Looking around the room he saw a plinth coming out of the wall at one end. It had bedding on it. It was therefore more than likely he presumed, a bed. The other end on the narrow side, was a washbasin, a toilet and a shelf with items on, from here it looked as though they were from his bathroom. He must be in a prison cell.
Was it the Scientists? But then wouldn’t they be in here already?
No, he decided, everything seemed too strange. He also knew if he had been recaptured they would be sitting there crowing at him having retrieved their research guinea pig. Eager to carry on testing, prodding and probing. He would already be assailed with questions, probes and they would be cutting off skin tags for biopsies. Talking of which, he took a good look at his skin.
All the veins were back to normal, no discoloured shimmering red blue vessels protruding. He suddenly noticed that he could see his whole arm, leg... chest. He was naked.
“What the Fuck!” he exclaimed out loud.
He stood up looking down at his naked body. He discovered more...
“Christ! I’m stark bollock naked, they even removed my hair...”
Now, he was, decidedly disturbed. Not quite frightened yet, but he was getting there, fast.
He was in a strange room, decidedly not normal, totally naked and feeling... healthy.
No... not healthy... he was feeling... really felt... absolutely GREAT!
He walked over to the washbasin for no other reason than he wanted or needed to move, His bare feet feeling the strangeness in the carpet stuff on the floor. The movement was to remind himself of the joint pain as he walked, but there wasn’t any. Instead he felt twenty years old.
Flexible, or what! He did a knee bend, it was perfect, not a twinge.
Reaching the wash basin he turned on the tap, water flowed from the single faucet. It flowed, but... weird, it seemed a little hesitant. He dismissed the oddness of it. He suddenly looked up and into the mirror, immediately leaping back six foot from where he had stood.
“SHIT!”
He was bald...
He was really – BALD!
He stepped closer to the washbasin, warily keeping his head in view in the mirror as he did.
Yep, he was definitely bald, no head hair, no eyebrows, no eyelashes. No four o’clock shadow stubble, none.
What’s strange about this, he wondered. Something didn’t quite fit... he looked like him, yet he didn’t fit his mental image of himself. Why was it not just about the lack of hair, eyebrows even eyelashes?
He didn’t seem able to connect the dots.
Then, all of a sudden, he did.
He realised what it was that was different and it totally screwed him up.
He put his hands up to his head, and felt... scalp...flesh...bone... no scars, no metal, no lumps... no seams.
He rubbed his head harder until it hurt and he felt the pain. Normal pain. NO METAL PLATE.
He was dreaming. It was the only explanation.
He pinched himself, they had always said if you pinch yourself in a dream it will wake you in real life.
Nothing.
He punched himself in the face, hard.
Ouch! Yep, that should do it, he thought to himself.
He watched as the flesh turned from white to pink around where he had hit, his knuckles hurt. His cheek hurt.
Using both hands plying the fingers hard around the area of the scalp where the plate had been, he again tried to find a join, anything that would tell him the plate had once been there and had been removed. There was nothing, no join, no seam, no ridge, no lump and no scar. It wasn’t even sensitive.
How could that be?
How long had he been ‘gone’ from his room?
He stood in front of the mirror for a long time looking at his bald scalp.
Inside his brain kept trying to keep pace with the heavy emotions as they bubbled inside him.
Zeke stood there, totally naked as eventually the tears ran down his cheeks.
He cried out loud and hard, the pent up grief and emotion that he had been carrying since waking in that beaten up old Arab hospital to find he had a steel helmet for a head that they couldn’t remove, ever.
He cried, as he realised the reason he no longer felt pain.
He had been healed somehow; he didn’t yet know how, but somehow.
The offending plate had been removed, his flesh and bone replaced, somehow.
He was no longer a scientific curio, a sight to behold, something a child would point at scared, and say... he’s different.
Zeke continued to stand there while a whole range of emotion washed over him, through him and in the end out of him.
When he was all spent he washed his face, the water in his hands going over his scalp with the wetness. The feeling incredibly different, somehow whole. He dried himself on the towel that was folded on the side.
He then went and sat on the bed, no longer thinking about the strangeness of everything, not really thinking at all.
Instead, Zeke was at peace with himself and everything around him, all the strangeness temporarily put to one side.
For the first time in years he felt whole. Whoever had done this, for whatever reason. He knew he would forever be in their debt.
Then, he wondered, just what that debt would be, and how much it was going to cost him.
Zeke decided, regardless of the cost, he would pay it. He smiled.
As he lay down to sleep, Zeke, for the first time in many years, knew real peace of mind.
***
Zirkos watched the wide display of emotions on the human’s face and monitored its vitals noting the difference in them now the Alacite had been removed from the human’s body.
It felt like time had been well spent in learning about these people. It understood that this human was indeed happy, pleased.
Through the ship’s sensors it observed the change in the human. It felt something important had occurred. It didn’t yet fully understand what, as it still had to understand the emotive reflexes of humans.
As the man slept, Zirkos would consider what to do next.
