Novum: Revelation: (Book 4) (10 page)

At some point during the next half hour, there was an unspoken group decision to continue their search of the torus interior. There was no reason to go back to the cave. They had food and water, and now that they knew most of their living space had been simulated, it could no longer be called their home. Their home was a fifty-meter, Proteus-class cargo hauler called the
Rogue Wave,
and they were all determined to find it, no matter how long it took. At least, that was how Jake imagined it. One other person imagined it differently.

“I won’t go on any farther,” Dr. Wood said as he dropped to his knees then collapsed against the wall.

AJ sighed. “I suppose we can afford to take a short break.”

“I’m not interested in a short break,” Wood said, not bothering to look at anyone. “I don’t plan on leaving this spot. Please, feel free to go on without me. It’s what you all want to do anyway.”

“Oh, give me a break,” Jessie said, startling everyone.

Wood looked up, obviously surprised himself by her reply. “Now listen here, young lady, I—”

“No, you listen, Doctor,” Jessie yelled. “We’ve been nothing but kind to you, even welcomed you into our family, and I thought you were changing. But now all you do is complain.” She pulled out her knife and approached him. “Well, I for one have had enough.”

“Jessie!” Vee yelled as AJ spun around and lunged for the knife. Her hand struck Jessie’s forearm, knocking the knife loose but accidentally hurling it directly at the doctor. He screamed, Jessie screamed, and then he was suddenly nothing but a cloud of dust.

“What the bilge?” Jake yelled as a now-familiar metallic power supply fell to the floor with a clank.

“He’s a simulation!” Vee yelled. As before when the copy of Ash disintegrated, a small bug-like object rose from the dust and flew down the hallway in the direction they had been heading.

“I’m sorry,” Jessie screamed. “I only wanted to scare him.”

“That’s okay, sweetie,” Vee said, trying to calm her.

“When did he become—” AJ started to say, but Raines cut her off.

“Quick, follow that thing,” he yelled as he ran down the hallway after it.

“What was it?” Vee yelled as everyone ran to catch up with him.

“Its brain,” Raines called back. “Its controller.”

“Where do you think it’s going?” Jake asked. Both he and AJ were at the rear, making sure everyone stayed up with Raines.

“No idea, but I would guess it’s someplace important.”

AJ looked at Jake as they ran. “When do you think they swapped Wood out?”

Jake shook his head. “I don’t know, maybe last night.” He looked over his shoulder at the hallway behind him. “Do you get the feeling that we have been led here? Like someone, or something, has been guiding us here?”

“Like your vision of the Wave?” she replied. “I guess that could have been some sort of holographic projection. The technology here is off the scale, so I guess we can’t rule anything out.”

“Maybe this is just another trap,” he said. “Maybe we were meant to find these tunnels. Maybe Wood’s assistant was sent along to keep an eye on us.”

“Well, that plan failed.”

Jake leaned in close as they ran and whispered back, “Unless there’s another imposter in our group.” She just shook her head and continued to run.

They didn’t have to run far, because at the very next door, the bug stopped and hung in midair. A second later, the door slid open a few centimeters, and the bug headed towards it. Jake ran past everyone and lunged for the opening with his knife. He hit the floor hard, knocking the wind out of his lungs, but managed to shove the blade into the opening just as it closed.

“I’ve got it,” Jessie said as she grabbed the handle of the knife as the door fought to close. Jake rolled on the floor, wheezing, trying to catch his breath.

“We need something to pry it open with,” Jessie said. Raines reached in his backpack and pulled out the pipe-shaped Mind Ship transmitter. He shoved it in the door crack and pushed it hard to the side. The door eventually gave up and slid open for them.

“Everyone inside,” AJ said, grabbing Jake by the arm and pulling him across the floor through the opening. When they were through, the door resealed itself.

“Block it,” Jake tried to say, but his chest still hurt too much.

“Too late,” AJ said then looked at something ahead of her. “Anyway, I’m not worried about being trapped in here.”

He looked up at her. “Why?” Thankfully, his voice was returning.

Her eyes were wide, and there was a weird shimmering light on her face. “Because of that,” she said. “Stand up and take a look.”

