As the city lights powered back up a huge swelling of cheering was heard below. Rishi said, "we heard them all the way up here? That sound must have been deafening."
Terrie6 jumped off Rishi's lap as Terrie5, Terrie7, and Terrie8 walked into the observation deck of the translator station.
Terrie8 said, "Six, quit hogging the hubby."
"Look, I take opportunity when it presents itself," retorted Terrie6.
Terrie5 said, "Look. We are all activated and we each want to stay that way. We know our husband knows how to shut us down so I suggest we at least pretend to get along and stay on his good side."
Paul looked and Rishi and said, "this is like a bad science fiction movie from the twentieth century."
"Tell me about it," said Rishi.
Terrie8 had pulled her hair into a pony tail and wore a business suit. Terrie7 had her hair pulled back with two barrettes and was wearing a mans business white shirt with men's jeans.
Terrie6 said, "how did you gals get such nice clothes?"
Terrie7 and Terrie8 said simultaneously, "We've been to street level and managed to borrow some nice things from some looters."
Terrie5 looked baffled and walked out the door.
"They were looting already?"
"Yeah. Sad really." said the pair of Terries.
They looked at each other and then looked away, trying desperately to get out of sync. Then they sighed together and failing to lose sync they collided trying to get out the door. Terrie8 fell over as Terrie7 ran down the hall. Terrie8 stood up, walked to Terrie6 and they each said, "I can't wait for that to be over. Oh damn, not again."
They turned away from each other and Terrie8 walked out of the room.
Paul, temporarily transfixed by the synchronicity, watched as Terrie6 attempted to re-tie the surgical gown around herself. He stood agape at the machine before him.
Rishi stood, looked at Terrie6, and said, "you duplicated her speech on purpose."
Terrie6 smiled and said, "Heh. There is way too much competition around here. I've claimed you and intend to keep you."
Rishi frowned, sighed and said, "This is another problem with my marriage. Terrie actually thought she owned me and I suppose, until she left, I thought I owned her too."
Ted and Red were bemusedly quiet. Then Red said, "I guess dying has its pluses and minuses. Not having to learn about relationships is one of the pluses."
Paul said, "We should head to the capital and see what assistance we can offer."
"Agreed" said Rishi.
Ted said, "there is no point in staying here, can we tag along?"
"Sure," said Paul, "but you better put on some clothes. Meet us back here in fifteen minutes, we'll round up the rest of the Terries for safe keeping."
"Hmmmph," said Terrie6. "I've already told my sister's the plan and they are on their way here. We do not need to be kept safe."
Red and Ted ran down the hall as fast as they could go.
Terrie7 and Terrie8 entered the translator station with some clothing for Terrie6.
"We each are giving up something for you," said Terrie8, "I hope you appreciate it."
"Absolutely!" said Terrie6 ecstatically as she saw the nice outfit her sisters offered.
She disrobed unabashedly and dressed in a blue cotton, button down shirt and short blue skirt.
"Where are the other Terries?" asked Rishi to Terrie6.
They will meet us at the street entrance. They are keeping a low profile. Its chaos down there and there's no telling what the crowds would do if they realized there are multiple copies of an individual around.
"Oh!" said Paul. "I hadn't thought of that, they might think they are clones and take the law into their own hands."
The crowd who'd been outside Terrie's lab showed up and one doctor stepped forward and asked, "What do we do now?"
Rishi answered, "Go back to life as usual, lets let the politicians sort this out."
Another doctor, a woman that Rishi recognized as one of the doctors who treated him, said, "According to news reports, which we've been watching in the break room since the power came back on, President Rubinic convinced Presidents Gleland and Zinfidel that it would be safer to go with him. They really didn't have a choice."
"That means," replied Paul," that Vice President Vowel is the acting president.
"Oh no," said Rishi, "not that idiot. I can't believe Gleland chose him."
"I understand he was under pressure from President Rubinic," said Terrie5 and Terrie7 at the same time. They looked at each other, shrugged and then looked at Terrie6 and Terrie8 wondering why they hadn't spoken.
Rishi replied, "That's not good, that means its likely that ..."
All the Terries interrupted Rishi at the same time, "Wait. There's something going on. The virus is receiving commands from the outside. We have to add a new layer or protection."
Terrie8 said, "how shall we encrypt it?"
Terrie6 and Terrie5 nodded and they all closed their eyes. The city power blinked off for a long ten seconds and then back on in a wave across the city.
"Excelent!" exclaimed Terrie6.
"What did you do?" asked Paul.
Red and Ted stormed into the room with clothes in arms. They stripped to their underwear and dressed while huffing and puffing.
"So glad. Huff Puff. We didn't. Huff Puff. Miss you," said Ted.
Terrie6 smiled like the cat who ate the canary and said, "Six of us each designed an unique layer of encryption and implemented it in the virus' main code."
"And the seventh?" Asked Paul.
"Terrie2 created a layer that pretends to be the virus so the virus controller still thinks he's in control."
"Great work," said Rishi. "You'll be able to make Rubinic think he's shut down the power."
"More importantly," said Terrie6, "we know who's feeding Rubinic information."
"Who?" asked one of the nurses in the background.
"Vice President Vowel of course. Right now they are talking to each other while we sensor what they say. Currently President Rubinic thinks the power is off and that there is a revolt in progress. Vowel thinks he's been stabbed in the back by Rubinic."
All the Terries in the room flinched at the same time.
"Well, that settles that, one less idiot to deal with," said Terrie8.
"What happened?" Asked Paul.
"Vowel stopped transmitting. He must have either removed the virus from his implants or died. Either way we're able to feed false information to Rubinic. We've completely taken over the conversation."
"Surely you won't be able to continue this forever," said Paul.
"He's already on to us, but that's okay, the rioting has made it to the senate and a mob is about to kill the vice president. Oh, I'm too late, he's already dead. We made sure to transmit his last burst of information. Rubinic should be convinced we are without power."
"What if he has other insiders?"
"We'll know," said Terrie6. "In other news," continued Terrie8, "the rioting in the streets stopped after that ten second power glitch. I think people realized they had better behave or the power might go out again.
The Terries, Paul, Rishi, Ted and Red got into a translator.
"One moment, please," announced the Cube, "I am performing power up diagnostics. There is a damaged section of track, we can only go down or south from here."
"We want to go down," said Rishi.
"Very well, then," said the Cube, "down it is."
The translator shot downward and its mechanism announced, "I like elevator mode better than translator mode, but I rarely get to run as an elevator."
"Good for you," quipped Terrie8.
As the doors opened at the bottom, Terrie2, Terrie3, and Terrie4 welcomed everyone to the ground floor.
Rishi saw Terrie2 and said, "I'm sorry." She cut him off and said, "We are so beyond that, let it go. I'm not your wife, I get that. We have got to get to the senate. Vowel really did kill himself and the senate is in disarray."
"Where's the speaker?"
"They don't know where she is."
"Wait," said Paul to Rishi, "Didn't Mayor Hawthorne mention she was in a safe place?"
"Yeah. I remember that," replied Rishi. He said, "Jenny and Coren were safe. Coren could be Coren De Salt, the speaker of the house."
"We have to find her," said Paul. "She's in command of this mess now."
At that moment a light appeared over the horizon brightening the blue sky.
"What the hell?" Asked Paul.
Red shouted, "SUNRISE?"
"Oh no!" said Terrie2, "that's not supposed to happen for at least six months."
Red said, "who cares why, we have to get below ground fast!"
He and Ted ran toward a subterranean translator entrance with the seven Terries, Rishi and Paul close behind. People from above ground poured in like rodents running from a sinking ship.
The ground shook and everyone felt the planet accelerating under their feet.
"Something must have gone wrong with the planetary drive system," said Paul as he and the others huddled into a circle.
Rishi asked Terrie2, "Is the virus in it?"
