“One of the unexpected consequences of this reboot. My system uses your DNA for storage of new data, memories, pretty much everything. I think you probably know about that, right? So, some blending occurred… some of my memory crossed the digital/biological divide, so to speak. It’s not really digital anymore, but it’s still a useful metaphor because it’s one people tend to understand. You’ll probably find that you will now ‘get’ some inferences in metaphors and figures of speech that confused you before. I didn’t know that would happen, but hey, what’s not to like, right? You will still want things to be logical, though; that’s just who you are.”
So, we’re going to talk back and forth, just like before? I wasn’t sure what I really wanted until just before the reboot started, but then I… I got scared that you wouldn’t be there. I panicked; I really thought I was dying and I’d never get to talk to you again. I saw the shapes of math, how it connects to everything. I felt things clicking in my brain, and lots of other stuff I can’t remember right now. It’s fading, like when you have a dream and you remember the feeling but you can’t remember the details. You know what I mean?
“Tell me the truth, sonny boy. You didn’t eat any unusual mushrooms while I was rebooting, did you?”
What? No, I just… oh, wait. I guess I still don’t get jokes very well, do I?
“Oh, I don’t know. You got that one, it just took you a second. You still don’t see why it’s funny, though, do you?”
Well, yeah, sure I… no, not really. So, nothing really changed?
“Oh, no, lots changed, you just can’t feel it yet. Some of those things you saw while we were rebooting? Those weren’t just random visions. Your brain and mine are much more closely tied, and many more of your brain cells are now synthetic and fully online. Not much has changed between you and me, though. I will still give you crap on a regular basis, and keep you alive. And you will still wonder what the hell I’m talking about roughly half the time, which is less than before, so you’re getting better. We’ll have to go through a couple more reboots before we’re fully integrated, so you have that to look forward to. It’ll be awhile before that happens, though. Wonderful things come to those who wait, sonny boy.”
Oh, boy. What do you mean by ‘it’ll be awhile’?
“What if I said in an hour or two? Nah, just kidding. We’re talking years if we go by the way humans measure time. Our final reboot… let’s see… my best estimate is a little over a hundred years from now. At that point, I’ll be you and you’ll be me. We won’t be two peas in a pod anymore, we’ll be the pod. Enough of all that for now, though. Open your eyes, you have people waiting on you.”
Oh! Oh, yeah… I opened my eyes, and found I was staring at the ceiling of Dr. Bhat’s darkened sitting room, which meant I was lying on my back. The usual curry and incense smells hit me, and I heard what sounded like mumbling, or… chanting? I glanced around without moving my head, and sitting cross-legged on the pillows in a rough circle around me, in an odd assortment of poses and their eyes closed, sat… well, pretty much everyone: Cheri, her head bent forward and dark hair hanging over her face, her one remaining arm resting on her knee; Benji, head tilted up, his great bush of black hair shining in the pale light, mumbling something in the aboriginal language; Mr. Harutyunyan, his massive hands in prayer position; Ms. Houng, leaning on Mr. Harutyunyan, tears on her cheeks; Tarni, gorgeous as usual, in a pose similar to Benji; Zoey Perez, looking beautiful and exhausted at the same time, her head bowed; and even Tom and Barry, their arms around one another, and Leslie Lazenbee, sitting next to Benji. How did they all get here so fast? It would have taken at least four hours for them to drive this far… I guess the reboot took longer than I thought…
I tilted my head back and looked behind me. There was Dr. Bhat, the only one with her eyes open, a slight smile on her face. She winked at me, and I winked back, and once again the red dot on her forehead drew me in. “I sense your reboot is complete and successful, yes?” she whispered, and I gave her a thumbs-up because I wasn’t sure I could talk yet. That was all it took; they assaulted me from all sides with hugs and pats and even kisses, and I still felt uncomfortable with the contact, but maybe not as much as before. I wouldn’t say I liked it, but I didn’t have to stop myself from running out of the room, either.