Jake forced himself to stand, and what he saw when he turned around made his chest pain disappear. In front of him was a floor-to-ceiling window looking into a huge, water-filled sphere. Swimming inside were thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of sea creatures, both large and small.

“Those are…Earth species,” Raines said. “I see dolphins, and…I think they called them blue whales.”

“Those are humpbacks,” Vee corrected him. “I memorized them all from your books.” She looked at Jake. “Still think this isn’t Earth?”

“I don’t know what to think,” he admitted. “Once again, I have more questions than answers.”

The glass window suddenly turned black, and a deep voice asked, “Do you have a question?”

Jake and Raines looked at each other. “Who am I addressing?” Raines called out.

“You are addressing the Hall of Records. Please state your request.”

Raines looked at Jake and then at AJ. “For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to say.”

“Who are you?” Vee asked.

“You are addressing the Hall of Records,” the voice repeated. “Please state your request.”

“I mean, are you a machine, or a person?”

“Irrelevant question. Please ask another.”

Jessie spoke up this time. “How is that irrelevant? Are you alive or not?”

“Irrelevant question. Please ask another.”

“What is your purpose?” Raines asked. “Why are you here?”

“The Hall of Records was created to record and store all harvest and conception events.”

Now it was Jake’s turn. “What is a harvest event?”

“Harvesting is a procedure whereby an object is scanned at the molecular level, recorded in permanent storage, then disassembled into basic elements for conception process.”

“What is a conception process?” AJ asked.

“Wait a minute,” Jake said. “I didn’t even understand what—”

“Conception is the antithesis of harvesting,” the voice continued. “Basic elements are combined following one or more stored patterns to create a new object.”

“So you break things apart and put them back together,” Raines said.

“A simplistic summary but essentially correct,” the voice said.

“I think you were just insulted.” Vee laughed.

“Does any of this matter to us?” Jake asked Raines.

“I’m not sure,” he replied. To the room, he asked, “Can you show us an example of how you harvest?”

The black wall suddenly turned clear again, but instead of the sea creatures they had seen before, it showed a group of Isopods swimming along the sea floor, almost as if someone with a camera were swimming along with them. In the distance, a small ship came into view. At least it was small as compared to the huge Isopods.

As it became larger in the image, Raines said, “That looks like one of ours.”

AJ stepped closer to the wall. “That’s a Nereus-class personnel carrier.” She looked at Raines. “Didn’t a personnel carrier go missing near the western border of Civica a few years back?”

As the image became clearer, Jake noticed a tall tower in the distance. “I think you’re right,” he said. “That looks like a border tower.”

They watched as the Isopods moved over the ship and then picked it up with their long arms. The image cut back to somewhere inside the torus as the ship was placed on a platform. Light beams then began moving back and forth over the hull, whose damage was now quite visible. After a few minutes, the Isopods returned and picked the ship up again.

“What happens now?” Jessie asked.

“The final step in harvesting,” the voice said. Everyone watched as the ship was placed on another platform. Then the entire thing began to glow, as though it was getting very hot. The glow became too bright to see but then quickly subsided. When it darkened enough to see, the ship was gone.

“You destroyed it?” Vee asked.

“Disassembly is a destructive event in the literal sense,” the voice said. “What is important to the mission is that the recordings were completed with no loss of fidelity.”

“Loss of fidelity?” Jessie asked.

“It means that it was a good recording,” Raines said.

“But why are they doing that?” AJ asked. “Why copy things and then turn around and destroy them?”

“Harvesting!” Jake exclaimed, pleased with himself for figuring it out first. Turning to Raines, he said, “You said before that you thought the Isopods were machine-based life forms.”

“Actually, that was Dr. Wood’s conjecture,” Raines said, “but go on.”

“A non-animal life form would obviously need a way to reproduce, right? I think harvesting is how they find the metal they need to make copies of themselves. Remember that scavenger we recovered?”

“How could we forget,” AJ said. “It was the transmitter we found inside that allowed us to cross Civica’s border.”

“Right, well, remember that Wood said it might be a baby Isopod?”

