Amorina wiped away a tear and nodded sadly. “Yeah …”

  “She’ll be all right. I just know it.”

  Amorina sniffed and rested her head back on my chest. “I really hope so … what happened next?”

  “I went into stasis, woke up on Machina Station, then learned you were heading to Terranova.”

  Amorina pulled away again, frowning up at me. “I never went to Terranova. I went from Machina Station to Earth.”

  “That’s weird, but it gets weirder. The Insurgency supposedly helped me, but they sent me to Astarte instead of sending me after you. There I was recognised by the Commander from the Soul Harvest. After the Commander captured me, he made a call and then sent me to Earth.”

  “Straight to the Embassy?”

  “The Embassy?”

  “That’s where we were: the Empire’s Embassy.”

  “Oh, right – yes, I woke up inside the Embassy. I met the advisors, and they revealed the truth of my past and who I was … or am.”

  “The emperor.”

  “Yeah. I’d understand if …” I started to say but Amorina placed a finger across my lips.

  “You silly man,” Amorina said, leaning forward and kissing me.

  “You are the kindest man I know, which is why I love you. As we know, your brain trauma was so intense that you are a completely different man from who you were before. What was, doesn’t matter, but who you are now, does!”

  “Thank you. Your support means so much to me,” I replied, kissing Amorina again. “What happened to you since Gaia?”

  “Well … my story was a lot simpler than yours. I was taken to Machina, as you know. I was transferred to one ship and then swapped to another, which took me to Earth. Once in the Embassy, I was given an hours “training” for my new role and then put into service.”

  My gut clenched at Amorina’s words. A perfect example of the Empire’s mentality towards people; they were resources, tools to be used and discarded, put in and out of service on a whim.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t want to go into detail … not at this time anyway … It’s been an incredibly traumatic week; it’ll take me some time to come right from that.”

  “I understand. I’ll be here if and when you want to talk about any of it.”

  “Thank you, Raith.” Amorina glanced up the alleyway. “What are we going to do now?”

  “We wait for things to quieten down; then we find a way to go back to Gaia and leave this all behind.”

  “We can’t just leave! You promised Emi you’d help her, never mind all of the other people who suffer at the Empire’s hand. You are one of the few, if not the only, who can change things.”

  I knew Amorina was right, but I didn’t want to go back. For a moment, I wasn’t sure why, but then the reason became clear as my heartbeat accelerated.

  “I’m scared – no, I’m terrified – that if I go back, they will capture me and turn me into what I once was … and if I become him again, nobody is safe – not with all that power at my control.”

  Amorina shook her head. “The Empire’s power isn’t good or evil, only the people welding it. The Empire is currently bad because the people who lead it are. You were the emperor, and you could be again, but an emperor reborn, one who could rechannel that power for the betterment of all.”

  “But what if …”

  “No. You can access a power few can. You have a moral obligation to end the Empire’s atrocities.”

  “I’ve found them! They’re down here!” a shout echoed down the alley.

  As we both glanced towards the entrance, we saw Empire soldiers begin to charge towards us.

  “Run!” I yelled, grabbing Amorina’s hand and sprinting away.

  ***

  We quickly lost sight of the soldiers, but they had our trail now, their shouts reverberating between the buildings, a symptom of their concentrated search area. I doubted how successful our fleeing would be, for although the landscape surrounding us was far more varied than the inside of the Embassy, it was no less disorienting to those unfamiliar with it.

  “We must go back! That is our destiny!”

  “Not now!” I muttered under my breath.

  “What?” Amorina asked.

  “It’s nothing!”

  “I am not nothing!”

  Without warning, I turned on the spot, my momentum carrying me straight into the side of the nearest building, and then I fell beside it. Sitting up, I felt the warm trickle of blood as it began to leak from my nose. I reached up and touched it, confirming the bleed when red adorned my fingers.

  “Are you okay?” Amorina asked anxiously, helping me up.

  “I will be.”

  “What happened?”

  “I … I’m not sure.”

  My left arm drew back and then swept forward, delving a left hook to my chin.

  “Want to try that line again?”

  “It’s the darkness! It’s taking partial control!”

  “What does it want?”

  “It wants to go back to the Embassy.”

  “Maybe it’s got a point. It’s the place they’d least expect us. We’re only going to get lost out here.”

  “Of course I have a point, wench!” I clapped my hands over my mouth no sooner had the words escaped it. “I’m so sorry! That wasn’t me!” I said, in control again.

  “I know – come on! We need to go.”

  As we started heading back the way we’d come, a shout rang out from behind us.

  “I’ve spotted them! They’re this way!”

  We started sprinting again, but another group of soldiers met us every which way we turned. Clearly, the search had narrowed more than we thought.

  “We’re going to get caught, Raith!”

  “I know!” I said as we backtracked from another blocked side street.

  “Quickly! Come inside here!” called out an oddly familiar voice from a darkened doorway.

  Chapter 11

  The Puppet Master

  2149, Common Era – Planet Earth, Inner Rim, United Earth Republic

  The door closed behind us with a thump. “Stay quiet! The soldiers will pass us by soon enough.”

