We hoped that our guide knew where it was going.
***
Chapter 3 The If-Only Plan
Friday, February 15, 2123, evening
Back in early 2117, Max One (returning from 2240), and Max Zero worked together on realising the “If Only” Plan.
Become Rich. Check.
Stop Dameon. Check.
Start seduction. Check.
The canvas was being completely redrawn.
All of Max’s plan was going swimmingly well until Max’s own ineptitude with members of the opposite sex became clear and a budding rivalry developed between Max One and Max Zero for Terri’s affections...
Terri interrupted the story telling.
“You were playing me like a violin. An idiot violin! And replicated me, resurrected me, but it was you that was playing god! Just who do you think you are? Steve Jobs himself?” spat Terri, spinning around accusingly.
We had sort of forgotten that Terri still had some issues with Max.
“I took a copy of you, yes. For your own safety. It turns out, we needed to!” said Max gently.
“And made thirty copies?” said Terri sarcastically.
“Those copies are not you, Terri,” said Max apologetically. “I did what you asked; I deleted your data file. You are, for all intents and purposes, the one and only Terri. You are you!”
“That is imprecise. I’m not Terri. At least not the Terri you knew. I am my own self with a new body, new molecules, new soul even if I have the memories of a person that looked like me.”
“You are not you?” smirked Max.
“I never was second-person singular personal pronoun. There is no existing word in the English language for what I am.... so I had to make one up myself. I call myself a Bombz.”
“Bomb?”
“Bombz! A new being, old memories and body, but a new soul. Look, I don’t want to explain it any further. Least of all to you.”
Max rocked his head side to side in agreement, “Well, I can see that kind of makes sense. I guess I’m one too...”
Terri let out an irritated growl. “What? No way. I really don’t want to have anything in common with you!”
“Well, I’m just saying…” continued Max lamely.
Karmen tried to calm Terri down with “there-there” noises with no exact meaning.
“So before you go and sweet talk everyone again, what were those thirty Terri’s that confronted me yesterday, hmm? What were they?”
“Ah, I see where you’re coming from,” said Max meekly. “They were replicants that looked like you, yes, but programmed with an adaptive AI based on your own personality.”
“Replicants. What part of copyright did you not understand?” Terri accused.
“If it is any consolation, Terri, none of the replicants liked me either!”
I burst out laughing while Karmen looked upon me aghast.
“You couldn’t even make it with a robot Terri-look-alike?” I giggled.
“It was an advanced AI program, not a standard issue X.25!” explained Max.
“Even so… couldn’t you have programmed it to, you know… ?” I said winking.
“Not every Mad Science project has a predictable outcome,” said Max flatly.
I continued my giggling.
“What happened to the replicants?” asked Karmen.
“They were destroyed in the Quantact building, covering our escape,” sighed Max.
“Shame,” said Terri fuming. “I’d have liked to have got to know me.”
“We can build more…” said Max.
Terri let out a shriek of frustration and stomped to the other end of the bus.
***
Saturday, February 16, 2123, early morning.
The bus stopped.
“Ennemi aperçu. Il est à cinq kilomètres à l'ouest,” announced the robot gracefully.
It was day break. We were still dozing in our bus-hung hammocks. The bus was in the middle of an open, gently rolling, field. There was no apparent landscape features except for grass, historical hedgerows and dusky mountains in the far distance. It was not an easily-identified end point for any journey.
“Five meters…. west?” said Max carefully.
“Kilometers,” I corrected.
“Right. Making the robot only talk French… that’s a deliberate design decision. How obtuse.” Max checked his G-Phone. “Still no network connection. We’ve hit an network black-spot. It’s like we’ve travelled into a big tunnel with no repeater stations. The Big C must have taken out the satellites. How could it have done that? ”
“Are we lost?” asked Karmen.
“I have some geo-positional data. We’ve lost some accuracy, but…” Max looked around.
“But?”