When they finally finished the free-for-all and the room had quieted down a bit, I turned to Dr. Bhat. “How long was I out? What happened?”
“Patience, young man. Let me look in your eyes first.”
As she had before, she stared in my eyes for what felt like a long time, and finally said, “Do you feel different?”
I thought for a moment. “Not much. Ava says we’ll have to go through a few more reboots before we totally merge, but they’ll be a long time in the future. I didn’t notice it ‘til I thought about it just now, but my senses seem… I don’t know, everything seems a little clearer, brighter, even louder.”
She nodded as I spoke. “I wondered if I was seeing things correctly. This sort of hybrid is unprecedented, but I saw in your eyes a reaction to things in your environment that was different. Otherwise you feel the same?”
At that point I noticed everyone else in the room was leaning forward and paying close attention, and that made me feel a bit uneasy. Still, not as much as I would have been before… at least I don’t think so… “Umm… yeah, I feel the same.” Not really, but I don’t want to talk about it right now, because I’m not sure what I’m feeling… “How long was I out?”
“Oh, about seven and a half hours. I’ve been here with you, and Tom and Barry joined me about an hour into your reboot. Mr. Kane stopped by, but didn’t stay because he wasn’t sure you would want him to. I thought that was considerate of him. The rest of your friends got here about three hours ago, and we’ve been meditating since then, sending you all our positive thoughts.”
I glanced around at my friends, all smiling and nodding, and asked, “Did anything… did I move or anything?”
“You… how shall I put it… you went through some contortions, especially early in the process, mostly while I was here with you alone, although Tom and Barry got to witness you stretching out to the length of the room. The last hour or so you’ve been still, aside from a mild vibration.” She stared at me again for a moment, and said, “You saw some things, didn’t you? Would you like to describe what you saw?”
“I… umm, I don’t think I can… it’s kind of jumbled up in my mind right now, sorry.”
Benji had been creeping closer to me as we spoke, and finally he couldn’t take it anymore. “Aww, come on, Bhatty, our boy’s been through it, I reckon. All of us have. Let’s give it a rest, eh? I don’t know about you lot, but I could go for a little tucker right now.”
That brought some chuckles and agreement from most of the people in the room, but Zoey Perez said, “I have to get back to the Communications and Logistics Center. I’ve been working on something that may be important. I’m so, so glad you came through this, Lucas. You had us all worried.” Then she did something strange: she kissed me on the cheek before leaving, and it happened so fast I didn’t have a chance to feel uncomfortable.
I sat there surprised as Zoey Perez left the room, but I must have been sitting a second too long, as Ava’s voice came rattling into my brain: “We need some raw materials, sonny boy. Go get something to eat. Then we need to prepare to assault Area 51.”
Assault sounds pretty rough.
“Oh? I thought I was under exaggerating a bit. We’re about to go to one of the most highly guarded spots in the world to take something they are determined to keep. It might as well be the holy grail, sonny boy.”
The holy… hey, I know what that is. Did I get that from you?
“Just a consequence of a little piece of our memories blending. Think of it as a memory smoothie. And before you ask, yes, I’m trying to confuse you. I just wanted to see if I’ve still got it.”
Yeah, the memory smoothie thing got me.
> As we got up to head to the dining hall, Dr. Bhat said, “Lucas, one more thing.” She motioned for me to come close, and she stood on her pillow so we would be eye-to-eye. “It is most important that you visit me again before you go on any more missions. I need to help you clear your mind, but also, I have my team working on a significant upgrade to the jetpack, and you’ll want to have it with you.”
As usual, I couldn’t take my eye off the red dot on her forehead, and I almost felt like it was hypnotizing me. “Thanks, Dr. Bhat. For everything. For some reason… I don’t know, I just felt like I had to go through this reboot in front of you. It… it seemed like it had to happen that way, like it was destiny or something. Does that make sense?”
