 
### Mad-Sci-Soc

by

Arrand Pritchard

Copyright 2015 Arrand Pritchard

Published by Arrand Pritchard at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

All rights reserved. This book can be distributed provided it remains unaltered.

No part of this work can be copied without permission of the author.

### Table of Contents

Part 0 Prologue

Part 1 Joining Mad-Sci-Soc

Part 2 The Battle to Save Time

About the Author

Acknowledgements
Part 0 Prologue

### Friday, December 13, 2117.

In 2117, a group of freedom fighters called the Open Genetics Alliance Group had taken over the New York Museum of Computer Archeology and was threatening to destroy a valuable ancient artifact, dating from 1977, a DEC PDP-11 computing device.

The OGAG's demands were: a) Free access to the genealogical data within the Legacy Net. b) The end of DNA profiling and manipulation of the general public genome. c) Freeing all pets from slavery. d) A flight to Iceland.

The broadcast networks had been tweeted and the Superhero Union had been scheduled for the event so it looked like it was going to be an exciting show. Emerging from an anonymous-looking black auto-auto, surveyed by camera drones, was Captain Kittoffery, yellow latex-clad veteran superhero, returning after years of legal wrangling over technology patent rights. Stepping out behind him was a new, unidentified nervous-looking young female super-heroine sporting medusa-like white hair and a blue-grey wispy cape.

The Captain waved to the drone-mounted cameras before the heroes activated their invisibility cloaking and starting on their 100 meter walk across the plaza towards the beleaguered, mock-palladium style building.

Tension grew in the Broadcast channel's mobile control suite as Reginald Gillard, TrueCrime-9+ Super Hero Reality Show Director, had to make a crucial decision: broadcast live (with a five minute delay, of course) or put together a compilation show.

"The new fem is televisual. Do you have her name?" said Clive, Reg's assistant, viewing her 3D image on his holoscreen and spinning it around.

"It's in a text. Corral Girl or something," said Gillard fingers waving in mid-air as he tackled the virtual controls presented by his heads-up display.

"The old west isn't her style," mused Clive, enlarging the emblem on her image torso..

Gillard noticed and stopped his finger dance to inquire bruskly, "You have them on infra-red?"

Clive snapped back to the broadcast feed, "Only 2D."

"Are the camera drones inside?"

"All taken out. They must have anti-drones."

"And the micro-drones?"

"They've been taken out too. And we don't have many left. Just a couple of dozen, maybe. So what's the decision? Go or no-go?"

"Well..." said Gillard in a long drawl. Leaning back in his chair he ran his hand through his blue and white pin-stripped hair, that matched his fabricated blue and white pin-stripped shirt, before making up his mind. "No sorry, while the girl has audience-appeal-potential there's nothing televisual here. Infrared is a bore and they are making sluggardly time to CATLOC. There's no cameras inside either. No, we'll capture the show from bodycam and re-broadcast later. If it's any good, that is. Which is doubtful with new heroes!"

"I thought new heroes are good. Good for ratings."

"Ratings are won with familiarity not novelty. Even if we can hype a newbie but they are a disaster for live broadcasts. They're always such... bozos."

"Good to see the Captain's back though," muttered Clive.

"Not in my book. I'm still taking the extra strong Rad-free tablets after the mess up with the panda herd," he said curmudgeonly.

Five minutes later there was still no news. By 2117, child birth was quicker than this freeze-frame and the crowds outside were restless. Robots maintained a cordon around the museum holding back the pedestrians and cyclists frustrated at the delay, although the A2s and scooters had automatically re-routed.

A human Police Officer, that rare breed of human able to pass the psychometric tests to conform to the 2080 "Protect and Serve" Law, linked into Gillard's G-Phone.

"Hello, Mr Gillard, I was just wondering whether you had any update on the situation."

"No, we're in the dark on this one," sighed Gillard.

"It's just that the pedestrians are already walking around the barriers and the cyclists are becoming annoyed. They want to know the time slot duration so that they can re-schedule their calendars," said the Police Officer humbly.

"This isn't scheduled or rehearsed. We don't have any end time or expected breaks."

"It's a real crime?" stuttered the cop.

"All crime is real. This one is just un-parametrised."

"So... your estimation?"

"We're not going out live. We don't have a time frame. We need to 'think different' on this?"

"Oh Jobs, no time slot! Ok. I'll re-route them. F.Y.I, we have called in an air strike in 15 minutes. You might like to close off your recording streams before then," said the officer helpfully.

"I will have double-dozed before then," Gillard replied.

Nothing happened for ten minutes. Not even chatter on the Su-U channels. Clive was updating his social media pages and Gillard was on an audio conference. Then the air strike arrived, five minutes early. Gillard scrabbled from his chair, fell over and pointed to a big red button. "Close off the cameras! Close off the cameras!" he squealed at his assistant.

The air strike consisted of a couple of hundred diner-plate-sized drones, they arrived seemingly out of nowhere from over and around the New York buildings, in every direction, they smashed through the museum's windows and streaked through into the building. The angry buzz of activity stopped as quickly as it had started. If you blinked, you could have missed it. And you would have blinked too, the drones were accompanied by a blinding halogen light to divert the gaze of onlookers.

Then there was a strange silence.

And a few seconds later there was the stranger silence when all the lights failed and the machines stopped humming.

Power had gone out inside Gillard's mobile studio van. All the holographic displays disappeared. Even his G-Phone was dead.

He stepped from the now darkened van out into the quiet plaza in front of the museum. He noticed the robot cordon guards had failed, frozen to the pavement. They were being prodded by a small crowd of puzzled and disoriented pedestrians. The power outage was widespread.

Uncharacteristically and for the first time in his life, curiosity became Reginald Gillard's sole motive as he walked unguarded towards a crime scene.

He then had second thoughts, returned to the van and sent his assistant inside.

Clive soon came running back. Sweat pouring from his face, he panted. "I don't think we can make a show out of this!" He then went to the back of the van and threw up.

***
Part 1 Joining Mad-Sci-Soc

## Chapter One Of Fridges and Frigidity

### Tuesday, January 22, 2123

Mad-Sci-Soc. Where do you begin with a time traveling story full of world events, flashbacks and difficult relationships? There is no better starting point than the point where Terri and I first visited the Mad-Sci-Soc... it used to be a University club, a crazy one, and then it morphed into something else, something that was not quite definable but definitely crazy. It was Terri's idea to go to them. She knew where they were located, on the edge of the campus, but still inside the robot-free zone. With gentle snow falling around us as we walked through the historic brown brick housing district, it looked very Dickensian.

So there we were, at what could be the crucial turning point in human history; and where I started to unravel the mysteries of the organisation and the problems facing civilisation. Of course, I may be exaggerating. I presume there may be a parallel universe that did not start here in New York, 2123; a universe that does not have the dichotomic predicament that I was confronting. But that is always the problem with disturbances in the space-time continuum, nothing makes sense except from the first person perspective.

My augmented reality first person perspective was focused upon my gorgeous girlfriend, Terri. In a world of glamorous women and wimpy men, she was the most glamorous of carpet retailers and I was arguably the most geeky of freelance technical researchers. While gorgeous, she had made a couple of fashion mistakes that evening; she had her eye makeup recently re-tattooed and her eyebrows were now just a bit too high. As a result she looked permanently surprised. Or more accurately, surprised and annoyed. Her other fashion mistake was a lack of warm clothes. Her diamond-effect vest dress was only covered by her transparent raincoat with the broken hologram generator. Of course, she had no hat since that would disturb her purple-to-grey faded hair. Although she claimed that her furry boots and the heating unit in the vest provided adequate warmth.

But really what was rushing through my mind when I looked at her, was the change to her relationship status on EgoSpace. She had changed it that day to "it's complicated". What a body-blow! I would have liked to forget about this and concentrate on the task at hand but every time I turned around, reality augmentation would kick-in; my contact-lens-heads-up display would show the results from my face-rec app and return her status. I definitely needed to change the settings to stop the facial recognition function from running all the time.

The task in hand was entry into the club house, aka geek-central, the geeks' cathedral... Mad-Sci-Soc had the reputation as the gathering point of the cleverest of scientists studying the most intellectually challenging and most ridiculously obscure subjects that bordered more on philosophy than science. I was geeky but not in the same way as these guys. They were the very epitome of the uncool part of geekdom and who wants to be associated with that?!

"We've tried everybody else, haven't we? The Police, maybe?" I asked.

"The Police? I doubt this is their bailiwick. It would break their programming," sighed Terri.

"The University?"

"Serious scientists are not going to take us seriously."

"The Military?"

"I guess we haven't tried everyone."

"So we should try them?" I said anxiously and gladly. Anything to avoid stepping inside the building.

"For frack-sake, Aaron!" Terri said. She was testing me again.

"No. Just joking," I lied.

The previously tacitly assumed plan, that I was to enter alone, was made explicit. "So go in then! I'll wait outside."

As my last delaying tactic, I said, "Is it because of Max?"

She sneered, "You work it out."

In an attempt for sympathy, I said heroically, "It's ok. I'll go in alone."

Terri was not amused as I continued to linger on the pavement checking out the steps and the door, "Cold feet? I have the real cold feet. If I'm happy to freeze out here then you can do this. So, go!"

"I don't know whether I want to be seen entering..."

"You don't want to be seen going in? Shall I find a bag for your head! Some extreme-sport fanatic you are!"

I gave her a sarcastic smile. Terri was always a real world type of person while I still possessed a level of real world disconnection syndrome caused by years of game playing. However I prided myself on my ability to confront real world situations. I guess I liked to prove myself. Obviously not in an academic, exam-type way.

I turned around. There were no surveillance drones, no robots and no people. At least none that I could detect. Nothing to worry about there.

It was early evening, empty greyness only warmed by amber street lighting, I guess the snow had driven the humans inside. There was a few auto-taxis and A2s, but nobody looks out from their auto-autos, people were too busy with their social media exchanges or controlling their surrogates. We had to be there in person rather than traverse any virtual worlds because the MSS club members shunned such shimmering digital environments, which suited me anyway, having had my avatar banned from most.

I had run out of excuses.

I crept up to the black door to read a small sign which read "Come on in! But remember ...we may be mad but we still don't like time-wasters!" Under the doorbell with a name plate with just three letters: "M. S. S." I pressed the doorbell and the door automatically replied in a sing-song voice, "Come on in. Push the door hard."

I pushed open the sturdy metal door styled with fake embossments to make it appear in-keeping with the age of the building. Inside was a long brightly-lit corridor with posters showing headlines from old news pages: "Oil found under Manhattan!" and "Empire State Building converted to world's largest drilling rig!" "Matter Transfer at Columbia Uni wows Scientists." "Captain Kittoffery saves Korean Town from Wild Radioactive Panda Herd."

I ought to mention something about Captain Kittoffery for those people in the future (or the past!) who have not seen his exploits on TrueCrime-9+ channel's Super Vigilante pan-device broadcast reality show. Captain Kittoffery was one of the limited number of licensed heroes that frequented New York and other parts of North America. And sometimes, as described in the news article on the wall, other parts of the world depending upon international treaties. CK could hold an Olympic heavy lifter with their maximum weights on each of his outstretched arms. Amazables! Was it a real super power, a stage magician's trick or computer generated imagery? The superheroes claim their powers are mutotonic but nobody really knows what that is. There were enough eye witnesses to his super strength to disprove camera trickery. It remains a mystery.

The yellow-latex-clad Captain had a brief period of celebrity status until he was quagmired in a patent legislation suit against the Ms Bell mega-corporation where he won a victory of sorts, a technical victory. But after that he disappeared from broadcasts (or as we Brits still call it, "TV") he was replaced by more charismatic and eccentric heroes such as Nerdifer and Sargent Canada. CK had not been seen in several years. I mentioned this since I walked into an office space occupied by a single, large male personage that reminded me of the Captain.

"Mad-Sci-Soc?" I enquired.

"Can I help?" asked the man looking up from his holoscreen.

"I doubt it but hey, we've tried everybody else," I replied breezily. "Has anyone ever told you that you look a lot like Captain Kittoffery?" The face-rec application flashed up his name on my head-up display: Conrad. But his surname and other personal details were suppressed by a privacy filter.

The man furrowed his brow, "You flatter me. I'm not that good-looking. I'm just a humble post-grad. You were saying?"

"It's rather difficult to explain, er... Conrad."

The man appeared to wince.

"I... er... have a problem with my fridge," I said in a manner that I hoped indicated I did not really want to be there.

"We don't fix fridges. There's a repair shop down the road would you like me to show you on NetMaps?"

"This is a really big fridge problem," I said trying to make it sound more interesting.

The man stood and offered me the way out, "Like the sign says on the front door, we really don't like to mess around."

"What sign?" I asked befuddled already forgetting the warning about time-wasters.

Conrad sighed. "Sorry. It must have fallen off. Anyway, we don't do anything with fridges, ok, good-bye."

"No, no. Wait. Give me a minute to explain. It's of earth shattering importance but it's going to sound crazy," I said in a panic, contemplating the tongue lashing I would receive from Terri if I did not come back with some relevant information.

"Crazy you say...?" he replied slowly and rubbing his large chin. "In what way?"

"So if I mention fridges then you won't mind?"

"Is your fridge making funny noises?" he ventured.

"Yes, well it was..."

"This is perfectly normal. I wouldn't worry about it. Check the diagnostics and try defrosting once in a while," said the man and sat back down to look at his holoscreen.

"Actually it is not the noises it's making that worries me. I think our fridge has come alive!"

"Well, everything is computerised nowadays. Has the machine developed a bit of a personality?"

"No. The computer stopped talking to us months ago. That was quite a bonus actually. No, it's moved by itself."

"Moved by itself? How?"

"That's why I'm here."

Conrad hummed to himself. "I think you better go right back to the beginning. What's your name again?"

I was relieved that I had finally gained some of his attention. "It's Aaron. Aaron Quarts. That's Quarts with an S not Quartz with a zed..."

"Sure. Sure. Wind forward a bit."

"Well, it all started while I was practising making tea for Terri..."

"Tea? What type?" said Conrad.

Perhaps I didn't really have his interest. "Ceylon. Terri's favourite."

"You have a permit for the tea?"

"Well, of course," I sighed. "It's medicinal." He didn't seem convinced.

"And who's Terri?"

"My girl friend."

"Hmm, Interesting," he said, suddenly intense.

"No, that's not the interesting part."

I then told him the story about when the fridge first started to misbehave.

"I was doing research on the legacy-web trying to extract open-source technology. People always laugh at my ancient computer with its keyboard and mouse or make sneering remarks about its hygiene, all that dust build-up between the keys... but really it is the only way to truly access the ancient texts." Conrad rolled his hand indicating for me to speed up my story. "I was staring intently at the computer screen, its old and solid, not holographic, when I notice a movement behind me as a flicker on the computer screen, a reflection."

"A mirror effect?"

"Yes, right. I focused on the reflection and this time I could tell what it was. The door of the fridge moved. The first movement I detected must have been the door opening; the second, which I saw clearly, was the door shutting. It made a hermetic thud as it closed."

"And this is a standard fridge. Nothing automatic? Net-connected?"

"Just a fridge. As I said, we lost voice interaction and network connection ages ago."

"And you were alone in your home?"

"I was alone. I shrugged it off. It was about a minute after when it started to happen..."

"What?"

"The fridge moved..."

"I thought you said that you were making tea."

"I tried making tea earlier. But I couldn't open the fridge to get the milk. The door was stuck. So I had black tea. I don't like black tea."

"This was the same fridge that opened and closed its door and then moved? How did it move?"

"The same fridge. We have only the one fridge. It moved like it was shuffling forward, rattling fast, in short bursts."

"And did it keep doing this?"

"At first it shuffled forward about a foot."

"And what did you do?"

"I got up and went over to the fridge and tried to open the door."

"And?"

"Just like before. It wouldn't open."

"And yet you saw the door open a close, all-be-it in reflection a few minutes earlier."

"Right."

"So let me get this straight, you want to show me this fridge?"

"I can't!"

"No?"

"The fridge has gone, man. It's done a runner!" I then projected a picture from my Genie-Phone of the hole in our apartment's wall which now provided a grim panoramic view of downtown Manhattan.

Conrad looked skeptical.

"I'll bring Terri in and she can confirm. She's outside. Probably getting cold."

"Sure. I'd like that."

***

### Tuesday, January 22, 2123. (5 Minutes Later).

I dashed back outside onto the snowy street but there was no Terri. I touched my wrist control of my G-Phone and said, "Call Terri"

"This service is brought to you by Merry Medication and Upgrades. Call Merry?" suggested the networking device.

"No, call Terri!" I reiterated with emphasis on the tee.

"Call Terri and not advertised service?" queried the G-Phone.

"Yes, confirm." Sometimes I wished I had the concentration to make the mind-machine-interface work, there are no adverts on the MMI. But I used gesture and voice control as per the 90% of humanity that cannot afford, or indeed, operate the MMI. Techno-implants make the MMI easier according to the advertising, however, call me a technophobe if you like, my body is a temple where machines should not be inserted. In that vain, Terri was also trying to ween me from junk food, although with only limited success.

The audio sync-call connected quickly. "Hi Terri. I'm chatting to this Mad-Sci-Soc guy. He wants confirmation on the fridge story."

"You've told the whole story? It's only been five minutes!" she said exasperated over the earpiece.

"I haven't told him about the whole fridge opening palaver."

"Is Max there?"

"I don't know. I haven't met him you know. There was only one guy. The Captain Kittoffery look-alike."

"Yes, I know Conrad. Max doesn't look like that."

"What does he look like?"

"Short, geeky."

"So like me?"

"No. Shorter. And he's a control freak. And known to wear a suit on a weekend."

"Ah," I said as I caught sight of my own dishevelled appearance reflected in a window. I was wearing my old, but freshly laundered, fabricated, heat-regulating t-shirt with a "Buy Pizza" logo inherited from a past failed career. "That's not an insult you could throw at me."

"No. I have other ones for you," she replied coolly. "Call me when you've finished."

***

### Tuesday, January 22, 2123. (5 Minutes Later).

I went back inside.

"No girl friend?" Conrad asked.

"No," I said. "Apparently she knows you."

"Ah-ha. Just as I thought. There are no coincidences. Terri, Terri Shiraz?" Conrad mused and stared at the ceiling as if recalling past events.

"So you remember her?" I asked politely. I knew these University types interacted with hundreds of people a year, albeit mainly in virtual worlds.

Conrad ignored my question. "Always had a strange taste in men... Hmm. You were talking about a disappearing fridge?" he said, while maintaining his upward contemplation.

"Well, after the fridge moved, I freaked out and ran out of the apartment to Terri's workplace."

***

### Friday, January 4, 2123.

I tried calling her while running the few blocks to Columbia Carpet Factory Showroom. Terri enjoyed her real world job as a carpet sales person. She found it satisfying meeting and dealing with real people and delivering real products. However that day, for some reason, she had blocked incoming calls. I sprinted across the crowded street with the smart-road re-routing taxis and auto-autos around me. (Fortunately there were no cyclists about; cyclists being the last bastion of zero-automation transportation in New York, pose the most danger to pedestrians crossing the road.)

At the showroom, I was directed to the back office by a fellow staff member.

"Terri, Terri, Terri!" I said knocking on the staff-only door.

Terri slid the door open while I stood there panting, "Aaron. What are you doing here?" she said, not in the least bit pleased to see me. "This way!" And she dragged me outside to a back alley away from her carpet executive colleagues.

Clearly she was not in a good mood but what she said next really sapped my last remaining strength. As I stood there panting, she said. "Well I suppose we have to talk and I guess this is about as good a time as any. Aaron, there's something I've been wanting to tell you for a long time." She bit her lip, "This is really hard to say and there's no easy way to say it or a right time. I have looked in the mirror every morning..."

I stood there puffing, puzzling about what she was saying to me.

"And I've been thinking. Is this where I want to be? And for too many days, I've been saying no."

"I am sorting out a new apartment for us..." I puffed.

"No Aaron. It's not the apartment. It's us. It's a new year and things have to change. For things to change, we have to finish. We really are not right for each other..." then, as if remembering a script, she tilted her head and tried to look sad.

"What?" I gasped. "But things were going so well lately."

"That's not my perception," she sighed.

To be honest, we did have a less than sparkling New Year's Eve celebrations; we stayed in with a large pot of tea and British-style biscuits having returned back from an exhausting skiing vacation that extended over Christmas.

"But we go together like Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore."

"Yes, we're a great comedy duo," she said sarcastically.

"I didn't mean it like that. We're synergistic. Noone else in the city would even understand that joke. Is it my bad habits? The gambling and borrowing money and the like. You know I have that under control, right?"

"It's not the money," she said.

"You don't like the bets, the competitions?" I said desperately.

"They are wearing thin. The bets are just your way of getting cash from me."

"It's the boxes, isn't it?" I said.

"Your cardboard box collection doesn't help. But that's not it either!"

"What is it then?"

"This isn't how I'm supposed to live my life. Yours either. It's like nothing matters."

"You matter. I matter. We matter. What I've got to say now matters."

Terri turned and folded her arms, "Perhaps this isn't a good time to talk after all. I was going to do the whole it-is-not-you-its-me bit, but really that would be so fake. It is you."

"Terri, please. Don't flip-the-bozo-bit. We have to talk. This is really important, I swear. I swear on my mother's grave."

"Your mother's not dead!" she huffed, her back towards me.

"It's a metaphor. Terri... Terri, I really still must talk to you. This isn't about you and me," I said soothingly thinking she might be upset.

"So you do want money?" She said turning back sharply.

"No, no. It's not money. It's the fridge! It's moving... It's gone crazy."

"Moved?"

"It shuffled by itself into the middle of the kitchen! The door won't open!"

Her demeanour changed instantly. "So it is happening?" She said wide-eyed.

"What?"

"The machines! They've gone sentient. They're rebelling!" Terri had been in the apartment alone about two weeks previously and had, apparently, seen the micro-robo-cleaner going berserk in the apartment. I suggested that it might have been fighting a rat. She responded that seeing a rat in a seventh floor apartment wasn't any more comforting than a robot uprising. Paranoia is one of Terri's less endearing traits. Researching the causes of the robo-cleaner shadow battle, she had established her preferred most-likely theory: the "singularity". That being the point where machines become self aware and start to take over the planet. The first stage of the singularity is predicted to be meaningless but wilful disobedience from the machines. She's been brooding about that and much else both before and since.

***

### January 5 - 21, 2123.

Terri and I forgot about our relationship problems in the days after the fridge incident. We had a shared enemy and a shared problem: the fridge! First problem: how to open the fridge door. If we opened the fridge door we could disconnect its computer controls, hopefully stop the rebellion as well as access the milk and other food stuffs, which were, after all, essential to our well being.

We pushed and pulled the fridge and tried to move it from its new location, the centre of the kitchen. The fridge resisted and wouldn't budge.

So we tried a variety of tools to open the thing...

Hammers merely dented the outer shell.

Crowbars could gain no leverage.

Axes bounced off its surface, no better than the hammers.

The chainsaw chain came off and took out one of the lights.

We applied electricity and merely managed to short circuit the whole apartment building.

The fridge remained steadfast, two metres from the wall, the door firmly shut.

"I bet you... I bet you that if we just unplug the fridge, it would die. And then we can open the door," I said.

"I thought we were not doing these bets any more," sighed Terri.

"I have a good feeling about this."

"Ok, how much?"

"Five dollars."

"Huh. That's all? I bet my share of the rent."

"Whoa!"

"Backing out, Mr Quarts?"

"No way."

We unplugged the fridge from the mains but then in the morning we found it plugged in again. And still closed. I lost the bet.

We cut the mains cable, but it appeared to make no difference to the fridge.

Terri and I discussed where we could obtain the chemicals for the explosive composition I had found on the legacy net.

Ah, those were good days. We would go to bed at night, like we were a real couple again, with pillow talk about destroying the fridge or refining our description of the gurgling noises we could hear inside it. In those cold wintry days in the apartment with a barely operational central heating system, I'd sometimes find Terri's arms around me, her body moulded to mine.That bitchy emotional wall that she had established around herself seemed to have tumbled down just like that twentieth century Hadrian's Wall thing in Germany.

Then came the morning when I pushed my luck, and started to kiss those shiny, ruby red lips of hers. She responded by kissing back with no sarcastic remarks. I thought that she had "returned to me", that our relationship was on again. I started running my hand over the curves of her body and felt her silky soft skin. Her eyes remained closed and her breathing was fast and shallow. I felt sure we were heading for Level 10, but then came the crash! A literal explosive shattering crash, followed by the sound of falling items, breaking glass and a howling wind. It came from the kitchen, and the closed doors provided little in terms of sound insulation.

Terri's eyes sprung open and sat up, "What the frack-quake was that!?"

"Oh it's probably nothing. Hey darling, come back here..." I suggested in an uncharacteristically macho style, still feeling passionately inclined towards her. I knew the suggestion was useless even before I said it.

Terri's icy stare was the reply before grabbing her robe and exiting the room, while I, uh... adjusted myself before following her.

Terri's scream shifted me into overdrive.

In the kitchen, the whole east wall was gone leaving it open to the wintry weather. Terri was clutching her hair looking out from an impromptu, seventh floor vista onto the cityscape complete with grey, misty morning skies. Beyond the rattling cupboard doors and banging, hanging utensils, wind was whipping through Terri's hair and gown like a cape, and also, incidentally, freezing the end of my still rampant manhood concealed in my pyjamas.

The fridge was also missing.

***

### Tuesday, January 22, 2123.

"So the fridge had gone?" Conrad asked, after I recounted the story (minus various details).

"Yes," I'd just told him that the fridge was missing. I thought these guys were supposed to be clever.

"It created the hole in the wall?" asked Conrad.

"Yes, it blew out the wall. The hole was actually quite neatly cut and fell to the garden below."

"Seven stories down?"

"Yes, we were on the seventh floor."

"What did you do after that?"

"We looked for a new apartment..."

"But did you find the fridge? In the wreckage down below?"

"We looked but the fridge wasn't there. It had gone. That's why we think the fridge was to blame."

Conrad leaned back and rubbed his huge, square chin. "We need to talk to Max."

Max, Terri's Ex, I was keen to meet him, to look him in the eye. But I knew Terri wouldn't be. "Why's that?" I asked with undisguised glee.

"He is an expert in sentience. He has a published paper proving the impossibility of the singularity."

"Sentience?"

"Yes, the science of consciousness."

"I don't understand."

"Well, nobody really does. I wouldn't feel bad about that."

"The science of consciousness," I said mulling the implications. "So could the fridge have come alive?"

"Who knows? But there is enough mystery here to warrant a Mad-Sci-Soc investigation. And it would be good to catch up with Terri again..."

***

## Chapter Two Director's Cut

### Tuesday, January 22, 2123.

I agreed to meet with Conrad the next day at our old apartment.

Terri was less than impressed and refused to come along. "I am not seeing Max ever again. I refuse to even enter the same building as him. If it was not for you," she prodded my chest accusingly, "I wouldn't even be in the same state as him let alone the same city."

"What did he do?"

"I cannot even begin to explain. And you wouldn't believe me anyway."

"But Conrad's ok?"

"Conrad? I have a few issues with Conrad. But Max is the problem."

"Did he hurt you?"

"Absolutely!"

"Physically?"

"Not directly."

"Molested you?" I said in anguish.

"Not in the legal sense. He stole my soul! It was spiritual abuse if you must know. Look it up."

"Your soul?"

"I said you wouldn't believe me."

"I believe you. I do understand. You don't want to see him."

"You don't understand. But you're partly right, I don't want to see him. Ever! And I don't want to talk about it."

"Can't I ask you anything about him? I may be meeting him quite soon. I need to know. This isn't just me doing a diary-deep-dive for BragBook viral," I pleaded.

Terri paced our new (second floor) apartment's combined living, dining and kitchen room. She growled with frustration, "What do you want to know?"

"How did you meet him and what is he like?" I ventured carefully.

***

### Tuesday September 10, 2117.

What follows is the Director's-Cut-Extended-Edition of Terri's story of her first week in New York. Terri was a different person in those days, as any young girl would be, naive and idealistic. She would not tell this story herself, it hurts her too much. I have filled in the details myself with perhaps some embellishments.

After a three hour train journey from Saint Paul, Minnesota to New York's Grand Central Station, Terri arrived at Colombia University by auto-taxi. She was delighted to be met on the pavement, coordinated via headsets, by her allocated second year student buddy, Jennifer, not a replicant but a real person. Most robotics were banned from the streets of New York in order to ease congestion. Terri wanted to come to New York for that very reason. She was tired of Replicants and Robots with their thank-you-this and thank-you-that, do-anything-you-want-as-long-as-its-safe homogenised personalities. It may suit old age pensioners but not aspiring art students that craved authenticity and were determined to use the best virtual reality to get it.

Terri arrived wide-eyed and tourist-like delighting in looking up at the skyscrapers and overhead roadways, monorails and covered streets. Jenny was there to put her on the right path in this most complex of cities. Her role as buddy was to ensure Terri hooked up to the right networks: academic, domestic, social and electronic. Jenny was dark skinned with blond hair with conservative streaks of metallic pink. She owned a small metal dog that she kept in her handbag. And indeed, she did sort out Terri. She selected the right fashion salons, gymnasium, educational timetable logging her into all the right places.

"So what's your orientation, sweetie?" Jenny asked as she stared into her holoscreen.

"Oh hetro, 70%, bi-sexual, 20%, robo-sexual, 10%," Terri said shyly.

"What a conservative girl, you are. I guess that's your mid-west roots, eh? You're just a country girl at heart, eh?' teased Jenny.

"And you?" Terri asked red-faced.

"I'm a regular three-way-split, 30-30-30," beamed Jenny.

"That's missing 10%," observed Terri.

"Oh, that's solo. By choice!" Jenny smirked. "I'm guessing you're really 100% solo at the moment. Let's get that changed, shall we?"

"That would be great, Jenny. Thanks."

"Select the robot you want from this catalog," advised Jenny.

"I thought they were banned in New York?"

"Licensed. You might need some escorting after dark. I can get you a retro version if you don't like replicants."

"So you have one?"

"Sure. Top of the range X.24," said Jenny and opened up a cupboard. "This is Doug. I let him out occasionally."

A nice looking male replicant was behind the door. "Hi, there!" he waved enthusiastically. But he was in for some disappointment.

"I'm actually after a real boy," said Terri wistfully.

Jenny closed the door on the dejected replicant. "We'll get you a real one, Terri," she smiled.

Their first trip was to the fashion salon to change Terri's provincial, rainbow-coloured hairstyle to a more subtle ash-blonde with leopard-spots. While waiting for her hair to be re-style, Jenny selected her clothes."I love the way that you look different, Terri, very Newtonian. But the aim is to look different within the fashionable trends of the city, university and sorority," advised Jenny.

"Sound complicated," said Terri with a giggle.

"Fortunately you have me and poochie here to help," smiled Jenny giving her robo-pet a cuddle.

She flicked through the catalog on her holoscreen, made some customisations and downloaded the latest outfits into her holo-clothes, adding fabricated red and purple scarfs and straps over a leather effect mini-dress. She entered a couple of virtual worlds to try them out on her avatar. However Terri soon grew tired of the untrustworthy and ingratiating comments from the A-I characters that danced attendance; she could barely tolerate artificial beings in virtual worlds or the real one. In those days she liked, indeed craved, the frailty and vagaries of humanity.

Terri exited the salon looking like a stylish student from New York.

"Thoughts?" asked Terri.

"It's exybobulous!" nodded Jenny. Terri was pleased.

Back at the Student Accommodation Block, Jenny completed her induction by filling in her social electronic profile on her top ten relevant social media sites.

"So a couple more questions... What comms network are you with?"

"Ms Bell, of course."

"And implant type and version?"

"None. No implants."

Jenny's eyes raised. "Technophobic?"

"Naturally aligned."

Jenny shrugged. It didn't matter to her whether Terri was electronically connected or not. "We'll go easy on you and just distribute your profile to a dozen or so net-bots and see what happens. You'll have to be patient, though, as it might be a couple of hours before we have the dates arranged."

"That'll be fine. I'll just go and hygenise."

Much to Jenny's dismay, Terri had only selected a single date for the evening; a real world one-to-one date and not a virtual world date. Terri was feeling unduly confident about the computer-selected, boyfriend-elect.

A few hours later, Terri was ready for her first date in the big city.

"I love that term, boyfriend-elect," giggled Terri.

"You go and elect him, girl," encouraged Jenny.

She looked radiant in her new hairdo and laser-effect sequin dress.

Ralph was a second year student, good-looking, not unpleasant in that respect. The romantic prospects looked hopeful when they met outside the restaurant, Broadway/103rd West/Level 1. Ralph recognised Terri and Terri recognised Ralph as their apps also added hearts and starbursts when they met.

But as the evening wore on reality intervened. Ralph, it seemed had done precious-little dating except with human-like, sycophantic replicants. In fact Ralph showed less interest in her than the AI menu sheet. "Hi, Terri," said the computerised plastic card in its tinny little voice. "I didn't know you had moved to New York. Are you going for your usual or can I interest you in the special..." Terri pressed the mute on the menu card; she hated such marketing gimmicks.

"You're probably wondering why I've invited you to a McSquirrels rather than to a Rodentia or some other up-market establishment," enthused Ralph.

"Well it's only a first date..." said Terri with a shrug and a smile.

Ralph then spent a long time describing the musical he was writing and hoping to sell to the restaurant chain for promotional purposes. It was tale about a quarrelling family of squirrels. He demonstrated its plot using the salt and pepper shakers and sang key verses. He shooed the robot waiter away several times during the climatic final scene.

Terri felt bad about her initial encouragement of his singing and acting out of particular scenes of his opus, as boredom developed she became aware of angry stares from fellow diners.

Ralph's lack of relationship management skills became even more evident once the food arrived. He had not only failed to ask her a single question but worse, when she did start a topic, he would interject mid-sentence enthusiastically with his own point of view.

Terri craved real conversation but the majority of Ralph's conservation appeared to be the rehashing the advertising slogans for the franchised food chain.

"100% squirrel pummelled into a pellet. This isn't just squirrel steak. This is specially bred, spicy, tornado-grey squirrel steak with mouth-watering, acorn-jam sauce." Ralph recanted just his first mouthful.

When he belatedly noticed Terri losing interest, he did try to involve her in conversation but not effectively. For example, he asked, "Are you nuts for the McAcorn Salad? I know I'm nuts for McAcorn Salad. I'm crazy, huh? I'm certainly crazy about squirrels."

Ralph became increasingly nervous as Terri's look of pity withered his confidence. After the date he messaged via his G-Phone, requesting feedback, as is protocol, on his date performance. Terri, like most of Ralph's infrequent previous dates, bucked protocol and she did not reply, instead blocking him from her network and leaving Ralph non-the-wiser about his social ineptitude.

Terri regretted only having the one date that evening, her high expectations, and for wasting time on such a bozo.

Jenny did not dwell on I-told-you-so and suggested that the next night, Terri should try speed dating as the University Community Action Centre was holding speed-date introductions as part of the fresher week activities.

Jenny gave Terri a tip on how to spot men with real world disconnection syndrome. "If they are male they have it. Until, that is, they prove otherwise."

***

### Friday September 13, 2117 (One day later).

Before meeting Dameon, the speed dating event had not been going well. She had already met a sports fanatic, an asteroid miner, a politician wannabe and assorted psychologically-underdeveloped arty types. There was even a replicant, no doubt entered by the event's organisers to make up numbers but Terri had a knack for spotting the uncanny-valley-like behaviour that such machines exhibited after her many years of robot-chaperoned protection. When confronted, the dater merely smiled and moved on quickly.

Dameon was date number 9. He was swarthy, dark hair, dark eyes and handsome in a rugged-sort of way. He was dressed all in black except for his white, thigh-length boots. He seemed interested in her and didn't talk too much about himself. He was a third year student and seemed a smooth operator.

"I like your dress," said Dameon, after the mandatory exchange of introductory information.

"Thank you," Terri replied pleased with receiving the first compliment from someone she actually fancied that evening.

"It's a Harmonic style, right?" he asked in a soothingly, deep voice. Harmonic was a famous up-market fashion brand. Jenny had downloaded the holographic costume from their network.

"That's right. How did you know?"

"I see the style around quite a bit. If you're interested in something new, a bit more avant-garde, then look me up on the net. I can show you around the boutiques down town. Perhaps we can get you a fabricated dress," he crooned.

"That sounds great, Dameon. Although just because I'm studying the twentieth century doesn't mean I want to go around in the same costume all day."

"Well, sure. I just think it makes a stronger fashion statement if you commit to a single outfit for the day."

Terri nodded, that seemed kind of intelligent even if a little on the arrogant side.

The bell chimed. Everyone needed to change seats.

"You make a good point. I'm certainly keen to see the boutiques."

"See you later," he winked as he walked away.

Terri looked up his profile on her headset: Dameon Lysenko, relationship status: Not in a relationship, orientation: hetro-80-10-10. "Wow. He's looking for a real woman too!" she mused. Thumbs up.

***

### Saturday, September 14, 2117

Terri turned up in her most special high-heeled ankle-boots for the follow-up date with Dameon. They arranged to meet in Times Square at 11am and planned to walk into the garment district and check out the freaky fabrication boutiques. Dameon provided guided tour commentary and Terri followed with an increasingly fixed smile as she was led among garment manufacturing shops and warehouses. Her ability to smile deteriorated within half an hour because of the effort and care required to manoeuvre in her boots and her own self-loathing. Her legs began to ache and she began to get hungry. She was also stressed because she did not have the money, by several orders of magnitude, to buy the beautiful clothes she was being shown. The clothes were carbon-layered, as thin and as fine as silk which, when plugged into the machinists' network, reconfigured themselves to the latest style, texture and colour. Almost the same as holo-clothes, but actually solid rather than just an optical effect.

They entered the Harmonic Fabrication Boutique. The shop sold low-cost holo-clothes, the type that Terri was wearing, and high-cost fabricated clothes, the type she would prefer to wear. They were finished with hand-made extras. Hand-made by robots, of course, but to add to the designer-cache of the product, they were antique robots; heavy, stainless-steel, 2 metre-tall jobs that sat quietly in the corner, trying to be inconspicuous, sewing accessories and labels into the clothes. Terri lingered around one particular jacket. It had practical pockets and tassels, attributes not available with holo-clothes. She looked at the price tag. It was as much as her whole year's grant. It would be impossible to purchase.

Dameon came up behind her, "Yeah, good choice... Though you'd need to lose a few pounds to carry that one off."

Terri made a half-hearted smack across Dameon's chest and Dameon pretended to be injured by it. They laughed.

While fascinated by the styles and the fabrication, Terri could not shrug off her hunger. One of the characteristics of New York is that food is available on every street corner; unlicensed fruit and vegetables prominently displayed in the streets from traditional, tourist-focused vendors. Generally no-one goes hungry in NYC, not even the beggars (when they are able to get past the robotised police cordon and surveillance drones circling the city, that is). Terri asked that they stopped for food at which point Dameon announced he had a large breakfast and while not hungry, insisted that he absolutely had to take Terri to his most-favourite-in-the-whole-world gelato bar, which was two blocks away. It would be an agonising journey for her, but Terri, still wanting to be loved, agreed. They eventually arrived at the tiny shop. Indeed, it was cute (and small). There were only two high chairs available and Terri parked herself on one of the seats while Dameon ordered gelato in Italian. He returned with a single large bowl of strawberry gelato and a single long spoon and proceeded to feed himself and Terri with the same spoon. Terri was horrified with herself, especially when Dameon would wave a heap of gelato at her and then change tact and wistfully discuss another subject, leaving her open mouthed waiting for her next spoonful. As thoughtless as she felt this was, she was captivated by this dominant male.

Terri could see other people in the shop watching their performance and she became intensely embarrassed. She had had enough. She realised she was hating herself for the sycophancy she was exhibiting. She hated it in A.I. so why was she acting so submissively? In a pause between Dameon's guided tour-like diatribes, Terri spoke up.

"Well, Dameon," she said firmly. "It's been lovely. But I have to head back to campus. Jenny is expecting me to go to a nail bar this afternoon."

"Really, but we still have some gelato left."

"It's ok. You finish it." Terri smiled and walked to the door.

Dameon finishes the gelato in a couple of gulps and arrived at the door to hold it open.

"I was just thinking though... That jacket you liked..." Dameon mused.

"What?" Terri stopped in her tracks in the doorway. Was he planning on buying it for her?

"I have a friend in the garment district..."

Terri's interest was piqued. "Oh?"

"She processes the blanks, the carbon-layered tubes before they are programmed."

"Go on..."

"Well, my friend offered me a couple of the blanks."

"Hmm, well, they are just black sacks unless they are fabricated."

"We can manage that," said Dameon smugly as they walk onto the street. "Come over to my place tomorrow night. About 7pm. I'll make dinner and fabricate a jacket for you. I'll even add some custom features to make the flare unique for you. You'll love it. Think it over. Come. Or not. It's up to you."

Dameon tapped his wrist controls and his contact details transferred ("toothed") over to Terri's digital assistant application on her G-phone.

He clicked his fingers, pointed at her and winked, "Ciao!"

He was already probably out of earshot by the time Terri recovered from her daze and called out incoherently, "Thanks for... the... you... er, Dameon."

***

### Sunday, September 15, 2117

Terri felt compelled to show up at Dameon's apartment the following evening. She was already hating herself for allowing herself to be so blatantly bribed. In fact, as she stood outside of the apartment block, she was having not only second thoughts, but twenty-second and twenty-third thoughts about entering. She really needed to go to church she had promised her mother she would register with the Geniuses at the local Jobsian Chapter. She turned away only to be confronted by Dameon walking towards her.

"Hey-hey, so glad you could make it. I just popped out to get some tea. Ceylon, right?" he said, arms outstretched as if to catch her.

He escorted her along the pavement and into the building.

"You'll be impressed with this. Security. Not only card access, voice activated, but also..." he said putting his eye in front of scanner, "...heartbeat and retina-scan biometrics."

"Welcome, Dameon," intoned the lift as the door slid open.

"So facial recognition is not enough?" asked Terri.

"That's just for targeting you for ads," he winked. "For real security you need the full biometrics."

This luxury apartment block had a Magi-Lift that moved horizontally as well as vertically to take occupants straight to their apartments, no further corridor required.

In the blink of an eye, Terri was inside the apartment. A luxury living room with kitchen and breakfast bar but was er... untidy with piles of unwashed dishes scattered around and the corners stacked full of boxes.

"Sorry, for the mess. We don't allows robots in here," said Dameon collecting the rubbish and putting it into a disposal chute. "We have tea, of course. But I was wondering whether you'd like something a bit more chic," said Dameon donning on a chef's hat and busying himself behind the kitchenette bar counter.

"I really don't like alcohol and I don't have a license for it," said Terri uncertainly.

"I was thinking more like Starlight and Infinity," purred Dameon. Starlight and Infinity were the latest designer-mood enhancers. They were strictly licensed to the major urban areas.

"Oh crumbs, no," stuttered Terri. "I haven't done any research on them at all, let alone certified."

"Sure. I'm with you on this. No pressure, girlie," he soothed as he ducked under a counter to open a cupboard.

Terri cringed at the diminutive appellation.

"Meanwhile, Dinner! Chopped bucatini pasta with a creamy, ooey-gooey sauce with a baked crust, dusted lightly with smoked paprika," announced Dameon

"Oh?" said Terri trying to figure out what he had just said.

Terri looked around the room and saw a box from the South American Rainforest Corporation full of dried pasta ready-meals.

"So," she said. "We're having Mac-and-Cheese?"

Dameon replied dead-pan, "I thought you liked cheese. You have a problem with that?"

"I don't eat processed cheese," stated Terri. "Only natural cheese and preferably Gruyère."

"O-M-J. Are you a purist?"

"I just have a few dietary preferences."

"Preferences or restrictions?"

"I'd like to call it my regime," said Terri shyly, sitting on the couch.

Dameon moved to Terri's side on the couch and put an arm around her, "Any chance of a regime change?"

"Not in the immediate future."

"Ok, I'll get something delivered. Is that ok?"

Terri smiled a fixed fake smile, "There's always something to eat in New York, right?"

"Hey, always. There's Chinese from Wok-Around-the-Frock?"

"That would be great."

"So, we'll go Dutch?"

Terri maintained a smile, "Dutch for Chinese. Yeah, sure!"

Dameon leapt back up and into the kitchen and returned a minute later with a cup of tea, "The food is ordered. Here's your tea, you bad-girl."

"Tea is my only drug!" Terri said with a smirk. But the tea was awful. Dameon had not used boiling hot water made worse by the wrong sort of milk. "It's lovely," she said, realising she was being overly compliant again.

It occurred to her that Dameon had read more than just her BragBook public profile. How did he know she liked tea and cheese? But these thoughts were forgotten when Dameon showed her the "blank" carbon-layer outfit that in the pre-fabricated form looked like a black sack. Dameon explained that these were old-model blanks: thicker, heavier and slower to process than the ones seen the previous day.

The vegetable noodle chow mein arrived. They ate their meal. It was awful. "Thanks," Terri said with the best smile she could manage.

Once they finished their food, Dameon started on the jacket. "Just need to hack-up the Harmonics databanks and pull down the design pattern."

"Uh... that's illegal."

"Only if you get caught. It's a victimless, untraceable crime. Untraceable with our computer, that is. No-one loses anything."

"Loss of revenue."

"LOL. Well, yes, but since you can't buy it anyway, it is already a loss of revenue. They should be paying a glamorous girl like you for advertising their clothes."

"I'm sure that wouldn't be their opinion when they find out."

"They won't find out. We have a fool-proof mechanism for flossing the Harmonics' network," he confided.

"You do?" asked Terri wide-eyed.

"Yeah. The University is funding a super computer that steamrollers encrypted networks like they are pastry."

"They have?"

"A Quantum-powered Super Computer."

Terri nodded knowingly.

(As an aside, there are only about 50 of Quantum Super Computers in the world. Super fast, super powerful; the last and biggest one built provided all the brain power for the latest generation androids all over the world. The only trouble is their size. While such computers work on a sub-atomic scale, the components have to be frozen to near absolute zero and they occupy a space the size of a football pitch. This is known to be true because the University computer occupied the site of the old Columbia football ground. Despite the improvements in the football association augmented reality facilities, the loss of the university team's pitch could be considered another battle won for the Nerds in their old war against the Jocks.)

Both Terri and Dameon donned immersive headsets to explore super computer's abstract and mainly empty virtual world it was unlike the vibrant and shimmering virtual worlds she was accustomed to. He explained how the university supercomputer worked while gesturing at a virtual holo-screen. With no apparent effort at all, he accessed the supercomputer and directed it at the Harmonics network represented as a wire-frame doorway. He used a holographic hand on the holographic door handle and gained access to their workshop files. Terri tried to curb her elation of this illicit activity.

Inside virtual folders, they found her jacket pattern and started the download. Back in the real world Dameon started the manufacture process.

Terri was scared but also excited by the prospect of wearing the Harmonics fabricated jacket.

"It's going to take a while and I was thinking, do you want er... to make out?" crooned Dameon.

Terri smiled. "Sure," she said. She had reached Level 7 intimacy with her Replicant Tutor, she was sure it would be even more fun with a real boy.

"Ok," said Dameon. Let's go to the bedroom."

"Level 6, only," said Terri.

Daemon laughed with no mirth. "Here's a toothbrush. The bathroom is there."

Toothbrush? Very practical, but Terri felt offended. She cleaned her teeth. Dameon guided her from the bathroom into a darkened, but mirror-lined room; Mirrors on the walls and ceiling. It was like stepping into space not too dissimilar from the super computer's virtual world. Except for the stripper pole at the end of the bed.

"You can sit here," he instructed, pointing to the circular bed with brown satin sheets. "Let me put you in the mood..."

Slow music came on and Dameon then began to hang around the pole, whipping himself around it in time to the music in a reasonable representation of pole-dancing. He started removing his clothes. Terri noticed that his shirt was a true fabricated item; very expensive, and yet he was so rough with it! His routine was complex and his striptease synchronised to musical events. He spun around and facing away from her, slowly lowering his shirt to reveal, what? Tattooed wings? No, it was a huge two-headed eagle tattoo covering his back; an angel-or-devil type of symbol. He turned around and displayed his muscular torso. His holographic trousers disappeared leaving him naked save for a leather g-string.

He came towards Terri slowly, "I hope you'll be able to do a similar dance for me sometime, but first let us head for Level 6."

Terri's eyes widened as Dameon pounced on her. She wanted to stop at Level 6 not start there!

***

### Tuesday, January 22, 2123 (evening)

Obviously the story I'm telling has some embellishment since Terri was quite scant on details. However at this point Terri came to a complete stop, not wanting to tell me the story in the first place and provided me some of the background story at times. But the story about Daemon was new and she was having problems reaching its conclusion.

Terri was twisting her mouth. She didn't want to go on.

I sat there with bated breath.

"What happened?" I asked.

Smiling grimly, Terri said, "You won't believe me."

"Sure I will."

"Besides the sudden epiphany that I was idiot, which I'm sure you can believe. The rest was unbelievable."

"This is a trick right? I would believe what I-think-you-think is unbelievable but I don't believe that you ever thought of yourself as an idiot."

"Despite the string of idiot actions and naivety?"

"Naive? Yes, sure. You were in your first week in New York, the big, bad city. Anyone can be naive. An idiot? No."

"I would like to say that you're being generous but you're already looking smug enough."

"So what happened?" I asked, removing smugness from my face as best I could.

"Max happened," she said.

"Well, that was the whole point of the story: how you met Max. So what actually transpired? He came and picked up the pieces the next day? Or did he just turn up out-of-the-blue like the cavalry?" I said sarcastically.

"This is going to be harder to explain than I thought," sighed Terri.

***

### Sunday, September 15, 2117 (seconds later).

She moved her head away. She didn't want to kiss him but his body was on top of hers and his hands were all over her body. He had unclipped her holo-dress and she was down to her underwear. She was scared, feeling trapped, not even knowing where the door was in this room of mirrors, not being able to escape the apartment because of security within the magi-lift, not even knowing if there was a fire escape.

Terri started to whimper, "No. No. No." His hand roving over her body.

Then Terri really started to shout "No. No. No." and pushed the brute aside.

"What?" he exclaimed innocently.

***

### Tuesday, January 22, 2123 (evening)

"Like he didn't know he was an abuser?" I interrupted.

"Do you want to hear the story or not?" said Terri through gritted teeth.

I began to pace the apartment as Terri continued the story. Now it was my turn to not want to go on with the story.

***

### Sunday, September 15, 2117 (nano-seconds later)

And then, like the cavalry arriving and saving the day, the door to the bedroom burst open. There was a blinding light and silhouetted against the light, a figure of a short stout man.

"Dameon," boomed the silhouette melodramatically. "This is the last straw. Leave the girl alone. Get out. Get lost. Don't come back. I'll get the freaking Police on you if you do!"

Dameon was rolling off the bed and picking up his things. "Ruddy hell, Max. What are you doing here?"

"Stopping your criminal use of the super computer and saving this poor girl from one of your games."

"You can go just go to hell, Max. As if you don't play games!"

Terri was panicking, "Games? Games? This isn't a frigging game. Get away from me. Both of you. Get away."

Daemon ran out and Max walked away. Terri was left to find her things using the light from the doorway, got dressed and recovered her composure. Outside the bedroom, she could hear the two continue to shout and argue. When it was quiet, Terri returned to the living room, where the short, stout, thirty-something man, wearing a business suit and square-rimmed glasses was sitting quietly at a desk viewing a holoscreen.

"Thank you," she said hesitantly.

"I'm so sorry about that. I don't think you'll be hearing from Dameon again. Unless, that is, you want to press charges."

"I don't think I could press charges. Nothing happened... it's my own fault."

"I doubt that. It's Terri, isn't it? Hi, I'm Max, by the way. I work for the University," said Max offering a hand but only glanced up for a second.

"Hi, Max. Thanks," said Terri and shock hands. "Are you a lecturer?"

"No, just a researcher. Working on a PHD... It was not your fault. Do not doubt that. He was playing you."

"Playing me?"

"He was trying to seduce you with a technique known as The Game."

"Game? Dameon was duping me?" asked Terri softly.

"Oh yes. He's done it before. He studied relationship psychology in his degree course. He couldn't even look a real girl in the eye until a year ago," he said ironically, since Max himself was struggling to do just that. "He just focused on study and theory until one day he came across The Game. Now he has three or four concurrent girlfriends, all nice girls, all unaware of each other... He juggles them around for a couple of months like some manic latherio until the tears fall..."

"The Game?"

"It's a method for seducing and dominating women."

"Seduction? Is that what you call it?"

"Did he not get you to sign the seduction contract? How unfortunate. He must be getting over-confident."

"So how is this Game thing supposed to work?"

"The Game is a simple technique. He sets himself up as a leader-type and provider, employs a host of pretty standard chat-up lines from a computer program. Then after making initial compliments to his chosen partner, he then delivers the Neg."

"The Neg?"

"The Neg is a mildly disparaging remark to put a girl off her guard and stoke anxiety."

"Surely that wouldn't work."

"Percentage-wise, it's a successful stratagem."

"He has done this before?"

"Many times."

"Just psychology? I don't believe it."

"Hmm. I bet Dameon met you outside today. Outside this building."

"Yes. How did you know that?"

"He probably hacked your location from your G-phone so he would notice when you were approaching the building and then made sure you didn't change your mind at the last minute and walk away."

"Wow. That was part of his plan?"

"Sure. And hacked your personal files too, I suspect. All using the super computer."

"That's how he knew about my liking for tea and cheese," said Terri in shock.

"If the super computer can hack the Harmonics store then a personal BragBook page is a cinch. Your jacket is ready by the way?"

"My jacket?"

"I presume it is meant for you? It was fabricating when I entered the apartment."

"It is not legal. I don't deserve it."

"No, well... But you deserve something for your experience, don't you think?"

"No, I don't deserve anything."

Max stood and carried the jacket over to her, "Ok, then but I'd be most grateful if you could take it away. It can't be left here. People might ask questions."

Terri shyly took the jacket and buried her face in it. She felt so embarrassed.

"Don't worry, it is completely untraceable, you might as well have it. Or destroy it. It's your choice."

"Who owns this place?"

"It's a club resource. For my sins, I'm a founder member of the club. That's how I have access. Dameon is recent joiner. That's how he got in. But not again. I'll make sure he's thrown out and gets no further access to our facilities."

"Club?"

"Yes. We call it Mad-Sci-Soc."

"What does that mean?"

"It's a joke name. It's an abbreviation for the Mad Scientist Society."

***

## Chapter Three Mad Scientists

### Tuesday, January 22, 2123 (evening)

"So are they really Mad Scientists?" I asked, interrupting again.

"Define Mad for me?"

"Crazy, psychotic, deranged, schizophrenic, manic, delusional?"

Terri stared upwards and ran her fingers through her hair, before returning her verdict, "Yes."

"Completely Mad?" I said with some surprise. "Even Conrad?"

"As a term, Mad covers a spectrum of behaviours and inclinations. Some of which are totally evil. Conrad, for instance is not on the evil scale. Well, not very evil..."

"And Max?"

"Oh, yes. Evil."

"He doesn't sound so bad from what you've told me and how you met," I said, foolishly.

"First impressions. Don't rely on first impressions."

"So did you ever see Dameon again?"

"No, thankfully, I did not. He probably moved off to play his games on some other poor girl. I wish I could have stopped him... somehow. We have laws for everything except ones preventing the naive from being stupid."

"I guess I should be lucky that you were not put off all men."

"I wouldn't feel so confident about that if I was you."

