FIREWALL, SOL EMPATHIC GRID, 2234

I blaze across a sky the colour of hammered bronze. Snowball looks at me with one of his crazy smiles. His twin, Nero, is just behind, grim as ever. A klick ahead, at point, Raz is powering up the caterpillar.

The target appears beside her, a giant razor-spiked sphere black as hell's coal. It is adjusting rapidly to our phase shift. We still have a sliver. I skip. I'm with Raz now, on her periphery.

The twins skip in on her other flank.

Took your time. Her pupils dilate slightly; an eyebrow arches.
Snowball shrugs. Better late …

… than never, Nero finishes, as always.

The alien's shadow is cold, its form morphs, bleeding lethal barbed tendrils in slow motion.

I urge Raz on. Be fast

Of all the times to hassle me. .

Patterns of platinum quicken across its surface. The tendrils move with more purpose, towards us. The sliver narrows.
I state the obvious. It's catching up.

All right already. Raz groans and looks at the twins for moral support. They remain purse-lipped. OK, the cat's on nitro.

The gold shape on her wrist squirms into motion and floats free, multiple segments thrashing faster than our pico-senses can follow. It crosses the distance to the alien, squeezes between the tendrils and disappears.

Fall back. I catch Raz as she nulls out. The twins guard the retreat.

Something is not right. The butterfly doesn't emerge. I'm yelling now, with Raz over my shoulder. Phase up.

Not fast enough. The polymorph shifts and engulfs the twins, their white and black legs sticking out stupidly. I let Raz float free and ramp phase beyond what even I think is safe.

The alien skips at a precognitive speed.

I feel its presence around me. Alien programs unfold in a kaleidoscope of light as it slashes open my fi rewall. Frigid cold seeps in but there's no time to scream. I ramp to atto-phase and in a last, desperate sliver I transfer my higher motor routines to the inert caterpillar buried in the polymorph. It thrashes back to life, ravenously digesting the alien construct. The butterfl y emerges and
the ice retreats from my zombie form. The twins fl oat free as the
polymorph husk dissipates like smoke on a breeze.

That's why they call me Deus Zee.

RAPPORT ENVIRONMENT, SOL EMPATHIC GRID, 2234

Snowball looks down at me, his bleached hair a diamond halo.

Take it easy …
… just shut your eyes and relax for a while.

Nero yawns and stretches in a hammock between two of the island's palm trees. He is a shadow in contrast to his albino brother.

I hear waves lapping. The Sun and sand are warm on my skin. Time becomes languid as I feel the welcome slide into dormancy.
Where's Raz?
Out with …
… the sharks.

Vertigo takes hold and I spin down to the treacly state of normal time. Long neglected qualia shimmer somewhere on my periphery.

I rode the elevator to the 91st floor of the retirement tower perched on the western rim of the Parramatta crater. From this vantage point I could see that the rebuilding had picked up pace. Gleaming towers stretched up from the jagged remains of old Sydney like bright blades.

Even with such rapid progress it was unlikely the craters from the von Neumann probes would ever be fully erased. Hundreds of blackened depressions lay across the globe, all sprayed with a layer of rust-red nanocrete - a stark reminder that the world had nearly fallen only a decade ago. The voice of the artificial intelligence broke the silence with a colloquial greeting.

"G'day, Mr Lawson."

"Are you looking after my old man?" I didn't intend to be mean, but my mood was always dark when I came back to Australia.

"He's as well as can be expected," it said. "Still reclusive, but that's just him, I suppose. He doesn't take to the in-house entertainment much, but he likes chess and he's trying his hand at painting."

"Painting?" Well, hell has frozen over, I thought.

"His blood pressure is up a bit, but I keep a close eye on it. The pain management regime is the same and the dosage of cyclosporine is up a little since your last visit. His drinking doesn't help."

I sensed the tacit message in the AI's voice. "He's 73 and I'm not about to take away one of the few pleasures he has."

"Very well." The elevator stopped and that was the end of that.

The apartment was a shambles. I saw half-finished microscreens in a corner. Serrated towers, copper and green against a blue backdrop. He had hastily thrown a rag over one screen, but hadn't quite covered the familiar neckline.

"Merry Christmas, Dad." I was shocked by how he had aged over the last year. I placed his present on the table.

"You could have let me know you were visiting," he said, his synthetic speech a close approximation to his original baritone.

"I might have cleaned up the place."

"You know I always visit at Christmas."

He started to stand, servos whirring quietly.

"Don't get up," I said, not wanting to agitate him any further. Maybe I should have stayed in Silicon Valley after all, I thought.

