The Final Correction Page 6

  ‘But I have, Baba.’ Isra sat beside him. ‘I forgave you the moment I found out.’ She offered the pill again.

  It occurred to Faruk his daughter had been in the room the whole time. Hassan’s description of him as a “mass murderer” and the method used to dispense his victims could not have been plainer. ‘You knew?’

  Isra put a hand on his. ‘The moment I first fell in love, Baba. True, my old self would have found your sins impossible to come to terms with, but it was Ula that made me see the light.’ She opened his hand and put the pill into it. ‘Please, Baba. You need to see the light too.’

  Faruk thought he already had. He looked at the pill. A fresh spasm caused him to swallow the tablet as if it were an ordinary painkiller. In a way, it was – the relief was instant. He smiled at his daughter and her pretty face smiled back.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Good morning, brother. Help yourself to some breakfast.’

  Faruk acknowledged his host and the faces of those who chose to look up when he entered the jet’s restaurant. An Aservant encouraged him to approach the buffet.

  Faruk had slept better than he could remember having done in a long time, and now had an appetite to match. He scanned what was on offer with enthusiasm. As with the previous night’s dinner, the spread was impressive, but that opulence caused a return of his old self’s social conscience. The hunger ended. Hassan was right – the new Faruk was still far from his destination. Wherever that would turn out to be. He fingered the bottle of pills in his pocket before deciding on a glass of fruit juice.

  Multiple requests to merge made him turn round. Like a series of taps to his shoulder, they were polite, but he blocked them all as firmly as he did their conventional thoughts. Ignoring a sense of collective disappointment, Faruk sat opposite his daughter and her friends. All three smiled at him, and he smiled back.

  Zara put a hand on his forearm. ‘It’s wonderful to see you so happy, Faruk. We’ve been worried about you.’

  Faruk tried meeting her eyes, but the surgical collar wouldn’t let him. He looked down at her hand instead. Zara’s daywear appeared not to require as much jewellery as the night before, which revealed more of her flesh. It didn’t seem as artificial, for some reason. Faruk focussed his new eyesight in on the surface and marvelled at both that ability and what could be viewed – skin pores. Light blonde hairs grew out of follicles, and he zoomed in further on one. The manufacturer had gone to extraordinary lengths to achieve realism – sebaceous glands were producing oil. The level of detail seemed unnecessary to Faruk.

  ‘Are you looking forward to your mission?’

  ‘Don’t start that again, Zara.’ Her husband had nodded a greeting to Faruk as he approached the table, but he was now out of sight too. He could still be heard, though – even when he wasn’t talking. Faruk didn’t need to use his new abilities to enhance the sound of food being eaten as if it was life’s only purpose, although how he had once referred to the gentleman as a “fat pig” did create a sense of discomfort. The emotion intensified as Faruk also recalled having compared Zara to a mechanical prostitute.

  He tried being sociable. ‘Did you enjoy your party last night?’

  ‘Not enough nibbles,’ complained Zara’s husband, ‘and we never did get to agree on how God will end the world.’

  ‘That’s because we spent most of the time discussing the pros and cons of every man having to deal with seventy-two virgins.’ Zara took her hand from Faruk’s forearm. ‘I seem to recall you saying you’d rather Allah rewarded you with seventy-two chefs instead!’ Her husband carried on eating while the others chuckled – including Faruk. Maybe he would enjoy “seeing the light”.

  Zara’s hand went to his thigh. She squeezed it.

  Faruk stood up. ‘Er, if you’ll excuse me. I need to take my pill.’ Another wave of merge requests told him they all wanted to know the real reason for a sudden need to be elsewhere. He avoided Zara’s gaze and left.

  Faruk couldn’t get back to his cabin fast enough. He entered it, closed the door and let out a long sigh of relief. Seeing the light didn’t appear to involve a suppression of sexual appetite – his loins were still stirring. He walked to the basin and ran a tap. Faruk was about to splash cold water onto his face when his heart leapt at a knock on the door. His daughter’s voice settled it again. He let her in but only for Isra to begin a lecture.