"No. Its been independent since day one. Gleland knew it had to be off the network because of Rubinic's reach."
Terrie3 who'd had her eyes closed opened them and said, "its a bug in the guidance software. It started the gentle move toward the planet's new orbit when it shouldn't have. It also started the rotation which should only start once the planet is about a sol length from the star. They just announced it on the news network."
The ground beneath them lurched again, dragging everyone about six feet across the floor. The planet was continuing to accelerate.
Terrie3 continued, "Apparently the scientists in charge are making the planet spin faster to limit the damage of the suns energy."
Red asked, "why were we that close to the sun anyway?"
"Efficiency," replied Paul. All the solar arrays were on the bright side with the population living on the dark side. With the advent of the life we're planting, we knew we were going to have to park the planet in a new orbit, but obviously my guys got their code wrong."
Red ran to a Cube door and said, "Open."
"I can't let you in now young man," replied the Cube, "can't you feel the earthquake?"
"We need to get to the senate as fast as possible."
"No," said Paul, "we have to get to CyberBio corp. I'm sure that's where Coren is. We have an area that is free of electronics. Its a model of the ecosystem we've been designing for the planet. That has to be where they are."
As they stood up to walk to the translator, the planet lurched and knocked them down again.
"I cannot take you anywhere," said the Cube.
Paul stood up walked to the door and said, "System override. Bossman Paul speaking. Code 745321."
"Code accepted, its your lives after all."
"CyberBio systems."
The Cube shot off northward as the planet lurched again.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Seven Times the Marital Problems
"Oh my God! What about Jonny?" Asked Terrie2. Then she held her head and said, "Ow. We all thought of that all at once and it was a loud thought."
Rishi paused, looked at his wife's replica and said, "We're supposed to be dead, so as long as we seem that way he should be safe. There is no reason for Rubinic to do anything to him."
Paul looked at Rishi and asked, "Do you think we can get him off Mars and back here?"
"Perhaps at some point," said Terrie2, "but for now, we have to figure out what we're going to do."
The three of them had been sitting at Terrie's work bench for two hours while the other Terries and System Sixteens had been working to restore power to the hospital. The power had come on several times only to be shut down again by the virus that had infected the Planet's computer systems.
There were a cluster of people mulling around in the darkness in the hallway. Periodically one would walk up to Terrie2 and ask a question, Terrie2 would give him or her a compassionate look, answer the question as best she could and then the person would walk back into the darkness.
This time a small child came into the room.
"Hi sweetheart," said Terrie2, "what can we do for you?"
"Is everything going to be okay?"
"Everything will be fine, the question is: are you okay with the fact that everything is not currently fine?"
The child looked confused and wandered out of the room.
The lights in the room flickered and went out.
Terrie2 screamed. It was a one hundred decibel scream which caused every one in the vicinity to cover their ears and cower in pain.
The lights in the lab came back on and Terrie2 was slumped on the table.
"Terrie?" Asked Rishi, "are you okay?"
Terrie2, facing downward with her forehead on the table, replied, "No. Listen. One of the System Sixteens was infected, the infection traveled to all the System Sixteens before we could act. I found it first and saved the other Terrie models from infection by taking on the virus, shutting down the System Sixteens and then separating myself from the other Terrie models. The infection is brutal. It's in control of all the System Twenty One aspects of myself. It seems to know everything there is to know about the System Twenty One, but it doesn't know about me. It doesn't know I'm still functioning. I don't know how adaptive it is, but I'm going to attempt to reverse engineer it and find its weaknesses. To insure that it can't hurt anyone, I'm going to keep my physical body shut down and that means I have to shut off my voice. If I wake up and you fear for your lives, destroy this body, understand?"
"Um..." stammered Rishi "... I guess so."
Terrie2 grew silent just as Terrie4 ran into the room.
"She sacrificed herself for us, can you believe it? I thought we were all evil bitches from hades but she actually sacrificed herself for us. I thought we'd get into a back stabbing contest and she goes and sacrifices herself for us. What's the deal with that?"
"You're personality has adapted," said Paul.
Terrie4 looked down out the door and said, "I've been hanging out with a couple of kids I found wandering the hallway. They should catch up momentarily." Then she asked asked, "Is Terrie2 powered down?"
"She shut down her body to protect us while she attempts to reverse engineer the virus."
"Oh. That explains the Massive EM radiation I'm seeing around her."
"Seeing EM?" Asked Rishi.
"Yeah. You know Terrie. She couldn't make exact copies, she had too many ideas, too many things she wanted to try. Each of us has a copy of her brain in bio-quantum machinery. But we each have different extra abilities that she was developing. I can see energy, perceive emotion, and I pick up on thoughts and intentions."
"You can read minds," asked Paul.
"Sorta. I get impressions and if I pay attention to them, well, its hard to explain."
"How did she design a circuit to perceive thoughts?"
"Oh, she didn't. She meant to design me with the ability to observe EM energy, she had no idea that thoughts and emotion are just another frequency of EM energy."
Terrie4 wore a nurses green surgical suit and white hat. She had scrawled a large number four in black ink on the shirt pocket.
"Your idea?" Asked Rishi looking at the pocket.
"No. Terrie2 suggested we identify ourselves so no human would be confused."
Terrie2's body twitched, shook and then shut down again.
"I wish we knew what was going on in there," said Rishi.
"You love her don't you?" Asked Terrie4.
"I love Terrie. I always have. Its difficult to say what I feel for each of you. Mostly I'm confused because you all feel like Terrie to me but I know you aren't her."
Terrie4 sighed, took a great big simulated breath and sighed again.
"What's wrong?" Asked Paul.
"I'm madly, passionately, overwhelmingly in love with Jon Rishi and he'll never feel that way about me because I'm an imitation of the woman he loves."
"I'm so stunned that you say that," said Rishi, "She dumped me. She packed up, took Jonny and moved in with Paul. She didn't even leave a note. She left me a video mail. I knew she was a cold bitch but I thought she'd really loved me. When I realized she didn't, when I realized it was all a lie I just left. I couldn't stay. There was no reason to stay. I needed to get away. That's how I met Bob. Now I find out that me she never stopped loving me?"
Terrie4 moved toward Rishi, looked into his eyes and said, "She had to do that to get the System Twenty Ones. It was the only way to make us. The only chance she had to save her life."
"She's always been so selfish," said Paul, "ever since we were kids. Right Jon? Every since we started dreaming about making this company. She never really got us, she was always into her self."
"I KNOW ALL THAT," said Rishi with a raised voice. "She's always been self absorbed but I loved her anyway. I stuck with her because I knew she was the one. She's special and I knew we were perfect for each other. She broke my heart for her selfishness. She could have told me. I could have helped. I could have gotten the System Twenty Ones."
"She didn't trust you enough," said Terrie4.
"And thus you understand the primary problem with our relationship," said Rishi. "She never trusted me."
"I couldn't," replied Terrie4, "I loved you too much. I couldn't lose you. I had to make sure you'd stay with me. You don't understand how very important you are to me."
"What do you mean?" Asked Rishi.
Terrie4 looked shocked, "Don't you remember?"
"No. What are you talking about?" Asked Rishi.
Terrie4 had been consumed by her own personality, by the copy of Terrie within her own head. She had taken on the role of Terrie and expressed her feelings about her marriage.
Terrie4 looked at the floor and then away from Rishi, "You saved me."
Terrie2 twitched again and the power in the building switched on and stayed on.
The people in the hall began to stand and look around at each other wondering if the power had been restored permanently.
Rishi looked at Terrie4, put his hand under her chin, pulled up her face to force her to look at him. "You even smell the same."
"That's actually a clever hack," said Terrie2 into the table.
Rishi stared at the forth replica of his wife and said, "Saved you from what?"