“So what you’re saying,” Raines jumped in, “is that the Isopods swim around looking for large metal objects like old, damaged ships and…” He suddenly froze.

“What’s wrong?” AJ asked.

Jake knew why. “The
Wave
!” He looked up at the wall. “Did you come across a ship about two months back not far from here?

“Affirmative.”

A shiver ran down Jake’s spine. “Show it to me.”

They all watched in horror as the
Rogue Wave
was carried into the recording platform and scanned. Jake told the voice to stop just before the disassembly part began.

Jake walked over to the wall and collapsed to the floor. He suddenly felt horrible for all the times he had tried to sell his ship. Before this crew entered his life, the
Rogue Wave
felt like a weight dragging him down to the depths of the ocean, down to where Stacy had died. But then he found a home inside his ship, and his crew had become like a family to him. And now it was gone.

AJ came over and sat beside him. She put a hand on his shoulder but didn’t say a word.

“Why?” Jake finally asked. His voice sounded weak and pathetic, but he didn’t care. His ship was gone forever. “Why did you bring us here and then trap us here? What do you what from us?”

“Perhaps I can answer that,” a familiar voice said. Jake spun around to see Dr. Wood coming through the door. Behind him were both Ash and his father.

“Ash,” Jessie yelled as she started to run towards him.

“Stay there, sis,” he cautioned.

“What’s going on, Dad?” Jake demanded, taking a step towards the three.

His father put up his hands. “I think you all should listen to what Dr. Wood has to say.”

Jake stopped. “Why him? Why can’t you tell me yourself?

“I think you know why,” his father said.

Jake looked at him and realized that he didn’t want it to be true. “It’s because you’re not real, isn’t it?”

His father frowned. “I wish I could tell you that I was your father, your physical father.” He looked at his hands. “I have his memories. I have his hands.” He looked back up at Jake. “When I look in the mirror I see that I look like him, but I know that I am not him.”

“Then who, or what, are you?” Raines asked.

He shook his head. “I am a product of this facility. I was created to make you more comfortable here.”

“Why?” AJ asked.

“More importantly,” Jake said, “how? My father was real. How do you have all of his memories? Is he…”

“Yes,” Dr. Wood said. “He died shortly after the dogs attacked him.” He looked up at the wall. “His memories were copied and preserved in the Hall of Records.”

“The same thing happened to you, didn’t it?” Jessie said to Ash.

Ash nodded. “I’m sorry that I had to deceive you, Jessie.”

“So, my brother really is dead?”

Ash shook his head. “No, Jessie, I’m right here. I’m just—”

Wood cut him off. “They can’t answer that question truthfully, I’ve discovered. Death here means something that was not preserved in their records. Both Ash and Michael were scanned and stored away before their bodies died, so in a sense, they were rescued.”

“Rescued?” Vee asked.

“In their vocabulary, yes.”

“How do you play in all of this, Doctor?” Raines asked. “Why do you know so much?”

Wood turned to Ash and nodded his head. Both he and Jake’s father turned and left the room. “They took me last night,” he began. “Ash and your father. I saw the copy of me climb into my bed just before I lost consciousness.”

“Why did they take you?” Jake asked.

He shrugged. “The arrogant part of me might suggest that it was because of my intelligence, but the truth is, they wanted someone who had no emotional ties to either Michael or Ash.”

“Why?” Jessie asked.

“So that I would believe them when they told me why they were created and why we were brought here.” He looked at Jake. “Isn’t that what you just asked? You wanted to know why we were brought here?”

Jake nodded, but a part of him wasn’t willing to trust anything the doctor was saying. “And you say you know why?”

“I was told a
story
,” he replied, “and I emphasize the word story, because I have no idea whether or not it is true.”

“Tell us the story,” Raines said, “and let us decide for ourselves.”

Wood walked over to the wall and ran his fingers along it. “This wall, this Hall of Records, this entire torus structure and everything inside of it, is like a living organism. It’s like a human body with every part, every cell, every strand of DNA, all working separately and yet striving together for a single purpose.”

“And what is that purpose?” Raines asked.

Wood looked at Raines like he was a child who had asked a foolish question. “The same purpose as every other living organism.”

