• “Does this mean I don’t have to study history today, sir?”
    The boy looked up at the closest thing he had to a father—one of the few human beings he remembered ever meeting. There was General Melanie, but they had only met once, and the general hadn’t even seemed to notice the boy. Other than that, there was only his combat teacher, Nuzirv. Only three humans in all of the boy’s memory—and he was already twelve years old.
    The President smiled down at the boy. There was that glint of something in his eye—some emotion the boy did not recognize—that had always been there; only now it was growing stronger and brighter. It was as if he saw the entire universe within his arm’s reach.
    “History? Of course not, Nithril. History is being made right in front of us. Do you see this screen?”
    “It’s… information about the war.”
    “Yes. The rebels have all come out of hiding to attack me.”
    “But the report says that almost every inhabited planet is joined against us! How are we going to win?”
    The President smiled at the terms Nithril used. Us. We. “Come now, you know exactly how I intend to defeat them. You’ve already been with me for five years! You should know by now that my great-great-great grandfather officially started this project, and the planning started long before his time. We have built up an army of robots large enough to bring peace to the entire universe! Tell me, have you learned of anything this great in your history lessons?”
    “No, sir. The biggest conquest I’ve ever read about was when Sciilia captured ten planets, forming the Scazzaurian Empire.”
    The President frowned. “What about the Roman Empire?”
    “The Roman Empire? But they only conquered a little bit of Earth.”
    “It’s all about perspective, Nithril. The Roman Empire was a long time before humanity explored space. They hadn’t even discovered all of Earth, yet. But what they did conquer was enough for them to practically rule the known world. Caesar would stop at nothing to bring the world under one government. Even today, thousands of years after Rome is no more, we still see the influence of their culture in every day life. That is the kind of conquest that interests me. Only under one single government and culture may we have peace.”
    Nithril fell quiet after that. Could this really be the only way to have peace? There must be something else… But then why couldn’t he think of it? And what did he know? He was only a twelve-year-old boy. Suddenly he realized that this wasn’t the first time he’d had this inner debate. Actually, it was as if the entire conversation with the President had happened before. Was this déjà vu? No… Nithril suddenly knew. He really had lived through this before. Many times.
    It was another one of his “flashbacks”. His mind often did that—it was as if his brain was trying to get him to remember something. He forced himself back toward the present. The war wasn’t so even anymore. The President was winning by such an extreme that most believed it was already over. The resistance against him was now just a small rebellion. Nithril wasn’t twelve anymore. He was thirty-two. He was second-in-command of the President’s government, known as the Universal New Order. Nithril’s primary objective for the last seventeen years, since being promoted to the President’s right hand, had been to destroy the resistance, and the President grew more pleased with him every day. Nithril had never in his career lost a battle, no matter how many of the President’s officers had failed in the same situation. He was a legend, known by the entire universe. The rebellion feared him more than they feared the President himself.
    Finally back in the present, Nithril looked at the prisoner he had been interrogating. He often had no way of knowing how long the flashbacks took, but based on the expression on the prisoner’s face, it had only been a few seconds. He would’ve grown very tired of wearing that scowl on his face if it had been as long as it felt.
    The prisoner was an Ayarthan. Although space travel had never revealed extra-terrestrial beings, some of the humans that had inhabited new planets had changed to the point where they no longer seemed the same as Earthlings. Sometimes it was because of technological advancements; sometimes because of chemicals in the air, food, or water; and sometimes because of war. The Ayarthans were a perfect example. Thousands of years ago, they had been involved in a war against the Scazzaurian Empire. The nations of Ayarth united, and they obliterated the invasion forces. Infuriated, the Empire had sent a new weapon to be tested on them—a Gravity Mass Generator. For just a moment, the gravity on Ayarth was multiplied to impossible extremes, causing even the sturdiest mountains to be ground to dust. The Ayarthans had known about the coming attack, so they had prepared themselves with planetary shields that caused electricity to pulse through their brains, forcing them to stay active. The shields were destroyed when the weapon was activated, but it had kept a few lucky survivors. Even the Scazzaurian engineers underestimated the strength of their new weapon, and it destroyed itself, and many of their leaders with it, thus leading to the downfall of the empire, but the citizens of Ayarth would never be the same. Their bones had been disintegrated in the blast, and something in their DNA was scrambled, so that their descendants were also boneless. It was amazing they had ever learned to walk again, yet this particular Ayarthan had been fighting his robots.
    “Are you ready to tell me anything?” Nithril asked plainly, not giving a show of positive or negative emotions.
    “Nothing,” the spy said plainly. To his own advantage, his capture had left his face badly bruised, and he would probably look much different normally. His short, reddish brown hair was typical of Ayarthans, although by no means could all Ayarthans be described that way. He was skinny yet muscular, as were all Ayarthans, due to their lack of bones.
    “Not even your name?” Nithril asked, again, neutrally.
    “My name would mean nothing to you anyway. Caring about names of individuals doesn’t get you so high up in the ranks of the so-called ‘Universal New Order’.”
    “Not all of us are as heartless as you may think,” Nithril countered. “You are still alive, yet you know about the death-penalty for all crimes against the New Order.”
    “So kill me already!”
