by Peter Riva
Immediately, they all got the idea. Ra and Apollo both had run all these systems when they were, like Peter, the System itself. Those programs were part of their memory, their capability. So the food program to supply all of America with limitless food, FarmHands, was adapted to become Ra’s ability and need to feed and absorb nutrients—to provide the new body with energy, WeatherGood became the blood and lymph system in all their complexity, DefenseShield became anti-germ warfare and personal protection, SensorPath ran the input senses, and SeaSpout became breathing itself.
Strangely, locomotion proved difficult. Cramer, ever resourceful, finally suggested using the program running the NuEl transportation elevated conveyor with its many on and off ramps. Ra quickly adapted the differential calculus of NuEl and modeled walking, movement and gestures. The complexity of the human body’s function amazed both Apollo and Ra, but adapting programs Ra understood well and had complete control over, changing them from digital programming to analog, allowed him a renewed confidence that he was ready to assume human analog form.
The problem they were still facing was one of DNA. Which SynthKid should they create? Born as a full nine-month term baby and just as mature physically, SynthKids were ordinarily built on their parents’ DNA. When my ex-wife’s four SynthKids had recycled themselves, the record showed that their DNA did not have anything to do with me, which was a relief to me in many ways. It seems my ex-wife, who I used to call she-who-must-be-obeyed, had secretly changed the DNA payment order each time to replace me with her brother’s DNA. Seems she thought mine was unworthy, her brother more so. My real son, the old-fashioned way, Freddie, on the other hand, was my kid; we looked alike. But he didn’t like me very much these days. I think he was a bit jealous of Apollo, Ra, and my notoriety as a super-genius. Perhaps that also made his life a little tougher. I was sorry for that.
Ra and Apollo had decided that, in the interests of safety, they should sculpt the DNA to allow the new Ra the best chance at survival. In secret, they had asked Angie and they used her DNA. That disturbed me a lot. A carbon copy of Angie would unsettle me now; I missed her so. So I asked if they could please ensure that Ra didn’t look like Angie. Ever the pranksters, abetted by Cramer who still seemed to have a malicious streak when it came to me, they came up with a modification. Ra’s SynthKid would have all of Angie’s considerable brainpower, but physically she would look like Meg Ryan. It was a standing joke at my expense since my secret command to my old office door had been, “Meg open up.”
The other issue was the built-in termination at age eighteen encoded into the DNA of SynthKids. A Russian astrophysicist working on my home’s orbital dynamics—Earth One was more massive with all the ETs cobbled together than the original 400-year orbit calculations and seemed to be slowly deorbiting—anyway, this thick-accented Russian made an aside, which gave them the ability to override that DNA command, “Just have live all over ‘gain, encode loop.” So Ra and Apollo rewrote the DNA sequence so that at age eighteen, the SynthKid would simply start the clock again—physically frozen at age eighteen, brain and memories intact, of course. Immortality? Hardly, but with regenerative medical techniques, no telling how long the new Ra would live.
Now, hoisted by his own petard, the concept of Ra becoming a woman was worrying only one person: Cramer. Cramer respected Ra, they worked closely together, often finishing each other’s sentences. Ra was, of course, more intelligent, but Cramer had experience and cunning. In short, his cleverness matched Ra’s intellect. Ra in human form might provide Cramer with other, more human, ideas, such was the mental attraction. Adding a sexy female in the form of Meg Ryan with the brain and perhaps personality of his ex-wife, that is my deceased wife Angie—well, that could spell trouble. I brought it up in a call one day, “Cramer, what’re you going to do when Ra—cute little Meg—winks at you one day with that little pout?”
“Aw, shut up. Ain’t going to happen.” Cramer was at his most dogmatic, “Ra doesn’t want any part of that human experience; he’s been reading up on all sorts of perversity and sexual difficulties. Besides, he can’t have sexual desire, that’s built into SynthKids.” He was right; they had normally programmed that out to avoid underage sexual attraction between SynthKids. “And you forget, Ra’s already a mother, some of his or her kids will develop out of the System shortly.” On the vid link, he could see my skeptical expression, “And I ain’t interested in playing father, that’s your role.”