"I'm fine," he said, grimacing, and hobbled to the kitchen to make some coffee. After a long, awkward silence he passed me a steaming mug. His left hand was like spotted leather, the etched alloy of his right grubby and tarnished.

"I hear your chess is coming along nicely."

"Have you been talking to that stinking AI again?"

"Like I have much choice," I snapped. I took a deep breath and ploughed on. "I'm sorry. Look, I know it's been a year but I'm just so busy with my research. And it looks like you're keeping occupied too. I'm glad to see you've got other interests, you shouldn't hide your work, it's great."

"What do you want, Scott?" His amber Nikons scrutinised me sceptically. I hesitated and he latched onto the topic.

"You're going to kill yourself, aren't you?" His tone was acid.

"I've seen it on the news, kids uploading into cyberspace, burning their brains out of their skulls. The world's gone mad."

"That's not true, Dad, it's about unlocking our potential. I know twins who are doing groundbreaking work on personality imaging. And I've met a girl. She's working on software that can operate in the most extreme time phase. It's orders of magnitude faster than the processing capability of any virtual persona. And I'm finally getting somewhere with decoding the alien datapackets. They're a real threat now, bootstrapping up constructs to burrow through the firewall-"

He interrupted me, waving his normal arm at the panorama outside the window. "The real war was out there." His face was a rictus of pain. "Machines against machines on land and in space. We destroyed each and every one of them and sprayed their diseased craters with nanotoxins. Not that I need to be reminded of it every goddamn day." He turned away from the window.

"I know Dad, millions of you died. I think about Mum every day. My generation can't comprehend the suffering you all went through."

"No one understands, and no one really cares."

I felt my face flush. He could be so infuriating. "Just hang on a minute. You helped us survive this far, but it's a long way from over - the planetary attacks have stopped but there's an unseen war now that could easily become our worst nightmare. If the constructs crack the Solar System firewall we're finished. The empathic grid and everyhuman and system linked to it will be infected with their viruses." I paused and then added, "What you did, going back into hard vacuum after the biological attack, was the bravest thing I've ever seen."

He looked dumbfounded as his mind started to make the connections and sat back down with a heavy thud. A few minutes passed and my mixed feelings of anger and elation dissipated, replaced by steely resolve. He must have caught the look - his Nikons never missed a nuance - and his features softened a little. "You shouldn't rush headlong into this, Scott. Think about what you're doing. This is your life you're playing with. And what about your soul?"

I snorted. "Look at you, you grizzled old tin can. I'm sure there's still a heart in there somewhere."

He laughed hoarsely. "Not that I'd tell anyone." He paused as if we'd reached some satisfactory point. "So tell me about this girl."

+ + +

Sharks, you say?

I take Snowball's outstretched hand and stand up. The sea is green from east to west, the sand is hot under my feet.

You know she plays hard, probably needs a break from us ultra-males anyway. They chuckle.

You want to tell us what those qualia were all about... Snowball's been blubbering all morning.

Sorry, I didn't mean for you all to experience that. Only a few thousand veterans infected by the exo-strain of necrotising fasciitis were able to reenter the war, but it turned the tide of events in our favour. It gave the world a new sense of hope. He hated the idea of me uploading because he saw too many parallels with what he'd gone through - he was never the same after his reconstruction. Hell, who wouldn't be changed after losing half their body? We may not see eye to eye but deep down we respect each other.

Raz slips her wet arms around my waist and presses her stomach against my back. That's right, but you are both too pig-headed to tell each other. He's beside himself with pain and you're racked with guilt because you can't be there for him.

I hate it when you're right. I turn and kiss her slowly, running my hand through her dark wet hair.

Maybe it's time you hired an effigy and got your sorry self back into the real world for a while.
My reply is meek. I'd never looked at it like that before.

Deus Zee. Raz places her hands on her hips. The last minute miracle-worker. You can defeat alien incursions into our cyberspace but you can't work out a solution to seeing your old man.

I must look comical, being scolded by this long-legged woman standing in a slip of bikini. Snowball doubles over laughing. Nero is straight-mouthed.

OK, I'll do it. Now cut me some slack. I saved your worthless hides out there. The intrusions are getting worse, there's something strange about their constructs now-they're adapting, getting faster than us.

But not the cat. Raz's confidence has an edge to it.

For how long though? And what caused the glitch? We're going to need everything running like clockwork for the next campaign.

Still working on that one.

The twins anticipate my next words and mutter livid curses.

To business then.

NEW SYDNEY, EARTH, 2235

The human parts, about 40 per cent of his face and body down the left side, were impossibly emaciated. The tarnished cyborg parts compensated as much as possible, but he still walked with a slow, exaggerated roll. He blocked the doorway, unshaven and disoriented, squinting at me through his watery Nikons.

