“SOLO team,” Craig said, mustering as much strength as possible as he tried to warn the rest of the men of the uncontrollable threat that was stalking them. “The A.I. has control of Robbie. Do you copy?” His voice barely crossed the threshold of a whisper. The radio returned only empty static. “No,” he said one last time.
Flashes of light popped in the dust cloud of the crater like sheet lightning on a summer evening back on the farm. Each flash was a cruel joke—an exclamation point on the A.I.’s victory.
“Not like this,” Craig whispered. “Not like this.” He tried to take a breath, but he couldn’t. “Samantha…” he began, his tone suddenly softening. “Sam. I don’t know if they’re going to let you see this, but just in case, I love you. I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it back to you. I wish…I wish we’d been born in a different time. You were the love of my life. You are the love of my life.” He looked back down at Wilson’s face, lifeless. The image was surreal. It seemed wrong. “Life is the most important thing, Sam. Keep living. No matter what. Keep living.”
A few moments later, Robbie leapt preternaturally out of the crater and landed inches from where Craig remained, immobilized like an ant with its legs pulled off. The MAD bot aimed its gun, pointing the barrel squarely at Craig’s chest.
“If you don’t want to see the future,” the A.I. began in Robbie’s juvenile voice, “then you have to die.”
The gun thundered to life.
Craig died.
There wasn’t even blackness.
PART 2
1
WAKING UP wasn’t a choice. Even if one hoped to rest in peace, eternal sleep was no longer an option.
Craig opened his eyes, his head in a hazy stupor, but the picture quickly became understandable. He was in a bed, his wife nearby to the left, the room small and sterile. “I’m alive,” he whispered.
“Yes, you’re alive,” Samantha replied, her lips smiling while her eyes told an altogether different story.
“It was a trap,” Craig suddenly said. “The others—”
Samantha stepped to him and took his left hand, causing him to suddenly realize that his wrist was in a restraint. “Craig, you’re alive. You’re safe. I’ve missed you more than you can know.” She placed her head on his chest and put an open palm on his heart. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
He wanted to hold her, but the restraints made it impossible. He could only move his left thumb against the side of her hand. “It’s okay, baby. I’m alive. We’re going to be okay, no matter what. I won’t leave you again—not ever.”
She suddenly stood straight, her face tensed hard against some sort of hidden anguish. “But, Craig, there are things I have to tell you that won’t be easy to hear.”
Craig read the sympathetic expression on her face. She hadn’t been to war, and she didn’t realize the strength of a serviceman. To her, the news that his team was dead seemed beyond words—but he knew he could handle it. He’d seen it with his own eyes, and he remembered it in vivid detail. “I’m ready,” he said softly as he nodded to his wife. “I can take it. My team. They didn’t make it. Right?”
Samantha shook her head and looked down at Craig’s hand in hers. “No. They didn’t make it.”
Craig nodded again and sighed as he looked up at the ceiling. “I remember. I remember Robbie killing them.”
Samantha looked up suddenly, her eyes intently fixed on Craig’s, her expression one of curiosity. “How much do you remember?”
“I-I remember fighting the robot. I remember it leaping into the crater, chasing down the others. From that point on, it’s a little fuzzy.”
“Can you remember at all what happened to you?” she asked earnestly.
He closed his eyes and tried to conjure up the memory. “I was injured. I wasn’t in my SOLO suit. I must have…passed out.”
Samantha’s chest heaved as she tried in vain to control her breathing. Nothing could have prepared her for this situation—and it was about to get worse.
“How’d…how did they get me out of there?” Craig asked.
“It was your MAD bot. It’d been hacked by the Chinese A.I., but once it…finished with all of you, it released the MAD bot, and then Robbie returned to normal protocol. It collected your corpses and put you all into suspended—”
“What?” Craig cut her off. “Corpses?”
Samantha’s face was overwhelmed with emotion. “Craig,” she began, “you died.”
His grip on her hand tightened. He’d been right. With a super soldier, everything was possible. He let go of a long exhale and then tried to relax against his pillow as he nodded once again. “The respirocytes kept my brain alive,” he said.
She nodded. “Yes, and your MAD bot put you into the suspended animation bag. It dragged your entire team up to the extraction point on top of Maluan Mountain. The radiation levels were low up there. You were picked up…” She paused for a moment, seemingly having to will herself over a nearly insurmountable barrier before finishing, “You were picked up…when the war ended.”
Craig’s breathing suddenly picked up. “When the war ended? Sam…how long has it been?” It couldn’t have been that long, Craig thought to himself, desperately. Sam hasn’t changed that much. Her hair is a bit different—something about her face—a bit smoother. Months? A year?
Samantha inhaled and slowly blinked her eyes before placing her hand upon Craig’s chest in an attempt to calm him. “Craig, the war ended fourteen years ago.”
2
“His cortisol levels just spiked dramatically,” informed the voice from the shadows. “I’ll signal his nans to stimulate his hypothalamus to produce corticotrophin-releasing hormone accordingly.”
“Just keep him calm,” Aldous Gibson replied as he stood inches from the LCD wall that served as a one-way window into the recovery room. “The play-by-play is not necessary.”
“Understood,” replied the voice. “My apologies.”
On the other side of the window, Craig’s panic was suddenly soothed. Against all reason, he was beginning to relax. “Fourteen years?” he whispered. He turned and regarded his side of the window; from where he was, it didn’t appear as a window at all, the screen running an image of a beige wall, tiny chips in the paint visible to sell the forgery.
Samantha quickly noticed Craig’s sudden and unnatural calmness. She turned her head slightly and glared at the wall but didn’t dare shake her head, fearful of tipping Craig off to the fact that they were not alone.
“You may have overdone it,” Aldous said quietly over his shoulder to the shadows. “Perhaps, rein it in a little.”
Craig suddenly scoffed, a smile donning on his face. “A joke?”
“Craig, I obviously wouldn’t joke about this.”
The smile melted. “But I couldn’t have been…it’s impossible. You are thirty-two years old. You’d be forty-six now, but you look…” He squinted as he scrutinized her juvenile countenance, “twenty-five.”
“I’m forty-six, Craig,” she quickly replied. “You are thirty-two, just as you were when you…” She paused for a moment as she struggled to find the right tone with which to say, “…died.”
Craig was silent. His eyes were locked on hers, but the situation had moved into the realm of absurdity.