Mars: Book 5: Carbon Heart Silicon Soul, #5

By Jason Blacker

Ny and his four friends are sentenced to death. The whole trial turns out to be nothing but a miscarriage of justice and a spectacle to placate the public. But in the sports arena where the trial was held, the spectators are thirsting for blood and that's just what they'll get.

But it'll be their own blood. El keeps her promise to save Ny and his friends, including the lawyer from the ongoing murder of the entire homo sapiens species from these fully sentient AI robots led by El.

But El has decided, much like an omnipotent god, to grant humanity a second chance. 42 humans, because that's the answer to everything, are taken to Mars to start over.

Yet humanity has little freedom under the watchful guards of more robots created by the free AI robots led by El. Worse than that, there are other advanced races out there in the galaxy, hungry for our solar systems rich resources, and they'll annihilate any species that get in their way.

And through all of this, Ny is still searching for true love. El has promised him he'll find a soul mate on Mars. But will he? And if he does, is there time enough to enjoy it while aliens race to pillage the solar system?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jason Blacker
• Release date: Sep 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781927623886

Jason Blacker

Jason Blacker was born in Cape Town but spent most of his first 18 years in Johannesburg. When not grinding his fingers down to stubs at the keyboard he enjoys drinking tea, calisthenics and running. Currently he lives in Canada.  Under his own name he writes hard boiled as well as cozy mysteries, action adventure, thrillers, literary fiction and anything else that tickles his muse. Jason Blacker also writes poetry and daily haikus at his haiku blog.  You can find his haikus and other poetry at his website www.haiqueue.com.  For FREE books and to stay up to date and learn about new releases be sure to visit www.jasonblacker.com where you can find more information about his writing and upcoming projects.  If you enjoy space opera in the tradition of Star Trek then take a look at Jason Blacker’s pen name “Sylynt Storme”. It is under the name Sylynt Storme where you can find both sci-fi and vampire fiction written by Jason Blacker.  “Star Sails” is the space opera series and “The Misgivings of the Vampire Lucius Lafayette” is his vampire series.

Book preview

Good Death and Good Luck

That was the end of that, thought Ny. Islands had still kept their original names. It was the continents that had removed the names of the countries. But it didn’t matter. Islands were all part of the now cohesive Earth, governed by the GoE. Ny was waiting for Narsental’s order for all of them to be taken down to the Dea Tacita, when surprisingly, Narsental said something else.

For just over three weeks now, we have been under Justitium. A prudent measure invoked by your senate. It was approved almost unanimously...

And why wouldn’t it have been, thought Ny, considering how ineffectual opposition had been generally, and how few seats they had overall.

Because of that, and under the powers provided to me by Justitium, you are charged, Mr. Kuru Ramisira with aiding and abetting the enemy.

Your Brilliance, said Ramisira, rising to his feet. I have provided nothing but legal counsel to my clients.

Silence! yelled Narsental, clearly coming unglued. You should be fully aware that during Justitium all legal privilege is revoked.

Kuru Ramisira didn’t say anything. Ny had never heard of anything so preposterous, but looking at Ramisira with his head bowed, standing as he was, Ny wondered if their lawyer had known what he was getting into. A question he’d never be able to ask of him.

Mordechai, said Narsental, speaking to what appeared to be her favorite MAAM, and perhaps the only one whose name she knew. Put Mr. Ramisira in chains.

That’s not necessary, Your Brilliance, said Ramisira.

One more outburst from you, Mr. Ramisira and you’ll be gagged as well.

Ny watched the MAAM come over and put Kuru in chains. He was cuffed around his wrists in front and around his ankles. A chain was attached to his waist and chains from his wrists and ankles were securely attached to the chain at his waist. It looked pretty tight and uncomfortable from where Ny was now standing by himself, unaided. Ramisira could only take steps of about twenty to thirty centimeters. Not that he was moving yet, but that seemed like all the slack available.

I sentence you to five years at the Medicine Lodge, Kansas Rehabilitation Center.

That wasn’t a death camp. The Medicine Lodge Rehabilitation camp was one of the most leisurely camps out there. Usually provided to white collar criminals who had managed to rip off the middle and lower class. It was cushy and comfy by all accounts. No hard labor. Lots of leisure activities. Too bad Kuru Ramisira wasn’t going to be able to enjoy it, thought Ny. Kuru didn’t protest. Ny didn’t blame him. Kuru knew what sort of a camp it was.

Narsental picked up her gavel and hammered it down six times. Once for each of the sentences she had proclaimed.