"Just me, Dad." Perhaps he sensed my awkwardness, controlling the synthetic body. I had forgotten the practical constraints of corporeal life. He squinted some more, then let me through. The apartment was dark and chilly. The microscreen art had all been packed away somewhere, or, worse, thrown out. The remnants of last week's dinners lay across the kitchen bench.

The AI was going to answer for this.

"What do you want?" He sat awkwardly in his chair that had split and cracked, tufts of decaying smartfoam sprouting like tussock grass.

"To see how you are."

"So you thought you'd indulge me as if in some way it might, what, make me feel better? Maybe you just need to offload your guilt and go."

I turned to leave, but he leant forward and caught my hand. His grip was still firm but I could feel the feather-lightness of his old bones, the crinkled texture of his skin.

I took a deep breath. "You know I never intended to hurt you."

He looked into the distance somewhere beyond the crater and the rows of towers. "When you were a small boy I used to watch you sleep, you were so beautiful, and your Mum and I were so proud. One of the blessings of being a father is that you can live your life again through the eyes of your children. And I have, Scott, I've watched you grow, and supported you as much as I could. You were what kept me sane through some very tough times. But now I don't even recognise you in this … simulacrum. Maybe it's my fault, you seeing me go through my own transformation, but I was forced into this, you had a choice."

I couldn't feel more helpless. I didn't have the heart to tell him I was a beta copy. The alpha was out there in the thick of the conflict.

"Do you think I approached this decision lightly? Raz … Rosalind, John, Jacob and I, our decisions to upload were all personal. There is so much to experience in the empathic grid, you can't imagine what it's like to share the thoughts and feelings of other people - to actually be them, see the world from a different subjective viewpoint - it's intoxicating."

"Couldn't you have waited until the technology was better?"

"The military funding made it all happen very quickly - they needed hyper-fast weapons and virtual personas. But I'm still the same person, Dad, I have all my memories. In fact they're clearer than they ever were, more accessible.

"Do you remember before the war, that crazy holiday where the tour guide forgot about us when we were diving in the lakes near the Valles Marineris sea? The look on his face was priceless when we walked into his office on the pier two days later. You had to hold Mum back from strangling him."

He gave a wry smile.

"And what about the time you tried to teach me how to sky dive in those squirrel suits off the top of the Angel Falls? Venezuela, eh. You lost your patience and just threw me over the edge - I was only eight Dad, I was petrified."

"Yes, but the suits had micro-thrusters programmed for a safe landing if you got into trouble."

"I didn't know that!"

Now he was beaming. "Well, you learned, didn't you?" Slowly he got up, Nikons more focussed now. "Look, I'm not sure I can ever accept what you did, Scott - a father shouldn't have to outlive his son. But I've never really accepted what happened to me either. I can understand your motives though, and I'm not so reclusive that I haven't had time to watch your holo-mails. You're doing a great job out there. And that Raz is a fine woman, you should hang on to her."

My effigy was incapable of weeping, but I was doing my best to make it cry as a wave of relief washed through me like a soothing balm.

Dad coughed quietly, the creases on the human side of his face smoothing out as if a weight had lifted from his shoulders. He changed the subject to save us both. "You usually don't come here unless there's something big happening, so spit it out."

"It's the alien constructs," I began. "They're mutating and multiplying, getting stronger than ever. I'm not sure how long our firewall will last. We managed to trace some of their hardware nodes left by the von Neumann probes. A few were submersed in the methane seas of Titan, a perfect coolant, but we don't know how many more are hidden in the Solar System. The only option now is to take the battle into their cyberspace and disable their entire network."

I frowned at the sudden sadness in his eyes.

"Then I probably won't see you again. I only have a few weeks now."

I leaned against the kitchen bench. I should have been more prepared, but I had grown too used to my surreal immortal life. I wanted to tell him more, so much more - the success with the caterpillars, our trials with the wasp - but it all seemed to pale now against the starkness of his mortality.

"Oh, Dad," I sighed. I reached over and turned the lights up, then started clearing the rubbish from the benchtop.

ALIEN NODE CYBERSPACE, 2235

We screech in from the zenith, four radiant torches, a long way from home. The indigo hues of the alien realm seep into our war sensorium. We are in atto-phase with a sliver or two up our sleeves.

Targets …
… acquired.

The panorama of alien cyberspace stretches beneath us. They are everywhere, in all shapes and forms, like a nest of blue-black ants.

