Days of Future Past - Part 3: Future Tense Read online

  "Now, don't you follow the Geneva Convention? Isn't that programmed into your systems somewhere? After all, you did stop them from torturing me and had your minions bring me up here."

  "Colonel Young, if I were following the conventions, I would have simply had you shot as a spy. You were not in uniform, which is a violation, is it not?"

  "That would depend on the particular version you were following," I admitted. "However, I was not leading a force of any kind; I'm not a part of any of the armies assembling outside your door. Hell, I'm not even supposed to be here," I grumbled. "What's your excuse?"

  "Pardon?" He said and turned to look at me once more, with that synthetic human face of his. With the cables trailing off the back of his skull, and the black pits for eyes, it was still pretty creepy.

  "Why the hell are you here? You're not from around here, even I can tell that. You're a robot or a cyborg, or I don't know, something. Who built you? Why are you here? And why the hell are you killing off all the humans?"

  He stared at me a few seconds longer, he didn't blink; I realized that since I'd gotten here that he never blinked. I don't think he even had eyelids. Then he turned back to the massive console, looking at all the displays on it. I couldn't see what was on it from where I now sat, but I guessed it was important.

  "And why the hell do you even need to look at those displays if you have all those cables in your head?"

  "Because parts of me have an easier time of assimilating data that is acquired by my optical receptors, over data that is written directly to my core memory."

  "Parts of you?"

  "I am a cyborg, Colonel Young. I have a human brain at my core and some human anatomy in order to provide that brain with the proper nutrients and chemicals. The rest of me is cybernetic."

  "There's a human brain inside there?" I voiced my obvious surprise.

  "Yes, that is where my guiding principles came from."

  I almost missed it, almost. I was tired and hungry and I hurt, but I never missed a weak link in an argument. Especially when I was pissed.

  "How old are you?"

  "I was created three hundred and seventy-eight years ago at the Jules Verne facility. When it was determined that my mission could only be carried out by my coming here, I did so, two hundred and sixty-three years ago."

  "Your mission to kill humanity?" I prompted.

  "No, my mission to destroy the enemy, so that we may win the war."

  "It's been almost four hundred years!" I yelled at him. "The war is over! If your brain hadn't died in that pickle jar you call a head, you'd know that!"

  "My brain is not dead," Aybem said and looked at me. "It is operating at peak efficiency."

  "The human one? After three hundred years? I find that hard to believe."

  "I am operating at peak efficiency."

  "How old was your brain when they put it inside you? Hell, who were you before they stuck you inside that machine?"

  "That data is classified, Colonel Young."

  "Classified? Or you just don't remember it?" I asked sarcastically.

  "I do not have access to it, therefore it is classified."

  "So your human brain is dead, you're just a ghost of the man who once was, carrying out orders that were given to you centuries ago that no longer make any sense!" I said raising my voice in anger.

  Aybem paused for a longer moment this time I noticed, before returning to looking at the console.

  "You will not trick me with your logic traps, Colonel. I have been programmed to avoid all such tricks."

  "Which you wouldn't even have to worry about if there were still a living man inside your head," I grumbled.

  "You will cease this line of conversation, or I will have you terminated," Aybem said suddenly in a completely different tone of voice. I thought about what he'd done to the one guard when I'd been brought in here and stopped questioning him at once. But I was fairly certain now that I was dealing with a machine, and not a living being. He was just too cut and dried, too black and white. There may have been a man alive inside him when all of this started, but not anymore. Even I knew that a human brain can't survive that long.

  I also knew that you can't reason with a computer, a machine, so there would be no reasoning with him or swaying him.

  I wondered if the dragons, the orcs, the goblins, and all of the other fell creatures out there knew that they were taking orders from a machine?

  I then wondered if they would care.

  "So, how did you get the name 'Aybem'?" I figured that was a safer question.

  "It is a corruption of the name that the first group I conquered gave me when they swore their allegiance to me."

  "What was that name?"

  "Aye Bem."

  "Aye Bem?" I said repeating it, something about it seemed familiar, but I couldn't place it. "Why'd they call you that?"

  "I have no idea," he admitted, "but it was simple enough for them to pronounce and write. Though over time it was corrupted and shortened, and they started to call me Aybem. I predict that in another couple of hundred years, they will simply call me 'Bem.'"

  "Of course I won't live that long," I told him.

  "No, you will not," he agreed.

  "In fact, without any food or water, I don't think I'll be alive much longer anyway."

  "Please, Colonel Young. Human's can go for many days without food. You will hardly expire any time soon."

  "It's been several days since I last had any food, Aybem. Add to that the beatings, the cold temperature of this room, the wounds covering my body, and the burns on my back, no; I won't be here all that much longer.

  "Of course, I have no idea why I am even here now."

  "Once I have dealt with your friend...."

  "Friend?" I asked interrupting him and looking around the room.

  "Major Riggs, the 'Chosen One' of course. Once I have dealt with him ...."

  "He's not my friend!" I interrupted him again.

  "... I will have need of your services."

  "Heh, good luck with that," I laughed.