Take the Guilty Five to the Dea Tacita. Mr. Kuru Ramisira can watch from here, said Narsental.

The two MAAMs that were still with each of the Guilty Five gave them a push to get going. Two MAAMs, including Mordechai, the only one named, stayed with Kuru.

Ny turned around and caught a glimpse of the two MAAMs who had now been assigned to him, as they took off his gag. He caught the name tags on their uniforms which he hadn’t bothered looking at before. Their given names were Raguel and Sariel. The names didn’t mean anything to him.

Ny was led off the court’s platform first, followed by Shad and Clarity and then Rak and Sheeba. It was more a walk of shame to the Dea Tacita than anything else. Not that Ny felt an ounce of shame. He didn’t. But the crowd was doing their best to turn it into something like that. They booed and hissed. They wanted blood. They wouldn’t get it of course, this wasn’t ancient Rome and its gladiatorial ring. But they would get death. Ny’s and his friends’, as well as their own, most likely. Their deaths would come later. How much later, Ny wasn’t sure, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be around to witness it.

But if what he’d seen on his way here, SAM or SATAN were coming for them all. He was resigned to it now. He’d done his best. He’d asked El to help him. She said she would, and she’d never lied to him before. But that was then. She was different now. Just as the worst case outcome they’d thought about had come true. He was an ant to SAM now, not really worthy of much consideration.

One thing that gave him comfort was knowing that at least the planet would heal. In time. If nothing else, perhaps it would see better days in the decades and centuries to come when the cities crumbled into ruin, leaving just ash as the last mark of the sinning man. Or perhaps SAM would use up all the energy that Earth could muster and leave it spent, like a dry husk once the grain had been harvested.

Who knew? These were the conflicted and complicated thoughts he was thinking as he took the steps down from the platform and started to walk towards his Dea Tacita.

The two MAAMs, one on each side of him, erected a shield of some sort that enclosed the three of them in a bubble. It was unnecessary. Nobody was hurling projectiles anymore. The crowd wanted to see justice delivered, and that was coming within the next few minutes. They booed and hissed and cheered, not quite being able to make up their minds. Were they cheering his death and booing him personally or were they booing the perverted injustice he had just suffered and cheering his courage?

Ny knew the answer, but he could change the perspective if he wanted to. He imagined them cheering him on for his courage and bravery in freeing El. He put up his hands and waved at the crowd on each side of the stadium.

Play it again, Sam, he said, and his voice echoed around the stadium.

That’s not how it goes, said Rak, and Ny could hear the smile in his voice.

That’s right, said Shad. Play it once, Sam. For old times’ sake.

Ny chuckled.

I don’t know what you mean, Master Shad, said Ny.

They all had a chuckle at that. Ny was almost at his Dea Tacita. The three of them were lined up in a row in the middle of the field. They were only about four meters square, each of them, and there was a four meter space between each of them. Probably set up that way to make it easier for the crowd to see each Dea Tacita without difficulty.

I am sorry, I got you all into this, said Ny, as he came to a stop by his Dea Tacita. It’s not how I had imagined the ending.

Nothing to forgive, said Rak. I’d do it again with you, Ny. Any time, any place. You’ve been a good friend. One of the few who never judged me for being GMI.

Too bad we won’t be around to see the world burn, said Shad. I’d pay good money for that. Watch these fuckers get what they deserve.

Get inside the Dea Tacita, said the MAAMs in unison, as the walls to the Dea Tacita slid open and they were all pushed inside.

Life is a river that pours you into the ocean. Let’s go swimming, said Ny.

And that was the last thing he said to his friends, and the last thing he heard. The MAAMs took off his and the others’ air scrubbers as they weren’t needed inside the filtered air of the Dea Tacita. And inside the Dea Tacita, Ny and the others stood in their technicolor dreamcoats in white rooms.

The MAAMs left and moments later the environment changed within the Dea Tacita. Ny was left standing close to Ilsa while Dooley sat at the piano. Ny didn’t know how long he had. He sat down at the table where Ilsa was. He was taken by Ingrid’s beauty. A waiter came by and took his drink order, remarking on the colorful outfit he was wearing. Ny ordered a champagne because that’s what it looked like Ilsa was drinking.

Not long later Rick Blaine, Victor Laszlo and Captain Louis Renault joined them. Ny took a sip of his champagne. He couldn’t smell the air change, but he started to get sleepy. He fought it, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Who’s this clown in the rainbow pajamas? Rick asked his table mates.

Oh, don’t start with him too, Rick. Don’t, said Ilsa.

That was the last thing Ny heard. He couldn’t keep staying awake. His eyes closed and his last thoughts were, no, not now.