  I could not yet see our saviour in the dark, but still, his voice was recognisable and yet unfamiliar – almost like they were using a different accent. Outside, the sound of boots hitting pavement passed by – our pursuers, unknowingly searching for a vanished quarry. My eyes were adjusting now, and I recognised our guardian.

  “You!” I cried.

  “I’m not who you think I am! Please, hear me out!” Zavis replied, falling to his knees before me.

  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right here, right now!”

  “I’m the leader of the Insurgency!”

  “You motherfucking son of a bitch!”

  You and me both, I thought, also taken aback by Zavis’s statement. If I’d taken the time to guess things he might’ve said, that wasn’t one of them.

  “Look, there’s a knife hidden on the underside of that table over there. Take it. Once I’ve finished explaining things, you can strike me down if you still wish to – I hope it won’t come to that but still.”

  I glanced at Amorina. “Find the knife.”

  As she went over to search the desk, I was watching Zavis, and he was watching me.

  “I’ve got it,” said Amorina, coming back and offering it to me.

  “Yes, take the knife; we’ll slit his lying ass throat!”

  “Hold on to it.”

  “You don’t want it?” Zavis asked.

  “I don’t trust myself right now …”

  “Bitch …”

  “It’s the voice, isn’t it? Is it growing stronger?”

  “Or are you growing weaker?”

  “Yeah …”

  “I can help with that. See that metallic, oval-shaped device on top of the table? It’ll fit over your head and suppress the voice.”

  “I don’t need that.”

  “And yet you’re afraid to hold a knife?”

  “Enough of this! I will not be suppressed!”

  My arm shot out, grabbing the knife from Amorina, then raising it towards Zavis. I regained control, letting go of the blade.

  “Give me control!” I yelled, the darkness’s power flowing through my words.

  It seized partial control again, dropping me down and reaching for the knife. As my hand closed around the handle of the blade, I felt an object pressed onto my head, and instantly, the darkness and its influence were gone. I threw the knife away and sat back, breathing quickly.

  “Better?” Zavis asked.

  “Yeah!”

  “Do you believe some of what I’ve said?”

  “A little bit. But how about you start explaining things!”

  “Okay, well … I could start in a great many places, but I will start from the beginning. As a child, I knew of your grandfather, seeing him colonise the first world in another star system; I aspired to serve men such as him, the pioneers. When your father became the emperor, I became a junior advisor. He colonised other worlds to satisfy his lust for power, and when I saw him raise you with the same amplified machinations, I began laying down plans.”

  Watching Zavis speak, I was overcome with a sense of sincerity, and I began to realise that the advisor I’d dealt with previously wasn’t who this man truly was.

  “I founded the Insurgency to take the Empire down. Pure and simple.” Zavis paused for a moment as if to collect his thoughts.

  “But,” he continued, “the Empire proved itself to be resilient, and many of our plans failed, despite the inside information I was able to provide. When we detected the signal on Ares and subsequently lost contact with the exploration vessels, I was overwhelmed by a sense of foreboding.”

  “Wait – that signal thing wasn’t a lie?”

  “Despite the cruel persona I adopt when I’m out and about as an advisor, I hardly lied to you, Raith. The signal is most definitely real – frighteningly so, I’m afraid.”

  “Wow … okay,” I said, trying to recall all that he’d told me previously, now viewed through the view of being truthful.

  “So anyway, it was then that I knew destroying the Empire wasn’t the answer – a united human race was. But it would be a few years before the opportunity would form to begin to realise that.”

  “What was the opportunity that arose?”

  “Your experiments. One day, you explained your plans for the brain rewriting device to me, and I had an idea. How did you think the Insurgency was able to replace all the AI training subjects? Because I masterminded their replacement. I also let my operatives in and told them where to find you and how to use the device.”

  “You created me.”

  “In a sense, yes. When the conversion was complete, and you were in such a state … I panicked a little. I ordered you to be sent to Gaia for ‘rehabilitation’. In truth, I had no idea what would become of you. But I figured that out there you wouldn’t be recognised, and you’d have the chance at becoming a better man … or at least I hoped you would.”

  “And the other men you converted?”

  “They were all cruel men. After your disappearance, the other advisors were quite open to testing the device again and again if it meant figuring out what might’ve happened to you. Those tests provided me with a lot of insight and allowed me to develop tools like the one on your head.”

  “So how did you find me again?”

  “I got a call from one of my lieutenants, filling me in on the day’s events, and at the end of the conversation, he mentioned a love-struck man who’d stowed away aboard an Empire dropship, with a curious circular scar upon his head. Straight away, I knew it was you. So I got him to find Amorina, putting her on a ship bound for Earth instead of Terranova. You were slightly more complicated, as I needed you to be discovered by the Empire organically. So I had the Insurgency send you to Astarte, where I figured the best chances of such a discovery would be.”