"I was only a three percent expressive autistic when I was a child. Your father used to bring you over to play with me because he felt sorry for my Mom. He was also having an affair with her, but that's beside the point. You made it a game to try and get me to interact with you. You were beyond persistent. Once a week, for over a year, you sat and played around me, with me and even manipulated my hands to play games with you. I remember everything. One of the flaws with the replication process is: I can't block any memories. Terrie doesn't remember, just like you don't remember. I remember. I was inside my own head daydreaming, trying to escape the confusion of the world around me. I didn't understand any of it and I didn't want anything to do with it. But you kept trying to get to me."
Rishi remembered and interrupted. "I was bored out of my mind and if you remember, often I wasn't particularly nice to you."
"That doesn't matter. You have no idea what my father did to me. What you did, nothing by comparison. But it really doesn't matter, you kept trying."
"But you didn't wake up?"
"Not until you stopped coming."
"Oh yeah, my Mom found out. I forgot all about that."
"My first words to my Mom were, 'Where's Jonny? Is he coming over to play?' My mother cried for a week. I spent fifteen weeks building up my muscles so I could do anything but the most basic maneuvers. It took me six months to learn to walk.
"I decided to leave my safety shell so I could be with you. I fell in love with you all that time ago and I've never fallen out of love with you. I need you because I'm in love with you. I need you to feel safe. I don't have a shell anymore because you cracked it and it fell away."
Stunned, Rishi didn't know what to say so he said something stupid, "And now you're dead, lying in that drawer over there, thinking you'll wake up to be with me again. How messed up is that?"
Terrie4 backed away, turn and ran.
Terrie2 jumped up with a look of horror on her face and followed her sister out of the room.
The crowd of people regathered at the door after having made a pathway for the pair of Terries.
"That was a bit insensitive," said Paul, "don't you think?"
"They are not my wife."
"They are close enough that you obviously can't tell the difference," replied Paul.
"What are you talking about?" Asked Rishi.
"You have lost her ... almost ... and that's breaking your heart."
"WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!" Yelled Rishi.
Terrie6 ran into the room wearing an apron and nothing else.
Paul asked, "how?"
Terrie6 said, "Don't ask. But I swear to you I had the rest of the outfit before the virus got to me. Suffice to say I tried to help Terrie2 and didn't have enough information to block the virus as well as she had. She brought me back as I realized I was about to remove the power bypass I had just put in. The virus was damn good. Damn good."
Terrie6 turned and Rishi studied the perfect copy of his wife's bottom half fully exposed. He then noticed that many of the men in the hallway had been doing the same thing.
Terrie5 ran in the room wearing a white surgeons gown with a big five in the center of her chest. She put another surgeon's gown over Terrie6 and said, "Way to go Jon, just drive us all away from you."
"You know what I said?" Asked Rishi.
"Of course: we all did, but we weren't in the moment so it wasn't nearly as damaging to our psyche's."
"It was a stupid thing to say and as Paul put it, pretty insensitive."
Terrie5 and Terrie6 simultaneously said, "Apology accepted."
Terrie6 raised her arms and approached Rishi. The surgeon's gown dropped away as she put her arms around the man she perceived and believed to be her husband. Rishi hugged her as he had before with a considerable amount of confusion.
"Thank you Jon. Terrie2 and Terrie4 thank you as well."
Paul changed the subject and said, "So you defeated the virus?"
"Yes. Its brilliant. But we're, well, I guess more brilliant than its author. He left back doors into it, probably to be sure that it could be shut down if it infected the wrong machines. We found them and exploited them."
"But surely that would be easy?" Asked Paul.
"The code is self changing and self evolving. A human mind could never keep up with it. Its only our machine pieces that began to unravel it and disassemble it on the fly. We were able to get memory images from the processor subsystems and analyze the code. We had to first protect ourselves and then figure out how to get ahead of its self hiding routines. That's what took so long. Once we had that we could read the code and we found the back doors. The virus is now fully under our control."
"What's next on the agenda?" Asked Paul.
Terrie6 squeezed Rishi and slid her cheek down his chest allowing herself to fall off her toes and rest on her heals. She squeezed Rishi again.
Terrie6 sighed and said, "Terrie2, Terrie4, and Terrie3 are headed for the closest root terminal in the city to attempt to take over the virus and restore power to the city."
Rishi smelled Terrie6's hair. It was perfect. "How did she do it?" He wondered. "She's a genius," he answered himself.
Two children came running into the room. They wore simple gowns that had untied at the back and were panting hard.
"Geesh lady, you sure can run fast for an old broad," said one.
"Yeah." Said the other huffing and puffing.
Terrie6 kept her eyes closed and her cheek against Rishi's chest and said, "Paul, Jon, eavesdroppers alike, this is Ted and Red Starwirthy, two children receiving treatment for the same affliction that Terrie has."
"Is it working?" Asked Paul.
"Of course not," replied Terrie6. She gasped and said, "Oh my God. I shouldn't have said that. Damn you Jon, you always throw me for a loop when I'm around you I can't think for ..."
The boys smiled and Red said, "no problem. We know we're dying. We got used to that years ago."
"I'm sorry," said Terrie6.
"Like Red said," said Ted, "NBD. NBD."
Paul said, "What is this disease anyway?"
Rishi put the gown back over Terrie6's shoulders and lead her into the hallway through the crowd. Paul, Red and Ted followed. The crowd followed also. They walked to the observatory, where the translators were. Rishi sat down and talked as if there was no time lapse while they had walked here.
"Its a genetic disorder that not even the picobots can fix. Honestly I think its God's way of putting a time limit on our species."
"How does it work?" Asked Paul.
Terrie6 slid into Rishi's lap, curled herself against his chest and plopped her head into the curve of his neck. She made a dramatic inhale announcing her smelling of him and then spoke quite dispassionately.
"The end of days genetic disorder affects the genetic code of everyone. At some point, after some number of generations, the code gets activated and each subsequent generation dies a little younger than the previous. At some point the line can't reproduce anymore and it ends."
Ted continued as if it were the millionth time he'd answered the question, "The picobots can't do anything about it because if they try to make any changes to the genetic code, the cell immediately dies."
"Nasty disease," said Rishi. "Terrie swore to me she didn't get it from her Dad. Clearly she lied."
Red spoke up, "Our Mom died days after giving birth to us. She was thirteen. There's no way we'll live past twelve. We are the last of our line. It makes me kind of proud. What do you say Bro?"
"I'm proud to be the last of my kind," said Ted.
"How old are you now?" asked Rishi.
"We'll be twelve next week," said Red, "I can already feel my body starting to malfunction. Honestly I'm not scared anymore: I'm ready."
"If only they'd let us put their minds into machines," said Terrie6 as she rubbed her nose on Rishi's nape.
"Its against the law," said Paul.
"So who cares? Clearly I'm safe in this body."
"I suspect you're exceptional, Terrie," said Rishi.
"What do you mean?" asked Terrie6, pulling her head off Rishi's chest.
"I think Terrie's closed inner life makes it possible for you to not go crazy. I think most mind transfers would go nuts contemplating the fact that they are a copy."
Terrie6 smiled and kissed Rishi's neck. "That's what I thought as well. I guess I was right."
At that moment, a mere eight hours after President Rubinic's shuttle departed, the Montdavis city lights began to light back up. The Terries had accomplished their mission.
Rishi paused, looked at his wife's replica and said, "We're supposed to be dead, so as long as we seem that way he should be safe. There is no reason for Rubinic to do anything to him."
Paul looked at Rishi and asked, "Do you think we can get him off Mars and back here?"
"Perhaps at some point," said Terrie2, "but for now, we have to figure out what we're going to do."
The three of them had been sitting at Terrie's work bench for two hours while the other Terries and System Sixteens had been working to restore power to the hospital. The power had come on several times only to be shut down again by the virus that had infected the Planet's computer systems.
There were a cluster of people mulling around in the darkness in the hallway. Periodically one would walk up to Terrie2 and ask a question, Terrie2 would give him or her a compassionate look, answer the question as best she could and then the person would walk back into the darkness.
