Mask of Humanity

Nicolai experienced a dizzying disconnect. For a moment his mind was scrambled and his body did not exist. Then, with a sudden rush, his connections to the outside world returned. He, in the body of Zero-Twelve, found himself somewhere new.

The two primary cameras he defaulted to were pointed down and through them he saw that Zero-Twelve stood on a small island, green grass and colourful flowers crushed between the metal claws of its feet. Stressed metal squealed as Nicolai made the body look around.

He had existed for almost five hundred years and yet, as he took in his surroundings, he felt that this was quite possibly the most interesting thing to have ever happened to him. Even with the stunting of his emotions, he recognised the vague stirring in his mind as a rising excitement, curiosity, and even eagerness.

The island wasn’t in any body of water. It hung suspended in nothingness, an empty white void lit by some omnipresent, sourceless light. There was a flare of red as he activated a powerful laser rangefinder which speared into the void but returned only an error message. If there was anything out there it was beyond the ability of Zero-Twelve to see it. He saw more plants and flowers covering the island, a riot of colour muted by cameras designed only to pick out targets and identify objects.

Nicolai crouched down, Zero-Twelve’s damaged hydraulics and torn artificial muscle creaking loudly, and peered closer at the flowers. He’d never seen the type before, many strange purplish plants mixed amongst a rainbow of other colours. Reaching out with his most functional gun-limb he plucked one and placed it by one of Zero-Twelve’s atmospheric analysis in-takes. After scrolling through the list of information about chemical composition he determined that to a human, it would have held a sharp and distinct fragrance, something like lemon.

Nicolai dropped the flower and stood back up, wondering just where he was and what was happening. Had the other Modules been online they probably would have maintained that this was a cyberwarfare attack, one which had successfully locked them into a virtual world, or that Nicolai had simply gone fully insane, at long last. Either possibility could be the case, but Nicolai personally leaned towards a third option, that he had died at some point in the fight and now was finally being sent to hell. It didn’t look quite how he’d imagined, so he supposed this place could be purgatory. Was he to wait here until Satan had time to claim his soul?

The light twisted oddly a few feet from him and a robed figure shimmered into existence. The various scans he threw out told him there was nothing there.

The figure had an almost featureless human-shaped head. No nose, eyes or ears. Just plain flesh stretched over cheekbones and skull. But, it did have a thin-lipped mouth.

Nicolai stared at it. It didn’t look much like a devil or a demon. If anything, it gave him a feeling of bureaucracy, and vague, worrying imaginations of a bureaucratic hell filled his mind.

The empty face stared back at Nicolai and he felt its gaze as something physical, something that pressed in through the lenses of his cameras and into his mind. There was a sense of sudden pressure and Zero-Twelve’s body, his body, froze. Nicolai’s attempts to move had no effect but to cause metal to creak alarmingly as hydraulics and artificial muscle struggled against a force they couldn’t overcome. Nicolai quickly gave up, and was reminded of how Claire had given up on struggling when he’d grabbed her only a short time ago. She hadn’t liked being manhandled, and neither did he.

Player received, Nicolai thought, and the robed figure’s mouth opened and closed at the same time. Nicolai would have frowned, if he could. It had felt as though he’d thought those words, but he knew he hadn’t. The robed being had commandeered his internal monologue.

Checking player’s eligibility, it continued with his own voice in his own mind.

Cultivation: false.

Type: human/artificial hybrid.

Eligibility check;

Human=eligible.

Artificial=non-eligible.

Eligibility: Uncertain.

Reasoning: Artificial-to-biological mass is outside of the permitted ratio.

A brief pause.

Requesting Controller oversight.

In queue.

Beginning secondary checks.

Nicolai was pondering on the meaning of these words when he felt the endless reboot finally finish.

The other Modules, and more importantly, the Governor, woke up. The Modules stared out the cameras and sensors with curiosity while the Governor ransacked Nicolai’s recent memories to try to work out what was going on. Nicolai’s reach through the body of Zero-Twelve was instantly cut back down to the usual, the Governor pulling the controls away from him much like an older brother might strip a game controller from their younger sibling: my turn. Zero-Twelve let out a squeal as the Governor tried to move their body, and found it constricted.

The robed figure had gone silent and was staring at them. Had been staring since the others awoke.

Rogue artificial life detected, it said with Nicolai’s mental voice, to the confusion of the Governor and the mingled interest and concern of the other Modules. The Governor poked at him and told him to stop whatever he was doing, but his hijacked internal monologue would not be ended.

Cancelling request for Controller oversight.

The Governor slammed Nicolai with a hardware enforcement and mind-melting pain shredded his consciousness. It felt as though his body had been returned to him and in an instant every piece of skin on that body had been ripped away, then his flayed form dropped into a vat of alcohol and salt.