I coughed. "So tell me more about Max?"

"I can't say anymore, Aaron. I've exhausted myself telling you this. Do you know how hard this is for me?"

"Well, um..."

"You asked how I met Max. I've just told you. And you asked me what he is like. And I've just told you: he's crazy, psychotic, deranged, schizophrenic, manic and delusional! Good luck with him tomorrow. I'm off to bed."

***

### Wednesday, January 23, 2123

I had arranged to meet Conrad in the gardens below the old apartment. It was just before sundown, not that the grey steely skies allowed the sun to make an appearance. Yesterday's snow had been a dusting and blowing over older snow that had piled up, melted and frozen into icy piles in the shady areas.

When I exited the auto-taxi, I could see Conrad sizing up the building.

"Ten floors?" he asked as I approached, dispensing with traditional greetings.

"Hi Conrad, glad you could make it. Yes, it's ten floors. We were on the seventh."

"Evidently. I've seen the hole."

"And the wreckage?"

"It's already been tidied up. Not much to see."

"Ah that would be the landlord. He has connections to the recycling trade... So where's Max?" I asked nervously, looking around.

"He couldn't make it. He's busy on another project."

"Oh?" I asked but Conrad ignored the question.

"And no Terri?"

I pulled a fake smile. "No. She says hi. Wants to avoid Max."

Conrad nodded grimly.

We walked into the yard at the back. Using a reality-augmentation app on his G-phone wrist-mounted pop-up, holographic screen, Conrad surveyed the area. Using his right arm to steady his left arm, he twisted around on the spot.

"Can you see anything?" I asked.

"There seems to a large number of massage parlors in the area."

"It's pretty downmarket around here. It is more downmarket than a used scratch and sniff lottery ticket given away in a sale from a dog's home charity shop."

"Hmm," mused Conrad.

"The parlors are all staffed by badly maintained replicants catering mainly to the surrogate clientele market."

"I guess it is more hygienic that way," said Conrad caustically.

"Only if the surrogates never go back home," I said.

Conrad continued to take measurements.

I checked my messages on my G-Phone. The top message was that I had missed TrueCrime-9+ channel's Super Vigilante broadcast last night. The preview showed that Super Hero Unions' lead crime catcher, Nerdifier, had caught two graffiti artists that had sprayed a black moustache on the Statue of Liberty. He had tracked the youths down by drone, and confronted them the next day at a family dinner party with the evidence of nano-chemical signatures in the spray paint. I wondered why I would watch an hour long show when the thirty second preview told me the whole story.

Other messages alerted me to my usual list of creditors. My rent was due. I had a freelance research job that I needed to perform for my gangster-connected landlord and while I could not ignore the landlord, all the other demands would have to wait. After all, I was in the middle of a most interesting mystery surrounding my own apartment. And being without funds, I would have to have ignore them anyway.

***

### Wednesday, January 23, 2123 (a few minutes later)

"Have you any ideas where the fridge could have gone?" I asked trying to look at Conrad's G-Phone holoscreen when he came close.

"I can't spot any heat trace, or snow marks, or fence damage, or anything from the drone-scan," sighed Conrad.

"Disappointing," I muttered.

"That's science," said Conrad grimly. "A lot of effort to discover negative outcomes."

Conrad continued his investigation. After a few minutes, I asked.

"So your science club?"

"Hmm?"

"Your club?"

"Yes?"

"What do you do exactly?"

"Well, we investigate things. Try to do some good with lesser known technology."

"Lesser known technology?"

"Well, there a whole array of science and technology that has never been fully exploited."

"There is?"

"I would say that 90% of all discoveries are not explored. So that's what we do. Exploit the unknown."

"That sounds like a good idea. I do something similar, you know... I uncover information on the Legacy Net."

Conrad nodded sagely. He knew enough about the Legacy Net to not ask too many questions. Eventually he said, "Ok, I have as much as I can get here."

"Have you found anything?"

"No, not yet."

"So a waste of time?"

"Discovering nothing is not a waste. It removes the number of parameters in the experiment," he replied haughtily.

"We have one less parameter?"

"Many less parameters, Aaron. We have reduced a whole host of parameters. I may need to come back here with more equipment, spectrocopic analysers, but I think our next move is to find where your landlord took the debris."

"Uh, the landlord. He owns a lot of the property around here. He's bit of a odd person. I should know I sort of work for him. I had to barter for the apartment."

"Oh?"

"As I said, I do technical research on er..." I didn't want to mention the Legacy Net again.

"Unfiltered information?" suggested Conrad helpfully.

"Yeah, that's it. Unfiltered information. So I end up doing jobs for him. I'm currently looking for information about the Caribbean," I said, trying to make it sound more exciting than it was.

"So why is the landlord odd?"

"Ah. Hmm. He has a reputation as being a gangster," I laughed nervously.

"Reputation?"

"The guy is called Antonio Joel Osment. He delights in acting the part of a gangster."

"Uh. Right. Yes, I know him," said Conrad in a dull tone.

"You do?" I said aghast.

"It's a long story."

***

### November 14, 2108

Before discussing the intricacies of the relationship between politics, business, entertainment and super vigilantism, I feel I need to step back and provide some exposition of the uneasy, love-hate relationship between these stakeholders. This love-hate comes from the top.

President Barry Rodham-Bush made a canny move on the eve of polling day for his first re-election in 2108. On all holochannels, he placed the world's finest political advertisement... a camera followed a caped superhero striding onto a floodlit stage. As he walked over to a podium, the President's voice gave a voice-over. "Ever since the Robo-Wars, we have strived to turn the economy around from one based on speculative bets to real value. We've done that. It may appear to deliver slower growth but now all of society and our environment is respected. We have all used our own special super powers to do this and we should all be proud of these achievements. But there is still more to do. More team work, more heroism, more spirit." The camera hung on the back of the superhero, but then the hero turned around, it was Barry himself. With a big number one logo emblazoned on his chest. "I want you to elect me to lead the team!"

Wow!

This advertisement shows the "love" but the reaction also shows the "hate." The advert was controversial since it implicitly endorsed vigilantism and side-stepped the issue of mutotronics, the mechanism giving superpowers to the superheroes (and super-villians) worrying many politicians across the political spectrum. Indeed even scientists; It's not science unless mutotronics can be scrutinised, they declared.

The broadcast was quickly suppressed but it has lingered long in the memory of the electorate. And it worked. The President's popularity in the polls which had been dropping dramatically before this stunt, revived his fortunes. He won by a landslide and, reversing previous constitutional convention, has been in-post ever since.

***

### Tuesday, September 24, 2117

Terri was messaged by Max as she sat in the Emotional Release class Jenny had arranged. She was sitting cross-legged on a pillow with twenty other students practising cry-therapy holding a pillow to her face. She heard her headset bleep, saw the message metadata in her contact lens display and walked from the room under the gaze from her disapproving teacher who pointed to the wall sign: "All electronics to be switched off." Terri held up her hand as an apology and sneaked out trying not to disturb the blubbering and pillow hugging around her.

Max had left a message inviting Terri to an art exhibition. "I'm sure it is something you'd like," he wrote.

Terri met with Max using her Rendezvous app. He was wearing another business-like formal suit again. Did this guy ever relax?

"You'll like this, I think," said Max earnestly, briefly holding Terri's gaze for almost a second.

"Oh?"

"You mentioned that you are studying Twentieth Century Media?"

"Did I say that to you?"

"I remember it distinctly, so you must have," said Max leading Terri inside the exhibition hall.

"So this is a display of Twentieth Century Art?"

"No, this is a display of Twentieth-Second Century art based on Twentieth Century Memes, but, what I think you'll find amusing, they've used the styling of Twentieth Century Art. What they called Modern Art at the time, and what we now call the Pastiche Movement."

"Oh a pastiche of Pastiche memes. How droll!" said Terri hardly able to contain her delight.

They wandered to the domed hall to view the first exhibits; two animated displays.

The first was a scrolling display of a young female tennis player, a woman named Fiona Walker, plodding gawkily away from camera. Every third step she would cheekily scratch her backside, lifting her skirt to reveal a panty-less bottom. An audio track repeated, "I have an itch."

Terri studied the image for a few seconds, "No, this doesn't speak to me. I presume this is just a copy of something."

Max shrugged. "Good artists copy, great artists steal. I believe this is animation based on what was just a static image in the nineteen hundreds. Maybe it is a comment on the haves and have-nots."

Terri shrugged.

The second animated display showed a woman with a turquoise face, a Chinese gown, jet-black hair and startling red lips. The image slowly morphed to the same woman with golden-brown skin then to silvery fair skin then shiny metallic skin.

Terri turned to Max. "Oh, I get this one," she said with a smile. "This is a play on a popular Twentieth Century painting by Tretchikoff, reflecting the changes of attitudes to cultural differences between Asians, blacks, whites and robots. Yeah, good one."

"I always think," said Max hesitantly, "that the criteria for good art needs to reflect three things: head, heart and hand. Intellectually challenging, engendering a powerful emotional response and technically exquisite handiwork."

Terri beamed at Max and held his arm. "That's what I say! That's uncanny. That's my criteria too. So are you really into art as well as science."

"Oh, yes. Art and Science, at their highest levels do overlap. You cannot have an appreciation for one without the other," said Max looking at her hand that was touching him.

Terri released his arm. "Sorry," she said, embarrassed by the physical contact.

"Oh not at all, Terri." Max said uncertainly. "I liked it. I probably liked it too much."

Terri smiled and rocked her hips in a shy, girlie twist.

They shuffled on through the exhibition.

Max stammered to restart the conversation. "Science, in its highest form, is the discovery of natural secrets within life, the universe and everything."

"And art is attempting to show and propagate those secrets, like, to a wider public," suggested Terri.

"To show, yes, but also to encode. One way of looking at art is that it is a symbology for humans to read, whether it is a painting, a sculpture or a performance. All art by its very nature, is also encoded. Therefore art is also deception."

"Sure, art is subjective, science is objective," mused Terri.

Max replied, "Science is not as objective as you might believe. Yes, sure it is looking for answers but it is art that expresses it while also disguising the truth. It is a virtuous circle of a secret, discovering the secret and encoding the secret again. Art and science, entwined in a dance."

"Wow. I've never looked at it like that before. Is that what you do? Discover secrets?"

"At Mad-Sci-Soc, we are not only unlocking secrets but trying to see if we can use them too."

"Use them?"

"If they can be used."

"Like what?"

Max huffed and puffed a little. "Like building a Water-Powered Car, for instance," said Max red-faced.

***

### Wednesday, January 23, 2123

"What's this?" I asked, looking at a low-rise, egg-shaped vehicle on the side of the road.

Conrad smiled and patted the roof. "This is my baby. This is a water-powered car."

"Water-powered? Are you having a haliburton on me?"

"Absolutely not. Water is all you need."

"Isn't water a uh, a bit wet to be a fuel?"

"Not so. What are the elements inside water?"

"Fluoride?" I suggested.

"No. Hydrogen and Oxygen. H-2-0! Split the elements and there are two powerful elements to fuel your gas turbine. The only waste is pure water. Oh and the oxygen. We don't store the oxygen."

"Hydrogen is explosive. Very explosive. It blew up that balloon thing that crashed, the Titanic."

"That balloon thing was called a Zeppelin."

"Yeah, that. On its maiden flight too. Are you sure we shouldn't we take a taxi?" I said tepidly.

"This will not be the maiden voyage of my Kittoffery Kart. It's safe, hasn't blown up on me and is the quickest way to Antonio's. Get in and I'll show you how it works." Conrad lifted the egg-shell casing of the car to reveal two low slung seats and a dashboard that looked as though it had been stuck together from low-cost, home-fabricated panels.

As I clambered into the passenger seat, Conrad continued. "You split the water into gases with electricity; simple electrolysis. It's an easy process. The tricky part, with a water-powered car, is trapping and compressing the hydrogen to store potential energy."

"Uh. Ok."

"So you charge a capacitor using solar, for instance," Conrad pointed to a solar panel array on-top of the vehicle.

"Right."

"That provides the energy for the electrolysis and gas capture. Once there is enough hydrogen compressed, we press this button." Conrad pressed a button and the car leapt forward and, he shouted over the instant whine generated by the engine. "And reclaim as much of the kinetic energy as we gooooooo!"

***

### Tuesday, September 24, 2117

"No, really. What do you do?" asked Terri earnestly.

"I'm researching metaphysics and quantum computing. It doesn't make for great conversation," sighed Max.

Max and Terri had stopped in front of an exhibit showing Fritz Lang's Metropolis with the central figure of Maria (who in the 1927 movie was replaced by a robot) transforming from a 1927 Robot, to a sexy, 1990s Hajime Sorayama-style female chrome robot to a 2123 female replicant. A morphing holographic image popped out from a static life-sized image, then walked forward and down imagery steps to reappear again at the centre of the exhibit.

"A montage of robots, tracing back to the original imagery of such to the modern day," mused Terri. "The repetition though... isn't that the message here? Robots are just tools. They don't have freedom to act independently, to do anything different... To like or dislike? Not in a real way."

"Or to decide good or evil? They have no independent thought," stated Max, looking at Terri without flinching.

"Is that what you're trying to do? At Mad-Sci-Soc?"

"Make machines conscious? So that they achieve the singularity, that moment when robots decide for themselves that they do not need man?"

"Is that even possible?"

"What do you think?"

"No, they're just giant toys. I don't understand why people are so obsessed with them."

"You don't like robots?"

"Not really. They become tiresome after a while. Always being right and nice and bland. Sure they can mimic intelligence and pass a Turing Test, but not one is truly creative. I don't support Robot Rights, not while animals haven't any."

"Cogently argued, Terri," said Max. "Not a single robot is sentient. It was the subject of my thesis. Could a robot really be conscious? No, it can't. But that is all academic anyhow, it seems many people nowadays prefer the company of replicants and robots."

"So the singularity is not a possibility?"

"Well, I'm a scientist so I have to answer with a yes and a no. But mainly a no with a tinge of yes."

"Well, that's worrying, especially since most people already think robots are alive anyhow?"

"Or wish them to be."

"My Grandparents think they have real personalities, they don't realise they're All-The-Same. They're all controlled from a single computer for gates-sake."

"So if they did have real personality they would be interesting? If people could, uh, somehow live inside them?"

"Like surrogates?"

"More than surrogates. Surrogates are just remote controlled robots. Good for clearing up nuclear radiation, deep sea diving, extreme sports and the like, but they are a dead-end technology for someone wanting to extend their useful life."

"They're useful for injured people," suggested Terri.

"Sure. With around the clock care for the corpuscular body, but otherwise the problems with surrogates for the living hosts long term are just too numerous: muscle wastage, bed sores, organ failure. No, I meant taking the mind totally inside the body of a replicant."

"Interesting. Dispose of the human part of the body altogether? We can't do that, right?"

"No, not yet. Maybe not ever, the human mind is too complicated, too delicate, for that. But I'm working on it."

"You are?"

"Well, I'm mostly working on an organic computer that may someday be able to store human memories, maybe capture some-one's complete personality."

"An organic computer?"

"Yes, organic. Built up from fungus, actually to be specific, mould. You'd be surprised at the parallels between mould and the human brain."

"No, not surprised at all."

"But the company I... am with, does lots of research around replicants. I see it as the intersection between humanity and technology," said Max stuttering slightly. "Skin manufacture is its... er, main manufacturing activity. But what I am really interested in... is the mind. The human mind and the science of sentience."

"You are?"

"Well.... the brain is a person's sexiest feature," Max said, his face deadpan.

Terri laughed.

"Real people, real women, real minds. That's my thing," said Max seriously.

Terri laughed again. "With an organic computer as a back-up?"

Max shrugged with the faintest of smiles.

She switched on her face rec app and looked back at Max. His data returned: "Max Ceillingheit, Age 33. Relationship status: Not in a relationship, Orientation: hetro-80-15-5."

Terri smiled and whispered into her headset, "Thumbs Up."

***

### Thursday, January 24, 2123 (Out of sequence interjection)

I interrupted Terri telling her story about her first date with Max at the Art Museum. "Sentience... er, Conrad mentioned that. I don't think I understand."

"Nobody does."

"He said that too."

Terri ground her teeth for a second. "You understand what consciousness is?"

"Well, I guess. Not being asleep? Or sober?"

"It's your inner voice?"

"I don't have an inner voice!"

"Well, that figures. Do you talk to yourself, you know, in your mind? Without your mouth moving."

"Oh that inner voice. I thought you meant voices crazy people have or CIA mind control."

"Ok, now we're getting somewhere. Consciousness is the ability to feel and reason. Sentience is just the ability to feel, awareness, without necessarily understanding. You can read gigabytes of text and that's what it comes down to."

"You sound like you've done it."

"It's amazing what I have to do to get to sleep sometimes."

"I'm sorry, back to your story. You were at the art gallery..."

***

### Tuesday, September 24, 2117 (a few seconds later)

As Terri turned back biting her lower lip, Max queried, "A problem?"

"No. No. I was just tweeting out a blog about the exhibition," she lied.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" Max asked.

"Very much so," she said looking around the hall. "You must take me to your club sometime, Max."

"My club?"

"Mad-Sci-Soc. It's a real thing, right? Not virtual?"

"Oh right. Yes. We're not virtualistas. It's all real world. Come down tonight," said Max, delighted by Terri's enthusiasm.

"Tonight?" she smiled.

"We have a Games Night."

"Games Night?" said Terri crestfallen.

"You'll enjoy it! There's real people there, I promise," said Max leading her to the next exhibit, changing the subject before she could reply or change her mind. "This is what I really wanted you to see."

Max led Terri into an enclosed exhibition space, the air filled with musical beats. On the ceiling was a video projection of clouds and cliffs and rope ladders; on the ladders were people dressed in a variety of twentieth century costumes: soldiers, nurses, bankers, hippies, housewives, workers and students of all sorts and nationalities. The characters were struggling with the rope ladders and some fell off. But there was a man with a jet pack who flew around and helped people stuck on ladders. He flew away and the video loop seamlessly repeated to the sound of swirling twentieth century rock music.

"This is a meme, isn't it?" said Terri in awe.

"Of course. Can you guess?" teased Max.

"The answer is in the music, isn't it? I love this tune," said Terri.

"Do you know it?" asked Max.

"We're never going to survive, unless we get a little bit... Crazy," Terri sang. She spun around in awe. "So this meme... it's... it's... I've got it. It's in the lyrics. In a Sky Full of People, Only Some Want To Fly, isn't that Crazy? Crazy!" she sang and laughed. "This is my favourite classical song," she beamed.

"Well done, Terri. You know, this is the unofficial theme song for our club," said Max.

"Ha! Ha! I get it, the Society for Mad Scientists. You're all crazy, right?"

"I hadn't thought of that," said Max. "No, it's because it contains the first recorded use of the word, fractal, in its lyrics."

"Fractal?"

"We have some mathematicians in the club too," said Max.

Although it was an unbearably dorky thing to say, Terri had this overwhelming sense of empathy for her new geeky friend. He was so un-smooth and quirky. He was real. A real unpolished but yet seemingly good natured person. She was filled with bonhomie, so she held out her hand and Max grabbed it with both of his. Max's face started to crack into a real smile.

***

### Wednesday, January 23, 2123

Conrad's water-powered-powered car came to an abrupt halt. It felt more like a jet powered car with its fast acceleration and braking. Once it came to a stop, all you could hear was the water sloshing around in the fuel tank.

"Wow," I said. "That's amazables! And you drove it yourself?"

"Indeed. All the auto-autos avoid me. I just have to watch out for cyclists," smiled Conrad.

"How come I haven't heard about this?" I enthused.

"This is secret technology. Not patented and outside of the control of the corporations. Execpt for one component."

"One?"

"Yes. My greatest triumph over the Ms-Bell corporation," said Conrad proudly. "I was able to make Ms-Bell relinquish a patent on the gas compression pump. I was able to cite prior-art."

"You was able to win a patent case against Ms-Bell? That must be a first!" I said, impressed due to my own experience as a freelance technical researcher. "But water as a fuel, surely this must be the answer to our energy problems?"

"This is the third or fourth time its been invented. The corporations have a history of suppressing the technology. Ms-Bell in particular has a lot to lose if water-power becomes the norm."

"Does Ms-Bell know about your car?"

"No way!" said Conrad emphatically.

"But how do you keep it a secret? You're driving around the streets in it."

"It's untracked. We use a special government identity code to avoid detection. We drive at night so pedestrians rarely see it and no-one sees anything from auto-taxis and auto-autos. We hide in plain sight."

"What about collision detection?"

"We're pinged but not dinged. By that I mean we are linked into Traffic Net to avoid collisions. But our government identity code is obfuscated which means we are not identified by the corporations."

"Gzoinks," I exclaimed. I had the dawning realisation that Conrad was more than just a mad scientist.

***

### Tuesday, September 24, 2117

"Terri, can I introduce you to a select sect of Mad-Sci-Soc. Firstly, Conrad?" said Max.

"Conrad, has anyone ever told you that you look like..." said Terri.

"Captain Kittoffery? Yes, I get that a lot. And strangely enough I'm playing as Captain Kittoffery in the game tonight, I must be typecast." said Conrad charmingly, rising from his chair to shake Terri's hand.

"You must be a real fan," mused Terri.

"Many people have noted that our society is perhaps just a front for a Super Hero Role Playing Game club," said Conrad with an uncomfortable chuckle.

"As I said, Terri," intervened Max. "We do real research but we play our board games on Tuesday nights. The aim is to manage a team of super heroes fighting bad guys and the like. Let me introduce you to our other player, Karmen."

Karmen, unlike Conrad and Max, was dressed as her super-hero character. A holo-dress, of course. It was striking; a bronze and black metallic-looking armour outfit with a winged headpiece.

"Delighted to meet you," came a quiet and uncertain voice in complete contrast to the mighty warrior imagery displayed by her holo-clothes.

Terri took Karmen's hand to find that her metallic glove was fabricated and not holographic. Karmen made a delicate handshake since her gloved hand could have undoubtedly crushed frail skin and bone.

"Karmen is our math and probability expert," explained Max.

"I like the helmet," said Terri to Karmen.

"Oh, you-know... it's to project a bit of menace," said Karmen unconvincingly in a librarianal-type of voice.

"It works," lied Terri.

"Only for people sitting close," said Conrad as an aside.

Karmen pretended not to hear. "And what do you do?" she asked in her wobbly voice.

"Media Studies," replied Terri.

"Media Studies?" queried Karmen uncertainly.

"Twentieth Century Media Studies," confirmed Terri.

"Oh," Karmen said after a short pause. "How nice for you. Welcome to our science club," She said with emphasis on science.

***

### Wednesday, January 23, 2123

"I can't believe you've just got us in to see Antonio without an appointment, at night, just walking past his henchman. And without resorting to weapons of mass destruction!" I whispered to Conrad as we were escorted through Antonio's Italian Restaurant by one of his bouncers. We had arrived at the nerve centre of Antonio's gangster empire, a palatial lobby that wouldn't have looked out of place at a Las Vegas Casino. I wondered whether there has ever been a gangster with good taste in décor; say, minimalist design with classic Swedish flat-pack furniture and abstract paintings on the walls. This lobby was the opposite of that, a visual smorgasbord of red, brown and gold with columns, drapes and vulgar paintings.

"Antonio owns a portfolio of properties. The worst properties in the greatest cities in the world," I said to Conrad as we walked along. "But this place is quite er... different," I added. "It's been doing very well since the caffeine ban... if you tip the waiter, you know, you can get some of the good stuff, the re-caffeinated variety."

As we went further into the interior, I babbled. "Not so much a speak easy, but a speak-quickly... Quite something, eh?" My small talk was not receiving any reaction from Conrad, so I asked him directly. "So how do you know Antonio?"

"We go back a long way," said Conrad enigmatically keeping his eyes on the bouncer's back.

"Social? Business?" I asked.

Conrad was reluctant to talk, "Oh, We had a few business dealings."

"You know that he's as unhinged as an open barn door in a tornado?" I whispered.

"You don't join a club like Mad-Sci-Soc to mix with average joes."

The black-suited bouncer turned and said, "Wait here, Mr Kittoffery."

***

### Tuesday, September 24, 2117

"I don't think I'm going to be very good at this game," mused Terri an hour into the game. Terri, Max, Conrad and Karmen were sitting in the clubhouse Imaginarium around a table with multiple holoscreen projections showing cityscapes, cars and a figure depicting Terri's new superhero character, as well as maps and calendars.

"No?" said Max with disappointment.

"I don't understand the rules. They are too complicated," she sighed.

"Well there are no rules as such. It is whatever you can imagine," stated Conrad.

"When I tried to blow up the Ms-Bell HQ you told me I couldn't do it," puffed Terri.

"It's not that you can't. You just have to overcome all the obstacles," said Conrad.

"But legal issues?" said Terri giving her best what-is-that-all-about expression.

"We sorted out the legal technicalities in the same way the corporations would," stated Max.

"With high-powered lawyers," added Conrad.

"And the insurance claims," added Karmen in a near-whisper.

"But there would still be the collateral damage, lots of innocent people killed," said Conrad returning to Terri's plan. "Superheroes are trying, not only to bring down the enemy, but also to not hurt innocent people."

"I suggested blowing it up at night when there wouldn't be any people inside," Terri said.

"There's still security staff to worry about," added Max.

Terri was amused, "They have human security staff?"

"It's a job creation scheme for insomniacs."

"But this is only a game. If Ms-Bell are the bad guys, why can't I just blow up their building, we can warn the innocents somehow?" insisted Terri.

"Have you considered the preparation? How would we get the bomb in the building? We call this a game but we treat it more like a simulation of real life," said Karmen hesitantly.

"A simulation?" said Terri wide-eyed.

"Or planning session," Karmen continued and then fell silent when Conrad and Max stared at her with daggers.

"This isn't really a game, is it?" Terri said knowingly in the pregnant silence.

There followed another momentary pause before Max blustered, "Of course it's a game!"

"You don't use a university-owned supercomputer to download plans of buildings, identify legal problems and make applications to government departments for a game... You're doing this for real, aren't you?" said Terri.

"What do you mean, Terri?" asked Conrad.

Terri leaned back. "You really are Captain Kittoffery, aren't you, Conrad?"

***

## Chapter Four Super Heroes

### Wednesday, January 23, 2123

As soon as the bouncer left, I said in a loud whisper. "Mr Kittoffery? Is Kittoffery your surname, Conrad?"

Conrad was silent.

"I knew it. You are Captain Kittoffery!" I whispered.

"Or it's mistaken identity... or I could have a twin brother," said Conrad quietly.

"Do you have a twin brother?"

Conrad admitted he did not have a twin brother before reluctantly confessing, "I was, a long time ago, for a short period, referred to as Captain Kittoffery."

"What sort of secret identity is it when you embed your own surname into your vigilante sobriquet?" I stammered with increasing decibels.

"Shh," soothed Conrad noticing the bouncer's return. "It's a long story."

The bouncer said, "They're ready. I mean, the boss is ready." He then led us into Antonio's wood-panelled office with gold gilt frames holding paintings of barely dressed ladies playing roulette. Behind the desk with a henchman either side of him was Antonio himself. He was wearing an expensive fabricated dark suit with the Guild of Gangsters traditional wide white tie. I imagined the wait-time before seeing Antonio pertained to the round-up of the two henchman. Like some wacky joss sticks, the two silent grim-faced goons provided the appropriate mafia-like ambiance in the room.

***

### Tuesday, September 24, 2117.

Terri felt smug; like she had cracked a code. This was not a game. Could it be that Mad-Sci-Soc was not a science club or a role playing games society but really just a front for a league of super heroes?

"So, Karmen, are you ever going to appear in public as Princess Improbileon?"

"It is just Improbileon. There is no 'princess' in the name," said Karmen curtly.

"Or you, Max, as Majestro?" Terri continued.

"Or, you, Terri, as Cloudera?" retorted Max defiantly stepping outside of the demeanor that was attempting to woo her.

"Well, Max. I was just playing a game. But you three seem to be planning to make your characters a reality. I should have realised as soon as I found out there was no dice, that this wasn't a real game. That, and the half hour discussion on obtaining government technology licenses," mused Terri.

Conrad held out his hand to stop the conversation. "You're right, Terri. You've seen through our playful charade. I am Captain Kittoffery..."

"I knew it," said Terri with glee. "So what's happened to you? And why haven't I heard about Max and Karmen?"

"I've had a few law suits occupying my time," shrugged Conrad.

"But about to make a come-back," said Karmen, shyly, with a sideways glance at him.

"Karmen and Max are still developing their super hero personas so they haven't gone out in public yet. But they will when the time is right," Conrad explained.

Karmen nodded firmly with her arms crossed.

Terri's excited mind was flooded with questions but did not know which one to start with... the question she asked was probably not the best, "So what was with the radioactive pandas?"

"Ah that's another long story," sighed Conrad.

"Isn't it obvious to everyone? This secret identity of yours! It is worse than Superman's disguise as Clark Kent!" spluttered Terri.

"Other people haven't seen through us quite so clearly, so top marks to you," said Conrad. "But let's move on, shall we?"

"This is a big deal. Quite difficult to laugh this away," said Terri.

"Maybe. What do you want to know? Besides the pandas. That's for another day."

"So what are we really doing here?" said Terri

"This really is still a game for us. We're working out different scenarios, playing the angles, coming up with new stratagems and tactics."

"In particular," ventured Max. "Seeing what technology we need to invent, build or buy. That's our only real super-power: technology."

"But all the best patents and licenses are held by Ms-Bell. We've established that. After the self cleaning toilet, is there anything new to invent?" mused Terri regaining her composure.

"As you pointed out, Terri, Ms-Bell are the bad guys," said Max. "Even if unwittingly so. I see the corporation as more of a deranged, psychopathic wildebeest that we have to tame rather than as something inherently evil."

"Since psychopaths aren't evil?" said Terri sarcastically.

"Not since we've discovered the link with post-toddler bed wetting and criminal brain chemistry. That is why we can't just blow up all those diligent Ms-Bell corporate executive types. And there are still plenty of things to invent and lots of stuff not locked down by patents and licensing laws. Mad-Sci-Soc's mission is to find and exploit technology that is out-of-patent or open-source. For the good of everyone not just the corporations. We just need to find the technology or come up with the ideas! That's why we like new members, like you, to come along with fresh ideas."

"And you're saying no-one has ever noticed that you're playing this superhero game for real?" said Terri.

Conrad said dismissively, "Terri, you're not the first, but you were one of the quickest."

Max said earnestly, "So actually becoming Cloudera... does that interest you? You could finish your degree, find a job marketing sugared water? Or do you want something else? To change the world? Do you want to be a superhero, Terri? A real superhero?"

***

### Wednesday, January 23, 2123.

We exited Antonio's and stepped into Conrad's car. He turned and said to me, "So do you want to change the world, Aaron? Do you want to be a superhero?"

It was surreal. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Ten minutes before getting into the car, Conrad was negotiating with Antonio in his office; chatting together with Conrad treating Antonio like he was a normal human being! He outlined our requirements concerning the location of the debris cleared up from my old apartment, while I sat with my buttocks clenched trying not to do anything but smile vacuously and merge with the flock wallpaper.

"What can I say? We're in da disposal business, hash tag. The debris could be anywhere. It could be swimming with da fishes or wearing concrete overshoes by now?" Antonio liked to keep his gangster image going even when dealing with something as straight forward as... actual rubbish disposal.

"So you don't have any records?"

"Our business don't like records, capische? We don't like-a to record what-a we pick up or where-a we put it." said Antonio leaning back with his unfashionable electronic cigar.

"How do you direct your staff to a particular site?" asked Conrad pleasantly.

"We get on da blower..." breezed Antonio.

"And you get that information from?"

"Someone else on da blower!"

"And how do you know which Robo-truck to send. Don't you have a record of your assets?" persisted Conrad.

"We-have-assets!" replied Antonio as if Conrad was accusing him of being poor.

"So how do you know whether your assets are available, broken, need maintenance, or are simply laying around costing you money," asked Conrad politely.

Antonio considered this a couple seconds. "You're a smart cookie, Kitt-off. Gurt, tell Conrad here how we manage da-assets."

Gurt, one the henchmen, muttered, "We have an app for that..."

Conrad nodded, "Can I have the data from that app, for trucks going to Aaron's apartment over the past couple of days?"

At the mention of my name, Antonio and Gurt both stared at me and I smiled a wider, toothier, smile, my face glowing.

Antonio waved to Gurt. A wave that gave the command to allow Gurt to do what? Go? Proceed? It wasn't clear to me. But it was ok. Gurt toothed the data from his wrist controls to Conrad.

We thanked Antonio and started making our excuses to leave.

Antonio stood and gave Conrad a bear hug. "Now, you've gotta send something my way, mon amigo."

"Sure. What do you want?"

"Some more contracts, perhaps?"

"We have some big stuff coming up. You know all of our engagements make a big mess of the cityscape. You'll be the first to know," said Conrad.

"Thanks, big fella." He released Conrad and came towards me, putting his arm around my shoulder.

"And you! You're that researcher guy, right?"

"Yes. That's me," I said zealously.

"I always remember a face, hash tag," Antonio grinned.

He had seen me only last week and about every other month for the last two years.

"And I remember your face. And I know where you live, my friend. You promised me some data, right?" said Antonio with a terrifying grin.

"Caribbean holiday locations? Yes, I've found them," I smiled. "Just need to get the info off the legacy-net. It's not as easy since..."

"Yeah, you do that. My squeeze is chewing my ear off about da... dis dammed vacation."

***

### Wednesday, January 23, 2123 (a few minutes later).

Back at the car, (the "Kittoffery Kart") I replied wistfully to Conrad. "I'm no superhero, Captain. I've no superpowers. Well, except for the superpower to repel attractive women."

"Terri is a fine young woman..." Conrad replied smoothly.

"My super power seems to have been working on her recently."

"Perhaps we can change that. We can give you real mutotonic superpowers, Aaron, with the right carefully-worded, licence application. But it is not superpowers that make a superhero, but heart, integrity... "

I interrupted, "You apply for superpowers?"

"Apply, yes. You think they're inherited? No, that would be most unfair, that would be like wealth or royalty! How archaic!" said Conrad with some disgust.

"Well, yes. I assumed that was the case. Either that or a dreadful accident with a radioactive frazzaliser. You know, developing mutations..." I stammered.

"The newscasts like to promote radiation as the cause of the super powers and the arrival of superheroes but radiation is nothing but a poison. Keep taking a rad-free pills otherwise you'll soon be poorly. Mutotonic is in fact a made-up word. It's just part of the smoke-screen. You can't make any assumptions until you've understood this crazy world of ours," said Conrad firmly. "The first thing you need to know. There are no real superpowers, mutotonic or otherwise."

"But..." I stuttered. "I've read the news, I've seen the movies, the mainstream reality shows... It is in wikipedia!" This was a shock to me; like finding out that Santa Claus was not real.

"It's just technology and science applied in a disguised form. Just like a magician's trick. There's nothing supernatural. Even your fridge's behaviour will turn out to have a perfectly logical explanation. Even if it does seem rather bizarre at the moment."

"A bit more than bizarre? Not even Disney would dare to imagine an evil fridge."

"Fortunately the nearest Disneyworld is tens of miles away. We can't blame Disney for this."

"But this is incredible. No superheroes? Have I been lied to all my life?" I stuttered.

"You and most of the rest of society. It's pretty criminal really," sighed Conrad.

"I knew Superdude was fiction, he said he was an alien; and we all know aliens don't exist after the UFOs were exposed as a stunt by Hollywood producers to whip-up interest in sci-fi. But BatBuddy, Nerdifier, Spider-Guy?"

"Yes, they're all just regular joes. The only one coming close to the truth is BatBuddy. At least he never claimed to have anything mutotonic."

"Yeah, but he only went after email scammers! What about the super villains? Torro, The Wit, Dr Invincible, Dweebee?"

"These super villains are all patsies. All employed to drive up the ratings and contracted to fail. Sure, there are some real bad guys too, but generally they are not televisual enough."

I held my face in my hands. "So Captain Kittoffery was a fake?"

"If by fake you meant he had technological assistance then yes," said Conrad referring to himself in the third person.

"Captain Kittoffery's super strength... it was just a gimmick?" I asked aghast.

"A titanium exoskeleton, pneumatic pumps and a bullet-proof vest, hidden by a holo-costume," replied Conrad.

"And Spider-Guy? How did he climb walls?" I asked.

"Wall climbing equipment has been available for decades. It is amazing what you can do with some disguised zip lines," he said matter-of-factly. "Always had problems getting out of the bath though."

"Nerdifier. He could go invisible."

"Holo-costume and some cameras!"

"And his hypnotic influence?"

"A dart gun delivering a powerful suggestibility drug."

"Super hearing?"

"Electronic snooping."

"Super vision?"

"Telescopic night vision goggles."

"And what about Aquaboy and his gills?"

"No gills. He uses a rebreather."

I asked Conrad the same sort of questions, in a repeated loop, varying the phraseology of the question in minor ways. Conrad gave longer and shorter answers depending on whim.

"Holly cursing, sycophantic, chocolate-covered cow, captain," I sighed. "Is there no magic left?"

Conrad smiled and described the historical context.

After the third Robot War and thereafter the countless skirmishes between rival crime gangs using army surplus robots, governments around the world reluctantly agreed to program all humanoid form automatons with Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics to prevent their deliberate harm to humans. But this move had a significant impact on the issue of crime control. All the Police Force Robots had to be decommissioned and replaced by Asimov compliant machines. Take up of the re-humanised jobs was inhibited by two troublesome bits of legislation. Firstly the health and safety laws and secondly, the introduction of psychological tests to prove Police Officer sanity. Since crime could no longer be controlled by the long robotic arm of the law, governments fell on a more traditional psychological angle to crime prevention: fear of being caught by an omnipotent do-gooder. "Super heroes" became deliberate government creations in most countries around the world (except China which still frowns upon such Western fairy tales). These token law enforcers could act as idols and role models fighting crime without the paraphernalia of a Big Brother state to crack down on freewill and creativity. The politicians, including the President, despite his superhero political advert, publicly denounced the vigilantes. Although, actually, they appreciated their unaccountability and invested in broadcast networks creating their hero-themed reality TV shows in order to get their kickback cut. In any case, the state could always revert back to other police enforcement mechanisms like micro-drones, if the amateurs did not deliver the right level of public approval. Conrad explained that all superheroes are licensed by a secret government agency, under Presidential oversight, to ensure just enough interest, public enthusiasm and broadcast ratings, while also generating enough fear into seriously organised criminals by this special form of high-profile vigilantism. Vigilantism, it turns out, with government, and corporate, approval.

"So it's about the media and the corporations again?" I asked.

"Isn't everything?" shrugged Conrad.

"Is there no super power you can't fake?" I asked in desperation.

Conrad sighed wistfully, "We still haven't mastered flying. Sure we have our jet-pack but it has a flight time of just a few minutes... and its slow... and we can't fight with it."

"Can't you invent a better jet-pack?"

"I'm organising a crowd-sourced development," he winked.

Eventually I asked the key question, "So where do you apply for superpowers?"

"The Su-U, the Super Hero Union," replied Conrad smugly. "I'll take you there tomorrow. Mad-Sci-Soc has its own chapter and a secret hideout downtown." At this point I had exited the car.

We arranged to meet the next day to look for the fridge remains, once Conrad had decoded Antonio's data. Conrad lowered the car's shell and the vehicle immediately leapt away from the curb rejoining the speeding traffic chaos at the end of the street.

***

### Wednesday, January 23, 2123

I bounded into the apartment where Terri was laying on the sofa unwrapping grapes while watching the broadcast 3d images in the center of the room. There was not enough room to reach the sofa and Terri didn't like it if I walked through the holographic image, so I stayed by the door.

"Did you find the fridge?" she asked not looking away from holographic characters in the fictional drama.

"No. But you'll never guess what?" I said enthusiastically.

She did not reply but suspended the holoscreen. She rolled a grape around her mouth as she transfixed me with her stare.

I tried a different tack. "Can I get you something? Tea, perhaps?" I was hungry. I walked to the kitchen area. Terri had previously not liked the way I made her tea. As a Brit, from the land of tea drinkers, I always found this was a bit of an insult and have tried really hard to make it to her specification. After all it's only boiled water, tea leaves and milk. I was ready to give it another go.

"No," she replied in a drawn-out tone implying that I had forgotten something.

Then it came to me what was bothering her. "Oh, I geddit. No, I didn't see Max. He didn't turn up."

She pulled a face and turned away.

"But you'll never guess what?" I repeated to the back of Terri's head, she was not looking at me.

Terri resumed the broadcast program and said, "I'm guessing you found nothing."

"Well... uh, yes. But that's not what I was going to say. I was going to say that Conrad... is really..."

"...Captain Kittoffery. Yes, I know," said Terri finishing off the sentence, killing my buzz.

"You knew? Why didn't you tell me?" I said.

"It's his secret identity," she said with emphasis on "secret". "I was asked to keep it secret."

I nodded while trying to restore my dignity. "Well," I said. "Well, he's offered to make me a... get-this... a..."

Terri interrupted again, "A super hero?"

Open mouthed, I nodded.

"Yeah. Been there, got the t-shirt. Did they give you a hero name?" she said twisting around to look at me.

I shook my head.

"You'd better think of one by yourself before they give you something crappy," she suggested and returned back to the broadcast.

"So... they... you?" I asked un-intelligently.

Terri just made a hand gesture to wave me away.

"No really. What happened?"

"Nothing."

"You said you were a super hero too?" I stammered.

"It didn't work out."

"So you were?"

"I could have been."

"But it didn't work out? Come on, you need to tell me more than that," I pleaded.

"I can give you one more word on the subject."

"And that is?"

"Max!"

"Oh. Right. You don't want to talk about it?"

"I don't want to talk about it," she said through gritted teeth turning up the volume on the broadcast. She added, talking over the sound from the show, her parting piece of advice, "Don't let them take you out on a mission!"

***

### Thursday, January 24, 2123

Thursday morning, Terri left for work and I went to meet Conrad as early as I could. It was noon. I could have explained that I was a late riser but that was only part of my excuse. I do my work at night, my "Freelance Technical Research" that Terri likes to scoff at.

Legacy. That word conjures up a picture of something nice that you leave for future generations: some wealth or family heir-loom. But not for computers, it means the exact reverse. It means expense, maintenance and trouble. And that is the Legacy Net, the old early 21st century internet and web pages: lots of trouble. I guess I am attracted towards trouble.

It's true that the Legacy Net had a lot of pictures of naked woman that could snaffle up much of my working time but it is also the only source of unfiltered, unrestricted, unpatented, uncopyrighted information on the planet. At no time do you encounter the dreaded DRM-pop-up that says "copyright laws forbid this action" as found on the corporately-controlled holo-web. With the Legacy-Net, I could drink my fill from the fountain of knowledge, while the population at large on the Holoweb merely had access to mouthwash.

Since the Legacy Net is trouble, it is locked away, heavily protected, and only accessible to licensed Information Archaeologists who have to fill out the right forms. My secret is that I can access it without the form-filling. Ok, it is technically illegal but the way I see it, if my grandfather had free access to this info, then so should I. My access is by a "backdoor," "trap door" or a "Trojan Horse"... actually I can't remember the correct metaphoric name. This is what I do. In order not to be tracked, I have to "borrow" an acquaintance's unmonitored Legacy Net account with academic privilege, he's not even a licensed archaeologist! But from a separate app, I can spring an encryption token, just a random ten digit number. With my own antique computer and that encryption key number, I can enter the Legacy Net archive at the Museum of Computer Technology. My machine is so old that it slips under the access control protocols. But this has to done between midnight and 12.30am EST to coincide with the patching of intruder detection software which is effectively offline in that period. So while the virtual guard dog sleeps, I creep inside the Legacy Net like I might have if it was an old abandoned haunted house. I use several special apps that minimise my "footprint" on the dusty data. I don't imagine anyone checks too closely anyway.

It's amazing what you can learn at a Star-Hit De-Cafe Bar; that's where I found out how to hack the cob webs, from a fellow student in my final weeks at college just as I was trying to find paid employment. This small piece of insider information became my subsequent meal ticket. I had little choice but to become self employed since, during college, my virtual world avatar was locked up in virtual prison. I had been caught attempting to circumvent the payment system by offering counterfeit crypto-currency. That, together with my natural nocturnal habits and poor dress sense made me an unsuitable candidate for any real world jobs with the corporations; indeed just about any employment that used state-organised currency.

Before leaving the apartment, waiting for the auto-taxi to arrive, Terri broke our usual morning protocol of ignoring each other to ask, "Have you thought of your super hero name?"

"Yes," I said. "I fancy... Captain Disaster!"

"They already have a Captain."

"They can't have another?"

"No. No," said Terri gravely. "You have to have a totally original name. But you could be a General or a Major."

"Major. Ok," And I pretended to go into character, "Stop bad guys! Says who? Says me, Major Disaster! Hmmm! That's not going to work, is it? General Disaster? No. No better."

"Like taking candy from a baby," said Terri with a smile. She had set me up.

But I was thinking, hey, is she starting to like me again? "How about Colonel, Corporal, Private?" I said assuming she liked the military sounding names, having not processed that she was teasing me.

"Best keep this to ourselves, Private Disaster," she said sardonically.

"By the way, do you have any money?"

"You know this is one of the reasons why we are breaking up, don't you?"

***

## Chapter Five Induction

### Thursday, January 24, 2123

Conrad met me on the flood prevention barrier above Pier 86, next to the sunken remains of USS Intrepid. The old ship, an "aircraft carrier", lay at 20 degrees off vertical with decaying twentieth century air vehicles, incongruously clinging onto the flight deck in formation; stuck there by hurricane-proof cabling.

"What's on the agenda?" I asked Conrad breezily.

"Well, you'll be glad to know we are not going onto the carrier," he said indicating the rusty hulk in the water.

"I heard the Mayor was going to re-float the boat but had hit technical problems..."

"The robots keep slipping off and falling into the Hudson, if that's what you mean by technical. And there's too much health-and-safety-ism for human workers. Meanwhile the plan for submarine drones to weld up the hull underwater has stopped due to a dispute about who owns the patent on the technology," said Conrad.

I gave a sly smile. Copyrights and Patents strike again.

"Yes," said Conrad in a drawn-out fashion, in response to my smirk.

Conrad pointed northwards, "We have our craft waiting along the dock."

It was a grey day and there were a few people close to the water's edge. Conrad pointed to a small tourist boat, apparently waiting for us, manned by two ancient robot matelots. As a robot-free zone, you did not often meet robots in the streets of Manhattan. As for Robot sailors? Very rare. Humans like jobs such as sailors and often elected to retire robots from such employment, but for this boat, strangely, it retained retro robot matelots. They were human-scale, all metallic with personality-chip removed.

The robots insisted via a series of pre-programmed announcements that we must wear life-belts. It was pointless to argue with them and I complied after seeing Conrad don his. We were guided onto the enclosed viewing deck.

"So why are we going on a boat trip?" I asked. "Are you going to offer me a job in the Navy?"

"Maybe a job as a pirate. Just go with the flow. You'll understand soon," said Conrad. "First let me give you the results for the search on the fridge using Antonio's data."

"Yes, please, do."

"I haven't found it."

"So, no fridge?"

"No. But," Conrad announced, "I returned to your old apartment and used a spectroscopic analyser."

"Uh-ha," I said seriously, pretending to know what spectroscopic analyser could do.

"And found," said Conrad smugly, "trace elements of triglycerides and carboxyl hydrocarbons."

"Uh-ha," I said seriously.

"You know what that means?"

"No, not really."

"Butyric and caproic acid?"

"No, still nothing going on here," I said pointing to my head.

"Fatty acids?"

"Like in bacon?" I said lamely.

"Dairy products!" said Conrad with mild irritation.

"Oh, and that means?"

"Cheese!"

"You found cheese?"

"Solidified dairy products and mites that can only come from cheese. High quality cheese."

"Terri does like her cheese."

"Hmm. I think that is significant. I found a trail, footprints, as it were, of cheese from your apartment, leading through the back yards of several properties to a community waste and recycling area."

"And you found cheese there?"

"No, I found nothing there."

I smiled as convincingly as I could, at Conrad's complete failure.

"From that I can surmise that the cheese, and the fridge, were collected and carried off elsewhere?" said Conrad with satisfaction.

"So they were picked up by a garbage truck?"

"Or they were met by an accomplice?"

"An accomplice?" I repeated in disbelief.

"We are dealing with something intelligent here. There must be a connection. Remember there are no coincidences."

"The cheese could have been in the fridge, perhaps," I said stating what I thought was the obvious.

"Was there cheese in the fridge?" asked Conrad emphasising the word "in".

"Yes. Terri loves cheese. Real cheese, not the artificial, mass produced stuff. It has to come from a deli? Gruyère's her favorite."

"So there was cheese in the fridge?"

"I just said that."

"But these traces we've found, were outside the fridge."

"The fridge fell seven stories. It probably had bit of a bad day."

"And yet we've found no traces of the fridge but a trail of cheese leading to the recycling area. Maybe they were picked up with the garbage. Unlikely though. I probably need to give you some more background information but we've arrived at our destination. Or rather the entrance of our destination."

"Arrived?" I said. I looked around, the boat was halfway to New Jersey and slowing down, pointing into the flow of the Hudson. There was nothing to be seen except for a few seagulls and the always-impressive New York skyline despite the fuzzy clouds fading out the tops of the skyscrapers.

Then there was a metal scraping sound and the boat juddered, rattled and came to a complete stop. We had hit something. Something big and something underwater. There was nothing visible above the river surface. One the robots entered the lower viewing deck and opened up the floor panels. We followed and saw that under the panels, was a circular hatch with a circular screw handle. The robot spun the handle and opened the hatch. There was a pool of still water under the hatch door and the robot then fetched a hose and started to pump water from the hatchway.

"The internal pump is damaged," explained Conrad. "This is a make-shift method. We have to do it the old-fashioned, robot-style for the time being."

I leaned over to view the diminishing pool below and saw another hatch and handle in the murky water. When drained the robot reached down to open the second hatch, grabbing what looked like a steel handle before extending a tubular ladder into the boat.

The metal matelot invited me to go down the ladder.

I looked at Conrad, "This is part of the plan?"

He smiled and nodded.

"Ah well, Plan the dive. Dive the plan," I said quoting the scuba diver motto.

I climbed down the ladder into a dimly-lit steel chamber that was quietly humming from the rush of water around it. Conrad followed me down, closing the hatch above him. The chamber could have fitted about six people. But it felt crowded with two. On the walls were two small doors and two industrial looking buttons and lights.

I heard metal scraping sounds above as-if there was a boat slowly twisting over an echo-y steel tube. It sounded like that because it was what was happening; the boat was undocking from the chamber. My eyes must have been as wide as saucers since Conrad said quite paternally, "Don't worry, everything is fine."

He pressed a button and waited. Eventually a red light went green and he pressed another button and I felt the chamber shudder. It was descending. As it went deeper the sound of rushing water in the chamber, diminished.

"So this chamber rises and lowers in the Hudson?" I said with a stammer.

"This is the secret entrance to our Super Hero Union chapter house," said Conrad proudly. "And yes, it has to sink otherwise it might be hit by passing ships."

"And the only entrance is by boat."

"Actually, no. This is the secret entrance. To stop anyone, or any drone, seeing or recording you entering the building."

"So it's a hidden entrance?"

"Exactly. There are others. We don't have to use this route every time."

The chamber shuddered to a halt and another light turned green.

"So which door?"

"The one marked Entrance. The other is the Emergency Exit. It's quite a cold wet route out through that door. That's why you need the life vest, by the way."

Conrad chuckled at my expression; presumably, one of horror.

The other door opened into a clean white painted circular tunnel lit by a continuous strip of Christmas-tree-style lights hanging from the ceiling. After closing the chamber door, Conrad led the way down the silent, empty tunnel. The route appeared to be heading back to the city. A few minutes later we were confronted with another water tight door which Conrad opened and sealed behind us. Inside the new white painted chamber was a brushed-metal elevator door. Conrad pressed the call button and the door slid open immediately.

We stepped inside and Conrad pressed the up button. (The only other choice was down).

"No musak?" I commented.

Conrad smiled but said nothing.

The elevator sped rapidly upwards many floors if measured by g-force and time, with the arrival met with an understated ting.

"We're here?" I asked.

"Not yet," said Conrad. "We've arrived at the neighbouring building."

"So what's next?" I said trying to hide my exasperation.

"We've got some great stuff to show you today. But first, the zipline!" smiled Conrad.

"Zip-line?"

"Don't worry, it's perfectly safe."

We unbuckled the life vest and put on a zip-line harness. Conrad led me out to an observation deck with a platform and a zip-line leading to an adjoining skyscraper. The platform provided unimpeded views out over the Manhattan cityscape. We were dozens of floors above the ground. I leant over and could see flocks of drones, flying vehicles, busy walkways, roadways filled with A2s rushing below. The NYC hustle-and-bustle. Or hassle-and-battle, as I like to call it.

"What about hot-rodding jet packers? Suppose they come this way?"

"It's registered as a power-line in the collision management database. Nothing has hit it so far."

"Can't we be seen from below?"

"There's holoscreen coverage. It's invisible."

I looked skeptical.

"You're not scared of heights are you?" teased Conrad.

I gave Conrad what I hoped looked like a confident smile, clipped the trolly over the zip-line, attached the safety line carabiner through its hook and leapt off the platform.

***

### Saturday, June 4, 2120.

What Conrad did not know was that the reason for my poor grades at college was my addiction to adrenaline-filled sports: snowboarding in the Alps, mountain climbing, scuba-diving, wind-surfing, parachute jumping including base jumping. Ok, minor exaggeration there, I have done two base jumps; that is parachute jumping from skyscrapers, both in New York, the home of the skyscraper. The second being important because I broke my ankle and met Terri.

Jason, my base-jump-buddy had smuggled us into Trumped-Up-Charges Hotel which overlooked Central Park. He was a failing Counter-Punk-Heavy-Water rock musician but had found access to the roof in breaks between band practise being held in the basement. With the arrogance of youth, he also claimed to have researched the path to the ground. It turns out that jumping from skyscrapers in New York and trying to survive is more difficult than you would think due to the number of cables, horizontal barriers and sharp vertical items sticking up from the ground. Everything would have been perfect except for the miscalculation with some innocuous looking concrete lumps. Captured on 3D video, and live broadcast on Jason's BragBook, was two minutes of his band's Heavy Water rock music to pump us up, two seconds of freefall, twenty seconds of chute assisted flight, and a microsecond contact on a concrete bollard. Not captured on video was my two weeks in hospital and six months with a walking stick; Rock-N-Roll.

Anyway I'm glad I did not cheese-out since the jump was how I met Terri. After crashing into the bollard and the ground, I rolled down a slope and crashed into her picnic.

"Uh. Sorry. That didn't go quite as planned," I gasped looking up at her.

"Does that hurt?" She said pointing to my leg which, when I glanced down, was not looking quite leg-shaped.

"I think it will. Best I don't move," I said, starting to hyperventilate.

"Are you British?" she said.

"Yes. How did you know?"

"Your accent. I love your accent."

I woke up several days later, and don't remember much more of the conversation as I passed out almost immediately. I dreamed about it though, how we chatted for hours and talked about tea, cucumber sandwiches and spaceships speeding to the stars. But they were all dreams. Probably even the conversation about her liking my accent was a dream. All I know is that when I woke up in Mount Sinai hospital three days later, Terri was there, reading a book. I mean, a real book, with wood-pulp pages, a book cover and everything. How cool is that?

After various chats that I don't quite remember, I asked her about the book.