This time a small child came into the room.
"Hi sweetheart," said Terrie2, "what can we do for you?"
"Is everything going to be okay?"
"Everything will be fine, the question is: are you okay with the fact that everything is not currently fine?"
The child looked confused and wandered out of the room.
The lights in the room flickered and went out.
Terrie2 screamed. It was a one hundred decibel scream which caused every one in the vicinity to cover their ears and cower in pain.
The lights in the lab came back on and Terrie2 was slumped on the table.
"Terrie?" Asked Rishi, "are you okay?"
Terrie2, facing downward with her forehead on the table, replied, "No. Listen. One of the System Sixteens was infected, the infection traveled to all the System Sixteens before we could act. I found it first and saved the other Terrie models from infection by taking on the virus, shutting down the System Sixteens and then separating myself from the other Terrie models. The infection is brutal. It's in control of all the System Twenty One aspects of myself. It seems to know everything there is to know about the System Twenty One, but it doesn't know about me. It doesn't know I'm still functioning. I don't know how adaptive it is, but I'm going to attempt to reverse engineer it and find its weaknesses. To insure that it can't hurt anyone, I'm going to keep my physical body shut down and that means I have to shut off my voice. If I wake up and you fear for your lives, destroy this body, understand?"
"Um..." stammered Rishi "... I guess so."
Terrie2 grew silent just as Terrie4 ran into the room.
"She sacrificed herself for us, can you believe it? I thought we were all evil bitches from hades but she actually sacrificed herself for us. I thought we'd get into a back stabbing contest and she goes and sacrifices herself for us. What's the deal with that?"
"You're personality has adapted," said Paul.
Terrie4 looked down out the door and said, "I've been hanging out with a couple of kids I found wandering the hallway. They should catch up momentarily." Then she asked asked, "Is Terrie2 powered down?"
"She shut down her body to protect us while she attempts to reverse engineer the virus."
"Oh. That explains the Massive EM radiation I'm seeing around her."
"Seeing EM?" Asked Rishi.
"Yeah. You know Terrie. She couldn't make exact copies, she had too many ideas, too many things she wanted to try. Each of us has a copy of her brain in bio-quantum machinery. But we each have different extra abilities that she was developing. I can see energy, perceive emotion, and I pick up on thoughts and intentions."
"You can read minds," asked Paul.
"Sorta. I get impressions and if I pay attention to them, well, its hard to explain."
"How did she design a circuit to perceive thoughts?"
"Oh, she didn't. She meant to design me with the ability to observe EM energy, she had no idea that thoughts and emotion are just another frequency of EM energy."
Terrie4 wore a nurses green surgical suit and white hat. She had scrawled a large number four in black ink on the shirt pocket.
"Your idea?" Asked Rishi looking at the pocket.
"No. Terrie2 suggested we identify ourselves so no human would be confused."
Terrie2's body twitched, shook and then shut down again.
"I wish we knew what was going on in there," said Rishi.
"You love her don't you?" Asked Terrie4.
"I love Terrie. I always have. Its difficult to say what I feel for each of you. Mostly I'm confused because you all feel like Terrie to me but I know you aren't her."
Terrie4 sighed, took a great big simulated breath and sighed again.
"What's wrong?" Asked Paul.
"I'm madly, passionately, overwhelmingly in love with Jon Rishi and he'll never feel that way about me because I'm an imitation of the woman he loves."
"I'm so stunned that you say that," said Rishi, "She dumped me. She packed up, took Jonny and moved in with Paul. She didn't even leave a note. She left me a video mail. I knew she was a cold bitch but I thought she'd really loved me. When I realized she didn't, when I realized it was all a lie I just left. I couldn't stay. There was no reason to stay. I needed to get away. That's how I met Bob. Now I find out that me she never stopped loving me?"
Terrie4 moved toward Rishi, looked into his eyes and said, "She had to do that to get the System Twenty Ones. It was the only way to make us. The only chance she had to save her life."
"She's always been so selfish," said Paul, "ever since we were kids. Right Jon? Every since we started dreaming about making this company. She never really got us, she was always into her self."
"I KNOW ALL THAT," said Rishi with a raised voice. "She's always been self absorbed but I loved her anyway. I stuck with her because I knew she was the one. She's special and I knew we were perfect for each other. She broke my heart for her selfishness. She could have told me. I could have helped. I could have gotten the System Twenty Ones."
"She didn't trust you enough," said Terrie4.
"And thus you understand the primary problem with our relationship," said Rishi. "She never trusted me."
"I couldn't," replied Terrie4, "I loved you too much. I couldn't lose you. I had to make sure you'd stay with me. You don't understand how very important you are to me."
"What do you mean?" Asked Rishi.
Terrie4 looked shocked, "Don't you remember?"
"No. What are you talking about?" Asked Rishi.
Terrie4 had been consumed by her own personality, by the copy of Terrie within her own head. She had taken on the role of Terrie and expressed her feelings about her marriage.
Terrie4 looked at the floor and then away from Rishi, "You saved me."
Terrie2 twitched again and the power in the building switched on and stayed on.
The people in the hall began to stand and look around at each other wondering if the power had been restored permanently.
Rishi looked at Terrie4, put his hand under her chin, pulled up her face to force her to look at him. "You even smell the same."
"That's actually a clever hack," said Terrie2 into the table.
Rishi stared at the forth replica of his wife and said, "Saved you from what?"
"I was only a three percent expressive autistic when I was a child. Your father used to bring you over to play with me because he felt sorry for my Mom. He was also having an affair with her, but that's beside the point. You made it a game to try and get me to interact with you. You were beyond persistent. Once a week, for over a year, you sat and played around me, with me and even manipulated my hands to play games with you. I remember everything. One of the flaws with the replication process is: I can't block any memories. Terrie doesn't remember, just like you don't remember. I remember. I was inside my own head daydreaming, trying to escape the confusion of the world around me. I didn't understand any of it and I didn't want anything to do with it. But you kept trying to get to me."
Rishi remembered and interrupted. "I was bored out of my mind and if you remember, often I wasn't particularly nice to you."
"That doesn't matter. You have no idea what my father did to me. What you did, nothing by comparison. But it really doesn't matter, you kept trying."
"But you didn't wake up?"
"Not until you stopped coming."
"Oh yeah, my Mom found out. I forgot all about that."
"My first words to my Mom were, 'Where's Jonny? Is he coming over to play?' My mother cried for a week. I spent fifteen weeks building up my muscles so I could do anything but the most basic maneuvers. It took me six months to learn to walk.
"I decided to leave my safety shell so I could be with you. I fell in love with you all that time ago and I've never fallen out of love with you. I need you because I'm in love with you. I need you to feel safe. I don't have a shell anymore because you cracked it and it fell away."
Stunned, Rishi didn't know what to say so he said something stupid, "And now you're dead, lying in that drawer over there, thinking you'll wake up to be with me again. How messed up is that?"
Terrie4 backed away, turn and ran.
Terrie2 jumped up with a look of horror on her face and followed her sister out of the room.
The crowd of people regathered at the door after having made a pathway for the pair of Terries.
"That was a bit insensitive," said Paul, "don't you think?"
"They are not my wife."
"They are close enough that you obviously can't tell the difference," replied Paul.
"What are you talking about?" Asked Rishi.
"You have lost her ... almost ... and that's breaking your heart."
"WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!" Yelled Rishi.
Terrie6 ran into the room wearing an apron and nothing else.
Paul asked, "how?"
Terrie6 said, "Don't ask. But I swear to you I had the rest of the outfit before the virus got to me. Suffice to say I tried to help Terrie2 and didn't have enough information to block the virus as well as she had. She brought me back as I realized I was about to remove the power bypass I had just put in. The virus was damn good. Damn good."
Terrie6 turned and Rishi studied the perfect copy of his wife's bottom half fully exposed. He then noticed that many of the men in the hallway had been doing the same thing.
