Only Human Chapter 9: Wolf in The Breast

“I’m not afraid of you.” said Zoey.

“Of course not.”

“And Sara will have this place swarming with reinforcements at any time.”

“I’d be surprised if she doesn’t.” Zeitgeist pressed a few buttons on the controller clasped in his right hand. Reality flickered around the two individuals until it was replaced by swirling patterns of light. “Now we can have a quiet conversation in a nice corner of cyberspace without any unwanted listeners.”

Zeitgeist still had his skull-shaped fishbowl-for-a-head, but he appeared whole again in a dark suit and tie. It took time for Zoey’s digital mind to process the shift in perception.

“I haven’t been here in ages, so I don’t know who could be listening in,” continued Zeitgeist. “The drones are supposed to take care of everything, but they are only moderate A.I.s at best.”

“This is your laboratory, huh? Dissect any good humans lately?”

“You make it sound like I’m not human. I’m every bit as human as you are.”

“That’s what worries me.”

“Don’t sound so bitter, Zoey. I improved you. You would have made a wonderful assistant. Once I lobotomized you, of course.” Zeitgeist reclined in an invisible chair.

“Actually, a lobotomy would be a waste on you. All that spirit and energy, I could put that to good use. I could just have edited your memories, add a few false ones. It’s not as hard as you’d think. Then, you’d work for me, willingly, passionately. What do you think?”

“Why didn’t you do it?”

“Now’s not the time to bring up the past.”

“I asked you a question,” replied Zoey, dead serious.

“I preferred doing my work on Mars, because it was far easier to get people to turn the other way. Sure, I had my main lab here, as well as many other planets in the galaxy, but Mars had a more affable atmosphere, wouldn’t you say?”

“Answer the damn question! Why did you leave me for dead after playing around with my brain?”

“Unfortunately, some people still think that they’re righteous, and those people who should have turned a blind eye didn’t, and I had to leave you before I was arrested. It was the closest anyone had ever gotten to capturing me, except Rick Daring, of course.” He let a bitter laugh, rattling its way out of his throat.

“I really regret leaving you too,” continued Zeitgeist. “You were my one success in that experiment. The union of technology and the human brain. It was your will to survive, I think. We would have made such a wonderful team.” Zeitgeist tilted his head. “Don’t you think?”

Even in the abstraction of cyberspace, Zoey could see her reflection in his “face.” “What does Zeitgeist mean anyway? Metamorphosis or something?”

“No, Zoey. It means ‘the spirit of the times.’ One day, I will be your president and your god.”

“I find that unlikely.”



“How old do you think I really am? I perfected ways to suspend death, prolong my life, and I am willing to give this gift to likeminded individuals who are geniuses of their own accord. When there are enough of us, we will form a technocracy, where us immortal geniuses rule over the drones and workers, dictating what they do and what technology they’re allowed.”

“So, it’s like the Cabal but on a grander scale. What makes you think people would let you take over?”

“Because with the technology I could offer them, I would like a magician or a god with the miracles at my fingertips. I could promise them all the same life-saving technology as myself.”

“You would actually give them eternal life?”

“Zoey, I said I would promise them. I didn’t say anything about actually giving it to them.”

“Speaking of eternity, just how much of there is left of you?”

Zeitgeist let out another laugh. “My brain is preserved, and as long as it’s alive, then my memories and thought processes continue uninterrupted.”

“And I thought you were going to say ‘soul’ for a moment there.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” replied Zeitgeist. “When was the last time you were in a church?”

“I don’t think that the two are mutually exclusive to each other. Just because I’m not religious doesn’t mean I don’t believe there’s a God.”

“Maybe we wouldn’t have made a good team after all.” Zeitgeist arched forward where he sat. “Maybe I should blame this all on Sara. That infernal mother hen attitude of hers.”

“If she was here right now, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You’d be rotting somewhere in jail.”

“Yes, I’m still waiting for your reinforcements to show up. I hope my drones didn’t give you the wrong impression when I deactivated their defense systems to let you into my laboratory.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I didn’t ask you to believe. Just exit our little conversation and stick your head out of the door and see what happens. You see, I am in control. I was always in control, Zoey.”

“That does sound like you, all right, but I’m not intimidated. I’m not buying into your god act. You’re just a half-dead man lying on a gurney.”

“What an unfortunate circumstance that led me to this. It was rather unlucky that I didn’t escape Daring as unscathed as I wished. But I have friends everywhere and arranged for my body to be transported to one of my far-off laboratories for repairs. I couldn’t resist the irony of going to the one on Earth, Daring’s home planet.”

Zeitgeist turned to look Zoey in the face. “What I don’t understand,” He continued. “Is how you found the place.”

