She sighed and tried to relax her shoulders as she sat on the side of his bed. “So much has happened since you died. It’s hard to explain it.”
“How can you still be so young looking?”
“I’ve had a variety of treatments over the last decade,” she began. “We’ve had so many breakthroughs. You remember, Craig, when we used to talk about Moore’s Law?”
“Of course—exponential improvement in processing power for computers. It was all the Purists talked about when they were warning against strong A.I.”
“Well, Moore’s Law has continued. Processing power keeps exponentially increasing, even as Morgan tried to stomp out strong A.I.”
Craig’s face suddenly twitched as a thought struck him. “The war ended? Did we win?”
Her expression was neutral. “Morgan won. We didn’t win anything.”
The strange calm Craig had been feeling was quickly fading. “Honey,” Craig replied, “this is tough enough for me. Can you try to be clear? I need to know.”
“He succeeded in destroying the Chinese A.I. He detonated another tactical nuke right in the crater where you and your team were sent to investigate. Since then, he and his fascist government have been waging the Species War against strong A.I. It’s become like McCarthyism out there. Of course, it’s really just an excuse to maintain his draconian legal powers and remain in power as a dictator.” She held her right hand up to her forehead and squeezed her temples. “We’ve been hunted, Craig. Morgan’s taken over the entire world. There are no more free countries. China was absorbed into the Democratic Union, and then Morgan just made himself the head of state of the World Government. After WWIII, no one was left to oppose him, and individual governments were deemed dangerous in case any ‘rogue states’ chose to develop A.I. Craig, five and a half billion people died in that war. No one had the stomach to disagree with him. In the minds of most of the remaining population, A.I. equals evil.”
An intense concern narrowed Craig’s eyes. “You said you’ve been hunted. Why? Are you building strong A.I.?”
Her eyes darted up to him. “We’ve already built it.”
“The levels are spiking again, Professor,” the voice said. “Shall I?”
“No,” Aldous replied resignedly. “This is her show. We’ll resist tampering.”
“That may be dangerous, Professor.”
“It might be messy,” Aldous conceded, “but it is her decision. Let’s abide by it, shall we?”
“As you wish.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Craig reacted, resisting the urge to scream and instead whispering harshly. “Five billion people died to prevent that, and now you’re making all of their deaths meaningless, as if their lives were worth nothing!”
“I didn’t make their deaths about nothing,” Samantha retorted. “Their deaths were meaningless because of Morgan. I never asked anyone to die for me.”
Craig shut his eyes tight and tried to control his breathing. Exasperated, he decided his best course of action was a quick retreat. “I’m alive,” he began in a softer tone. “That’s all that matters.” His breathing began to slow and come under control. “All of this other stuff, we can deal with it as it comes. Baby, I’m just so happy to see you. Please undo these restraints.”
Samantha didn’t move.
“You gave me the bad news, but I’m okay. Just set me free and let me hold you.”
She remained still. “I… I didn’t tell you everything.”
Something in his wife’s eyes sent a stab of ice into Craig’s chest. She’d described a nightmare world, yet she looked as though she were holding on to the worst of it. What could be worse? he thought. What could possibly be worse? “What is it?” he asked.
“Craig, it’s been fourteen years… and…” She stopped, overwhelmed as tears quickly welled and her voice choked.
“And what?” he asked, his voice filled with sympathy.
“Be on the ready,” Aldous said. “We might need to—”
“Power him down?” the voice suggested. “I understand. I’m ready.”
“Craig,” Samantha managed to finally whisper through a labyrinth of tears, throat tightness, and shortness of breath. “I’m—I married someone else. I’m remarried to Aldous Gibson.”
Craig lay stunned for several seconds before finally blinking. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m…I’m—”
“You married that old man?”
“He’s not old anymore.”
“I’m still alive!”
“I didn’t know—”
“Bull!” He thrust his head forward and then back down, hard against his pillow as he pulled hard on his restraints. “I’m going to kill him!”
“Craig, please—”
“I knew there was something going on between you!” he shouted accusingly.
“Never! Never while you were alive!”
“I’m still alive!” Craig screamed out.
As he did so, green sparks of energy suddenly formed around his fists. His face contorted into surprise. “What the hell was that?”
Samantha’s head hung in a mixture of surrender and shame. “It’s…Craig, so many things have changed. I can’t explain it all. I’m sorry. I tried.”
“What do you mean you ‘tried?’” Craig thundered in response. “What the hell did you try? You woke me up to tell me you’ve been cheating on me with a geriatric?”
She turned to the LCD wall and nodded.
“What the hell was that?” Craig said as he watched her strange gesture.
“I tried,” Samantha sadly repeated.
“Is he on the other side of that wall?” Craig demanded. “Has he been watching us?”
The green sparks suddenly returned to his fists, this time accompanied by what looked like ball lightning, obliterating his restraints. With his teeth clenched in fury, Craig tossed the ball of energy toward the wall, smashing a hole in the center.
In the center of the hole, framed by raining pieces of glass, Aldous Gibson slowly brought his arms down from the protective shield they formed around his face, revealing the countenance of a man in his late twenties.
“What the hell?” Craig whispered in disbelief before he quickly lost consciousness.
This time, there was black.
3
WAKING UP from the nightmare, Craig’s heart raced as he sat up in an awkward spasm. A little drool had run out of the left side of his mouth and was tickling his chin. He wiped it away as he looked out at snowcapped mountains in the east, a nearly violet twilight sky behind them, the mountains still softly glowing with the fading light in the west, which they faced. A looming, implacable shadow moved, slowly but perceivably, and cast itself over more and more of the mountainscape, threatening to strangle the soft glow of the peaks.
“It’s not real,” said a voice to Craig’s right.
Craig snapped his head around, following the voice. The man wasn’t looking at him, but rather at the landscape on the other side of the window. He was an average man. Average height, average weight, average looks. Even his hairline, which had a slight peak and appeared to have minor weakness above the temples, suggested a 50/50 chance of male pattern baldness in the future. It suddenly struck Craig that he was looking at the most unremarkable man he’d ever seen, yet he couldn’t take his eyes off of him. There was something about him. Something not right.
“The mountain range is real,” the man continued, elaborating on his earlier statement, “but that’s not a window you see.” The man gestured with his hand, waving his open palm over the vast expanse of the window. It was about two meters in height and appeared to be nearly 100 meters long, covering the entire east wall of the gigantic room in which they resided. “It’s a 3D, real-time image of extraordinarily high resolution. You can walk right up to the screen, peer at the mountains, at the tiny pebbles in the foreground, at the little trees in the distance, and you won’t find a flaw. It will fool you. If only all technology were so—perfect.”