“Okay, then answer one question. Why has Ra changed the DNA encoding to allow for womb and ovary development?”
“He claims that it is because the System programs he’s integrating into bodily function need to control the human body in full, not just those parts left behind. He says it is like an amputee, he doesn’t want to spend his life as a human always scratching a missing leg.”
My response was brilliant and got Cramer right where it hurts, “Uh-huh. Scratch an itch, a sexual itch, I get it.” I paused for effect and tapped the lens, “Hey, Cramer, tag you’re it.” His response was hardly polite as he cut off the call.
When the day came for Ra to make the jump, as he and Apollo were now secretly calling it, I rang to wish him well and to remember that we all loved him, he was on the Path, he was the Path, and whatever happened, we would wait for him there. Cramer merely said, “Let’s get on with it.” In the vid, I could see the furrows of worry on Cramer’s forehead. This was a serious risk; he was fooling no one. It was all or nothing, no second chances.
In the green liquid glass container, an embryo was approaching maturity in three months instead of nine; the human form was an empty vessel, ready to receive the same human imprint from “mother” as would a baby in the womb. Without that imprint, it would be born and die within seconds, a bioform without purpose, without entity. Some would say without soul.
Normally, the immaculate conception process was simple: the mother was hooked up to brain sensors, especially those that read earliest memories, the mother’s heartbeat was reflected through tubes to the embryonic fluid, the wires from the brain output were loosely connected to the same regions of the baby’s brain under water. It all took less than an hour normally. It worked as a means to impact “nature,” the bio-formation of an infant making it capable of living. As for “nurture,” that could, as with any baby, come later. Not so for Ra. The process had to start with “nature” and immediately follow with full-blown “nurture” before birth, long before her release from the tank.
It took a week, then longer still. During the process, as Ra’s brain functions took over the baby’s primordial functions, there were near-disasters, life support was needed and chemicals to calm the infant that was thrashing in the fluid, distressed. As the final moments arrived, that moment when Ra, in giving 100 percent of himself to the infant, knew there was no turning back—no copy of him to survive, so he had to give 100 percent and take that final step so he could become human. If ever there was a question of Ra’s humanity and bravery, it was that moment, played on vids across the world. So, Ra died and Aten was born. Aten, the mythical Egyptian place where Ra resides—it was Ra’s decision to rename himself and, besides, it was a gender-neutral name, neither male nor female.
At first Aten howled. I watched on the vid hookup. Nothing Cramer or the doctor attendants could do seemed to quell her screaming. Cramer looked up helpless, his eyes locked onto mine, both of us worried Ra might not make it. At that point, a distressed Apollo added to our misery by commanding us to do something.
The nurse attendant next to Cramer shook her head, took Aten in her arms, cradled the infant as she wrapped it tightly in a blanket, and stuck a bottle of warm mother’s milk in Aten’s mouth. Aten drank greedily, eyes wide open, wider still until she spat out the bottle and said, “Wa? Wa wuz ig?” Squeezing one little arm from beneath the swaddling, she tried to grab the bottle. The nurse put it back in her mouth and Aten again drank greedily.
“Apollo, any idea what Ra was saying?” Cramer asked.
&n
bsp; Apollo’s tinny voice came over clearly, “Aten, Cramer. Aten. You must not confuse the infant by using the wrong name; Ra has self-erased and becomes this infant. Her psychology will require that we all allow her a rebirth without reminder of who she was. I am not sure that she will remember being Ra.”
Cramer still wanted to know, “Okay, but what was she saying?”
“I think, given her lack of lip and tongue muscular practice, she was asking, What, what was it? It was her first sense of taste and food.” We all laughed, watching the infant. After a while her eyes closed, another worrisome moment for Cramer. The nurse again shook her head at Cramer, placed Aten on her shoulder, gently drummed her fingers on the baby’s back, and got a loud burp. The nurse turned around so I could see Aten’s face. She was fast asleep on her shoulder.