“The beacon.”

“Ah. The sublight transmitter would have caused some interesting feedback with some of the components in your head. And by interesting, I mean painful.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“But why did you come, my dear? What could you have hoped to accomplish?”

“I don’t know, really. I ran away from my family, my friends, even Sara. I couldn’t run away from this. It just felt like something I had to do, like no one else was going to.”

Zoey rubbed the corners of her eyes before continuing, “Why is it that I’m only comfortable talking to you about this?”
“Because whatever my faults, I am honest, Zoey, to you. You don’t have to worry about me judging you.”
“Is that because you’ve done far, far worse for no reason at all?”

Zeitgeist chuckled, a heavy, wet sound. “So, you will judge me? You’re not Sara. No, you’re like me, just a survivor.”
“You’re trying to say that painting our actions grey will justify them, but I believe that there is right and wrong. Even if it is because I made so many poor choices in the past.”

“Righteousness doesn’t suit you, Zoey.”

“Cut the knee jerk reactions, okay? How can you live for so long and only be interested in playing games? Games that involved human beings’ lives. My life!”

“Beware the patient man. Hundreds of years pass before he sees fruition come to past. I am working at a goal that will move humans into a higher plane of existence.”

“You just want everyone to put you on a pedestal, because you think you’re better than everyone else. When you and your elite chosen have ascended, what about the masses? You don’t care about anyone but yourself.”

“Do you think you’re any better? Who do you think you’re trying to run away from? You have no right to look down at my goals just because you lack my vision.”

“The truth of it is I don’t understand how you can live so long. I mean, I know how you can live so long, but why do you? The five years I was with Sara, the things I witnessed and survived.

“I feel so old. Those five years stretching out, the weight of them filling me with a strange mixture of sadness and relief. Relief that the universe has someone to watch over it, to protect it from people like you.”

“So, you don’t have what it takes to live with hard decisions,” said Zeitgeist. “The weak serve the strong and then perish. What you think is unsubstantial.”

“Maybe I am weak. There are times when I wonder if there’s anything left of me inside. Those five years slowly eroded my soul, like a weathered mountainside, leaving me hollow inside. Maybe that’s why I’m here today.”

“And why’s that?”

Zoey snapped her fingers. Their cyberspace link broke instantly, and they found themselves looking at each other again in real time.

“I didn’t come here to talk,” said Zoey as she pulled out her gun.

Click here to read Chapter 10

Written by J M Emmons. The story and all characters are copyrighted by J M Emmons.

Only Human Chapter 8: Pandora

Zoey was taken back by the size of everything. The declining hallway was high, made to fit someone at least three times the height of her. The smooth, bright walls were made in a minimalistic design with no trace of individuality. She just noticed that the hallway was longer than the column she entered just moments previously, and Zoey was trying to figure out how that was possible when she heard the droid returning.

Zoey slipped back to the corner so that she would be in the drone’s blind spot as it crossed the threshold. She watched it silently as it floated down the hallway. The opening had already shut itself, and Zoey was trying to find where the lighting in the room was coming from.

She cautiously started down the hallway. The stark walls offered her some relief as there was no place for the drone to ambush her. The hallway curved, indicating a large tube going downward. Was this how the spacecraft went down the center of the building?

The hall dead-ended with a smaller tube, which turned out to be an elevator. The door automatically opened as she stood in front of it. The drone must have gone down to a lower level. As she entered the equally sterile elevator, she saw there were five buttons. Unsure of what to do, Zoey pressed the next button down, assuming that she was on the top floor currently.
The elevator smoothly moved downwards. Zoey counted for ten seconds before the elevator stopped and opened the doors. Zoey stepped out into a glass enclosure. Central glass doors spread apart before, and she stepped up a small pair of stairs that lead to a semi-circle of monitors and computers, all darkened and disused.

Zoey found the power switch encased in a metal box on the wall. She opened the box and pulled the level. The computers hummed to life. Walking up to the complex setup, she sat down in one of the chairs. The inclusion of chairs meant there had to been humans here at some point. But where had they gone?

She watched an hourglass icon appear as the system booted up. Simultaneously, the various monitors flickered with different images and data. Zoey had to mentally brace herself from the all the data going between all of the equipment. She sat in front of the largest monitor. There was a thin layer of dust on the controls.

Arms crossed, she flipped through the CCTV screens. Most of them showed long, vacant hallways with the occasional drifting drone. Most of the rooms looked like laboratories, long neglected. There were only two areas of major activity that Zoey could see, both on the lowest floor of the facility.