  I could feel the puzzle pieces falling into place. The Insurgency’s change of heart on Machina Station now made a lot more sense, as well as why I arrived on Astarte without the Insurgency’s protection.

  “The Commander … he called you, didn’t he? From Astarte?”

  “Yes. I was ‘surprised’ to hear of your re-emergence and promptly ordered your transport to Earth.”

  “And once I was here?”

  “I convinced the other advisors that your reconversion needed to be your choice, which spared you from an immediate return to your former self. This also gave me time to see what kind of a man you’d become and honestly, you turned out better than I’d hoped.”

  “So, what’s next?”

  “Part of my plan remains unexecuted. But I need your help to pull it off.”

  “Why me?”

  “I believe … no, I know most men can’t even dream of the power you have control over. Billions of people under your command, and millions more under your subjugation. In the past, you used that power selfishly, maliciously – now, you could right past wrongs, unite humanity, and prepare us for what lies out there in the darkness of space.”

  “But you’ve been running the Empire in my absence. You’ve been controlling that power, so why not keep doing so? Why do I need to be involved?”

  “The advisors view you with reverence, not unlike a man of faith holding his god in holy esteem. Aside from testing the mass conversion device, they wouldn’t allow it to be used in anger – they see that as an honour fit only for you. That device and its use is essential to my plans.”

  “Hypothetically, what do you have in mind?”

  “Might I get up from the floor first?”

  Realising that I’d kept Zavis kneeling before me this whole time, I rushed forward to help him.

  “Of course! Sorry, I didn’t realise you were still down there!”

  ***

  Once we’d pulled up some chairs, and Zavis had rubbed some feeling back into his knees, he pulled out a holochip.

  “On here is a copy of the MIND AI 1.0 – the same one that created you. My plan is this: you surrender and get taken back to the Embassy. You tell the advisors you want to become your old self, but you want the whole planet to transform as you do. They’ll give you the mass conversion device, at which point you can swap out the new with the old, replacing the MIND AI 2.0.”

  “And when I activate the device, it will convert everyone on Earth into ‘good people’?”

  “Exactly! There are enough –”

  “Hang on,” I held my hands up to stop him from continuing.

  “We are talking about altering billions of people … against their knowledge, against their will! How … how are we even thinking about doing this!”

  “We have no choice – it’ll happen, one way or another.”

  “No choice? No choice?” I spat out. “There is always a choice!”

  “Not this time, Raith. Believe me, I’ve spent a lifetime trying to find a way. This is where I’ve arrived.”

  “Really?” I asked, exasperated. “What about taking out the other advisors and handing over control to the Republic?”

  “The Empire’s commanders would see that as an act of war, attacking like a dog without a master to restrain it.”

  “What about forcing the advisors to hand over power publicly?”

  “Same result: the commanders would see it as insincere, sabotaged from within.”

  “What about gathering all the commanders and –”

  “Raith, you’re not listening. The Empire has two choices: take the Republic by force or take it by conversion. We have one choice: take them by conversion. We can’t win against them in a fight.”

  “There has to be a way! What if I hand over power as the emperor?”

  “Raith, you don’t understand –”

  “No, you don’t understand!” I yelled. “I know why you changed me; I do … but what you want to wield is the power of gods!”

  Zavis sat there in stunned silence.

  “And we are not gods!” I continued. “We are men, prone to corruption and greed.”

  “I’m not trying to take over humanity, I’m trying to free it!”

  “And what happens when humanity is freed? What happens to that power then?”

  “I don’t know … but I’m sure we’d figure something out.”

  “Okay, let's go back a step. What happens to everyone we convert? Cause I think you have no idea what that’s like.”

  “I think I have some idea, Raith. As I said, I’ve converted a few people.”

  “You’ve never been converted!” I yelled. “But I have! So I know what it’s like to wake up and you can walk, you can talk, but you have no idea who you are. No name, no friends, no family, no scrap of memory that tells you an ounce of who you are!”

  Except for the sound of my heavy breathing, the room was silent.

  After a few minutes, Zavis spoke up, “You’re right, Raith, I don’t understand what it’s like to be converted. I do know that what you experienced will only happen to the most fanatic individuals. Most people will be much better off.”

  “Okay, well … good!” I snapped. “At least you’ve considered the consequences!”

  “Consequences or not, this is our only course of action. All that remains now is whether you will activate the device as Raith, with the good AI, or will you activate it as Tynan, with the evil AI?”

  “And what is good and evil? How do we decide which is which?

  Are we not in the wrong, forcibly converting people?"

  “Sometimes, Raith, the wrong choices are made for the right reasons. As I said, these people will be converted regardless – changed to the Empire’s ways – every army on Earth would be theirs, multiplying their numbers by a factor of a thousand. Every civilian would become property, free to be distributed at will. The Empire’s way is cruel, built to serve the powerful few at the top. The Insurgency fights for the Republic’s way. It’s not perfect, by any means, but it is built to serve the many, and the many have rights and freedoms; the power lies collectively with the people. If we activate the device with the good AI, it is the Empire’s faithful who will be most affected.”