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It was to be my turn to die next. The results were unlikely to be so easy. In a late night conversation as Cramer watched over the sleeping Aten, he responded, “Easy? We nearly lost Ra forever and who knows how Aten will develop if Ra is still fully in there and if so, will Aten cope with Ra’s programming, personality, experiences?” Cramer is such a bullish person, I could almost feel his energy across the thousands of miles we were apart. “And besides, you’re all the damn way up there, we can’t bring you down, so that hook-up Apollo devised will have to work, first time, or it’s bye-bye Simon, no comeback.”
That’s what Angie always loved about Cramer. Gruff exterior? Hell, gruff for Cramer went all the way through, but it never hid his real concern or caring. I tried to help him out, “Hey, Cramer, if Ra can take the leap, you think I cannot? Remember, I have all the primordial functions already running …” I could see he was preparing a jibe, so I cut him off, “Yes, yes, ha-ha. Look, we’ll give it a try and see how it goes. If it doesn’t, well, I’ll look up Angie in heaven for us both, okay Ralphie?” Using the name his ex-wife used for him when feeling amorous made him smile.
Cramer waved the vid controls to off and merely said, “Bye.” It was the last I heard. The sleeping pills were already having effect. Before taking them, I had hooked up Apollo’s transfer wiring harness, based largely on the dome I used to wear as an in-System codifier. Apollo had had a new one delivered by robotic shuttle. Instead of twelve points of contact, it was festooned with them. Almost every square inch of my shaved scalp, all the way down to the back of the base of my skull, had their little tiny pinpoint ruby-red contacts making my scalp itch already. I climbed into my hammock, zippered it up and turned on the ET One recording camera. After Cramer had signed off, I had moments before the sleeping pills fully kicked in to record my last words if they were to be my last words. I remembered that Oscar Wilde actually said, “This wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either it goes or I do.” Not having any wallpaper, I opted for “‘Twas the night before Christmas and not a creature was stirring—and certainly not me.”
Not the pithiest last words, but Christmas always held out hope. And I did hope. Anyway, it was better than remarking on wallpaper I didn’t have.
5
A LOST AWAKENING
Have you ever woken from a really dense dream and not known where you are? There I was, moments before, a fully mature male, seeing a life of memories and loves, a constantly varied selection of images, all flowing about my dream, creating any reality that I could select at random to revisit and then, suddenly, there came a feeling of something jolting me. Instantly I could not actually remember or conjure up a damn thing. Disrupted dreams. Very annoying. Everything was there, somewhere near, I was positive. Somewhere there, floating on the edge of my consciousness. Damn, I knew it was all there, but I could not command any of it to stand still, dammit, or allow me to focus. Oh, hell, I let it all drift for a while. But drifting aimlessly frustrated me so much that I got angry and decided to change reality.
So, I came fully awake a short while later. How long was a short while? I really have no idea. I remember looking up a few times and seeing a plastic vid ceiling with moving patterns of light, simulating passing clouds, nothing familiar. My dreams were familiar; I preferred to stay there. But now I was awake, still angry, I reached up and frightened myself. You know, I am pretty damn sure I know what my hand looks, looked, like. This wasn’t it. It wasn’t mine. Oh, it moved as I wanted it to, but it wasn’t my hand, no way, no how.
I started to cry. That didn’t sound like me either. I sounded like a big baby.
The noise brought a pretty nurse who put her cheek next to mine and said, “There, there.”
Okay, that was nice. She’s cute and friendly. I relaxed a little. I reached up and patted her cheek. There was that damn small hand again. Weird. Definitely weird.
She took my hand and pushed it down under the covers. “Easy there little one …” Little one? “People will be here to see you any moment now; you’ve given us quite a scare.” As she said that, she straightened, pulled her tunic tight, which only made her breasts more attractive (where were these thoughts coming from? I wondered). She reached for a baby bottle off the shelf next to the bed and offered it into my mouth. I gagged.
What the hell is that? I don’t want a damn bottle.
She tried again and I howled. She stopped, I stopped. We communicated. The door opened. In walked a startlingly beautiful teenage Meg Ryan.