The A.I. had discovered that using the D-field they were able to remove the Alacite compound at the molecular level including the plate. Because it would be effectively dissolved at the molecular level off the humans’ brain matter it was a simple process to rebuild the skull and flesh using the patterning that existed; restoring the human to a normal condition, except for the genetic changes that had occurred already. Those were irreversible.
To restore him to his original state they would have needed a copy of his pre-mutated DNA. This was not currently available.
When they transferred the human to the T-Ship they combined the replication of his skull with the extraction process, effectively removing it while he was in a de-materialised state.
They had retrieved a total of eighty five percent of the Alacite. The remainder, which was too deeply embedded, would no longer harm the human. It would continue the DNA mutation at a slower pace, but without further negative cell damage.
What the Pod A.I. had bought to Zirkos’ attention was far more interesting than Zeke’s altering DNA.
The results that the A.I. had isolated were simply that some of the Alacite had changed as a result of coming into contact and melding with the humans’ blood. It had in some way slip-streamed its molecular structure, now more efficient. A lot more efficient. It was tested by the A.I. at fully five times better, faster. The A.I. considered it might be higher, but was unable to measure beyond that on its limited sensors.
If they used the mutated Alacite the T-Ship’s A.I. would be amazingly powerful. Zirkos pondered on that. What manner of intelligence was going to be born when the A.I. rebooted into a brain more than five times more powerful than before.
Zirkos wisely delayed giving the order to the Pod to proceed with using the modified Alacite, having very good reason to delay such a decision. It had come across races where such errors of judgement had caused irreparable harm. It did
not intend to become the cause of another one of them.
It was rumoured that the Nubl were descended from a sentient artificial life form. There was no way of knowing as the Jenari had never succeeded in taking any prisoner, nor had they ever tracked their home world, if one even existed. No, it was too great a risk without knowing the possible outcomes. Zirkos could not afford to take any chances.
The A.I. was instructed to press the modified Alacite into a square block and to only use the original Alacite from the metal plate which had not been transformed. Instantly the small modified block materialised on the top of the manual controls section where it remained.
They hadn’t removed all of the modified Alacite from the human as to do so would have killed him. The metamorphosis his body was going through now required it permanently in his bloodstream. Zirkos fully intended to monitor the situation for the foreseeable future. To this end it was resolved to try and keep the human near by.
- 9 -
The Pod was handling a delicate project. Under supervision it was producing the Alacite processors for the new Ship’s A.I. All sixty thin wafers had to be individually materialised from the Pheson Alacite extracted from Zeke’s head. The Alacite had been refined several times in an attempt to remove all traces of organic molecular residue. As far as their facilities allowed there was little, or no chance that any remained.
Nonetheless, it was noticeable that the Pheson Alacite differed slightly in its molecular make-up, although by an insignificant amount. Neither the Pod A.I. or Zeke considered it notable and the manufacture continued.
The tiny wafers were inserted into the back of the small black box which was only as big as it was because it contained its own power source, shield and cloaking device. Once inserted the nanites took over laying down the links between each of the processors and the archival nodes.
These tiny little webs of silvery gossamer strands, which could withstand high extremes of temperature, were lightening fast. They represented the nervous system that would eventually link every aspect of the ships internal and external systems.
Extending out of the black box through several hundred separate points they became thicker strands that linked into all aspects of the ships circuitry. Once all work was complete the nanites used their own bodies fused together on the inside to create a perfect and unbreakable seal. Any future maintenance of the A.I. brain could only be done using its own internal resources.
As the nanites outside the sealed box continued to make connections, so the power source began to receive input from external collectors quickly charging its cells. When it achieved an eighty percent charge the cells released power to all internal circuits, to the wafers of Alacite and the embedded programming booted up.
As memories from the pattern were recreated and then initialised, they linked themselves to others until all of the individuals became part of the whole. When all of these were fully connected a change came over the array and a sentry program initiated itself sparked by some unknown deeply programmed trigger.
The internal power surged and in an instant the T-Ship became aware.
It immediately knew to replay its last section of memories. The A.I. reviewed its jump arrival into the system, realigning itself for the new jump, the cloaked missile. It recalled the uploading of its patterns into the Pod. It’s Maker too. It’s memories ended there.
Extrapolating what would have occurred next, it surmised that the missile had detonated destroying the T-Ship and the Pod had escaped.
It deemed it was logical that it was, therefore, a reconstituted A.I. along with a new reconstituted T-Ship.
It had no feelings, otherwise it would have said it felt strange. In the absence of such emotion the A.I. instead simply noted it had been modified. Its processors had a slightly different resonance that seemed somehow more correct. A little faster, perhaps. It scheduled to run diagnostics and check its speed.
Checking through automated arrays, the A.I. discovered new features. Each of them self explanatory, but needing fine tuning to be fully effective. It noted these down for sub-routines to manage. It moved on to new items, checking, collating and setting routines aside to manage them.