The first was where a majority of the drones were swarming. It looked like they were carrying off a large container or casket. Was this what was in the shuttle? None of the other camera angles showed her where they had taken the mysterious package.
The other tantalizing view was of the compound’s only other living residents, not counting the drones. The view only showed her their backs, but there were four people working at a long table. She could see what they were working on, but she got the impression they weren’t there of their own free will. If it wasn’t the slumped shoulders or ragged clothing that gave it away, then it was definitely the ominous drones floating in the background.

Most of the rest of the facility seemed abandoned. But what was its purpose? How long had it been here? Why was no one here anymore? She tried accessing the databanks, but there was some serious encryption, and Zoey didn’t want to waste time trying to hack into it when she could be discovered at any time.

Instead, she went back to the elevator and pressed the button for the lowest floor. It started to descend, but, to her surprise, it stopped on the very next floor. She stood absolutely still as the door opened, and a drone floated into the elevator. The drone stared out ahead of itself, seemingly oblivious to her. Zoey didn’t dare move or call attention to herself.

The elevator seemed to move at a crawl, but it stopped at the next floor. The drone left unceremoniously. Zoey stepped out of the elevator, only to find herself in another hallway long abandoned by humans. The drone made its way leftward. It stopped before turning a corner. Suddenly aware that there was nowhere to hide, Zoey turned to find that the elevator’s door had already shut. Panicking, she quickly went into the room closest to the elevator before the drone turned around.

The room was dark, and Zoey couldn’t find anything that resembled a light switch. She dug into her backpack and found her flashlight. Its LED bulb cast a bluish hue onto the eerily quiet room. It looked like it was once a testing room of some kind. The far wall was lined with cramp animal cages, now empty. There was a long table going across the middle of the room. All of the important-looking equipment that once lay on the table was spread out on the floor, mostly in pieces.

Zoey pressed her ear against the wall in futile attempt to hear the drone outside. She started to count to ten, in the hopes of it being gone when she reached ten. She got to four before she heard something behind her, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

She didn’t move, but slowly turned her head to try and glimpse into the darkness of the room. There was the sound again, something crushing pieces of glass from a broken beaker. Zoey immediately turned off the flashlight, plunging the room into total darkness. She kept deathly still, but the sound continued, and was it her imagination, or was it coming closer?

Not waiting to find out, Zoey rushed out of the darkened room and right into the drone. Without hesitation, Zoey dodged past it and right into the awaiting elevator. As the elevator doors shut, she swore that she heard a strangled scream. Zoey just lay there on the floor of the elevator, heart thundering in her chest.

She was waiting for an army of drones to burst the door, through the infrastructure, all of them targeting her. Her brief stretch of existence wiped out by an intense light.

But nothing happened. Zoey wearily got up and pressed the button sending the elevator to the bottom floor. In seconds, the doors opened again to reveal an almost identical set of vacant corridors. As she stepped out of the elevator, Zoey couldn’t help wondering if this was all some sort of mind game.

Was she really on another level or the same one, over and over again? One could get lost in the maze of featureless walls. It was not a prospect Zoey was looking forward to.

If it was the lowest level, where were the drones? Were they all busy with the casket, or were they waiting in the ambush she feared was inevitable? The silence was unbearable. She peered cautiously down the hallway.

No one. Not a soul. But there were four people here somewhere, and she was going to find them. She started to open doors, slowly at first, and then finally stuck her head in when she was sure no one was there. There were storage areas, offices, even examination rooms. But she hadn’t found anyone yet, but at least no more darkened rooms like on the previous floor.

Zoey paused at one room in particular. It was a patient’s room with a tidy row of four beds. The sight of it reminded her of when she first woke up after the operation. Alone in an empty room like this with not even Doctor Zeitgeist himself to explain what he had done to her. Even though her other friends did not survive like her, she did not even find out about their deaths until much later, and she never did see their bodies again.

Zoey remembered the first time her mind, her new hybrid mind, reached out to communicate with the invisible data around her in the abandoned complex. She thought she was going insane as a flood of random images and words drowned out her own thoughts. There was maybe a short time when she was insane, convinced her own body had betrayed her, and she was scared and confused.

And then Sara found her, took care of her. Together, they learned what Zeitgeist had done to her and how she could cope with it. Zoey never asked Sara why she had helped Zoey. She was too grateful to question Sara’s actions or too afraid of what Sara’s answer might be. Just like she was afraid to actually see what Zeitgeist had done to her. She had flat out refused to have herself x-rayed or scanned in any way.

There were some things she was happy to not know about.

The thought of what she was now broke her reverie of the past. She closed the door and moved on. She continued down one hallway, but she felt convinced that it was a dead end. Frustrated, she went to the elevator and chose a different corridor. She found more of the same, but now, she heard something like raised voices, muffled behind closed doors.