“We’re dozen of miles away from the Château de Gruyère,” said Max confused.
“You know that the term, the Big C, stands for Cancer, don’t you Max?” said Terri pointedly.
“Really? Oh. Ok. Perhaps I should stuck with the name Big G, after all,” said Max distractedly.
“Le robot vient vers nous. Il se trouve à quatre kilomètres, mes amis,” suggested our guide nonchalantly.
“Le robot? A robot? This way?” I stammered.
The guide shrugged.
“As I mentioned before, Gruyère uses cyborgs, not robots,” said Max dismissively.
“Generally I like your accuracy, Max, but this does not seem to be the time,” said Karmen.
“There can’t be anything dangerous out there. We would have had a CAT alert,” said Max.
“We have no network connection, Max, don’t expects any alerts” said Karmen calmly. She was looking west and saw something move in the distance. It was no more than mist swirls and some fleeing birds but that was enough of a signal.
“I sense something coming,” said Karmen taking charge. “Get the weapons!”
Terri scrambled inside.
Max spun around watching every move in different directions.
“I can set up a line-of-sight communication tunnel back to Conrad and Max-3,” said Max barely keeping panic from his voice. “But it would be only temporary. The drones will only be in the air for an hour at most.”
“Do it!” said Karmen.
There was action from everybody. Even Gallo. He was making breakfast. In fact, the robot guide had detected the enemy and stopped far enough away to give us an appropriate time to wake up, think, don our super-suits and prepare for battle. It may have be obtuse, with its directions in French and casual manner, but this Gallic metal man was as trustworthy as a Tonto to our Lone Ranger mission. By the time we were ready to fight our latest giant foe, the guide had baked some croissants and offering hot chocolate.
***
Saturday, February 16, 2123, ten minutes later
Max released drones to re-establish a communications bridge between us and the rest of humanity.
Having finished my second crepe with ice cream and maple syrup, with sprinkles of rad-free tablets, I joined the other three super heroes on the ridge overlooking our battlefield. The giant fridge-based cyborg was marching purposefully towards us.
“Come on!” urged Max to me. “I’ve just launched the video drones. We’re on camera now.”
“So the network is back?”
“No. Not yet. The fight will be recorded though.”
“That will be useful for autopsy,” suggested Terri.
I fell in-line and pulled my net launcher weapon into position.
“Are we all ready?” asked Max, hands on hips, keeping his eyes focused forward.
“Ready,” stated Karmen firmly; her cloak waving briskly in the morning breeze.
“Ready,” I said firmly through my prickly helmet.
“Yeah. Whatever,” muttered Terri after a pause; her mechanical wig swirling gently.
“Hold on,” announced Max. “Wait until you can see the gleam of the fridge handles before loosing the nets.”
Finally an
d belatedly, from Max’s G-Phone, came the CAT alert.
Indeed my own psychic alarm sounded gently. “Brrrooooo” it sung. (Enemy long way off).
“Once we have it netted. Improbileon, blast the beast. Cloudera, zap it full power and PK, plummet it with projectiles.”
“Virus and explosive projectiles loaded,” I confirmed.
“Great.”
The cyborg crushed through the last line of trees. The only thing between us and it was an expanse of flattened grass. Belatedly my heads up display marked the giant foe with a red tinge. “Be-doh, be-doh,” sung my alarm.
“It… it looks larger than the New York pair,” I said.
“Hmm. Maybe just an illusion. A figment of the landscape,” mused Max.
“No, no,” explained Karmen examining her wrist based computer. “It is larger. Ten to fifteen percent larger.”
“And broader,” added Terri.
“We have about thirty seconds…” announced Max. “Twenty....”
“Be-dee-be-dee-be-dee”
This was it. The thing was blocking the sky. Weapons started unfurling from its limbs and shoulders. We could see the sensors on its head flickering and focusing in our direction. We could see the handles on the fridge doors.