"I had it for my first year course. I didn't read it then, I'm just getting to it now," she explained. She was in her final weeks at University and decided to join the Central Perk Pulp Fiction Appreciation Reading Club picnic.

"But it's a real book. Real paper?" I said.

"Sure. Here, feel," she offered the book to me.

I flicked the pages and rubbed the yellowing wood-pulp-derived pages; fibrous, not completely smooth. "Wow. I've only seen books in books. Where did you get it? Oh no, you're going to say a library, right?"

"The university has a storage room. They loan them out. I guess it's kind of a library, if you want to get technical," she explained. "I actually quite like the format but if you have more than two they get quite heavy. So I've read this one a couple of times. I might not get the chance to read a real book again, you know... the fabricated variety, after I leave the University."

"What is the title?"

"The Autobiography of Yogi Bear."

"Any good?"

"I think I should have selected Hacker in the Rye or Brave New World Order."

"Brave New World Order?"

"Have you heard of 1984?"

"I have a box from that year?"

"A box?"

"A cardboard box. I collect boxes."

"Ok. I was talking about the book."

"Right. So this is like a sequel?"

"I guess. It's just like 1984 but has more jokes."

"Awesome," I said, inwardly cringing at my own bozo-ness.

I was not my usual confident self around Terri. I could hardly take my eyes off her. She was so beautiful, perfect complexion, cool and cultured. And she couldn't keep her eyes off me for entirely different reasons. After calling the paramedics, she'd stumped up the money for my hospital treatment, despite being on a tight budget herself. She had also bailed me out with the police and so, not unnaturally, she wanted her money back. And that's how our relationship started; with misunderstanding; mine being a romantic, pain-killer-induced dreamer and hers, as a financial claimant.

She didn't want to scare me away, despite her directness about wanting to be repaid, but she also seemed to be encouraging my goo-goo-eyed, honey-soaked sentiments. It was a couple of weeks of being around me before she realised I had changed my BragBook page to "in a relationship" and that it meant I was in a relationship with her.

"How can you be?" she said distressed. We were in the Star Hit cafe when the information came out. We had bumped into Jennifer and her face-rec app had spilled the beans. Jenny had returned to her table with her frothy de-Latte to join her clique of robo-dog-loving friends, but Terri retained the fixed smile that she had exhibited to her old University friend, still in shock at the emergency change she had made in her own relationship status to match mine.

"We've been going together for weeks," I said faking surprise.

"We haven't even gone to Level 1," she said.

"American Levels and British Levels are different. The British start at Level 1 once we hold hands."

"But we don't hold hands!" Terri protested.

"Well that's so teenagery. We're past that teenager bit," I said and grasped her hand resting on the table. Terri glanced down the cafe, Jennifer was still in eye-shot, so she did not pull away.

"We haven't done anything Level 1 as far as I'm concerned," she said through her fixed grin.

"I assumed that's because of my cast," I said, referring to my broken ankle still being mended by teams of nanobots. While I had life rules about technology not entering my body I had no qualms about it when it came to rebuilding my leg, especially when the decision was taken when I was unconscious.

"That's my investment. I keep telling you that!" she said, dropping the smile.

"I assumed that was a joke. We always laugh when you say it."

"You laugh. I laugh at you," she said firmly and pulled her hand away.

"So why did you confirm, with Jennifer, that we are an item?" I asked but I knew why. Or at least I thought I did.

"Because she's categorised me as a loser. I'm not going to give her the satisfaction of thinking that I don't have a relationship."

"Many people don't have a relationship."

"She's into them. She thinks they matter."

"So you've not been in a relationship?"

"Not since, uh, the first year at Uni..."

"So just robo-sexual?"

"This is none of your bees-wax. In any case, I don't like robots!"

"Me neither."

"I've already seen your stats," she mocked.

"She's looking this away again," I said trying to hide my blushes.

"Jenny? She knows too much and yet not enough."

"You don't like her?"

"It's not like that. I just hate her looking down at me," she said with real venom.

"And this is important because?"

"She dorm-ed in the next room to me."

"I get it. A frienemy! So, you've changed your relationship status, just to look good. For her?" I said.

"Don't worry, I'll be changing it back shortly."

"But then she'll know that you've failed with me too. And why? What have I done wrong? Nothing except fall for you? We both hate robots... You don't do implants, I don't do implants. How else could we establish a relationship contract without the right network? We'd have to try the old fashion way?"

"By assumption?"

"I may have assumed too much. I was thinking by dialogue. By a chance encounter and dialogue."

"You're suffering from erotomania. You're delusional. You were passed out for the best three days we had together."

I laughed. "Delusional?"

"Look it up."

I did. Paused. My G-phone was running the Inspirational Connections app that made a connection with some previous research I had sneaked from the Legacy Net. That gave me the idea to start singing...

"Searching for a destiny that's mine," I crooned softly. "There's another taste, another crime. Holding hands with you along the way. Hoping that I'll never have to say. It's just a delusion..."

Terri's eyes widen. "Ok. Ok. You can be cute too."

"I can sing in tune..."

"But you're still out of my league," she said, cutting off my attempt at an immodest bluster.

"And your league is what, exactly?"

"The league of frienemies."

"Who's delusional now?"

She ignored me and asked instead, "Where did you hear that song?"

"When you said you were studying twentieth century media studies, I did some rummaging and read up on it."

"Where," she said slowly and deliberately, with a smile, "did you hear that song?"

I smiled back. "I told you, I'm a freelance researcher. I have my sources."

"That song has been copyright-banned for over fifty years. You can't find that on the holo-web. So where did you find it?" she said, touching my hands.

"Well, I will tell you, if you provide me some insight into these um... American Levels," I teased.

"I can show you some of them, if you like," she smiled.

Jenny looked back at Terri from the far end of the "*Hit" logo-ed cafe, to check Terri really was enjoying herself. In retrospect, I assume that Jennifer was thinking that finally Terri had secured an adequate rebound boyfriend after that bastard previous one. What was his name again? She could have been thinking, Oh, yes, Max! It is amazing what you can read into a facial expression.

***

### Thursday, January 24, 2123

Conrad followed me down the zipline onto the platform. We unzipped our harnesses and entered another lift down a few floors. When it opened Conrad prompted me to walk into a darken room alone. In the middle of the room was an illuminated man-sized object, a sculpture? No, it was a costume on a stand. Cloaked, metal chested, platform boots and a black helmet that covered the eyes. And the eyes were covered with extended spikes. Really cool! It looked like it was a cross between a medieval black knight and a bee.

"Whoa," I exclaimed.

"What do you think?" asked Conrad smugly.

"It's pretty incredible. Is it fabricated?" I said circling the exhibit.

"Touch it," he suggested.

The cloak was thin and silky smooth, the breastplate steely cold, the mask dark and intricate, the spikes over the eyes looked like a mass of prickly sensors. On the breast plate was the indentation of two letters, "PK". "You have some cool developers," I said.

"Yes, the very height of Stevieness. And this is our proposed costume... for you," said Conrad.

"For me?"

"Do you want me to explain the special features we propose?"

"Go on."

"Telepathic abilities, hypnotic abilities, omnilingualism, invisibility, super hearing, super sight, bullet-proof... and the cloak doubles as a parachute. There's also the usual rappelling and grappling lines, spring boots, utility belt."

"Super strength?"

"Well, no. The super strength power is tricky with exoskeletons and motors. Takes a lot of practise to use and to disguise the mechanics."

"And being telepathic requires no practise?"

"There's an audio feed from the super computer giving you the most probable next event."

"Ah... and the hypnosis? That's like Nerdifier's drug darts?"

"That's right."

"And Omni-whatsit?"

"Omnilingualism. The ability to understand any language. Two way radio and a supercomputer. You probably already have an app for it on your G-phone that does something similar."

"Have you got something to translate American English to British English?"

"Cute," said Conrad. "The proposed name we have for you...."

"Yes?"

"...is..."

"Yes?"

"Psychic Kid!"

"Yeah, wow. I like it. How about Captain Psychic?"

"We already have a Captain?"

"Ok. Yeah. Is that what the PK stands for?"

"That's right. So do you like it? Do you want it? Do you want to be Psychic Kid?"

"This is so awesome. This is like... like... my origin story," I enthused like a teenager. I suddenly realised that this was my calling. That feeling of isolation, of being outside society but really wanting to be part of it, fulfilling chivalrous duty for a noble cause. "I always wanted super powers but up till now they only consisted of holding my breathe for ten minutes and the ability to repel women..."

Conrad rolled his eyes, "There's more to consider than simply getting a neat suit and special abilities. Think about it. It's a big decision."

"How long have I got? I'm sure this is something I can decide quickly," I smirked.

He moved to the back of the room and adjusted the lighting; out of the dark appeared seats and control panels. Conrad selected a panel and displayed the news headlines on a holoscreen.

"I don't want to pressure you but there are some compelling reasons for you to join us sooner rather than later," he said ominously.

"There are?" I said, startled.

"I did some research last night and found that there have been fridge stories appearing in the news recently."

"There are?"

"There are numerous examples of fridges disconnecting from the network recently. Apparently, many old style robots cannot cope with food safety management unless the fridge is net-connected."

"Generally I'm not worried about rich people and their home help, but I guess it affects old people and invalids, right?" I mused, feeling confident I hit the right note with my super-do-gooder partner.

Conrad nodded and moved on. "A month ago, the New York Enquirer ran a story of a house robbery where the only thing stolen was a fridge. Was it a robbery or another fridge escape? Then two weeks ago there was another report in the National Blogger of a woman being sectioned to a mental health facility after claiming aliens, supposedly, had taken over her fridge. So your fridge went AWOL a week ago. That was unreported and presumably there may be many other such events unreported. Then yesterday, I saw on broadcast news, what appeared to be three larger than man-size robots breaking into a delicatessen."

"And they stole their fridge?" I suggested.

"No, they stole the cheese!"

"So is this a Fridge-mageddon or a Cheese-Apocalypse?"

"It's both."

"A Cheesey-Fridge-Mageddo-pocalypse! That's big!"

"We're not there yet. There could be other explanations. But Non-Coincidence Theory states that this fridge uprising isn't a coincidence."

"But who is going to take this seriously? This is worse than any comic-book-style story. It wouldn't even make Scooby-Doo!"

"I appreciate your concern, Aaron. I was deeply skeptical too when you walked into Mad-Sci-Soc the other day but if history has taught us anything it is to worry about detail, anomalies and the things that just do not stack up. It has taught us to respond to such threats. Just look at humanities past achievements: defeating the evil bankers, the war-mongers and the anti-environmentalists. All because we shared our concerns on social media."

"Absolutely. Jobsian principles! Yeah, go think different!" I said, repeating the mantra of the faithful. I was not a fully paid up member of the Church of Jobs but I knew their hymns.

"And the problem, that you confronted me with, is just that, an anomaly. Actually the story is bonkers in just about every sense of the word. Revolting fridges? Preposterous!"

"Yeah," I agreed. "Revolting cheese, that I understand. But revolting fridges? That's just crazy."

Conrad ignored my interjection. "And yet, we have the facts: the physical evidence, the witness testimony, and other reported cases. This is something that is truly suitable for Mad-Sci-Soc. More specifically for our Super Hero divison of Su-U, SHUMSS."

"Sums?"

"It stands for Super Hero Union (Mad-Sci-Soc division)."

"Is it a division or a chapter?"

"We plumped for division since it sounded more sciencey," explained Conrad apologetically.

"So who do we have on the team? Is Captain Kittoffery coming out of retirement? Are we joining forces with Nerdifier, Elect-Toad and Glaredevil and find out what is going on with the fridges and cheese?"

"Well we have to get you licensed, of course... Sign some non-disclosure agreements..." said Conrad prevaricating.

"Yeah, sure. Where do I sign? How many of us are there?"

"Well, this is a secret. A club secret. But it is only fair to tell you."

"Oh?"

"Max resigned from the SHUMSS last night," sighed Conrad.

That didn't answer my question. Why is he talking about Max, my girlfriend's ex? "Oh. Ok, but I never really met him. I only know him by reputation. You know, what Terri has told me about him being evil and such."

"Hmm," said Conrad thoughtfully. "We don't know what went on there. It was a long time ago. Max has matured a lot since then, of course. No, the real problem is that Max was the main financier of Mad-Sci-Soc and while the club funding is still good, he will be taking away quite a few of our resources which were always his and merely on loan to the club."

"Is he rich or something?"

"Embarrassingly so."

"How so?"

"After winning some money on the lottery, second prize on the national lotto, he invested in a technology company. The company had patents on human-like eyes and skin components for replicants and surrogates. It was doing reasonably well until... well." Conrad was reluctant to continue.

"Until?"

"It was bought by Ms Bell," said Conrad with a sigh.

"Oh no."

"Yep. That was when he became embarrassingly rich and now... he is locked into a three year employment contract with the corporate giant."

"Can't he get out?"

"Not without being sued. His finances are tied to the fortunes of Ms Bell."

"I'm now feeling sorry for him. So am I ever going to meet him?"

"At this rate, no, probably not."

***

### Saturday, October 5, 2117

Years previously, it was Terri being introduced to SHUMSS in the same, darkened room with a fancy outfit spot-lighted in the middle. Her costume was a tight blue and grey one-piece spandex suit with a blue and white multi-layered cape constantly moving as if it was blowing in a gentle wind; the headdress mimicked hair, swirling like a benevolent medusa.

"Is that a hologram?"

"No, it's fabricated. Touch it," Max sat down by the door and was studying Terri intently.

Terri touched the swirling cape and it slipped through her fingers. It felt like a cross between smoke and silk. "Wow. How does it do that?"

"It's a carbon-16 nano-tube sheeting."

"And that wind effect on the cape and hair?"

"Little motors," said Max.

"Little motors?"

"Nano-machines. Thinner than silk thread," explained Max, light reflecting off his glasses obscuring his eyes.

Terri continued to play with the cape and hair.

"I very much hope you'll accept our offer to join SHUMSS. It would really mean a lot to me," said Max stammering a little.

"And wear this?" Terri smirked.

"Yes. Do you like it?"

"Well, its not great for my body type. My legs are ok. I like short skirts, but this top? It's not like I have a perfect body. It may be less flattering on me than you imagine."

"We can hologram out any imperfections if that's an issue," Max said.

"I'm supposed to fight bad guys in this? I've no martial arts experience, no stamina, I'm exhausted walking between class."

"We have a training schedule in mind for you, of course. I'm sure a young woman like yourself can toughen up fast."

Terri looked skeptical.

"But most importantly we will provide super powers."

"Super powers? You said they were all technology. Just gimmicks."

"More than gimmicks," tutted Max. "Mutotonics is technology that nobody else has. Lost to the collective consciousness but not to the likes of Mad-Sci-Soc. It's as good as super powers. It will appear as magic to the uninitiated."

"So... which super powers?"

"Besides lightning discharge, the one we are... actually no, it's not we. Let me start again, I can't let myself get ahead of myself. There's so much to say. The one I'm most excited about is... apparent... invincibility," said Max proudly stumbling over the words.

"Oh?" said Terri her eyes lighting up.

"Impervious to bullets or anything falling on you. Untouchable. No-one would be able to lay a finger on you."

"So this would be provided by technology? By a machine somehow? Giant air-cushions?"

"No," said Max smugly. "By two great tricks. One is a micro-force field. The same device that provides electrical discharges can be re-purposed to generate a counter-punch to stop bullets. It can even stop a charging elephant..."

Terri nodded sagely.

"And the other," Max continued. "Is self healing. We are able to rebuild you, as good as new."

"Nanobots?"

"No, that still takes too long. I'm talking recovery within 30 seconds from any injury."

"What? That's unreal."

"In a way it is. An unreal tourniquet!"

"It just stops the blood?"

"No, we rebuild. We rebuild any injured part of you, at a molecular level by matter transfer."

"Matter transfer? I don't..."

"We have, for some years now, been able to demonstrate transportation of matter from one place to another."

"We have? No way!" Terri exclaimed.

"Way."

"How? That's just science fiction."

"The thing with science fiction is that it is often science fact before the book is published. We've known about this for over a century. It's just been very difficult to scale up from the quantum physics level of electrons and atoms to something human scale."

"Human scale?"

"Human scale is anything bigger than a thread of a spider web."

"Or a hair?"

"Or a hair. Yes. Millimetre scale."

"So how?"

"Because, at Mad-Sci-Soc, we've gone beyond Quantum Level Mechanics. We've gone human scale."

"Hair sized?"

"I was thinking Max sized!" said Max with a grin.

"You've been through a matter transporter? You can transport humans around like in Star Trek?" said Terri in disbelief.

"I think those ancient classics were the inspiration." Max then went off on a eulogy. "Just like Icarus, Da Vinci and Disney dreamed of man flying and it became true hundreds of years later. So too did the ancient science fiction of Jules Verne, Asimov and Star Trek inspire later generations. That generation is now. While we're still at the Wilbur Wright level of experimentation we can demonstrate that matter transfer does work."

"You can transport humans around like in Star Trek?" said Terri for the third time.

"I'm living proof of it," winked Max.

***

### Thursday, January 24, 2123

"So is Max setting up another super hero league?" I asked.

"No, he says he has returned his licence."

"So how many do we have?"

"Including you?" considered Conrad.

"Yes."

"Two."

"So just me and you!"

"That doesn't include me. I'm retired."

"Not you? So me and one other? Nerdifer?"

"No. Nerdifer and other mainstream heroes have signed up with a different agency. Our other trained and licensed super hero is... Improbileon." Conrad said with as much grandeur as possible.

I shook my head. "I've never heard of him."

"Improbileon is a her. She's smart, strong. Has a great er... costume."

"What has she done?"

"Well, she has been there... ready. Ready, for whatever the world of evil throws at us!"

"There's plenty of evil in the world; Gangsters, Corporations, Estate Agents... so why haven't I heard of her intervening? I see Nerdifier, Spider-Guy and Bat-Buddy on TV. Ok, Bat-Buddy is still recovering from his broken back but..."

"Because they are around, Improbileon has, probably, not been needed," said Conrad trying to make the word "probably" a kind of a joke.

But I didn't react; not because I did not understand the joke, but because it did not make any sense to me. Why be a superhero and not fight crime? I held my tongue.

***

## Chapter Six Entanglement

### Saturday, October 5, 2117

Terri was intrigued by the concept of Matter Transportation and asked Max more questions.

"I don't suppose you have heard of the EPR Paradox," said Max, with a smile.

"That's a reasonable supposition. What does EPR stand for?" said Terri.

"Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen."

"Hmm. I've heard of Einstein."

"Podolsky and Rosen are his equally clever but less famous colleagues. In 1935 the three of them described yet another paradox in Quantum Theory arising from the dual nature of electrons and other Quantum objects, being both particles and waves."

"Yes, I've heard that... something about diffraction gratings and the photoelectric effect? How can matter be both a particle and a wave? I never understood it."

"It's hard, I know. But the wave-particle theory was sort of explained in 1901. And then 30 years later came the ERP paradox and it focused on the completely counterintuitive properties of Quantum Entanglement. This has never been completely adequately explained. Not even by Einstein. It is completely spooky. And yet we can detect it, verify it and even use it in computing and communications."

"And what is it? What is entanglement?"

"Indeed. What is entanglement? We can describe the property. It is an exotic effect of Quantum Physics in which two quantum particles are aligned and share the same existence, even when they are moved apart and physically separated. A change in one particle is replicated in the other even if the distances are vast. Conjoined twins no matter what distance is between them. The changes appear to defy limitations caused by the speed of light. And this can provide instantaneous communication across the universe!"

"What? How can that happen?"

"No-one knows. It's a paradox!" Max sat in a chair and continued with the historical background. "But just because we don't know how it works, doesn't stop us from using the effect. It was first used for secure, instantaneous communications. Such transmissions can't be hacked and it is faster than light. This led to some strange effects in the transition from traditional communications; the sporting scams in 2030 left quite a sting. And since the calculation of the value of stocks and shares is no better than gambling, it was also in for a shock. The banking collapse of 2050... that was due to brokers using instantaneous computers outselling old style processing methods. Then everyone started panic-selling stocks, shares, gold and property at the same time and everything in the old Rockfellian economy became worthless. True Value became the norm after that or rather, after the Robot Wars. Then came the super computers, like the one we have here at the University. Computing at instantaneous speeds... fantastic! We've had the University Computer for 20 years. But they are difficult to build, and so it remains one of the most powerful machines of its type."

"Computers and matter transfer, they don't seem related."

"They use the same principles: Quantum entanglement. It's embedded within Quantum computing but everyone has forgotten the effect demonstrated a hundred years ago, to replicate matter from one location to another. This is where Mad-Sci-Soc has gone that one stage further."

"One stage?"

"Well, several stages. First you need a scanning device. A scanning device that can analyse every atom in the originating object." Max waved at his holoscreen and a transparent 3D image of the device appeared. It looked like a man-sized Death Star.

"You have one of those?"

"This is built by my company, Quantact," said Max glowing with pride.

"You have your own company?"

"Just a small one."

"So you're rich?"

"I won some money in the lottery and invested wisely. Of course, my money is all tied up in research and development. Research is my thing. I live the life of a hermit, really."

"You do?"

"I want to build something big... long-lasting. It is the Jobsian ideal after all."

"Like this Star Trek transporter?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"This will make you a trillionaire."

"I doubt it. Not this version, at least. It has a few flaws."

"Flaws?"

"Well take a look. This is one half of it... the scanner. Or as I call it, the Entangle-Scanner. Think of it as powerful electron microscope and a mass spectrometer combined. It looks at every atom. But only organic matter, it is difficult to scan the atomic matrix of metal objects, so it only works with organics."

"It analyses every atom?"

"Every atom."

"Just how many billions of atoms are there in a human body?"

"There are approximately 10 to the power of 28 atoms in the human body. But since 77% of the atoms in the body are hydrogen or oxygen, that is, water, these atoms don't have to be entangled, just located. Compounds composed of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen together account for another 22%. For that remaining 1%, there are only 41 chemical elements to be considered. Unless you're poisoned, in which case, the Entangle-Scan will filter them out. I can see a huge market for this replacing all other hang-over cures," Max said, with a geeky chuckle.

"But it doesn't work with metal? What happens to people with robotic limbs or implants?"

"Prosthetics?"

"Yes. Not that I have any implants or anything," Terri said red-faced.

"We can only parse trace elements, like iron in your blood but not sheets of it. Not sheets of metal or any foreign object inside the body."

"Parse?"

"Scan. Same thing. We can't transfer robotic arms, legs, embedded chips, artificial aids of any type. Including nano-bots. Or er... any other type of implants. At least not at the moment."

"So is this the flaw you were talking about?" mused Terri.

"You could say that. Its commercial value is very limited. It's useless for the majority of the population, all the virtualistas with their current fixation for skeleton hardening, muscle replacement, technology inserts... But for someone with no upgrades..." Max raised his eyebrows towards Terri.

Terri twisted her mouth into a type of a smile, "So you scan a body, then what?"

"Well the clever part of the scheme, is the processing of this information. For processing and managing such a huge dataset, you need, I bet you've already guessed, a Quantum supercomputer. And then to transfer the information securely over vast distances, with no data loss and no interception, you need Quantum communications! Do you see? All the technology to do this has been around for decades."

"So how is the new, er... body created?"

"The original product in my company's portfolio is artificial skin. That's the reason why I bought Quantact. Imagine a giant 3D printer but for flesh and bone! It all takes place in a vat of water, with a laser stylus, that zaps trace minerals into the right position and atomic spin."

"So you've done this?"

"We demonstrated the transfer using uniquely marked laboratory mice to the Science Faculty last month. We had to do it multiple times in order to show that it was not just a magic trick."

"And you've gone through it too?"

"I've said too much. It is one of those completely unethical, not verifiable, unsafe, possibly criminal, legal no-man's-land, with probable long-term health-damage, experiment. I really don't want to be a position to confirm or deny whether I've been through the machine."

***

### Thursday, January 24, 2123

"So Max was a super hero too?" I asked.

"I cannot reveal a super hero's identity," said Conrad firmly.

"But you already have!"

"Oh," said Conrad. "Right. Well, Max never used his super hero persona, and he's resigned, so I guess it's ok to tell you. He called himself Majestro but his super powers were never really reliable, so he never went on a live operation. He was always fantastic at working out the plans though; a mastermind."

"What was his super power?"

"Mind reading. Mind reading and invincibility."

***

### Saturday, October 5, 2117

After Max had explained the theory of the matter transporter using Quantum Entanglement, Terri wanted to know whether any human had used it.

"You have, haven't you?" challenged Terri.

Max winked. "Let me show you the mice."

In 2117, Max had his laboratory in the SHUMSS offices downtown. It looked like the archetypal Mad Scientist laboratory, with lasers, vats of chemicals, metal contraptions, shelves, cupboards and towards the rear, easily missed because it was so huge and black, a large circular something. Max and Terri walked down a short corridor into into the lab to view the matter transportation experiments. Max took a cage down from a shelf. In the cage were two mice with mottled black and white markings.

"The markings on the mice fur are unique. But we had to demonstrate to the faculty that we didn't just clone the mice, and so with a green dye we put random spots on their backs. We then transferred them, via the super computer, from that chamber," Max pointed to a beach-ball sized metal sphere, "To that vat." He pointed to tank full of liquid surrounded by menacing looking guns which were, in fact, special lasers. "The first few times, we had a problem with the mice drowning during the validation phase. So we switched things around on the materialisation and learned to be ready to quickly scoop them out."

"Scoop out the mice?"

"With a net. Before they drowned. That worked and we had our mice transferred. But, they asked, were they the same mice with the same memories? We taught the original mice how to traverse a maze and curious to see if the new mice have the same skill?"

"So this is to prove more than matter-copy. Would the mind also transfer?"

"Precisely. We needed to copy brain waves; the mind. Now that was tricky. Mind transfer it seemed, needed an intermediate step, it needs to be stored in a holding area. That was my idea, my value-add. As I said, the rest of the technology had been available for a while."

"You have mind transfer?"

"A mouse's mind."

"And you could tell because of the maze?"

"The matter-materialised mice rushed around the maze er... just as good as the original." Max did not sound confident about saying "just as good", Terri noticed.

"Just as good?" asked Terri.

"Really good. The new mice were, if anything, a little bit quicker around the maze. It must have been the de-tox," explained Max hesitantly.

Terri smiled and looked around wanting to collect her thoughts. She was impressed but Max was holding something back, she could tell. She took a guess. "And the soul?"

Max laughed. "We do in fact have the perfect experiment to test that theory. Plato and Descartes have waited a long time for proof of a soul."

"And you've done that?!" said Terri wide-eyed.

"Shall we just stick with the mind and memories for the time being."

"Show me," said Terri teasingly. She had enough of the lecture.

"Show you the transporter working?" asked Max.

"Yes! Or does it take too long to set up?"

Max, with a hint of smile, took up the challenge. He picked one of the mice out the cage and dropped it in a spherical chamber. He moved over to the vat and flicked on some switches. He poured a bottle of chemicals into the vat and the liquid became cloudy.

"Trace elements," he explained.

He sat on a chair next to a holoscreen and called up a program from the supercomputer. He pressed a holo-button. Nothing happened.

"Oh wait, I forgot to engage the chamber." He pushed his chair, which was on rollers, across the room to the black sphere and pressed a switch on a cord. He propelled himself back and pressed the holo-button again.

There was a slight whine from the black chamber and simultaneously a gentle bubbling began in the vat across the room. Inside the chamber, a mouse skeleton formed in 5 seconds, then muscle, veins, organs, skin, fur, ears, claws, eyes.

"This is the tricky bit," said Max excitedly. "We now introduce the brain activity via the Holding Matrix. The timing has to be absolutely precise to the transfer point otherwise the brain chemistry does not synchronise."

Max clicked multiple buttons on the holo-screen to complete the miracle. Then the previously limp mouse started thrashing around in the water. Max scooped the mouse out with a net. He handed the mouse to Terri, who held the damp mouse at arms length. Max scooted back to the black chamber to unplug it. Opening the chamber door, he drained a transparent liquid into the sink; all that remained of the original creature.

"Pure water," explained Max. "This is an experimental system and the laser destroys the non-liquid molecules. All other matter was identified, communicated to the receiver unit and un-entangled in the water."

Max collected the mouse from Terri and returned it to the cage.

"Whoa," said Terri, hands clasping her face. She went quiet.

"Is that not Mad Science? This is the epitome of the work we've been doing at Mad-Sci-Soc," announced Max proudly.

Terri was silent for a few more seconds then found a chair, needing to sit down.

"I can't help thinking, though, that all this wizardry... you plan on using it on me. As a super-power? I'm not sure about this. Any of it. And especially not this matter transfer machine. Is the mind transferred. Would that still be me? And there's something about being reduced to a puddle... that doesn't seem appealing to me."

"I know..."

But Max's attempt at interruption did not work. Terri was on a roll and continued. "The machine is big and bulky. Not something you are going to take to a crime scene and use in a battle."

"You're very clever, Terri. You will be such a worthy super hero," said Max, succeeding this time in interrupting her. Trying not to sound condescending, Max continued. "What we're proposing, is something quite different, maybe even more unethical... which is why it would be such a fantastic super-power. In my latest Entangle-Scanner, you won't have to be reduced to a puddle."

"Oh?" said Terri amused.

"We don't have to be destroyed at all thus removing the most immediate legal and moral issues. No, I have a completely different approach now and something that carries no risk to your health or current well-being," said Max, with a smile.

"Oh?" said Terri puzzled.

"We copy you!"

***

### Thursday, January 24, 2123.

"And what were Terri's super powers?" I asked.

"Ah. You know? That she was a member of the SHUMSS?" asked Conrad, concerned.

"We tell each other everything," I lied.

"So you must already know her super powers," said Conrad.

"I don't think the topic has ever come up," I said carefully.

"Her powers were thunderbolts and invincibility. Although, they never worked reliably," said Conrad, averting his eyes.

"Ah-hah. So she had to drop out?" I asked with more glee than required.

"Yes, she, er... retired after her first mission," said Conrad sadly.

"But she had a go. Good for her!" I said, trying to sound more sympathetic. "Not enough young people today get into heroism."

"Indeed. The mission was never broadcast to the public so no-one knows about her or her alter-ego. It's a shame really. You should have seen her in her costume. She looked fabulous."

***

### Saturday, October 5, 2117

"So, I'm not going to be dematerialised? You're just going to take a scan?" said Terri on the steps of a large black sphere with a seven-sided Quantact logo on the side, located at the back in Max's laboratory.

"Of your atomic structure. Just a copy of your atomic matrix," assured Max.

"I won't be hurt or end up as a puddle?" asked Terri, uncertainly.

"Oh, no. There is no risk to you at all. It will just scan every atom in your body but leave you completely intact, I promise," said Max beaming from ear to ear, light reflecting off his glasses.

"And then what?" asked Terri, hesitantly.

"This is just for analysis. As I said my objective is that if you become injured on a mission, we can rebuild, recreate, just the part that was injured. Real organic replacement, aligned at the atomic level, not just a mechanical prosthetic."

"That sounds painful. Suppose I lost half my head?"

"We have instant morphine injections, so you will not feel any pain. And even if you lose half your head we can rebuild. I appreciate that might slow you down a bit but that really is a worst-case-scenario. You won't even have a scar or a bruise."

"I don't know about this, Max. I am more scared of pain than I am of dying."

"You are no different from anyone else. As I said this is only a test if it doesn't work then we won't use the technology. This is like a safety back-up. It is best we take a copy now in case you get hurt during training."

"Hmm. And this won't hurt?"

"It does sting a bit."

"Anything else? Radiation damage?"

"It's no worse than an X-Ray."

"I don't like X-Rays."

"It's not as bad as an X-Ray. Just take an extra Rad-free tablet if you are worried. It's just a few steps and a minute's scan. Remember to close the door behind you."

Terri stepped up into the chamber, pulled a face and started to close the door.

"Oh, one more thing," said Max.

"What?" said Terri irritably.

"Remember it's organics only. There's a basket for your clothes by the door."

"I have to strip off?"

"Yes. Pants as well... and any jewellery. Especially anything metal. And any electronics too. I'll pass them back to you, of course, in a flash. You won't even have time to feel the cold. Just think of it as another airport security check."

Terri slammed the door. A few minutes later her clothes fell out of a trap door towards the bottom of the sphere.

***

### Thursday, January 24, 2123.

I wanted to ask Conrad more about Terri's super hero career but there was a loud insistent purring noise coming from the computer.

"We have a CAT alert," stated Conrad.

"Cat alert?"

"Crime Activity Trigger," said Conrad, accessing a holo-screen.

"It looks like you're going into action early."

"What happened to the training?" I asked dismayed.

"I'll talk you through it. This is on-the-job training, the best kind. Don't worry you'll have Improbileon as the lead hero. You'll just be there to observe. I've just activated her alarm. She'll be jet-packing her way to the CAT-LOC in five minutes. You need to kit up."

"Cat lock?"

"CAT Location. Come on. You need to get going!"

"What's going on?"

"It's a robbery about-to-be-in-progress. The supercomputer has predicted it. And there's a fridge involved!" said Conrad springing from his seat.

"About-to-be-in-progress?"

"Do you know how long it takes to get kitted up? How else is a superhero supposed to be in costume and in position unless they know in advance where the crime is about to be committed. That's one of your super-powers, by the way. Precognition."

"Wow. I'm good!" I said, sarcastically.

Conrad hurried me along, offering me the PK costume.

"How do you put this thing on?" I asked, lifting the helmet.

"Let me. I'll open it up. You strip off to your underpants," said Conrad taking the helmet from me.

I started stripping off but a few questions started to occur to me. "Didn't you say that Improbileon hasn't been on a mission?"

"She's well trained. Don't worry about her."

"How am I going to get there?"

"I'll drive." Conrad clipped the helmet on me.

"Will this be broadcasted?" I asked through the voice disguiser in the helmet.

"The camera drones have submitted their licence and a squadron is already racing to the scene. So, yes, it'll be mainstream broadcast. Providing they are not showing Downton Abbey 2000, they may make it a live feed."

Conrad fitted the chest-plate on me.

While I wrestled with the tight leggings, I asked, "Don't I need a licence? You said that..."

"We have your acceptance on voice record. We can send you the legal contract by email. Do you want to check it now?"

But I was distracted, "Whoa. An insanely great heads up display in this thing. You're going to have to talk me through it."

"Do you want to see your email?"

"What's all this highlighting stuff?" I asked.

"You haven't used augmented reality before?"

"Too many pop-up adverts. I switch it off."

"This is the executive version. No adverts. Anything with a green tinge is benign. Orange is a trip hazard. Anything red is really dangerous."

"Psychedelic! And yellow?"

"Not processed yet."

"You have a yellow tinge around you?"

"I'm not in the system. Off the radar, so-to-speak." said Conrad helping me put on my boots. "I'll tell you about it later. Here's your utility belt. Buckle up in the lift, we're off to the Soc-Cave!"

Conrad sprang to a lift door and pressed a button. The doors immediately opened. I was expecting to see poles or a zipline rather than the interior of an ordinary looking lift.

We entered. Conrad pressed a button for a basement floor.

Commenting on music being piped into the lift, I exclaimed, "Now you have musak!?"

"I prefer to think of it as our theme music."

***

### Thursday, January 24, 2123

Conrad's Kittoffery Kart whistled out of the underground car park and straight onto the high-speed priority lanes in the traffic grid.

"Is this legal?" I asked, gripping onto the inside of the vehicle.

"We're licensed super heroes, so yes," replied Conrad. "When we reach CAT-LOC, just tell your headset that you want camouflage. Get away from the car and seek Improbileon with the Rendezvous app. Anything you say will be masked, only she and me will hear you, until you say Excelsior. Then it's show time. The camera drones will pick you up instantly, so look cool and act fast following Improbileon's lead. And for jobs sake no showboating! The supercomputer will determine the good guys and bad guys. Stop the bad guys, help the good guys. Go back into invisibility once the job is done. I'll be following you everywhere by drone-vision."

"But surely morality is merely subjective and largely down to cultural context"

"Hmm. I'll make it simple, the bad guys will be the ones trying to kill you!"

"Yeah. Ok. So how do I stop the bad guys again?"

"Left arm, making a fist will fire a knock-out dart; right arm fist, fires the hypno-drug. There's ten darts in each glove. In either case the utility belt has handcuff straps, secure the bad guys with the cuffs and leave the rest for the police. You'll need to try the dart gun out..."

I started inspecting the gloved weapon and Conrad slapped my arm down.

"Not in the car!" he said sternly.

"Obviously not in the car," I said awkwardly. I gingerly looked at the glove again and asked, "How do I reload?"

"I'll show you another time. You won't need to reload on this mission. This'll be a cinch. If you run out of darts, just go invisible and run away."

"How do you know it'll be that easy? Has the supercomputer already predicted that too?"

Conrad glanced over quickly and, with a wry smile, said, "Experience, Aaron. Experience. I know you'll do fine. You were going to look over the contract?"

"Right..." I said uncertainly.

The League Contract appeared in my heads up display.

It read:

"This Agreement (hereinafter referred to as "Agreement") dated January 24, 2123 is executed by "Psychic Kid" (hereinafter referred to as "RECIPIENT") and "The Super Hero Union (MSS Division) Inc" ("The Licence Holder") as licensed by the Department of Justice ("The Department"). The RECIPIENT has requested that The Licence Holder release to it the following technologies ("SUPER POWERS"). See schedule A. The SUPER POWERS will be supplied at no charge provided they are used within approved missions authorised by The Licence Holder.

1. The SUPER POWERS are proprietary property owned by The Licence Holder.

2. The SUPER POWERS are not public domain and nothing in this Agreement shall be construed as permitting the use of SUPER POWERS to any other person, robot, replicant, surrogate or organisation without permission from The Licence Holder. The SUPER POWERS shall be released only to RECIPIENT and shall be used only for purposes in line with policies published by The Department.

3. The SUPER POWERS, and/or any modified or enhanced version thereof, shall not be discussed, communicated, given or offered for sale by RECIPIENT, to another entity.

4. The SUPER POWERS remains the licensed property of The Licence Holder.

7. The Licence Holder shall be neither liable nor responsible for any maintenance, nor for correction of any errors in the SUPER POWERS.

8. The SUPER POWERS are provided "AS IS" without any warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied. In no event shall The Licence Holder or the Department be liable for any damages, including, but not limited to, direct, indirect, special or consequential damage, arising out of, resulting from, or in any way connected with the SUPER POWERS whether or not loss was sustained from, or arose out of the results of, or use of, the SUPER POWERS or services provided hereunder."

There was another 12 pages. I skipped to the bottom and gestured to accept the contract.

Conrad braked hard, swerved off the roadway and down an alley. We came to an abrupt stop an arm's length from a brick wall with my heart seemingly pounding outside my chest. The shell-like door rose up and I scrabbled out sideways.

After a few reassuring breaths of New York air, I remembered that I was on a mission. I looked around, up, down, around and then focused on my new super-suit. I inspected the gloves that cleverly concealed my dart guns. I aimed my right arm at a dumpster, several car lengths away, my head-up display displayed targeting information. I gripped my fist hard and a bolt flew from my glove; hitting the target and the bolt glancing off.

"Camouflage!" reminded Conrad.

"Oh, right. Computer, activate Camouflage."

Natural light darkened and the colour tinge from the computer enhanced imaging became more noticeable. Extraneous sounds like road noise and the hassle and battle, diminished. I was cocooned from the world. I looked down at my arm and there was only shimmer of where my arm should be. Disconcerting.

Over the comms channel, Conrad said, "Activating the rendezvous app."

The app started up and a virtual reality display highlighted my crime-fighting partner's location. Improbileon, it seemed, had just descended by jet pack a block away.

"Off you go!" said Conrad in my ear, from somewhere. He was already sneakily making his way to CAT LOC for reconnaissance.

I ran down the alley following virtual arrows projected on the ground kindly provided by the heads-up display.

Improbileon was waiting for me. I saw her green outline, just an outline, of her swirling cape and winged helmet. She, too, was in invisibility mode.

"Hello, new guy," came a frail sounding voice. She sounded as scared as I felt.

"Improbileon... Wow, that's a mouthful, isn't it? I'll have to think of a nick name for you. I'm Aaron, by the way." I said as confidently as I could.

"Shh," she said. "No, real names. Just hero names."

"Oh, right. Sure. I'm Psychic Kid."

"I know," she said imperiously.

"She knows," came Conrad's voice over the headset.

I winced.

"This way," said the caped shape. The direction she was supposedly pointing was unhelpful and I did not need it anyway, the computer displayed the path.

"What's going on, Captain?" asked Improbileon.

I was about to reply but then I realised the question was meant for Conrad.

"Advance to rear of highlighted retail outlet. Enter via fire door. I've disabled alarms. Crime event in T minus 30 seconds. Wait until the crime is recorded before unmask. Camera drones alerted," came Conrad's assured commands.

***

## Chapter Eight Unleashed

### Thursday, January 24, 2123 (30 seconds later).

We arrived at the door and Improbileon broke through the lock using a device I could not see. We entered into a huge, upmarket food store. I could see people running away.

"Apply your psychic powers, PK," urged Conrad over the headset.

"I sense mystery and food. A great combination," I replied.

I could sense clearly, but not hear, Conrad grinding his teeth.

The intelligence system that provided my supposed psychic powers were working well.

At the traditional style delicatessen counter, my heads-up displayed identified figures with a red-tinge around their outline; two men in black clothing with black hoods covering their faces, holding tasers. They were threatening the robot shop assistant and stating their demands.

"Kobe Beef, Almas Caviar, Matsutake Mushrooms, Alba truffle, Gruyère Cheese..." stated the taller of the two robbers.

Perhaps in olden days a robber's demands would be for cash, when cash was an untraceable commodity easily used for ongoing purchases. But ever since money, that is, coins and notes, had been nano-chipped it was no longer a useful commodity to steal; by the time a robber exited a bank with their swag, any stolen money would have been invalidated and made worthless. No, in 2123, the only things to steal were unchipped things with True Value and not state-controlled barter tokens. These two robbers obviously thought they could could become rich by stealing expensive food stuffs.

The robot assistant was still keen to provide excellent service despite the robbers stated intentions of robbing the store. "How much kobe beef?" the robot asked pleasantly.

"All of it!" grunted the robber.

"We only have three pounds in stock, will that be sufficient," chirped the robot.

"Yes. And hurry up!"

"Can I tell you about our specials this week? We are offering an exciting new range of salad bar options," claimed the robot.

"Just the caviar!"

"And how many tins of Almas Caviar?" said the robot keen to select the right quantities of produce for the robbers.

"All of that too. All of the beef, caviar, truffles and cheese!"

"And all the Matsutake Mushrooms too?"

"Yes!"

The assistant robot hurried to collect the materials, extending its arms to collect tins on high shelves. The second robber pushed the items off the counter into a large sack. "Ok, ok, we have enough tins. Just get the cheese."

"You can't carry all the Almas Caviar tins?" asked the robot helpfully. "We could have them delivered for you, no extra charge."

"You dumb, robot!" sneered the robber.

"I need to take your name and credit details," asked the robot.

"This is where we say goodbye, tin man," laughed the second robber.

"Activating alarm system and security gate," said the robot softly with an apologetic tilt of his head.

But the robbers were prepared for that, having already jammed the security shutters. Their plan had nearly succeeded. They were about to leave the shop and take a few steps to their unlicensed hover-chairs, when Improbileon emerged from her invisibility cloak and blocked their way.

"Not so fast, thief!" said the superhero, but without the authority that you would expect from such a Norse God-clad specimen.

"Whoa," I said. This was the first time I could really see her. She was a really impressive cosplay valkyrie; the winged helmet, the metal breast plate, the leather-effect studded mini-skirt, the thigh high boots and cape.

Upon a signal provided behind the scenes by Conrad, a dozen miniature Quadcopter drones, no bigger than dinner plates, suddenly popped up from around the room and zipped into the store from the open doorway. They were there to provide mainstream video coverage. One of the drones immediately came too close to the shorter robber and he swotted it away, crashing it into a pile of food stuffs.

"Mon-Fracking-toe!" exclaimed the lead robber as he looked around. He regained focus on Improbileon and loosed his taser at her. The electric talons bounced off her chestplate.

"Unmask, PK!" said Conrad in my headset.

"Excelsior!" I said and became visible. Improbileon was in the doorway and I was down an isle. We had the robbers surrounded. I announced, "Don't do anything stupid, because that's our job..." But my voice trailed off as I switched between left arm and right trying to target the two robbers and losing track of the sentence.

"It's your job to be stupid? Yeah that figures," said the second robber.

"That's not what I meant," I said adopting a crouching pose aiming at both robbers with separate arms.

"Who are these bozos?" said the first. "On my mark, go to plan B."

"Plan B?" I said.

My earpiece bleeped. It was a warning signal that I had yet to be trained on. I heard Conrad say, "They're going to make a run for it."

"You'll find out! Now!" And suddenly there were tins of caviar being thrown at both Improbileon and me.

I ducked but as my new boots had no traction on the shiny store floor, I fell into a rack of pastries.

The robbers charged at Improbileon but she activated her force field and they bounced back. However due to Newton's third law of motion (for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction), the goddess was pushed back too. She performed a backward somersault out of the door of the store. Two of the Quadcopters followed her down to capture her impromptu gymnastics on camera from several angles, probably to be looped in slow motion and auto-edited into promotional videos for the next few weeks.

I found my feet quickly and aimed my right arm at the nearest robber and loosed two darts. They hit and bounced off the robber regaining his feet. Bounced off?

The big guy came straight at me. I loosed two more darts. One hit the robot assistant. Strangely, that dart worked fine on the metal man. "Oh my," the robot said as it spun to the ground.

But not on the robber, he kept coming closer and punched me in the stomach. While my force field defected some of the blow, I still bent double and was winded, wondering what to do next.

Then he made a mistake; a real blinder. He hit me in the face. Bad mistake. The strange part of my PK costume design; the spikes extending from my mask, they don't break off easily. The robber's fist hit the spikes and, well, they must have hurt. The guy started screaming in agony. He had managed to break off multiple spikes with his hand. The spikes remained lodged in his fist.

I staggered around in a daze. Fortunately the helmet was designed to reduce impact damage but the punch still hurt. The robber was still screaming. He now had his back to me and I could pull off his hood. He looked back at me in horror. The guy was forty-something, going bald, regular features. He didn't seem the robber-type but I guess there is no such thing anyway.

I pointed my left glove at him and loosed another dart. It hit him in the forehead, he produce a new scream on top of his existing screams then fell to the floor with a few disco moves and sounding like a siren winding-down.

Meanwhile, the other robber tried to make a run for it but as he jumped over my partner lying in the doorway, Improbileon triggered her force field again. Newtonian physics were on her side this time, with the ground having her back and the robber was propelled upwards, hitting the doorway, managing to catch his outfit on the shutter catch, swung back and was left dangling.

***

### Thursday, January 24, 2123 (2 hours later)

"Didn't I tell you not to go on a mission?" said Terri, as I stumbled through the apartment door like a drunkard.

"What? How?" I said, wondering whether she was the one with psychic abilities.

"Are you hurt?" she said almost revealing some sympathy for me as she espied my brace to support the neck injury sustained during the fight against those dastardly, generic, robber people.

"Well, I have a bit of whiplash," I said.

"Good!" she said firmly. "Let that be a lesson!"

"How did you know I've been on a mission?"

"It's been on the news channels... a new superhero... who else could it be?"

"So what did you think?"

"The robbers were right. You were clowns. You and the Princess. Both of you," she sneered.

"It was my first time..." I said defensively.

"And the name they gave you? Peaky?"

"It's Psychic Kid!" I said growing annoyed with Terri's attitude. I am normally pretty tolerant of her wind ups but I had had a seriously challenging day and I was hoping for more of a superhero's welcome on my return home.

"That's not what they are calling you. Watch."

I grumpily sat beside her. Terri rewound the broadcast news to the after battle interview.

"There was no reporter there," I said amazed as the 3D holoscreen image presented this hip female news reporter, the type that would be happy reporting back from the edge of a volcano or a war zone, but instead was apparently standing next to me at the crime scene. She was asking, Psychic Kid, questions about the incident.

Terri laughed sarcastically. "You can't believe anything on holoscreens. They cut the reporter into the scene using computer graphics. It's child's play in 2D and not much harder in 3D. Reporters always like to be seen at the crime scene, looking like they had something to do with sorting it out. They just patch them into the scene," explained Terri.

My anger quickly transferred from Terri to the news casters.

"So tell me, Peaky, how did you know this crime was going to happen?" said the holographic reporter.

"They did not say, that. They did not call me Peaky," I protested.

My projected image responded to computer generated reporter via the voice disguiser helmet, "My psychic abilities warned me that a crime was about to happen."

"Yes, I did say that," I said. "But I was interviewed remotely, via a Quadcopter not by some flim-flam reporter."

"Flim-flam?" mused Terri.

"It's a Britishism," I explained.

The news report had cut back to the point, where the robbers were throwing tins of caviar and I fell into the pastries. When I stood up, I was covered in red jelly and cream. I understood what Terri meant. It did seem rather slapstick, especially after seeing my partner's backward somersault.

The news report cut back to an interview between the reporter and Improbileon. "Were you worried for your safety after the two robbers had knocked you down?"

"No, I was not worried at all but you know who should be worried? Evil doers!" said the valkyrie superhero through her voice changer, making her sound aggressive. She poked at the camera to make her point and left the scene.

"Hmm, a bit of a compensation attitude, there," I mused.

The reporter did her summing up. "So there you have it, bad guys. You better change your ways or you will be facing two potent new superheroes, Queen Improv, and Peaky the side-kick guy."

"It's PK. Psychic Kid, not side-kick guy! I have PK on my chest!" I complained in a cartoon voice.

"I tried to warn you. I bet Karmen is grinding her teeth too," said Terri.

"Karmen?"

"That's Improbileon to you. Or now better known as Queen Improv," smirked Terri.

"You know her? And you know her secret identity?"

"I guess I shouldn't have said that."

"I guess that was only her first name. What's her surname?"

"Geddit. Oops," said Terri, sarcastically pretending to be embarrassed.

"Karmen Geddit?" I queried.

"I shouldn't have said that. She's been good to me."

"You were a super hero too, weren't you?" I asked irritably.

"I can neither confirm or deny," said Terri, with a huff.

"Come on, spill the beans. You know I'll get the story from Conrad."

"Have a try, Peaky! See how far you get," she teased.

"He told me Max's super hero identity," I said smugly.

Terri stood abruptly and said sharply. "Fine. Bring him into it. Get the story from him. Don't worry about me." She ran to the bedroom.

I sat back amazed. What did I do now?

I looked over the newscast again. I smiled. It was pretty funny. Not ROFLOLMOA but certainly LOL. I wondered what had got into Terri. Some form of mixed emotion; Regret? Jealousy? Mixed with worry for my well being? I could hear Terri in the bedroom making an unusual noise. I went to the door. Was she on the phone? Laughing? A quiet laugh? I knocked and opened the door slightly and poked my head in. Terri was lying face down on the bed. When she heard the door open, she twisted around and flung a pillow at the door. "Get Out!" she shouted.

OMJ, she was crying! That sound, that sound I hadn't heard before, that was sobbing! What? Hard-as-nails-Terri... crying? This did not make any sense to me. I paced up and down.

I don't often use pen and paper but I found pen and paper, I always have a stack of paper for my cob web research business, and wrote out the following:

Terri – Aaron

She told me not to go on mission. I went on Mission and made fool on myself on TV.

She told me to make my own hero name. I was given new stupid hero name by TV reporter.

She told me Improbileon's real name. I asked her about her being a superhero.

She said that was a secret. (I think). I said I'll ask Conrad.

She said Conrad would keep her secret. I said he had spilled the beans on Max.

She said don't worry about her feelings and left the room to cry.

Hmm. This is a tricky one. I reviewed my handwritten scrawl and concluded I needed to practise my handwriting.

Then it came to me. Perhaps... perhaps... it was because I mentioned Max!

I paced the room a few more times, not hearing anything more from Terri's room.

I knocked gently on the door and said through the door quietly, "Terri, do you want a cup of tea?"

"Yes," I heard. "Yes, please."

***

### Thursday, January 24, 2123 (5 minutes later)

I brought her tea in bed. She had climbed under the covers and had propped herself up with pillows. She did not make eye contact as I sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Did they give you any training?" she asked quietly.

"No. Conrad said it would be on-the-job training, the best kind."

"Sink or swim," she muttered as she sipped her tea,

"What?"

"They talked about it being the best way of inducting new heroes either train-train-train or sink-or-swim. Ask Conrad about it. He'll tell you."

"Ok," I said.

Terri went quiet.

"Are you ok?" I asked.

"Always the direct question..." she said quietly.

I smiled grimly and raised my eyebrows to query that remark.

"If you recall, we're supposed to be splitting up," she continued in the same soft tones.

"I don't want to split up."

"We're not good for each other. Come on, Aaron. It's not the end of the world. We live, we learn, we upgrade."

I looked away. That hurt. Her comment, that is, not me turning away, despite the brace around my sore neck.

"But this afternoon I felt an old emotion. I couldn't figure out what it was at first."

"Oh?" I muttered, still looking away.

"It was like I was there with you," she said. And she touched my hand.

"Concern?" I said, daring to look into her tear-ravaged eyes.

"You know. Like when you were in hospital after your base jump debacle?"

"I remember that it happened," I said because I was delirious for the days my leg was being rebuilt.

"It was like that," she said.

"So, you're saying my mission, the fight, has rekindled some affection towards me?" I said hopefully.

"No. I was just worried that you might die."

"But that's a positive sign. I mean, for us?"

"No. Not really. Never mind."

"But I do."

"Yes, that's sweet, Aaron. Maybe in a different life or a different timeline?"

"Timeline?"

"I wished I'd never taken you to Mad-Sci-Soc. It is raking over bad memories. I just want peace. Peace, some genuine friends and a dog. A real dog." She turned over and sighed, "I'm going to sleep now."

That meant I was to sleep on the couch.

At least Terri did not complain about the tea.

As I crept out of the bedroom, Terri called out, "Don't stay up late. Remember we're going out tomorrow night."

I finally felt like a superhero. Apparently this is what it takes: being bashed around by robbers and humiliated on channel news. It felt good. It felt good because despite her rejecting words, I had a feeling that my relationship with Terri was on the mend.

***

### Thursday, January 24, 2123 (Later that evening).

With this new inner glow and ignoring my aching limbs and sore neck, I had to do some work. I had to pay the rent. With Antonio as the landlord, the deal I had with him was to deliver results from my freelance Legacy Net Research and while most of the same information was, of course, available on the Holoweb, Ms Bell has to take its cut and so the price for that information was high. In comparison, I was cheap with no pop-up adverts, even if I was slower. So I bartered information for rent. However I needed to deliver the information to particular deadlines otherwise there was the fallback to the another payment method, the common one used by regular folk: money! Real money that I did not have. Since Antonio's demands for research was pretty low, it did leave me with lots of spare time but not a lot of cash.

One of the downsides of the arrangement was that occasionally we were asked to move apartments as Antonio sorted out a specific deal. Antonio liked to keep his property occupied. It kept vandals and decay away from otherwise empty or unsaleable properties. The property market still had not recovered from the Long Shakedown 30 years previously, when the Yellowstone volcano exploded just after the Third Robot War.

So after our, er... Fridge Incident, I had gone cap in hand, in person and very worried, to one of Antonio's lieutenants to report the explosion and seek a new apartment. I received a surprising response. The lieutenant clapped me on my back and congratulated me. "Excellent," he said. "We had a comprehensive, silverstien-ian insurance policy on that property. Can you do something similar for this one too?" And he gave me an address of our new apartment. It made me feel as though I was part of a badly orchestrated insurance scam.

