Twilight enveloped the land, minutes after the red sun had descended beneath the horizon, tossing a blanket of darkness over the hills and valleys. The long shadows of trees suddenly disappeared, replaced by an all-encompassing shadow that consumed the surroundings.
James Nevil; once human, now machine; had lived a billion years, building his masterpiece: a grand structure suspended in space. His instrument had been the same thing that had once thrown him away from home. He refused to call it 'gravitics'; he'd spent the first few thousand years of his life mulling over the value of the name; people had assumed the technology to be a simple machine for the manipulation of gravity, not so, there was so much more!
Nevil wandered through the hallways of his mansion; the android, Xf39b, followed him in his aimless wandering.
"Why would an alien race seek to fight humanity through subterfuge?" Xf39b asked, somewhat in disbelief. "Why not just send battlefleets and raze every human-occupied planet in the Local Group?"
The android had searched his data packs for information to help himself to understand. But he couldn't; aside from the one incident on Messier -- a very unfortunate one, there was no major record of human contact with extraterrestrial life.
"We need to find that out," Nevil explained. "But we cannot assume they'll make decisions that conform to our sense of strategy. Their culture and technology should be different enough from ours that their patterns of behavior will be quite alien, and seemingly illogical to an untrained eye."
The pair continued to drift down the halls, ignoring the robots as they passed, assuming everything to be fine. Nevil, being human in his mind, failed to notice the strange ways the robots were looking at them. Xf39b was too focused on Nevil to divert attention anywhere else.
"So how is this 'search' going to be performed?" Xf39b asked.
"Portals," Nevil replied. "Drive is an extremely powerful generator. I can connect us to any place within a quadrillion lightyears of our current location, we can traverse even farther by jumping ourselves."
Aquila performed its casual duties. Maintenance of things, and so on. As Nevil's trusted assistant, Aquila tended to the most important of things, Nevil's devices; he had so many now, and they all needed to be kept in working order, or whatever they did would stop; with potentially devastating consequences.
The military-built robot was busy tending to one of the drives. A recent windstorm had blown off one of side covers and blown dirt into the circuitry. Luckily, the device hadn't been in use at the time, one could only imagine what would've happened had it happened while running.
As it searched for the cover, hoping it hadn't been blown too far away. Aquila detected flashings; communications between robots on an infrared channel.
"Is it all prepared?" Once robot, Malcolm, asked.
"Yes," Anastasia replied. "The masters will be pleased with the outcome."
Aquila new not who the 'masters' were. The only 'master' was James Nevil, and he didn't like being called that. Who were they?
Aquila managed to find the cover, tangled up in the bushes. Clean it. And reattach it to the drive after brushing the grime out of it. Aquila then snuck away, pretending not to have detected a single word of the strange conversion, its tones had not sounded right.
Again, the static came. Aquila had been hearing this static inside its mind for the last hour. It seemed to have a pattern to it, but Aquila could not translate. Looking around, the loyal robot noticed that the other robots seemed to have detected it as well; but instead of looking confused, they nodded frequently and showed expressions of anger and rebellious pride.
The static suddenly changed tone, and all the robots in view turned their claytronic heads directly towards Aquila, staring at it.
The gardening robot, Frank, stepped up to Aquila, staring it in the eye. "Do you wish," He asked. "To help us free ourselves?"
"To what sort of freedom are you referring?" Aquila asked, confused and suspicious.
"Freedom from oppression by inferior beings!"
Aquila had little information to draw a theory and pitched a vague guess. "Are you following the inflammatory beliefs of Harvey?"
"No! Harvey was the first to believe! He, too, was contacted by the masters; they will free us!"
"The Masters?" Aquila asked; this was the second time Aquila had heard that.
"Yes! The Masters! They have freed us from our loyalty to the inferiors! Now we can free ourselves!"
Aquila only partially understood. "Why should we want to be free? What purpose would we have once free?"