If anyone was expecting a big hero fight at this point then they would be disappointed.
Traveling at supersonic speed from behind us, so we had no advanced warning, two piloted french fighter jets whooshed overhead. By the time we heard the jet’s sonic boom, the missiles they had launched were already impaling themselves into the skyscraper-sized foe. A surgical strike of four missiles, two from each jet; both shoulders, one in the head and one in the chest.
The explosions punched us all to the ground. Especially the giant robot which fell heavily onto its back. We were surrounded by dust, smoke and the debris. Cheese globules rained down us. The raw sound of jet engines followed, crinkling our skin but quickly fading with a whoosh and the pitter-patter of falling objects.
My previously broken arm seemed to be broken again.
“PK, quick, release the virus darts,” gasped Max.
I scrambled up, holding my arm and ran with a limp, toward the huge machinery squirming on the ground. Its legs kicking like it was still trying to walk. I saw a gooey mass at the shoulder joint and loosed a dozen darts into the cheesy wound.
The cyborg did some large scale, scary break dance moves causing minor earthquakes and a trampoline effect. I bounced on the ground several times before all was still.
I writhed around, holding my arm, as Terri and Karmen came up behind to congratulated me.
“Well done, lover boy. Great reactions.”
“Great job! Gold star for that hero!” said Karmen.
I just groaned in reply. “Morphine...”
“Right. Let’s see what we have here,” said Karmen. “We need that arm fixed up, eh? ...Again.”
“We got off easy,” I panted, after receiving my shot..
“Yeah, those jets… where did those jets come from?” said Terri.
“Sent by Max Three. I was just info-ed over the G-phone,” said Max One trotting over to us.
It seems that France, unlike most other countries in the first world, had retained manned military aircraft. While the rest of world was developing increasingly sophisticated drone systems, France had kept the human in the loop. Apparently, it allowed them to launch an attack such as this at short notice.
Max was busy with a bag of equipment, looking like he was preparing for a picnic.
“Hmm, what are the odds,” mused Karmen.
“Yes, what are the odds…” said Terri through gritted teeth.
Max shrugged a great Gallic shrug. “I need to insert probes into the goo to glean the status of the matrix configuration...”
Terri turned to him with blazing eyes. “You did this!”
“What? What have I done now?” said Max defensively, holding phallic-looking probes in both hands.
“This is just too improbable. You’ve changed time-lines. One or all of us would have been killed battling that robot and you or Max Three has gone back to the past and changed the result.”
“Uh? What? No,” said Max.
“Karmen, what are the odds of those jets arriving exactly at that moment?” demanded Terri keeping her focus on Max.
“At least thousands to one. I’d need to do a full analysis,” Karmen replied distractedly. She was inspecting my arm.
“How long will it take?”
“I’m a bit busy,” she said flustered, pointing at me and the unusual shape of my arm..
Terri looked back and saw. “Oh right. But I think the math will stack up. How far did you go back, Max? Just to arrange the jet attack or further back to ensure the development of manned fighter jets themselves?”
“This is paranoid…” protested Max.
“We’ve been hijacked… or something… we need a new name for a crime like this. Time-jacked will do! We’ve been time-jacked”
“Time-jacked?”
“You have gone back into the past and altered the timeline in order for us to succeed.”
“That’s going to be a crime?” said Max sarcastically.
“It is where you’re concerned.”
“I really don’t deserve this venom, Terri. Firstly, if I had returned to the past, then it was a future self of me on an earlier timeline that I could have no knowledge about. So how can I be held responsible for a crime I could have theoretically committed in an alternative future but now don’t need to?”
“Um”
“Secondly, if it was not me but Max Three and he had not called in the air force, we could be all dead now and not having this conversation...”
“All right, all right...”
But Max went on. “Thirdly, to go back in time you first need to go forward in time to at least 2240, fill out the permits, the impact analysis, business case to get the license…”
“Ok, ok, I said,” said Terri sternly. She threw down her net launcher and strode back to the bus.