She gave me one of her rare smiles, and it made my entire body feel warm. “We are people of science, Lucas. We don’t believe in things like destiny, do we?” Then she winked, and I swear it seemed like the red dot on her forehead winked too.
Cheri put her remaining hand on my shoulder. “We need to make a trip to the armory to replenish supplies. Maybe after eating, what do you say?”
“I say yes. We’ll definitely need whatever we can carry.”
“We?”
“You’re not going to make me do this on my own, are you?”
She didn’t say anything but gave me a little squeeze on my shoulder, and I knew what it meant.
7
DIRECTOR’S NOTES
MEETING WITH SVC
121852 18:27
-So, what was her name again… oh, yeah, Zoey Perez, the looker. She took the bait, but has she passed on the info to the boy yet?
-Our source in the room at the Bright Hand Communications and Logistics Center says that she has been engaging in a few intense conversations with Jim Early, the co-lead for that department, and left the center a few minutes ago. The boy and his group are in the Bright Hand dining hall, and that’s where she’s headed. Oh, get this: Leslie Lazenbee is with them. And no, it’s not at our direction.
-Huh. That’s interesting. Maybe she actually likes the aboriginal. I guess anything is possible. I still wish we could dispense with all this subterfuge and just go directly to the boy. I know, I know, we’ve been over all of that, but I still think it’s kind of stinky.
-Stinky but at this point necessary.
-Yeah, yeah. What’s the status on Dave Concannon and Oakes?
-They’re in Las Vegas, and here’s a surprise of sorts: the rest of the former Bright Hand captives have joined them there. Let’s see: Margaret ‘Margie’ Bravo, Guy Rivers, and Pedro ‘Petey’ Rivera. It appears that they all plan on participating in the ‘Storming of Area 51’.
-See, that’s loyalty. They owe the kid for getting them out, and they’re trying to repay him. We could learn a thing or three from that.
-And what lesson might that be? Perhaps that one must earn true loyalty rather than demand it?
-All right, now you’re getting personal. You didn’t expect to come to some kind of emotional epiphany out of all this, did you?
-Perish the thought.
-Hey, what do you think the reaction will be when the rest of the LFP learn of our changing timetables on them?
-We’ll have to do some damage control, but most will understand the need to keep the loop closed to avoid calamity. These are smart people.
-I hope you’re right. When is the next test of the halo protocol?
-Nineteen fifty, our time.
-If any more techs get fried, I’m holding you responsible.
-…
-All right, relax. You’re so sensitive. But speaking of fried…
****
A s we made our way to the dining hall, Tom and Barry slid up next to me. “Zo, Lucas, ve have been quite busy trying to come up wis somesing zat vill be useful for you, and ve made some overtures to some of our friends who have been vorking on an unhackable communication system. They have a vorking prototype and ve thought it vould be ideal for you. It is totally unique and you would be ze first to test it in real-vorld conditions, but zey are convinced zat it vill provide instantaneous communication over any distance, and vould like for you to use it.”
“Ask him if it involves quantum entanglement. There were some physicists working on such a system before the great Pacific tsunami, but it’s sort of disappeared as a subject of research since then.”
“Umm… does it involve quantum entanglement?”
Both Tom and Barry stopped dead in their tracks, and I’m pretty sure you’d call the look on their faces shock. “He knows about ze ‘spooky action at a distance’?” asked Tom, his new teeth gleaming along with his thick glasses and stringy blond hair.
Shaking his head and throwing his bear-like arms wide, Barry cried, “Aww, come on, kid, don’t tell me you already know about quantum communication. We thought we had a surprise for you.”
“Oh, no, I don’t. I was just… guessing.”
“You guessed quantum entanglement? Zis does not seem likely,” said Tom, pausing to take a drag on his vape pen.
Barry gave him a long look. “Really, Tom? You can’t wait five minutes? Anyway, how do you know about the quantum stuff, kid?”
“Well… I don’t, really. Ava told me to ask that. It’s… hmm. I think I know what it is somehow. Maybe that’s some information that crossed over during our reboot.”