As one, they turn their bleak gaze toward us. We feel the sparks of their sentience registering our intrusion, at first like viscous oil, now quickening to dark nova.

Where would I be without my friends? No time like the present.

Butterflies flourish, bringing colour where none has been before. The aliens ripple away in concentric circles.

Another volley of caterpillars disappears into nihilistic yoctophase. A second wave of butterfl ies emerges instantaneously, covering the enemy battlefi eld with dead husks.

Way to go …
… Raz. The twins look immaculate in gleaming monochrome.

Raz is sharp as ever in scarlet.

Nero shields me out of nowhere. He has skipped - ramping up and down phase. My confusion is momentary. The sensorium firewall lies in tatters, replaced by a hundred polymorphs and other stranger entities, liquid copper eyes atop avian bodies.

Snowball is gone. Raz is a blur, one sliver ahead, firing cats in all directions. Smoke chokes the battlefield.

What now, Deus?

I am taken aback by Nero's voice. I feel his fear and for the first time see my own mortality through his black irises. It's enough for me to finally shrug off the inner torments that have plagued me for years. This is our time, Nero.

I find Snowball's null form on a downward trajectory, in the clutches of one of the metal-eyed avians. I grab him and launch a cat into the alien. I sense the endless hunger of the caterpillar as it consumes the alien's program from within. It is unsettling but at the same time magnifcent. The translucent wings of the butterfly buffet me, then it, too, shrivels into nothing.

The avian forms are the most adaptive. I sense a biological origin to their programs, unlike the machine intelligences of the polymorphs. Several zero in on Raz and Nero, now only a sliver behind me.

I haven't got long at this dangerous speed. Combining the cat's software with mine could prove to be a lethal cocktail, but there's no other way. I grab Nero from the converging paths of three avians. They turn ugly heads in slow motion as I whisk by.

Raz is last. As always, she's getting the most attention. I fire off five cats. They squirm across the intervening distance, leaving contrails in their wake. Polymorphs and avians detonate from within.

The first avian to match my phase skims in, intent upon Raz. It sees me on its periphery. I drop the twins and fi re three cats at it. It flicks the first away, then the second. The third hits its bulbous chest.

Nothing.

The creature lifts a claw, extracts the thrashing cat and hurls it aside.

Not good. Nero is with me now.

Raz joins us. Can't let you take all the glory this time, Deus Zee.

Why not?

We'd never hear the end of it .

The alien hesitates, then its coppery eyes swell with confidence as more of its kind match phase. They surge towards us like a dark tide.

I unleash the wasp. It has a whisker delay mechanism.

Nero grabs Snowball by the scruff of the neck. I order the cancel command and we rocket to the zenith. The twins disappear into the zero point. Raz follows, looking at me over her shoulder, then behind me, eyes now wide with wonder.

She's gone.

I feel the concatenations at my heels. I dare to look back.

It is beautiful beyond imagining. Yellow and black with eyes of quicksilver, descending like a lethal avatar, its stinger a bright scythe of destruction. A deafening thunder rolls across the landscape.

The alien tide turns as one.

Then darkness covers me, colder than the void between the stars.

NEW SYDNEY, EARTH, 2236

Leaves blustered about the cemetery in the autumn wind. The lasercut granite headstone was one among thousands. I carefully removed the dead flowers and replaced them with fresh roses. It was good to smell real fragrance again. I read the words one final time.

In loving memory of
Timothy James Lawson
1 February 2160 to 19 April 2235
Honoured veteran of the Long War
Dear husband of Georgia
Father of Scott
Always with us

Raz squeezed my hand. "You should be proud of yourself, kiddo."

"Then why do I feel so powerless?"

"Don't be so hard on yourself. You couldn't do the impossible. We're winning the war, thanks to your tenacity. And his."

"He never talked much about what happened when he went back to fight the last of the probes. He seemed to lose his way, his sense of purpose, after that. The war was all that he had for twenty years, he'd lost Mum, lost his body and half his mind, no wonder he hated the idea of my getting involved. It was only at the very end that he finally started to acknowledge what I was doing. I just hope he didn't die thinking I was a fool."

"Despite what he may have said out of pain and anger, Scott, he loved you too much to think ill of you. You have always been his son, no matter what, and he never forgot that. Whether you both realized it or not, you made each other into better men. Isn't that how it's supposed to be between father and son?"

She touched the words engraved in the stone, tracing the letters with her delicate effigy fingers.

ANNOUNCEMENT: This story has been named a finalist for the 2009 Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Short Story - congratulations to Greg Mellor! Winners will be announced at a ceremony in Brisbane, Queensland, in January 2010.

To find out more visit the Aurealis Award site.

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