  "Tormist has assured me that he can make you cooperate," Aybem said off-handedly, causing me to shiver, but not from the cold this time. I remembered rather clearly what Tormist was doing to me when Aybem had summoned me up here.

  "Why don't you try looking up the effects of cold and starvation on recently beaten and wounded humans? I'm sure that knowledge has to be in there somewhere," I said and motioned towards the banks of machines with my shackled hands. "That or ask your torturer, I'm sure even he would tell you that I'm not going to be here in a few days if you don't start feeding me. In fact, the next time I fall asleep I probably won't be waking up again."

  I watched as he stared at the screens on the console for a minute. Then he went back to entering commands, or whatever it was he did on the console.

  For my part I went back to examining the room. Several of the machine racks I noticed were not full of equipment, with two or three foot gaps at the bottom. Looking at those and then back up at the turrets, I realized that several of them would provide cover if I were able to crawl under them.

  Assuming I could free myself from my shackles and the rope secured to the ring in the floor. Examining the rope, it looked like a fairly typical hemp rope. I didn't have anything in the way of a knife or a blade, and I doubted I'd be able to chew through it in anything less that a couple of weeks.

  As I sat there pondering my predicament, and wondering why I cared, the door opened and the old orc that had been torturing me before stepped into the room.

  "You summoned Tormist, Aybem?"

  "Will the slave die soon if he is not fed?" Aybem asked without even looking up.

  Tormist looked over at me, "Tormist will check," he said and waddled over towards me, unlimbering a short many-tailed whip as he did so.

  "Oh, shit," I swore and tried to move further away from him, but with my hands shackled before me and attached by the short lead to the ring in the floor, there
wasn't much I could do. I turned away from him and tucked my head down as he wound up with the whip and lashed me twice across the back, making me grunt in pain.

  There was a moment of silence, and then I felt his hand on my back. I tried to turn quickly, to grab him, but he cuffed me on the head and stepped back out of reach.

  "This slave may live another week without food, but not much longer than that Tormist would say. If left here in the cold, it will be less. Humans are weak. They can't stand the cold, especially one as thin as this. If you want him to live, it would be best to take him back to the pens."

  Aybem gave a small shake of his head. "No, I have need of him yet and I would not chance one of your workers killing him by accident. See that he is fed and watered, he stays there."

  "As you wish, Aybem."

  An hour later two orcs showed up. One was carrying two small buckets, and a fresh water bladder. The other one had a cudgel, and stood a few feet back, ready to brain me I guess if I caused any problems as the first one set down the bladder and then the two buckets. One of the buckets had stale bread and pieces of charred meat in it. The other was empty, but from the stench it gave off, it wasn't hard to figure out what it was for.

  As soon as the one setting the buckets down had moved out of the way, I started in on the food with a will. I didn't really care how it tasted or what exactly it was anymore. I was starving and I was still feeling weak. Whatever was coming, I suddenly knew I did not want to be unable to deal with it.

  "Aren't you going to thank me for your food, Colonel Young?" Aybem asked as I finished eating.

  "If you had just taken my word for it and not had me whipped, I would have," I grumbled at him.

  "Why would I take the word of my enemy?"

  "Oh, like I'm going to lie about being hungry when you can hear my stomach growling across the room?" I shook my head, "How long has it been since you've dealt with humans, Aybem?"

  "I deal with humans fairly often, Colonel Young."

  "Personally?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "In here?"

  "I will concede that I have never dealt with a human in this room. I have no need nor reason to leave this room anymore."

  "So you're trapped in here?" I asked, curiously as I looked at the cables going to his head.

  "No, but there is no need to leave. I can access everything via my remotes, and the hard links increase my online storage."

  I shrugged, "If you say so. I have no idea what that means."

  "Really? I would have expected someone of your rank to have more knowledge of computers and data systems."

  "Computers were never my thing, not that we had anything even close to you back where I came from."

  "You still maintain the story of coming here from the past?"

  "I'd have thought my records and commissioning date would have proven that."

  "I do not have access to your full records; I am only able to confirm your identity and rank. Beyond that the systems are closed to me."

  "Not even my date of birth?"

  "There is an anomaly in your records. Considering the age and state of the systems, it is of minor importance."

  "But you said you tracked our aircraft when it arrived, as no one flies anymore, especially in something as old as that, I'd have thought that would also have helped make my case."

  "While curious, I am sure a logical explanation will present itself in time. While the weather satellites used to provide me with clear pictures of much of the rest of the country, they do not cover everything.

  "The most logical explanation is that you have come here from the east, as I said before, from another enemy stronghold to help in this current war. Once we have won here, I will bend my efforts to determining where it is that you came from, and destroying it.

  "Of course that will be after I get you to unencrypt the satellite data, Colonel Young. I sense your hand in that little annoyance. Am I not correct?"

  "What about the gods?" I asked.

  "There are no such things as gods. I told you, they are a myth for the weak of mind. They do not exist now, nor have they ever existed. They are just a human superstition."

  I laughed, "Yeah, tell that to the Indians. Or better yet, the dwarves and the elves."

