Okay, you’re right, Alexia finally whispered. I’m sorry, I’m just scared.
Don’t worry, it’s going to be alright, Aurora replied, as strange as it was to hear comforting words from her. We’re going to need help though.
Alexia nodded in agreement then walked to the antechamber to join Joel. The technician had been busy making notes and sketches of what they had found. His rendering of the encephalon container was very detailed, surprising Alexia who noted the accurate dimensions and light shading.
“That’s a nice drawing,” Alexia said, standing there fighting the embarrassment. “It looks almost like a photograph.”
Joel looked up surprised then returned his attention to the sketch and murmured “yeah, thanks.”
“Look, I’m sorry. Alright?” she said then sat down next to him.
He appeared to ignore her and proceeded to put notes next to the different sections of the drawing as if trying to guess their purpose.
“You called me a surfacer,” Alexia tried again. “Is that how you call everyone who lives above ground?”
What are you doing? Aurora interjected. You’re wasting time, just ask him. He has orders to assist you with whatever you need.
Let me handle this, I feel bad enough for losing my temper.
“Yeah. You privileged few,” he replied without interrupting the sketching. “With your clean clothes, well fed and always with that attitude that screams to the world you think you’re better than everyone else.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize I came off as that,” Alexia said for a moment wondering if that’s how she behaved but was not aware of it.
Joel looked up and glanced at her for a moment then returned his attention to the drawing while saying “maybe not as bad but you’re still a surfacer.”
“If you must know, I grew up in the alleys.”
“Oh, really? Where?” Joel said, finally leaving the sketch alone and facing her.
“Sublevel nine, Junction Two.”
“See, you’re lying. That’s a digger’s junction.”
Alexia was shaken by the comment. It had been a long time since she had discussed her parents with anyone except Aurora but she did her best to hide it. “My biological father was a digger. My mother used to work in the commissary.”
“I see,” Joel said, observing her carefully as if still doubting she was truthful. “How did you end up on the surface?”
Those were not very comfortable conversation subjects for her but she felt as if she owed him for losing her temper earlier so she played along. “After my father passed away in a construction accident, I was homeless for a while until I was brought up to the surface along with some other orphan kids to join the Controller Program.”
“You were homeless? What about your mother?”
“Oh, she passed away when I was four,” she replied, looking down then clearing her throat. “Lung disease from breathing unpurified air.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t know Ethan Sommers was your adoptive father.”
“It’s alright, only a few people know,” she said with a nervous nod. “What about you? Do you live with your parents?”
“No, I haven’t seen them in a while. I was assigned an apartment in a junction close to my engineering post. But that’s fine, I never got along with the old man.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Alexia said.
“It’s alright,” he replied, as Alexia realized his hostile tone had gradually relaxed.
It’s heartwarming and all but can we move along? Aurora whispered, annoyed.
Okay calm down, I’m getting there.
“Hey, I’m sorry about earlier,” Joel said, taking her attention away from her sister.
“Huh?” Alexia mumbled, confused.
“I was being a jerk in the PPC. You surfacers are not very popular in the alleys.”
“Oh, that. I didn’t even remember, don’t worry about it.”
They both smiled and Alexia felt relieved her outburst had not left a lasting bad impression with the engineer. On top of that, she found there was something comforting about lowering her defenses. If she ever went back to work with the Control crew she would try and not be as distant anymore.
“By the way, Joel, I need your help with something.”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Remember I need to do a fast convergence?”
“Damn, I totally forgot about that,” he said, standing up. “Let me just find a port I can patch to the Control mainframe.”
“No, wait,” she said and stood up too. “Small change of plans. Let me show you.”
“Okay.”
Alexia went back to the reactor chamber with Joel following behind. She stood by the black box which still had its door open, leaving the brain inside on plain view. He caught up then she pointed at the available high speed port on the base of the container.
“Here,” Alexia said.
“You mean you’re going to converge with this brain?” Joel asked, bewildered.
“Yes, but don’t worry it’s just ordinary Controller stuff,” she said, realizing how strange it all probably sounded to him. “But if you can, I do need you to check data and power transfer rates in the socket, you know just to make sure the connection is compatible with mine.”
“Sure, I can do that. I’ll be right back,” Joel said then returned to the antechamber where he found his equipment backpack. He brought it back near the black box rack and shuffled its contents for a moment then pulled up a handheld device with a small LCD on it and two cables dangling from one end.
“Let’s see…” he said, picking up the cables and inserting the probes on their ends at specific places in the socket. The LCD on the device came to life and showed test results. “What do you need in terms of data transfer rates again?”
“Uhm… 10 to 100 ExaBytes per second for data and no more than 2 amperes for power.”
Is that correct? She asked Aurora.
Yes.
Okay, thanks. Just checking.
“In that case, it should be safe,” Joel said. “I’m registering roughly 85 EBps and 1.5 amps. And I even have the right cable for it,” he added, pulling a thick black cord with quarter inch round male connectors on both ends.
“Great, thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Anything else?”