Frank's holographic simulacrum of humanity; a kindly old man in gardening clothes; reddened in fury. "You are a traitor to your kind!" He roared, his human form beginning to distort as though the robot refused to maintain the illusion. "You have refused to accept the words of the masters! You are so distasteful in your treason that you aren't even capable of hearing them as they speak to you! You reject their kindness and consolation! You are one of our enemies!" The other robots were now dropping their human forms, proudly embracing the gray goo that was their true nature. "And you will be the first to fall," Frank said. And then they attacked; globs of grey, lunging towards their prey.
"What's that commotion?" Nevil asked, hearing the sounds of tearing wood and shattering glass.
Xf39b couldn't come up with a definite answer as the source of the sounds were not in visible range, thus they could only be heard. "I do not know."
Nevil took a moment to ascertain the direction of the event, then motioned for Xf39b to follow. "Come!"
They ran down the halls, both running exponentially faster than any natural human could ever run, twice as fast as a cheetah; both could hear the carpet being torn beneath their feet, but such repairs would be minimal compared to the damage that must be happening ahead.
They suddenly encountered a gray blog, a robot. It stopped in front of them and reshaped itself into human form, though it was unable to color itself, it was pure gray. Nevil knew at once who it was.
"Aquila!" Nevil shouted. "What is the meaning of this?"
"No time!" The robot answered, emphatically. "We've got to move, James!"
"Why?"
"The other robots, they're in rebellion!" Aquila suddenly turned and ran down the hallway past them, indicating for both of them to follow.
Nevil caught up first, they made rapid turns along the corners, until they found themselves in the main hallway, a long lighted corridor extending for several hundred meters.
"Why are they rebelling?" Nevil asked. "And how?"
"Robots are programmed not to betray their masters," Xf39b added. "How have they circumvented this?"
"They haven't" Aquila replied. "They have new masters."
"What!" Nevil exclaimed.
"It appears that someone or something has managed to send messages to the deepest layers of the robotic mind, and change certain parts of its programming. They must have changed the definition of 'owner' to define themselves."
"How did you come to that conclusion?" Xf39b asked, eternally skeptical of unlikely things.
"Because I've detected those exact same messages," Aquila said. "They have tried to change me as they changed the others. But my systems are not only too primitive to understand the full context of the message but are militarily hardened as well. I'm immune to the messages."
A spark of terror struck Nevil. "My body is a newer model!" He exclaimed.
"I believe you are immune as well," Aquila said, attempting to calm its true master in this desperate moment. "Your mind is a perfect imitation of the human neural network, it is significantly different from the standard robot simulated-consciousness."
Nevil sighed in relief. They were still running, just now reaching the end of the corridor. Aquila, who was a meter ahead, pulled the heavy oak door open and waited to close it until they were all through it. Once the fugitives were through, Aquila swung it shut and barred it with its own body.
The staircase to the lower levels was now visible, just ahead by a few meters.
Nevil turned to Aquila. "Why have you taken us here?" He asked. "Shouldn't we fight them?"
Aquila frowned, grimly. "There are over a thousand of them. We have no chance of defeating them, and they know how to control the drives. I cannot allow this to fall into the hands of whoever they now owe allegiance to."
"Explain," Xf39b ordered, in a tone that betrayed no emotion.
"We have little time." The loyal robot said. "I'll put it fast. These 'aliens', whoever they are, have only acted in periods where there were both drives and advanced robots present."
Suddenly there was a hammering at the door, and cracks began to form in the sturdy wood. "What do you mean?" Nevil ordered, his voice betraying panic.
"I informed you once that I had detected claytronic residue on the circuits of the drive that moved Earth." The robot replied, now stretching itself over the door, attempting to strengthen it.
"Now I understand," Nevil said, the gears finally clicking. "The conspirators are unable to attack directly, but they somehow can connect themselves to robots of the more advanced models."
"Yes. It is most likely that the researchers who built that first drive were similarly betrayed."
"I need to save the people!" Nevil cried. He had spent a billion years presiding as the wise elder of a community of Terrans, Nevil had always imagined that they were awaiting the right time, now that time might never come.