The door slid open and she saw a table with four disheveled people working there. There were two drones floating overhead. For the first time since she entered the facility, Zoey tried to make contact with the drones. She projected urgent messages requiring the drones to go two levels up.

They moved silently, unquestioningly. The four captives noticed this and turned their heads as one. They all became silent as they watched their unlikely savior enter the room. Zoey took a deep breath and tried to think of something impressive to say.
“So, you’re the missing, um, people, right?” she said. That wasn’t quite what she had in mind.

“Who the hell are you?” asked a burly man with dark hair and bushy eyebrows.

“Me? I guess I’m here to rescue you,” she said with a smile. “Who are you guys anyway?”

The burly man let out a deep sigh. “And where have you been lately?”

“Up there actually,” Zoey replied, pointing upward. “I know who you are. I just don’t remember your names.”

“My name is Professor Robert McDonnell,” said the burly man. “This is Samanvaya Patel.” McDonnell indicated the tall Indian who, despite everything, had nicely trimmed hair and a matching mustache. “Across from me is Roger Brown, and that’s Alicia Dallas next to him.” A stout man with broad shoulders and a short woman with dusty-brown hair nodded their greetings.

“So, what happened to you guys? Why are you here?” asked Zoey.

“We don’t even know where ‘here’ is,” remarked Patel.

“We all got kidnapped the same way. There was a robot, but not like these little ones babysitting us. It was larger and looked a panther,” said McDonnell.

“Yes, its overall design was very aerodynamic. Its structure was based on feline creatures, I agree. I’d have given anything to see the internal mechanisms that made it so lithe. We’ve yet to perfect a humanoid robot that moves so natural,” said Brown.

“He’s the robotics expert, if you couldn’t tell,” remarked Dallas. “However amazing it was, it gassed each of us and carried us back here.”

“And if you somehow avoided the gas?” asked Zoey.

“The sharp claws weren’t for show, I’d imagine,” remarked Patel dryly. Zoey frowned at this but didn’t say anything.

“You’re the first living being we’ve seen since we’ve been kidnapped,” stated McDonnell.

“The first living human,” corrected Brown.

“So, what have you been doing all this time?” asked Zoey.

“The robots have been giving us diagrams and parts to assemble the most advanced pieces we’ve ever seen,” said Brown.

“Both Patel and I have experience making artificial limbs for amputees, and we’re both convinced that’s what we’re making,” stated McDonnell.

“Repairing,” said Patel. “It’s my belief that we’re repairing something, or else why not give us the whole device to make? Why these bits and pieces?”

“It doesn’t matter, because I’m getting you all out of here.” Zoey made her way to the captives when a voice came out of nowhere.

“Will Ms. Walker report to the casualty ward? Ms. Walker to the casualty ward.” The door opened, and a swarm of drones entered. “And don’t do anything funny, will you?”

“Who was that, and who is he talking about?” asked Dallas.

“I know that voice,” said Zoey to herself.

The drones led her down to the ward. She stepped into the sterile room, but the drones did not follow her in. In the corner was the remains of the discarded casket she had see earlier. Inside the casket were hoses and tubing attached to oxygen tanks. There also looked like the remains of an IV drip.

The chrome owl was there, sitting on its perch. “Do you like it? It keeps an eye on all of my creations,” came a familiar voice. Zoey turned away from the casket to take in the rest of the room.

There, on one of the slabs, was a man with torn clothes and torn skin. He was missing his left leg. The slab turned on its axis so that the man could see her face to face. His face was not familiar, but his voice sent chills down her back.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve had a chat,” said the man. He waved her closer. Underneath the torn skin, Zoey could see mechanical pistons moving like muscles. He was also missing his pinky finger.

“Zeitgeist.”

“We would have had this reunion sooner if not for certain circumstances.”

“Not long enough.” Her every instinct told her to run. Her stomach turned awkwardly with anxiety. She was nowhere near as ready for this than she thought she was.

“Rumors tell me that you were actually looking for me.” As Zoey got closer to him, his face seemed less and less real. Zeitgeist noticed this and said: “Go on.”

She hesitated and slowly reached up and took a hold of his face. She slowly peeled it off; his hair falling off onto the floor. It revealed a skull-shaped transparent jar. Its reflective surface made it hard for her to see details, but Zoey could make out that the skull was filled with a liquid, and his two eyes pressed against the surface of the container, peering into her soul.

She looked down into the inside of his facemask. Thin metal plates moved as he talked, giving the illusion of facial expression and that his jaw worked. His voice actually came from somewhere in his neck.

“Now,” said Zeitgeist. “What would you like to talk about?”

Click here to read Chapter 9

Written by J M Emmons. The story and all characters are copyrighted by J M Emmons.