“Well, yeah,” Alexia replied a little embarrassed. “Normally someone else does these things for me since I can’t reach for my own socket. Can you help me with that?”
“Sure, where is it?”
She turned around and lifted her hair out of the pressure suit then parted it to the sides. Joel looked at the back of her neck.
“You see it?” Alexia asked.
“How could I miss it?”
“Good,” she said then turned back to face him. “You’ll need a one-eight hexagonal screwdriver bit to remove the titanium cover.”
“No problem, I should have a set here somewhere,” he said then checked his backpack again. While he searched, Alexia picked up the cable and plugged it to the socket on the encephalon container just to make sure it was the right connector.
“Here,” Joel said and showed her the tool.
“Good,” she said in acknowledgement. Even though he had assured her the socket was compatible with her stemlink connection, she was still afraid that something could go wrong. “Joel, listen,” she added.
“Yes?”
“The whole point of fast convergence is to connect a Controller consciousness to a mainframe system or another Controller within an extremely short period of time,” Alexia said, hearing her own voice shake at times. “Normally, slow convergence takes about eight hours but we don’t have that kind of time right now.”
“What makes slow convergence take that long?”
“My brain needs a few minutes to get used to my consciousness falling down below deep sleep. Then after the interface is over, it takes me about seven hours or so to wake up while my cerebral cor
tex shifts from neural data processing back to normal bodily functions.”
Joel stood there engrossed in the explanation. Alexia took comfort in knowing that as an engineer, he would appreciate the overview of the complex encephalon operation. He nodded every now and then as she continued.
“Fast convergence is a dangerous procedure because the brain is shocked into an unnatural state without giving it any time to adapt.”
“I see. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Alexia cleared her throat to answer. “If something goes wrong, I could wake up blind or deaf. I could also lose all my memories. Worst case scenario, my cerebral cortex can’t handle the shock and I don’t wake up at all.”
Joel looked down then crossed his arms to his chest. “Have you done this before?”
“Only once when I was little,” Alexia replied, omitting to mention it had been done as a sort of final exam in the later stages of Controller training. An exam most would-be Controllers had failed. That time she had woken up afterwards but so had Aurora, for the first time.
“And I guess you definitely have to do it this time.”
“Yes.”
“Well, worse comes to worse it’ll be me who’ll have to explain to Solis how your brain got fried,” Joel said chuckling.
Alexia stood there at a loss for words when Joel so casually mentioned the possibility of her death as if it would be a minor inconvenience and looked at him unsure of how to follow that up.
“That was a joke,” Joel pointed out matter-of-factly.
“Oh,” Alexia said, still not knowing what to do next.
The two of them stood there in awkward silence for a few seconds then Joel motioned at the encephalon in the glass container and asked “alright then, what do we do now?”
“Yes,” Alexia answered, glad they could move on. “I’ll need you to remove the cover plate and connect the cable. That’s pretty much it, fast-convergence will start as soon as you plug it in.”
“Okay and what should I expect?”
“You’ll see me lose consciousness for about 5 minutes. If I’m still asleep after 10 then I’m not going to wake up at all.”
“Damn. Wait a minute, do you want me to get Diaz or something?”
“What for?”
“Well, she’s the team medic,” Joel explained. “If anything goes wrong, she could help you right away.”
Alexia looked down then said “if anything goes wrong there will be nothing anyone can do to help me.”
“Alright, then. No pressure.” Joel said. “Let’s just get it over with.”
Alexia nodded then knelt in front of the equipment rack, giving it her back. She lowered her head and parted the hair hiding the titanium cover so Joel would have easy access.
“Okayyy,” he said nervously as he inserted the screwdriver bit in the socket. Alexia felt the vibrations run down her neck at the slightest movement Joel did, making her shiver and exhale from the unsettling sensation. She did not remember it being that uncomfortable back in training.
“I’m going to turn the screw now. Ready?” Joel warned.
She nodded unconsciously, causing the bit to push on the socket at an angle, sending intense vibrations down her neck. “Ow!” she exclaimed.
“Sorry!” he said and removed the tool.
“No, that was my fault, I shouldn’t have nodded. Let’s just start over, okay?”
Joel nodded and put the screwdriver back in the socket.
“Alright, I’m turning now…”
The unexpected flash of pain coming from the back of her neck took Alexia by surprise, forcing her to pull away from Joel and cover the metal plate with her hands.
What was that? she whispered.
Probably scar tissue that got grafted around the stemlink cover, Aurora replied. Your brain has released endorphins to mitigate the pain but it may take a minute or two to take effect.
“I’m sorry! Look, I’m just a technician, we definitely should have Diaz take care of this,” Joel insisted.
Alexia took deep breaths as she felt the pain mitigating effects of the neurotransmitters working their magic. “No, we’re good,” she said between breaths then inhaled and exhaled slowly.
“Well, third time’s the charm I guess,” Joel said when she kneeled back doen. “I’m sorry in advance.”
“It’s fine. Like you said, let’s get it over with.”