  ‘Baba, don’t do anything to upset Mama.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘You know what. Refuse to merge as much as you want, but there’s no escaping the look on someone’s face.’

  ‘What look? I just needed to leave the table, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m not talking about you – Zara. The way she drools over you is disgusting.’

  Faruk became less the boy caught doing something he shouldn’t and more the father to Isra he always should have been. ‘Now listen to me, young lady. Zara is an Awife to another man and programmed to perform those duties. It’s impossible for her to do anything other than stand by her husband’s side. And anyway, you’re a fine one to talk when it comes to robots and our relationships with them.’

  ‘Have you merged with Zara?’ She made it sound like a sex act.

  ‘Of course not!’

  Faruk blocked another of his daughter’s attempts. ‘I’ve told you. I’m not ready for that yet. If you want to find out what’s going on, try merging with her.’ He paused before saying, ‘It.’

  ‘I can’t – she won’t let me.’

  ‘You mean, Zara won’t let you have access to her deepest thoughts. Can’t say I blame her.’ He corrected himself again. ‘It.’

  ‘No. She won’t let anyone. Ula says it’s a caste thing.’

  Faruk scoffed. ‘I thought the red pill was meant to make us all equal? Trust royalty to find a way around it. I suppose the prince won’t let you read his mind either?’

  ‘No, he’s been fine. Everyone has. It’s just Zara that’s being funny.’

  The sun entered Faruk’s cabin. He approached the window. A cloudless sky gave a view of the ground some five miles beneath. Mountains, lakes and the predominance of the colour green indicated their journey was nearing its end.

  ‘We’ll be landing soon. Forget Zara and concentrate on The Prophet’s wishes – much more important.’

  ‘Peace be upon him?’

  Faruk looked at Isra. ‘Er, yes. Peace be upon him.’

  She kissed her father’s cheek, and left.

  Faruk went back to the window. The edge of a city came into view, which he tried to identify by reading its road signs. Haze and the angle he was looking at made that impossible and he was about to give infra-red a try when he didn’t need to – the names of the various highways, byways and suburbs appeared as an overlay to his vision. Faruk stood back. The red pill was known for not just curing but improving virtually everything about oneself but only what was humanly possible. His vision had been augmented which meant a connection to an electronic device of some kind – the internet, at the very least. He was about to drop his barriers to investigate that when what one of his conventional senses heard made him stop.

  ‘They say Vienna is one of the most romantic cities in the world.’

  Faruk faced Zara and his heart raced. He blurted rather than spoke the words. ‘How did you get in here?’ No reply. Zara glided more than walked to the window and on the way stepped out of what she was wearing. The sun bathed her nakedness, and she ran her hands over it. ‘Now listen, Zara. Something’s obviously gone wrong with your programming – think of your husband.’

  ‘Husband? He doesn’t care about me. I’m just a trophy to him.’

  She opened her mind as if offering Faruk the chance to confirm the statement. A fear of what else he might see, or worse, do, caused Faruk to avert more than his thoughts – he stared up at the
ceiling. ‘Just leave, Zara.’ He swallowed before adding, ‘Please.’

  She wandered over to him. ‘Strange how one can become attracted to a monster. Legend has it a beautiful princess once asked a child-eating giant to prove his affection by filling a hole in the ground with his blood. Unbeknownst to him, the hole led out to the sea.’ Zara licked her lips as if deciding where best to start. ‘Women can be just as evil, don’t you think?’

  ‘Look, Zara. I’m flattered, but nothing must or could ever happen between us.’

  Zara ran a finger down his chest. ‘You’ve forgiven your daughter for her indiscretions with an Alover, so why not me?’ Faruk stopped her hand from descending any further and was about to reply when she leaned in closer. Her lips stopped just before his. ‘Shhhh… It’s okay. There’s no need for anything physical to happen if you don’t want it to. It’s only our minds that need to entwine – not our limbs.’

  The walls to Faruk’s thoughts were solid enough, but like some mythological Greek sailor that dared to get too close, the siren began taking him apart – brick by brick.