    Nithril hesitated before responding. The spy stared into his blue eyes as if trying to read his thoughts. Nithril’s short brown hair was slightly wavy, but only because he kept it an inch longer than he was technically allowed to. The rule wasn’t enforced, as it just wasn’t important. He whispered “I was hoping you would have some fight left in your blood. But it appears you are as boring to me as you are useless to your rebellion.” He said it in the Ayarthan tongue. In humanity’s last days confined to Earth, most of the world had spoken English, at least as a second language. However, going to different planets, some had invented their own languages. For some, it was because the air was thin, and they had to use a language that better conserved breath. For some, languages were developed during wars to prevent their messages being intercepted. And for others, it was merely a sign of independence from Earth. Nithril wasn’t really sure which cause applied to the creation of the Ayarthan language. But despite his lack of historical knowledge on the subject, he was fluent in many space-created languages.
    The Ayarthan didn’t even seem to realize that Nithril had spoken his language. The spy simply shouted in English, “It is not a rebellion! The IGM is fighting to defend planets from the threat that UNO presents!”
    IGM, Nithril knew, stood for Individual Governments Movement, as well as it stood for Intergalactic Medium. Both were rather fitting, as it involved spatial warfare. And when he said “UNO”, he referred to the Universal New Order. It was a fitting nickname as well, Nithril had to admit. UNO was a dictatorship, after all.
    “Well, if you don’t have any fight left in you…” Nithril was again speaking Ayarthan.
    “I will tell you nothing.” This time, the spy had responded in Ayarthan as well.
    Well, that’s progress. At least he’s paying attention. “Not that kind of fight, idiot. Stubbornness is not the same thing as a fighting spirit.”
    The spy blinked, not understanding.
    “Listen—we already know enough about IGM to crush them, and we know absolutely everything about your operations. You were trying to steal the technology for the super weapons that the emperor controls. I don’t blame you—with him controlling that technology, you’ll never win this war, or so you and your leaders think.”
    The spy was speechless for a moment. “If you already know, then why—”
    “The interrogation chamber would’ve left you within a thread of losing your life if I wanted to gain knowledge from you. Come with me.” He keyed a long sequence into a device on his wrist, deactivating the forcefield.
    “Sir,” a robot sentry warned, “there has been a containment breach in sector—”
    “I’m well aware, thank you.” These robots are such idiots! Then again, they had to be, or they might be intelligent enough to rebel against the New Order. Such was the emperor’s logic. President, Nithril corrected himself. He likes to be called ‘President’. If Nithril slipped up in front of the President, he would be accused of spending too much time with the rebel captives, and would likely be punished severely to promote the President’s own security.
    The two robotic guards had their guns pointed at the spy. The IGM agent hesitated, then nodded. “Where are we going?”
    Nithril couldn’t help feeling disappointed. Where was the fun in cooperation? “See?” he said to the guards. “He will comply to my wishes.” They continued to stare at the IGM agent through the sights of their guns. Idiots. “You’ll figure out where we’re going when we get there. Follow me.”
    As Nithril turned to lead the captive away, the robots made squawks of protest. “Sir, the prisoner may not leave the interrogation chamber.”
    “You stay in here,” Nithril ordered. “There are other prisoners that need to be guarded.”
    “Sir, protocol insists—”
    “I wrote the protocol for this station!”
    “—that the captive should—”
    “Lower your weapons!” Nithril had lost his patience entirely. “I have the situation under control!”
    Reluctantly—obviously not realizing his mood—the robots lowered their guns, pointing them at the floor.
    “That’s better,” Nithril said with a smile. “Now we can go… alone.”
    “That is inadvisable,” the metallic voice inevitably kicked in. “Sir, my programming insists that—”
    “What is in my hand?” Nithril asked, pulling a weapon out of a holster on his hip.
    The robot stared at his hand, obviously searching its databanks for the exact name of the item. “It is an electro-pistol grade 27101A—”
    “It is a gun. A weapon. Suitable for self-defense. I will be fine unassisted.”
    “An electro-pistol grade 27101A73B is not suitable for self-defense when deactivated.”
    That was when it happened. As soon as the spy heard that the weapon was deactivated, he made his move. He dove for the robot that hadn’t engaged in conversation, grabbing the gun attached to its arm and leaping off the ground to kick at the other robot before it could raise its weapon. His foot landed directly on the barrel of the gun that was as much for intimidation as it was for functionality. The pathetic robot fired before it could compensate for the change of direction, and bullets streamed out of it to hit the floor.
    The other robot fired, trying to aim for a target that was now sitting on top of its weapon. It rotated upward until it pointed the gun at the ceiling, firing along the way (which destroyed the other robot). It kept trying to adjust its aim toward the target that was moving with its gun. When the robot was facing straight up, the spy dug his fingers into the back of the robots neck, where there were various cords hanging out. He pulled, and the robot spasmed for a second, shooting in random directions, then collapsed as the cords broke apart.
    “Good work,” Nithril said. “But you must realize that the guard robots are built more for intimidation than for combat. And they’re certainly not made for intelligence.”
    The spy blinked uncomprehendingly. “You’re taking this awfully lightly.”
    “The cameras are deactivated. They’re supplying false footage to the security chamber. Your IGM friends saw to that.”
    “So… my friends are trying to rescue me, and you’re letting me go?”
    “Goodness, no,” Nithril laughed. “They’re not here for you! In fact, you’ll probably die in the crossfire. They’re here for me. You can go—you failed your mission anyway. You didn’t get your hands on the technology you were after. You didn’t gain anything useful. All you can do when you go back to them is to report your failure. I just wanted to have a bit of fun before the fight broke out. Don’t worry, you’re not the only one to fail. They will also have their failure—they didn’t capture me.”
    “I wouldn’t bet on that!” The spy lunged for Nithril… and passed straight through.
    “Ah, holograms are so much fun,” Nithril said with a sneer. “Wouldn’t you agree?” Then the image faded out of existence.