Terrie5 ran in the room wearing a white surgeons gown with a big five in the center of her chest. She put another surgeon's gown over Terrie6 and said, "Way to go Jon, just drive us all away from you."
"You know what I said?" Asked Rishi.
"Of course: we all did, but we weren't in the moment so it wasn't nearly as damaging to our psyche's."
"It was a stupid thing to say and as Paul put it, pretty insensitive."
Terrie5 and Terrie6 simultaneously said, "Apology accepted."
Terrie6 raised her arms and approached Rishi. The surgeon's gown dropped away as she put her arms around the man she perceived and believed to be her husband. Rishi hugged her as he had before with a considerable amount of confusion.
"Thank you Jon. Terrie2 and Terrie4 thank you as well."
Paul changed the subject and said, "So you defeated the virus?"
"Yes. Its brilliant. But we're, well, I guess more brilliant than its author. He left back doors into it, probably to be sure that it could be shut down if it infected the wrong machines. We found them and exploited them."
"But surely that would be easy?" Asked Paul.
"The code is self changing and self evolving. A human mind could never keep up with it. Its only our machine pieces that began to unravel it and disassemble it on the fly. We were able to get memory images from the processor subsystems and analyze the code. We had to first protect ourselves and then figure out how to get ahead of its self hiding routines. That's what took so long. Once we had that we could read the code and we found the back doors. The virus is now fully under our control."
"What's next on the agenda?" Asked Paul.
Terrie6 squeezed Rishi and slid her cheek down his chest allowing herself to fall off her toes and rest on her heals. She squeezed Rishi again.
Terrie6 sighed and said, "Terrie2, Terrie4, and Terrie3 are headed for the closest root terminal in the city to attempt to take over the virus and restore power to the city."
Rishi smelled Terrie6's hair. It was perfect. "How did she do it?" He wondered. "She's a genius," he answered himself.
Two children came running into the room. They wore simple gowns that had untied at the back and were panting hard.
"Geesh lady, you sure can run fast for an old broad," said one.
"Yeah." Said the other huffing and puffing.
Terrie6 kept her eyes closed and her cheek against Rishi's chest and said, "Paul, Jon, eavesdroppers alike, this is Ted and Red Starwirthy, two children receiving treatment for the same affliction that Terrie has."
"Is it working?" Asked Paul.
"Of course not," replied Terrie6. She gasped and said, "Oh my God. I shouldn't have said that. Damn you Jon, you always throw me for a loop when I'm around you I can't think for ..."
The boys smiled and Red said, "no problem. We know we're dying. We got used to that years ago."
"I'm sorry," said Terrie6.
"Like Red said," said Ted, "NBD. NBD."
Paul said, "What is this disease anyway?"
Rishi put the gown back over Terrie6's shoulders and lead her into the hallway through the crowd. Paul, Red and Ted followed. The crowd followed also. They walked to the observatory, where the translators were. Rishi sat down and talked as if there was no time lapse while they had walked here.
"Its a genetic disorder that not even the picobots can fix. Honestly I think its God's way of putting a time limit on our species."
"How does it work?" Asked Paul.
Terrie6 slid into Rishi's lap, curled herself against his chest and plopped her head into the curve of his neck. She made a dramatic inhale announcing her smelling of him and then spoke quite dispassionately.
"The end of days genetic disorder affects the genetic code of everyone. At some point, after some number of generations, the code gets activated and each subsequent generation dies a little younger than the previous. At some point the line can't reproduce anymore and it ends."
Ted continued as if it were the millionth time he'd answered the question, "The picobots can't do anything about it because if they try to make any changes to the genetic code, the cell immediately dies."
"Nasty disease," said Rishi. "Terrie swore to me she didn't get it from her Dad. Clearly she lied."
Red spoke up, "Our Mom died days after giving birth to us. She was thirteen. There's no way we'll live past twelve. We are the last of our line. It makes me kind of proud. What do you say Bro?"
"I'm proud to be the last of my kind," said Ted.
"How old are you now?" asked Rishi.
"We'll be twelve next week," said Red, "I can already feel my body starting to malfunction. Honestly I'm not scared anymore: I'm ready."
"If only they'd let us put their minds into machines," said Terrie6 as she rubbed her nose on Rishi's nape.
"Its against the law," said Paul.
"So who cares? Clearly I'm safe in this body."
"I suspect you're exceptional, Terrie," said Rishi.
"What do you mean?" asked Terrie6, pulling her head off Rishi's chest.
"I think Terrie's closed inner life makes it possible for you to not go crazy. I think most mind transfers would go nuts contemplating the fact that they are a copy."
Terrie6 smiled and kissed Rishi's neck. "That's what I thought as well. I guess I was right."
At that moment, a mere eight hours after President Rubinic's shuttle departed, the Montdavis city lights began to light back up. The Terries had accomplished their mission.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Return to Proxima Centuri Four
"The power of Love protect you Mister President," said Barton Hawthorne the Mayer of Montdavis, the largest city on Proxima Centuri Four.
"And you," replied President Rubinic.
"President Gleland will see you in a few minutes, he's currently working with CyberBio engineers and scientists to prevent the spread of the terrorist virus here. It would be catastrophic if we couldn't use any of our medical, engineering, construction, or any other of our droids. Proxima Centuri relies on Droids for 98 percent of its work force."
"Very prudent of you all. Certainly our scientists will share any information we have on the virus."
Jon Rishi, Paul Ashvale, Terrie Rishi, and Bob Zinfidel stood on board President Rubinic's ship, just out of sight of Mayor Hawthorne.
Changing the subject Rubinic said, "I expected a larger greeting, Barton."
"I'm sorry for the informal meeting, we've been at our wits ends trying to figure this out and haven't had time to put anything together. I'm sure you understand."
"Yes, but we're such old friends, I thought I could at least trust Jenny and Coren to meet me."
"Oh, they asked to," replied Hawthorne, "but we wouldn't allow it. They are locked inside a safe area with a lot of other important people. There are no droids allowed. Until we get control over this virus the people must be kepts from the droids."
"Just shut your droids down like we did."
"We can't do that, the planet will stop functioning. We'd likely run out of atmosphere due to equipment failure in a few weeks. Currently the droids are working as fast as they can on the rain forests, we're trying to move the schedule up by two years."
"What forests?" asked Rubinic sincerely.
"It was meant to be a surprise. We're working on making a stable habitat on Proxima Centuri. All the teraformers that were were supposed to be sent to Leo are working full time. Almost a million droids are planting seeds. We were on schedule for ecological balance in two years, now we're trying to get it done in two months."
"Fascinating. I though the people of Proxima Century didn't want plant and wildlife here?"
"At first they didn't, however over the last millennium people watched the Earth grow green and lush and have become home sick. Well, I guess you could say they think the grass is greener on earth because it has grass."
Rubinic laughed and said, "I have brought some visitors with me. I believe you've met all but one."
Terrie took Rubinic's queue and exited the space craft. "Hi Barton, how are you?"
"Terrie! So glad to see you, so is your husband here?"
"Yes," said Rishi as he exited the space craft, and Paul is here as well."
Paul said, "Hey Barton, long time no see. I trust my company is still in tact?"
"Yeah, you've got the best management team in the galaxy, a little time away from you isn't going to slow them down. I'm really glad you are all here, we need your help looking at the virus."
"We've been studying it at President's Rubinic's home on Mars," said Rishi, "we haven't been able to make any headway. It doesn't seem to be executable."
"We have copies, mostly fragments, from droids that were grabbed just before they shut down after being damaged by plasma gun fire."
"We have the whole code, provided by President Rubinic."
Bob Zinfidel walked off the ship and Mayer Hawthorne turned and stood wide eyed. "President Zinfidel! Its such a pleasure to meet you. I am honored to be able to greet you. If we had known President Rubinic would bring you, I'm certain President Gleland would have met you here today."