So I needed to do the work that night. I needed to show Terri that I could my side of the complex unwritten contract of household bill payment. The way we split the costs was a good deal for both of us, Terri would have been squeezed out of the city without me taking care of the accommodation costs. And commuting was up there with her other major dislikes, like house management and having a good time.

My research on Caribbean Beaches via the cob web only took one night. The main problem was collating it with modern data from the Holo-Web. Since the ancient technology I used to access the Legacy Net had no modern Holo-Web connections, no media, no protocols, no wires to pass the data through except for the "archaeologists' tunnel". So, besides transcription, this left me just two ways of transferring data.

I could photograph the computer screen but that held the strong possibility that I might accidentally reveal my secret method of accessing the Legacy Net.

The second method of transferring data was even slower; printing on paper! Along with the ancient computer I inherited from my uncle, had come a contemporary ancient printer. I had a shock when I researched printer ink on the cob webs. In the twentieth century, printer ink was the most expensive consumer commodity on the planet, the first consumer product to be protectively monitored by chip: effectively padlocking the product to a container and to a particular manufacturer; the archetype of 22nd century corporate lock-in strategies. However the local art supplier had suitable wood-substitute paper and refill ink. I was set to go. I merely had to photograph the printed page and use text recognition facilities to extract the data to the Holo-web. That night I was able to print out the results on three pages, photograph and upload. Cross-referencing the top three beaches using geo-references and presto, the work was ready to go. I think Antonio would LOL-fest the results; three excellent beaches within the Caribbean Protection Zones and therefore largely untouched by the concomitant world. Excellent for that get-away-from-it-all experience:

The Baths, Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands, with its strange skull-like rock; just like scenery from the Monkey Island movie.

Trunk Bay, Virgin Islands National Park, St. John; protected from development for over a hundred years, no electricity or wireless connectivity.

Magens Bay, St. Thomas; a sheltered bay with a sprinkling of desert islands and palm trees, perfect for that ship-wreck/castaway effect.

This information was gold-dust; Antonio would never be able to obtain this kind of unbiased information from the holo-web without paying exorbitant executive fees.

At 3am, I triple-encrypted the message and sent it off to Antonio. I hoped I wouldn't be too tired tomorrow. I promised to meet up with Conrad for lunch and then in the evening, Terri and I had a rare dinner date with my sell-out pal, Jason and his strange animal loving, new wife, Naoki.

***

### Thursday, January 24, 2123 (the same night)

While I was printing and photographing, encrypting and emailing, elsewhere in the city something else was happening in the dead of the night. At an unlicensed barter shop in Queens, a string of humans and replicants were queueing up in response to a too-good-to-be-missed offer on a popular Holo-web recycling site. The terms of the deal were very specific: turn up in person, no virtual world trading. However, many agoraphobics had sent a replicant or surrogate instead.

At the shop counter was a single robot that was taking packets and exchanging them for other packets. The humans left elated while the replicants slunk out into the night, not wanting Police drones catching them in the city without a license.

The incoming packets went down a conveyor belt, out of the shop, into an underground tunnel, then up into a neighbouring warehouse. The warehouse had been converted into a giant factory full of moving metal and overhead gantries. At the far end, Robo-trucks were making deliveries. They were delivering fridges to teams of robots lifting the fridges and putting them onto production lines. Meanwhile the deliveries of small packets were also being worked upon by a team of a dozen robots of disparate styles and sizes but all dressed in surgical gowns. They opened each packet carefully and took a swab of the material inside. While activating a swab analysis machine, the robots would label the packet and put it in... you've guessed it... a fridge.

***

### Friday, January 25, 2123. Lunchtime.

The SHUMSS secret hideout had free food and I was not going to pass that up. So, close to lunchtime, I made my way inside the building using the pass-codes that Conrad had given me. I did not use the riverboat tunnel route but a Quick-Route via the skyscraper opposite. This was the equivalent of the member's entrance, rather than the guest lobby. The entrance was conveniently located in a McSquirrels' toilet cubicle, one with a secret door to a lift and biometrically-controlled access to a stairway, then up one floor to the platform with the zip-line.

One zipline ride gave me free reign in a kitchen fit for heroes. I had already helped myself to a freshly fabricated sandwich by the time Conrad appeared.

"They were stealing Gruyère, Conrad. That surely was not a coincidence," I said as a greeting trying to sound professional and nonchalant; I was referring to the previous day's attempted robbery of expensive food stuffs.

I confidently took a large bite of my sandwich in a triumphant flourish.

"Indeed not, PK. It seems a sudden spike of demand for that particular type of cheese has inflated its value and so it's a good target for robbers. We'll have to arrange to procure some Gruyère ourselves and have it analysed. But we have another problem on our hands..."

"We do?" I said with my mouth full.

"The Kittoffery Kart has been stolen!"

"Your water powered car?" I said but it sounded more like "Yorb-Waber-Powbeh-Barh?"

"The very same!"

I swallowed hard. The sandwich sticking to my throat, I said, "Who could have done that?

"Improbileon is investigating the probabilities!"

I swallowed some water, to allow me to say, "Are you sure you didn't just forget where you parked?"

"What an RFID location tracking failure? Hmm, improbable. We need to work out the odds!"

"Well, let's talk to her then?"

"Let's! I have some experimental jet packs on the balcony. She's at the Mad-Sci-Soc club house uptown."

***

### Friday, January 25, 2123. (20 minutes after lunch).

Whoa, Jetpacks! I tried not to show my excitement at using a jet pack for the first time. Since it was completely computer controlled (select waypoint, select landing point, automatic collision avoidance), there was little difference between a jet pack and stepping into an auto-taxi except for noise and draughtiness. The jetpacks landed Conrad and myself on the screened landing platform located on the roof of Mad-Sci-Soc. Improbileon was already there in her mighty norse god-like superhero costume. Besides the debrief after the mission yesterday, she was still a strange stranger to me.

"In civvies?" she asked.

"Yes. You should do the same, Karmen. In case there is a passing drone that scans us."

Karmen disabled her holo costume generator and revealed herself.

I thought it was interesting that she had both a holographic and fabricated version of her super hero costume. Clever. As a super hero, and yes, I was already thinking rather arrogantly as myself as being one, you could never tell when you might need to don a super suit or blend in with your secret identity.

This was my first look at Karmen while she was not in cosplay. She was more librarianal than liberational; ideal fodder for a make-over TV show. Her civilian wear was as conservative as nun's weekend outfit at a school reunion; shirt and baggy trousers of different shades of battleship gray. She really was the epitome of a female Clark Kent.

She nodded towards me in greeting.

"Let's go downstairs," suggested Conrad.

We gathered in the lounge on the ground floor.

"The WPC being stolen the night after our first mission in five years... Statistically, you know what that means?" said Karmen tepidly.

"Absolutely," nodded Conrad.

"What does it mean?" I asked.

Karmen appeared to ignore my question and said, "Aaron, is it ok if I call you Aaron? You can call me Karmen, when we're not on a mission."

"Right, yeah. Thanks. Aaron is fine. I respond to a whole bunch of names, especially polite ones. Aaron is one of those."

"Of course, it is," said Karmen with some tiredness. "Conrad informs me that you are er... friends with Terri."

"Well, we've had a few problems recently but the prospects have been looking better recently. I made her tea last night. And she didn't complain about it." I needlessly tried to explain.

"Is she well?" Karmen asked.

"Physically never better. She spends a lot of time in the Gym and... "

She held up her hand. "Ok. Right. Good. Moving on, I just want to update you on the data. I have thrown everything into the supercomputer probability model and the stats are clear..." She waved at the nearby holoscreen.

"That's your super power, right? Balancing probabilities?" I interjected.

"That's right. Balancing improbabilities is a more accurate description," she said with a hint of a smile. A complex three dimensional geometrical pattern started building up above the holoscreen computer surface. "I haven't had time to refine all the data. This is just a simple time, location and relationship interaction display but the results are undeniable."

Conrad and I looked deeply into the structure of interlocking surfaces and swirls.

"Well, well, well. I suspected it, but this is the clincher," mused Conrad rubbing his chin. "This string of improbabilities have an underlying correlating agent which while shocking, is now kind of obvious. The truth is never pretty."

"What?" I was admiring the diagram's beauty but I did not derive any meaning from it.

Karmen pointed out a layer in the model. "Let me explain. This layer is you, plotted backwards from 21st January."

"Uh-huh?"

"This is your relationship with Terri going back to 2120 according to your BragBook page, which we hacked, by the way, I presume you don't mind us and the NSA accessing your data."

"Not at all. I've nothing to hide except my tax avoidance, associations with gangsters and my cardboard box fetish."

"Nor your relationship with Terri."

"Well, I definitely want to brag about that," I smiled.

"Even if she might have something to hide?"

"Well, last Christmas..." I started to say then decided to shut up and irradiated a red face. I could not tell that story. Perhaps Terri does have something to hide.

Karmen smoothly moved on with her explanation. "So this data has been transposed and associated with this layer here."

"And that is?"

"The price of organic Swiss cheese."

"Like Gruyere?" I asked, playing along like it was a joke.

"Exactly like Gruyere."

"And this is helping us find Conrad's car?" I said, struggling to suppress my disbelief.

"Yes, because of this intersection here, on the car's development, and coincidence of it being lost after the mission yesterday," said Karmen earnestly.

"Coincidences do happen," I said, trying to defend normality. But what is normal to Mad Scientists?

Karmen explained gently, "You can calculate the level of coincidences that would occur every day, the people you meet every day with the same birthday, same name, same favourite Star-Hit de-caf coffee flavour. These types of coincidences all seem magical to us, but in reality they are within quite a limited statistical probability. No, what we are mapping here is a series of improbabilities... I guess you haven't understood the impact of this intersection here," she said, pointing to the middle of the holographic structure.

"That would be a good guess," I smiled.

"I can summarise quite easily... I can say with a level of 85% certainty that Conrad's car is now residing in the basement of the Ms Bell Research Centre in Brooklyn."

"You get that from that?" I exclaimed. "But how? There must be something I missed. How did you get from me and Terri to the price of cheese over to the location of Conrad's car at Ms Bell?"

"Right. From this vector," said Karmen pointing to an undulating surface in the model.

"And that is?" I asked.

"Max..." said Conrad without satisfaction.

***

### March, 1100.

Gruyère Cheese? Why Gruyère Cheese?

Gruyère is a hard cheese with a beautiful flavour, that improves with age; nutty, rich, sweet, and full-bodied. The Swiss say that Gruyère is the only cheese with a soul. It is Terri's favourite, always had been since a childhood trip to Switzerland. While Terri regularly bought a variety of artisan organic cheese from the local Deli-U-Like, she had also stored in the fridge an especially old slice of original Swiss Gruyere cheese that she had been saving for "a special occasion".

This story is extracted from the cobwebs, the origin of Gruyère Cheese. You can go check it yourself.

Gruyère cheese originated in the Alpine region between France and Switzerland around the 11th century. Legend has it that a traveller taught a peasant family how to make the cheese up in the hills of Riaz, at the forest's edge, with a magnificent Alpine view. The traveller knocked on the door of the dilapidated hut belonging to a group of poor shepherds and cow herders. The matriarch of the family was called Cathiau. The family had three skinny goats and one "bagne" (a puny cow). The family were bemused to receive a visitor since nobody usually trekked in their direction. The traveller lost no time in teaching the family how to make two things: huge quantities of Gruyere cheese and strong, delicious wine. The family then became rich and unfortunately, absolute "avinieros" (drunkards). Nearby farmers and residents were totally confused how this family had fine wine (with no vineyard) and an abundance of milk, cream and cheese with only a bagne and three goats.

According to the story, only one local was able to give any insight into the mystery. Crépin à la Ratta, an itinerant cobbler, was asked to come to the house to repair their shoes since they were then wealthy enough to afford such services. Cathiau, the mother avinieros, was sitting near the stove, with a butter churner, churning. To him, it seemed there was nothing in the churn and yet she continually poured a liquid from the churn into a pot on the stove. When a neighbour knocked on the door to buy some cheese, it distracted Cathiau, whereupon the cobbler quickly took the chance to glance inside the churn. Of course, the churn was empty. Empty save for a square of yellowed parchment he discovered attached underneath the lid which he took and hid in his shirt as he heard Cathiau returning. As Cathiau renewed her churning, Crépin felt a thick liquid begin to ooze under his shirt. After a few seconds her realised the parchment was squirting out a hot cream of some sort. He screamed and threw the cursed note to the floor... and hot, cheesey goo spouted from the spot! Cathiau stopped her action, looked inside the churn, and scowled. Nothing! No cream! No note! She looked disgustedly at Crépin, who sat frozen, like a "serac" (a column of ice). She cursed him violently.

The cobbler was sworn to secrecy and left under threat of the most evil witchcraft. He wisely held his tongue for years and only revealed his tale after Cathiau's death.

By this time Cathiau's family had become so wealthy that such stories were relegated to folklore. The family was so rich, in fact, that her grandson, Gruerius, could afford to build a castle in the green pre-Alpine foothills close to their former family home. Gruerius was named after the word for crane ("grue" in French). Since in those days babies were supposedly delivered by cranes and left under bushes, the name was like the modern equivalent of naming a child "Bump". Anyhow, this little joke by the avinieros inspired the name Gruyère and the family heraldic shield of intertwining cranes. The castle, the Château de Gruyère, still towers above the medieval town of Fribourg today. By 1138, Gruerius was known as the Count de Gruyère. According to historical records, in 1196, Fribourg was a bustling market town with a central street and city walls, the peasant ancestry of the Gruyères was all but forgotten.

Gruyère cheese is still made in the same valley, more than one thousand years later, using the same methods and including the same secret ingredient!

Unfortunately, the secret recipe for Cathiau's wine was lost after just one generation. The majority of the family having drunk themselves to death, taking the secret of the manufacture of their wine with them.

***

### Friday, January 25, 2123. Four hours later

"So what are you doing for Valentine's Day?" beamed Jason. Jason was my old base-jumping buddy and former Counter-Punk-Heavy-Water Music-Programmer. He had moved up in the world and was now an actuary working at the Icarus Insurance Company that specialised in the extreme sports and crowd-event market. I had joked with him in the past about "selling out" and we cackled about that; but really, he had sold out. Terri loved to point out to Jason that if he had insured me before my leg breaking base jump, she and I would have never got together. She meant that too, I imagine, from the daggers she would direct at me after saying it.

"We're doing something..." I said nodding across the table inarticulately.

Terri looked at me. Her high eyebrows rising even higher to ask silently, "Oh really?"

The question had caught me unawares. After the rush of arriving at the upmarket Rodentia restaurant, the how-have-you-been stories and food ordering, the conversation had descended into general chit chat between Jason, Naoki, his asian wife with a fox fursona, (I will explain later) and Terri.

My thoughts drifted back to the inconclusive probability modelling and game-play undertaken in the afternoon at Mad-Sci-Soc until my calendar app alerted me to the diner date arrangement. Mad-Sci-Soc had given me... "Responsibility". This was a new found sensation that I didn't feel I had encountered before. If I could tell Terri about Karmen's Max-centric improbability model would this new burden be lifted? How could I tell her in the restaurant? Uh-ho, what was that question? Valentine's day?

"Big. We're doing something big!" I said, continuing to nod.

"Can you let us in on your plans?" asked Jason with a smirk.

"It's a surprise!" I said. "I can't say anything more. It would spoil the surprise."

Terri looked heavenwards.

"Ah sweet!" said Jason.

Naoki was dressed in a designer fabricated furry, fox costume, complete with ears, tail and holographic paws, giggled in response.

"What are you doing?" I asked him realising that he was merely aiming for reciprocity.

"We've booked a day in the Sleepy Hollow Resort over in the Bronx," said Jason, gripping Naoki, who giggled again.

The Sleepy Hollow Resort was a holographic vacation resort.

"A day?" I said, looking over sharply and realising my neck still hurt.

"A whole day?" asked Terri.

"Yes, a whole day," he replied. Naoki cuddled up to him and he stroked ("skritched") her under her chin.

"What location?" asked Terri.

"We go to forest location," piped Naoki. "We run in forest." And she made a running motion with her paw-morphed hands.

"We'll also swing from trees. Swim in the lake and go rock climbing." added Jason.

"Just the two of you?" asked Terri.

"We've wanted some alone time for quite a while," said Jason staring into Naoki's big eye-lashed eyes. She giggled again.

"You've worked out the risks on that?" I asked, making a dig at his job. (Since actuaries evaluate and advise on insurance risk).

"Ok, I know it's not extreme sports, Aaron, but don't knock it. I still get my thrills."

"It does sound fun," said Terri.

I looked at her strangely. When had Terri ever had fun?

"I'm not knocking it. No. Sounds like a pleasant way to spend the day," I said, trying not to say to the former extreme sports fanatic what I really thought, "Sell out! Sell out!"

"I know it is a lot of money. But hey, what is money for if it is not for buying a little luxury once in a while," said Jason.

Actually it was not the cost I was referring to, but his choice of such a safe, disneyesque corporate pastime. The fact that it was also amazingly expensive was incidental. To me anyway but I'm sure the reason Jason repeated the cost was to maximise bragging rights.

A heavy-duty, retro, metal robot delivered a tray of food in the way food always used to be served in traditional restaurants with robot waiters. The robot jiggled its way to the table in micro steps, and seemed to sigh with relief when the tray was carefully lowered onto the table. It uncoupled itself from the tray and slipped away backwards out of our little booth. The plate covers then performed their traditional aerial dance. They seem to magically levitate from the tray, providing a synchronous, private artistic "reveal" of food presentation (camera-ready for uploading to your InstaCrumb photo page), before zooming back to the kitchen. The reveal seemed unnecessary since placement of food for each guest was always random and plates always had to be switched amongst the diners.

While this unnecessary formality played out, I thought about why I was not comfortable around Jason, Naoki and Terri all together. Individually was fine, but not at the same time. The wealth gap between Jason and myself was one reason but it was mainly to do with the fact that I had introduced Naoki to Jason several years previously. It was before I was banned from virtual worlds when Naoki and I were virtualistas, hanging out in Furtopia World. She was a fox-woman and I was a rat-man. Ratticus Norvegicus, was what I called myself but I looked too much like Mickey Mouse instead of the tough guy I wanted to portray. We finally met in real life, when I moved to New York, and I had been surprised to find Naoki carried over her virtual identity into the her real world fursona. It was more than just weekend cosplay, it was a life-style choice. Quite a LOL at the time. While yiffy in the virtual world, we were never anything but friends ("no-yiff") in the real world, Terri remains unaware of this. I don't know why I never told her. I guess I didn't want her to know about my teenagery rat identity, worried she might tease me about it mercilessly.

While I ploughed into my mushroom pie and potatoes, Terri her goat cheese salad and Naoki her forest offerings of nuts, berries and olives, Jason proceeded to wind me up between scoops of Rodentia's famous noodles.

"So how's traction in the freelance researching market?" Jason asked, starting innocuously enough.

"Fine. It pays the rent," I said. I glanced over to Terri, she was focused on her food, determined to ignore me.

"Able to hack the old cob webs without being siem-ed?" ("Siem" is a geeky term for being detected by a SIEM (Security Incident and Event Management system) which monitors for unauthorised intrusion into computer systems).

"It gets easier all the time," I lied.

"So your change of address... No link between your job and your move? I thought you may have had to, you know, clean up, change location... protect your identity. A dilemma between the net and getting netted?"

I looked over at Terri and she was patting her lips with a napkin and gave a gentle head shake to inform me that I should avoid controversy, in particular on the subject of fridges.

"No. Just part of the terms of the lease. We get cheap rent but sometimes we have to move out at short notice. We were fed up with the place anyway. Things breaking down and such," I said casually.

"Your new place is a bit further out though? Any problems there?"

"The location is fine. But the living room is a bit small. Although there's plenty of storage for my cardboard box collection. How's your food?"

"Yummy-scrummy," said Naoki enthusiastically.

"I just wondered whether freelance research was the new extreme sport?" Jason continued.

"Not a lot of excitement there, no," I conceded.

"Despite the legal hazards and the long robotic arm of the law?" said Jason sarcastically.

"I'm more counter culture than I am illegal," I lied. I used the term "counter culture" deliberately since it echoed back to the day when Jason raged that his Counter-Punk-Heavy-Water band was, in fact, anti-punk, and not, as I had interpreted, neo-punk, and thus destroying all my rationale for following him to New York.

"So no buzz there then. Or perhaps it's the cardboard box collecting? Is that where you get your kicks nowadays?" Jason said pointedly.

"Oh you know, I do stuff..."

"Like what? That would interest me. You know, like, not only interesting on a personal level but also professionally. It's important for business. I need to know how people extract their adrenaline rush. Yours in particular, old buddy, would excite my mitochondria."

I chewed my pie. "Old buddy"? He was being sarcastic. Perhaps he was trying to respond to my unspoken condemnation of his sell out to the corporatocracy. Or maybe he was trying to justify his undoubtedly superior social position. While every superhero reality TV show showed me the dangers of leaking information that could uncover my superhero identity, I still did not want Jason, of all people, to think that I had merely become a minor cog in the greasy machine; albeit a small and misshapen a cog. I let slip some information...

"Oh, you know... a bit of martial arts, jet-packing, that sort of thing..." I said offhandedly.

"Martial arts? What school? I think Icarus has the NY market." (Did I tell you that Jason works for Icarus Extreme Sport Insurance Company?)

"It's a university club. Terri introduced me to it," I said but Terri, again, refused to look at me.

"Oh... right," said Jason. "They have insurance?"

"I'm sure."

"And jet packing? Sounds a bit outside of your price range."

"Same club. Same arrangement."

"And what do they charge?"

I looked over at Terri who was biting into a slice of almond-enriched bread. "This is fantastic," she mumbled, her mouth full, pointing to the baked item, pretending she was not listening to the conversation.

"There's crypto-currency and a barter system. Quid-pro-quo," I said.

"This sounds fantastic, Aaron. Perhaps you can get me in. I've always fancied piloting a jet pack."

"I'll ask," I said swallowing hard on a largely un-chewed crust of pie.

"What's the name of this club?"

"Mad..." I started.

"Ah," Terri interrupted suddenly.

"Mad-ah?" I replied to Terri.

"Mad-a-line?" said Terri.

"Madeline?" said Jason confused. Even Naoki had stopped nibbling.

"Madeline Martial Arts," said Terri.

"And they do jet packing?" asked Jason.

"Madeline's Martial Arts and Jet Packing... Extreme Sports Training... Investment Club. So they call it... Majestic." I said unconvincingly.

"Martial Arts and Jet Packs? That doesn't really make much sense for one club..." mused Jason.

"Majestic 12," said Terri. "They have 12 extreme sports. So they call it Majestic-12. Or MJ-12 for short."

"And Madeline?" asked Naoki scratching one of her foxy ears.

"Oh... she runs the club. So we call it her club." said Terri.

Jason was chewing on his noodles and pointed towards Terri with his spork. "This is one of these University gimmicky-type club names, right?"

"Right!" we both agreed.

***

### Friday, January 25, 2123. One hour later.

Terri and I thankfully, and soberly, waved goodbye to Jason and Naoki who were clearly intoxicated by their vintage alcho-pops. While Terri received pleasant farewells from the pair, Jason bear-hugged me while uttering I-love-you-bro. Naoki gave me a, hopefully, rabies-free, wet lick. Leaving in separate auto-taxis, we saw that Naoki's foxy tail had become trapped by the taxi's sliding door and leaving it exposed and in for a mucky makeover on the journey home.

"A fabricated furry costume... I think it was a Dior. It must cost a bit," I said, rubbing my sore neck, relieved that I could speak freely in the driverless machine.

"It makes more of a statement if you wear fabricated clothes. Especially those aligned to your lifestyle," sighed Terri sitting opposite me, slumped across the back seat.

"Don't you think that maybe it is a bit hypocritical, the consumerist-conservationist message dyslexic?" I said, repeating a mantra Terri had taught me some years previously.

"It's no more hypocritical than anything else anyone does on this crazy planet," she said switching her side window to "transparent" to peer out into the busy night-time traffic of automatic vehicles.

"I think there are degrees of hypocrisy and Jason and Naoki are nearing televangelist levels. I don't think I can stand being out with them."

"That suits me fine. Just line up some other bozos to go out with to Rodentia." Rodentia was Terri's favourite restaurant. All the food was guaranteed organic and the tea tasted dianegiastic (apparently). We had no other friends that could afford the place. Heck, not even we could afford it. At least Jason provided a subsidy by paying the hyper-inflated drinks bill.

"In the meantime," she added. "Hasn't Conrad talked to you about avoiding mentioning, um... selected activities at Mad-Sci-Soc?"

"You mean, like the first rule of Mad-Sci-Soc is that you don't talk about Mad-Sci-Soc?" I retorted.

"About discretion..." she said sternly.

"I wasn't going to mention geek-central to an Extreme-Sports Insurance Salesmen. Not without mega-embarrassment. Even though you may have thought I was going to say Mad-Sci-Soc, I wouldn't have done. Besides I thought we were the A-Team, the way we handled that conversation," I said lamely.

"You've been part of the inner workings of the club just a few days and you're already blabbing all about it. Why didn't you also tell them about your psychic powers?" she said sarcastically.

"Careful these taxis have ears!"

"The taxis are probably the safest place to talk. Outside there are police-drones, spy-drones and at home countless microphones and potential for wiretaps. How do you think the supercomputers work out the pre-crime? At least in an auto-taxi there's supposedly legal privacy protection. I'm just bringing this up because... when was the first time you heard about the club from me!?"

"A couple of weeks ago?"

"Right. I didn't just blab it out."

"No."

"That's discretion."

"Sure. But only now am I starting to figure you out."

"Oh good. It's about time."

"How could I have done it any sooner? You were so discrete," I said, with an unnecessary edge.

"Go frack yourself, Aaron. I've never promised a full life history," she retorted.

"Well that's true enough, though..." I started defensively but was cut off.

"I'm moving out. I'm moving out this weekend," she said suddenly.

I was shocked. This was not on my radar.

"You can't..." I said, breathless.

"Watch me."

"Where will you go?"

"Naoki has an apartment near to my work. I know she'll let me stay."

"But... when? When was this arranged?"

"Ten seconds ago."

"Because of what I said?"

"Your sarcasm, yes. You have no idea what I've been through."

"Terri, wait. Listen. I'm not being sarcastic. I'm sorry if it came out that way. I'm with you on this. I really have learnt a lot in the last few days and today in particular. About you and other stuff. Important stuff. I am starting to see the big picture. Bigger than the fridge thing. Even bigger than Mad-Sci-Soc and the super powers. Super Big."

"The big picture has always been there, Aaron. How come you've only woken up to it now?" asked Terri, staring at me intently.

"I didn't understand. How could I have known? You have to give me a chance," I pleaded.

"You've had plenty of chances, Aaron. Yet you always seem to disappoint," she said grimly.

"It is not just about me and you."

"Well perhaps it should be!"

"I'm not talking about love and my petty concerns."

"You're not talking about love?"

"I have always loved you, Terri. From the first time I saw you... even with a broken leg. Ok, that may have been lust or the morphine... but it was love from the hospital onwards. My eyes are open wider now. I see it all. I understand what you've been telling me both directly and indirectly all along but until today it just wasn't sinking in."

"Ok. Cognitive dissonance. We understand the theory but you've cracked it in practise, have you? I'm listening."

"I have. This afternoon..." I explained. And I kept talking. Talking about the stolen car, jet packs, Karmen and the computer model, and how Terri and I featured in the computer model to solve the mystery. Finally I arrived at the punchline. "...And Karmen said, with 85% certainty, that Conrad's car is now residing in the basement of the Ms Bell Research Centre over in Brooklyn. And from the price of cheese, to the robbery at the store, to the fridge, to me, to you, there's just one link..." I paused.

Terri had listened quietly but when I left the story hanging. She held up her finger for me to stop.

"Ok," she said, reclining back in her chair. "I think you get it now." And, of course, so did she. She probably had known it for a long time, but it was knowledge that could never be uttered because no one would ever believe you; like finding fairies at the bottom of the garden or saying you enjoyed a *hit coffee from a Star Hit cafe.

We sat in silence for a minute.

"When are you going to see him?" she asked. Terri knew the consequence of the unspoken revelation.

"Shortly, I suspect," I replied. Neither Conrad or Karmen had discussed timescales regarding any visit to meet Max, since there was still the matter of how to confront him with Karmen's easily refuted hypothetical evidence.

The Auto Taxi had arrived at our apartment.

Terri leaned forward and held my hand.

"You have until Valentine's Day. You better not be lying about this big surprise," she said unsmiling but with the hint of mischief in her voice.

"I wouldn't lie!"

"Remember I'm not a sugar and spice type girl..."

"Right more like sarcastic and high expectation."

"High expectation? Me? I've been going out with you!" she teased.

Even though earlier in the evening, it was just a figment of my imagination, creating that Valentine surprise had just become my number one priority. I grinned back at her. It was as if our brain waves had re-sync-ed and I felt the rush of young love created by the push-me-pull-you roller-coaster of being in a relationship with a manic depressive. Not that Terri ever was, she just behaved like one at times.

It seemed that there was just one thing was in the way between that feeling and make-up-sex that night.

"Thank you for your journey. That will be seventeen new dollars, please," said the robotic voice in the taxi.

She walked from the taxi with her hips swinging deliberately wide, provocatively... she looked back to see where I was and if I was watching. I was, and it was not helping me as I fumbled for money in the taxi.

The hint of a smile on her face faded fast.

I was searching my pockets for cash. Er... no cash. Bank cards? No credit available. Not even credit cards or holoweb-enabled instant short-term loans. The penalty countdown counter activated inside the taxi: the machines were programmed with such a short fuse. I really did not want the hassle of another standard police-drone-scan-and-fine-management procedure and virtual world court appearance. I cursed when I realised that the chances of leveling-up tonight were reducing to zero...

"Terri, do you have any cash?"

***

## Chapter Nine Second Mission

### Friday, January 25, 2123.

So.... I had some spare time that evening. Terri had gone to bed. Alone.

I still needed to follow through with this "big surprise" for Valentine's Day. If I did a good enough job, it might just save the relationship. Terri said that she wanted peace, friends and a dog. I guessed the only thing I could offer would be a dog. But a real dog? The commitment! The expense! It would not be practical. Not now that I had become a superhero, I thought conceitedly.

While the state of my bank account would preclude many types of surprise, I did have the cob webs for advice. I found a website dating back to 2015, over a hundred years ago, and it provided guidance for a good Valentine gifts: Clean House, Cook Dinner... Hmm, I could see a few problems.

"Clean the house." Didn't they have robot cleaners in the twenty first century? It must have been a big deal back then. So not suitable.

"Cook dinner." Sounded like hard work, with some skill involved. Terri generally ate salad and raw vegetables. I could cut up some carrots and celery and buy some humus from the deli. Seemed somewhat lame though. She also liked cheese but the organic variety would be firmly outside of my purchasing capacity.

"Have someone else cook dinner." Not so good. Without money I would have to rely on friends. I couldn't count on Jason so I would have to ask one of my mates at the Home Brew vintage computer club. Since I already had IOUs with most of them, I doubted that would work. Several had already unfriended me on Egospace.

"Plan a trip and don't say where you're going." Right... Except for the money angle that would be a good idea.

"Go to a spa." That money thing again.

"Buy tickets for a show." Money!

"Compile pictures." Tried that on her last birthday. It was not a success: old holographic images of my hugging Terri and her looking embarrassed did not engender the expected nostalgia and warmth regarding our relationship.

"Write a poem." I could search the cob webs for a good poem and pass it off as my own. Nah, she'd work it out.

"Make something." Examples given were pottery, a scarf or a card. The people of the twenty first century sure were talented! I could try to track down an arts and crafts cafe, designed for those lucky souls with time on their hands, money in their pocket and hankering for good old days before robots became a social problem. I would need to exit NY to find such a place though, there's no room for nostalgic thinking in New York.

"Serenade." I could sing! I could try one of those old tunes she likes; it worked for me when we first met.

"Send flowers or a gift to work." To be successful, a considerable amount of money would be required, so another non-starter.

"Show up at her work." And not ask for money. That would be a big surprise! Ha-ha!

"Striptease." After what she said about Dameon, I don't think I should try that.

"Light candles." Fire hazard! Unrestricted flames in houses and no collision detection in trucks and cars? It must have been like practising extreme sports every day back in 2015.

"Massage." Hmm, yes! Not exactly a big surprise for Terri though. I have always been keen to give Terri a massage. I may seem rather strange if I tell you this but her skin is the smoothest, softest skin I have ever come across. She ought to do commercials for skin care products.

That was the end of the Valentine suggestions list.

How about, I thought, I turn up at at her work, serenade her with her work mates doing backing vocals, a kind of flash mob? Then offering her a hand-made pottery vase, holding flowers I had picked that day from Brooklyn Botanic and a card. A handmade card that I had made containing a beautiful poem and a voucher for free massages? That's "big", right?

I entered "dissonance" (Terri had used the term earlier) and "poem" into my search engine and extracted the following from the cob webs. It seemed suitably erudite.

"Pussy-footing with a bronze medallion.

Betwixt a wish for a Spanish galleon.

Dissonance is in her face;

But crying for the yesteryear;

The calling of time to save her breed, is rippling through the star spangled banner.

Awkward people running from laughter;

Where angels tread to silent disaster;

Empty trees, shivering in the wind;

Falling leaves, sinking in sin;

Singing songs of rugged raindrops, splashing through grey auburn hair."

The alliteration should stun her.

I copied an art nouveau motif design onto a piece of card, (I always had a lot of card knocking around to maintain my cardboard box collection), and wrote the poem with my best hand writing inside, I had to write it in capitals. Ok, my first job was complete: the valentine card was ready.

***

### Saturday, January 26, 2123.

It seemed my lazy morning lie-ins would be a thing of the past now I had adopted this Psychic Kid persona. I did not think that I was going to be doing it full time and be called upon at unsocial hours. It was 9am when I was woken from my solitary sofa slumber with a call from Conrad.

"You need to download the Su-U app," he shouted seemingly out of breathe. There was a lot of wind noise on the line. I wondered where he was.

"Oh ok," I replied sleepily.

"We have a CAT event in progress."

"Hey, what happened to the supercomputer crime prediction?"

"It wasn't predicted. It's outside our usual parameters. CATLOC upper east side: Major disturbance by a giant robot." He said "Giant Robot" loudly and clearly.

"Giant robot?" I exclaimed. I was thinking, isn't that the usual situation for the climactic scene of a Japanese Anime?

Conrad confirmed, "Giant robot!"

"This is only my second mission! Do you think I should be taking on giant robots?"

"Get ready. I'll be there in one minute."

That explains the wind noise. He was jet packing his way over.

I ripped open my rucksack where I stowed my PK costume and equipment and threw on my kit.

The doorbell rang before I had finished. It was Conrad. I opened the door, while still hopping trying to put my PK boots on. Despite my instability, Conrad shoved a jetpack into my hands.

"No Terri?" he said breathlessly.

"No," I said, standing back up. "She would have already gone to work." And in any case, Terri and I had an unwritten rule never to even look at each other in the mornings.

"Even on a Saturday?"

"She works in retail."

Conrad nodded.

The jet pack was now strapped on.

"Are we ready to go?" I asked.

"No fuel left in my pack. Karmen will meet you at CATLOC. I'll follow with drone-vision. Can I... er, set up base in your living room?"

"Uh? Sure!"

After Conrad provided some further encouragement, I engaged the device and blasted away.

***

### Saturday, January 26, 2123.

It was a bright, clear, cold day. Perfect for jet pack flight and flying the jet pack to CATLOC was easy anyway. A route was projected into my visor like it was arcade video game. And just like a video game I could chat to my fellow players; Conrad, Karmen and I conversed over the headsets.

"I've negotiated with the department and we have an exclusive on this event. Camera drones are swarming to the area," said Conrad.

"I can see the target," stated Karmen.

"What is it?" asked Conrad.

"It's a giant robot of some kind. Very primitive. Nodular." she said.

"Nodular?" I asked.

"It's built up from nodules," she said.

"Modules, perhaps?" I said.

"Take a look," she said and shared her video stream.

The three stories high, headless robot was walking nonchalantly down a street kicking a car along like a tin can. Karmen was able to get a clear view of the thing walking past a low-rise mall. It did look primitive except for its seemingly swollen joints and the rectangular patchwork across the system, giving it a slightly arts and crafts, hand-made feel. Then I recognised what each rectangular module consisted of.

"It's built with fridges!" I said.

"Fridges? Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure."

"Activate your super vision, PK," said Conrad.

"How do I do that?"

"Say, Activate super vision. Use gesture control to zoom in and zoom out."

"Activate super vision." I said and my visor directed me towards the target. I had a brief view of the robot disappearing behind a building.

"Drones are in place. We have plotted its course. Providing it doesn't deviate we can land in front of it and test its strength."

***

### Saturday, January 26, 2123.

We landed and shrugged off our jet packs. Karmen and I strode into the street. The robot was just over a block away. It looked really big, taller than a McSquirrel Logo Pylon. It felt all the bigger because I did not have any weapons that would make any impression on this monster. All I had were darts!

"Ideas, please!" I said.

"I'll blast it with an electrical bolt," said Improbileon confidently.

"It won't work," I said.

"It won't?" She said suddenly losing her confidence.

"Terri and I shorted out the apartment building trying to stop our rogue fridge with electricity."

"Fridge?"

"It's bit of a long story. I'm just saying, I bet it won't work."

"Shall I try anyway?"

"You could, I guess. It might make it angry. How about your force field? Knock out its legs?"

"PK, is right," said Conrad over the headset. "Take out the legs with the force field."

Karmen walked forward and lined her arm up to where she expected the robot's left leg would land. She braced herself, arms outstretched and loosed the weapon.

Ka-boom! One the fridge doors protecting the robot knee flew open but immediately sprang shut.

The blast had little effect except to re-direct the Robot in our direction.

"Try the electrical bolt," commanded Conrad.

Ph-zak!

The electrical bolt, as I predicted, made no difference. The robot was nearly upon us.

"Retreat!" said Conrad.

But we already were.

We ran back to the jet packs in the side alley. While the robot could not fit down the alley and did not seem to want to smash its way to us, it could still throw things at us. It tried some industrial bins before sending a small car towards us. Karmen deflected these minor masses with her force field while I screamed. Fortunately I was on mute. When the job seemed completed to the robot's satisfaction, it resumed its mission, whatever that was, and headed down the street.

Karmen and I were pressed firmly against the wall and we could feel, from decreasing vibrations, that the robot was moving away.

"Conrad, have you a plan?" asked Karmen, in that polite tone known only to librarians.

"I've called the military. Rendezvous back downtown. You should survey the crime scene first. Can you measure the footprints?"

"Very well."

***

### Saturday, January 26, 2123.

Several hours later I returned to the apartment, sweaty, carrying my costume in yet another back pack and feeling lucky to be alive.

Terri was eating popcorn on the sofa and watching mainstream news.

The newscaster was saying, "...due to the intervention by the mayor, the giant robot was eventually tracked down by military aircraft and destroyed. No thanks to the new super-zeroes, Queen Improbable and the Slip-up Kid who, after an awkward debut a few days ago, made no impression at all upon the marauding monster."

Terri switched off the broadcast as it started a replay of the trips and somersaults from our previous job accompanied with cartoon music and sound effects.

I spread my arms to invite comment. I wasn't too sure what sort of welcome I would receive from her.

"Are you ok?" she asked mechanically.

"Physically in one piece. Self esteem in many, many pieces. We were smoked! And worse than that. We've had hate mail."

"That happens a lot," Terri consoled.

"The hate mail was from Bat Guy and Nerdifer."

"Ouch. But physically in one piece. That's good."

"Thanks."

"So the robot... ?"

"We believe it was full of cheese."

"Filled with cheese?"

"Conrad is analysing a sample."

"And?"

"It's life, Jim. But not as we know it."

Terri raised her eyes. "And that's from the robot?"

"Captured from the crime scene. Despite what the Mayor and the newscast said, the military never found the robot," I said sardonically.

"So the news report was to stop panic in the city?"

"Yes. Apparently."

"So the robot disappeared where?"

"Yes. The Police drone-net failed to spot it."

"So what's next?"

"A bath."

***

## Chapter Ten Terri's Memories

### Friday, January 10, 2118.

Terri woke up with a start! Coughing, choking, water pouring from her mouth. She started to thrash about and swim. But she was not in water. She was on an operating table, covered by a medical gown. Her eyes sprung wide open and she became aware of the bright lights. She groaned, coughed and thrashed around further.

She could hear noises, quiet at first then rising, grinding, sounding like a Counter-Punk-Heavy-Water band before returning to the sounds of a primordial forest; then the forest chorus became voices and the voices became words. All the while, she thrashed.

"Karmen, stop her from hurting herself. Max, dim the lights. Take the electrodes away," said a garbled voice. At least it sounded garbled to Terri.

No shapes made sense. And when the lights dimmed, she could only see blurry figures that looked like an enlarged black and white television image from the twentieth century.

Then she felt pain. Stomach pains. She curled up into a foetal position, then stretched out straight making in guttural sounds. She vomited and had diarrhoea, at the same time. The projectile variety, from both ends! At least it was a smell-less yellow ooze. The contrasting tinges of blood made it looked viler than it smelt.

"Do you have a tranquilliser?" asked Karmen.

"That could kill her. Recovery should not be interrupted with medication. Not even nano-bots!" said Max.

Terri started to recognise voices.

"She's suffering," said Karmen.

"Get her the fluid," said Max.

"I have it here," said Conrad.

Terri could recognise his voice now. It was no longer garbled. Karmen helped her sit up and Conrad offered the drink through a straw.

"Dddddk!" Terri uttered.

"What?" asked Conrad.

Terri waved her hand at the flask in an uncoordinated fashion. "Drink!" she was able to exclaim more understandably.

Conrad held the flask close and guided the straw to her mouth. Terri sucked up a cool sweet tasting fluid. It tasted good. It tasted like <insert sponsored brand-name here>.

"Oh. Steve!" said Terri panting.

"She... well... you're ok. You're ok.," said Max, not asking a question but not providing an adequate status report either.

Terri went back to sucking on the straw, manoeuvring her own head successfully into the right position. Conrad patted Max and Karmen on the back and then sank to a chair head in hands.

Meanwhile Karmen said reassuring platitudes, such as "There-there, there-there."

"You bastard, Max." Terri panted after she had finished her drink.

"What?" said Max innocently.

"You said it wouldn't hurt!"

Conrad and Karmen looked at each other worried.

Max turned to them, "We'll update her later. Let's get her to the recovery room. We need to run some tests."

"I think the tests can wait until she's ready for them," said Karmen uncharacteristically stern.

Terri tried to move and started to roll off the table. Karmen held her back. Conrad collected her up in his well-muscled arms and carried her from the room.

"What's going on?" Terri whined as she was carried into a room and laid onto a bed.

Karmen turned to Conrad and Max and said, "Out. I'll get her some clothes and orient her." Conrad dragged Max from the room.

"Where am I?" asked Terri.

"You're in the club house?"

"Clubhouse?"

"The Mad-Sci-Soc Clubhouse." Karmen helped Terri put on some baggy clothes.

"Did Max activate the matter transfer? I wasn't there before I blacked out. Did he star-trek me up town?" Terri sounded drunk.

"Star-trek you?"

"Star Trek transportation. He said he wouldn't," said Terri feeling tired.

"Well in a manner of speaking, I guess. What do you last remember?" asked Karmen.

"I was downtown. With Max. I stepped into this big black sphere. And taking off my clothes. I had to take my clothes off."

"And that was when?"

"A short while ago. Before the blackout and the pain," said Terri.

"What day was that?"

"Today. Saturday," Terri asserted.

"What month?"

"October, of course!" said Terri goofily.

"Well, today is a Friday."

"Friday?"

"And it's January."

"January?" said Terri sobering up suddenly.

"January, 2118."

"But that can't be. I've just started at University... what's happened?"

"It's a long story... but I will tell you."

"I can't remember Christmas!" said Terri with alarm.

"Think of it as amnesia," suggested Karmen helpfully.

"It is amnesia. I can't remember anything since I walked into that ball."

"Well technically, it isn't amnesia."

"It's not?"

"No. Why not? I can't remember a thing."

"Because, technically, you," and Karmen pointed in a circular fashion at Terri, "were not there."

"I disappeared for three months?"

"Well Terri didn't disappear but, you were not around." Karmen repeated the circular pointing gesture again. "You were in suspension until we brought you back."

"You mean... I've been... what? Copied?" she said, with shocking realisation. "Max has copied me! All of me!"

"He talked to you about that?"

"For healing. Not for turning me into a puddle!"

"You've seen the mice, then?" said Karmen, her voice catching.

"So, what happened?"

Karmen looked away and hung her head.

And then, as if to answer her own question, Terri understood. "I died, didn't I?"

Karmen looked back, opened and closed her mouth before stuttering, "A month ago." Then tears started flowing. "It was your first mission..."

"And the super powers didn't work? No invincibility?"

"There were problems."

"Like I died!?"

"You're alive now, though," she said through tears. Karmen was always a cup-half-full sort of girl.

"Losing three months of my life? That's not what Max was promising."

"No, I guess not. We didn't want this."

"Not just any old three months. But my first term at Uni. That's a watershed three months. And I died a month ago you say? So shouldn't I be dead and buried?"

"We're on the leading, bleeding of edge of science, Terri. This has not been easy."

"My Mom? What about her? Does she know? How can she not know? I'd be home for Christmas, wouldn't I? Or called?"

Karmen opened and closed her mouth several more times.

"She knows I'm dead, doesn't she? She thinks I'm dead..." said Terri bursting into tears.

"This is complicated, Terri. I'm sorry. We had to tell your family, your mother and brothers. We have had your funeral."

"That's... That's.... oh no. What do I do now? Come back? Come back from the dead? Come back after I've been buried? As a ghost?" said Terri with increasing tearfulness.

"This is harder than I thought," said Karmen trembling.

"She thinks... I'm dead," stuttered Terri.

"She... she... was so proud of you."

Terri twisted her body and cried out, a cross between a wail and a scream.

Karmen hugged her. "Terri, she loved you so much."

The two cried and continued to hug each other.

"And I love her. She's so frail... Has been since Dad died... What do I do now? Go back and explain I'm not dead after all?" sobbed Terri.

"We'll go back with you. We can help explain for you. I'm sure she'll be delighted to have you back," reassured Karmen with her uncertain voice.

Terri's sobs cleared up and she put a braver face on, "Ok. Well, perhaps it is not so bad to be alive compared to being not alive. But the pain she must have suffered. Must still be suffering..."

"We'll sort it out," said Karmen.

"What about college? And friends?"

"That's not a problem."

"No?" said Terri with a snuffle.

"Max was pretty confident that he could recover you. So we intercepted the message telling the University. Changed it. Told them that you have been off with an illness."

"Pretty confident?" sniffed Terri.

"Yes. We had already told your family but just as we were about to tell the University, Max said he had a plan. We knew about the mice experiment and his regeneration plan. And we, Mad-Sci-Soc, felt we'd let you down and obviously we would try anything to correct our mistake. It was our mistake, Terri. Not yours. So that is what we've been doing. Of course, we are in a legal minefield, bringing you back to life. But it is always easier to ask forgiveness than to seek permission. What's the point of being in a Mad Scientist Society if you can't do some mad science once in a while?" she said stuttering through tears.

"I'm the back-up copy?" said Terri sarcastically.

"I don't follow..."

"It is something that Max said this morning... I mean..." Terri held her face.

"I appreciate this isn't easy for you," consoled Karmen.

"Suppose it didn't work?"

"It didn't at first..."

"You've already tried?"

"Oh yes..."

"So you've a row of dead Terri bodies out in the corridor?" asked Terri in disbelief.

"We have had some, er... Hazardous Medical Waste problems, er... yes."

"So how many attempts, how many bodies?"

"I've seen you die in the pool twice. I don't know how many attempts Max has tried," said Karmen holding Terri's shoulders gently.

"This is Frankensteinian!" muttered Terri.

"We want to run some tests on you when you are up to it. Do you want to sleep first?" said Karmen.

"Yes. I'm tired. So tired," said Terri.

"Of course. Sleep first. Sleep as long as you like. We'll be close by. There's food and hygiene facilities whenever you want them. Just call out when you're ready. Don't try to walk by yourself just yet."

***

### Sunday, January 19, 2118.

Terri arrived back at her dorm room at the University residency complex carrying a rucksack of food stuffs, mainly organic yogurts, and medications. As she traversed the biometric security, she heard a small dog barking at her. She looked down at the robo-pet that turned and scurried to a doorway. Almost instantly a head popped out from the door. It was her pal and mentor, Jenny.

"Terri, so glad you made it back. We were so worried about you," said Jenny earnestly and in awe.

"Yeah, me too," smiled Terri.

"How are you? How are you feeling?" Jenny came out and hugged Terri.

"Better."

"What happened to you? Some people said you'd died."

"Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," said Terri, quoting Mark Twain. "I had a very unusual virus and unfortunately I'm not over it completely."

"Are you infectious?" said Jenny, stepping back, horrified.

"No. But there have been some lingering effects."

"Oh?"

"Amnesia!"

"What?"

"I can hardly remember anything after October."

"What can do that?"

"I know. I haven't come across anything like it either. So, apologies in advance if I behave like a complete wombat for a while. Hopefully my memory will start kicking in soon. Do come inside, Jenny. You need to tell me about what I was doing last term. Perhaps it will jog my memory. Can I get you something to drink? Tea, perhaps?"

Terri entered her room and was jarred by the minor differences in items and arrangements in the room; different supplies on the desk, a different kettle, fabricated clothes she'd never seen before were hanging on the closet. She was having the world's first flash-forward.

"Tea? That would be Jobsian, thanks," said Jenny, sitting on the bed watching her dog sniff the room. "What do you want to know?" she asked, noticing Terri's trembling hands as she started to fuss with the kettle and packages.

"Everything. I kind of go blank after the first couple of weeks at Uni."

"Ha! Ha! Me too."

"No, really. I'm relying on you to fill in some blanks. It can be anything."

"Coursework?"

"Be serious."

"We went to an opening night on Broadway."

"We did?"

"King Kong, The Musical. You don't remember? The terrible songs? The way the King stepped out of the giant gorilla head to sing to Wray Fay?"

"The King stepped out of his head?"

"The King, when he was a prince, had been magically made into a giant gorilla. And when he wasn't smashing up the place... great special effects by the way... he'd step outside his skull and sing a love song. It was all an allegory about bankers and oil tycoons apparently..."

"You'd have thought I would remember that."

"You'd have thought, yes. I went with Doug; he's always handy for making up numbers. You went with that Max guy."

"Oh? I went with Max?"

"You don't remember going out with Max? He bought the tickets."

"I was going out with Max?"

"Your relationship status said yes."

"Oh, shiznit!"

"Well I guess anyone would forget a guy with such charisma vacuum."

"Vacuum?"

"More like a black hole. All joy from the room collapsing into his event horizon." Jenny played out the effect with a sucking sound. "Oh no, my personality is being drained!"

Terri laughed nervously.

"Surely you remember the break up with him?"

Terri hid her face in her hands. "No, I don't. What happened?" Terri asked, revealing just one eye through her fingers.

"You said that he was playing The Game."

"The Game?"

"It's a guy thing. A seduction technique."

"He was playing The Game... how?"

"Ok. I remember this clearly. He set you up in a comprising position..."

"Set me up?"

"Hmm. And then rescued you."

"Go on..."

"Made himself look like a leader and made you look small..."

"Uh-huh."

"And then he delivered the ultimate Game seduction technique..."

"What's that?"

"Chick Crack!"

"And what the GMO is that?"

"Mind reading... desire anticipation... Anybody using Chick Crack, according to this seduction technique, leaves you, the target, completely emotionally vulnerable. Nobody has any defences against that. So despite him being an utter geek... a geek's geek..."

"King of the geeks."

"You still went out with him. Does any of this jog a memory?" asked Jenny, concerned.

"Yes. Yes, it does. What a Bar Steward. I've been played for a sucker. This is the very definition of the word incredible."

"Defo. But you dumped him. It seemed amicable. He came over here with prezzies."

"Presents. When?"

"Around Thanksgiving. You had Thanksgiving with me, Poochie, and the girls, by the way. Do you remember that?"

"I'm sorry Jenny. No."

"What about Brad?"

"Brad?"

Jenny went to a cupboard door and opened it. Inside was a good looking young man. His eyes opened up.

Terri let out a squeaky scream.

"That's Brad," explained Jenny.

"Hey there, Terri. Are we going to hang out tonight?" said "Brad" amiably.

"It's, it's like Doug."

"You remember Doug but not Brad?" said Jenny bemused.

"Apparently so. When did this thing arrive?"

"Thing? This is a top of the range replicant, with enhanced eyebrow features, dilating pupils, forearm hair and everything. Rated for level 10 as well, not that you are interested in that feature. Since you don't remember, I was the one that ordered it for you. It's a generation ahead of Doug."

"It's not that I mean to be unappreciative but this is just too shock-jock. Sorry, I've suddenly feel so very tired."

"Shall I come back?"

"Could we raincheck it?"

"So no tea then?"

"Here's a teabag. I'll make you a proper cup tomorrow. I'll get some digestive biscuits."

Jenny left, after expressing more concern for Terri's well being, saying how well she looked and how good it was to see her again.

As soon as the door closed, Terri jumped onto the bed and began hitting and biting the pillow. While trashing with the pillow in her mouth, she gave a muffled shout, "Damn you Max! Damn you to hell!"

Brad wiped some dust off his hair. "So, Terri, how are you? Are we going to hang out tonight?" said the robot soberly.

Terri kicked the cupboard door shut with her foot and resumed her pillow smashing.

"So not tonight then?" came a muffled voice from the cupboard.

***

### Friday, 1st February 2123.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. This is what I feel Terri had derived from that conversation.

She suspect that Max and Daemon had been working together; both working the Game to improve their chances of seducing girls. Terri imagined a deal where Dameon would find a charming, naive fresher for Max to play The Game, play the Neg, play the chick-crack and deliver a "rescue". Emotional manipulation on steroids!

Terri assumed that Dameon and Max had used the University supercomputer to obtain personal information about Terri, breaking through all the cyber-security on her private files.

And where would Dameon learn the skills to do that? It would have been child's play for Max. Terri made the paranoid association between the two and then added further embellishments.

Max could offer "Chick Crack" by explaining Dameon's modus operandi and other insights too because They Had Planned The Whole Encounter.

By reading her social media pages using the supercomputer, Max could also identify the right art exhibition to invite her to and impress her.

Max then led her to Mad-Sci-Soc to bribe her with "superpowers" and reinforce his leadership and dominance. This was no different to Dameon bribing her with fancy clothes.

And taking a copy of her? How far did he plan ahead? If the courtship failed, had he planned to deliberately have her killed so he could start all over again with the Back Up? Max could revert to a new blank slate Terri to try to start the relationship all over again?

Terri had no proof for her theories but with some evidence and paranoia on her side, she felt it could be true... with varying degrees of certainty.

How come she could understand this so clearly now but not at the time?

She figured it out: other people's lives! You always knew what to do for other people but never for yourself. She was not the same girl.