Okay, I thought, I’m having a really weird dream. Wake up Simon, for god’s sake, wake up.
Meg spoke, “Simon, it is all right. It is me Aten. You’ve been in a coma for all your ten years, mostly kept in hibernation, body functions at lowest levels. If you can understand me, please blink twice, do not try and talk.” I blinked twice. “We’re all here for you, you’ve made the journey, you will be fine, just fine, you just need to mature your bio-systems, internal body function coordination, for a while.”
I raised my hand, tried to speak.
“No, don’t, not yet. I guess you want to know the following: One, you are about ten years old, as we slowed your metabolism to save your life, your entity. Two, we’re all safe here, safe and sound.”
I was determined to speak. My throat hurt from the howling. And, yes, I was hungry. I tried to speak, again, “Zi op.”
Aten knew, smart as Ra, as always. “Sit up? Okay, let me help.” Slowly we managed it.
I felt dizzy, rested my head against the bulkhead on my right, my left arm being cradled by Aten. The room swam a little and then seemed to come back into focus. “Hooz heer?”
“Now, Simon, you have to trust me, I’ve been through this. It took me three days to remember who I was. You’ve been out all your ten years. You need to allow the brain and all the body functions—which are all perfect in every way—time to come back into self-sufficiency.”
I nodded and regretted it immediately. When the room stopped spinning, I asked, “Wa ta.” And the nurse passed me a Sippy cup, a baby’s Sippy cup for goodness sake, with water. I was thirsty so I drank, held it out when empty for more. They had a second one ready. I gulped that down. My throat stopped stinging. I chirped, “Thanx.”
Aten smiled, let go of my arm, held my head in her hands, looked into my eyes, and said, “I love you Simon, I know what love is now, I am so glad you are back with us. We have surprises for you when you are ready. But for now, know this: I love you, we all love you, and we are all on the Path.”
She smiled, I smiled. And I cried, quietly, but tears would not stop coming. Moments later I fell back asleep.
When I awoke, who knows how many hours later, I realized I could not tell if it was day or night. Where was this hospital? I was no longer speeded up, no longer needing to be weightless? I was being carefully monitored by a nurse, a different one, pretty Indian sub-continent features. She was right there, staring closely into my eyes. “You okay Mister Simon? Do you want me to call anyone? Do you want anything?”
I did my best, really, to enunciate properly. My voice was high, and I remembered that my voice broke. Was I fourteen? At ten, it would be still h
igh. Wait—my voice? Was this my same body as before, same DNA, same development? Me and me alone? Suddenly that seemed the most important question. I wanted to be me. Younger, perhaps, but me. I damn well wasn’t going through the painful process of discovering who I was all over again. Reincarnation sucks unless you can recognize that you are really you.
I tried to remember. I had fallen asleep in the ET bedroom, dome in place, electrodes pricking my shaved scalp, Apollo guiding the process to put me into a SynthKid body that was prepared back in St. Petersburg. It must have worked. But which body? We had discussed it, I remember, and I had wanted me and a tiny bit of Angie—just a bit of her to remind me …
Oh, lord, wait, am I a boy or a girl? I reached down—boy. The nurse looked at me quizzically. I asked, slowly, “D-N-A?”
“I have been instructed you would ask, and I am to show you a chart prepared by someone … let me see, oh yes, someone called simply, Apollo. Here it is.” She held it before my eyes. I scanned the contents. Apollo had left Angie’s DNA out, the chart was marked, “Reproduction DNA: Simon Bank, solo, no DNA conflict allowed.”
I croaked, “Do you not know who Apollo is?”
She laughed and tucked a black strand of hair beneath her nurse’s cap, “I have been instructed to only tell you what I have. Your physicians and colleagues will tell you the rest. I will tell you though, I do not know much previous history.” What were they teaching today’s youth?
Time to try and move, see what worked and what didn’t. But first, I had to know, I had to see. Humans have this ability to measure other humans by the thousand or so muscle twitches and shapes of one’s face. I needed to see if I could recognize me. “Do you have a mirror?”