  A rumble outside the aircraft made them look at the window. A crack appeared in it.

  ‘No! Not yet!’ Zara was expecting something. The window shattered.

  At five miles up, there was nothing to stop an immediate evacuation of the cabin’s contents and that included one of its occupants. Within less than a second, Zara had been sucked clean through an opening no bigger than a pasta plate. The sudden drop in air pressure caused Faruk to be dragged out too, but only halfway – an instinct he didn’t even know he had caused him to brace against the exit just as the pressure had equalised. Not sure if he was dead or alive, it was a while before Faruk realised he was still holding Zara’s hand. He tried dragging her back in.

  The aircraft must have sensed the emergency as it began slowing and descending; presumably to allow its human occupants to breathe again, but that still meant Faruk having to battle against both a lack of oxygen and a slipstream somewhere north of 400 knots. Unable to breathe, he pulled Zara’s limp body towards him while he still could – something that would have been impossible just a few hours earlier.

  The robot’s body stiffened and looked at him. Faruk averted his eyes again, but not because of beauty this time. Far from it – the forced exit had stripped most of Zara’s cosmetic exterior, and that included her face. The horrifying mess of shredded artificial flesh spoke, but without lips, what came out was impossible to comprehend: ‘Ell e!’

  Giant slats and flaps in the wing behind Zara extended as the aircraft slowed and her weight reduced with it. Faruk then realised part of the wing had become close enough for the robot to stand on. To his further horror, she then tried dragging him out of the aircraft with her. ‘ELL E!’

  The massive machine was now low enough for Faruk to take his first lung-full, and he concentrated solely on not dying. Zara made another attempt to merge, which Faruk hardly noticed let alone raised a defence against – watching blood stream from his arm as nails from the only still-attached part of her beauty sank into it was distraction enough. Faruk tried letting go, but Zara was having none of it.

  ‘TELL ME!’

  The words could not have been clearer. She was in Faruk’s mind, and there was nothing he could do. She ran around his thoughts, and within seconds had everything she came for. Zara then departed his brain and Faruk looked at her. He couldn’t be sure but thought the robot had said the words, ‘Thank you’ before letting go. It then slid off the wing, down an engine support and into its intake. A flash from both ends heralded her end.

  The jet’s AI must have detected the explosion as swiftly as it had the depressurisation as no sooner were flames visible than the now useless power plant was jettisoned. Faruk just had time to see it plunge into a lake before another rumble caused him to wonder if the nightmare would ever end. The aircraft’s undercarriage then deployed. Green passing underneath soon became grey and the airliner touched down, as it would have done on any other landing. The slow to a halt on the runway was just as uneventful.

  Hands grabbed Faruk’s shaking body and extracted him from the mix of glass, metal and plastics. He was covered in blood – both his and Zara’s artificial version. Something protruded out of Faruk’s chest and he wondered what else was in him that shouldn’t be.

  ‘Don’t move, brother!’

  Faruk was in shock, so it was easy to take Hassan’s advice. Mo and an Amedic then placed their casualty on the floor before stemming flows and extracting the smaller bits of aircraft jutting out of him. Faruk winced at his shredded hands and just had time to see a glint of something metal embedded in one before a bandage obscured it.

  ‘What did she want?’

  Considering Faruk’s physical and nervous state, Hassan was impatient for information. Faruk didn’t have the strength to answer anyway but then realised his body was carrying out some first aid of its own – the sense of his cardiovascular system isolating and rerouting its blood supply was unmistakable. That and what the Amedic was pumping into Faruk’s body accelerated recovery. Within seconds, he was well enough to not just respond but stand. The two first-aiders stopped him from doing that but there was no doubting it – the lauded properties of the red pill were well founded.

  ‘What did you tell Zara?’ Hassan repeated.

  Faruk reflected on the encounter. He would have been keen to put the horror in the past, but for the almost human-like ‘thank you’ at the end of it. Despite the monstrous way Zara had manipulated him, Faruk pitied her. He admonished himself for daring to compare machines with the human beings they served, but the increasing sophistication of both was starting to make it hard to tell the difference. Faruk said what he guessed was worrying Hassan. ‘I didn’t tell her anything. I didn’t have to.’