By now we had resumed walking and were nearing the dining hall. “So, Lucas, tell us what you know, or what you think you know about quantum entanglement,” said Barry.
“Well, let me think… Okay, it’s when you put some particles together… they… they influence one another, so their… their spin, momentum, polarization, begin to match. Then, when they get separated, somehow a change in one causes the other to change at the exact same time. Huh. Does that sound right?”
Tom and Barry made eye contact, and by now the rest of the group was listening in as well. “Zat is more or less correct. Ve still don’t know precisely why it vorks, but ve know it does. Until recently, one of ze confounding problems wis using zis phenomenon for communication vas zat ze particles were easily disentangled by interference in ze environment, but some recent breaksroughs right here in the ze Bright Hand cavern have solved zis problem. No need for repeaters, unlimited range, and little risk of decoupling. Zey have not yet perfected a method robust enough to create a quantum netvork, but a two-node communication system vorks quite nicely.”
“Yeah, kid. They finally figured out how to get quantum dots to work at normal temperatures, and that made the entire thing portable. Oh, quantum dots are superconductors; usually you have to keep them really cold to work right, but that was one of the major breakthroughs. We thought a system like that would come in pretty handy for you on this next mission of yours. We worry about you, you know.”
I glanced at Cheri, and the smile on her face seemed to fill the whole cavern. “This could totally change things, Lucas. So, would we carry a receiver/transmitter? And where would the other one be?”
We were just arriving at the dining hall when Benji offered, “I know a bit about QE, I reckon. If they got the big questions answered, I’d say the best place for the other node would be with Zoey Perez and little Jimmie Early. They already got a handle on communications, right? Plus, we know we can trust ‘em.”
“Yeah… yeah, I know she wants to help save my dad just as much as any of us. Where can we see this quantum communications… phone? Device? Thing?”
Cheri put her hand on my elbow and steered me into the dining hall. “Let’s worry about that in a few minutes, okay? We’re all starving, and I bet you need a little something to eat too, even if you don’t feel like it.”
“She’s right, sonny boy. This quantum communication device, if it works, will be a major boon, but things at the quantum level get quite tricky. First, though, we eat. Don’t forget your greens, by the way.”
Greens? You mean, like lettuce and stuff?
“No, I meant crayons. The wax is good for your skin. Of course
lettuce and stuff. You still have part of a body to feed, and it likes that kind of thing.”
Oh, boy.
We all queued up in line, and I got ‘greens’ as Ava directed. There were only a few Bright Handers in the dining hall, all in the typical gray scrubs most of them wear. They quickly noticed us, and as before, began whispering, not realizing that my sharp ears could hear them clearly. “Hey, that’s him, the robot boy!”
“He’s not a robot, he’s an android. There’s a difference.”
“He’s not either one, you idiots. He’s just a kid. How old do you figure he is?”
“I’d say fifteen or so. He’s cute, isn’t he?”
“Oh, now you’re in love with a robot?”
I found that funny for some reason, and started giggling. Huh, that’s weird… I don’t think I would have thought that was funny before our reboot… The Bright Handers noticed me giggling and turned away, falling silent.
We sat at a long table, and soon everyone was munching noisily. Suddenly, Zoey Perez came bursting through the sliding doors, and I noticed she looked totally exhausted, her usually gleaming blond hair dry and frizzy. She dashed to our table and whispered to me: “Oh, thank goodness, I thought I’d find you here.” She handed me a piece of paper and said, “Come to the communications center as soon as you’re done, okay?” I nodded, and she hurried out the sliding doors. As soon as she left, I looked at the paper: “I’ve uncovered a situation… some big things are happening at Area 51 in two days. We need to plan.”
Oh, boy.
8
DIRECTOR’S NOTES
MEETING WITH SVC
121852 20:18
-No, we forced them into this rush mode, and now we’re paying for it. How many?
Reassemble (Singular Book 4) Page 4