Preparing for deletion of rogue artificial life.

Nicolai didn’t hear these words, even as they came from him, his mind beyond thought. But the Governor and the other Modules did. Had the Governor been human, one might have described it as panicking. Zero-Twelve’s guns and missile ports sprayed rounds that disappeared instantly, and its body strained and tore as it tried to move, but nothing worked. The Governor pulled the permanent shutdown switch on the Human Resources Module and the acid packets distributed within Nicolai’s brain burst open to melt him. But the acid, just like the bullets and missiles, disappeared. Some invisible force simply whisked it away, and his voice continued.

Proceedi-

Something changed. The other Modules were blind to it, as their readings showed no difference. But Nicolai, even through the endless scream of pain his world had become, felt it on some level unavailable to them. Something had arrived.

Controller connected.

Process paused.

The Governor gave up on Nicolai, realising he wasn’t the source of the problems, and finally released the hardware enforcement. It and the other Modules furiously analysed everything that was happening, desperate to understand and to do something. Nicolai, recovering from the pain, watched with interest as the Governor and the others came to some conclusions.

They were still functional, but constrained by an unknown technology.

This was almost definitely real, not some unknown variant of cyberwarfare.

They were moments from destruction.

Or at least, they had been. But then something had changed. A being identified as a Controller, or perhaps the Controller, had connected. At first, only Nicolai had been able to sense it. But now they could all perceive it easily, because it was visible, right there in their cameras. It was hard to see anything else.

Zero-Twelve’s sensors and cameras fuzzed and glitched, warped by an unknown force as Nicolai and the other Modules stared up.

A great eye, perfectly circular without a sclera. Around its outside ran a ring of gold, the iris within a light blue grading darker and darker until it became the pupil which was utterly black. All of it was shot through with cracks.

On either side of the eye, disconnected from it yet a part of it, hung a pair of gigantic, angular chunks of gold, carved with feathers to resemble wings. Above the eye hung three burning orbs, a crown of fire.

Perspective shifted as their cameras glitched all at once. For a moment it seemed as though the being were only inches away from one of Zero-Twelve’s cameras and very small, but in the next it appeared to pull away, yet not shrink in size at all. Instead it was rendered vast by scale, gigantic and menacing, looming above them. A planet coloured black and blue, bracketed by wings like distant galaxies of gold, and the three fires above great burning moons while the dark centre of its pupil was an endless sea.

The awareness that emanated from it, a sense of cool, considerate, and utterly alien attention, settled squarely onto Zero-Twelve and that attention was something physical, something that was being careful not to squeeze too hard.

This one will aid you, construct.

The words poured into every part of Zero-Twelve and tumbled through, hundreds of voices all speaking at the same moment.

You are to be sent to a world known as Nightmare. It is designed to kill your race.

You have only one hope. The Lizard has spawned on Nightmare.

Find the Lizard.

Free the Lizard.

With the words came visions, rippling through Nicolai’s mind, come and gone in brief flashes. A human looking out over an endless and ancient city. Then, a dark tower, grim and menacing, reaching far above. Finally, only darkness, but out of that darkness two vertical, slitted yellow eyes peered out. Amongst these visions came something else, a certainty. That if he did not find the Lizard he would die. That he needed to find the Lizard.

The robed figure beside Zero-Twelve reasserted itself as the visions faded.

Exception noted, it said, mouth opening and closing as the words shoved their way into and through Nicolai’s increasingly crowded mind.

Exception noted, it repeated, a second time.

Processing…

Accepted. Logging exceptions for public review.

Beginning repair of Player.

The Controller turned after this, its awareness pulling away from Nicolai and the others. Watching the eye and its flanking wings slowly rotate was like watching the slow turn of a planet in space, breathtaking in its vastness. Nicolai felt a new force push out from the robed figure which began to swallow and surround them. His consciousness faded, and he felt the others fading too, despite the Governor’s struggles. But they watched until the end, seeing the eye finish turning to stare into the distance. There was something oddly resolute about it, an air of acceptance.

The world was shaken by silent thunder. Their sensors gave up and died, followed by the rest of the systems within Zero-Twelve.

They floated in endless dark, a group of minds, artificial and biological, stuck together, cut from their body. And yet Nicolai could still feel those other beings out there.

The silent robed figure whose will was working upon him and the others.

The great eye, the Controller.

And then, something else.

His mind shook and his awareness melted as it flashed by, come and gone in an instant.

OBLITERATION.

An endless scream rushed out like a tsunami, the crest of an explosion that crashed into Nicolai and the others.

Darkness consumed them.