“To live,” Vee answered.

“Exactly,” Wood exclaimed.

“I’ve heard enough of this bilge,” AJ said as she suddenly pulled out her knife and lunged at the doctor, shoving him back against the wall, free hand clutching his throat.

“Help me!” Wood screamed, but no one moved.

“Good-bye, Doc,” AJ said, and she pulled her knife hand back, blade aimed at his eyes.

“Noooo!” Wood screamed, but nothing happened.

“I’m convinced,” AJ said as she released her grip on his neck and lowered her knife.

Wood sputtered. “Are you mad?”

She looked at him. “Sorry, Doctor. I had to be sure you weren’t just another form of deception. Your last copy disintegrated when threatened, so I had to find out if you’re real this time.”

“No more lectures, Doctor,” Jake said. “Just tell us what they told you. What is this place, and why have they trapped us here?”

“And why was our ship destroyed?” Jessie said.

“Yes,” Jake added. “Start with that.”

It took a few minutes for Wood to regain his composure, but then he began. “The destruction of your ship, our ship, has nothing to do with anyone trying to keep us here. They don’t think that way.”

“Who?” AJ asked. “Who doesn’t think that way?”

“The Isopods,” he said but didn’t elaborate.

“Are you just trying to irritate me?” AJ asked, glancing down to where her knife was stored.

Wood clutched his throat. “I’m sorry. They told me a story, as I said, and it’s difficult to put into words that you can understand.”

“I think he just insulted us,” Vee said. AJ reached for her knife.

“I’m sorry,” Wood said again.

“Just tell us the story,” Jake said. “Don’t change anything. Just the facts.”

“Very well,” he said, “but don’t come after me with a knife if you find it hard to believe.” He paused a moment and then began again. “According to this story, before the Fall of Man, our ancestors used huge, intelligent machines to build and maintain cities that covered the world. When most of these cities were wiped out, the machines no longer had a purpose. So, after a while, they headed to the deep ocean and began creating their own society.”

“You’re saying these Isopods once worked for us?” Jessie asked.

Wood nodded. “Their ancestors did, according to the story.”

“So why are they destroying our ships now?” AJ asked. “Why did they trap us here?”

Wood shook his head. “As I said, they created their own society, if you can call it that, and they no longer ‘work for us’ in that sense.”

“So are we friends or enemies now?” Jessie asked.

“Also not that simple,” Wood said. “You need to understand that this is not a human-centered world. This is a machine intelligence that has evolved far away from humanity.” He looked at AJ. “The truth is that they don’t seem to care anything about us anymore. They are not our enemies, but they are certainly not our friends.”

“So they destroyed the
Wave
because…”

“Because it was there,” Wood said. “Because, as the Hall of Records showed you earlier, they need raw materials both to repair themselves and to reproduce, and they are very much lacking in raw materials.”

“That doesn’t explain this torus,” Jane said. She had been silent until now. “This place was build for humans, wasn’t it?”

Wood shook his head. “Someone earlier called it a zoo, and I believe that was pretty close to the truth. While I wasn’t told this specifically, I believe it’s leftover programming from before the Fall. While I don’t think this torus is Earth, or even the first human colony, I think it’s possible that this is one of the few structures that survived the Fall of Man. The Isopods are just doing what they used to do—maintain it for humans.”

“That actually makes sense,” Raines said. “Remember, they didn’t go out and grab us. We came here, and they just brought us inside when we got into trouble.”

“Then, if not friends, can we call them allies?” Jessie asked.

“Not necessarily,” Wood said. “As I said, I think it’s just leftover programming. I doubt they care at all if individual humans live or die.”

“Then why copy my father?” Jake asked. “Why Ash?”

“Procreation,” AJ said, and Wood nodded. “That leftover programming expects humans to fill up the torus again, like before the Fall. We were unhappy in the village, so it led us to a place where we might be happier.”

“So we are just livestock,” Vee said. “I knew it.”

Jake walked to the other side of the room. “So this was all for nothing,” he said. “My mother thinks she has found paradise, while in fact, she is just a pet to a bunch of inhuman machines. Ash was killed for no reason. My father was killed for no reason. And my ship—my ship was destroyed for no reason at all.”  