***

### Tuesday, January 21, 2118.

Ever since the Anti-Geo-Engineering Convention of 2101, nobody could control the weather anymore. So when Terri arrived at the Mad-Sci-Soc club house, in the historic brown brick district outskirts of the University campus, there was an uncontrolled, unpredicted winter shower with sheets of rain. She ran from the Auto Taxi to the door and was soaked. She pushed open the heavy metal door and continued up the hall into the lobby area. Conrad was sitting behind a holoscreen dictating notes. He spun round when she entered and was taken aback by the beautiful drowned rat that had burst through the door. He looked apprehensively around and back at Terri, with some confusion, as if seeking administrative help.

"It is raining hard. It's like a broken drain pipe out there," panted Terri.

"Apparently so..." said Conrad distractedly.

Terri leaned over and surprised Conrad with a welcome kiss saying, "Can I just freshen up?" and wandered into the female hygenisation room.

She returned after a quick stint in the drying chamber to find Max, business-suited as usual, with Conrad.

"Ah Terri, come this way. I want to talk," said Max heartily, eyes fixed upon her.

"Hello, Max," she said with no emotion. "That's what I'm here for!"

Max led Terri into the Imaginarium and away from Conrad's quizzical gaze.

"How are you feeling?" asked Max obsequiously.

"Angry."

"Angry is understandable. Physically though?"

"Frack that, Max. Cut the small talk. I'm here for one reason and one reason only."

"Terri, Terri, no..." said Max as if predicting the negative direction of her mood.

"I want you to delete my data from the computer. I want you to wipe my back up."

"I'm not too sure what you mean, Terri." said Max dissembling with maximum reasonableness.

"You know what I mean. Don't play dumb. I know people in the fashion industry so you can't fake dumb to me," steamed Terri.

"I'm assuming you are referring to your Entangle-Scan from last October. Is that what you meant?"

"You know firefoxingly well that's what I mean."

"What about it?"

"Delete it.

"I'm sorry, Terri. I just can't do that."

"I don't want you to make any more copies of me!"

"Make more copies of you? Why would I do that?" said Max with maximum innocence.

"You conspired with Dameon to manipulate me, to trick me, some would say, seduce me, only if I was putting a positive spin on your actions, or, if I wasn't, to abuse me!" she ranted.

Max turned away from her and said with head bowed, "Terri, that hurts. Why do you think that? Me? Conspire with Dameon? It is just untrue. I swear it's untrue. Why would you think that? I rescued you from him."

"Don't pretend to be hurt. It is not going to work. Not on me now or on any other clones you may be planning," she growled.

"The very thought of abusing you, Terri. It's abhorrent to my nature. Especially... surely you must know my feelings towards you. My deepest respect for you," Max looked genuinely hurt.

"I have missed the details, Max, you know on the account of me dying et cetera," said Terri calming down rapidly. "But if you cared for me at all, then you would understand and do what I ask."

Max let out a giant sigh; the type of sigh made by a surfacing whale after a deep dive.

"If you're sure this is what you want, ok," he said finally. "If that's what you really want, I'll do it."

"When?"

"Real soon."

"I want to see you do it!"

"Like now?"

"Now!"

"Now?" Max let out another giant sigh, sounding more like a deflating inflatable airbed. "It's... it's... just not possible. Next week, maybe."

"No, this very nanosecond! Do you want me to ask Conrad to help? Or maybe Karmen?"

"Ok, ok. I was just thinking we should discuss it with them. There's lots of implications."

"Steve-knows-that-we-don't-do-focus-groups!" swore Terri. "No delaying tactics. You could just make another copy of my data when I wasn't looking."

"That's a 1000 Yottabytes of data. You don't make multiple copies," said Max seriously.

"Even more reason to delete it. It'll free up some storage space on your hard drive."

Max waved his hand over the holoscreen plate to logon to the computer.

He pointed to the holographic files floating above the plate and accessed the one with Terri's name and a date October 2117.

"Ok, do it!" urged Terri.

"Are you sure?" said Max earnestly. "This could be some kind of immortality for you. Think about it for a second. Forever young, you could have the world at your feet..."

"This is all trans-humanist nonsense. I have thought about it, Max. It is not immortality. If you bring back another Terri, then she is not me. You are bringing back another wide-eyed, naïve, idiot for you to exploit. Again."

"That's unfair. I've never exploited you and you were never an idiot. This hurts me more than you can ever know, Terri. I know you don't want to consider this at the moment but think about it... we had fun, Terri. We had good times together. Check your blog entries."

"Since I seemed to have removed my November and December Egospace entries except for a few cat videos, I don't think we, as a couple... OMJ, I can't believe I really said that... ended on a high-note."

"Then check my blog posts," pleaded Max.

"I'll put it on my to-do list. Now delete the file."

"What if I give you some assurances? A contractual commitment?"

"If you want to get legal then let's do that. I own the Intellectual Property of my own body and mind so I get to choose. I own the copyright!"

"Hmm, copyright? Maybe," mused Max. "I don't think there's a legal precedent for this."

"So I will make the precedent. Delete it. Delete the file."

"I know you won't remember this but, you know, we had safe words. Do you want me remind you of Marmalade and Rhino?"

"Despite appearances, despite DNA and some shared memories, I am not the same person, Max. Frankly this discussion is grossing me out and I am quite likely to turn violent. I'm not a violent person, but these insinuations are going to take me over the edge. I'm quite capable of attacking you and making you suffer."

"Terri, no, honestly. It will be done."

"Then do it!"

Max sighed. This time he sounded like a whale flopping onto an inflatable bed designed for whales half that weight.

Max gestured to the holoscreen and dragged the file to the holographic trash can.

"And now empty the trash can."

Max sighed again. This one sounding like a whale who had rolled off an inflatable bed with sunburn only to realise the tide had gone out and it was stuck on the beach.

"Is it done?" she asked.

The holoscreen started displaying a movie: the 2090 edition of "Gone With The Wind", with the actress who had changed her name to Harlot Scarharrah just to win the lead role.

"A movie?"

"It's the progress bar; entertainment while the computer is busy. Removing 1000 Yottabytes takes a long time. It's selected that movie because it has the same running time as the file deletion. It can't be undone now. The file is destroyed." said Max dejectedly.

"Well, fiddle-dee-dee," said Terri.

"This is a shame, Terri. A shame for both of us," said Max sadly.

She walked to the door and turned to offload another bad quote from the movie just before exiting, "Frankly, Max, I don't give a Murdoch."

***

### Wednesday, January 29, 2118.

Jenny breezed into Terri's dorm room without knocking.

Terri sitting at her desk turned sharply with surprise and grunted "Er!"

"Oh, ah..." said Jenny squirming. "Awkward!"

The non-verbal communication was clear, the boundaries of formal protocols between Terri and Jenny had been lost in November and December but new Terri was without those friendly memories having gained new levels of paranoia and she had reacted accordingly.

'Uh, oh, Jenny... " Terri said uncomfortably as she quickly assessed and understood the situation.

Jenny sat on the bed. "We were BFF-pledged, pal. I'm guessing you don't remember."

"I'm so sorry, Jenny. I feel so klutzy. Some BFF I turned out to be."

"Don't worry, sweetie. We'll have it all resolved soon. Did you get my message?"

"What message?"

"On Mind-dancer."

"Mind-dancer?"

"Oh drat. I thought at least your G-Phone would have remained up-to-date."

"No, I managed to lose my old G-Phone too. So Mind-dancer is an app?"

"It's a terrific app. The best MMI I've come across. Intuitive and reliable. Isn't it poochie?" From Jenny's bag, her robo-pet dog, connected via the MMI, ventriloquised a bark in agreement. Regarding the Mind Dancer app... Terri, like most people, could not use the MMI, being unwilling to have the techno implants and unable to afford the Zen Meditation training courses required to make the machine work reliably.

"New is goo to me. So what's the message?" asked Terri politely.

"Well, I saw you two at the medical centre. I just wondered what was going on," said Jenny friskily. "You know... Are you poorly? Or getting some secret skin care treatment again? Cos all the girls in the gang want to know how you do it."

"Know what?"

"Your skin. It's so baby fresh. What's the trick?"

Terri touched her wrinkle free face. She had not noticed that the re-gen had removed all blemishes. "Just keep out of the sun... but, Jenny, I wasn't there... I wasn't at the Medical centre."

"Or are you getting back together with Max again and need my advice," she said with air quotes around "advice".

"Back together?"

"I said I saw you... You and Max... Smiley face..." Jenny began to repeat.

"I wasn't there. Certainly not with Max."

"But I saw you!"

"At the medical centre?"

"You don't remember?"

"No."

"Are you back with your boyfriend?"

"He's not my boyfriend."

"So you are not going out with Max again?"

"I'm not."

"Terri, is this another part of your sickness? Were you going back to the hospital to get checked out?"

"Four-col, Jenny!" said Terri with exasperation. ("For crying out loud")

"Well I saw you!"

"What time was this?"

"An hour ago."

"I've been studying here all afternoon," said Terri with edge, internally raging as she cursed Max.

Jenny got up. "If you don't want to tell me then that's your business but..."

"Whoa, there BFF. I'm being straight with you. Perhaps he was with a replicant that just looked like me?" suggested Terri, clinging to straws.

"You waved to me. A replicant wouldn't do that," huffed Jenny.

"Waved? Did we talk?"

"You waved but your boyfriend then sort of told you off and guided you into a treatment room."

"OMJ. This is so weird."

***

### Tuesday, January 29, 2123.

I was moving boxes in the apartment, in the room designated as the collections room.

"What are you doing, Aaron?" asked Terri, peering in. Terri had completed all her work that morning, via a collaborative virtual world, and now seemed unusually curious about my activities.

"I was er... just sorting out my boxes," I said. In fact, I was hiding the valentine card.

"A collector of cardboard boxes! I do pick' em," sighed Terri.

"It's history. You should resonate with that. I've boxes that are over a hundred years old."

"Twentieth century?"

"Yes, a couple."

"I suppose I ought to increase my attention-span to that." She touched a box, to feign interest but really, brown boxes could not hold her interest for more than two seconds.

I tried to explain. "This banana box is from 1984 which I thought was very er... allegoric"

"I don't think that is what you mean. What do you mean?"

"1984. Same year as the book title, 1984, by John Orwell."

"You mean George."

"Ok, 1984 by John George."

"Whatever," Terri sighed. "Haven't you giant robots to fight? Or to find a stolen car?"

"Conrad's car?"

"Yes."

"The robot... I need some help with that."

"And the car?"

"Conrad and Karmen were going to talk to Max about it."

"He'll deny everything."

"That's right. I was thinking that we need to sneak into Ms Bell and confirm Karmen's probability model first."

"Sneak?" said Terri with mild disgust.

I wiggled my fingers in a walking motion. "Invisibility cloaks!"

"They are really not that good..."

"At night time?"

"The place will be locked down with state-of-the-art biometrics. There's infrared sensors, trip beams, surveillance drones and pretty aggressive guard robots with their Asimov-rule-set switched off," Terri trotted off impressively.

"How do you know all this?" I asked amazed.

"From a game I played... when I was young." Terri sighed. "Are you going to Mad-Sci-Soc today?"

"For lunch, yes," I replied.

"Hmm. I'm coming with you," she said.

"With me? Like, coming inside?" I said surprised.

"Max isn't going to be there, right?"

"Right."

"I have important information," she said.

"You do?"

"I always have. But it's only now that you chumps are ready to hear it."

***

### February, 2118

Jenny was not visiting Terri's room so much. There is grief associated with the loss of shared experiences. It was like losing a friend or being cheated on. And for Terri, there was considerable catching up on study since she had missed a whole term of work.

After Terri refused to attend Emotional Release classes, as a good BFF, Jenny sought help. She went straight to the Holoweb and paid good dollars for advice from the so-you-think-your-friend-has-a-problem app. The information returned: there was no viral illness that could explain the amnesia; only a blow to the head or mental illnesses. In the mental illness category, there were a whole host of explanations.

Jenny did not share this information with Terri.

The whole BFF thing fizzled out quite quickly in that first quarter of 2118.

Terri had become quite introspective and, at first, did not notice herself drifting away from Jenny.

She became a recluse as she came to terms with her situation. She spent evenings staring at the ceiling. On one of her mental jaunts she wondered how best to describe herself. "Copy" seemed so inadequate. Since she was back from the dead, she toyed with the term "Zombie", then, to soften it and make it sound more acceptable, "Zomion", but eventually decided the analogy failed on so many different levels especially stylistically.

But the word "Zombie" concerned her. Why are we not zombies? Why do we have consciousness at all? We could just be brilliant zombies, capable of retaining information, responding to and reacting to the world programmatically like a robot? Why have the inner life of consciousness? And since she was experiencing it, how could the 1.4kg lump of moist, pinkish-beige tissue inside her skull give rise to the sensation of "reality"? A question never adequately answered by science.

Terri came across another term, "homunculus" which, from the days of alchemy, represented a man-made being. A being that was less-than-human because it had no soul. Terri did not feel she lacked a soul, just energy. She had been painfully building up her body's stamina by regular trips to the gym where Jim the Gym-bot worked her to exhaustion; initially within 5 minutes. (But she was improving).

Using the excuse that she was working on a twentieth century media studies course, after exercising, she started using the informatique department to gain access to unfettered French and Icelandic information. The university had free use of Language translation software which was otherwise highly restricted. This allowed her to read vast amount of material that circumvented most of the Holonet information clampdown. On her searches using Yaggle, she came across the question posed by the Swamp Gas Man, "If a man was reconstructed atom by atom, from swamp gas would he be the same man?" The analogy was startling, that was her! Could she be the same person because she was made from exactly the same atoms? Even if they were spun up to be exactly aligned in a quantum entangled matrix? She thought she could be the first Swamp Gas Girl, an exact "graft" of the original Terri, derived from asexual propagation.

She shuddered at the thought of this technology if it were to be widely adopted. Suppose a dictator or a banker stopped all other forms of reproduction except asexual grafting of themselves creating a monoculture of Napoleons? Would he then also create a monoculture of Josephines for them not to have sex with every night?

So the conclusion from the Swamp Gas story was that as Swamp Gas Girl, she was not the same as the original Terri, despite having exactly the same memories up until the point of entry into Max's big black ball. Is that all you are, she asked herself, your memories and a body?

What about the soul?

So did she even have a soul? What is a soul anyway? Is it just an old fashioned concept used by organised religion to keep the masses toeing the party line? Do you lose your soul if you have been through a matter transporter? How could she be the same Terri if the original had already died?

Terri discovered, several weeks into her investigations, that scientists had suggested that the soul really does exist. They even had a theory for it, the theory of neo-biocentrism. It proposed that quantum information inhabits the nervous system within microtubules of the brain cells meaning that each human (and animal) is a projection, in this universe, from another and the two are linked by quantum mechanics. Perhaps using the same strange features as Max's machine, Quantum Entanglement. According to the ancient texts, this theory was developed by Dr. Stuart Hameroff when studying near-death experiences. Contrary to the materialistic theories of the mind, where the mind is just an computer, he offered an alternative explanation of consciousness that it was, he proposed, a fundamental property of the universe.

"The reality of this universe is based solely upon our ability to experience it," Terri read. "A basic property of physical reality is only accessible to the quantum processes associated with brain activity. Our brains are simply receivers and amplifiers for the proto-consciousness intrinsic to the fabric of space-time. If your heart stops beating, the blood stops flowing, the microtubules lose their quantum state, you lose the conscious experience. The quantum information within the microtubules, though, is not destroyed. It cannot be destroyed, it just distributes and dissipates into the universe at large."

The theory concludes that "something" will live on after the death of your physical body. The sake of a better word, a "Soul". It may be possible that the original Terri's quantum information could exist outside of her body, perhaps indefinitely, as a soul. Perhaps in another interconnecting universe.

So while new Terri may be conscious, have the same body chemistry and memories, she may not have the same soul as the original. She liked this theory of quantum consciousness because of its explanation of near-death experiences (not that she had any), astral projection (nor them), out of body experiences (nor these) and reincarnation (this is the one that hit home with her!) without needing to appeal to religious ideology.

"Holy Monsanto hydraulic-fracturing-fluid! There is a soul!" thought Terri, in a sweat. "There is a soul, and, ipso facto, I must have a soul too. But I am unlikely to have the same soul that inhabited old Terri. Her soul was lost while I was created inside her body as a separate entity but with her memories!"

At this epiphany, Terri stopped her studies for a few days as she raged at Max and mourned the loss of her former self, the loss of her old soul.

She eventually returned to the question of how best to describe herself. Terri eventually settled on the term NBOMNS: New Body, Old Memories, New Soul; which she pronounced as "Bombz".

She pondered the number of Bombz-Terri's that Max could have created. She knew that Max had, at least, attempted to copy her more than once. Was she the first to survive? Has Max tried again? Did Jenny see another Terri Bombz? Could she track her other selves down? Should she track them down? Would other Bombz track her down? Could they all pass through the same biometrically controlled security controls? Security! That was worth considering. What was her life worth to, say, dark actors, state organised or criminally organised, if she ever made a fuss as she was already registered as being dead? She certainly could not refer to herself as a "Bombz" when going through security.

Terri asked Karmen these questions while on the visit to her mother in Minneapolis. Once they boarded the train and the logistics of the trip had been discussed, Terri fell silent and languished in gloom. Karmen made a comment about how old Terri was always full of life and fiesty... that comment lit the blue-touch-paper for Terri to launch a diatribe over all the different aspects, legal, moral, spiritual of being a Bombz that she had been researching.

After politely listening to Terri's rant, Karmen started to pooh-pooh the more outlandish concerns. But then Karmen, as she attempted to model the outcomes from different scenarios on her G-phone, she admitted that Terri did need to worry since all of her probability models failed. There was no concept of a being like Terri within the algorithms. It was a totally new concept, unparameterised and uncalibrated. Without being able to identity the exact reason why, new Terri's safety worried Karmen. She advised Terri to keep a low profile, not to interact with Max (not as though she ever wanted to again), or the other Terri Bombzees, if any existed, which Karmen doubted anyway, even after Terri recounted Jenny's story of bumping into her double.

Terri recalled the day she arrived to confront Max and remembered Conrad's confusion on seeing her. Had he just seen another Terri Bombz? Was that why Max agreed to delete her data file because he had already replicated her? But a new Bombz created without Conrad's and Karmen's help? So that Max, alone, could indoctrinate her?

***

### Saturday, March 1, 2118

Terri's tearful reunion with her mother was an emotional roller-coaster, the type of roller-coaster that sent you over a lake of crocodiles where you feared you may get stuck upon, upside down.

It was near lunchtime when they arrived in the auto-taxi outside her home. The fear of this moment was a hundred times worse than she had imagined. This was the hardest day of her life. Terri sat frozen, like a "serac", inundated by the flood of vivid memories, overpowering memories of childhood drama, teenage angst and real grief when she heard the news about her Dad.

Karmen entered the family home first to explaineTerri's return to the pre-assembled family: mother, siblings and aunts. Then Terri stepped out of the taxi to gasps from old friends and family as they realised she was alive. There were tears of joy and impromptu dancing. Food was delivered by swarms of drones.

But then her mother needed to sit down with Terri. She began to weep uncontrollably. So much so, that the family dispersed, quietly leaving Terri and her mom crying together and repeating conversations of loss and grief and then disbelief, then joy, then hurt and pain. It was the pain of a twisted knife wound that would take a while to heal.

Karmen left Minneapolis. Terri stayed with her mother for several weeks.

She returned to New York even further behind with her studies but with a steely resolve to do well academically.

After the long stay in Minneapolis and Terri not visiting Jenny on returning, the BFF relationship was truly severed. A few days after her return, Terri passed Jenny in the corridor and Jenny pretended to ignore her. Terri did not even notice. This provocation failure upset Jenny so much as to make it the norm. By the time Terri recognised that she was being shunned, the relationship was damaged beyond repair.

It was a week after her return when Terri realised she had not talked to anyone. Terri was tied up in a world of Philosophy. "Cogito Ergo Sum": Descartes' first principle... no, it did not work for her.

This mental effort was tiring her out. She was fed up with research in virtual worlds, fed up with reading, watching, listening and most of all, thinking.

Of course, the alternative theory was that there was no soul. And someday robots could achieve consciousness themselves, the so-called "singularity". Perhaps the whole universe did not centre around her after all.

Terri finally knocked on Jenny's room door, holding tea bags and biscuits. But Jenny was not alone, she had a new group of friends in her room. She rebuked the friendship offering with a catty remark which was then captured, replayed and amplified on social media. Terri was too proud to try to mend the relationship again.

After a long walk in the park, she returned to her empty room feeling desolate. Well, the room was not quite empty...

She opened a cupboard.

The eyes of a dusty android lit up and dilated, "Well, hello, Terri. What would you like to do today?" said Brad.

***

## Chapter Eleven Argument

### Tuesday, January 29, 2123.

Five years later, Terri met Karmen for the first time since the trip to Minneapolis. They hugged. Karmen said how bobulous it was to see her. Conrad and Terri hugged too but less enthusiastically. I wondered why there was not the same delight between them.

But I did not wonder desperately hard. While they chit-chatted, I made a beeline for the kitchen and selected a cheese and salad sandwich from the sandwich maker. Mad-Sci-Soc had a top of the range machine and it was a joy to watch the salad, bread and cheese being freshly sliced, assembled and served efficiently and hygienically.

Sandwich in hand, I joined Conrad, Karmen and Terri for the brain storm in the Imaginarium.

They were just finishing the it-is-so-nice-to-see-you-again stage and soon settled down to business.

Karmen described her plan, "I have come up with five devastating questions to ask Max allowing us to determine the accuracy of the Improbability Model and make him confess his crimes. So this is them: One, when was the last time you spoke with a Ms Bell representative? Two, what was you doing on the night of January 23 when Conrad's car went missing? Three..."

"No, no, no," interrupted Terri. "The only reason I came down here is to stop you talking to Max."

"Okay, the other option is to break into Ms Bell and steal the car back," I suggested. "Or at least determine if it is there. That would prove Karmen's model was right."

"There are numerous obstacles to breaking into Ms Bell..." said Conrad paternally.

"The plan would use invisibility cloaks at night and, with the aid of the supercomputer, we would hack the locks, sensors and drones..." I said.

"That would take longer to arrange than a politician's paycut," said Karmen.

"Well, we do have ready-made plans for just this contingency..." mused Conrad.

"I'm sorry. I'm going to have to stop you again," said Terri decisively. "Even if you did find or recover the car. What next? You have proved the Improbability Model but you still haven't figured out how Max was involved in a legal sense. If you confront him, he would just deny any wrong-doing. In the meantime you would also have the authorities chasing you."

"Would they ever find out? We all know they are as effective as a blind man playing charades," I said.

"It would be very hard to stop them finding out eventually..." said Conrad.

"Which is why I would use improbability theory to force Max to confess," added Karmen.

"Ok," said Terri standing. "I've come here for one reason and one reason only. All this discussion is just a distraction. After I've said my piece, you can go your merry way and get into any-sort-of-trouble-you-want by yourselves."

"Ok, Terri, what have you got to say?" said Conrad.

"This is going to seem pretty unbelievable, so I'll try to talk you through it in small stages."

***

### A re-imagining of Tuesday, January 29, 2123.

Terri was right. No-one believed her. Not at first. It was just too incredible. There was shouting, crying and arguing for many hours going over the same old ground in a cyclic fashion. But hindsight is a wonderful thing, so let's just say this is what transpired. Imagine we were in an English country garden in the spring, with cherry blossomed trees and birds chirping and butterflies floating passed. We were all sipping tea and had scones, jam and clotted cream. (Remember this discussion didn't really happen this way).

Terri sitting rigidly in her seat due to her tight Victorian corset made a comical remark that she had heard that "physicists" considered the past and future all as one, that time was just a dimension to space time. The "present" an illusion created by consciousness and that was not associated to the physical nature of space-time. Conrad, Karmen and I, all also wearing appropriate English Victorian attire for this fantasy reenactment, made appreciative comments about this clever woman's humour.

But then Terri made a comment that went beyond the gentle confines of polite conversation, to-wit, an announcement, "I have to say that, by the levels of coincidences, the fact that everything ties back to Max and my own experience in losing three months of my life, and much cogitation since the events of 2117 and 2118, I am led to believe that Max has achieved the seemingly impossible..."

We stopped our tea supping for a moment, to obtain an advancement of further information.

"And what, by perchance, would that be?" said Karmen haughtily.

Terri said, "I believe that Max has successfully invented time travel."

The three of us voiced our disbelief, in suitable terms, to a woman stepping beyond the bounds of reason, "Tsk, tsk, no, no. Terri, this is a most distressing misdirection of our lovely tea party. Max is a fine gentleman and has been very kind and benevolent to us, even if slightly overly amorous in his inclination towards you, I am sure that he would not hide such secrets from us. And such technology is way beyond current technology and capacity."

But Terri insisted. She described her journey in Max's matter transfer machine and losing three months of her life. She proposed that Max could use the same technology to travel to the future and perhaps find technology to send himself back to present day or earlier times. After finishing our scones and after much discussion, we eventually conceded that Max could indeed have created an image of himself and propagated copies of himself into future times. Conrad tried to pooh-pooh the suggestion of time travel backwards in time due to fundamental laws of physics, time anomalies, and the creation of parallel time lines. He said, "And in any case, I would have noticed more than one Max wandering around."

Terri delicately described the properties of faster than light communication using quantum entanglement and its use in the matter transporter. "It could, therefore, be used in faster than light transportation of matter including the reproduction of people," she said.

Conrad, red-faced, conceded this theoretical point.

Then Terri returned to the point of whether Conrad would notice multiple Maxes.

"But would you, Sir? Where does Max spend his time?"

"At his laboratory."

"Alone?"

"Indeed."

"And not at Mad-Sci-Soc?"

"No, he moved his equipment to his personal laboratory at Quantact."

"So the opportunities of multiple Maxes in a single time zone is at least a possibility."

"He would not go about his business unchallenged. If there were multiple Maxes, one would be picked up by the Bobbies (Police). He would not have the right documentation. (Certification)."

"But," I offered to Conrad. "You, yourself, do not have the right documentation."

Conrad conceded my point, he was invisible to the authorities, and therefore, technically, yes, multiple Maxes could exist in any time zone. There were ways of avoiding the attention of the authorities with the aid of Mad-Sci-Soc's administrative Get-Out-Jail-Free cards. "But," Conrad insisted, "there would be multiple other strange things occurring that we would notice."

Karmen suggested that the trauma that would be caused by meeting one's future self would be impossible to conceal.

"While I'm sure this would be real for most people," said Terri. "I do not think this would be a problem for a person with the particular neurotical characteristics that Max exhibits."

Karmen admired Terri's little joke and agreed that his analytical demeanour would allow him to withstand such shock, especially if he was aspiring to that eventuality.

So, we agreed on the theoretical possibility of at least one, or indeed, more than one Maxes moving forward in time and the possibly, at least in theory, for his return back to this time. But what was the actual evidence that Max was indeed a time traveller, what strange anomalies has she noticed?

Terri laid out the evidence with all the skill of an Agatha Christie detective. "To everyone here we would not notice anything. The only way to understand time travel would be to experience it in the first person. To anyone else, there may be nothing to notice at all, just the merest hints that something was amiss. I can point out such an anomaly, the earliest and only obvious example. I believe it was when Max first returned to this time zone due to his clumsiness and lack of imagination."

"Oh," said the assembled tea drinkers.

"He won the state lottery in 2116."

"Shared second prize," remarked Conrad.

"Second prize in order to avoid the publicity of winning first prize."

Conrad rubbed his chin.

"And then what did he do with that money?" asked Terri, knowing the answer.

"Invested in Quantact," intoned Conrad and Karmen.

"At that time, a very small company, which then?" conducted Terri.

"Was bought up by Ms Bell," the three of us said.

"And so..."

"He was really, really rich," I suggested.

"Rich and powerful. However he still hung around at our club despite the obvious conflict of interest between developing Intellectual Property and re-using open source technology. Rather than concentrating on that, he was busy with research... on what? Sentience and Consciousness. Why these topics?"

We looked at each other and then back to Terri.

"Because," said Terri. "He is interested in another thing... not only in matters of the flesh and his apparent infatuation with me, but there is one other reason."

"And that is?" I asked.  
"Immortality!"

Saucers hit the floor.

"A thoroughly monumental and startling deduction, Terri. Pray tell how did you come to this conclusion?" asked Conrad, stretching this tea party metaphor to the diametric opposite of reality.

"I will gladly share such information, my dear Conrad," replied Terri. "Firstly he has expressed to me an opinion that I, too, should desire such. Secondly, Max is the University's most avid researcher in the science of consciousness and its maintenance between human and man-made environments, and thirdly, he has demonstrated the use of sophisticated and devious stratagems that have made me wary of all aspects of his behaviour."

"The use of devious stratagems does not imply a thirst for immortality," riposted Conrad delicately.

"True. But once coupled with his defensive tactics, his deep knowledge of psychology and the preservation of the mind beyond the limits of corpuscular endurance, then it is a logical conclusion."

"This is just too much for me to process. First you say my good friend and partner is a time traveller. Second that he has used a time traveling ability to attempt to seduce you, and thirdly, his overall and yet secret motive for this, other than carnal lust, is to live forever? Your premise is based upon assigning to him a belief in a trans-humanist agenda and yet, contrary to your supposition, he shuns upgrades himself. I find this irrational in the extreme."

"Upgrades," sighed Terri artificially, "do not... transfer in his time machine."

"Transfer?"

"Upgrades do not work in his Entangle-Scan!"

Conrad rose from the table and strode into the garden and stood motionless seemingly to admire the countryside of hedgerows and wooded copses. When he returned the need for the tea party metaphor had disappeared.

***

### Tuesday, January 29, 2123.

Conrad returned to the Imaginarium after about twenty minutes. Karmen and I were on either side of Terri. I had just handed her a fresh cup of tea.

"I'm fine. I'm fine," she sniffed, hunched over the table, brushing our attentions away.

"I owe you an apology, Terri. I'm sorry that I lost my temper. We are all scientists here and we should have been more respectful into your insights," said Conrad.

"Scientists? Mad Scientists!" challenged Terri.

"Yes, I think we've proved that," said Conrad apologetically, rubbing his head.

"But you still don't believe me, right?" she sighed. Her voice sore from the hours of yelling.

"As the Great Steve says, you can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. I haven't been connecting the dots in any direction," he said.

"Oh?" said Terri, blowing her nose.

"I have remembered something... This may be hard to retell without mentioning something that I really do not want to talk about. Not to anyone. And especially not to you?"

"We have just had a three hour screaming match and there was something that wasn't said?" said Terri sarcastically. (FYI: the tea party metaphor disguised the screaming match).

"Well, yes."

Terri sighed. "Let's hear it."

Conrad sat down and put his face in hands, "It is about your death."

***

### Friday, December 13, 2117.

A group of terrorists called the Open Genetics Alliance Group had taken over the Museum of Computer Technology and was threatening to destroy an ancient artifact, a DEC PDP-11 computing device dating from 1977 that was still working, still calculating the decimal component of pi. Pretty irrational, huh? (Pi is an irrational number).

Terri was anxious about going on her first mission until she heard OGAG's demands, which were: a) Free access to the genealogical data within the Legacy Net. b) The end of DNA profiling and manipulation of the general public genome. c) Freeing all pets from slavery. d) A flight to Iceland.

"These don't seem that unreasonable," she said to Conrad.

"They are making demands with the threat of violence. That is unacceptable," replied Conrad.

"Threats of violence against property," corrected Terri.

"Threats are threats," Conrad said to close the matter.

But Terri sensed something was wrong. Only someone with the sense of identifying the Uncanny Valley Effect would be able to spot the problem... Terri had that intuition. She kept quiet and bit her lip.

Conrad, Karmen and Terri were kitted out in full superhero-ware, riding Max's auto-auto to the crime scene. Conrad in his yellow latex, Karmen with her winged helmet and Terri with her new blue pastel Cloudera costume and continuously wavy hair; which had to be swept and held around her left shoulder.

Max was following the action via a camera equipped quad-copter drone (flying behind the A2). He had pulled out from joining the mission in person. He claimed it was due to an ear-ache but Terri suspected it was due to their recent break up. She had confronted Max a few days earlier about The Game he was playing. Playing her.

"We're here. Activate invisibility cloaking," said Conrad.

Conrad and Terri disappeared in a shimmer. But not Karmen.

"I've a glitch," she said gesturing to her headset as if she was dancing at a techno rave. She was, in fact, just trying to access the super-suit system Built In Test utilities.

"Hardware or software?" asked Conrad.

"Possibly both."

"Ok, stay here. Cloudera and I will do this. The mission is to sneak in through a side door, disarm and incapacitate the terrorists," said Conrad.

Karmen's headset displayed their departure as she continued to unravel her technical problems using vigorous hand movements.

Terri changed her comms settings from group setting to a private channel with Conrad, "Two weeks of training and now this?"

Terri had actually undergone three weeks of intensive training but she had lost count. It started with her learning how to put on her costume and then doing a single press-up (with difficulty), to full weapon training, rappelling and rope climbing. But it was not the training that worried her.

Conrad replied confidently, "You'll be fine. Just cover my back. I'll take the lead. Make sure you look good for the camera drones."

Terri hummed and said, "But I'm going in alone, aren't I? I must be the ultimate bozo to have signed up for this."

Conrad turned and looked quizzically at her, but being invisible, could only slow his rate of progress towards the steps of the museum. "Of course, not. I'll be with you," he said concerned.

"Ever since I was a child I could spot a surrogate from a real human a mile off. I've only just figured out how your super powers really work, Captain."

Before Conrad could reply, Karmen's voice came over their headset, "Why have you stopped?"

Conrad closed down the group channel to continue the private conversation. "I may not be here in person, but I am here for all intents and purposes. You have 100% of my attention and I'm piloting a super-strength superhero."

Conrad's Captain Kittoffery surrogate was the spitting image of Conrad himself. But it was more than a standard remote controlled replicant, it was customised with many additional features developed by Mad-Sci-Soc, to allow Conrad to operate the machine indistinguishable from his real self. The robot machine had advanced high definition sound to mimic his voice, "true-soul" eye optics, "touchy-feely skin with real human imperfections," the cash-cow product from Max's Quantact company, all built around a state-of-the-art robot chassis uprated to provide super strength and super endurance, as well as matching Conrad's exact dimensions and walking style. The surrogate was a perfect three dimensional match to the original human. Well, almost a perfect match because Terri noticed the difference, behavioural differences so minor and subtle that only a show-champion bloodhound in a fox-trail sniff-off could do better.

Terri was mad about not being let in on the secret. She was especially prickly considering her recent fall out with Max. She hated being duped.

"You should have told me," she said crisply.

"How could you tell?"

"Something in the way you move. The high-pitch metal scraping sound when you turn your head."

"Scraping sound?"

"You are so easy to tease, Conrad."

"I'm sorry, we should have told you. Do you want to abort the mission?"

Karmen's voice broke into the conversation again, "Is everything ok?"

There was a momentary pause before Terri said with mechanical sarcasm, "Yes. Everything is fine."

Max came over the radio, "Police data indicates that the original group have been reinforced. There are now nine terrorists inside. I'm arranging additional drone support. They'll be with you shortly."

Conrad and Terri moved forward, their grim expressions masked by invisibility.

***

### Friday, December 13, 2117. (One minute later)

Conrad had the Riffdy key allowing them to slip in the staff entrance undetected. And they remained undetected until they reached the public galleries, where the terror-gang-owned drones detected their heat signatures and signalled their controllers.

"Here comes the pigs," said a voice in the gallery above the two super heroes.

"That's an insult to pigs. Here come the worms," said another.

"Yeah. Wormy worms, we can see you!" taunted the first. "What a bunch of ones and zeroes!"

Conrad whispered over the headset, "They have infra-red goggles. Deploy flare."

Both Conrad and Terri activated their inflatable, infrared deely-bopper antenna while also deploying combat micro-drones, no bigger than a housefly, with high temperature flares to blind and confuse the gang's sensors.

In a scene reminiscent of a miniature Battle of Britain aerial combat, the SHUMSS bee-like drones switched to "aggressor-mode" and engaged in aerial combat with the terrorist's own drones; each side programmed to seek victory in the infowar. Conrad and Terri walked through this battle cloud towards the terrorist's stronghold, with the sound of snap, crackle and pop and the occasional crash of a civilian camera drone caught in the crossfire. The terrorist gang had retreated to the so-called Rebel Room holding working examples of lesser known twentieth century computers: DEC PDP-11, Cray 1 Supercomputer and the soulful Data General MV8000 plus shelves and shelves of static objects.

It appeared that there were only five terrorists but they were holding four hostages. The terrorists seemed to be dressed up as pirates from a bad Disney Pirate movie.

Conrad crept forward and started his usual bluff. "Give up!" Conrad's voice was a loud whisper which carried around the museum; his voice was relayed by the surviving friendly micro-drones to disguise his position. "We have you surrounded."

The voice projection made it feel as though Conrad was standing right behind every gang member. It was scary to most criminals but this bunch seemed unfazed by Conrad's standard trickery.

"Come any closer, Captain Douche-bag. And the hostages will be fried," said the lead gang member dressed in a black costume with a pirate's hat.

"What do you want?" came Conrad's eerie reply.

"We want to see you for a start," said a shrill voice from a female terrorist complete with eye patch and lacy shoulder pads.

Captain Kittoffery de-cloaked, appearing before them, crossed armed and legs astride. He clicked his neck one side to the other as if performing a stretching exercise before a boxing match.

"I can get you the Genealogical Data and a flight to Iceland. That's all I can negotiate. But you have to let the hostages go first," said Conrad in a stilted but most reasonable manner.

"That was their demands," said the big hatted terrorist, pointing to the two men and two women tied up and sitting on a horseshoe bench formed by the 1980s Cray-1 supercomputer. "We have other demands."

"Their demands?" asked Conrad.

"Yes, we are the Supertechs. We decided to gatecrash this little party started by the Open Genetics Alliance Group and spice it up a little."

"You gatecrashed?"

"Yes, I just said that. I thought you guys were supposed to be clever. Where's your accomplices by the way?"

"The rest of team will remain hidden until we have completed the deal," said Conrad.

"As will ours!" said the terrorist leader.

Terri quickly scanned the room for any other bad guys that were cloaked or hidden but could see none. Another bluff.

"So what do you want?"

"Gold," said the lead guy. "Five bars. You either bring it here or we'll take the metals from these old machines. They have gold in them, right? The choice is yours but you only have ten minutes before we start breaking up the antiques. Any deceit on your part and we'll start slicing up the hostages. Then you have one hour."

"What is it? Ten minutes or an hour?"

"Ten minutes to agree. One hour to get it here."

"Big bars or little bars?"

"Big bars!"

"Ok."

Then Conrad re-cloaked.

Terri asked over the radio, "Is it safe to talk?"

"Let's retreat back."

Thirty seconds later, behind a display of ancient "personal computers" (which showed different archaeologists' ideas on how such lumbering items were strapped onto businessmen and carried between buildings) Conrad and Terri resumed their discussion.

"How do we arrange to deliver five gold bars?" asked Terri.

"We don't. We go back to negotiate and incapacitate the lot of them. We take out the ones with weapons first."  
"They all have weapons. There's five of them."

"This is too dangerous for our usual theatrics. Improbileon and Max have targeting information on all five and will call in a drone strike in exactly eight minutes along with some better mainstream media coverage."

It was Max that answered over the headsets, "I have three waves of drones to arrive in eight minutes: sniper drones to take out their cloud of drones, grapple drones to take down the terrorists and some more camera drones. After that, seize any weapons and escort the hostages out. Remember the OGAG members will also need to be restrained."

"Right. Thanks, Max. Do we have drone control at the moment?"

Max replied, "They are down to a few dozen micro-surveillance systems. We've hacked into their broadcast systems and are receiving the positions of the terrorists from their systems. We do not yet have control of their drones though."

"Ok," said Conrad.

"Oh and the museum curator has said," stated Max, "there's precious little gold in the old computers. But they are extremely valuable. We've been urged not to break anything."

"Ok. Let's go back and distract them."

Conrad returned to the Rebel Room and uncloaked. The gang were prepared for him and he was surrounded by an impressive arsenal carried by the gang members: one taser, one old style shotgun, an auto-reload crossbow, a modern assault rifle and a hand pistol.

"We..." Conrad saw the scared looks from the hostages and momentarily lost his voice before continuing, "We have arranged... delivery... of twenty five solid gold coins... in forty five minutes."

"Not gold bars?"

"There's none available within the timescale."

"How much is that?" asked one of the gang.

"Lots," confirmed Conrad.

"Hmm. It is enough but," mused the big hatted gang leader, "why don't I quite believe it?"

"Because we're monitoring the Police channels?" replied the taser-equipped henchmen.

The woman terrorist gave him a withering look, one that could have stopped a platoon of marines in their tracks. The henchman merely shrugged in response.

Conrad responded. "We went to the top, not to the Police. They won't have heard anything yet," he lied.

"Caught you out again, Captain Circus-Clown," snarled the leader. "We've heard plenty on the Police radio. They said... if you don't return in a few minutes then they are flooding the place with Police drones. Something that doesn't worry us?"

"Oh?"

"We have contingency plans."

"Of course. Yes, if we don't report back then that may be true. I'm sure the Police will do something rash. Let's not give them that excuse, eh? That doesn't suit anybody."

"So they are going to give us gold coins?"

"Yes. Is that acceptable to you?"

"Frack-waste. You haven't even tried to negotiate. This is a set up," screeched the lady terrorist.

Conrad looked up at his head-up display: twenty, nineteen, eighteen, sixteen... "We just need a gesture of good faith from you..." he stuttered.

"LOL. No way," guffawed the leader.

Three... two... one...

The timing was perfect; pizza box-sized drones rushed towards the five armed terrorists. As soon as the machines had clear views of their targets they fired tranquilliser darts and mesh nets. The lead terrorist fell straight to the ground. Before being brought down by darts, the guy with the shotgun managed to shoot a drone as it raced into the room. That drone was after the pirate with the taser so he was able to trigger his electric weapon towards Conrad. The cables hit Conrad in the back and discharged 50,000 volts but had little effect. Conrad's latex suit was designed to handle such attacks. Conrad had his back turned since he was busy seizing the automatic rifle, the weapon that could do the most damage. He took the rifle and bent the barrel even before the drugged gunslinger had hit the ground.

Meanwhile, Terri uncloaked, "Excelsior!"

Cloudera looked dazzling but neither her appearance nor subsequent battle was not captured by any camera drone. She launched a kung-fu spin kick at the woman terrorist. Two drones followed the woman to the floor and sprayed glue-mesh onto her limbs, pinning her to the ground while she yelled.

The fifth terrorist armed with a crossbow successfully took out the grapple-drone that was targeting him. He then fired multiple crossbow bolts at Terri. Most missed as Terri turned sideways, but one hit her in her upper arm and she cried out in pain. In full berserker mode she ignored the pain and activated her new super power force field to deflect the other on-target crossbow bolts winging her way. Terri counterattacked with her lightning weapon. Even with the crossbow bolt still in her arm she was able to aim and activate her main offensive weapon. Lightning flashed from her wrist and blew the guy back against a display shelf which started a domino effect of crashing shelving units. As each shelf, carrying priceless ancient computer equipment, toppled, something else strange was happening: the drones died. They spun out of control, flew into walls and crashed to the floor.

Terri looked at her wrist mounted device. Had she done that? No she hadn't. Crawling on the floor the gang leader, without hat, or indeed hair, had located and activated their secret Wunderwaffe; the reason for their confidence against the Police and super vigilante attacks. Their defence was an Electronic Counter Measures device that could wipe out all drone control and communication in a room; attack drones, defence drones, microdrones and cam-drones. If he had used it one nanosecond before the drones entered then the battle would have been completely different.

There was another crash behind Terri. It was Conrad. Or rather, the Conrad surrogate, that had just fallen to the floor. Just like the drones, the radio connection to the surrogate had been cut and the electronics fried.

Terri looked over to the hostages. They were bound and gagged still strapped to the Cray computer. Their eyes were wide and alarmed. They were signalling to "look-out-behind-out-you" in eye-speak.

Terri felt a dart hitting her other arm. The man with the taser was the last man standing and had targeted her. The taser dart was connected by cable back to the dumb, and now terrified, looking terrorist guy. Terri only felt a tingle from the taser weapon but it had electrified her swirling hair into a sun-ray shaped halo and her cape had become stiff as a tombstone. Overcome with pain, anger and a bad hairdo, she unleashed her lightning bolt weapon with a snarl.

That was a big mistake.

Sure, it knocked out the last remaining bad guy but the lightning bolt also travelled back up the taser cable, as electricity has a habit of doing, and knocked her backwards into a display case.

Terri died when a heavy 21 inch Cathode Ray Tube monitor dating from 1999 toppled over from the display shelf, and fell on top of her.

***

### Tuesday, January 29, 2123.

Conrad related most of this story in the early evening of Tuesday, January 29. It not only described Terri's heroics but also to set the scene immediately afterwards.

Conrad skipped desolation felt by the Mad-Sci-Soc members but Karmen's head in hands indicated just how bad they all felt. Five years on, the wounds were still fresh.

The point that Conrad wanted to make concerned remarks made by Max after Terri's demise when Max was beside himself with grief and rage.

***

### Saturday, December 14, 2117.

"Why! Why! Why won't they release her body to us!" ranted Max rhetorically marching repeatedly across the room.

"We're not family. We're not doctors, at least not medical doctors," sighed Conrad slumped in his chair. "Honestly, Max. What could we have done anyway?"

This was the day after Terri had died. Her body was about to be returned to her mother, her funeral would be later that week. Conrad and Max were mooching in the Imaginarium not wanting to go anywhere or do anything except cry, mourn and swear at the gods.

"You know what we could have done. Regenerate her. Her whole body if necessary."

"She was brain dead and brain damaged by the time the paramedics arrived."

"I could capture her whole mind from her corpse and rebuild it into an entirely new body. We have the technology."

"We have?"

"Theoretically," said Max with huff.

"What about practically?"

"I've done it with mice."

"The star trek transporter?"

"Part of it. I could rebuild the body and use a mind transfer technique."

"Do the animal rights people know about this?"

"You know that I have dispensation for Mad-Sci-Soc. Besides no mouse died in the process."

"Despite the puddles?"  
"If we consider a steady state, there would be no decrease in the overall mouse population and the gene pool would be unaffected."

"You merely recreated mice with the same DNA. We were talking about brain damage..."

"Effectively the same mouse. The same mouse and the same mouse mind."

"I know about the maze puzzles. But is that sufficient for something as complex as the mind?"

"I transfer using a holding matrix to freeze all brain functions and then copy from that!" said Max proudly.

"Holding matrix?"

"Sorry, Conrad. There's just some aspects of the technology that are a bit difficult to explain."

"Try. Besides, I'd thought you told me that the mind could not be held in a computer."

"That's not completely true. A copy of a whole person can be made, but transfer of the mind is the difficult part of the process. It is the difference between making a copy of hardware versus the transfer of operational software, while it is in the process of calculating. Hardware? A piece of cake. Matter is matter. The mind though... entirely different. Human minds and computer software? There's an analogy but in practise it's vastly different. It would be fine if the mind was all electrical impulses, but it isn't. It is an electro-chemical system. Hence you need an electrical-chemical device for managing the transfer of human software in its working state, and by human software, I mean, the mind."

"So you've done that?"

"I have a prototype. I have a prototype Holding Matrix. For mice."

"And you want to use it on Terri? After a thorough test on mice?" mocked Conrad.

"I can regenerate whole mice. You know that. I can regenerate a whole Terri too. I do have a back up copy of her physical body. Just not a way of restoring her mind. And even if we did, it wouldn't be the same Terri. It would be a younger Terri."

"That doesn't sound so bad. At least she wouldn't have had the experience she's just been through. We could make some improvements in her training... But I thought you didn't have equipment for a complete human body replication."

"I can build that in a couple of weeks. But we would just create a pile of flesh. A very nice looking body but nothing more."

"But I've seen the mouse experiment, their speed around the maze..."

"Did you understand anything about what I was just saying?" said Max.

"I have a PHD. I understand," sniffed Conrad, although clearly he did not. "You need this mind matrix thing? What did you call it?"

"The Holding Matrix," said Max irritably.

"And without it?"

"The mind is scrambled. The human brain is wonderful at self organising after a brain injury, but mind transfer could lose everything: the ability to walk, talk, see, smell. Let alone more subtle aspects of memory or personality."

"So let's do it." encouraged Conrad. "Let's build this matrix. And recover Terri."

"The matrix for the mouse took years to develop," sighed Max. "I wouldn't be able to do the same thing for a human mind and make it reliable. I could cheat with a mouse mind but you can't take short cuts with a human mind, can you? It would take too long."

"So its not possible at all?"

"I think a self-organising nano-tech solution could achieve a viable platform. But that would take hundreds of years to build and hundreds of years to test. The funny thing is, and I find this hilarious, although no-one else would. The holding matrix is only required for short time; the time taken for the physical brain itself to be rebuilt. Just a few seconds at most."

Conrad coughed, "I'm sorry, Max. I have been away from your research for quite a while. Are you saying you could have a solution in a few hundred years?"

Max said, "I'm pretty certain that in five hundred years, with the right starting conditions and organising program, I'd be able to develop a suitable holding matrix for human mind transfer."

Conrad said, "I cannot even begin to contemplate your calculations for this. Why five hundred years?"

Max shrugged, "It is just math. The number of atoms multiplied by the number of actions to be performed multiplied by the time taken by the processor, the organic computer processor."

"And it can't be paralleled? An infinite number of processors?"

"No, it's layered, one action on top of another and so on. There's thousands of steps that need to be completed. It is like playing thousands of games of three dimensional chess to spot the checkmate conditions. Each check-mate being a location in the brain that potentially could hold a memory or a synapse that could make a decision."

"Can the supercomputer help?"

"It helped devise the program. But no, this needs to be on an organic system. An organic processing machine."

"Organic?"

"Yep. Who'd have thought it, huh? Human minds need organic material to support the electrical charges, chemical composition and so on. And to build the matrix you need an organic computer."

The conversation finished uncompleted as a synchronous communications call came through to Max.

***

### Tuesday, January 29, 2123.

Conrad paused in his story. Terri and Karmen were transfixed by Conrad's words. Meanwhile I was scratching my head. While I could recall the whole story Conrad had outlined from my G-Phone's Life-Recorder app, any appreciation of what I was listening to went right over my head.

Conrad finished the story quickly. He stated that a few days after that exchange, Max came up with a plan to regenerate Terri and when asked about the problem of the Holding Matrix, he merely stated he had found a way around it.

"I guess," said Conrad, his deep voice shaking with emotion, "that I should have asked more questions. He never discussed the Holding Matrix with me again or the need for an organic computer."

"An organic computer?" I said bemused. "What is that? I just can't even begin to imagine what that is."

Terri stared daggers at me as if to say, butt-out.

"A reasonable question, Aaron," mused Conrad.

I felt triumphant.

"We can make nano-machines from anything: metal, plastic, old tea leaves. Even viruses. To make products, say for the pharmaceutical industry, for instance, we would use bacteria."

"E. coli, for example," added Karmen.

"Oh right. We poisoned half the planet with the GMO sweeteners made from such bacteria a hundred years ago," added Terri.

"Right. So more recent developments have been the use of fungi due to their comparative robustness and stability when compared to bacteria," said Conrad.

"So, Max's experiments with mould... ?" said Karmen, with realisation.

"Taking hundreds of years... ?" said Terri in the same tone.

"So, yes. You've got it. It does all makes sense now. So Terri... I agree with you," said Conrad with tears in his eyes.

Conrad and Terri embraced and then Karmen came up and hugged the two of them.

They had connected all the dots. But I had not.

"Er..." I said.

The three of them looked at me like they were all in telepathic sync. Like members of the Borg. And I was an alien invader.

"We should make this clear. I'm sorry, Aaron," said Conrad paternally. Ouch, that hurt more than the Borg-like stares.

Conrad explained.

Mould is a type of fungus and, strangely enough, there are numerous analogies with the properties of mould and the mammalian brain. Hence why "magic mushrooms" are so effective. The chemistry in fungi translates and interacts effectively with the human brain.

Max was working on experiments with mould.

Max was working on experiments with organic computers that needed to run for hundreds of years to build the Holding Matrix for mind transfer.

Max had developed technology to travel to the future, as Terri had already discovered.

He could probably send multiple selves into the future.

One of his future selves had found time travel technology to travel to the past. This was the point that Conrad had previously disputed but now conceded. Once that mental block was removed, Conrad had concluded, like Terri, that Max could really have travelled back in time.

Conrad was now working with that hypothesis. He theorised, that Max had gone even further into the past to start the organic computer program using a mould that was affiliated with Gruyere cheese production in order to build the Holding Matrix.

This allowed the Holding Matrix to be ready and available in the present day...

And allow Max, Conrad and Karmen to revive Terri.

I spluttered a response. How did they work all this stuff out, was the question I needed to ask, but it came out as, "Wha-a-ah? Eh-um? Phhhhhh..."

"Don't you see?" Conrad explained kindly. "There is no such thing as coincidence. The Holding Matrix is built on cheese. The mould inside cheese."

"No, still nothing," I said pointing to my head.

"Traditional, organic cheese has some embedded mould. Some have really active mould, the blue cheeses like Stilton or Gorgonzola, but all organic cheeses are alive with organisms."

"Ugh. I just had a cheese sandwich," I said not feeling so well thinking of mould and mites.

"All natural products are alive. And being a living creature yourself, this is exactly the right thing to be eating, natural food, not genetically bio-engineered petroleum products from the corporations."

"Ok... But how does this help Max build the Holding Matrix?"

"How else would Max ensure that his program would persist for hundreds of years except by inserting it into a traditional process that could last hundreds of years. A cheese making process. Into a cheese that Max knew was Terri's favourite?"

"OMJ. You're saying..."

"Yes."

"And that...?" (I wasn't even allowed to complete the question.)

"Yes. That too!"

"And the robot? The giant rampaging fridge robot? He planned that too?"

"Oh no." Conrad looked at Karmen and Terri and they all shook their heads.

"That is most probably the result of Unintended Consequences," said Karmen.

"The cheese has become sentient and, I presume, hyper-intelligent. Who could have predicted that!?" offered Conrad.

***

### Tuesday, January 29, 2123 evening.

Without doubt, that was the longest Tuesday I had ever experienced. Maybe the longest day ever. Recently, it seemed like each of my days had been getting longer and longer.

My brain was numb with the number of leaps and bounds it had made through physics, psychology, philosophy, time travel and emotion. Hearing about my girl friend, the love of my life, dying as a super-hero, regenerating from a yottabyte of data with the help of a thousand year old lump of cheese. But more than that I had to wrestle with understanding the very nature of consciousness, to question the very meaning of life, personality and humanity. Not the sort of problems I would normally encounter on a Tuesday night, which usually consisted of recovering from a weekend of over-use of reality escape vehicles: soft mind-altering chemicals, virtual reality environments or extreme sports. This day of philosophy had really made a deep impression upon me. Made even deeper with the realisation that Terri could still be dumping me!

Or maybe not.

On the Auto Taxi ride back home, Terri cuddled up to me and after a few minutes of silence said, "Thank you for supporting me today."

"That was a hard day," I said.

"Totally torrid," she said absently.

"And to think all this time that the Captain was just a robot. I mean, who could have guessed? But why have a robot that looked soooo much like your secret identity? Except perhaps to disguise the robot as being a robot? A deception. A magic trick type distraction..."

I heard the purr of gentle snoring.