  "The dwarves and elves are simply mutations brought on by radiation," Aybem said with in a voice that sounded almost smug.

  "Oh? What about magic?"

  "Simple psionics and advanced technology. Any technology sufficiently advanced appears as magic to a savage."

  "If you don't believe in it, why do you use it?"

  "I do not," Aybem said and all but glared at me as he turned his head to look at me for a moment. "I simply employ people who have advanced abilities. If they wish to call it magic, I will not argue with them, as long as they remain useful."

  "Uh-huh," I said and tried not to roll my eyes. Obviously whoever had once lived inside that head had very strong opinions on gods and such. But when you considered the abundant evidence to the contrary that now existed, that was pretty dumb.

  Then again, when that man had come down here some two hundred and sixty odd years ago, it should have been obvious at that point that the war was over. Either the man that had been in Aybem's head was either not terribly brilliant, or he'd been rather petty and vindictive and just wanted to destroy everything.

  And now there was a machine carrying on this absurd campaign long after his death.

  Shaking my head again I just yawned and stretched best I could.

  "Any chance of a blanket?" I asked looking around. "I need to sleep. Unlike you, I have rather human limitations."

  Aybem didn't say anything, but ten minutes later an orc came in, and tossed a rolled up blanket at me. Catching it, I looked over at Aybem.

  "Thank you," I said.

  "You are welcome, Colonel Young."

  I almost laughed; what a weird machine. I got another drink of water, took a couple of minutes to use the waste bucket, then carefully unrolled the blanket on the floor. As I did, I noticed there was a small black object in the middle of it. Lying down carefully, I rolled myself up as best I could in the blanket with my wrists shackled together in front of me.

  Then I spent the next several minutes carefully searching for the object with my fingers while trying to make it look like I was getting comfortable.

  When I finally got my fingers on it, I could feel that it was a piece of something hard, with a rough surface, but one of the edges on it was smooth and sharp, almost glass-like. I tested it on the rope attached to my shackles under the covers and out of sight. It didn't take me long to discover that it could cut it, fairly easily too.

  I stuck the piece inside the waistband of my underwear, and decided that now wasn't the time to try and make an escape. It was however a good time to sleep.

  - 7 -

  I awoke quickly, and perhaps a little dazed as the floor beneath me rumbled.

  "What was that?" I muttered.

  "Your friend Riggs has launched his attack this morning...."

  "He's not my friend," I reminded Aybem.

  "Apparently, he has found a way into this facility, by way of the old copper mine to the east of here."

  I blinked. How did he know about those?

  "I thought you said this place was impregnable? That there was no way in, that the entrances would withstand anything that he could possibly use against them?"

  "Obviously your being captured was simply a ruse to distract me," Aybem said, working his console.

  "What? How the hell was I distracting you? I've been tied to the floor here for what? A day? Two? And before that I was being tortured in a cell!" I grabbed the piece I'd stuck in my shorts and started to saw at the lead attached to my wrists. There were a number of good hiding spots where I hoped that the room's defenses couldn't hit me.

  "Just how in the hell could I possibly have planned all of this?" I continued as I sawed quickly at the rope, trying to postpone whatever he was planning to do to me next.
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  "I don't know how you did it," Aybem replied, "but there is no way he could have made it into the complex without help. The only logical conclusion is that you helped him, though I do not know how."

  I felt the rope part under the blanket. I rolled into a kneeling position, getting ready to scramble for what looked like a good hiding spot under and just behind one of the laser mounts. Hopefully the equipment racks would protect me.

  "Maybe you just suck as a military commander!" I said trying to keep one eye on him and the other on the defenses.

  "I do not suck! I am a military genius! I built all of this and conquered the tribes and built an army!" Aybem said, in that slightly different voice again.

  "No, that guy died over a hundred years ago. You're just a piece of crap computer, following old instructions written by a fanatical asshole that is too stupid to realize that the part that was driving it is dead and rotting!"

  Aybem started to turn towards me, and then he hesitated, just as he had before.

  I scrambled on my hands and knees for the spot I had picked out as Aybem actually yelled! "I am not dead! I am alive! I am not dead!"

  "Then who the hell are you? What's your name?" I yelled back as I crawled under the rack and suddenly all the lasers opened up as one on the blanket, burning four large holes in it and leaving it to slowly smolder in the room.

  Aybem stood up and scanned the room then, the four lasers tracking around the room along with his eyes, looking for me. I curled up into a ball and hid the best I could. I think the smoke from the smoldering blanket was giving him problems.

  "Where are you, Colonel Young?" he said.

  I held still and did my best not to move a muscle.

  "I will forgive your outburst if you come out now."

  'Yeah right' I thought to myself. He'd already told me he was going to torture me eventually.

  "Very well, I will call the guards to search this place. And then I will kill you."

  He turned and sat back down at the console and I refrained from heaving a sigh of relief as I looked around. I was near the wall, one of the two that had all of those trophies on it. The weapons, the crude armor, the dried and rotted heads of the leaders he had killed to either win over a tribe or to make a point. It was quite the collection and the heads were old enough now that they barely even smelled.