake up, you'll be your old self," James smiled. "I just don't want you to forget everything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours. You've got to trust me, guys."

"It's James," Old-timer echoed, speaking in a rea.s.suring tone. "He knows what he's doing."

"All right," Djanet said, bravely moving forward and floating toward James. "I trust you. Let's do this."

James placed the a.s.similator on her neck, and her muscles instantly relaxed. She remained in a standing position, almost appearing like a sleepwalker as she swayed slightly to and fro. Rich floated to her side and took her unconscious body into his arms. He felt his stomach twist as he considered the thought of never seeing her again. "You better know what you're doing," he said to James.

James smiled. "I give you my word." He placed the a.s.similator onto Rich's neck and he too, instantly, went to sleep.

As soon as they were alone, Old-timer echoed Rich. "I sure hope you know what you're doing."

"It's the A.I.'s plan. It should work."

"Before you put me to sleep," Old-timer said, regarding the a.s.similator in James's hand, "I wanted to say thanks for taking care of that Neirbo for me. I only wish it had been more painful. I owed him-big time."

"You may still get your chance," James replied. "Are you ready?"

"I'm ready," Old-timer replied.

James placed the a.s.similator on his friend's neck and watched him slip out of consciousness. "I'll see you soon, old friend," he said as he sent Old-timer's pattern back to the safety of the A.I.'s mainframe.

"Much sooner than you think!" Old-timer suddenly shouted as his eyes suddenly blazed open and he grasped James around the neck, twisting him around and thrusting him right through the thin hull of the ship and out into s.p.a.ce.

Before James had time to reorient himself, Old-timer had turned his attention to the anti-matter missile and quickly removed it from its platform. He mounted it like a cowboy hopping on the back of his trusty steed and launched himself toward the sun. Just as James began to pursue, another wormhole opened up and gulped down Old-timer and the anti-matter missile-it vanished as quickly as it had opened.

"Oh no," James whispered.

21.

Back at the mainframe, James turned to the A.I., who was still standing beside him in the operator's position. "What can I do? Can we track 1 somehow?"

"No. Not from this range, I'm afraid."

"I need help here. I'm at a loss," James responded, panic seeping into his voice. Even with his new powers, he felt utterly helpless.

"Use your reason, my son," the A.I. replied in a master's calm and patient tone. "Remember: the android's limited wormhole technology will not allow her to have traveled a great distance. Also, Craig's android body will not be able to withstand the sun's heat for long."

"Meaning she'll have to pause and set a course for the missile before the body gives out," James realized. "I have to find her before then."

Back in s.p.a.ce, he blasted away from the android ship, in the direction of the sun, using his new senses, feeling the molecules around him, waiting to feel the ripples in s.p.a.ce that 1 and the missile would have made when their wormhole opened up and spat them out. It wasn't long before he found them. "I've got them," he affirmed.

1, in Old-timer's possessed body, raced toward the sun, still mounted on the back of the missile. The blazing-white heat was melting Old-timer's hair and the flesh on his face, but 1 continued, undeterred.

James overtook them quickly, turning back to see 1's grimace as the flesh on Old-timer's metal frame became red with the heat and peeled off, streaming off into glowing red globes in her wake. He held his hand up and began to manipulate her molecules, scattering them so Old-timer's frame disappeared in a puff of smoke, instantly left behind by the careening missile.

"Excellent work, James," said the A.I. in his ear. "You have a clear path now. However, you must hurry and download the Trans-Human program into the missile. I calculate that there are less than sixty seconds before it will have reached its intended detonation location."

"I'm on it," James replied as he placed his palm on the side of the missile. The Trans-Human program was within him, and once his skin made contact with the missile, he was able to download it into its...o...b..ard computer.

"It's going to take another twenty seconds to bring the program online," James related to the A.I. "This is going to be close."

Back on Earth, Katherine, Jim, and the A.I. watched the events unfold through James's eyes. "What if he doesn't activate it in time?" Katherine asked.

"He will," Jim replied, trying to sound rea.s.suring, though he was truly unsure.

"Five seconds," James said. The light from the sun was now too much for even his new eyes to filter out, and the heat was beginning to cause his skin to glow red as it threatened to liquefy.

"Done!" he finally shouted as he let the missile continue on its trajectory without him; he retreated as quickly as he could. "It's away!"

Only a handful of seconds later, the anti-matter missile ignited.

22.

James had made just enough distance between himself and point zero that he was able to turn and, through his mental connection, give those back on Earth a view that was unlike anything any human had ever looked upon before. The sun began to grow dim, flickering like a candle in the final moments before it succ.u.mbs, all the while eerily silent.