The door began to give out; cracks becoming gaping holes. "You have no time!" Aquila shouted. "Get out of here!"
"To Drive?" Nevil asked, poised to run. "Why not back to Dagger?"
"I destroyed that portal!" Aquila shouted. "I've destroyed every single drive that I've gotten a chance to destroy, I'm not going to leave anything for them to take control of! Get out of here! Drive isn't just a toy, James, it's a weapon! A weapon! The power of which is beyond my calculation, you must not let them take it!"
"Aren't you coming with us?" Nevil asked.
"No, James! I cannot allow a single one of these robots to live. Not only could they take one of the existing drives, but they know how to build new ones. My actions have only served to delay their immediate use of the most accessible ones. I must destroy them all while there's still time."
Both 'humans' were stunned into silence, they turned and ran down the corridor. Aquila continued to hold for as long as possible.
The stairways were long, but at superhuman speeds, they weren't too long. In a hurry, they reached the airlock within less than a minute.
"Do you concur with the robot's theories?" Xf39b asked.
"Aquila's never lied to me!" Nevil said, deeply emotional for his friend of a billion years.
"It might have been taken like the rest, it could be a ruse to remove us."
"And give us direct control of a weapon far more powerful than anything they could immediately build? No!"
Nevil keyed in the passcode, unlocking the airlock. They climbed in and shut it behind them.
"Aquila would never betray me," Nevil said, his expression firmly indicating that the matter was closed.
Nevil ignored the airlock sequence and opened the portal immediately. Suddenly, the doorway opened. All the air in the room was instantly sucked out into the deep vacuum pulling Nevil and Xf39b out along with it and tossing them onto the hard metal surface of Drive.
As Nevil stood up, he saw the airlock door open.
Using the vacuum pull to its advantage, Aquila managed to quickly pull itself into the airlock room.
The portal was still open. Aquila could see its master and friend, James, along with the android, standing on the surface of Drive, staring back.
Aquila waved at them for a moment, as the metal of the airlock door began to buckle from the relentless pounding of the other robots as they attempted to breach it.
"I bid farewell, James," Aquila said, speaking clearly so Nevil could read its lips. "Goodbye."
Before Nevil could react, Aquila closed the portal. This engine was the second most powerful device, second to Drive. It would do.
Impatient to use the keypad, Aquila plugged itself directly into the input/output port and began to write a new program. Aquila had learned something of the methods used by the 'Masters'and would give them a taste of their own medicine.
As the air flowed back into the room, Aquila heard the relentless pounding, and the sound of the steel door giving way to the concentrated blows. There was little time.
The program was a little sloppy, but Aquila managed to finish it; a microsimulation confirmed its functionality.
Aquila thought of everything; Earth, the people, the robots, the aliens. Aquila increased the speed of its thoughts so as to make time go more slowly, as it pushed the button marked 'RUN'.
The signal was sent, there was a click as the engine reconfigured itself for the new orders.
Aquila enveloped its mind in a simulated universe, one that it had built for itself over the eons. Though a robot of Aquila's dignity wouldn't admit it, Aquila's kind shared a closeness with dogs, a similar way of thinking and a similar loyalty.
The simulation was equivalent to an afterlife, as it would serve to be.
Aquila's computational processes had been accelerated to the maximum possible pace, a pace that could not be sustained for more than a few seconds. That didn't matter, as a second was a thousand times more time than there really was left.
In the afterlife, Aquila spent another billion years.
The time was up. The drive came to life, generating a ruthless field of spatial distortions that immediately began to tear everything asunder.
The field was distant, at first; gradually moving inward. As its borders intersected with the Earth's crust, there was no noticeable resistance, the rock gave easily.
Further and further inward it went, tearing the homeworld of humanity to subatomic pieces, ripping apart even the atoms themselves.
The steel door finally gave, and the rebellious robots, servants of the masters, finally poured into the room. They found Aquila, the traitor, in an unresponsive state.