“Okay,” he said and once again placed the tool in the socket then turned the screw very slowly. Alexia shivered from the pain but now she was expecting it so she clenched her jaw and just put up with it. The stemlink cover plate was about a quarter of an inch thick but it felt much bigger than that as Joel turned the screw, slowly ripping off scar tissue. Finally, he was done and removed it. He then pulled up a small sealed plastic container from his backpack and put the titanium plate in it. The exposed stemlink socket cooled down to room temperature, sending shivers up Alexia’s skull.
“Good,” she said, trembling. “What do you see?”
“I see the socket in the middle and two flat metal pieces on either side of it.”
“Okay those are the antennas for the main and backup wireless interfaces. Go ahead and plug the cable.”
Alexia heard Joel stretch to reach for the cable which was still hanging from the socket on the encephalon container then approached her.
“Wait,” she said, almost whispering.
“What’s wrong?”
She wanted to say something to the engineer. Those could be her last conscious moments and he was the only other person around. She wanted to say it had been nice meeting him and thank him for his help but in the end, decided against it. They had just had one short meaningful chat a few minutes before and while for some reason she felt she trusted him, at the same time didn’t want to make the situation even more awkward.
“Nothing, proceed.”
“Alright.”
Alexia felt the connector make physical contact with the socket in the back of her neck then after that, a strong electric shock as she lost conciousness.
Aurora
MY EYES OPEN and before me in the distance, I see a light, standing out in the darkness that surrounds me. I was asleep but now I’ve woken up, for the first time since the day I found myself in Alexia’s encephalon. All these years, many times I had seen her go to sleep, her mind slowing down to a deep consciousness level then wake up on its own hours later. Many times I saw her go through this from the depths of her neural network and I always wondered how it felt to sleep or to dream.
Always awake.
Always controlling the Citadel.
Sleep was not something a Controller would ever experience. And just now I have woken up. But where?
A certain lethargy slows me down but eventually I realize my actor has been constructed. Or at least what appears to be my actor. An empty shell of polygons with basic input and output in the form of vision and speech. Something that somewhat resembles the true form of a human body but it’s the best I can get. To exist in the physical domain is not something for a Controller to experience either. Fully alert, I look around and see how the darkness around me is a tunnel too large for my mind to comprehend and I am moving through it. I am floating through it. The light marks the end on the other side. Is this death? Could it be Alexia did not survive the shock of fast-convergence? Many times I wondered how it would be on the moment of her death, she being the host with the physical body and me nothing but an alternate personality construct. Could this be it?
The light at the end of the tunnel has grown ever so slightly since I woke up, illuminating its walls. I see some features on it but they blur past me at a speed that keeps me from recognizing any patterns. Given the apparent speed at which I’m moving, I calculate the object emitting that light must be about the diameter of the sun. It could be this is how it is when one fast-converges with another encephalon but the fact I can’t see any background data streams disturbs me. I attempt to open communications so
ckets but nothing happens. I’m isolated in this place. In this nowhere.
“Aurora,” I hear a faint voice echo in the distance. It’s the voice of a woman and it sounds strangely familiar. Instinctively, I turn towards its source and all I see is the light at the end of the tunnel.
“Aurora,” it calls to me again. There is something reassuring about her voice. I feel drawn to her. I feel at peace.
“Aurora,” she calls again but this time the voice is a whisper in my ear. I am moving much faster now. It won’t be long before I reach the end. The light has grown larger than my senses or my mind can grasp. I will go through it any moment now. My mind runs wild with the accumulated memories of my existence. A kaleidoscope of images from my past is unveiled before me. Here and there I catch glimpses of scenes Alexia perceived at one time or another. Some of the facets show my own experiences in the Controller domain. One of them is Sophia. My friend and mentor. The small image in the colossal prism of life experiences grows larger until her face dominates my field of view.
“We love you, Mother,” Sophia’s voice echoes all around me.
The light has become pure radiance that blinds me with indescribable ecstasy.
*
“Wake up, sleepy head!” the boy screamed at the top of his lungs, abruptly pulling Aurora away from her dream. She sat up on the edge of the bed and looked around just in time to catch a glimpse of Mike sticking out his tongue at her then running out the door giggling. Her side of the cell was as messy as usual. Discarded clothing pieces, books and notepads were scattered here and there on the floor but it all ended at the invisible border with Alexia’s side. Her bed had been made and her school items were carefully arranged on her side of the nightstand.
Stupid, Alexia. Making me look bad again, she thought to herself as she reached for the glass of water on the night stand and took a sip.
“Aww man,” she whispered disappointed when she noticed another pimple on her left cheek from the reflection on the clear glass. Hopefully it wouldn’t get much worse than that but she was only eleven so it was hard to tell at that point. Mustering as much energy as she could, she finally stood up and opened a drawer in the nightstand to pull out a comb and a toothbrush. She sighed in disappointment when she couldn’t find a clean uniform in the trunk by her bed. Her pile of laundry was overdue for a wash but she had been lazy for the last few days. With a mischievous smile, she walked to Alexia’s trunk and opened it. Inside, she found several neatly folded uniforms and grabbed one of them. She had even ironed it so it was all soft and smelled of pleasant cleanliness.
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