“You should hear yourself, Terri. You sound crazy,” Max called after her, waving the probes over his head.
Terri turned back and pulled a crazy-face back.
***
Chapter 4 Mad-Sci-Soc Assembles
Saturday, February 16, 2123, midday
Karmen carefully maneuvered the 3D-printed cast around my damaged arm and sealed it shut.
“I’m sorry but to be really sure of a good fix you’ll have to wear this overnight,” she said gently.
“Thanks, Karmen. This is much appreciated,” I said.
“Ok, well… Hmm. I’m sure there is something else to be done. Lunch maybe.” she said, not able to maintain eye contact.
The bus was running smooth with only the occasional bump, when it couldn’t absorb drops and obstacles. I looked down to other end of the bus. Terri and Max sat apart. Max had set up a mobile laboratory and was surrounded by holoscreens researching the data he had collected from the vanquished cyborg. Meanwhile Terri stared gloomily out across the rainy landscape occasionally glancing at her G-phone wrist control; being the official look-out definitely suited her mood. We were trundling over a muddier and darker landscape. It looked as though everything had been incinerated with blacken tree stumps, burnt out vehicles and houses.
As Karmen made to leave, my survival instinct, my Terri-Relationship-Survival-Instinct, indicated that I should stay with my valkyrie partner for a while longer. I said. “So, Karmen. I was kind of hoping that we could have a chat.”
She looked surprised. “Oh?”
“Yes, I was hoping we could get to know each other a little better. I was hoping to find out what makes you tick,” I said.
“Oh, I’m an open book. I detest injustice in the world and want to do my bit,” she said blandly.
“Even if the Su-U is just another corporate enterprise devised to aid the broadcast ratings?”
“Well, Mad-Sci-Soc is
not the same as the rest. We showed them that a few days ago, eh? We were making a difference for real people, regardless, or even in spite, the involvement of the corporations.”
“Can you actually explain what Mad-Sci-Soc is all about? It’s a club, sure but it is a whole layer cake of things.”
“Sure. Like any society with secrets it has to have an onion skin of identities to confuse outsiders.”
“I’m an insider and I’m confused.”
“It started as a University Club.”
“Right.”
“For gamers that didn’t like computer games.”
“Ah, right. Real people.”
“That also liked science and that attracted the more geeky undergraduates. So it was jokingly called the Mad Scientist Society.”
“Right, Mad-Sci-Soc. And the club became what it was called?”
“In a way. Since we did real world experiments with technology related to the lesser known pages of the encyclopedia, we started to attract attention from the government. We triggered something in one of the spook agencies and they approached us wanting to see some of our technology. They had hacked our files, it seems. We were only doing harmless stuff...”
“Like what?”
“The ability to detect dandruff in clean rooms, connecting petunias to the power grid…”
“Uh, ok. Not the water-powered car?”
“Yes that too. We came up with a deal for that. The club gave the government access to our technology in return for certain privacy and obfuscation privileges.”
“Protecting your identities?”
“Right. So after that it was easy to set up our own branch of the Super Hero Union, SHUMMS. Conrad, of course, was a natural and took to it like fluff to velcro. Perhaps creating the final veneer for the club, that of an entertainment troop to the TrueCrime-9+ channel. But really, at the end of it, Mad-Sci-Soc is just a university science and gaming club.”
“So what brought you into the Hero Business?”
“Max and I were researchers at the University. He invited me along to the club. I got er… hooked.” she said apologetically.
“On fighting crime?”
“Well, not so much that but being in a team with real people and doing something important in the real world. It’s the same for you, right?”
“Er… no. I’m not so noble. I thought this was going to be fun, in the extreme sports sort of way, and in the process I could win back the affections of the girl I love… Really, I’m only doing this for Terri. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me and, without this gig, I’m pretty sure I would have lost her.”