“Is there a question?” the Hall of Records’s voice asked.

“I’m sure you can’t understand,” Raines said, “but some objects have meaning to us. The loss of our ship is—”

“You are in error,” the voice said. “There was no loss. The recording fidelity was perfect.”

Jake looked first at Raines and then at the wall. “I don’t expect a machine like you to understand, but my ship is of no use to me now. A recording of it means nothing to me. It’s a complete waste.”

“You are in error once again,” the voice said. “Some of the patterns from your ship were used in the conception of a new breed of hunters.”

Jake looked at Dr. Wood, who said, “I don’t know anything about this. I was just given a history lesson.”

“Show us these hunters,” Raines said.

Jake looked up as the wall began displaying what looked like a dozen or more Isopods. “How are those any different from what we’ve seen?” he asked. “What makes them hunters?”

“The inclusion of both offensive and defensive systems,” the voice replied calmly.

“Offensive systems?” AJ asked. “Do you mean weapons?”

“Affirmative.”

“Wait a minute,” Jake said. “The
Rogue Wave
wasn’t a war ship. What pattern of ours did you use for these hunters?”

A schematic appeared on the wall. Only Raines recognized it. “That’s the transmitter we recovered from the scavenger,” he said.

AJ jumped to her feet. “Why do you need our transmitter?”

There was a pause before the voice answered. “To mitigate the defensive border surrounding the human colony called Civica.”

Everyone in the room looked at one another. “You’re sending war machines to Civica?” Jessie asked.

“Again, a simplistic summary but essentially correct,” the voice said without emotion.

“Why?” AJ asked.

“The Hall of Records was created to record and store all harvest and conception events. Reasons for construction and deployment of assets are not a part of this unit’s jurisdiction.”

“I think we all know why,” Jake said then looked at Wood.

The doctor looked stunned. “They are severely lacking in raw materials, as I said.”

“What better place to get them than our own colony?” Raines added.

“When will these new ‘hunters’ be finished?” Jessie asked.

“The correct question would be, ‘when were these hunters finished,’ and the answer is sixteen minutes, twenty-eight seconds ago.”

“What?” Jake asked. “Why just then?”

A video of AJ appeared on the wall as she said, “It was the transmitter we found inside that allowed us to cross Civica’s border.”

The Hall of Records’s voice resumed. “We were not one hundred percent sure of the nature of the transmitter, but now we are ready.”

“No!” Jake said. “You can’t.”

“Hunters have already departed. Estimated time to Civica’s border is sixty-three hours and seventeen minutes.”

“That’s less than three days,” Vee said.

“Tell them to stop,” Jake yelled. “Order your hunters to return.”

“Again, the Hall of Records was created to record and store harvest and conception events. This unit has no jurisdiction in this matter.”

All eyes turned to Wood, who put up his hands defensively. “I can’t speak to them any more than you can. They don’t care about us, remember? We are history to them. Nearly forgotten history.”

AJ stormed around the room. “Why did I say that? They didn’t even know what they had. Why did I tell them?”

“You couldn’t have known, dear,” Raines said, trying to calm her.

“But I could have destroyed that transmitter after crossing the border. I should have destroyed it once we passed Rubicon. We knew we weren’t going back.”

“It was my fault,” Jake said, “not yours.”

AJ shook her head. “Listen, Jake, just because you’re the captain doesn’t mean you have to accept all responsibilities.”

“Actually it does, but more than that, I was the last one on the
Wave
,” he said, realizing that he had not only failed his crew, he had also failed the rest of humanity. “If we can’t stop them,” he said, looking at Raines, then at Wood, and then at each of the faces surrounding him, “this is how the human race is going to end.”

Jessie looked at him, a faint glimmer of hope in her large eyes. “Then what are we going to do about it, Captain?”

Jake couldn’t face her as he turned and sat back down on the cold floor. She was so young. She expected miracles from her captain. “I don’t have my ship,” he whispered, “and there’s no way to contact anyone.” He looked at AJ and saw that she had come to the same horrible conclusion. “There’s nothing we can do.”