  ‘Then the Great Satan will now be aware of your mission.’

  Faruk looked at the prince. ‘Satan?’

  ‘President Kalten has made his intentions clear, my friend. I would have thought your recent experience with his soldiers would have told you the beast will stop at nothing to achieve his evil aims.’

  Faruk’s cynicism was still intact. ‘Including convincing Allah to do his bidding, I suppose?’ Hassan’s attempt to find out what Faruk meant by that was blocked. It was explained verbally instead. ‘God and The Devil are no different to robots, Hassan – as artificial as the real intelligence that created them. If you want to defeat Kalten, then I suggest you find a way of fighting fire with fire – turn his robots against him like he turned Zara against me.’

  The others in the room looked at each other. They invited Faruk to share what was being communicated, but he continued to snub them. He tried getting up again, but Mo insisted he stay put. Faruk was about to push him out of the way when he realised the younger man was attempting to put a dressing over the object still sticking out of Faruk’s chest.

  ‘It’s okay. My body’s isolated it – just pull it out,’ said Faruk.

  Mo looked at Faruk and then, at Hassan.

  Faruk took hold of the object instead. He tugged, but it refused to budge. Whatever it was had gone in deep. He firmed his grip and pulled – it came away, but not before the action produced a blinding white flash. The object became hot, and Faruk dropped it. He raised his hand to his face and waited for his vision to clear so he could check for injury.

  His mind did its best to hallucinate a superficial burn, but the jet of white-hot plasma had destroyed too much. Faruk sat mesmerised as cosmetic skin continued to fizz and pop before shrinking back to reveal the rods, cables and joints needed to flex what they were attached to.

  He blinked a couple of times. A message appeared telling him the limb was about to be shut down as a precaution. His arm went limp and dropped to one side. The Amedic attended the smoking hole left in Faruk’s chest but found itself being used more as a crutch instead. Fa
ruk got to his feet, walked over to his reflection in the mirror above the basin and removed what remained of the surgical collar when he got there.

  The ejection of Zara’s body hadn’t just stripped her face – it had removed most of Faruk’s too. He stared at what was left. Lifeless eyes stared back.

  Chapter Twelve

  Hassan put a hand on the robot’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, my brother. Mo did his best, but you were losing too much blood. He barely had time to save your soul, let alone your body.’

  Faruk didn’t take his eyes from the mirror. He was crying, but without ducts to form tears or much of a face to convey emotion, no one would have known. His arm became functional again, and he placed what was left of his plastic hands in the basin. Artificial blood covered everything, including an exposed skull, and the way the fluid surged across the metal structure reminded Faruk of what seethed in the red pill. He zoomed in on his reflection. There was no difficulty this time – every single nanobot could be seen. A million biomechanical workers producing the enzymes and proteins needed to reconstruct his features for a functionary as well as acceptable appearance. In stunned fascination, Faruk watched as the beginnings of a new nose, forehead, cheeks and even eyelids formed. A clear drop of liquid oozed amongst the red and Faruk caught it on the tip of a new fingernail. His synthetic brain didn’t need to fabricate the genuine emotion that lay behind the artificial tear.

  Faruk was in shock, but a nervous as well as physical recovery was underway, and he spoke. Unlike Zara, however, enough of his lips remained for the words to be coherent. ‘Are we all like this?’ He paused before adding, ‘Is my daughter like this?’

  ‘No, my brother. Just the chosen ones,’ said Hassan.

  Faruk would have furrowed his brow, but it had yet to reform. ‘But she has been chosen?’

  Hassan dropped his hand from Faruk’s shoulder and turned away. ‘It’s more complicated than that, my friend. The world our people will inherit will be unlike any seen before and every caste, creed and colour will be required to take their place within it.’ He turned back. ‘The wishes of The Prophet – peace be upon him – are just the beginning.’