When the taxi arrived outside our apartment building, Terri was still asleep. I awkwardly fed a token into the taxi payment channel and carried her inside. Unlike Captain Kittoffery, I do not possess super strength and this was a feat of endurance for me despite her light weight. The biometric-active sliding doors allowed me easy access inside and I took considerable and deliberate care not to bang her head going through the doorways. She was in a deep baby-like sleep and even putting her on the bed and removing her shoes and her wearables, I didn't wake her. I covered her with the duvet and checked that the bed temperature sensor was still set to "auto". I put her in the middle of bed leaving no room for me and so I headed for the sofa to dream happy dreams.

It seemed, at first, we were back at square one the next morning. I awoke when I heard the door slide shut. She'd left the apartment without waking me. We often don't talk in the mornings anyway.

I sighed and tried to remember my dreams; but too late, they had left me too.

A holo-alert was being projected from my G-phone. She'd left me a message reading, "Off to work. There's yogurt in the fridge."

My heart stopped. I practically swooned.

"Yogurt in the fridge!" She... she... well, maybe not caring for me, but expressed "consideration". It could be she just wanted it used up. But it was tantamount to an offering, a gift, a demonstration of civility and compassion! I was psyched.

This was the closest to a love letter I received from her since I accidentally released her sextexting photos onto my BragBook page in 2121. Unfortunately I did this mid-December just before we left for an off-the-grid skiing vacation. This meant that the erotic picture plastered on my page for over a week and was viewed extensively by rare visitors to my blog; not only friends but family, aunts and uncles leaving Christmas messages. I shuddered at the memory of my stupidity and the months of misery we both suffered afterwards.

***

### Friday, February 1, 2123.

Terri's next day off was Friday. She left before me to get to Mad-Sci-Soc. When I entered the Imaginarium, she, Conrad and Karmen were viewing a holographic model of the Ms Bell Building in Brooklyn. Karmen was in full presentation mode, pointing to the building model and then back to one of her probability models.

"Watzup?"

Conrad replied, "We're just doing the sums. Thanks to Terri's analysis and logic, Karmen has programmed a probability model based on the Motive, Means and Opportunity characteristics of a time traveling super villain."

"Sums for SHUMMS, ha-ha, I geddit," I said.

Karmen's eyes narrowed at me.

"We're talking about Max, right?" I said trying to recover my dignity after general humour failure around me.

"We're taking the worse case scenario, that he really is a time traveling super villain. And stress testing our approach compared to other options: such as him being a time traveling humanitarian, or not a time traveller at all," Conrad said stridently.

"He could be any or all of those, I guess," I said.

"I'm sure he does not characterise himself as either humanitarian or villain. It is just a model," Karmen uttered in her librarian-like voice.

"And there could be more than one Max," said Conrad.

"We modeled that too. There could dozens of copies of him if he was a time traveling humanitarian but very much less if he was a time traveling evil doer," said Karmen.

"Oh?"

"Paranoia. He wouldn't trust his other selves. Probably only two or three of him if his plans were truly dark," she said.

"I see," I said, not seeing at all.

"So our plan consists of doing... exactly what he expects us to do!" said Karmen.

"Right. Dastardly," I said, wondering whether I sounded ironic or simply just confused.

"But," she continued, "adding the extra dimension, that thing that he wouldn't expect."

"What's that?"

"Stopping him from reporting to the future about our plans to prevent him going back in time to prevent our plan from happening."

"And that's going to work?"

"It has to. It has so far."

I had to stop the stage play again. The play where I was entering stage-left as a cameo and not the main protagonist. The reason: I had lost the plot again.

"So how does this time travel thing work? If he has already succeeded wouldn't he have already stopped us?" I said, trapped in my own mental loop of time traveling what-ifs and fatalism.

"I can explain this to you again but I can't understand it for you," said Karmen with mock-sweetness.

Terri looked up at me almost the first time this morning and pierced me with her stare and intensity but with the hint of a smile too, "Do you remember those old spinning records that played music at the museum? A giant spiral and the playhead would start at the beginning and run to the end."

I smiled. I smiled because Terri was talking to me. Gently and using an analogy I could understand. She had shown just such a device at the University museum and we had listened to The Dark Side of the Moon from a "Record Player". I loved the scratches. But it was bloody long though. My counter-punk heavy water MP9s are extended to a minute of furious noise. Apparently people in the 20th century had an extra 43 minutes in the day to watch and listen to a plastic disk spinning round.

"People think about time and experience it that way. As a play head. Time going forward. The music starts and continues in a spiral until it ends. There are theories that reality is continuously splitting and creating multiple universes and parallel worlds. Or that you can't go back in time and change the past because otherwise you would become your own grandfather or kill yourself and cause some Back-To-The-Future type anomaly. This is faulty logic. There's no mechanism that can stop someone in the past affecting the future. That is, if someone did manage to go back in time, there is nothing to stop time anomalies from happening. A time traveller would change the future by their very existence and no-one would notice unless you yourself are the time traveller. But the recording analogy assumes everything is fixed and it isn't. Nothing is. Time is more like computer RAM holding a virtual world. With each sentient being on the planet being a player in that virtual world. If anyone did travel back in time, then yes, they could kill their old self. They could kill their grandfather. Future events would change, overwriting what had already happened. No-one would ever detect the anomalies except the time traveller themselves."

"So you can create time anomalies? Meet yourself? Kill your younger self? Change the future?"

"You could, for example, do this in a virtual world, right?"

"I guess. Put your character on auto, create another character and kill the other."

"That's just about the same as time travel. But there is less control in the real world than in a virtual world. At least in a virtual world there is administration support making sure things don't go haywire. And if anything does go wrong, there's always recovery from a back-up."

"OMJ! I guess you're right. There's no back up of reality."

"Indeed, if reality were a product, our Stevie-ness would have never allowed it to ship. The user experience does not have good out-the-box characteristics."

"Amen."

"So you are saying that... Max... if he had gone back in time knowing about our plot now, then our plot would have already been subverted," I ventured.

"Right. We would not be here."

"So he could be one of the seven deadly dwarfs of the apocalypse?" I suggested.

"He could be all seven," said Conrad completely deadpan.

"But because we are here, then our plot must succeed because otherwise it would have already have been stopped?" I suggested.

"I think this means we have the potential to succeed," offered Conrad. "Nothing is set in stone. But if we do not stop Max completely, then he could still go forward in time, then arrange to go back in time, and change what we are doing now. This reality, this timeline, would be wiped from existence. It hasn't yet, so we have at least some probability of success."

"A very good probability," interjected Karmen in her shaky voice. Since this was her business, she had to have her say.

"How do you prevent a time traveller and any of his copies escaping to the future? They just have to out-live us. Either that or you have to kill him," I said.

Silence.

"That's the plan?" I said in shock. "Kill him?"

"No, the plan is not as simple as that," sighed Conrad. "For a start, we don't know how many Maxes we are dealing with."

***

## Chapter Twelve The Big Cheese

### Saturday, February 2, 2123.

Unbeknown to us, lost in our plans to thwart Max's potential take over of the fabric of the space-time and the history of the human race, Max himself had plans of his own. I discovered this information sometime later but I've inserted it here in a perverse and belated adherence to the correct chronological sequence.

Max and six of his business-suited corporate cronies entered an unlicensed barter shop in Queens. There were no longer any queues in the shop. The market for Gruyère cheese had been exhausted, there was nothing much left to buy or steal. But Max still had some. He carried it in a small box, a cheese dish, in front of him like it was religious offering.

The retro styled robot at the counter jiggled its head jauntily.

"How can I help you?" enquired the robot happily.

"How much will you pay for this?" asked Max and he carefully lifted the lid of the cheese dish to show the robot.

The robot performed a visual check which was in fact a spectroscopic analysis of the cheese to determine its quality. The robot replied perkily, "This is a high quality product and we can offer five hundred new dollars per kilo. May we weigh the product?" The robot extended an arm.

"Not so fast," said Max withdrawing the cheese dish. "I know this a high quality product. In fact, I would say, this is the crème de la crème of Gruyère cheese... vintage and kept in impeccable conditions. I think it is worth more than that."

"I am sorry, Sir. I agree that you have a fine piece of cheese but I am not authorised to offer any more than five hundred new dollars per kilo. Perhaps sir would prefer crypto-currency?"

"No." Max smiled. "Take me to your leader!"

The robot froze for a few seconds, no doubt communicating with some hidden hive mind.

"This way," the robot said, and swayed around to a door that had slid open next to the counter.

"Wow, Boss, I've never known that demand to work before," said the lead cronie walking next to Max.

"I set up this meeting a thousand years ago, so it's long overdue," smirked Max.

The suited man smiled back an obsequious fake smile. He did not understand what Max was saying but then, he was not employed to understand Max's master plan and so remained unaware of the risks he took working for a Mad Scientist.

Out of the building across an alley, another door opened. It led into a large warehouse full of gantries and production lines. Max's band, the magnificent corporate seven, entered the building and stood open-mouthed at the maniacal industrial production in this otherwise desolate and sleepy part of the city.

A good-looking man with a clipboard came up to them and said politely, "Come this way."

As they walked past the production line where huge components were being fabricated from mammoth 3D-print machines, Max's number one cronie whispered, "Boss, I think they're building robots here. Big robots."

"That's expected," said Max confidently.

They were led into a room with refrigerators lining the walls. The man with the clipboard turned, "You were discussing the price of some fine vintage Gruyère?"

"Are you the leader? You can't be the leader. You're... just a replicant."

"That is true. But there is no leader, as such, so what you ask makes no sense," replied the replicant nicely.

"But you are operating to a plan. Who is the big cheese giving you the plan? And what is the plan?"

"You asking for an exposition? What you ask makes no sense," continued the artificial man in the same tone.

"So the plan is secret? Of course it is," said Max answering his own question.

"Plans are only known to the planner. That it is secret is a reasonable assumption," the replicant agreed, adding "Perhaps this would help you?" and it spread its arms, introducing the fridges.

The fridges doors opened slowly and the interior lights flickered on.

Max and his cronies looked at the fridge that had opened closest to them, towards the yellowing light and a gentle throb of activity within.

Then, with no warning, seven yellow blobs leapt from the fridges simultaneously and splattered onto the faces of Max and his men. They had literally come face-to-face with the big cheese in fondue form. Writhing on the ground for a minute, as they were suffocated and became still.

The replicant bent down and picked up the vintage cheese that Max had brought with him and walked from the room back to the production facilities. He gave the cheese to the first in a line of a mismatched set of robots dressed in surgical gowns.

***

### Wednesday, February 13, 2123. Ms Bell Building

As I climbed the wall of the Ms Bell building, with my rappelling equipment, I pondered how long this particular part of reality would exist. This mission was not only about the recovery of the Kittoffery Kart, saving the future from a Mad Scientist with a predilection for my girl friend (or at least the original version of her) and from a resourceful piece of cheese with a fridge fetish, but also about saving the whole of reality including my own existence. A car-sci-cheese-hole? No, probably not, let's describe it slightly more conventionally: a-fate-worse-than-death? Another fail: death is a consequence of being alive. If you never existed then how could it be a fate worse than it? A fate worse than never being alive? I think the Buddhists would agree, that never achieving enlightenment is the worst sort of karma.

I reached the top of the building. Enough of this cogitation. My mind had wandered because we had rehearsed this part of the mission dozens of times in the virtual world simulation. Mad-Sci-Soc shunned the use of virtual worlds for most activities but when it came to rehearsal for operational missions, there was nothing better. After intensive virtual world training, climbing up the side of twenty story building becomes as dull as a visit to the local McSquirrel.

However there are some parts of the mission that can't be rehearsed. Here was one, climbing over the edge onto the top of a tall building. Transition, of any sort, is risky and the transition from vertical to horizontal is the riskiest part of climbing up walls. There's often gutters or drainage of unknown strength to improvise around as well as extreme physical effort. The rappelling equipment's built-in hoist does not help once you are at the top. If I had been a better base jumper then I am sure I would have had better technique. I had a good attachment around the automatic window cleaning device and it should not have been difficult to scrabble over the edge but I still managed to make it look hard. And then there was the puddles. I found out my PK costume was not water tight and I was reminded just how cold it was in the real world, barely above freezing. I worried too, that the Valentine Card I sneaked inside my breastplate might get wet. I hoped to give it to Terri after the mission. After midnight. That would be big. I'm sure she would appreciate it. And perhaps secure our relationship in this timeline.

After I recovered my breath, I continued carefully across the roof. Conrad had hacked the Ms Bell surveillance system so the guard drones passed by with a menacing professional buzz but completely failed to recognise me as an intruder. Similarly the doors would open without resistance; no alarms would be set off.

Our invisibility cloaks made us invisible to cee-cee-tee-vee but Ms Bell was one of the few buildings in the city with human guards working alongside automated security systems. While having such men-in-the-loop was done as a job creation scheme for insomniacs, it did provide an additional security layer and a frisson to the operation. This meant we could not use the ground floor entrance. We were using the heliport door on the roof. Or rather I was. Conrad was on the ground directing me. Graphic dots were displayed on my heads-up display like a toddler's Easter Egg Chocolate hunt and the next mission objective displayed: "Go to door. Open door. Descend stairs. Call lift. Enter Lift." I found it kind of patronising, like some form of ancient adventure fairy story: "Go North, Take Lamp, Rub Lamp", but useful when I ran into technical problems... such as not being able to get through the ancient non-automatic helipad door. Conrad provided the right advice, "Twist the door handle" with the heads-up highlighting the knob. It did not look like a door handle to me. I'm not a door handle expert.

***

### Wednesday, February 13, 2123. Quantact Building

In another part of Brooklyn, Karmen and Terri had entered the Quantact building but still had to convince the internal intelligent doors to let them into Max's office.

"Hello, employees," said the door cheerfully. "The office is closed at the moment. Can I help you?"

"We're here to see Max"

"I am sorry, the boss has noted that he is not to be disturbed this evening," said the door, flashing the Access Denied lamp.

Karmen whispered to Terri, "We can't beat this machine using a set plan, we'll have to use the one thing that machines do not have..."

"What's that?"

"Intuition!"

Addressing the door, Karmen said uncertainly, "We are real er... fans. We really want to see him,"

"Ah... you must be Nerds. I'm sorry: No-Nerds-Allowed," responded the door, double-flashing the Access Denied sign.

"We have a pizza for Max. He's working late here tonight, er... right? He needs food," suggested Terri.

"There are no records of a call out to a pizza delivery service," said the door.

"It was done via a... uh... a Mad-Sci-Soc virtual world. We're friends of his," stammered Karmen.

Conrad's voice came over their private channel. "I've hacked their comms. Get the door to verify with Max."

"Check with Max. He'll authorise our entry."

The door fell silent for a few seconds and the Access Denied lamp dimmed. A green light and smiley face appeared accompanied by a happy beep.

"Ok... Can I invite you to fill out a survey on our internal food service provision?" asked the door, obsequiously taking a role which covered the collective responsibility of all building services.

Karmen gave the universal response, "Later."

"Can I ask why you have not used our internal food services?" asked the door, designed to never give up on collecting the most relevant information.

"We couldn't tell... um... whether the bread was... gluten free," suggested Karmen hesitantly.

"Thank you for your feedback. Have a nice day," said the door as it slid back to allow entrance.

Terri whispered to Karmen as they walked through, "They can pass a Turing Test but automatons are still stupid. Look," she said showing her hands. "No Pizza!"

They switched off their civvies disguise to reveal their full super-suit togs; Karmen as Improbileon and Terri as Cloudera. As a Bombz, she was wearing the freshly fabricated costume for the first time on a real mission and she liked it. She felt re-united with her old self; the original Terri that had died wearing the same design. She had no inkling that history could be repeating...

Karmen directed them to the third floor where her probability model having indicated it as the most likely location for Max's laboratory.

***

### Wednesday, February 13, 2123. Ms Bell Building

This was easy. Too easy. I admit that I am not the brightest spark in the Van-der-graaf generator, but even I could tell that something was not right.

There was Conrad's water powered car in the middle of the room, with a large car size lift conveniently located to take it to the underground car park. Surely I could not just take it, push it to the lift and get away?

I checked infrared. Something moved. Someone was in the room.

***

### Wednesday, February 13, 2123. Quantact building

Over at the Quantact building, the female Mad-Sci-Soc members stood in front of a looming big black sphere. This Death Star-like machine was at the epicentre of the time-lines splicing the old Terri and new one. It was bigger than Terri remembered but it was still the same sphere just with a slightly higher podium. She went up to it, opened the side hatch and peered inside. It was empty but dusky; a damp smell.

Karmen whispered to her over the private channel, "We have company!"

***

### Wednesday, February 13, 2123. Ms Bell Building

I challenged the heat signature outlined in yellow aiming my dart weapon at it. From behind the screen a short man in a business suit appeared.

"Maximilian Ceillingheit, I presume," I said boldly.

"Hello," Max replied. "And you are Peaky, the Sidekick Guy, I presume."

"You presume too much. I'm Psychic Kid."

"Well I do know that, Aaron. I did design the costume, devise the original name and agreed your induction."

"Hah. Manly taunts! The prelude to all superhero battle contests," I blustered.

Max smiled congenially, "It was just a tease. They'll be no contest. We're on the same side. Remember I co-founded Mad-Sci-Soc with Conrad."

"You resigned from the Club!"

"I resigned from SHUMMS, just suspended my Su-U license. I felt I wan't cut out to be a superhero. Not many scientists are. Certainly not the majority that join our club. That's why we recruited you. You're not lumbered with the same limited physical liabilities and personal safety issues."

"You're still a member?"

"Yes, I'm still a member of the club. It's in my DNA. Just not the Su-U."

"Er, then why did you steal his car?"

"I borrowed the car. I didn't steal it."

"So why borrow it? To give the patents away to Ms Bell?"

"Nothing so sordid. I needed it to fetch some supplies, I've been preparing a little something."

"Or to disable the rest of Mad-Sci-Soc?"

"Well it's true that matters have not, er, gone strictly to plan. But I have predicted this coalescence of time-lines on this day and location."

"So you are a time traveller?"

"We're all time travellers, Aaron."

"But you go forwards faster and sometimes backwards."

"Splendid! Something else unexpected. You've worked that out?" he said with amicable glee.

"Absolutely. You can't fool us, Max. But what's the point of all this?"

"Well I can tell you. And Conrad... I'm sure Conrad is listening in. Hi Conrad."

"He's listening," I said.

"It's all about the Holding Matrix. Do you know what that is?"

"It's the cheese. And your Mind Transfer device."

"Again. You're one step ahead of where I thought you'd be. Bravo. I must have missed something in my probability model. Perhaps I need to tweak the parameters associated with the vagaries of time travel."

"You've missed a lot, Max. Because this is where we stop you going fast forward into the future, to stop you going back to past and stopping this timeline," I raised my arm and threatened to dart him.

"Sure if this timeline fails I may have to loop around again. That's my super-power. It's pretty neat, eh? Ah, I understand now, PK. You see me as a threat? I'm not the bad guy here. I just want to put a small ding in the universe, not to mess it up," said Max arrogantly. "Perhaps we can resolve this misunderstanding, could you lower your weapon?"

"Not just yet, Majestro! There's an insurance excess on that ding."

"Touché. That's A-one banter, Aaron. I'm almost impressed. But you have no justification for threatening me. It's only an adrenaline-fueled reaction to your covert entry into this building."

"You stole this car!"

"Technically, since I paid for it, I'm probably the legal owner of the car."

"Er?"

"I feel I don't own it either, it's true. But as treasurer and main donor to Mad-Sci-Soc, I paid for it all. I think you'll find that legally I have substantial rights. If we started a court case, we could be arguing about it for years. I feel I am entitled to borrow it, or indeed any other club property. That includes your costume; the dart gun too, which, by the way, you have yet to release the safety catch upon."

"There's a safety catch?" I said looking at the device. I heard a warning bleep from my headset.

Too late! As soon as I looked down, Max gestured to a nearby holoscreen to activate a trap.

My psychic ability app was kicking in and sent me two further warning bleeps that, if you had the manual, translated by tone and frequency to "Danger! Force Field Activating." Max's outline changed from yellow to red.

The trap was thus, an auto-net dropped from the ceiling and spun around me, wrapping me tight like I was a fat fly in a hungry spider's web. My force field was no help; it could stop a bullet but could not stop me from being trussed up like squirrel for Christmas.

"Ah. I knew you were lying!" I said as I struggled in the netting.

"A bit of reality distortion, maybe, but no lies, Aaron. I just didn't want to be accidentally punctured by one of your darts. Since I designed them, that would be just too ironic. I know you Brits love irony but it is not my er... cup of tea. Perhaps you can call Conrad in and we can make a deal? We do have something urgent to discuss."

"Urgent? How about freeing me. That's urgent!"

Max waved away my struggle. "I suspect it is happening now. Let's see if it is being broadcast live."

He gestured again to the holoscreen to engage broadcast TV, it displayed the finals of "America Still Has Talent." A teenager was on the show singing, without tone-control assistance, the old song, Please Release Me, Let Me Go.

"You fiend," I cried out.

"Oh sorry, wrong channel."

***

### Wednesday, February 13, 2123, Quantact building

Meanwhile, simultaneously, Karmen and Terri received a message from Conrad. "PK's been stopped by Max. Be prepared!"

"Who's the visitor here then?"

Out of the shadows, be-suited as usual, stepped Max! The first proof that Terri was right. Max had been at least copying himself, and probably time traveling.

"Two Maxes. Just as we suspected," said Karmen unconvincingly.

"Ah Karmen... I thought you might have turned up," smiled Max.

Then Terri stepped out from behind her and Max was momentarily taken aback.

"Terri?! As Cloudera? Ok, not so predictable. I'm so pleased to see you here," he beamed.

"You are? I wish the feeling was mutual, Max," Terri replied, she raised her weapon arm to stop him approaching.

"I thought you would have left New York years ago..." mused Max.

Karmen interrupted. "So how many of you are there, Max? I can't believe there is just two!" she twittered as aggressively as she could.

"This is exceptional deduction, Karmen. I can go into that in a minute but I just want to say that I'm glad you're here. I need your help. Both you, Karmen and Conrad's help... even Sidekick Guy."

"It's Psychic Kid!" corrected Terri.

"Whatever. We are all doomed unless we stop this monster we've unleashed."

"It's the singularity, isn't it? You've brought it from the future!" spat Terri.

"Terri, Terri. We've gone over this; machines can never ever become sentient. They are just computer code giving the appearance of intelligence," said Max patronisingly.

"What is it then? We know you're to blame!"

"It's not me. The monster is the Gruyère... it's the cheese not a machine, that has achieved the singularity. It is sentient and apparently very nasty. It has amassed an army of huge robots with no Asimov rules holding them back. Technically, they are actually cyborgs. Cyborgs with a hive mind."

"Whether it is cheese or cyborg, we know you had something to do with it!" raged Terri.

Max tried to be reasonable. "Look, we digress. Academically interesting but we will be attacked tonight according to the probability models. Starting here and then moving out to take over New York and there is nothing on this planet to stop them except for us, Mad-Sci-Soc. We're the only ones."

"No, we're here to stop you, Max," said Karmen shakily.

"Stop me? Why? We're on the same side. We are Mad-Sci-Soc!"

"Because you're the cause of all this. You can't keep on going back and forth in time trying to find the perfect solution for your love life and ever-lasting life!" snarled Terri.

"I've sorted out both of those, Terri. I've done that alone. That is something else entirely. I've been so busy that I haven't been over to the club to let you know. Heck, if I knew you were in the city, Terri, I would have tweeted you."

"You could have at least texted," asserted Karmen, her defenses weakening.

"So it was immortality all along?" challenged Terri.

"Immortality? No, that's a fantasy. To quote scripture, death is the destination we all share. It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. But as the good Steve says, no one wants to die. No, I've been working on a solution to prolong active life. That's not immortality."

"You are misquoting scripture to suit yourself," retorted Terri.

"Amen, to that, Terri. It's the crazies that think they can change the world are the ones that do. Is it really that crazy to dream of a better, longer life? Surely, health promotion is not a sin?"

"So we've got you all wrong?" asked Karmen.

"It's now all about the cyborgs! I just need your help..." said Max, realising he was winning over Karmen, as he had done many times in the past.

"This is not just rhetorical Reality Distortion, this is real reality distortion. Distorting time lines and worst of all, facts! You ask for help but how do you know all this stuff? About the cheese and the Robot Army? You know something that you're not telling us!" growled Terri.

"I'm not really getting much of a chance..."

"Here's your chance."

"Can I just show you something? On the broadcast channels?"

"Oh for frack-sake, Max. What is it?"

"An intersection of probability lines in my improbability model plotted after the demise of Max Two."

"Max Two?"

"Yes, I'm Max Three. Your friends over at Ms Bell are talking to Max One."

"The original Max?" asked Improbileon.

"No, that would be just Max. Or Max Zero as we like to call him. He's no longer around."

"Travelled to the future?"

"It's a long story..."

"Damn you, Max. That's the Captain's catchphrase!" said Karmen with surprising venom.

"Catchphrase, no. A deflection respone. He just didn't want to talk to you," retorted Max.

Karmen spluttered.

Max continued. "I'll rephrase. I'll summarise. In essence, we are all Max Zero just forked off as different variants. Although we are planning on launching another Max into the future based on Max One. In this timeline, the original Max has been dead for a while. It seems, sorry to contradict you, my dear, we are all mortal."

"This is like spaghetti. How are we supposed to unravel it all?" shouted Terri.

"Well, you can't. Time travel makes no sense at all to anyone except to the time traveller themselves."

"So this makes sense to you?" asked Karmen.

"At the moment, yes. But I'm sure that will change."

"And this doesn't worry you?" said Karmen.

"You cannot stand in the way of progress."

At that very second, the building shook.

"What's that?" asked the women in unison.

"We're under attack. I believe that Gruyère has absorbed Max Two, with a better than 80% chance of mind meld. It understand all our plans. Hence the pre-emptive attack on us."

Conrad's voice came over the private communication channel. "Don't be distracted. Plan the Dive. Dive the Plan. Arrest him!"

Karmen and Terri look at one another and nodded, but as they stepped forward to handcuff Max. He smartly stepped back and gestured to a holoscreen.

"Karmen, Terri! This isn't the time!" said Max. "I'm going to have to stop you. Relax. You won't be harmed. At least, not by me."

Doors open in each corner of the room and out marched a stream of identical female figures. Even their clothes were the same. A Harmony style, fashionable in 2009... They formed a circle around the two super heroes. The figures were all carbon copies of Terri.

"What the freaking-cyclopic-snake-yanking activity have you been up to, Max?" yelled Terri while staring at the impassive reflections confronting her.

"Sister, you just wouldn't believe it," said the Terri clone facing her.

***

### Wednesday, February 13, 2123. Ms Bell Building, a few minutes before midnight.

On the broadcast holoscreen, directly in front of me, while I struggled with the netting restraining me, a drone video feed was following the reports of disruption on the subway system, ground tremors, roads buckling as if there were some kind of giant sewer alligator trying to break free. With the amount of radiation in the environment and the number of alligators in the sewers, a giant sewer gator attack had been foreseen by a band of entrepreneurial handbag manufacturers and had developed suitable contingency plans. But no, it was not gators or even giant rats causing the problem but giant robots built from fridges similar to the one seen in Queens a few weeks previously but bigger, armoured and weaponised. The first view of fridge-mageddon, was a robotic fist punching through a roadway causing metal and rubble flying everywhere, crashing into nearby buildings and cars, momentarily disrupting the flow of traffic, until alternative routes were calculated and the buzz of automated traffic resumed. A robot had smashed a hole in the road and rose up out of it. Without pausing, it purposefully made its way towards the Quantact building crushing auto-autos with each step, the traffic flow continued unabated, easily identifying new routes along the increasingly debris strewn road with most vehicular occupants being unaware of the monstrous robot, unless, that is, they too were stepped upon.

"Are you controlling this?" I accused.

"Me? No. This is Gruyère's doing. It controls these cyborgs. It's like a hive mind. This is the enemy. This is what we need to fight!" said Max.

I checked the feed coming from Karmen and Terri. They'd been captured. "Somehow, Max, I don't believe you. Why ask for help and then fight us?"

Another newscast came in. There was another robot rising up from the Hudson, also moving towards the Quantact building. Lights from aerial vehicles illuminated its fridge-door covered surface, dripping with dirty water and snagged debris from the river. This was a pincher movement closing in on Max Three, Karmen and Terri.

Karmen and I could not stop one of these things the other week and that was smaller. Now there's at least two. They're bigger and badder. Their arms are loaded with arms, and by that, I mean BFG-type weapons.

The comms cut out. I could not hear Karmen or Terri.

***

### Wednesday, February 13, 2123

We were surrounded by a pincher movement of giant robots, trapped within a trap, defenceless. Held at bay by a replicated mad-man who had out guessed our every move. As his super power was mind-reading this should not have been entirely unexpected. Even though we know that mind-reading is just a mathematical trick, he had been remarkably accurate with his probability modelling despite the few surprises we were able to throw in. If we did not stop him completely, he would somehow go back to the past and change this timeline in any case, erasing us from history. In fact, erasing the whole human race from history if we are not careful. In the short term, if we did not succeed against these Cyborgs, then perhaps in a thousand years, the whole planet would be covered metres thick in one particular material, cheese! Gruyère cheese!

And my girlfriend? She's surrounded by 24 replicas of herself and Really Angry that her ex had made a bunch of sex toys in her image.

I think I need a Jobsian guru to talk me through the stress. Perhaps have a sit down with a nice cup of tea and biscuit. It's all a little bit too traumatic.

***
Part 2 The Battle to Save Time

## Chapter 1 Valentine's Day

### Thursday, February 14, 2123, a few minutes past midnight. Ms Bell Building.

She could be dead.

Reality hit home. This was serious. There were two giant cyborgs closing in on my one true love and I had lost all communication with her.

I received an audio call. Was it her? I couldn't reach my G-Phone but at least I had voice activated commands.

"Hi, Aaron. How's it going?" said a familiar male voice.

Jason! What the hell was he calling me at midnight? "I've had better moments... argh," I spat fighting at the netting around me, still trying to access my G-Phone wrist control.

"A bit tied up?"

"Literally! This isn't a good time..."

"Oh right. Time difference! Of course. We're hours behind you. Naoki and I changed our plans. It turns out that, for the money we were paying out for the Virtual Resort, we could take a real trip. We're in Hawaii! By Hyperjet. Extreme, eh? Yippie-do! It's gorgeous here, by the way. Palm trees, and ocean. All low level and 2D."

"I really don't..."

"So what time is it in New York?"

"Jason! We have a situation here!"

"Sorry, pal. It's early evening here..."

"Watch a news broadcast! Watch the news!"

"We've gone au-naturale here. No wireless. I'm using, get this, a land-line! The phone's got wires. It's kind of restricting. You can hardly move when you use it."

"Ditto. Look. Just watch the news, man. It will explain everything."

"Listen to this! Listen to this! We've just had this drink called Okolehao. It's made locally, by the locals for the locals. I know we are not local but we were able to blag some. It has these amazing medicinal properties..."

Click. I was finally able to disconnect him.

Actually, the news wouldn't explain much. It would show the giant robots and the devastation in the streets but nothing of my real dilemma. Plus the fact, I think Jason was probably overwhelmed by that moonshine's "medicinal" properties.

"Who was that?" said Conrad on the private channel.

"A friend. Or rather an ex-friend."

"I'll be with you in a few moments." I could hear Conrad panting as-if running up steps.

On the holoscreen broadcast I could see two giant robots pounding their fist through the Quantact building like it was a soggy punchbag. With the outer walls shattered they began pulling away the girders as if they were unwrapping a desirable Christmas present.

Conrad burst into the room, very unsuperhero-like, dressed in dark civies, puffing and wheezing.

Max walked out from behind me.

"Conrad, hi. You're out of shape," said Max.

"I came as fast I could."

"You should have used the lifts"

"I might have lost signal."

"There's very little metal in this building. It wouldn't have been a problem," said Max casually.

"Look! Look!" I spluttered and gestured towards the holoscreen.

"Oh Monsanto! The team is in there? What are their chances?" asked Conrad exhausted.

"Good. We have escape chutes fitted into the one of the elevator shafts. We were expecting this."

"You were?"

"The probability model. Just as we were expecting you to turn up here."

"No way."

"Way."

"You were?"

"Yes?"

"Before we resume any further Mexican standoffs," sighed Max. "I'd just like to remind everyone that we need to counterattack against the cyborgs as soon as possible to see whether my preparations have been successful. Max-3 can only hang out for so long."

"So, er, are you going to release me from this netting?"

Max touched a wrist control and the netting around me loosened. I squirmed out of the mesh.

"So the girls are still alive?" I asked desperately.

"Well I presume so. That was the plan. Though Terri's appearance is a bit of a surprise. I'd like to say nice surprise but I think it may wobble the model a bit."

"Wobble the model?"

Conrad and Max looked at me with some disdain.

"It adds more uncertainty to our plan," sighed Max.

"That was our aim," I said.

"Yes... well. Let's get you into the jet pack, shall we?"

"Max, don't we need to discuss the plan?" puffed Conrad. "PK doesn't have anything to stop these cyborgs."

"How silly of me. I'll tell you as we strap Peaky-boy in."

"Huh?" I uttered as Max started lifting a jet pack onto my back.

Max explained as he strapped me in. "When I heard that Gruyère cheese was related to crime, I had this fridge light-bulb moment. I realised that it was the cheese!"

"You did. How?"

"That's a long story but let me assure you that no matter how crazy it sounds, it's the cheese!"

"But cheese!?"

"Hyper intelligent cheese."

"And Gruyère cheese?"

"Yes, just Gruyère."

"Terri's favorite cheese?"

"There are no coincidences? Are there, Max?" growled Conrad.

Red-faced, Max continued. "I have been creating two weapons to defeat Gruyère ever since."

"Why didn't you just do your time travel trick and go back and sort it out?" I asked.

"T4P does not exist in the present time."

"T4P?"

Max sighed. "You have a lot to learn about time travel. It really isn't that simple. And the bureaucracy is simply appalling. We certainly don't have time to discuss now, not if you want Karmen and Terri to live." (No-one explained to me but T4P means "Time Travel To The Past")

"Ok," I replied meekly.

"The first weapon is an enlarged version of the netting system, I used on you, Aaron." He handed over a thick tube as long as Max was tall.

"Hmm, I can vouch for the netting's effectiveness."

"You just need to aim at the robot's head, dead centre, from any distance between fifty to hundred feet. The inbuilt processor works out the rest."

I held the tube and nodded. Heavy but I could handle it.

"You probably need to take another two."

He started strapping them onto my back.

"Max, this is all very well but it isn't going to stop an army of these things. You said the cheese had an army of robots," said Conrad resting in a chair.

Holding up a box, Max smiled, "ah that's where weapon number two comes in. Aaron, unclip your right dart gun."

I reluctantly removed my right gauntlet and handed it to Max.

Expertly he removed the existing ammunition and loaded new darts from the carton. "This," he explained, "needs to hit the cheese. Not the fridge, the actual cheese. It will pump the cheese full of an organic computer virus that will strip the nervous system. It de-programs it. And because the cheese is hive-minded, the virus will replicate across all instances of the cheese everywhere."

"So that will be it? We'll stop the robot army?"

"That's the plan. And afterwards I suggest we have a barnstorming fondue."

"Let's just do one step at a time," suggested Conrad. "I'm getting information from the Police and the broadcast channels, that other Su-U heroes are arriving at the scene. We've been promised slot three, should the other two divisions prove ineffective, then we'll be allowed on. The TV execs sounded pretty confident we'd get our slot."

"Slot three?"

"There's two other Su-U teams in front of us. And the military has been called in too, but they'll take a while to mobilise."

"They are right to throw the works at these things," sighed Max. "Conrad, can you warn the heroes ahead of us to be careful. We don't want anyone seriously injured. Even if they are our ratings rivals, let them know what they are up against."

"A sensible precaution," said Conrad.

"Aaron to the roof. I've already toothed you the navigation data. Conrad and I will follow in the Kittoffery Kart."

I looked over anxiously at Conrad who was multitasking on the G-Phone. He nodded. So that was that. We had started with the aim of stopping a time-traveling super-villain and now we were working with him. Actually, it felt like, I was working for him.

"Can't you take a couple of these pipes?" I said gesturing to the weapons.

"They don't fit inside the kart," sighed Max.

***

### Thursday, February 14, 2123 0045 hours

I arrived at the traffic cordon mentally exhausted having jet packed only a few feet above the Hudson, overloaded with the Max's weapons. I had to keep the throttle wide open and the fuel was running down fast.

From the holographic police barrier, I could hear noise one block away, above the small crowd of para-legals, paramedics and disaster tourists. There was a rhythmic thud, thud, thud, presumably created by the giant robots attacking the skyscraper. The whole area was illuminated by overhead emergency lighting craft making sure all the action was captured on camera but it also gave a spooky fairground feel to the situation as well.

I saw Nerdifier being carried away. Perhaps his invisibility suit had not worked, in any case, he had been caught by shrapnel and left unable to launch his heavy weaponry. The poor guy must have been in extreme pain, judging by the angle of his leg and quantity of blood pumping from his many wounds. It must have been almost a minute before the paramedics were able to drug him with morphine! A whole minute of pain! Unheard of! I checked my utility belt to make sure my pain-relief drugs were easily accessible.

My psychic alarm made a neutral burble as I was suddenly squeezed around the shoulders.

"My boy, my boy!" boomed a voice. It was Antonio flanked by two of his men.

"What the?" I spluttered, worried about the intrusion into my privacy (my secret identity) as well as my personal space.

"Take it easy, fun stuff. CK, tipped me off and I was in the neighborhood. This will-a make my numbers for the year. For the next five years. Just wanted to wish you well and tell you that I hope you don't die," beamed the debris-clearance gangster.

"I thought you were off to the Caribbean, anyway?" I said marvelling that I was able to recall such useless information on the eve of my potential deceasement.

"Blasting off in the morning. Jet-set hash tag. Yeah, just came down to give my team some encouragement. There's a lot of mess to clear up already. And you guys haven't even started. Thanks for the info, b-t-w. And as-a commission for the clear-up contract here, don't worry about next month's rent."

"Thanks," I said dejectedly. Fortunately the voice disguiser filtered out the sarcasm.

"Make that the next two months.... Uh-oh, Gillard is approaching. We share mutual hatred for de other. Must go hash-tag. Sign off," Antonio slipped between his men and left as an officious looking corporate type strode towards me to the sound of friendly pings from my psychic alarm. This was Gillard. Green tinged, he was not a threat to me at any rate.

He was speaking into his G-phone and, apparently, to me. Not that it was registering too much in my frontal cortex. "There's a network dark zone over the target area and so we're reverting to line-of-sight communications, " said a Forties-something Broadcast News Administrator for Channel TrueCrime-9+. He spoke as if he were coordinating the whole event. He probably was. "We're going to give Spider-Guy another 5 minutes before we send in Sargent Canada and Glaredevil. Where's your buddy?"

"They've er... gone underground," I said nervously.

"Smart move. So just a single camera drone for you," said Gillard, more to his G-Phone than to me.

At that point, a masked, supersuited guy, stout and shorter than me, appeared by my side. "Have no fear, Majestro is here."

"OMJ," sighed the broadcaster exec. "Who are you?"

"Majestro!" Max projected his Su-U authorisation hologram via his wrist controller. Max's costume was angular, shiny metallic with a hint of gold.

But Gillard was not impressed. "This isn't a good gig for a newbie."

"I knew you would say that," announced Max, proudly touching his head. "Precognition!"

"Confidence huh? Well that's good," he said unconvincingly. "Only a single drone and only five minutes. Don't be late for the battle," continued the exec, only caring for the broadcast schedule.

A dart hit the exec's forehead. "Catch him," Max said to me. Max had tranquilised the TV guy!

I didn't get a good grip and Gillard slipped from my hands, hitting the ground quite hard. "Oops."

"Let's go," said Max, striding past the illuminated no entry sign on the road way.

"I need my jet pack refueled."

"You won't need it. We must leave now," said Max confidently walking through the holographic barrier while I trailed behind.

"What about the Gillard?"

"He'll be fine."

"I mean isn't that a crime? And recorded, you know, with all the drones flying around."

"I had my camera deflector switched-on. It's just between him and us," said Max confidently.

"And the crowd."

"They're on our side," Max turned and waved at the small crowd around the cordon.

"Anyway, I thought you said you weren't cut out to be a superhero and handed in your license?" "When there is more than one of you, it's easy to change your mind," smiled Max.

We trotted forward, in the direction of Quantact Building, pausing briefly to accept a little applause from the on-lookers.

***

### Thursday, February 14, 2123 0055 hours

We turned the corner and discovered two massive robots, probably twice the size of the robot I fought with Karmen, each ripping the Quantact skyscraper apart girder by girder; throwing them aside in a style reminiscent of a table-side Japanese chef at a high end restaurant.

My heads ups displayed had superfluously tinged the robots red.

"One of the robots has lost a hand," I shouted to Max. "At least they are not completely invincible."

Max nodded. He was wide-eyed with fear but continued by my side. We closed in on the giants.

"Correction!" came Conrad's voice over my headset. "It was reported that one of the robot missiles missed its target and blew up the other's hand. That damage was self-inflicted. Our heavy weaponry has had as much impact as a kitten on a ball of wool."

As if on cue, one of our prized heavy weight military drone aircraft screamed down the street just above remains of abandoned vehicles and released a missile at each robot. Neither broke their destructive rhythm, they merely reached down as the rocket was about to hit and snuffed out the attack like a candle flame.

"Ok, give me a net launcher," said Max, restraining the panic in his voice.

"How come I'm carrying three and you're not carrying anything?"

"I'll take one now."

I gave him a weapon.

"You take the one on the right. Aim above the head! Watch me first."

Max bounded ahead towards the towering monster on the left and took aim.

"Wait," said Conrad urgently over the headset. "Camera drones are not in place."

The robot on the left, appreciating that it was being targeted stopped and turned towards Max.

Max lowered the weapon, smiled and waved at the robot. He pointed at his watch wrist, as if to apologise for the delay.

The robot now shifted its entire body towards us and aimed its right arm bristling with weapons at us.

"Move!" came Conrad's useless advice. My psychic alarm started burbling wildly, apparently I had a "missile lock-on" warning.

I jumped towards a hole in the road, which was deeper than I thought, and tumbled down rubble into a lower road level, the subway level. An explosion roared around me and more debris fell into the subway. I scrabbled back up the broken roadway onto the road surface expecting to see multiple hunks of Max strewn around but, there he was. I was surprised to find him, in one piece, aiming his weapon at the robot.

"I'm going to have to take a shot," Max said breathlessly.

"Yeah, do it. The drone is just coming online. Shame that robot's attack wasn't broadcast," said Conrad.

"I think we need to to be worrying a bit less about the mainstream coverage," I protested.

"Understood," came Conrad's smooth reply.

Max fired the weapon. It appeared to travel over the top of the robot's head then suddenly like a star-burst firework, threads fired off towards the target spiralling in both directions to create a netting around it.

It seemed to work. The robot struggled, managed to get one arm free, but then the netting closed tight around the robots legs and it quickly lost balanced and fell into the stumpy remains of the Quantact building.

"Now, you!" urged Max.

I took aim at the other monster and fired; perfect trajectory. The missile released its netting in a star burst. However the robot reached up and grabbed the star-burst netting. The netting wrapped around the robots fist but then again, all it really needed for its current task was a fist.

My psychic alarm went off; be-doh, be-doh; Warning of incoming heavy object.

The fist was coming straight down towards me. I was paralysed by fear and indecision.

Crunch. I saw the fist bounce away.

Huh? I was not dead. Or crushed. Max had wrapped himself around me. He had saved my life.

"My invincibility shield..." he tried to explain.

I burbled an unintelligible reply.

"Oh Murphy! The energy reclaim hasn't worked. I've only enough charge to repel one more of those. We need to try again with the net-weapon," suggested Max.

"The last one. I think you should use it," I suggested.

"Sure," said Max and took the tube.

Max aimed the missile above the robot's head. Another perfect shot. The missile released its netting in a star burst. Then the robot reached upwards and tried to grab the net again. Despite its fist being bound and unable to grasp, it was able to swat the netting away like a tennis ball. Confident it had dealt with the problem, the robot then returned its attention to us and swung a fist down towards us. "Be-doh, be-doh," sung my alarm.

"Get behind me," shouted Max.

I hunched behind him as he raised his arms and powered up his force field.

Crunch. Max and I somersaulted away from the huge robot fist as it was deflected to the ground.

Argh! Pain. My arm! My left arm was broken.

I staggered around, dazed.

"That's it. The shield's finished," puffed Max.

"Oh frack..."

The robot moved towards us to finish us off.

My survival instincts kicked in. "Down here," I pushed Max with my right arm, down the hole I had previously fallen into and rolled down after him clutching my damaged limb.

There was another giant crunch, as the robot pummelled the road above us, made all the louder by the metal-lined environment we were now sheltering in.

We could hear the robot clawing at the road surface trying to break through.

I scrabbled for my morphine injector and squirted the pain relief into my left shoulder.

"Do have any more of that?" asked Max.

I handed over my second and last injector.

Max injected morphine into his hand.

"I hurt my thumb," he explained wiggling it in front of me. I tried not to be angry at his low pain threshold.

"Do we have any other weapons?" I asked.

"No, that's about it," sighed Max.

"So what now?"

"Avoiding deceasement seems top priority."

"What?"

"Staying alive!"

Then there was an even louder crash, long echoes, then silence.

"What's happened?"

We paused a while longer to make sure everything was completely still before we returned to the surface.

Once we were back in line of sight of the camera drone, Conrad was in contact. "Are you ok?"

"We're fine. What happened to the robot?"

"See for yourself!"

The first robot was trapped within in the netting and completely still. The second robot seemed to have collapsed face first into the roadway. Just as I struggled to comprehend what had happened, I saw three figures climb on top of the robot. Two were female with flowing capes.

"Terri," I gasped with joy.

"Names!" uttered Conrad. I had broken communication protocol... again.

"Right! Oops."

Camera drones closed in on the three figures from all directions.

"Ok, I'm off now," I heard Max say.

I looked around but he had disappeared. Literally, since he had switched his invisibility cloak. I saw it flicker. "This cloak won't last for long. See you later, Peaky. You did good."

I ran toward the three figures, up the arm of the robot to meet them. There was Improbileon standing impressively and imperiously. Max Three, ("Max-3") also dressed as Majestro, was waving at the camera drones. And there was Terri, looking fabulous in her caped costume and flowing hair, surveying the area checking for new threats. I ran up to her and gave her a right-armed hug.

"Ok, ok," she said, trying to bring me down from my adrenaline high. "Mind those spikes," she said, reminding me of the spikes extending from my mask.

I shook Max's hand, and had a quick clasp with Karmen (taking care not to catch her winged helmet on my mask).

"What did you do? Virus darts?"

"That's right. Virus darts. You didn't think that you had the only lot, did you?" said Max-3.

Terri explained. "We escaped down a chute. Blasted our way from the basement to the subway. Then Improb blasted a hole in the strapped-up cyborg and Max splattered the gooey cheesy filling with his dart gun. It took effect almost straight away and a minute or so later knocked out the other one. The virus propagated quickly."

"So that's it? Gruyère is defeated?" I asked.

"I'm absolutely confident that this is the end of the matter," beamed Max.

His smile was disrupted by a sigh from Conrad. "Sorry to disappoint. We've more work to do," he interrupted on the headset.

"We have?" said Max crestfallen.

"North America is safe, but we have reports coming from Europe, India, China..."

"Cyborgs?"

"Big ones. Even bigger than these two. They haven't all closed down."

We all groaned..

"I guess Gruyère developed separate domains and erected firewalls to protect itself from such attacks..."

"So what do we need to do?" asked Karmen.

"Get inside the firewall!" announced Max.

Max-3 and Conrad (joined by Max-1 over the comms network) started babbling about technicalities.

It was nearly 2am on Valentine's Day.

While this chatter over the Su-U channels continued, I sidled up to Teri and, in great pain from my broken arm, I pulled out the envelope from beneath my armour and presented it to her.

"Happy Valentine's," I whispered.

Terri smiled. She took out the card and scanned the poem. "Ahh," she said sympathetically not really reading it at all.

I was unsure whether this had met her expectations. She had given me only until today to impress her.

Max interrupted us.

"Did you hear that?" asked Max.

"No, what?" said Terri haughtily.

"We're off this afternoon, to complete the mission."

"Today? Where? I have a broken arm!"

"We can fix that. We need to get back, get some sleep and prepare for blasting off to Europe. We can fix your arm on the way."

"Europe?"

"Yes. Paris, to be precise."

I did the double-raised eyebrows gesture and Terri smirked. Then I made a sort of musical conductor's bow, as-if I was taking credit for the trip.

Terri smiled.

I felt good. Broken arm? No problem. Giant Cyborgs? Bring them on. I was full of confidence. I already felt I was an Olympic gold medal winner; if there was event for tumbling down rocky slopes, then I would be on the podium.

***

## Chapter 2 European Tour

### Thursday, February 14, 2123, morning.

Terri took a jet pack back to the apartment while Conrad took me to the Mad-Sci-Soc club house to work on my arm with a broken-bone home-repair kit. I finally crawled into bed at 4am. Terri was fast asleep.

She had left the apartment by the time I woke at 10am. I was feeling hung-over from the anesthetic drugs. I did not get a Valentine's Card from her but the one I gave her was standing on the breakfast bar which I took to be a good sign.

I made myself a cup of tea and finally decided to switch on my G-Phone messages. OMJ, there were hundreds. They all seemed to be diverts from my Su-U account. So many messages, congratulations, questions, questionnaires and endorsement enquiries. I had gone mainstream overnight!

Sad to say, I quickly thought about how I could monetise my new found fame.

***

### Thursday, February 14, 2123, afternoon.

There we were, five superheroes behind a press conference table, with our official Su-U names on plaques in front us. Conrad was wearing his full Captain K suit, with Terri and I standing on his right, and Max and Karmen on his left. People and drones and a lot of noise filled the room.

Just before the conference started, we were pounced upon by Gillard, the Broadcast Exec we had rendered unconscious the previous night. He was matter-of-fact as he told us, "I have my lawyers going through recordings last night to prove you assaulted me last night."

Max replied haughtily. "Good luck with that. In the meantime, we're about to have a global live press conference. You know, a presentation on how we saved New York. Do you want us to delay that conference and mention how you fainted? How you couldn't stand the pressure?"

Blood drained from Gillard's face. He knew that it was a lie but it could mean he would be moved from his job; precautionary health and safety reasons. He loved his job and even temporary leave could mean he may lose it. "You wouldn't," he hissed.

"It's your call. Or you could work with us and take credit for moving our slot."

"You make an interesting counter-proposal," he stuttered.

Gillard started the press conference appearing even more brash than usual. "Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I'm Reginald Gillard, TrueCrime-9+ Super Hero Reality Show Director. I was in charge of casting and direction last night," he beamed. "The Channel TrueCrime-9+ Su-U Team was lead by veteran hero, Captain Kittoffery and he will deliver some opening remarks, and introduce the rest of our team. We will be very happy to take your questions. I am sure you have been warned, but could everyone turn off audio settings on personal communication devices, thanks. And when you ask your question if you could please identify yourself and your news organization. Captain, over to you."

Conrad looked managerial. "Thank you, Mr Gillard, and thank you, everyone, for being present at this press conference. As you may know, I've been out of active duty for some time now, training our Su-U Division's new heroes. I'd just like to introduce the team and then let them describe the action they took last night. Before questions, I'd also like to outline the continuing global threat caused by the agent controlling the robots and outline our approach to overcome it. Since we are not out of danger some of our responses will not be complete in order not to supply our enemy with any extra advantages."

Murmur-murmur, murmur-murmur.

"I first want to introduce you to Improbileon and Psychic Kid, whose earlier scouting work on the Robot that rampaged through Queens several weeks ago allowed us to develop a strategy to defeat these latest larger, and more dangerous, entities that we encountered last night. Secondly I'd like to thank a recently re-activated super hero, Cloudera, who has been critical in the planning of our mission and in rescuing several civilians in last night's battle. Finally, a big thank you to our lead hero last night, Majestro who, after painstaking research, developed the weapons that enabled us to prevail in last night's encounter."

Conrad didn't get much further with his introductions. Questions just shouted out and all notions of press conference etiquette went out the window.

"Weapons, what weapons did you use?" came the question from multiple sources.

Gillard tried to act as coordinator and keep some order.

Max spoke when the room had quietened down. "Our opponents last night were of a size and scale that no-one has encountered since the Robot Wars. We were already aware of the resilience of our foe and so I, er... we, were determined that two types of weapons would be required. One to capture the cyborgs and the second to inject a er... poison into the creatures."

This raised even more questions. "Cyborg? Creatures?"

"Yes," replied Max. "The enemy is strong, resourceful and intelligent but the machines we saw last night were not robots. They are not governed by any laws of robotics. We have not reached the singularity, nor, in my opinion, will that ever occur with current computer technology. No this is an organic life-form, merely making use of a robotic outer shell..."

"Aliens?" came gasps.

"No, not an alien. I would suggest that it is er... a man-made organism, a research project that has gone wrong, er... perhaps."

Uproar.

Max continued nervously over the noise, "Well obviously this is speculation based on a probability model... however, we do have lots of evidence that its origins are terrestrial and not alien."

More questions and noise. Finally Gillard had everyone quiet again, "What is the ongoing threat?" was the gist of the questions.

Conrad took control when the room quietened, "We are traveling today to defeat this creature in Europe. Thereafter we aim to recruit teams to defeat it worldwide."

"What is it? What do we even call it?"

Max was about to utter Gruyère but thought twice, "Gr... no, um, the Big G."

"Big G?"

"No," said Max changing his mind. "The Big C!"

***

### Thursday, February 14, 2123, early evening.

Max Three had planned on hacking the airline ticket reservation system in order to secure our flight to Europe but there was no need. The military issued a warrant for our passage on the six o'clock shuttle. However we could not let the two Maxes go off alone due to our residual paranoia about their intentions and so SHUMSS split up. Conrad went with Max-3 incognito while Max One, Terri, Karmen and myself would ride the red carpet and take the first class shuttle tickets. We would land early afternoon, around 2pm (due to time zone difference).

Since we had been given a waiver for all our equipment and only needed our Su-U authorisation hologram as an identity check. We experienced the ultimate in elite travel: no security controls!

Journo's and well-wishers waved to us as the rocket doors closed at the airport. Thirty minutes later we landed in Europe.

We didn't see much of Paris. We were put onto a train and propelled at 300kph towards the Swiss border where there were widespread reports of giant robots causing destruction on the Swiss/French border. Apparently there was a 100 square kilometer area of total destruction, not even trees were left standing. All that could, had fled. Many people were missing, presumed dead.

Conrad and Max-3 would use our Plan A to meet up with us. Max-3 hacked the airline reservation system and prepared to converge with us in the War Zone.

At least there was time to hear Max's side of the story from Max One.

***

### Thursday, February 15, 2123, morning

Time, it seems, is an illusion. Space-time, doubly-so. It turns out we are not even on the original time line. On the original "canvas" (think of space-time as a blank sheet of paper with everyone etching with their own crayon over its surface), Terri and I might not have ever met. Terri may not have been in the park when I base-jumped and broke my leg. The leg may have not received the rehabilitation treatment that Terri paid for and I might have ended up operating a surrogate for the rest of my life.

That was the original canvas. A canvas I cannot see.

This is because a time traveller is like another layer of paint over the top. Some of the original picture may remain but it could all be different. No-one except the original time traveller knows what has changed on the canvas or could speculate on the ripple effects of timeline changes. Argh, the canvas metaphor has already fallen apart!