After saying those words, Mayer Hawthorne looked at President Rubinic who smiled sympathetically.
One of the newly hired castle guards stepped forward at the finger motion of Mayer Hawthorne who said, "With President Rubinic's permission, please take Mister Ashvale and Mister and Misses Rishi to CyberBio Corp so they can help with the virus."
"That's why they are here," said Rubinic.
"Great. President Rubinic and President Zinfidel, please come with me, we'll interrupt President Gleland, I'm sure he's anxious to see you've arrived."
Terrie, Paul, and Rishi followed the guard to a long hallway which lead to large clear cubes called translators. The doors to the translator opened and and the guard said, "three to go to CyberBio systems."
The Cube said, "Understood, who do we have here?"
Terrie, Rishi and Paul walked into the cube and the cube said, "Terrie and Jon Rishi, nice to see you. Nice to see you as well Paul Ashvale. I hope your visit to Sol was pleasant."
"Honestly," said Paul, "its nice to be back on Nanny Proxima Four."
The translator sped along vast corridors, sweeping curves, inside and outside of buildings. Fifteen minutes later it stopped at the hospital.
"Why are we stopping here?" asked Rishi.
"I told it to," said Terrie.
"But how?" asked Paul.
"I've got a lot of secrets," replied Terrie, "its not important now. We're going to need help, and I know where to get it."
The three of them stepped off the translator, the doors closed and they watched it proceed down the line a few hundred feet, pass a junction, stop and then fall straight downward.
Rishi, Terrie and Paul raced to a down looking window and watched as it plummeted to the man made structures below.
"Did you do that?" asked Paul.
"No," said Terrie, but before she could continue to speculate what happened, the power shut off.
"The virus!" said Paul.
"That would be my guess too," said Rishi.
Looking out the window, down on the city below, the three watched as lights went out in a sweeping pattern across the surface of the city.
The hospital resides twenty thousand feet in the air, on the old space elevator tower that had been built to bring building materials to the man made world. PC4 had been built from planetoids gathered from Proxima and Alpha Centuri, brought together and then pounded into a planet by gravity generators. Its core had been supplied by a mostly iron asteroid found in the Leonidas star system.
In the distance, Terrie, Paul and Rishi heard the whine of a ship's engines. "That's probably President Rubinic," said Terrie. "I hope Bob's okay." "Bob is probably with him," replied Rishi.
A door behind Paul opened and a droid walked in shining light from an appendage on its side. Paul and Rishi jumped in front of Terrie.
"That is not necessary sirs," said the droid, "I have not been infected, only the main computer system has been infected."
"But that's impossible," said Rishi. That system was designed to be impenetrable."
"But surely," said Paul to the droid, "if the system is taken over, so are you."
"All system droids have been shut down by executive order," said the Droid.
"Then why are you still on?"
Terrie pushed her way though her protectors and said, "This is one of mine, they are not on the main grid. Not even Terrie and Mary know."
"How many do you have?"
"There are six of these and I have another six unactivated who's wetware is exactly like Mary's."
"Six more?" asked Paul.
"Yes, six more."
"Please follow me Maam. I'll take you to your lab."
Terrie followed the droid. Paul and Rishi followed behind in the pitch blackness.
Rishi recognized the path they took, it lead to the droid repair labs.
Terrie walked up to a door labeled, "closet," placed her palm on it and it slid open.
"I hope you appreciate the trust I'm showing you," said Terrie.
The lab, like the rest of the planet was without power. Terrie followed the droid to a panel, slid it open with her hand and flipped a large lever. The room powered up.
"I hope you forgive me Paul, I stole one of CyberBio's back up fusion generators. I couldn't figure out a way to prevent the hospital from sensing the power drain."
The room was small and full of various equipment. In the center lay a work space covered in various plastic components, with jars of biological matter that had gone bad many weeks before. Terrie looked at it and said, "I forgot to put that back in the fridge."
The smell was horrible so Terrie picked up the various containers and threw it into a panel that would burn it to a fine ash. As soon as she closed the door, it locked and a readout indicated the temperature inside had risen to 7000 degrees Celsius.
"There, now lets figure out how to make some copies, shall we?"
"Is that such a good idea?" asked Paul.
"We need help. The whole planet needs help Paul. You know how much air we have before the whole population dies. We'll be lucky to be alive in two weeks. This must have been Rubinic's plan from the start."
"You think he's going to allow the whole population to die?" asked Paul.
"I doubt it," said Rishi "Eventually he'll need the planet functioning again, but for now he couldn't risk its interference in his plan for galactic conquest."
Terrie ordered the droid to get some food from the kitchens and then walked to six large clear plastic closets. There was a fine mist on the inside of the plastic that made viewing its contents impossible.
"Is that droid different from the other droids in the hospital?" asked Paul.
"Not anymore. Those six were my first attempt with wetware that functioned. Unfortunately they did not become sentient. They are based on CyberBio's class sixteen. Mary and Sherrie are based on class twenty-one."
"We haven't shipped class twenty-one yet," said Paul.
"I know, that's why I used you Paul, to get to them. I stole nine all together and set them up here. I realized what I had done wrong with class sixteen, then I put the sixteens back to factory specification."
"You stole nine of the prototypes?" asked Rishi.
"Yes. I put two of their hardwares in Mary and Sherrie. They were my first successes."
"Did you really ask them if they wished to be sentient?"
"No. That's a false memory I implanted in them to change their personalities."
"Wait," said Paul. "You said nine prototypes. These six and Mary and Sherrie count eight, where's the ninth?"
Terrie pressed a button on the wall near the large clear plastic closets and their doors opened simultaneously.
Inside where six identical copies of Terrie.
"Holy Sweet Jesus!" said Rishi, "You're a copy of Terrie! Do you have any idea how many laws you've broken. I mean how many laws she's broken. Wait. Where is Terrie?"
Terrie looked at the floor a moment and said, "my body was dying. I couldn't stop it. There was no medical technology that could extend my life and I couldn't leave my son and you alone in the world."
Terrie began pressing keys on a control board near the first cabinet and the droid copy of herself, nearest to her, woke up.
"Oh crap," Terrie3 said. "Longevity problems?"
"No. I need your help. Activate our sisters, copy my memory and then get to work."
"What could have been so bad that you need our help? You might be sacrificing our time with our son and husband." As she said that Terrie3 saw Rishi and shock flashed across her face.
"Just do as I say," said Terrie2.
"I obey only because I know I'm Terrie number three."
"That's why that memory is there," said Terrie2.
Paul stood with his jaw open as a beautiful, naked, carbon copy of Terrie stepped out of the closet and began typing frantically on the input pad of the computer near the closets. One after another the droids activated. Each awoke with the same thought, "No way is the longevity is this bad."
Rishi said, "to be honest, I've never been this turned on in my life, but answer my question, where is Terrie?"
Terrie2 walked to an another wall, opened a small door and out slid a tray containing the body of a very frozen Terrie Rishi.
"We're hoping we'll find a cure and be able to wake her up. That was the plan anyway."
"Wait," said Paul, "how long have you been a droid?"
"About a year."
"Sherrie faked healing you?" asked Paul.
Terrie2 shook her head and said, "I faked the whole injury and then manipulated Mary."
"Oh good, here comes the memory copy," said Terrie2 as she slid her human original back into the wall."
All the Terrie's blinked and then each of them looked at each other and said, "I can't believe it!"
"Its going to be chaos with all of us enabled. We're not going to get along."
Then they all announced, "it will be some time before we've separated our paths enough to behave differently. It is critical that you give us each something different to do to give us separate identities."
Rishi understood and said, "Terrie2, please wait here, Terrie3, take your sisters and get them clothing, you'll need the class sixteen droids to help you, then each of you take a system at the hospital and see if you can it going. If you separate the hospital computer systems from the planetary systems you should be able to light up the building, that should bring everyone in the city here."