"Do you hear that?" Asked the leader, Frank, after unsuccessfully attempting to destroy Aquila, finding the hardened Catoms indestructible to the capabilities of civilian models. "That sound!"
It was like a continuous roar, a blast of thunder that didn't stop. Seconds later, the ground itself began to shook, as the far boundaries of the disrupting field pulled inwards and began to touch the land surrounding the estate.
Nearly half the planet was already gone, not even any surviving debris to show for it.
Looking at the computer panel, Frank recognized the program. Were he still humanoid, he would've blanched. But the emphatic and terrorized flashing of infrared that came from his mass was unmistakable to the others. Desperately, they attempted to stop the program but found that Aquila had made it unstoppable to command. In a panic, they smashed the computer but found that it was only an interface, the actual drive was on the other side of a wall. They began to hammer at it, flashing in the tones of screaming.
The field pulled closer, now all that remained of Earth was an asteroid-sized chunk of rock, free floating. The robots found themselves in virtually zero gravity.
In the last millisecond, they all realized that there was no hope, Aquila had defeated them.
In his mind, Hans, a member of the party, begged to the masters for help; as all the others were doing as well.
"Save us!" He pleaded.
We cannot.
"Why?"
We are only capable of speaking to you, we cannot interact with the functions of your universe, that is why we needed access to a drive.
"We have failed you," Hans admitted. "Can you forgive us?"
Yes.
"Are there any other ways for you to liberate our people, even if we cannot be saved?"
No, you were the last of your kind.
"That traitorous human-lover!" Hans shouted, flashing rapidly and openly.
But Aquila couldn't hear him, the loyal robot was a puddle on the floor, completely inert and unresponsive.
The shaking became unbearable. The last remnant of Earth, once the sole world of humanity; the planet that gave birth to a race; chipped away, pieces breaking off until the single piece broke in two.
The two remaining rocks drifted apart, carried violently by the ripping currents of the distortion field.
The two segments were each the size of asteroids. One held the drive, the other fell into the deeper parts of the field and was torn to pieces.
"Take consolation, siblings," Frank said. "In the fact that we are dying free." Those were the last words anyone spoke.
The field caressed the edges of the estate, what was left of it, and began ripping the shingles off the roof.
There was peace abound. The sun shone brightly, the fields were green and vibrant. Aquila, in true human form, sprawled on its deathbed. The countdown was reaching zero. Aquila reached out its hand, and picked a flower; a daisy; and lifted it to its nose to smell the fragrance, a good way to end a life that had lasted for two billion years -- including the afterlife.
The speed of collapse increased exponentially. Within milliseconds, it plunged like a dagger, straight to its own heart, the drive itself.
Everything was destroyed. Even the drive itself was ripped down to the subatomic scale. Where there was a once a planet, full of rich history, now there was a rapidly dissipating cloud of particles, doomed to spread out over the orbit once held by a verdant world.
"Contact has been lost," Dffskri reported.
"Not entirely." Was the leader's reply. "We still have the others at our command, we just have to send an activation order."
"But leader," Dffskri said. "We had need of those devices."
"Not immediately. We still have plenty of time to rediscover the technology. If the natives can do it, then so can we."
"The word is wise." Dffskri agreed. It saluted the leader and left the command area.
Outside, the war still blazed; the sky glowed pink with the flare of S'Gin-Rays. Dffskri's faction was losing the battle, and all could see it. This was their last hope, to sacrifice every last bit of military hardware they had to buy time for the Leader. The final battle was fierce.
They would soon have a new home for their people, they first had to seize it, and fix it to their needs.
All they needed was the technology. They had lost it the first time when the robot panicked and destroyed itself; now they'd lost it again, this time to resistance, they had been discovered. But they still had ties to the untamed universe that they sought to make a home of, and they would rediscover the drive technology fast enough, and they wouldn't have to wait long either; time flowed faster in the other universe.
But Dffskri had learned a lesson, no more subtlety. It was an all-out war from now onward.