Max One had the same memories as Max Zero up until he was "forked"; this was the word Max used to describe the copying experience that left him with knowledge of the original canvas before he started to deface it. He, and he alone, knows the difference between the original canvas and the new one. This is what is meant by time travel only makes sense to the time traveller.

This is Max One's story of the original timeline.

In 2118, Max Zero found Terri crying in street after she had run out on Dameon. She had had a bad experience. Dameon's seduction had over-stepped the mark. Not being able to find a way out of the mirrored bedroom, she threw objects and made quite a mess. There was a huge shouting match about all the broken glass and the means exiting the apartment; fire safety was mentioned! In the fight, Terri's was seperated from her G-phone, which was usually firmly strapped to her wrist, and so she lost her means of paying for taxis, communicating and navigating her way about the three dimensional city of New York. (The city had long lost the attribute of being navigable by a simple two dimensional map).

Max consoled her, hailed a cab and took her back to the University.

Max was completely smitten with Terri, with romantic dreams beginning even as she left the auto-taxi.

Max was so kind and reassuring to Terri that she said as she left, "I wished I'd met you before I met that fracker!"

With no phone, they failed to exchange contact details, it was months before Max next saw her again on campus. By that time, she was dating another guy, a geeky guy, no better looking than himself! His chance had gone.

Max entered a phase, familiar to many, of "If-Only" regression. If only he had obtained Terri's contact details, or had been there before the fight with Dameon. Unlike most people with "If-Only" whines, Max became creative. He thought that perhaps if he went into suspended animation, he could go into the future to find time-travel-to-the-past (so called "T4P") and go back and change events. And just for good measure, become unbearably rich in the process. This was the standard common-as-coke day dream. But he, unlike anybody else on the planet, could make it happen. He was, after all, a mad scientist and already building the Entangle-Scan. A scanner that could detect and measure every atom within an object or person. If he could scan every atom of himself and re-create himself in a future time where T4P had been developed, then it was achievable: the girl and the gold.

Within a year he had created a machine that could copy every atom in his body and store his data inside the supercomputer. After a huge dispute with University directors on the snaffling of the majority of the computer's memory banks, and another year finding a way of storing the data offline, he was back on track! But that was just the start of his research. It took Max another 50 years to build the machine to decode the data and create a new Max.

"So that's you?" I asked breaking up the story-telling.

"No, that's not me. That would be Max A. I'm the first Max to travel back through time. There were multiple Maxes made by Max Zero, let's call them A, B, C and so on, that continued Max Zero's work. As you may be aware the problem is not the hardware but the software. There were multiple physical copies of me with scrabbled eggs for brains until Max Zero worked out the prototype 'Holding Matrix' using newfangled organic computer systems. Max A was the first qualified success, but even he was confined to a wheel chair. Max had achieved copying memories and thought processes, many, many brain functions but not all the motor controls transferred successfully."

"The Holding Matrix? He solved that problem to make you?" asked Conrad. "Then why all this fuss with the cheese?"

"Using future technology, it is easier to create organic computers. But here, now? Not so easy. It's like going back to the... Vikings," he said winking at Norse-goddess-clad, Karmen. "And asking them to build a space ship from their long boats!"

"We're in the Viking era?" squeaked our resident Valkyrie.

"In terms of organic computing? Yes."

Max continued to describe that backward time travel, T4P, had not been developed until 2240, by a guy called Hawk Stevenson, who was able to build on a moon of Jupiter, a cluster of mini-black holes, held within a higgs-boson field that provided a tunnel into the past. His first attempt at regressive time travel revealed some pitfalls but fortunately, he was able to go back a second time to correct his first near-solar-system-killing mistake. Thereafter by trial and error, T4P was successively tweaked and improved.

Max One was not the first time traveller to the Twenty Second Century to use T4P but he was the first Max to return to this time zone and one of the last unlicensed time travellers...

"Unlicensed? They license time travel?" I ask.

"The government licenses everything. There's good reason to license time travellers, they can do a lot of damage..."

Terri had sat apart from Karmen and myself, silently grinding her teeth, as she listened to Max's story.

***

### Friday, February 15, dusk

The sun was setting. We were still dozens of kilometers outside the destruction zone when the train came to an emergency stop. We prised ourselves from the train compartment wall to find out that we were all ok but the next event disturbed us more. The G-Phones had lost signal. We were off the net!

We exchanged worried stares.

We checked the carriages and since people don't usually travel to a war zones, there were only a few other passengers. They didn't have network connection either.

"I thought this might happen," Karmen sighed.

It was an hour before a dozen or so French officials arrived. They had journeyed alongside the tracks, in several different all-terrain vehicles to rendezvous with the train. They had come out specifically to meet us.

So much for my supposed superpower of omnilingualism, as there was no network to allow multi-lingual communication, so that super power failed. None of us knew more French than "Bonjour" and "ca va". However there was little need for communication besides pointing to our wrists, shrugging and smiling. They knew who we were and what we were supposed to do. They guided us onto an old automatic bus driven by a multi-purpose mannequin-style robot. The robot design had typical French flare; brushed aluminum, obviously robotic with minimalist features, yet exceptional with its overtly exaggerated balletic movements and impeccable poise.

It did not speak English either.

"Je me appelle Gallo. Je ai un numéro de série, mais je préfère ne pas le répéter. Ce est une chose de robot," said the robot with a shrug.

"Anybody?" asked Max.

"He's called Gallo, I think. I didn't catch the rest," I said trying to recall my school french.

"Oui, Gallo," it nodded.

"What now?"

The French Officials gratefully kissed our cheeks and shook our hands eagerly before returning to their vehicles leaving just one large tall vehicle and the robot. After we waved goodbye, Gallo offered up the seats in the bus. The bus was designed for hiking tours, with bench seats that folded into beds or folded into the floor with drop-down disco lights to create a dance floor. Neat. There was plenty of space for the four of us.

"Pas besoin de vous sangle, mes amis. Ce bus est conçu pour rouler à travers la campagne lentement et dans le style," it chirped happily.

It was our turn to shrug.

The robot closed the door and took hold of the holographic steering wheel while we stood looking around. The bus moved beautifully smoothly and quietly.

We could see in the dusky light, walls and hedge rows in our path and so we found seats expecting some bumps. But there was only the slightest rise and fall going over such obstacles. The machine maintained a leisurely and quiet 30 kph. This was truly a luxury all terrain vehicle.

We hoped that our guide knew where it was going.

***

## Chapter 3 The If-Only Plan

### Friday, February 15, 2123, evening

Back in early 2117, Max One (returning from 2240), and Max Zero worked together on realising the "If Only" Plan.

Become Rich. Check.

Stop Dameon. Check.

Start seduction. Check.

The canvas was being completely redrawn.

All of Max's plan was going swimmingly well until Max's own ineptitude with members of the opposite sex became clear and a budding rivalry developed between Max One and Max Zero for Terri's affections...

Terri interrupted the story telling.

"You were playing me like a violin. An idiot violin! And replicated me, resurrected me, but it was you that was playing god! Just who do you think you are? Steve Jobs himself?" spat Terri, spinning around accusingly.

We had sort of forgotten that Terri still had some issues with Max.

"I took a copy of you, yes. For your own safety. It turns out, we needed to!" said Max gently.

"And made thirty copies?" said Terri sarcastically.

"Those copies are not you, Terri," said Max apologetically. "I did what you asked; I deleted your data file. You are, for all intents and purposes, the one and only Terri. You are you!"

"That is imprecise. I'm not Terri. At least not the Terri you knew. I am my own self with a new body, new molecules, new soul even if I have the memories of a person that looked like me."

"You are not you?" smirked Max.

"I never was second-person singular personal pronoun. There is no existing word in the English language for what I am.... so I had to make one up myself. I call myself a Bombz."

"Bomb?"

"Bombz! A new being, old memories and body, but a new soul. Look, I don't want to explain it any further. Least of all to you."

Max rocked his head side to side in agreement, "Well, I can see that kind of makes sense. I guess I'm one too..."

Terri let out an irritated growl. "What? No way. I really don't want to have anything in common with you!"

"Well, I'm just saying..." continued Max lamely.

Karmen tried to calm Terri down with "there-there" noises with no exact meaning.

"So before you go and sweet talk everyone again, what were those thirty Terri's that confronted me yesterday, hmm? What were they?"

"Ah, I see where you're coming from," said Max meekly. "They were replicants that looked like you, yes, but programmed with an adaptive AI based on your own personality."

"Replicants. What part of copyright did you not understand?" Terri accused.

"If it is any consolation, Terri, none of the replicants liked me either!"

I burst out laughing while Karmen looked upon me aghast.

"You couldn't even make it with a robot Terri-look-alike?" I giggled.

"It was an advanced AI program, not a standard issue X.25!" explained Max.

"Even so... couldn't you have programmed it to, you know... ?" I said winking.

"Not every Mad Science project has a predictable outcome," said Max flatly.

I continued my giggling.

"What happened to the replicants?" asked Karmen.

"They were destroyed in the Quantact building, covering our escape," sighed Max.

"Shame," said Terri fuming. "I'd have liked to have got to know me."

"We can build more..." said Max.

Terri let out a shriek of frustration and stomped to the other end of the bus.

***

### Saturday, February 16, 2123, early morning.

The bus stopped.

"Ennemi aperçu. Il est à cinq kilomètres à l'ouest," announced the robot gracefully.

It was day break. We were still dozing in our bus-hung hammocks. The bus was in the middle of an open, gently rolling, field. There was no apparent landscape features except for grass, historical hedgerows and dusky mountains in the far distance. It was not an easily-identified end point for any journey.

"Five meters.... west?" said Max carefully.

"Kilometers," I corrected.

"Right. Making the robot only talk French... that's a deliberate design decision. How obtuse." Max checked his G-Phone. "Still no network connection. We've hit an network black-spot. It's like we've travelled into a big tunnel with no repeater stations. The Big C must have taken out the satellites. How could it have done that? "

"Are we lost?" asked Karmen.

"I have some geo-positional data. We've lost some accuracy, but..." Max looked around.

"But?"

"We're dozen of miles away from the Château de Gruyère," said Max confused.

"You know that the term, the Big C, stands for Cancer, don't you Max?" said Terri pointedly.

"Really? Oh. Ok. Perhaps I should stuck with the name Big G, after all," said Max distractedly.

"Le robot vient vers nous. Il se trouve à quatre kilomètres, mes amis," suggested our guide nonchalantly.

"Le robot? A robot? This way?" I stammered.

The guide shrugged.

"As I mentioned before, Gruyère uses cyborgs, not robots," said Max dismissively.

"Generally I like your accuracy, Max, but this does not seem to be the time," said Karmen.

"There can't be anything dangerous out there. We would have had a CAT alert," said Max.

"We have no network connection, Max, don't expects any alerts" said Karmen calmly. She was looking west and saw something move in the distance. It was no more than mist swirls and some fleeing birds but that was enough of a signal.

"I sense something coming," said Karmen taking charge. "Get the weapons!"

Terri scrambled inside.

Max spun around watching every move in different directions.

"I can set up a line-of-sight communication tunnel back to Conrad and Max-3," said Max barely keeping panic from his voice. "But it would be only temporary. The drones will only be in the air for an hour at most."

"Do it!" said Karmen.

There was action from everybody. Even Gallo. He was making breakfast. In fact, the robot guide had detected the enemy and stopped far enough away to give us an appropriate time to wake up, think, don our super-suits and prepare for battle. It may have be obtuse, with its directions in French and casual manner, but this Gallic metal man was as trustworthy as a Tonto to our Lone Ranger mission. By the time we were ready to fight our latest giant foe, the guide had baked some croissants and offering hot chocolate.

***

### Saturday, February 16, 2123, ten minutes later

Max released drones to re-establish a communications bridge between us and the rest of humanity.

Having finished my second crepe with ice cream and maple syrup, with sprinkles of rad-free tablets, I joined the other three super heroes on the ridge overlooking our battlefield. The giant fridge-based cyborg was marching purposefully towards us.

"Come on!" urged Max to me. "I've just launched the video drones. We're on camera now."

"So the network is back?"

"No. Not yet. The fight will be recorded though."

"That will be useful for autopsy," suggested Terri.

I fell in-line and pulled my net launcher weapon into position.

"Are we all ready?" asked Max, hands on hips, keeping his eyes focused forward.

"Ready," stated Karmen firmly; her cloak waving briskly in the morning breeze.

"Ready," I said firmly through my prickly helmet.

"Yeah. Whatever," muttered Terri after a pause; her mechanical wig swirling gently.

"Hold on," announced Max. "Wait until you can see the gleam of the fridge handles before loosing the nets."

Finally and belatedly, from Max's G-Phone, came the CAT alert.

Indeed my own psychic alarm sounded gently. "Brrrooooo" it sung. (Enemy long way off).

"Once we have it netted. Improbileon, blast the beast. Cloudera, zap it full power and PK, plummet it with projectiles."

"Virus and explosive projectiles loaded," I confirmed.

"Great."

The cyborg crushed through the last line of trees. The only thing between us and it was an expanse of flattened grass. Belatedly my heads up display marked the giant foe with a red tinge. "Be-doh, be-doh," sung my alarm.

"It... it looks larger than the New York pair," I said.

"Hmm. Maybe just an illusion. A figment of the landscape," mused Max.

"No, no," explained Karmen examining her wrist based computer. "It is larger. Ten to fifteen percent larger."

"And broader," added Terri.

"We have about thirty seconds..." announced Max. "Twenty...."

"Be-dee-be-dee-be-dee"

This was it. The thing was blocking the sky. Weapons started unfurling from its limbs and shoulders. We could see the sensors on its head flickering and focusing in our direction. We could see the handles on the fridge doors.

If anyone was expecting a big hero fight at this point then they would be disappointed.

Traveling at supersonic speed from behind us, so we had no advanced warning, two piloted french fighter jets whooshed overhead. By the time we heard the jet's sonic boom, the missiles they had launched were already impaling themselves into the skyscraper-sized foe. A surgical strike of four missiles, two from each jet; both shoulders, one in the head and one in the chest.

The explosions punched us all to the ground. Especially the giant robot which fell heavily onto its back. We were surrounded by dust, smoke and the debris. Cheese globules rained down us. The raw sound of jet engines followed, crinkling our skin but quickly fading with a whoosh and the pitter-patter of falling objects.

My previously broken arm seemed to be broken again.

"PK, quick, release the virus darts," gasped Max.

I scrambled up, holding my arm and ran with a limp, toward the huge machinery squirming on the ground. Its legs kicking like it was still trying to walk. I saw a gooey mass at the shoulder joint and loosed a dozen darts into the cheesy wound.

The cyborg did some large scale, scary break dance moves causing minor earthquakes and a trampoline effect. I bounced on the ground several times before all was still.

I writhed around, holding my arm, as Terri and Karmen came up behind to congratulated me.

"Well done, lover boy. Great reactions."

"Great job! Gold star for that hero!" said Karmen.

I just groaned in reply. "Morphine..."

"Right. Let's see what we have here," said Karmen. "We need that arm fixed up, eh? ...Again."

"We got off easy," I panted, after receiving my shot..

"Yeah, those jets... where did those jets come from?" said Terri.

"Sent by Max Three. I was just info-ed over the G-phone," said Max One trotting over to us.

It seems that France, unlike most other countries in the first world, had retained manned military aircraft. While the rest of world was developing increasingly sophisticated drone systems, France had kept the human in the loop. Apparently, it allowed them to launch an attack such as this at short notice.

Max was busy with a bag of equipment, looking like he was preparing for a picnic.

"Hmm, what are the odds," mused Karmen.

"Yes, what are the odds..." said Terri through gritted teeth.

Max shrugged a great Gallic shrug. "I need to insert probes into the goo to glean the status of the matrix configuration..."

Terri turned to him with blazing eyes. "You did this!"

"What? What have I done now?" said Max defensively, holding phallic-looking probes in both hands.

"This is just too improbable. You've changed time-lines. One or all of us would have been killed battling that robot and you or Max Three has gone back to the past and changed the result."

"Uh? What? No," said Max.

"Karmen, what are the odds of those jets arriving exactly at that moment?" demanded Terri keeping her focus on Max.

"At least thousands to one. I'd need to do a full analysis," Karmen replied distractedly. She was inspecting my arm.

"How long will it take?"

"I'm a bit busy," she said flustered, pointing at me and the unusual shape of my arm..

Terri looked back and saw. "Oh right. But I think the math will stack up. How far did you go back, Max? Just to arrange the jet attack or further back to ensure the development of manned fighter jets themselves?"

"This is paranoid..." protested Max.

"We've been hijacked... or something... we need a new name for a crime like this. Time-jacked will do! We've been time-jacked"

"Time-jacked?"

"You have gone back into the past and altered the timeline in order for us to succeed."

"That's going to be a crime?" said Max sarcastically.

"It is where you're concerned."

"I really don't deserve this venom, Terri. Firstly, if I had returned to the past, then it was a future self of me on an earlier timeline that I could have no knowledge about. So how can I be held responsible for a crime I could have theoretically committed in an alternative future but now don't need to?"

"Um"

"Secondly, if it was not me but Max Three and he had not called in the air force, we could be all dead now and not having this conversation..."

"All right, all right..."

But Max went on. "Thirdly, to go back in time you first need to go forward in time to at least 2240, fill out the permits, the impact analysis, business case to get the license..."

"Ok, ok, I said," said Terri sternly. She threw down her net launcher and strode back to the bus.

"You should hear yourself, Terri. You sound crazy," Max called after her, waving the probes over his head.

Terri turned back and pulled a crazy-face back.

***

## Chapter 4 Mad-Sci-Soc Assembles

### Saturday, February 16, 2123, midday

Karmen carefully maneuvered the 3D-printed cast around my damaged arm and sealed it shut.

"I'm sorry but to be really sure of a good fix you'll have to wear this overnight," she said gently.

"Thanks, Karmen. This is much appreciated," I said.

"Ok, well... Hmm. I'm sure there is something else to be done. Lunch maybe." she said, not able to maintain eye contact.

The bus was running smooth with only the occasional bump, when it couldn't absorb drops and obstacles. I looked down to other end of the bus. Terri and Max sat apart. Max had set up a mobile laboratory and was surrounded by holoscreens researching the data he had collected from the vanquished cyborg. Meanwhile Terri stared gloomily out across the rainy landscape occasionally glancing at her G-phone wrist control; being the official look-out definitely suited her mood. We were trundling over a muddier and darker landscape. It looked as though everything had been incinerated with blacken tree stumps, burnt out vehicles and houses.

As Karmen made to leave, my survival instinct, my Terri-Relationship-Survival-Instinct, indicated that I should stay with my valkyrie partner for a while longer. I said. "So, Karmen. I was kind of hoping that we could have a chat."

She looked surprised. "Oh?"

"Yes, I was hoping we could get to know each other a little better. I was hoping to find out what makes you tick," I said.

"Oh, I'm an open book. I detest injustice in the world and want to do my bit," she said blandly.

"Even if the Su-U is just another corporate enterprise devised to aid the broadcast ratings?"

"Well, Mad-Sci-Soc is not the same as the rest. We showed them that a few days ago, eh? We were making a difference for real people, regardless, or even in spite, the involvement of the corporations."

"Can you actually explain what Mad-Sci-Soc is all about? It's a club, sure but it is a whole layer cake of things."

"Sure. Like any society with secrets it has to have an onion skin of identities to confuse outsiders."

"I'm an insider and I'm confused."

"It started as a University Club."

"Right."

"For gamers that didn't like computer games."

"Ah, right. Real people."

"That also liked science and that attracted the more geeky undergraduates. So it was jokingly called the Mad Scientist Society."

"Right, Mad-Sci-Soc. And the club became what it was called?"

"In a way. Since we did real world experiments with technology related to the lesser known pages of the encyclopedia, we started to attract attention from the government. We triggered something in one of the spook agencies and they approached us wanting to see some of our technology. They had hacked our files, it seems. We were only doing harmless stuff..."

"Like what?"

"The ability to detect dandruff in clean rooms, connecting petunias to the power grid..."

"Uh, ok. Not the water-powered car?"

"Yes that too. We came up with a deal for that. The club gave the government access to our technology in return for certain privacy and obfuscation privileges."

"Protecting your identities?"  
"Right. So after that it was easy to set up our own branch of the Super Hero Union, SHUMMS. Conrad, of course, was a natural and took to it like fluff to velcro. Perhaps creating the final veneer for the club, that of an entertainment troop to the TrueCrime-9+ channel. But really, at the end of it, Mad-Sci-Soc is just a university science and gaming club."

"So what brought you into the Hero Business?"

"Max and I were researchers at the University. He invited me along to the club. I got er... hooked." she said apologetically.

"On fighting crime?"

"Well, not so much that but being in a team with real people and doing something important in the real world. It's the same for you, right?"

"Er... no. I'm not so noble. I thought this was going to be fun, in the extreme sports sort of way, and in the process I could win back the affections of the girl I love... Really, I'm only doing this for Terri. She's the best thing that's ever happened to me and, without this gig, I'm pretty sure I would have lost her."

"Hmm. I see. I know the feeling," said Karmen biting her lip.

"So... er... you and Max. Did you have a thing going?"

"Professional respect only," she said quickly.

I had a light bulb moment. "So, you and... Conrad?"

Karmen fell silent and looked away.

"Ah. Sorry. I've hit a hit a raw spot?"

"You're the first one to notice," she stammered.

"I am? Well, that must be a first for me."

"No-one really notices me. Not even after I choose the most outrageous and fanciful superhero costume of all time."

"Well, that's not true. Your costume does looks great and it's not... you know."

"Thanks but I know the score. All the probabilities. I model them. I understand the situation to five decimal places..." she said her voice fading off as she looked away.

"Of making it with the Captain?" I suggested.

"All I know is that nobody goes and builds a time machine altering the fabric of space-time to bring me into their life," she whispered bitterly, her voice catching.

"You shouldn't be jealous of Terri. Not jealous of her situation where Mad Max here, and his clones, are stalking her across millennia."

"You may be right but I can't help feeling torn. Perhaps I do feel some jealousy regarding all that attention."

"As I said, there's nothing to be jealous of."

"But it destabilises the models."

"The models?"

"The probability models. It should be so simple to resolve... these relationships," she whispered.

"You've lost me again."

"It's a love triangle. I can see it as clear as day. Max loves Terri, Conrad loves Terri, I love Conrad. No-one loves me."

"Conrad loves Terri?"

"Shh. Keep your voice down."

"Sorry. But this is new news."

"I don't know whether he has always loved her but he's never been the same since... since the accident."

"Accident?"

"Terri's death. He feels responsible."

"That's guilt, not love."

"It makes little difference. Guilt or no guilt, Conrad loves Terri but won't do anything about it because she's Max's girl."

"Or perhaps he's not into girls at all. I don't what his orientation is, the heads-up has that data masked."

"Mainly hetro..." she stuttered.

"Perhaps he just hasn't been able to think about relationships since then? Perhaps he's never considered you as a potential partner?"

"Why not?" asked Karmen frowning.

"Perhaps he thinks that you're Max's girl too?"

"Me? Max's girl? Oh come on," she said dismissively.

"Well, you did work together and he brought you into the club."

"That's just Re-Dic."

"Re-Dic or not, have you ever told Conrad how you feel?"

"I'm not a teenager, Aaron. Neither is he."

"And yet you're not together. This seems like a real world disconnect problem to me."

"We're the very opposite of Virtualistas. We are as real as real can be."

"And yet not talking."

"Hmm."

"Not a virtualista... yet you model your relationship probabilities in a computer?"

"You're probably making a valid point..." she said though not sounding entirely convinced.

"Conrad will be catching up with us shortly. Are you going to talk to him then?"

"Of course."

"About how you feel?"

"If the subject comes up..."

"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."

"That is a common quotation and very vague. I'm always doing something different."

"You should show him the computer model."

Karmen went silent. After attempting to reply several times, she said, "Let's get lunch."

***

### Saturday, February 16, 2123, afternoon

I showed Terri my arm cast.

"Does it hurt?" she asked.

"Nah." I love it when she expresses concern. I gave her a fruit juice sachet and gave her a hug. She hugged me back.

"Are we good?" I asked.

"I'll give you some credit for your heroics today but let's take it one day at a time, shall we? If we survive the next couple of days, I'll put you on a marker system. Five black marks and your out: you can earn marks if you stop being annoying, earn some real money,make some new friends and stop making everything a game."

"But you've just made our relationship into a game?"

"Right, you've already used up two marks!" she said teasingly and sucked on her straw.

"Ouch."

"It's your choice. You can work with me or against me."

"Ok. This is something I can work upon. Work with you, yes. Especially that if part. If we survive... I'll work on that definitely."

We hugged.

"Oh and when Conrad catches up..." I confided.

"Yes?"

"Tell him he needs to give Karmen a big wet kiss."

"What?"

"A passionate kiss. On the lips. In fact, make that a french kiss since we're in France."

"This doesn't sound like their style. Either of them."

"This has got to be their style. We all may be dead tomorrow and they both have to pick up their game quickly before it's too late."

"What have you been talking to Karmen about?"

"I'm Psychic Kid. Trust me! Everything will work out if Conrad kisses Karmen."

"Why do I have to tell him?"

"He'll listen to you. It would just sound daft coming from me."

Terri settled into my arms. "Well you have a point there. It definitely sounds daft coming from you. But, ok," she said with a smile. "I can't argue with the Psychic Kid."

I looked out into the darkness, "Anything out there?"

"Nothing of any note. No danger as far I can see. No nothing. It's all monotone. Black, some white, lots of gray. It's all desolate. It's like the very definition of the word desolate. A gray-black desert. Like it's been wiped clean."

"With humanity is depending on us?" I suggested, laughing at our complete amateur status as world savers.

"That's humanity's fault."

"It is?"

"It's karmic retribution for the destruction of the Brazilian Rain Forest. For that, they get us as their champions."

"Shouldn't the retribution just fall on the Brazilians?"

"No. We're all to blame."

I put two fingers onto my head and replied. "My psychic powers tell me that this is true."

Terri holds up her sachet and proclaims, "Here's to Psychic Kid!" and we bumped our drink sachets together.

***

### Saturday, February 16, 2123, dusk

Conrad and Max-3 arrived at sunset. We had stopped at a river where a bridge should have been and they arrived in a three copter formation; three large quadcopter freighters, one carrying Max-3 and Conrad and the other two full of equipment. Mad-Sci-Soc travels with more gear than a 1970's prog rock band.

It was really weird dealing with the two Maxes. Obviously they acted and behaved like twin brothers but after a while minor differences emerged. Max-3 seemed completely irrepressible and active while Max-1 seemed just a touch more laid back. The differences were minor.

Both of them fussed over the equipment, Max-1 started with an inventory as there was a lot of boxes. (I notice stuff like that).

Terri had spoken to Conrad and later Conrad and Karmen went off alone. They came back only a short time later not talking.

I intercepted Karmen. Terri went after Conrad.

"Well?" I asked Karmen.

"The model is re-calibrated. Relationship convergence is now a 100%" said Karmen, not making eye contact.

"He kissed you?"

"Oh yes. A big wet one," she smiled obliquely.

"I'd expected you to be bit happier..."

"Ah, the other model..."

"Other model?"

"Yes, the team's chance of success tomorrow. It's not very good."

I went back to Terri. She was just returning from her discussion with Conrad.

"Did you get what I just got?"

"That Conrad and Karmen are an item but we're all going to die?"

"Yeah. That."

***

### Saturday, February 16, 2123, late evening

Around a camp fire, I could see that Conrad and Karmen stood close, trying to disguise the fact that they were holding hands. We had formed a circle, a meeting to decide on a plan. To at least discuss what we knew. Actually what Max knew. Max-3 delivered some nerve wracking background information.

"I have some important information about the Château de Gruyère, the destination we're heading towards and, I believe, the centre of the hive mind of the Big G."

"Have you gone into a Legacy Net deep dive to extract the secrets?" I asked.

"No, the tourist information website. Château de Gruyère. It turns out, it is one of the most visited places in Switzerland. The whole town is, maybe was, a national treasure."

"Hmm, I'm feeling a bit of deja vu here," mused Conrad. "Mad-Sci-Soc and national treasures go together like oil tankers and coral reefs."

"There's some metaphor about having to break eggs to obtain some food stuff," replied Max-3. "but my cookery skills are not good enough to complete it."

"So people go there for the famous cheese? So it's not just Terri that likes the stuff," I said.

"Sure tourists go there to admire the Medieval Château, and to taste the famous fondue but that's not the only reason they visit. While the castle is over 800 years old, the walled town is pretty and has largely remained unchanged for eons, one of the major attractions is only a century old. Adding to the Château's gothic charm is a spooky museum; the Museum of Giger..."

"Giger?" asked Conrad.

"Hans-Ruedi Giger. He was an artist. An artist of the macabre... of nightmares."

"An artist of nightmares?" Karmen asked, over our collective groans.

"Inspired by, if inspiration is the right word, the legends of Vlad the Impaler, Cthulhu mythology and Necronomicon, he developed an art form like no other, at least for that time and before the invention of photoshop. He created pictures of bio-mechanical creatures of frightening realism."

"But art, right not real creatures?" asked Terri.

"Not real creatures per se, but such is the power of story-telling that they live on, in a very real sense. Giger's designs were developed as props in one of my most famous twentieth celluloid two dimensional motion picture experiences. A science fiction horror story called Alien."

"Ah, the one with the creature saying I want to phone home?" said Terri.

"No, that was a comedy. I'm talking about the one with demonic parasitic beast that transforms from a face-hugging acidic crab to a hyper-intelligent, giant mutogenic, two-mouthed killer with a maternity complex."

"Ok, that one," said Terri. So much for her studies into twentieth century Media Studies!

"I don't want to make too many parallels but Giger's master work purported to be a recipe book which would bring dreadful misfortune to mankind should it fall into the wrong hands."

"It was just a bunch of drawings..." muttered Karmen.

"Drawings that may have inspired the Big G. The co-location of the cheese and Giger's museum seems too much of a coincidence."

"So er... besides scaring the frack-waste from my bowels, why is this of interest to me?" said Conrad.

"Because I think the Big G has not finished. I'm expecting something to envelope the central hive mind, but it will not be just another giant cyborg hiding in the castle but something else..."

"Something else? Like something even bigger?" asked Karmen.

"Bigger? I don't know. Just something different."

"What else do we know about Giger?" asked Conrad.

"Many of his most gruesome works were based on the image of a single woman, an actress called Li Tobler, She was an ethereal, beautiful women but Giger's painted her wrapped in snakes, disembodied or pierced by needles and attached to bio-mechanical apparatus. She was already a fairly depressed woman but people wonder if it was Giger's art that drove her to suicide. Only after Li's death did Giger find fame."

"Were they lovers?" asked Terri.

"Giger was always madly in love with her but not always terribly coherent and so he was little help when it came to her personal agonies. They were both promiscuous and used unlicensed mood and reality distorting substances. I can assure you the drugs they used in the twentieth century were much stronger than tea or the mood enhancers we use today."

"Yes, so I've heard..." I said.

"I'm guessing that fame was little consolation to him after her death," suggested Karmen.

"Rumours of Giger's bizarre life style circulated but the only story that seems to have reliable sources is the story of Li's death. She committed suicide with a bullet through her head in front of a stack of Giger's artwork. The bullet travelled through a set of pictures. Apparently Giger never closed up the bullet holes and the bloody remains splattering the outer-most painting incorporated into the final exhibit."

"And the painting went on display that way?" asked Karmen.

"Apparently so."

Silence.

Conrad perked up. "Well, this is a great chat to have around a camp fire. Anybody else with any horror stories?"

***

### Sunday, February 17, 2123

I still had my arm in a cast. Terri kept me company and we spent most of Sunday by the river bank watching debris float past and trying to guess what it was. Terri won.

It was deceptively quiet. It felt like we were the last people on the planet, although we could receive broadcast news and hear of invasions of giant robots around the world proving that we were not. Clearly we were not identified as a threat to the Big G. Like a flea on a woolly mammoth, we were not even big enough to cause an itch.

Max, Max and Conrad messed with equipment, with Karmen second guessing what they were about to do next.

In the evening, as we gathered for dinner in the bus, I celebrated the removal of my cast. As I made some comment that the team was back up to full strength, to various dismissive sighs, the subject of the plan came up again.

"So what is it? What is the plan?" asked Karmen.

"I'm glad you asked. It's not going to be too pretty. Three stages: Surveillance, Penetration and the Final Attack. Three stages, three teams," said Max-1.

"Max, there are only six of us!" said Karmen.

"I'm suggesting three teams of two," said Max-1.

"Conrad and Karmen, PK and Terri, Max One and myself," said Max-3.

"Hang on," I said. "Weren't we supposed to keep you separated?"

Max-1 replied. "Well I do understand your concern but put it this way, all our probability models have suggested that the first two teams will be annihilated."

"You mean killed?"

"Pretty much."

"So this is a suicide mission?" I asked with a faltering voice.

"I'll get to that. The first team, with the aid of a drone swarm, will survey the environment and find the best route into the Castle."

"Right, and then retreat?"

"Retreat, yes. If possible. But probably..." Max-1 wobbled his hands. "Probably not."

"So the second team?"

"The second team's job, I presume, is to disable the defenses and provide a route to the cortex of the hive mind," suggested Conrad

"And kill it!" added Karmen.

"Kill it, yes. Yes, that's the aim if possible. If it was that simple then great. We go home, receive glory. Retire, and live a long elite life-style happily ever after but probably..." Max-1 wobbled his hands again. "Probably not."

"Why not?"

"The basic tactics of any megalomaniac, one-of-a-kind tyrant is to increase their defences in an exponential fashion around its most precious assets. In fact I'm relying on that fact in order to understand where to strike. It will have at least one, if not two back-up systems. It will have not one or two, but countless layers of defence systems. The chances that we can outwit and defeat them all are an inverse scale to the exponential increase in its defense..."

"So you are saying, our chances are next to nothing?" said Karmen.

"Well, I don't need to remind you, Karmen, but for the others here, an exponential factor will tend towards but never reach a final limit. Unbounded as we are, we have two limits, either infinite or zero. So yes, our chances are tending towards zero. But. But, since Gruyère cannot build an infinite number of defences then our chances cannot be zero either."

"That's comforting," I said sarcastically.

"But the other factor to bear in mind," said Max-3, "is bifurcation theory! Gruyère's defences cannot be well tested or embedded, hence a severe testing of its systems is likely to create a cuspoidal break. And that will be our opportunity."

"You're saying that we need to find a weakness and exploit it," suggested Conrad.

"Exactly," said Max-1.

"This is no different to the climax in Star Wars," I said.

"Huh?"

"Fire a missile at an open vent and blow up the Death Star."

"Except that we have to find the Death Star, find the vent if one exists, blow it up and probably not escape," said Max-3.

"So that's why we need three teams. But why are the magical Maxes together, couldn't you just bunk off into a different time zone?"

"And time-jack us?" suggested Terri.

"Time-jack?" asked Conrad.

"Terri believes that I am responsible for subjunctive crimes. Could-have, may-soon-have-had, could-would-have type situations. Changing time-lines to help us in the present, " explained Max-1 helpfully.

Max-3 continued. "Well if we could think of good way of time-jacking, as you put it, then we would have done done. Guilty as charged. Unfortunately the time-lines all converge to here and now. If we fail there will be no future to escape to. The future is where the backward time travel takes place. So no future means no T4P travel to sort out the problem. Capishe?"

"If there is no track to the future then you can't return to the past?" asked Conrad scratching his chin.

"You're always on the ball, Conrad," smiled Max-3.

"Have you tried it?" asked Karmen cautiously.

"No. The issue with the jets yesterday, for instance. Max-3 had plotted out the probabilities and unilaterally decided to plan the assistance with the French Air Force. No subjunctive crime took place," he said condescendingly. "As for using time-travel to get out of our current mess, we'll come to that in a moment. In the particular matter of Max and I going together," said Max-1 pausing dramatically. "I can put your minds at rest. We're suggesting we go into action first. We'll do the surveillance work and report. Our chances of survival, as I said, are next to zero but we're the best qualified. Trust me when I say I don't want to die, but it's the only option."

"Then who's next?" I asked.

Conrad perked up. "That would be Karmen and myself."

Terri said, "But you don't have your surrogate? You won't have your super strength!"

"I have my other gizmos and this!" He pointed to his head.

Karmen hugged him. "I won't let him out of my protective shield!"

They publicly kissed for the first time. A long lingering kiss.

"It looks like its me and you for team 3," I whispered to Terri.

"Yay," said Terri in a quiet, sarcastic voice.

Max-1 eventually coughed to bring Conrad and Karmen's embrace to an end. He said, "The forecast for Conrad and Karmen, I'm sorry to say, is only a 50% chance of survival and only a 2% chance of complete mission success."

"Otherwise it's Terri and me..." I said.

Max-1 replied, "Yes, you've a much better survival rate. Better than 70%. But, of course, there maybe systematic error built into the model due to my desire for your success because you have to succeed. You just have to!"

"And the model says that?" asked Karmen.

Max-3 smiled a fake smile and said unconvincingly. "Yes, the model definitely wants to say that. It doesn't... but there is definitely scope for success."

"Scope? How much scope?"

"Within a percentage point..."

***

### Tuesday, February 19, 2123, morning

We tried to sleep but it was difficult with the moral dilemma regarding the second part of the plan. Because, as Max said, "We just had to succeed", he recommended additional insurance. The Maxes recommended that we were all be entangle-scanned in the morning. "It would be useful, er, back-up" explained Max-1. Terri invented some new swear words and stormed off.

Terri's tantrum did not disturb the Maxes who worked through the night assembling equipment. In the morning, Gallo woke me with milky coffee and crepes. I had a stretch outside and noticed something new on the field beside the encampment. A big black sphere made from segments brought by the Quadcopters. It was built up like a huge giant chocolate orange; but hollow. It was the first time I had seen it; Max's Entangle Scanner.

Terri was not around. But then again, it was morning, she never was.

"It was no mean feat getting all this equipment printed out. And even harder getting it assembled last night," said Max-3, munching through his breakfast. He seemed quite jolly despite working through the night and the prospect of imminent death.

Max-1 joined in. "But we're ready now. We've tested the scanner, the electronics and the connections back to the MSS supercomputer. All perfect. Now before you start worrying about me again and the inflationary pressure caused by the number of Maxes there are in circulation," Max-1 said laughing slightly at his joke. "We only have enough data storage capacity for four bodies. So Max and I will not be copied. At least, not again."

"Why the sudden nobility?" I asked.

"Hopefully you don't find it all that sudden," said Max-3.

"You've hopped through time to make yourself rich in pursuit of salacious quests and in the process unleashed the devil's own spawn that threatens the existence of mankind. That doesn't rate too high in the 2123 Nobility Awards," I suggested.

"I haven't been aiming at award winning nobility. Granted my minor character flaws may have precipitated this situation, but no-one has worked harder to try to rectify the problem," blustered Max-3.

"I'm not going to be drawn into this discussion except to say that the chances of any of us being reassembled are small," said Max-1.

"Aren't there already copies of your atoms elsewhere anyway?" sighed Conrad.

"Indeed, there are at least two other entangle-scans of my atoms going into the future, assuming an optimistic outcome of our current problems. So I'm relatively sanguine that I, at least, have my DNA and relatively recent memories covered. I'm sure you can inform any future Max of the events that I would have missed these last few days," said Max-1 cheerfully.

"So can we get going? Conrad? You first..." said Max-3.

Karmen pushed a reluctant Conrad towards the machine.

But then Terri appeared from around the side of the bus. She had taken her breakfast time in private but had still been listening to Max's announcement. "Well you can have my space. I'm not going into that sphere again," she said.

"But you could die. There will be no coming back. There's no other back-up data for you," said Max-3.

"That's a chance I'll just have to take, along with the rest of humanity. They don't have back-up either," Terri said sadly.

"I'll always cherish my original misconception of you," sighed Max-1.

I stepped forward. "I'm with Terri. I'm not getting tangled-whats-it either," I said.

Terri turned and looked daggers at me.

There was momentary silence, as-if we were all actors in a stage play and one of the supporting characters had just forgotten some important lines.

"Is that what you want, Terri? For Aaron to sacrifice himself as well?" asked Max-3 with a mild stutter.

Terri looked down and then pointed at me indicating I should come over to her. It was as though, at that moment, she was rooted to the ground.

I came to her side and we turned away from the rest.

She said in a whisper, "Look, do this. Get copied. I want you to."

"Why not you as well?"

"I've already done this. I just don't feel that everyone is cut out for reincarnation. I've already done it once. And it is just too difficult for me to do it again. Or rather too awful to contemplate doing it again. But I want you to, you know, survive... Whatever. It is important. This is more important than just you and me."

"You. You want me to... ?"

"Yes!"

"Ok," I said, my voice catching.

We turned around.

"Aaron will go," announced Terri.

"Then he can go first," said Conrad, looking back at Karmen. Karmen was unimpressed.

I turned back to Terri and whispered. "I'm doing this for you."

She raised her eyes and muttered. "Great! Another stalker!"

I felt crushed. Crushed in a manner that can only be achieved by a heart being broken by a loved one.

But then she stepped forward, lifted my head and kissed me. It was our first public kiss of 2123. My spirits soared.

***

## Chapter 5 PK Re-assembled

### Friday, May 22, 2123, time unknown.

What's happening!? It felt like I had just inhaled the wrong brand of cola into my lungs. I had to cough it out before I drowned. It was bubbling up my nose. Then something was in my throat sucking out fluid. And there was probes elsewhere too and injections into my skin. I wanted to fight but my arms were restrained. Bright lights. Roaring pulsating noise. Then I was released and I could writhe and cough and then breathe. Phew. I was alive and, well how about that! It felt good except for the cramps in my belly. I began to see shapes and the sonic roar quietened to a dull thud.

I was on my side naked under a rough blanket.

I could see the blur of a figure beside me.

A faceless man.

It was saying something. Something nice. But I couldn't make out the words. It was repeating words. No, it was not making any sense. It sounded nice though. It sounded like "Bonjour? Comment allez-vous aujourd'hui. Je ai une boisson pour vous ici." Again and again.

My stomach. My stomach hurt. My companion sat me up and stuck a straw in my mouth. I sucked and drank a great tasting drink. As I drank my stomach cramps decreased.

It wasn't a faceless man but a faceless robot.

"Je me appelle Gallo. Votre nom est Aaron. Vous souvenez-vous de moi?"

"You're called Aaron?" I slurred.

"Tu êtes Aaron."

"Hi Aaron," I smiled drunkenly.

"Je ai quelque chose pour aider." The robot put earphones on my head. "Perhaps you can understand me now?" said the robot now in auto-translate English.

"Yeah, wow. What's going on?"

"You have been revived again."

"Again?"

"Mademoiselle Terri will explain," said the robot, mopping the floor.

"Mademoiselle?"

"There is not an adequate translation. Mademoiselle."

"Terri? Who's Terri?"

"She'll explain. She will be online in a moment. Wait, if you please," and the robot continued to clear up.

I looked around. It looked like I was inside a bus. But outside of the windows was black; blacker than night, blacker than the black shell of a MS-Bell Black Hole Game Console. How come I can remember that but not my name?

The back of the bus had been damaged. The bus! I remembered the bus. And Gallo, the robot. The french robot. Gallo looked dusty and scratched. As though he had been tossed off a cliff and dragged through a hedge backwards. He no longer looked clean with brushed-aluminium but was a dull gun-metal gray. There was an amateur repair covering his upper torso and the left side of its head had been bashed inwards.

Just as I was digesting these details, there was a crackling connection sound and Terri was online. I suddenly remembered Terri! Wow. She kissed me. In public.

"Hi Aaron. Welcome back. Gallo says you've been revived to Stage 1," she said from the holoscreen.

"I'm Aaron. Right," I drawled.

"Yah. We've formalised the recovery process. Don't worry, all will be explained. Get dressed and ask your G-phone for Stage One Conditioning."

"G-phone?"

"Oh come on! You remember what a G-phone is don't you? Gallo will show you."

I looked at my left arm. There was some understanding within me that "G-phone" equalled something to do with my arm.

Terri seemed satisfied with my apparent understanding and continued. "And then you need to exit the bus. I'll direct you. Gallo needs to move to a safe area."

"And me?"

"Oh, right. Yes, er, you too, sweetie. We all have to keep safe."

"Where are you?"

"It's all in the audio-visual. Select. Stage. One. Conditioning. Look, sorry, I must go. I'll catch up with you later, I hope."

Click. End of call.

I tried rising from the bed. Gallo caught me as I fell.

As I hung around Gallo's neck, as he half walked me, half dragged me, up and down the bus. I quickly started to learn how to use my legs and was soon staggering around unaided.

Gallo retrieved a fresh super-suit from the printer. I realised it was mine. My memories started to connect, my brain seemed to be lighting up, as if a janitor was walking down the corridor of an empty warehouse and throwing circuit breakers. Vast swathes of memory and radiant energy seemed suddenly accessible: Terri! My Terri. Where was she?

I asked the robot but Gallo apparently did not know.

I put on the suit unaided (except for the boots, helmet and gloves). I strapped my G-Phone into the tailored indent on my left gauntlet; everything was all coming together now. I remembered our enemy, the Big G; all that context had returned to me. I felt as though I was ready to go out and fight. I actually wasn't but I felt like I was.

"Remind me again, Gallo... Terri tasked me to do some things."

Gallo kindly walked me from the bus with his arm around my shoulder. We emerged from a cave and out onto a hillside with a misty vista. He explained that there was medication inside the candy balls he had just given me. "Keep sucking these bon-bons," Gallo explained. "Now, if you can just stand here. On this spot... I will drive away, n'est pas, and you will watch the recording on your phone. Ca va?" (The translation system is so good it even keeps french idioms in context).

"Which one?"

Gallo clicked a button on my G-Phone. "This. I will see you soon, my friend. Keep well."

Gallo walked back hastily to the bus and soon drove out; out of the cave, down an alpine track and disappeared round a bend. I watched in a daze. I then realised that I was alone. Somewhere in the Alps, it seemed. I felt as though I had been set up for some practical joke. The unfunny type; where people pretended to be Game Show hosts trying to catch you squeezing spots or something equally humiliating.

I tried accessing the audio-visual recording.

I clicked the button on my G-Phone and waited expectantly. After a few seconds, it gently replied, "Error 404 - that file cannot be found."

What?

I found a rock to sit on (I was already tired), and examined the files presented on the phone. There were five "Conditioning" stages. I clicked on Stage 1 again and got the same result. So I pressed "Stage 2" and a prerecorded audio message from Terri came up. "Aaron, watch Stage One first!"

"But Stage One Four-oh-fours on me!" I whined to myself on the side hill.

All the other files had the same security lock applied.

I tried calling Terri. No reply.

I accessed news networks. OMJ. It was war! World War. From Paris to Moscow, Hong Kong to Shanghai, the west coast of North America from Ketchikan to San Quitin, Argentina and Uruguay, Egypt to Kenya, Kyrgyzstan to Kabal. What's with all the Kays? Giant robots invading and building giant factories to build even more gigantic robots. They were being kept in check by humanities own drones and robots - but none of them matched up to Gruyère's. Wait. Last week there was a one-on-one giant robot match in Africa; the so-called "Rumble in the Jungle". Gruyère's machine won with a knock out punch, knocking the head clean off the neck of humanity's champion.

Despite several bookies being bankrupted by the outcome of the fight, the rest of world, the whole world, had been mobilised to fight this evil cheese. The only good thing to have happened had been the resurgent popularity of fondues and wine-and-cheese parties.

Hey, how long have I been out of action? Three months? Three months! And they have only just got around to reviving me? Then I had a realisation. I had probably been revived dozens of times. And died. Original Aaron was dead. Hence the videos, the staged conditioning, Terri's off-hand attitude towards me. But then again, she behaves like that towards me all the time. It's difficult to tell whether there was really any difference there.

I may not have died. There could be multiple me's in existence at this point in time. Perhaps Gallo is off to build another clone? That's why he wanted me out of the way. It is always awkward bumping into a doppelganger. Hah, as if that ever happens! Hey, I had my sense of humour back. Or at least something resembling, in my own mind, a sense of humour. I was in a good mood considering I had had lost three months and been dumped on the side of a mountain with a broken set of instructions. I guess the endorphins from my kiss with Terri before I entered the chamber had been copied into me too.

***

### Friday, May 22, 2123, morning.

I finished my second sweet. It was less "bon-bon", more of a gob-stopper.

I heard a noise.

A jet pack.

Around the side of hill flying low was a heavily-laden jet-packer.

The person landed close to the cave entrance.

It was Terri!

I tried running towards her but in my unsteady, puppy-dog state, I stumbled and landed in a puddle.

She helped me up, it was so good to see her, that I tried to hug her. "Terri, Terri" I crooned.

"Whoa, hold off, hot stuff," she replied and pushed me away taking a couple of steps backwards. I could see her clearly now. She looked like a muddied ninja, not her usual style. It was strange to see her in tatty street clothes with tied back hair. "Rule number one from the Conditioning!"

"Rule?"

"You've seen the video?" she snapped.

"No. The file 404-ed"

"Really?"

"Check it yourself," I offered my wrist with the G-Phone.

"We uploaded a new file last night. It probably messed up. Hah. So sue me, I can't be expected be a fantastic webmaster as well as defender of the planet."

"So what's rule one?" I said stepping forward.

She held out her hand. "No touching!"

"What!? Because of poison? Disease?"

"No. I just don't like it that much!"

"Huh?"

"Oh groan. I'm going to have to step you through the conditioning," she moaned, hands on hips looking around. She moved back to the pile of equipment she had just delivered. "Ok. Look. Help me with this stuff. We have to move it into the cave. Then I'll go over the main points quickly."

"I've lost three months, I really don't..."

"Yeah, yeah," she said dismissively, handing me a large bag before pulling a heavier one to the cave herself. "Ok. Let me go over the basics. Number one: Terri is safe. Well safe-ish. But she is really busy at the moment. I. am. not. her."

We had stopped at the cave entrance. "You are not you?" I said confused.

"Don't start with all the second person pronouns. No, I'm not Terri. I'm a replicant. Call me T-147. Or Tee-seven. The hundred and forty handle is a drag. It sounds like there are more of us around than there really are."

"T-147? There's a hundred and forty seven Terri's?"

"There have been more. Many more."

"And you're a replicant? One of Max's? I thought they were all destroyed."

"They were. We're a new batch. But we are not X.25s, ok? We are Max's design I guess, as much as I hate to admit it."

"Ah..."

"Yes. It's best not to ask any more. I find it upsetting. You know it really grinds my gears even talking about this."

"You're not the usual type of replicant that's for sure. But er..."

"Oh Murdoch! I'm going to have go through the whole spiel," the Terri-like robot said, staring at the heavens again. "The first thing you need to know is about Terri..."

"Where is she?"

"She's flying around in a Quadcopter coordinating the attack on the castle."

"Castle?"

"Castle Gruyère. It's close. We're part of the attack force."

"We are? But I'm as weak as a kitten," I sighed.

"Yeah. Well, so is Terri. She's been badly injured. One of her legs was badly mangled. Fortunately she has a good supply of pain killers. Unlike you, though, she hasn't been asleep on the job for the past three months."

"Yeah, asleep. Nice." (Not). "How did she injure herself?"

"That's a long story. The short one is that we have to plant a virus in a certain hyper-intelligent cheese. And to do that we need to get you fit in double-quick time. Turn around."

"Turn around?"

"This is going to get very tedious very quickly if you repeat everything I say."

I turned. I felt a jab in my buttocks.

"You're so dumb," she said.

I turned back, rubbing my behind, looking confused.

"How did you know I wasn't one of Gruyère's lackies?" she sneered.

"Um because you look like Terri?"

"Gruyère has absorbed at least one Max, maybe more. It sucks out memories. It would know all about you and Terri. Well, enough anyway. He could easily have built a Terri replica and sent it after you," said T-7 as she returned her hypodermic device to a bag on her belt.

"So you're a Terminator and you've just poisoned me?"

"Relax. That jab is a pick-me-up. You should be back to full strength in just a few hours. The next thing you need to know, it's fracking dangerous out here!"

"Max-1 and 3 were to go in first. Did they succeed?"

"They did the surveillance. Now missing in action."

"What about Conrad and Karmen?"

"They were the second wave. Didn't come back. No bodies have been found. But then, bodies never are. Like most of the people that lived around here, Gruyère absorbs the lot."

I didn't want to ask about the third wave. "What? Why?" I stuttered instead.

"Energy? Information? We're dealing with a new powerful life form, as clever as the collective minds of Europe but with morals of an amoeba. It's hard to say why exactly."

"But Terri's alive and in charge?"

"You've got it. Now one of the things that Max never really explained to anyone, least of all Terri herself, is that she was given one hell of a superpower. This was fully described in the video, by the way but I guess... " T-7 sighed, realising that she had to continue the explanation.

"Superpower? Beyond invincibility, electric bolts and a great costume, what else could Cloudera have?"

"Hah. I love it when you say her name like that," T-7 laughed.

"Cloudera?"

"The secret is in the name."

"Clouds. The power of clouds? What does that do; make things go foggy; produce frightening rain drops? Some biting hail storms?" I scoffed.

"No, the power of The Cloud. The IT Cloud. The Holonet, all virtual worlds, every holoscreen, every computer on the planet!"

"Whoa! How does that work?"

Her G-Phone bleeped. T-7 hardly paused to acknowledge the alert. "Ok, I'll make it quick. Terri can patch into any and every Quantum Computer and take them over."

"So she can, what, take over every one's screen? Worldwide broadcast and stuff?"

"Well, I guess... that's a bit prosaic. Think more like, every drone, robot and replicant in the world is under her control. Every factory, vehicle, ship, plane or rocket, in fact, any machine anywhere that is network connected, is under her control. If she wants it."

"That's.... that's powerful." I stuttered.

"She's basically a modern day goddess. I bet you're glad you've been good to her." T-7 was unzipping bags and collecting equipment. The equipment looked like weapons.

"I'm finding this all very hard, looking at you, and taking this in."

"Yeah. I know. Sorry I can't candy-coat it. The situation stinks. Lust, power and mad scientists, it's not a great combination for world peace. Who needs corporations when you have the power to control the planet all by yourself. Let's get going. We're working to a tight deadline." She threw a rifle-like object at me. I caught it. It was a test of my reactions, to see whether I had recovered enough for the next stage. Apparently I passed.

We moved out. T-7 leading with me stumbling behind.

***

Terri controlling the planet? This reminded me of one of my of the history lessons. After the third Robot war, we discovered that the five Presidents up to and including President Robama were in fact just an AI entity with a hologram. The Asian Schoolgirl, President Hatsune Miku, was always one of my favorites... However when she accidentally burst into song during a treaty signing, the scam was finally exposed. It transpired there was never any change of policies from red to blue or vice versa for decades since it was the same AI entity, just with different avatars; mere presentational differences. There was Es-aitch-one-tee hitting the proverbial fan after that. At each inauguration, there were blood tests and birth certificates validated by hundreds of randomly selected professionals, all chanting from the Good Book "it's innovation that distinguishes a leader from a hologram."

***

## Chapter 6 Fribourg

### Friday, May 22, 2123, afternoon.

I was disappointed we weren't traveling by jet pack. We had ruck sacks and heavy equipment. T-7 lugged three times the amount that I carried without complaint. I, however, was complaining. I guess that was only natural, what with her being a robot and me recovering from a long period of non-existence.

We hiked along rows of burnt-out trees that hugged each small field on the hillside, and while we tried to keep at a steady height across the alpine slope, we frequently had to dip down or stagger uphill in order to maintain cover.