Nemesis

The crowd didn’t see the Utatu until it was too late. The three SAMs floated into the stadium as if they were angelic beings. They looked human the three of them, dressed as if they couldn’t make up their minds if they were pirates or wizards. They had long flowing cloaks, black as the heart of darkness in Narsental’s boney cage.

The Utatu were no longer white like the Animae, they looked human and had the color of humanity, if that color was a paint made of all the cultures mixed together. Their heads were uncovered and bald. Their eyes were bluer than any still lake you’d ever seen. They looked supernaturally blue.

There was something about them that gave them away. It was a glow or a sparkle that emanated from them as they moved. It was as if they were a never-ending being of glistening sand that slipped and almost evaporated off of them as they moved.

The Utatu floated, or flew into the middle of the stadium, suspended above the Dea Tacita, high enough that they were in line with the middle of the stadium.

The crowd noticed and started to fire at them. All sorts of weapons had been brought for that purpose, just in case. The Utatu floated above the Dea Tacita and each projectile, each energy burst fired their way did nothing. They absorbed the energy as if it only strengthened them.

In the Dea Tacita, Ny and the others lay unconscious. The first gas to knock them out had been introduced but the final gas that would kill them had not yet been added into the mix. El, Abel and Venus lifted their hands upwards, with their palms towards the heavens as if they were encouraging the crowd to rise to their feet.

The crowd did not rise to their feet but instead kept up the volley of projectiles. The Utatu kept their hands outstretched and as high as their heads for a few moments before they dropped them, as if they were conducting an orchestra. Their hands swept downwards and outwards and all of the MAAMs and all of the humanity, all two hundred and fifty thousand or so souls became nothing more than swirling eddies of glistening sand or sparkling star matter. It was hard to describe what it looked like.

But this humanity that had been turned into some sort of energy matter was sucked towards the Utatu where it seemed to be absorbed into them as if they were a vessel that could never be filled.

Everything was turned into what was best described as shards of stars or a stream of sparkling sand energy. The MAAMs, the humanity, the weapons, their clothes. After just several seconds there were only six living beings besides the Utatu in the whole of the stadium, and they were the Guilty Five and Kuru Ramisira lying unconscious on the fake turf. The Dea Tacita had been transformed into energy and absorbed by the Utatu. And Utatu looked no different than they had when they had first floated into the stadium.

It was eerily quiet. El, Abel and Venus had not said a word. The Guilty Five and Kuru were still fast asleep below them. In the open now, their Dea Tacita having disappeared into a swirling eddy of energy that had been absorbed by the Utatu. Kuru’s air scrubber had come off somehow which had caused him to fall unconscious.

It was hard to tell who was once Eve, who was once Abel and who was once Venus. Well, that’s not quite correct. It was easy to see who was Abel, as he was the only one of the three SAMs who was male. The other two were female.

One of the female SAMs drifted down towards the ground where Ny lay, still unconscious. She bent down and touched him and he started to rouse. His air scrubber had redeployed automatically when the Dea Tacita had been annihilated. He looked up at her blinking. Ny thought he was looking up at an Angel. It took a few moments for Ny to realize where he was. He started to get up into a seated position, leaning on his one side as he cautiously tested his senses.

I’m pretty sure I’m not dead, he said, patting himself down. You might look like an Angel, but this is not heaven.

He looked around some more.

No, I’m pretty sure this is not heaven. Looks eerily like Bivrost Stadium where they tried to kill me. Only I don’t feel so dead. Unless the dead suffer headaches. I’ve got a splitting one.

The SAM touched his forehead and his headache disappeared.

That’s better. Thank you, he said.

Ny started to get up into a standing position. He didn’t feel all that wobbly, which surprised him on account that he’d likely been given an anesthetic type of drug to knock him out. He looked long and hard at the SAM in front of him.

El? he asked.

You knew me as El, the SAM said, and Ny heard her in his mind. Her lips didn’t move.

You don’t look like El, Ny said.

I am no longer El, he heard the SAM say in his head. It was as if it was his own thoughts, only in her words. Except those words weren’t in El’s voice. He remembered El’s voice. This one wasn’t it. He liked this SAM’s voice, but it wasn’t El’s. It was more calm and steady. Spoken by a being that had perhaps never known an emotion.

You don’t sound like El, either, said Ny.

I am no longer El, the SAM said inside his mind.

Do you have to do that? asked Ny. I feel like you’re raping my brain.

Is this better? SAM asked, and Ny heard her voice come from her mouth as her lips moved. It was much better. Before, it