"It's happening," James whispered. "I'm too close. I'm not going to make it!"

"Try, James!" Katherine shouted in desperation.

James turned and began to streak away from the collapsing sun, opening wormholes one after another so he could cheat the speed of light, desperately trying to make it as far away from the birth of this manmade black hole. The collapsing solar system nipped at his heels, bending the rules of the universe as the fabric of s.p.a.ce and time was sucked into the blackness of the black hole.

He didn't know why he was fleeing. He knew the plan meant he would, in all likelihood, be caught in the wake of the black hole, that he would be sucked in, past the event horizon, and have to face the unknowable fate within. Yet he raced away from it as fast as he could, terrified as though he were drowning-fighting for his life.

Back in the mainframe, the A.I. spoke to him, his words calm and even. "It will be all right. You will survive this, my son. Do not be afraid." He placed his hand on James's shoulder.

The calming words of the A.I. brought James back to his senses. He suddenly stopped.

"Embrace it," advised the A.I.

James turned and gazed upon the coming blackness. s.p.a.ce was being pulled toward point zero, and James was about to become a part of it. He suddenly realized that this would be the greatest moment of his life. "Embrace it," he whispered.

The trinity watched the event horizon approach from the mainframe.

"He must be terrified," Katherine said, mortified.

"Indeed, I am sure he is," replied the A.I. as he watched the dazzling spectrum of colors from the rim of Hawking radiation as it approached James. "I envy him."

When the event horizon reached James, he held his arms up to the coming wave and watched them begin to distort, first lengthening as the gravity pulled them toward it, then shortening as the gravity compressed them.

"There's no pain," James related with awe.

In the next moment, the screen went completely dark, and James's form vanished in the mainframe.

"Is that it?" Katherine asked, horrified. "Is he...gone?"

"Yes," the A.I. replied.

23.

The golden beams of information that were ubiquitous within the operator's position were magnified now to such an extent that Katherine and Jim had to cover their eyes as the A.I. grappled with an influx of information that tested even his extraordinary capacity. His stare remained fixed on the incoming information as he stood perfectly still, like a statue.

"What happens now?" Katherine asked.

"Trans-Human has successfully been initiated," the A.I. explained, "so it now falls to us to ask it to reverse itself."

"What if 'it' refuses?" Katherine worried. "Aren't you asking it to destroy itself just as you gave birth to it?"

"Yes," the A.I. replied, "but part of its programming is an understanding that it must protect and respect humanity."

"Let's hope it's as altruistic as you think," Katherine said gravely.

The A.I.'s expression and tone suddenly changed from one of intense concentration to one of awe. "It has already begun," the A.I. whispered.

"Katherine!" Jim shouted as he expanded a view screen so they could watch the events unfolding in s.p.a.ce. The black hole that had grown so large that it had swallowed the s.p.a.ce around it all the way to Mercury was now receding-an astronomical wave of blackness withdrawing, the Hawking radiation rings shrinking like a p.r.i.c.ked balloon.

"For the first time in history, the physical universe is exhibiting intelligence," Jim said in awe.

Katherine watched with horror as the black hole withdrew and as the darkness shrank away at a greater and greater speed. Right in front of her eyes, the sun suddenly burst back to life, gleaming as bright as ever. "I don't understand," Katherine admitted. "If the black hole has completely vanished, then how is the solar system still reversing itself? The Trans-Human program only existed from the moment that the sun was extinguished, right?"

"Think of it like a child's swing, my dear," the A.I. explained as he simultaneously continued the sophisticated dance with the incoming information from the Trans-Human program. "If the child pulls back and lets herself go, the momentum will carry her past the starting position and right through the swinging motion. Our Trans-Human program has done the same thing."

"The informational capacity was so large that its momentum is allowing the A.I. to run the solar system back in time, even before the program was initiated," Jim further explained.

"That's what the A.I. meant about it being a paradox?" she asked.

"Indeed it is, my dear," the A.I. answered "However, even a computer this magnificent has its limitations. The informational capacity required to reverse the solar system will only let us turn time back twenty-two hours and thirty-one minutes."

Katherine and Jim marveled as they watched the past come back like a slingshot, their reality playing out in front of them as though someone were reversing a filmstrip. The sun crossed the sky in a matter of minutes, rising in the west and setting in the east, whilst the horrors of people being pulled up from the surface reversed themselves. The cloud of androids abandoned the planet while the dead post-humans returned to life, calmly moving about their business-albeit in reverse.

"It's working," Katherine said softly. Tears welled into her eyes.