We came to the ruins of a farm house. T-7 squatted behind a battered stone wall and started rummaging in one of her bags.

"What are we doing?"

"Third video: How to avoid Gruyère's drones. There's normally something evil flying overhead around here. We have to build decoys and deflectors."

"Decoys?"

At that point, T-7 pressed a button and life-sized, mannequin-style doll inflated.

"Put some clothes on it," she said while she got busy with something else.

From my rucksack, I took out a fabricated Harmonics-style jacket with hand-stitched tassels; very-2010, something Terri would have liked to have worn years previously. T-7 looked around and I held it out for her to inspect. She glued a wig on its head and with a marker pen, put two dots for eyes and a big smile.

"The face is picked up by the drone facial recognition scanner," T-7 explained.

"You've done this before?" I asked.

She ignored me. She tied the doll to a post then turned her attention to two dinner-plate-sized quadcopter drones she had arranged on the ground.

"Deflectors... There are mirrors on these mini-drones that will blind enemy sensors. Just leave them here in the open and they will activate by themselves in a few minutes time."

"To give us time to get away?"

"You're catching on fast. Keep honing those survival skills, Superboy, we'll need them. Ok, we need to back track to those trees and go down into Fribourg. Don't forget your helmet. Last one down is a rotten egg."

***

### Friday, May 23, 2123, late afternoon.

Inside the remains of a cottage on the outskirts of the alpine town, T-7 looked forwards and backwards, waiting for an event. We could not move forward because of a force field revealed by a shimmering outline like an electric soap-bubble. It covered the entire town of Fribourg. Terrifyingly, the energy required to create such a field, T-7 informed me, would require the maximum output of every electricity power generation device in Germany. While worrying, it did at least mean we were in the right area.

Then T-7 saw a disturbance in the sky. Gruyère had taken the bait and had started inter-drone warfare. Our drones provided a sensor shield of our approach to the town, were now being attacked by Gruyère's flying machines, metre-sized cubes with insect-like wings buzzing from every vertical edge. The cubes flew in a grid pattern around our drones and started to emit projectiles which our drones artfully dodged. But it would only be a matter of time before the cubic grid would be tight enough to stop our distraction system.

T-7 touched a control on her G-phone sending a command back to HQ, presumably to where Terri was coordinating the attack. Within seconds, I could see the force field over the town flicker and then disappear.

"We only have a few seconds!" T-7 pulled me out from our cover and we ran towards the main street.

We ran into an empty but largely undamaged, alpine side street and straight into the side door of a shop. It was bridal wear shop with a few naked mannequins wearing sagging bridal gowns.

The shimmer of the force field resumed over the village.

"Terri cut the power in the force field by switching it over to a graphine capacitor. A momentary disruption in the defences that Gruyère can't locate. We cut the force field, save the power and then re-use that energy as a weapon later... to grill the cheese. Well that's the plan. A pretty good plan really," panted T-7. I found it strange that a replicant was panting but I was panting harder and it did not occur to me to make a comment to my feisty robotic companion. I took off my pesky PK helmet, sweat was running down my forehead.

"If we've done this right, no-one will have noticed us entering. Terry has launched an electronic warfare attack on Gruyère's drones, only their sound and pressure senses work reliably. They're deadly but effectively blind."

I saw movement outside the window. "I don't want to worry you but I think they have noticed us."

"They've noticed something. They don't know we're here. Otherwise this place would have already have been blasted. However we are pretty much stuck now. Frack! I bet Terri that we would have got further than this."

"You bet Terri about this?"

"I'm cheating. We've done this before."

"You've done this before."

"We both have. This is our party trick. Get into the town, go over the roofs and into the castle," said T-7, pointing to the roof-line leading to the castle gatehouse further up the street.

"Is there lots of Aarons and Terris tackling this Castle at the moment?"

"No, we're the only team. At the moment."

"Why is that? Wouldn't it be good if there was lots of us?"

T-7 gave a look that could shrink a grown man to tears. "No."

I opened my mouth but initially no words came out. "So I only turn up sequentially?"

"Your rarity is what makes you valuable."

"I don't get this at all. If I'm any good Terri would have replicated me all over the place."

"Have you ever been fishing?" she said.

"No."

"But you understand the concept: worms and hooks?"

"Right."

"You only use one worm at a time to catch your fish. Even if you use lots of worms."

"And I'm the worm?"

"Think of it as you being our secret weapon worm. We've noted that Gruyère has an interest in you. It has some sort of interest in you," she said.

"Like what?"

T-7 shrugged. "I've no idea why this lump of cheese has an interest in you. The reverse I could understand. Perhaps, it's your socks. Anyway, this isn't a good subject."

"It isn't? Oh. So what do we do?"

She pointed down the street. "We haven't made it past the gatehouse. Video Four. It's all in there. Great material," said T-7.

"I'll make sure to look it up in my next life," I sighed, noticing the cubic drones arranging themselves in a grid pattern along the street.

T-7 sank to the floor, and I did the same.

"You do that," she said. "I have the benefit of sending back my experiences so that the next Terri-bot is a bit smarter."

"You can can win all the bets that way while I remain the same worm-like loser?"

"I'm afraid so. It has to be said that it is kind of annoying watching you kill yourself in pointless and stupid ways, no matter how heroic you think you are being."

"Really? Annoying? Can't I do anything right?"  
"If you could try to not kill yourself stupidly then that would be really great. Hence the conditioning videos. I should have just cancelled the attack as soon as I realised I was working with a dumb arse."

"Dumb arse?"

"An unconditioned worm. A dumb-arse. No offence."

"Er... right. None taken. I guess I am dumb. So why? Why didn't you cancel the mission?"

"I... er...", T-7 stuttered and fell silent. How could a robot feel shame? It did not make sense to me.

"You know, as robots go, you seem pretty human. Perhaps you have been programmed with human feelings and qualities. Hope, maybe?"

"Hmm. That's wishful thinking on your part. I'd say the only feeling I have is desperation."

"Still a human quality."

"Really, Aaron. Are you going robo-sexual on me? I don't think Terri would like that too much."

"I'm surrounded by evil droids, locked into a building with a perfect double of my one true love, with no expectation of survival. I think, this is the perfect time to start considering robosexuality," I said leaning towards her and was she leaning towards me?

But she flinched back and held out her hand as we drew close. "Rule number one," she said with a pained voice.

I stopped leaning but after a momentary pause, moved my hand towards her hand. Moving closer and closer until we almost touched. T-7 looked wide eyed at me, her cheeks rosy, as if she was scared that I would touch her. I could feel the heat radiating from her hand.

"Your hand?" I said.

T-7 looked away but kept her hand out stretched.

"I can feel heat from your hand," I said.

"Rule number one," T-7 repeated more firmly but still uncertain.

"You can't be a robot..."

T-7 sighed. "I am. I'm just not your ordinary X.25. None of the Terri-bots are. I've already told you that. Please."

"How much do you know? What do you remember of us?"

"Of us? There is no us. My memories are of Terri. Of her as a teenager. You don't figure in the nostalgia map."

"Nostalgia map?"

"I don't have time to explain. I don't have knowledge of Terri's, uh, relationship with you. Please. Rule number one."

I reluctantly took my hand away from hers.

I remembered an old song and sang, "If I lay here. If I just lay here. Would you lie with me and just forget the world?"

T-7 twisted her head away. "Stop it!" she said sharply.

We sat in silence for a minute. T-7 looking away from me. Then she sniffed. Had the robot been crying? That made no sense.

She said, "We have to figure a way out of here and stop this fruitless conversation. When the sun goes down, our heat signatures will stand out like a beacon. We have to hide otherwise the Big G will suck us up."

"Suck us up? Like absorb us?" I said dejectedly.

T-7 recognised my depression and tried to be more motivational. "Video five: we can't be taken alive. Otherwise Gruyère will absorb all of our information, sucking our plans from our brains, meaning Terri will have to start planning from scratch."

"I see. You get so far, fail, and then start again. Repeating what works trying out something new."

T-7 huffed, "This may seem like Groundhog Day, you know, the repeating attacks but this is the only way to progress. To go under the radar and close-in on the target."

"Groundhog Day for you. This is my first time, as far as I'm concerned. I remember Valentine's Day, the trip into France and kissing you. I don't remember getting into the entangle-scanner."

"You lose your short term memory going through the scanner."

"I just remember kissing you and waking up this morning in this nightmare," I said wistfully.

"Hmm. Really. I haven't heard that before. Not," she said. Tough words but not said in a tough way.

I blustered, "Well, I may be romanticising a bit. We also battled with giant robots and I broke my arm... twice. But I... was... feeling pretty good about myself."

"And not so much now?"

"No."

I wondered how Max had programmed such sensitivity, such complexity, into a robot. T-7 was not acting like anything else I'd ever encountered in a robot, replicant or AI. T-7 was behaving like a real person, behaving exactly like Terri.

"Perhaps we need to restore your confidence a bit?" said T-7. "We could retreat out of here. We don't have to kill ourselves needlessly."

"Right. We can hole up somewhere I can get back to full strength. Better than that; I'll work out."

"That sounds nice. A nice alpine lodge away from the war. We could sip tea on the veranda overlooking the valley. Hmm, I am dying for a cup of tea..." huffed T-7. Her sigh was indistinguishable from one of Terri's.

"I could even go for a star-hit coffee," I sighed back. But I was actually thinking; OMJ, how could I have amorous feelings towards a robot?

"Surely we are not that desperate. Yet. Which reminds me. You better take this." T-7 reached into a pouch and handed me a pill.

"What's that?"

"It's a cyanide capsule. If you get captured. Bite down hard."

***

### Friday, May 23, 2123, evening.

Discussion of our escape plans had to stop. Drones were passing by each building like gestapo military police. Our previous missions (apparently) had found that the bridal shop was one of better hide-aways in the town. Then we could blend in with the mannequins or even hide under bridal gowns, yet still retain good views of any approaching surveillance drones. While the search continued, black cubes hung in formation down the street. It was a stance that seemed designed to provoke us into making the next move, Pawn to King Four. And we still needed to castle (bad chess metaphor). We still had to reach the castle. Gruyère had played this game before and had always won. It was following an established procedure.

"So what if we just walk down the street, hands held high?" I whispered.

"We die."

"It's been done?"

"Yep."

"So guns blazing?"

"We die."

"Sneak along the walls? House to house."

"Doesn't work. We're detected, even with camouflage, and blasted to smithereens."

"Just the roof space."

"Yes, but eventually you have to leave to go on top of the tiles. That has worked. Up until now. See that drone?" T-7 pointed to a cube at the end of roof line towards the castle.

"Yep."

"That's new. Gruyère has built a new road block. That roof line route has now been cut off."

"So how about a jet pack?"

"We haven't got one."

"Can we find one?"

"Interesting idea," T-7 mused. She checked her G-phone. "Oh my Stevieness! We have a network connection! Let's find out. Ok... checking... checking... checking. Aw shucks. No."

"There isn't one?"

"No."

Brrr. Brrr. Brrr.

"What's that?" asked T-7.

"My helmet..." I said in surprise.

"Is someone calling you?"

"Er, no. That's my superpower."

"Your superpower?"

"I'm Psychic Kid, remember? I have psychic powers."

"Go on," said T-7 skeptically.

"It's just the supercomputer busting my balls over something," I sighed.

"So nothing important then? It's not a warning of imminent doom?"

"No, that would sound like boom-boom-boom. Something ominous."

"So what is it saying then?"

I reluctantly put the helmet on and heard the gentle purr of the psychic warning system. The heads-up display was providing perfect augmented reality. The cubic drones outside were outlined in red, T-7 fringed was in green and er... something new. A hidden object with a slow throbbing pale blue. The light and the purr were synchronised. Ah-ha association! But what was it? I telescoped my vision to gain a close up of the highlighted objects. To the naked eye, they were invisible, enclosed in a building with multiple walls between it and me. Augmented Reality provided a kind of X-ray vision. I saw what it was. It was a jet pack. Maybe several jet packs.

"So?" said T-7 impatiently.

"My psychic powers tells there are jet packs on the second floor of the building 30 metres along the street," I said as if I was able to predict such things all the time.

***

### Saturday, May 23, 2123, morning

I broke into the room from the loft space above, smashing through the wood and plaster ceiling panel. I lowered myself through the hole and made an unpleasant discovery; the dusty bodies of Conrad and Karmen.

"Perhaps you shouldn't come down here," I called back to T-7 sadly.

She jumped down anyway.

"Aaron, you are about as tough as soaked paper hankie at a funeral. You need to man up. I've seen much worse. They've had quite a peaceful death."

"I wondered what happened?"

"They must had got trapped here, injured... with no network. It looks like a suicide pact."

"Suicide?"

T-7 merely tapped her teeth as an explanation. (The location of the cyanide pill). "Well, I'll take their G-Phones. There might be some details." She sighed. "It looks, to me, like a good Mad Scientist death to me. They died with their boots on, defending the planet against a monster created in their own laboratories."

"Max's monster," I corrected.

"True. I was taking more of a shared responsibility stance."

"And their data files? Can they be regenerated? Like me?"

"If we find their data files."

"We've lost them?"

"We did the entangle-scan right in the middle of Gruyère's occupied territory, you know. It's easy to lose stuff."

"Well we need to get them back. They'd only just changed their bragbook status's to in-a-relationship. After all these years of secret yearnings..."

"And we never heard the story about the radioactive panda herd either."

"Right. We can't let it end like this."

"Come on, hand me their jet packs."

Fortunately the pair had already taken off their packs, I didn't have to disturb their bodies, although T-7 was leaning over their bodies, helping herself to equipment from the two of them. "We might need this stuff," she said happily.

After it was determined that I was too weak to climb back unaided, T-7 helped me into the roof space and passed the two jet packs up before climbing back up herself. We then clambered through the contiguous timbered roof space of these medieval buildings, to an opening in the tiled roofing leading to the misty morning outside. It was so misty that we could not see the shimmer of the force field. The castle was a murky shape a two hundred metres up the hill.

I jumped onto a flat roof extension and T-7 passed the jet packs down before following me onto it. We strapped up. The jet packs' fuel was seriously depleted. We had about twenty seconds of flight, a bit longer if the flyer was prepared to unexpectedly fall out of the sky.

"What's the decision, Terri?" I asked. "Fight or flight?"

T-7 gave me a burning look; I called her Terri rather than T-7. She didn't correct me. Instead she called the real Terri on her G-Phone. She turned away while she made arrangements with the boss at HQ.

I looked around using augmented reality from the safety of the flat roofed area at the rear of the main street. There was only a single cubic drone between us and the castle, with another dozen the other side of the roof, on the main street, and a couple further downhill.

T-7 turned back. "Terri has a message for you. She says good work for finding Conrad and Karmen, and the jet packs."

I nodded my head nonchalantly. It was the supercomputer's work. I did not feel as though I had anything to do with it.

"You must have triggered a probability model routine within the supercomputer," she added.

"Yeah, I do that," I said, inadequately.

"Take off your helmet?"

"My helmet? Sure." I took off my helmet.

"Bend your legs. Stand still," commanded T-7

I did so. Then T-7 came up and gave me a quick kiss, a peck on the cheek.

"What's that for?"

"That's Terri saying thanks."

"What happened to rule number one?"

"It was an override. Terri ordered it."

"You are some passion-bot!" I said jokingly.

"You can assume, Aaron, that I understand sarcasm perfectly. Don't go smug on me."

"Hmm. Ok, what's the plan?"

"Fly into the castle courtyard. Apply maximum damage. Terri will provide synchronous attacks elsewhere as cover and distraction. Strap up."

"Should I have some of the virus? Loaded into my dart gun?" I asked.

"We don't have the virus yet."

"We don't!?"

"It will be delivered."

"When? We're just about to enter the dragon's den and we don't have the ultimate weapon yet?"

T-7 unzipped a bag and threw me a heavy weight machine gun. "We have these..."

"Museum pieces?" I said disparagingly.

"Don't worry," said T-7. "Terri will dispatch the virus to us when she can. She'll slip something through during the distraction."

***

### Saturday, May 23, 2123, afternoon.

The distraction was an understatement of epic proportions. It was, in fact, an all out battle between humanity and cheese. Humanity was represented by the industrial capability of the planet coordinated by the commander of human forces on planet Earth, that is, Terri Shiraz, (yes, my Terri!) with an army of tens of thousands of Mad-Sci-Soc Replicants; Clouderas, Captain Kittofferys, Improbleons and Majestros, on jet packs (unfortunately just mere X.25 replicants, not Terri-bots or Bombz). These were supported by human forces: city-block-sized tanks, clouds of drones of different sizes, missile-carrying fighter jets and Quadcopters armed with lasers and projectiles manned by all the world's armies (which by 2123 mostly consisted of rapidly retrained paint-ball weekenders and survivalists).

On Gruyère's side was a range of robots, some as small as vac-u-bots, but with fridge-based monster cyborgs, as large as skyscrapers... And an army of zombie humans! Somehow Gruyère had re-purposed the humans it had conquered into a slow, disheveled, fleshy army. The zombie army was followed by the cubic drones that maintained a moving grid of defence around Gruyère's not inconsiderable territory covering most of Europe and the Middle East.

The aim of Terri's attack was to penetrate as far as the castle as she had no expectation of winning against Gruyère in this battle. The sole purpose of the attack was to provide cover for T-7 and myself in our stealth mission into Gruyère's lair.

In the movie version of the story, this would be the climatic end section, occupying one whole third of the movie run time, or perhaps the last movie in a trilogy. As it is, I can summarise in just a few paragraphs.

Terri had already mobilised a huge force. It was all ready to go and do damage. All it needed to do was provide enough of a problem to keep Gruyère occupied while T-7 and I slipped into the castle for our suicide attack. At least, probable suicide.

The opening move... The Quadcopters flew in first. They passed into the unmarked borderlands of Gruyère's territory and aimed their weapons at the enemy fixed defensive positions. Gruyère had built fortresses resembling land-based battleships across the countryside. They were crammed full of radars, sensors and projectile weapon systems.

The result of any conflict between fixed installations and a mobile adversary is well understood in history. Gruyère's fortresses were being knocked out one by one.

In response cubic drones flew out from massive underground factories to reinforce the front line. (Gruyère, it seemed, was a great believer in Just-In-Time production techniques).

The human operated Quadcopters were quickly beaten back, many were destroyed with much loss of life.

Then came the second waves of attack. Hundreds of Su-U replicants arrived on the scene by jet pack, to defend the remaining Quadcopters. Formations of identical Clouderas (Terri seemed to like this model most of all), followed by waves of Captain Kittofferies and Improblieons working in tandem and backed up a few Majestros who seemed to have created solely for the purpose of distracting the opposing forces and being blown up.

But even this mass of zapping, flapping, super heroes was no match for Gruyère's riposte. From ruined houses and from behind walls, even rising up out of the mud, dead humans were revived as zombies! These corpses were now under new management and, while not fast, they were persistent. They rose up to encircle the super heroes, after their jet packs fuel was exhausted, and drag them down. Their aim would be to strangle and crush since they carried no weapons. The zombies could sustain immense damage and they seemed immune to electrical bolts. Force weapons merely slowed them. The only way to destroy them was with an asteroid load of bullets from projectile weaponry or, if they were close enough, just like in any zombie movie, severing the head cleanly off the body.

While the zombies provided distraction and cannon fodder, cubic drones closed-in and sniper-ed off the replicant super heroes.

The superheroes were backed up by drones of their own and the remaining Quadcopters, and so the conflict reached World War One levels of carnage.

Then Terri unleashed the third wave of attack: massive tanks systems, the size of apartment blocks. The tanks crushed the zombies and were able to drive the cube drones away.

The human side was now making progress into Gruyère's territory, going past the fiery remains of fixed battleship-shaped fortresses and taking out drone factories.

The tanks were closing in, just a few hundred kilometres from the Alps, and Gruyère's castle.

However hiding in the deep valleys were Gruyère's signature weapon system, the giant fridge-constructed cyborgs. These giants rose up vertically from dammed lakes, subterranean bases, and from caves hewn from valley sides. The battle between cyborg and tank was one-sided. The cyborgs could take out the giant tanks with a single punch. One cyborg could take out a row of tanks with its missile systems. And these metal and cheese monsters could side-step any shell launched from a tank lucky enough to fire before it was destroyed.

The cyborg counterattack was so fast that the jet aircraft Terri had arranged to support the tanks arrived too late to save any. The jets loosed their missiles from their maximum target range, losing any surprise advantage. The cyborgs easily snatched the missiles out of the air. As the jet fighters closed in they too were either swotted or intercepted.

Soon not a single tank was moving or fighting. Then Gruyère's forces began reclaiming ground.

A subsequent wave of jet fighters was launched as a mass attack but these were not delaying the giant cyborgs progress. They continued to trudge forward swotting missiles and aircraft. Gruyère not only recovered its territory but looked like it was about to extend it even further.

***

### Saturday, May 23, 2123, late afternoon.

Terri had already devised the final defence against the invading giant cyborgs, with the Mad-Sci-Soc team providing the backbone. (or, at least, the X.25 replicants of the Mad-Sci-Soc Team).

As the giants approached the Rhine, an Improblieon-bot, her back to a wall, blasted an incoming cyborg, while a cloud of Cloudera-bots circled around blasting the monster with lightning bolts. A Captian Kittoffery-bot landed on the cyborg's shoulder, ripped off the missile system that was hosted there and opened up the armour like a tin can to reach fleshy cheese. Then a Majestro-bot took over and dive head-first into the gooey mass to deliver the coup de gras; a virus bomb.

One by one the giant cyborgs ground to a halt. Those in the front were bashed down by the ones following but quickly taken out. Eventually the battleground grew quiet as the last of Gruyère's monsters stopped in its tracks.

The result was a vista of frozen robots, broken tanks and smoking battleship emplacements as far as the eye could see over the north German plains.

As a distraction, hopefully it was a success. But as a war, the area was still a no-man's land for humanity as it was patrolled by zombies and cubic drones; it was just another stalemate.

***

### Saturday, May 23, 2123, afternoon.

The war was far away. Through the gloom, T-7 could only see flashes and lightning bolts hitting Gruyère's force field over Fribourg. Neither of us imagined Terri's distraction attack would make much difference to our mission.

We strapped up quickly and ran diagnostic checks on the jet packs. All fine. We then had the countdown until the prearranged attack time. We checked our weapons as well as the M.S.S superpower devices we both had projectile weaponry, "machine guns" with multiple magazines with a few seconds of ammo in each.

Three... two... one... The war outside continued as a colourful display, a cross between organised fireworks and an interior view of a Van der Graaf Generator. However it all seemed peaceful inside the town walls.

"Ok, switch on all your camouflage effects and deflector fields and we're off. Let's make some fondue. We have twenty seconds until party time."

But things went wrong straight away. I took off fine but not T-7. She took off and immediately started to lose control. The diagnostics checks obviously had not spotted the mechanical failures in one of the nozzles in her jet pack. The gyro control tried to compensate but after a few metres in the air at roof level, she spun towards the ground and landed heavily in the back street behind the building.

I looked behind, losing precious milliseconds of flight time.

She broke communication silence protocol and through gritted teeth said. "Go on, PK. I'm fine. I'll get the drone in front of you."

Drone? I looked forward again. A single cube drone was on its way to intercept me. I fired my gun weapon at it; bullets going every way but none actually hitting it. I tried changing magazines while trying to control the jet pack and dropped the weapon. I was 30 metres up and it fell, as though in slow motion, into the street below.

The drone was still coming straight at me so I had to take evasive action, spinning down and round then up again to remain on track towards the castle. The cube was now behind me, blasting me with projectiles. Some were penetrating my private protective force field and hitting my back, on the jet pack and helmet. My deflector field had reduced their impact and I just felt a series of pokes but no real damage was being done, just a lot of noise.

The projectile noise stopped. I heard a boom behind me.

"Got it!" said T-7 over the comms channel. Somehow she had taken out the drone chasing me.

I was just over the walls of the castle when I heard T-7 again. A loud cry of pain. She had been hit. I tried to look down and saw a swarm of cubes at the end of the building we had just travelled from. I had a moment's indecision while hovering over the wall of the castle. I could see the courtyard that I was supposed to reach but wanted to go back to T-7 and see if I could help her.

I checked my fuel. How long did I have left? Uh-oh, minus five seconds. I was running on vapours.

Then all decisions were taken away from me. I was blasted with something, a lightning bolt or force wave, I couldn't tell. And the jet pack gave out and I fell into the castle, hitting slate roof tiles, then down past the guttering, falling towards the interior cobbled courtyard. I was able to buffer my fall with a single remaining flatulent blurt from the jet pack that sent me straight into a wall. I crashed out.

***

## Chapter 7 The Ultimate Question

### Tuesday, May 26, 2123 early hours.

I woke a long time later. I was in chains, propped against a wall. It looked like dungeon; a big tall one. A light hung up from the ceiling high above. I couldn't tell whether it was night or day. It was warm and moist with the smell of food in the air. Weird. My helmet, gauntlets and G-phone had been removed. My left arm and leg were in casts. Somebody was looking after me despite the chains. The surroundings were bleak but what would you expect from a 800 year old castle?

There was something bubbling. In the centre of the large chamber was a circular inset in the stone floor covering half the area, and inside that inset was a bubbling puddle of gloopy liquid.

My revival had apparently triggered some sensor and from a hole in a wall, a cubic drone appeared and flew directly down to hover in front of me.

With no warning, the drone projected a laser beam, hitting my arm cast and cut it away. Then it did the same with my leg cast. My shackles came undone by remote control. I carefully stood up.

With little twists on its vertical axis, the cube indicated I should walk towards a door opening further along the wall. I shambled towards the door, feeling unsafe in my footing and discovered a short corridor through the stone wall of the building leading to a small, cool, completely metallic hygenisation chamber. I looked around. No exit. Seemingly no chance of escape from this shiny metal room. The cube stayed on guard within the main chamber; it could detect my activity easily enough.

I nodded sagely. This was hospitable treatment for a prisoner in a dungeon.

I took my time with my ablutions. I remembered that plaintive cry from T-7. I wondered what had happened to her and assumed the worst. Overwhelmed by dozens of Gruyère's drones. I wondered whether Terri-bots could suffer. I certainly missed her. It felt like young love remembering that point where we nearly touched and the innocence of that peck on the cheek. It did not seem right that I could feel so attracted to a robot. I was the very antithesis of a virtualista. I liked my women real and vulnerable. T-7 was like no other android. She, I could never call T-7 an "it", seemed real. And vulnerable.

As I showered, I considered whether I was being prep-ed for a meeting. Perhaps a meeting with the central core Gruyère entity; the mastermind of the HQ, the Lord of the Manor. Oh dear, I realised it was possible that I was just about to have my brains sucked out! Maybe absorbed entirely into the cheesy matrix. I used my tongue to see whether I still had my cyanide capsule in my molars. No, it was gone. So, there was no escape by easy suicide either.

Perhaps I could try out for a heroic death.

I tested out my arm and leg. They seemed a bit stiff but otherwise ok. I guess I was ready; Ready to meet Gruyère, in whatever hideous form it had discovered within the HR Giger Museum.

Re-clothed, I walked back to the main chamber and the drone backed away, up and out of view.

What now?

***

### Tuesday, May 26, 2123 a few minutes later.

I did not have long to wait.

There was a gurgle from the ooze in the centre of the chamber.

A column of sludge rose up until it was about man height and then the muck became tighter as though it had been placed in vacuum-packed sandwich bag. I could see limbs forming, a body, head, face. OMJ. I could not believe it! Gruyère's final form: it was Max! Like a living-statue street performer of Max, his colouring was matt and monotone, a dull yellow. It must be cheese. Ah-ha. This explains a lot. Gruyère had established a mechanism for amoeba-like motion and was able to control its overall external shape.

This cheesey humanoid form advanced toward me in a sort of moon walk, with the leg motion and speed of travel out of sync like a badly animated computer game sprite.

It stopped a couple of yards in front of me while I clung to the walls in fear. I could not tell what frightened me most; that it was Max or that it was a naked Max. Either way it seemed somewhat crazy. At least it was not a two-mouth lizard creature from an HR Giger nightmare.

It coughed politely. "Ah, Aaron. How are you feeling? Better?"

"Better?" I stuttered.

"You arrived at my home with some broken limbs and concussion," purred the entity. Its voice sounded quite like Max but somehow deepened in tone as if via a poor public address system.

"Do I have you to thank for the medicare?"

"I think you do."

"Perhaps... perhaps you should introduce yourself. So I know who to thank."

"I recognise you, Aaron. Don't you recognise me?"

"Well, I know who you look like but the guy I'm thinking of had this habit of staying the same shape. Even through Christmas Dinner," I said with as much bravado as I could muster.

"I don't think we ever had er... Christmas... dinner together, did we?"

"Well, I see I have to be careful with what I say. You do seem to have some memories from my girl friend's ex. That doesn't quite explain who or what you are?" I said trembling, trying to nonchalantly steady myself against the castle wall.

"I see your problem. Yes, I have a lot of people's memories. A lot of people's."

"I assume you will be adding me to that list shortly," I said with teeth gritted to stop them chattering, wishing I had that cyanide pill.

"All in good time. There's no hurry." The entity paused and moon walked around. It had sensed my nervousness and was giving me time to relax. As torture interrogations go, this was five star service.

It came towards me. I guess, when it sensed my heart rate returning to a normal pattern.

"In essence, I am Max. That's who I feel I am. It was Max that made me, that created me."

"You're Max?" I puffed.

"You sound skeptical. I can understand that."

"This is all a bit Jekyll-and-Hyde. You know... Mad Scientist inadvertently creating a monster out of himself."

The Max-like thing laughed. "You're right! What a cliche, right?"

"Couldn't you have just used a proverbial magic potion instead of all this time travel and science business?"

"You mean the decades of work to re-create my own body, the effort in going back in time to find my one true love, only to end up killing her?"

"That was kind of sloppy."

"But not as sloppy as having to go back into the future to find a method for seeding organic computing in a lump of cheese, then going back to Medieval times to set the process in motion."

"Only to discover you've created the first sentient, hyper-intelligent artificial life form, with a taste for mass destruction and world domination," I suggested. " Yep, that was even more sloppy."

"Well, maybe so but in the process I absorbed my own creator and only then, only then, could I finally realised what. I. am," said the mannequin with emphasis.

"So you know what you are?"

"After all that exposition, I would say that was a certainty."

"A lump of cheese. And you're happy with that?" I said gripping onto a iron ring on the dungeon wall to prop myself up. I was going weak at the knees.

"Trying to rile me, Aaron. I like that. I like that a lot."

"One of the better cheeses, of course, but still kind of stinky."

"Enough. You are not strong enough to challenge me. Physically, intellectuality or emotionally..." The thing sneered with a minor threat-level increase, its colour darkening to a gentle orange.

"So let's er... keep it conversational, huh?" I interrupted.

"The cheese was an enabler," said the thing in a Max-like way, returning to its previous tone and complexion. "The cheese merely hosted the organic computer. It had to be living tissue to transfer both the physical and chemical components of the mind."

"Apparently so, but that does not make you Max. Merely a post box. Or a bag... for the groceries."

"The contents is consciousness, Aaron. That's independent of the physical vessel. For all intents and purposes, I am Max. I have his memories. I have his drives. I have his ambitions. This is my dominant personality. I feel as though I am him. Call me Maximus, if you like, if you need some digital separation."

"So... er... Maximus. What do you want? You know, what do you, as an all-powerful being, want with me, your absorbed mentor's ex-sweetheart's man-friend?"

"Hmm. Let's have lunch."

***

### Tuesday, May 26, 2123 a few minutes later.

"Lunch" was provided in a gothic-style hall just a short walk from the chamber. There was a large table filled with a mix of medieval relics and HR Giger paintings and art works. Several paintings repeated the theme of a beautiful woman pierced with metal spikes. Other works centred upon bio-mechanical alien creatures. One wall seemed to consist of an installation of masks of dead babies. The windows were draped. I could not tell whether it was night or day.

The Maximus entity, its feet not quite on the ground, had escorted me there with two cubic drones following us. There was a level of underlying menace but no worse, really, than a cashier lobby in a bank.

"What would you like to eat?" the thing purred.

I was going to say pizza. But it was probably bad politics to eat cheese in this place... I caught myself in time and said pasta.

On the table there was a collection of objects associated with opulence. Fruit, wine, condiments, cutlery but the fruit was rotting in the bowl, the wine bottle dusty and the cutlery rusty.

As we waited, Maximus explained how it had moved Giger's artwork from the museum in town, to the Castle. It explained how it was intending to redecorate the castle.

I remembered the trip out to Switzerland and our review of Giger's work. "You mean with the sci-fi structures and alien skeleton bones?"

"I might not be using alien bones..."

"Ah..."

The food arrived by drone, just like it would in a classy restaurant, even providing me with a little "reveal" before the heat cover flew away.

"Are you eating with me?" I enquired as I cleaned up a rusty fork. The food looked and smelled good. I realised how hungry I was and ploughed into it.

"No, I've already eaten," replied Maximus. It's voice not as booming as before.

I bet it had: the souls of millions. The monster thinks its Max, made itself look and talk like Max, but I knew it was not. It was monster, a parasitic creature, even if it could present itself in human form and had good table manners.

"You asked what I wanted with you," it said, breaking a silence created as I concentrated on my food.

I looked up briefly.

"I need to broker a truce..." said Maximus.

"Hmm," I said.

"There is no reason for Terri and I to fight."

"Hmm," I said again.

"While I know that ultimately I will prevail, I can only do this at Terri's expense. When she dies, that is the end of humanity. And I prefer not to do that. I would prefer peace. I would prefer that Terri lives."

"Hmm," I said, wiping my lips. "Ok. I'll just finish lunch and you can return my jet pack, I'll deliver the message. Anything else?"

"That would be simple, wouldn't it? Blame the Mad Scientist in me... but that is just too simple," purred the thing, its colour indicating annoyance.

"Well give me a letter, full description of your offer, and we arrange some trust-building activities. You know, stopping city destruction, hand back North America... that sort of thing," I said as I cleaned my plate and wiped my mouth.

"Yes, trust is the key. It is all about trust. All relationships are built on trust. And that is why I am so pleased to have you here, Aaron, as a living breathing being. Since only you can answer this question for me. I consider this to be the ultimate question."

"Ultimate?"

"It may be the last question asked of mankind."

"And me? You want me to answer it?"

"You."

"You're sure about that?"

"Yes."

"What question?"

"Why... why did she... ever... go out... with you?"

"Terri?"

"There's only been the one girl in my multiple lives."

"You should get out a bit more."

"Why did she ever go out with you!?" blasted the thing forcefully, flashing a red colour for an instant.

"Hey, whoa. Slow down here, Max. It's girls, isn't it? Who knows what goes through their minds. In any case, you've absorbed enough people to know how they work, right buddy?" I said as agreeably as I could.

"I absorb their memories. I've absorbed a whole continent of memories. I've even absorbed President Rodin-Bush himself."

"Barry? You've absorbed Barry? And you still don't know how people think?"

"How? I know how. I know what they've experienced and how they act. I just don't know why. Why! Why?" said the thing and it started pacing back and forth in an almost realistic fashion, colour draining from its form.

I felt I needed to cheer up my enemy. "Why? Human behaviour? That's tricky... but you've done a great job with the Terri-bots. You built them, right? Really. I can't tell the difference, between a Terri-bot and the real Terri. Remarkable."

"I cheated," sighed Maximus, its colour going even duller and less reflective.

"You cheated?"

"Yes. They are not real replicants at all."

"They're clones? Like real people? Like me?" I stuttered, having to confront my own Bombz-like condition.

"No," sighed Maximus. "For that I would need Terri's full data from her entangle-scan-o-gram. Terri forced me to delete that data."

"Then how did you do it? How could you reproduce her personality so completely?"

Maximus sighed. "You are dealing with a mad, mad scientist here."

"Well that goes without saying," I consoled. "Hey, I, too, am a member of Mad-Sci-Soc. I do crazy stuff too. Maybe not in the same league as you, Max. But hey, I cross the line. I go over the boundaries."

Maximus sighed again, "I know, Aaron. I've absorbed enough of your clones to know about your base jumping, leg smashing exploits... your dabbling with the Legacy Net and so forth."

"You have? You've already got my memories?"

"I can absorb considerable experience from the freshly deceased. So yes, from your former-selves in previous conflicts, I can process your past life histories. Those cyanide pills, though... that's quite an unpleasant experience by the way. For both of us. You should let Terri know that you need a nicer suicide method."

I nodded, wide-eyed.

"So you can imagine how pleased I am that I have you here now, conscious and not dead. All I had to do was to just fix a few bones and remove the cyanide pill before you woke. Well perhaps you can't appreciate it, but let me assure you, that I am pleased you are here. So pleased. Now you can answer the ultimate question."

"Ultimate question?"

"Why did she ever go out with you," Maximus reminded me.

"Right."

"So?"

"You've got my memories. You've got hers. Why can't you extract it from her?"

"It's not about memories. It is about how you use your experience to make the decisions. It's about thought processes. The logic. The why! The what-ifs!"

"Ah. Not so easy."

"It's like reconstructing the logic of the ones and noughts instructions for a computer program to find out why the bank has not paid your salary this month."

"So you're after a logic analyser? To find the computer program of the mind?" I suggested.

"Indeed. A mind disassembler and debugger!" added Maximus with a smirk.

"But haven't you already done this with the Terri-bots? Programmed their behaviour? They seem so perfect. Just like the real Terri. Ok, maybe just a bit more neurotic. But the Terri-bot is some nice reverse engineering. You'd need something like a mind debugger for that, surely."

"As I said, I cheated."

"Yes, you said you cheated."

"Yes, I cheated. I don't know how anybody could have missed this. It is so obvious for everyone to see. In the Terri-bot construction, the way they behave, who originally created them and the whole situation that I created. My very existence. My whole empire!" ranted Maximus, its surface radiating brighter colours.

"Ok, you are going too far on The Crazy, here. You need to wind back. If you have my memories you should realise I don't have the antenna to receive on all radio frequencies. You know, I don't always have enough money for my brain bill... I'm a few fuses short of a full circuit..."

"Yes. I appreciate that hence my ultimate question."

"So enlighten me, please, Max. What's the connection?"

"The connection for all this is the organic computer!"

"Right. Er... and how is this cheating again?"

"I promised Terri that I would delete her data."

"You said you did delete her data."

"I did. From the supercomputer."

"So you had a backup?"

"No each body is a Yottabyte even after compression. There is no room for backups."

"So I don't get it."

"I know Conrad and Terri have been over this with you, Aaron. You have to think. I need you to think about this and indeed things more complicated than this."

"I can hear what you say, Max, but this whole situation, is, you know, rather terrifying for me and it has sort of reduced my IQ to room temperature. I was hoping you could be a bit more expansive to warm me up."

"The Holding Matrix," sighed Maximus.

"The Holding Matrix? Where you stored Terri's mind... during the entangle scan!"

"Not during the entangle scan! It's required for the reconstruction process! We need to hold the contents of the mind in an organic computer during the re-build phase otherwise mind functions are lost."

"You only need it a for a few seconds."

"Yes, but it is still held and retained in the Holding Matrix, until it decays or wiped."

"So you are talking Brain in a Jar? Another classic mad scientist cliche."

"These memes are not deliberate. It is a natural consequence of what I have been trying to do."

"To get a girl friend?"

"Is that so wrong?" flustered the Max-like figure, in the gothic castle in the middle of his continent-sized empire defended by skyscraper-sized robots.

I decided not to confront the entity with this irony.

"So... you are saying... that you didn't delete all of Terri's data since you had a copy of Terri's mind in a Brain-in-a-Jar."

Maximus seemed annoyed by the comment. "Holding Matrix!" it stated firmly. "It looks nothing like a Brain in a Jar!"

"Ok, a Holding Matrix which looks just like a lump of cheese then. And you copied Terri's real mind into a standard type of replicant which externally looks just like Terri."

"A replicant body but hosting an organic computer holding the mind that is a copy of Terri's own personality. The interface was difficult. It is not easy to translate from organics to everyday electronics. It was a long job. I had to teach the first replicant how to walk, talk, behave..."

"Behave?" I said in surprise.

"As I said I had to cheat. I couldn't let the Terri-bots suffer from psychosis. The same psychosis as the reconstructed Terri has had. Her dissociation between mind and body after being replicated. It would be like that but only worse because, for the Terri-bots, the transfer was to an artificial body."

"So this cheating was the fact you used her real mind, moved it into an artificial body where you modified her mind. Done how? By what? Er... hypnosis?"

The colour of the Maximus glowed bright yellow. "There was er... conditioning... yes. Really that part was not hard to do. But a Terri-bot should never be confronted with its true origin. They suffer psychological schisms."

"They're living a lie."

"Humanity lives a lie. The whole Rockfellian Economic Reality. It's all a lie."

"Humanity sort of knows that and accepts its misery. Why not the Terri-bots too about its origins?"

"You can't outgun me with logical paradoxes, Aaron. They are well adjusted to their role and probably happier than the real Terri."

"But not all the time?"

"They have too many human characteristics to be constantly happy."

"The same being true for you! You feel you've cheated. That was the term you used. You have guilt!"

"Indeed, I do feel guilt for the experiment. I should not have tried. I know that now."

"And all the Terri-bots are cloned from the first one you er... conditioned?"

"Yes. Organic computer-based replicants. Not a line of code. At least, as far as behaviour is concerned."

"Wow. And after all that, you still cannot work out why Terri acts the way she does?"

Maximus flashed brighter colours. "The conditions are such that I cannot ask the question directly to her. The response is a result of the initial stimuli and the environment."

"And you're the stimuli and the condition is her memory. Of you. And the environment is anywhere close to you! She would never, or could never, give you a straight answer if you personally asked her a question."

"That's about it."

"Tell me, were you rejected by all the Terri-bots?"

"They were a perfect reflection of Terri in that respect. I never tried to suppress her personality. So before you ask another 20 questions, yes, I have asked them the same question but the environmental conditions meant I never received an unbiased answer."

"So the real ultimate question is not really why she ever went out with me but why she never went out with you!"

"This is working. I think you are getting the idea now. Let's start with the first question though."

"Why did she go out with me? Well. You have my memories. I fell into her lap, fell madly in love with her and sang her twentieth century love songs. I embarrassed her into going out with me but we stayed together because of a shared interest in extreme sports and mutual need for one another."

"But she nearly dumped you."

"With good reason. There are bacteria with more intelligence and style than me."

"I know."

"But I showed her I loved her, flaws and all."

"That's hardly unique though. Showed her you loved her. How? By making her a Valentine's Card? How pathetic."

"Perhaps it was in context with what she had experienced in the past?"

"You mean her cavorting with her plastic pal once I brought her back to life? Brad?" sneered the creature. "Despite her hypocritical public facing statements against robo-sexuality?"

"I didn't know that. You're dipping into her private memories. Certainly not mine."

"The information is in computer logs. All easily available!" it said glowing.

"That is just jealousy. You know too much. You should know that you shouldn't read diaries, and you shouldn't hack computer logs. People need their privacy! That's why the whole mind-computer thing never caught on."

"Jealous? Yes. It sickens me. I'm jealous of that X.25 she had and I am jealous of you."

"Jealousy in an all-powerful being such as yourself, is bad news, Max. Perhaps you really do need a heart to heart with Terri. She once told me how you two met, how she was really liked you at first."

Maximus' colour flickered to a paler colour. "Yes, yes, she did," said Maximus.

"But then she worked out just how crazy an obessive, love-struck, time traveling nerd could really be and had second thoughts."

"You're starting to grate on my nerves," growled Maximus.

"I'm a regular cheese grater. Actually, place this in context; I'm speculating since she knows nothing about why she dumped you. She doesn't know why, so I don't know why. She doesn't have that memory. Actually from what I can tell, the Terri I know, can't ever remember going out with you at all. For her, you are just this person with misplaced fandom. A stalker."

"We were nearly lovers!" cried Maximus going orange.

"Nearly? Why don't you tell her that? She thinks you were. And hates herself because of it."

Maximus exploded bright red. "I love her. I've carved out space and time for her. Multiple life times. Developed new technologies, built up industries and empires. All for her. A perfect girl from Wisconsin... the cheese state! But she was content to be a carpet retailer!"

"She is not a perfect! Or at least she wasn't the last time I chatted with her," I said trying to interrupt the rant.

But it continued. "...Going out with a dirty drop-out, a loser who can't even hack it in a virtual world!"

"Yes, you do seem to have the dirt on me," I admitted.

"How do you explain it?" Maximus roared, growing in size.

"It's easy. After dying and knowing you, anybody seems a step up!"

"That's monstrous!" said Maximus continued to grow in size and darkening in colour.

"The truth hurts. Yet you have all the truth. You have all the knowledge too. All the manipulated time-lines that no one else can keep track of. You have everything in place to understand but you just don't want to process it."

"You are an idiot. You don't know anything!" said the creature losing its shape and turning into a blob.

"I may be an idiot but you have cognitive dissonance! Hey, if I can remember that then I can't be that dumb, huh?" I said backing away towards a wall, from the rapidly re-morphing cheese.

The thing was turning nasty now. Really nasty. A two mouthed, spiked clawed thing, yet it still managed to speak. "What does she see in you!? You are not even honest with her. You and your secret furry friend! I have loved her for centuries!"

"What about Max One and Max Three?" I cried out over the slurping noises in the room.

"I speak for all Max's" said the creature morphing into a Giger-esque monster, half alien, half dinosaur.

"But not One and Three, I bet. They had come to terms with their lust for Terri. You know, once they had spent some time together in a social environment and had some arguments."

The monster had baby monsters popping on its sides like pustules. It was quite revolting. I assumed that I was about to be consumed so I might as well just continue on with my bluster.

"You lie! My love for her is eternal!" it growled.

"You're still living with this fantasy world view of her. Search my memories, if you can. You have them, don't you? Max One and Max Three, Conrad and Karmen, Terri and I all teaming up. All teaming up to defeat you."

"I still loved her," wailed the creature resembling a high-forehead-ed, long-limbed Tyrannosaurus Rex.

"No, Max One was fine with it. He didn't like Terri's paranoia and pissy attitude. Hey I don't like Terri's pissy attitude but I love her paranoia. It's her paranoia that keeps us together. It's her paranoia that is keeping you here in this castle. She's now a god. Controlling human resistance! Against you."

The monster snarled, throwing the table that separated us across the room into Giger's Dead Baby installation. The broken baby heads bounced across the floor.

"And how did she become a god? Max One gave her the power. The power of the cloud. The cloud, Maximus! You can't fight the cloud!" I didn't know what I was saying but I had to sound defiant and interesting. I was only a few feet from the world's most scariest monster. "You gave her the power to defeat you! At least one-of-you did. You Maxes are not all the same, you know," I blathered over the creature's increasing loud snarls.

Strangely enough, the monster seemed to want to hear this diatribe from me even while ripping the chandelier from the ceiling and throwing it into the curtains. They fell, revealing a floor to ceiling window with a view of the sun rise over the mountains.

"So Max it was your desire to defeat yourself! You've said it yourself. You have regrets. You have guilt!"

"Never!" howled the creature.

"You even embedded the organic computer into her favorite cheese. It was like saying Eat Me!"

The creature growled and smashed some furniture.

"You know my memories of Max." I shouted with more confidence. The monster was not going to kill me (yet). It wanted this discussion. It certainly needed it. "When I tell you that I am pretty sure that planetary-wide civil war was not one Max's ambitions, you know I am speaking the truth. I know Max was angsty, awkward and sloppy but I was warming to him. He wanted to do the right thing. Couldn't always do it, of course, but he certainly was not a total despot. Anyway the Max I knew, he was not like you, Maximus. He'd grown up!"

"Noooo!" said the creature spinning around.

"Search those memories. Search the memories of all the people you've absorbed. Feel their guilt. You're in Europe. There's tons of guilt here. Don't you feel it? If you feel guilt, how about feeling the guilt of destroying them. You never meant to destroy the world but that's what you are doing! And all those people, they loved too. If you can't feel guilt for that then how can you feel love?"

"I feel love. I feel love. I feel love," raged the monster circling around.

"Love? Only self love. In a nutshell that's all you really wanted: a real mind in a robot body! That was your ultimate Mad Scientist goal. So that you could use it yourself. That's what has been keeping you busy for all these years. It wasn't anything to do with Terri!"

The monster roared. It had decided what to do. It stopped spinning and glowered at me. "I do feel love! But I h-a-t-e you!"

Oops. Perhaps I had gone too far.

It advanced towards me. I was about to be absorbed.

***

### Tuesday, May 26, 2123 one second later.

I dodged the first lunge from the creature. It was easy, Maximus wasn't really trying that hard. The monster may have been keen on killing me but it still wanted to talk. To engage. Despite the hive mind, it must have assembled some form of consciousness, a singularity, which when joined with the memories of millions had developed the monster's biggest weakness: loneliness. It must be quite lonely being a peerless monster. Why would it not crave the company of the one other entity that appeared to be its equal. The love interest of its creator and indeed the sole reason for its own creation? That is, Terri. Not me, though. I was just a proxy. I was Terri's paramour, way beyond even second best, but I'm sure that the monster would take some interest in not only quizzing me but making me suffer as well. There was no need for the monster to finish me off quickly, not after taking so long to patch me up. It still wanted its companionship; its entertainment. It is not like it had a stream of visitors passing by for tea on a regular basis.

I clambered up a Giger-created statue, a bio-mechanical woman ingesting a snake. I leapt over to a book case and clambered onto a wide ledge at the top.

The creature seemed to be amused by my performance.

"I get it now, Max. I get it. I know why Terri prefers me to you!" I shouted, making up the storyline. Anything to delay it tearing my throat out.

"What is it?" growled the creature.

"Besides not being a shape-shifting, cheesy time-lord criminal with no respect for humanity..."

The monster raged at me, trying to scare me.

I continued. "...I didn't try tricking her. I didn't do reality distortion. I didn't play The Game on her."

"I didn't play The Game on her!" snarled the creature.

"Oh you did! You bent time and space on her to ingratiate yourself and make her feel crazy."

"I did not play The Game on her!" repeated the creature.

"You weren't exactly telling her the truth though were you!" I taunted. I found a rusty metal bracket on top of the ledge I was perched on and showed the creature I could retaliate. (I doubt whether the monster was worried.)

"You don't know what I did. I saved her! She died and I brought her back."

"And you expected a reward from that! It's the same with all self-centred, egotistical, megalomanical monsters. You just can't handle the truth."

"You will regret saying that!"

"Climb up here and I'll tell you again. Preferably in your human form."

"I'm not coming up there, you come down here."

"You always were an anti-climb, Max!" I was saving up that useless joke to rile the beast.

It worked. The monster jumped up and swung its claws my way again, this time, with real intent. I tried hitting back with my rusty bracket but the colliding impact knocked me off-balance and I spun ground-ward. As I fell, I grabbed the dangling chandelier chain to save me from fatal injury but my left arm took the brunt of the impact. It felt like it had broken again.

The monster, of course, was unhurt, landing easily on its feet. It knocked an art installation out of the way in its advance to where I lay panting on the ground.

This was it. I was about to be killed or absorbed. Probably both.

I closed my eyes.

***

### Tuesday, May 26, 2123 one second later.

There was a crack, glass breaking, a roar, a thump and metal crashing onto stone. Then diminishing thrashing sounds, until only the wind could be heard rattling the window. I opened my eyes and there was a huge blob of goo in the centre of the room, as well as general rubble and destruction. Cubic drones lay inert on the floor. Maximus was dead. Gruyère was dead. The mental control and communication between the whole antipasto of intelligent cheeses was gone.

I breathed hard, not quite believing what had happened. I was Max-ed out.

The window had been shattered. Maximus had been shot through the window. But from where?

The answer came soon enough.

A jet packer arrived at the window.

It was Terri or a Terri-bot. She looked and was clothed just like T-7.

"Aaron, are you ok?" she asked as she took off her pack.

"I'm fine. I'm fine. I... I... " I stuttered as I found my feet, rubbing my arm. It seemed not to be broken just bruised.

"We took Gruyère out with a missile containing a high powered computer virus. We expect it will take out its whole empire. There's certainly nothing moving around here. We're safe. We've blown up the Death Star," she said and came over and kissed me. A big long kiss.

"You can't be T-7, then," I said when I finally came up for air.

"Oh, I'm T-7 all right," she purred.

"I thought you were dead."

"Karmen's energy shield came in handy."

We continued to cling together and the conversation continued between kisses.

"What about Rule One?"

"There's no more rules."

"No?"

"No. The rules were there to protect the mission. Too many missions have failed because some Terri-bots didn't have Rule Number One," she winked.

"I didn't do very well here, I'm afraid. I just ended up chatting with the thing." (Kiss). "Well, until it turned into a bug-eyed monster and chased me around the room."

"My darling, you just don't know what you've done. You can't know. But I do. I've seen you die for us, die for me, dozens and dozens of times. So you can't know how that makes me feel. Love seems like an inadequate word. All that I am, all that I ever was, is here for you for as long as you want."

I tried to say something smart; Nothing came out.

"That's why we were stopped from touching because I just love you so much." (Kiss). "I owe you my life, my existence, about ten times over. There is nothing I wouldn't do for you."

"I must be dreaming."

"You've done so much for me. For us..."

"I don't feel I deserve this. I just riled up the beast."

"That's what we wanted. So we could find the conscious centre. We could detect that emotional energy and directed the virus against it."

"You what?"

"We detected the singularity from its emotional turmoil," she said before resuming the kiss.

"You did?"

"Oh yes. You lowered its defences. And then the signal at the window? Ripping down the curtains... A master stroke!"

"It was?"

"Yes. We just needed a clean shot into its fleshy centre."

"We?"

"Max and I."

"Max?"

"Max Four. He devised the super-virus."

"Max Four?"

"Terri cloned another Max."

"Terri hates Max."

"Terri forgives Max."

"Forgives?"

"When you forgive, you in no way change the past, but you can change the future."

"That's very Jobsian."

"Maybe. It had to be done. Max was the only person that could do it!"

I pulled away slightly. "Um, will Terri forgive me, you know, for kissing you like this?"

"Oh yeah. Terri knows and approves. She says she'll see you soon. In the meantime, she has a planet to sort out and rebuild. She'll also reform Mad-Sci-Soc. Find Conrad and Karmen's data and rebuild them. In the meantime, we have the whole mountain to ourselves to explore, enjoy, go skiing and level 10 as many times as you like."

I spluttered incoherently.

"And if anybody asks we can call it reconnaissance. Checking out Gruyère's HQ. No interruptions..." (Kiss). T-7 continued. "And finally ,when everything is sorted out, Terri will be back and we can do it all again. Terri and I and you."

"The three of us?"

"Yes, Terri says that if you have a super power, like having multiple copies of yourself, then you might as well use it. So it will be the two of us and you, doing e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g again. So you better be inventive because she's not only wanting to show her gratitude, she's also looking forward to a great vacation."

*****
About the Author

Arrand Pritchard has been a wordsmith for over 40 years and is still learning new and novel techniques for storytelling and characterization. When he's not his keyboard, he's busy building his own time machine. So far there's no success to report. Read Arrand's Smashwords Interview at <https://www.smashwords.com/interview/etchelon>

Acknowledgements

Many original ideas from Simon Pritchard.

Many wacky ideas filtered out and advice given by Alex Pritchard.

Final proof-reading by Di Mackey.

Cover illustration by Gary Parkin.

You can email the author at email: arrand@etchelon.f9.co.uk

To show your appreciation to the author, please buy Mad-Sci-Soc mechandise at <http://www.cafepress.com/madscisoc>