Rishi touched Terrie6's shoulder. It was soft, warm and exactly as he remembered.
Terrie6 looked into Rishi's eyes and said, "I'm here Jon and I still love you. I'm just not exactly as you remember me."
Terrie6 leaned forward and placed her arms around Rishi, he did the same and squeezed gently, then the other Terries followed, forming a large cluster around Rishi. A group hug from seven perfect replicas of his wife.
Paul said, "What about me?"
"We used you," said Terrie2. "We're sorry about that," said Terrie7. "We needed your clearance to steal the parts to build these bodies," said Terrie4.
Terrie6 looked into Rishi's eyes and said, "I'm not really her. You understand. I've got everything but her soul."
Paul asked, "Do you have a soul?"
Of course said Terri3, we all do, they are just different than our mother who's in that drawer asleep, hopefully to awaken again some day.
"Cryogenic status was outlawed too, you know," said Paul.
"We know," said all the Terries at once.
Terrie6 kissed Rishi passionately and said, "Thank you for singling me out, If you like I will be your wife until Terrie1 is awakened."
Terrie2 spoke and said, "I will be our son's mother until she wakes up."
Terrie4 said, "and if you'd like Paul, I will be your girlfriend."
"Nope." said Paul, "too weird for me."
Rishi looked into Terrie6's eyes and said, "I know you're not her, its not necessary to offer yourself as a surrogate. I think we should just form new relationships. After all I've learned from Sherrie and Mary I think I can at least accept you all as friends."
"I'm glad for that," said Terrie6 as she squeezed him again.
A system sixteen entered the lab. She scanned the Terrie copies, isolated the one she was looking for and said, "Maam," to Terrie2.
"Yes," said Terrie2.
"Some people followed me here. They have brought food for Jon and Paul." The System Sixteen blinked, paused, then mysteriously turned and lead all the nude Terries out the door to the shock and amazement of the people in the hallway.
Terrie2 said, "I'm in constant contact with them, they'll keep me informed."
"You never told Sherrie and Terrie?" asked Rishi.
"No. They were the first people I had to convince I was Terrie."
"You succeeded?"
"I think so, but to be honest its hard to know for sure, that Sherrie is pretty devious."
The people in the hallway included the medical staff who worked on Paul and Rishi a month earlier. They brought in food, cleared some space on the lab bench and everyone, except Terrie2 started to eat.
"Do you think they'll get power going?" asked Paul to Rishi.
"I believe they will, the question is: will we get power back to the oxygen converters."
"And you," replied President Rubinic.
"President Gleland will see you in a few minutes, he's currently working with CyberBio engineers and scientists to prevent the spread of the terrorist virus here. It would be catastrophic if we couldn't use any of our medical, engineering, construction, or any other of our droids. Proxima Centuri relies on Droids for 98 percent of its work force."
"Very prudent of you all. Certainly our scientists will share any information we have on the virus."
Jon Rishi, Paul Ashvale, Terrie Rishi, and Bob Zinfidel stood on board President Rubinic's ship, just out of sight of Mayor Hawthorne.
Changing the subject Rubinic said, "I expected a larger greeting, Barton."
"I'm sorry for the informal meeting, we've been at our wits ends trying to figure this out and haven't had time to put anything together. I'm sure you understand."
"Yes, but we're such old friends, I thought I could at least trust Jenny and Coren to meet me."
"Oh, they asked to," replied Hawthorne, "but we wouldn't allow it. They are locked inside a safe area with a lot of other important people. There are no droids allowed. Until we get control over this virus the people must be kepts from the droids."
"Just shut your droids down like we did."
"We can't do that, the planet will stop functioning. We'd likely run out of atmosphere due to equipment failure in a few weeks. Currently the droids are working as fast as they can on the rain forests, we're trying to move the schedule up by two years."
"What forests?" asked Rubinic sincerely.
"It was meant to be a surprise. We're working on making a stable habitat on Proxima Centuri. All the teraformers that were were supposed to be sent to Leo are working full time. Almost a million droids are planting seeds. We were on schedule for ecological balance in two years, now we're trying to get it done in two months."
"Fascinating. I though the people of Proxima Century didn't want plant and wildlife here?"
"At first they didn't, however over the last millennium people watched the Earth grow green and lush and have become home sick. Well, I guess you could say they think the grass is greener on earth because it has grass."
Rubinic laughed and said, "I have brought some visitors with me. I believe you've met all but one."
Terrie took Rubinic's queue and exited the space craft. "Hi Barton, how are you?"
"Terrie! So glad to see you, so is your husband here?"
"Yes," said Rishi as he exited the space craft, and Paul is here as well."
Paul said, "Hey Barton, long time no see. I trust my company is still in tact?"
"Yeah, you've got the best management team in the galaxy, a little time away from you isn't going to slow them down. I'm really glad you are all here, we need your help looking at the virus."
"We've been studying it at President's Rubinic's home on Mars," said Rishi, "we haven't been able to make any headway. It doesn't seem to be executable."
"We have copies, mostly fragments, from droids that were grabbed just before they shut down after being damaged by plasma gun fire."
"We have the whole code, provided by President Rubinic."
Bob Zinfidel walked off the ship and Mayer Hawthorne turned and stood wide eyed. "President Zinfidel! Its such a pleasure to meet you. I am honored to be able to greet you. If we had known President Rubinic would bring you, I'm certain President Gleland would have met you here today."
After saying those words, Mayer Hawthorne looked at President Rubinic who smiled sympathetically.
One of the newly hired castle guards stepped forward at the finger motion of Mayer Hawthorne who said, "With President Rubinic's permission, please take Mister Ashvale and Mister and Misses Rishi to CyberBio Corp so they can help with the virus."
"That's why they are here," said Rubinic.
"Great. President Rubinic and President Zinfidel, please come with me, we'll interrupt President Gleland, I'm sure he's anxious to see you've arrived."
Terrie, Paul, and Rishi followed the guard to a long hallway which lead to large clear cubes called translators. The doors to the translator opened and and the guard said, "three to go to CyberBio systems."
The Cube said, "Understood, who do we have here?"
Terrie, Rishi and Paul walked into the cube and the cube said, "Terrie and Jon Rishi, nice to see you. Nice to see you as well Paul Ashvale. I hope your visit to Sol was pleasant."
"Honestly," said Paul, "its nice to be back on Nanny Proxima Four."
The translator sped along vast corridors, sweeping curves, inside and outside of buildings. Fifteen minutes later it stopped at the hospital.
"Why are we stopping here?" asked Rishi.
"I told it to," said Terrie.
"But how?" asked Paul.
"I've got a lot of secrets," replied Terrie, "its not important now. We're going to need help, and I know where to get it."
The three of them stepped off the translator, the doors closed and they watched it proceed down the line a few hundred feet, pass a junction, stop and then fall straight downward.
Rishi, Terrie and Paul raced to a down looking window and watched as it plummeted to the man made structures below.
"Did you do that?" asked Paul.
"No," said Terrie, but before she could continue to speculate what happened, the power shut off.
"The virus!" said Paul.
"That would be my guess too," said Rishi.
Looking out the window, down on the city below, the three watched as lights went out in a sweeping pattern across the surface of the city.
The hospital resides twenty thousand feet in the air, on the old space elevator tower that had been built to bring building materials to the man made world. PC4 had been built from planetoids gathered from Proxima and Alpha Centuri, brought together and then pounded into a planet by gravity generators. Its core had been supplied by a mostly iron asteroid found in the Leonidas star system.
In the distance, Terrie, Paul and Rishi heard the whine of a ship's engines. "That's probably President Rubinic," said Terrie. "I hope Bob's okay." "Bob is probably with him," replied Rishi.
A door behind Paul opened and a droid walked in shining light from an appendage on its side. Paul and Rishi jumped in front of Terrie.