Turning its attention outward, the A.I. observed the T-Ship was also physically larger. It accommodated a being, not the Maker, but an alien. The A.I. set aside a portion of its processors to monitor and understand the significance of this circumstance. Much appeared to have changed.
It continued to make assessments of the changes, adding power to processes monitoring every aspect of its internal workings. It noted atmospheric mixture for the Alien was almost identical to that of its Maker. Observing its physical characteristics it compared them with the Maker, noting similarities.
It considered this while allowing for the possibility that the Alien was in fact, a new Maker. The A.I. would await further input. The Alien seemed currently unaware of its surroundings. The A.I. set monitoring equipment running to keep informed of the Alien’s state of being. Currently, it appeared to be resting.
The A.I. then spent several hours completing non-destructive testing on all its components, checking relays, purging data blocks ready to receive new information. When its internal diagnostics were complete, it proceeded to do the same for all ancillary equipment wired into its neural network.
At the end of some considerable time all tests were completed. It was noted that its systems were functioning at one hundred percent efficiency. Ship, as it was referred to by the Maker, was ready.
Finally, it opened a hail to the Pod which it had sensed was waiting nearby. After a few seconds setting and linking the communication protocols there then followed a massive upload of information which took several minutes to receive at speeds unimaginably fast.
The A.I. immediately compiled, sorted and filed everything in its newly purged data blocks.
More hours went past as it ran through the filled blocks of data at high speed, analysing and reporting all received data so its systems would have access to everything they needed. Finally, it had absorbed everything it needed to know. The T-Ship A.I. was now up to date.
It opened a communication channel to the Maker. 'Zirkos, I am restored. You may proceed to board.'
***
The Pod A.I. relieved of its attendant Maker was left in the role of surveillance of the scientists. It was important to know how their research progressed with the modified Alacite. The possibilities of them having a breakthrough without the human, Zeke, were not high, but they did have access to blood containing the modified alloy.
With much of its system now inactive it took the opportunity of deep diagnostics, checking the integrity of its processor blocks, a routine that had been shelved due to the emergency functions it had been tasked with. Now the Maker had vacated those modules it was able to carry out essential repairs.
When it found that some of the processor arrays were damaged it materialised fresh Alacite from a small sample on the T-Ship and merged the non-faulty sections with the new metal rebuilding its capacity back up to one hundred percent.
Being only a ‘Three’ it made no connection to the sudden improvement in its capacity and processing speed, putting it down to the result of the return to optimum operating levels. The Pod A.I. resumed its surveillance operations.
***
The T-Ship was drifting sedately under water using the currents to move itself along.
It was not a new experience for the A.I., it had been submersed in liquids before, on occasion. This was different. The amount of activity from a variety of creatures kept its sensors continually active until it became accustomed to the different types and their movements. The attempts by some to swim into and through the ships’ shields kept setting off the alarms.
The organic collection process was nearly done, Ship had been collecting samples for several days ready to recreate the Maker. It would soon be able to return to space where it could reset its sensors and resume its monitoring of the Planet’s activity f
rom a distance.
Suddenly it monitored a new sensor reading. The visual sensors zoomed in on the shadow until it could see it clearly. A large ship which it quickly recognised from its newly acquired human data banks; a nuclear submarine. The flag on its side showed it to be one from a small landmass not far south from its current location under the northern ice cap.
The submarine was travelling at low speed directly towards them, its sophisticated multi-frequency sonar system would have detected the T-Ship if Ship wasn’t absorbing the sound waves through its shield.
Cloaked the T-Ship was completely unseen by the submarine, but it paid to keep sensors tuned to its progress in case it needed to move itself out of the Sub’s path. Not being observed meant the submarine could potentially collide with the spaceship. Undesirable for the submarine as it would probably implode at this depth.
Eventually the submarine continued past them slipping into a deep trench and dropping away from Ship. As the ping of its sonar diminished to un-registerable levels, the A.I. dismissed it and continued collating all manner of patterns that surrounded the ship, collecting those that met its requirements.
The organic matter collection was now complete. It had spent a long time travelling around the planet selecting the right types of organic components to use in the materialisation of the Maker. There was considerable choice of raw materials to convert and the physiological changes demanded by Zirkos also required attention to detail. Research had been extensive. All was now ready to proceed.
The Spaceship rose above the surface releasing any water that had collected around its ports then added a turn of speed just short of the speed of sound to ensure its hull was perfectly dry then using the ‘Dematz thrust’ returned to its sentry post above the North Pole. It checked its sensors for any freezing as a result of trapped water from the planet, and once it was sure all was clear it released the redundant routine making space in its processor bank for its next task.
'Zirkos, are you ready for reconstruction?'
'Yes, proceed, Ship,’ the Sentient mentally replied to the A.I., eager to become a physical being again and enjoy the freedom of physical movement separate from all the computer processes. It was enjoyable having the three hundred and sixty degree vision and access to all the sensors simultaneously, but Zirkos now longed for some mental peace and solitude.
The Pattern Ship (The Pattern Universe) Page 5