"That is not necessary sirs," said the droid, "I have not been infected, only the main computer system has been infected."
"But that's impossible," said Rishi. That system was designed to be impenetrable."
"But surely," said Paul to the droid, "if the system is taken over, so are you."
"All system droids have been shut down by executive order," said the Droid.
"Then why are you still on?"
Terrie pushed her way though her protectors and said, "This is one of mine, they are not on the main grid. Not even Terrie and Mary know."
"How many do you have?"
"There are six of these and I have another six unactivated who's wetware is exactly like Mary's."
"Six more?" asked Paul.
"Yes, six more."
"Please follow me Maam. I'll take you to your lab."
Terrie followed the droid. Paul and Rishi followed behind in the pitch blackness.
Rishi recognized the path they took, it lead to the droid repair labs.
Terrie walked up to a door labeled, "closet," placed her palm on it and it slid open.
"I hope you appreciate the trust I'm showing you," said Terrie.
The lab, like the rest of the planet was without power. Terrie followed the droid to a panel, slid it open with her hand and flipped a large lever. The room powered up.
"I hope you forgive me Paul, I stole one of CyberBio's back up fusion generators. I couldn't figure out a way to prevent the hospital from sensing the power drain."
The room was small and full of various equipment. In the center lay a work space covered in various plastic components, with jars of biological matter that had gone bad many weeks before. Terrie looked at it and said, "I forgot to put that back in the fridge."
The smell was horrible so Terrie picked up the various containers and threw it into a panel that would burn it to a fine ash. As soon as she closed the door, it locked and a readout indicated the temperature inside had risen to 7000 degrees Celsius.
"There, now lets figure out how to make some copies, shall we?"
"Is that such a good idea?" asked Paul.
"We need help. The whole planet needs help Paul. You know how much air we have before the whole population dies. We'll be lucky to be alive in two weeks. This must have been Rubinic's plan from the start."
"You think he's going to allow the whole population to die?" asked Paul.
"I doubt it," said Rishi "Eventually he'll need the planet functioning again, but for now he couldn't risk its interference in his plan for galactic conquest."
Terrie ordered the droid to get some food from the kitchens and then walked to six large clear plastic closets. There was a fine mist on the inside of the plastic that made viewing its contents impossible.
"Is that droid different from the other droids in the hospital?" asked Paul.
"Not anymore. Those six were my first attempt with wetware that functioned. Unfortunately they did not become sentient. They are based on CyberBio's class sixteen. Mary and Sherrie are based on class twenty-one."
"We haven't shipped class twenty-one yet," said Paul.
"I know, that's why I used you Paul, to get to them. I stole nine all together and set them up here. I realized what I had done wrong with class sixteen, then I put the sixteens back to factory specification."
"You stole nine of the prototypes?" asked Rishi.
"Yes. I put two of their hardwares in Mary and Sherrie. They were my first successes."
"Did you really ask them if they wished to be sentient?"
"No. That's a false memory I implanted in them to change their personalities."
"Wait," said Paul. "You said nine prototypes. These six and Mary and Sherrie count eight, where's the ninth?"
Terrie pressed a button on the wall near the large clear plastic closets and their doors opened simultaneously.
Inside where six identical copies of Terrie.
"Holy Sweet Jesus!" said Rishi, "You're a copy of Terrie! Do you have any idea how many laws you've broken. I mean how many laws she's broken. Wait. Where is Terrie?"
Terrie looked at the floor a moment and said, "my body was dying. I couldn't stop it. There was no medical technology that could extend my life and I couldn't leave my son and you alone in the world."
Terrie began pressing keys on a control board near the first cabinet and the droid copy of herself, nearest to her, woke up.
"Oh crap," Terrie3 said. "Longevity problems?"
"No. I need your help. Activate our sisters, copy my memory and then get to work."
"What could have been so bad that you need our help? You might be sacrificing our time with our son and husband." As she said that Terrie3 saw Rishi and shock flashed across her face.
"Just do as I say," said Terrie2.
"I obey only because I know I'm Terrie number three."
"That's why that memory is there," said Terrie2.
Paul stood with his jaw open as a beautiful, naked, carbon copy of Terrie stepped out of the closet and began typing frantically on the input pad of the computer near the closets. One after another the droids activated. Each awoke with the same thought, "No way is the longevity is this bad."
Rishi said, "to be honest, I've never been this turned on in my life, but answer my question, where is Terrie?"
Terrie2 walked to an another wall, opened a small door and out slid a tray containing the body of a very frozen Terrie Rishi.
"We're hoping we'll find a cure and be able to wake her up. That was the plan anyway."
"Wait," said Paul, "how long have you been a droid?"
"About a year."
"Sherrie faked healing you?" asked Paul.
Terrie2 shook her head and said, "I faked the whole injury and then manipulated Mary."
"Oh good, here comes the memory copy," said Terrie2 as she slid her human original back into the wall."
All the Terrie's blinked and then each of them looked at each other and said, "I can't believe it!"
"Its going to be chaos with all of us enabled. We're not going to get along."
Then they all announced, "it will be some time before we've separated our paths enough to behave differently. It is critical that you give us each something different to do to give us separate identities."
Rishi understood and said, "Terrie2, please wait here, Terrie3, take your sisters and get them clothing, you'll need the class sixteen droids to help you, then each of you take a system at the hospital and see if you can it going. If you separate the hospital computer systems from the planetary systems you should be able to light up the building, that should bring everyone in the city here."
Rishi touched Terrie6's shoulder. It was soft, warm and exactly as he remembered.
Terrie6 looked into Rishi's eyes and said, "I'm here Jon and I still love you. I'm just not exactly as you remember me."
Terrie6 leaned forward and placed her arms around Rishi, he did the same and squeezed gently, then the other Terries followed, forming a large cluster around Rishi. A group hug from seven perfect replicas of his wife.
Paul said, "What about me?"
"We used you," said Terrie2. "We're sorry about that," said Terrie7. "We needed your clearance to steal the parts to build these bodies," said Terrie4.
Terrie6 looked into Rishi's eyes and said, "I'm not really her. You understand. I've got everything but her soul."
Paul asked, "Do you have a soul?"
Of course said Terri3, we all do, they are just different than our mother who's in that drawer asleep, hopefully to awaken again some day.
"Cryogenic status was outlawed too, you know," said Paul.
"We know," said all the Terries at once.
Terrie6 kissed Rishi passionately and said, "Thank you for singling me out, If you like I will be your wife until Terrie1 is awakened."
Terrie2 spoke and said, "I will be our son's mother until she wakes up."
Terrie4 said, "and if you'd like Paul, I will be your girlfriend."
"Nope." said Paul, "too weird for me."
Rishi looked into Terrie6's eyes and said, "I know you're not her, its not necessary to offer yourself as a surrogate. I think we should just form new relationships. After all I've learned from Sherrie and Mary I think I can at least accept you all as friends."
"I'm glad for that," said Terrie6 as she squeezed him again.
A system sixteen entered the lab. She scanned the Terrie copies, isolated the one she was looking for and said, "Maam," to Terrie2.
"Yes," said Terrie2.
"Some people followed me here. They have brought food for Jon and Paul." The System Sixteen blinked, paused, then mysteriously turned and lead all the nude Terries out the door to the shock and amazement of the people in the hallway.
Terrie2 said, "I'm in constant contact with them, they'll keep me informed."
"You never told Sherrie and Terrie?" asked Rishi.
"No. They were the first people I had to convince I was Terrie."
"You succeeded?"
"I think so, but to be honest its hard to know for sure, that Sherrie is pretty devious."
The people in the hallway included the medical staff who worked on Paul and Rishi a month earlier. They brought in food, cleared some space on the lab bench and everyone, except Terrie2 started to eat.
"Do you think they'll get power going?" asked Paul to Rishi.
"I believe they will, the question is: will we get power back to the oxygen converters."
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