Reaching Angelica

by Peter Riva

  He was dejected. “No, I suppose not. I struggled for almost one hundred years to keep you alive and bring you to consciousness. I’m getting old and wanted to see you save the flight, be the leader of the crew. Now you are telling me I must, in a sense, provide your return to a coma or bury you if you and I fail. That’s not something I am happy with.” And then came the third question, “Why, how, will my actions save the lives of the crew?”

  “Doc if I have guessed correctly, although I may appear dead, my brain function may allow me to proceed within the hydra and secure safe passage. So, disconnecting me, so-called reviving me may be exactly the wrong thing to do and may be seen as an attack on my entity inside the hydra. I need you to allow me to remain dead, for the sake of the safety of the crew.”

  He paused, looking glum, stood, and offered his hand. I took it with my junior sized mitt. “Simon, it has been a pleasure working with you and, yes, I will adhere exactly to your terms and conditions. I promise.”

  As I was thanking him, he wiped a tear from a cheek and so I gave him a hug, which he returned fiercely. I let him have the last word. Well, why not?

  “Simon, do me a favor will you? Try, try really hard to come back alive and save everyone, will you?” And with that, he left me alone to prepare for the fateful next day. Why fateful? I already knew that the levels I had reached were without any contact and I could not go forward or go back to talk to Apollo. It was only that shape that had taken me back, a shape I knew was sentient, or at least guided, but I had no idea what was its motive or plan. If I failed to unravel that mystery, I was staying out there, no matter how long it took.

  Either way, I knew they would have to bring me back in. I only hoped that momentarily breaking contact would bring me back awake immediately or that reestablishing contact would link my mind and body once again, eventually. It was a gamble either way.

  As was the plunge into the jellyfish that I was about to undertake—a huge gamble.

  28

  CLOSER TO THE SHIP BUT MILES AWAY FROM SAFETY

  We repeated the same procedure through the airlock only this time I knew the connection and plunge could happen anywhere outside. So I had the crew tether the same twenty-meter circumference tank, pressurized with nitrogen, to the rail cleating and advised everyone to stay inside and only come out if there was something wrong. Cramer stayed outside to inflate the silver balloon. The extra wires from the inflatable were run through the Ferrofluidic airlock into the flight deck and thence, by various connections and swivels, to Aten’s office. Then, after about an hour, all were all tested and I was given the go ahead. I climbed into the inflatable and sealed it up, talking with Cramer to see if he agreed the seals were good.

  He said they were and commenced inflation. Once it was up, he merely said, “Godspeed friend,” and left to go back through the hatch to the lower flight deck. Aten was on the radio and confirmed that she could record both nodes, one via a hook-up to her computer annex, the other via the VHF radio.

  I plugged in the thirty-two wire connector and then said a silent prayer to Angie as I connected the eight-wire connector and got immediately to the storeroom as Apollo and I had discussed. I initiated the mirror program to make the little body eaters leave me alone, and then I said the command “For god’s sake …” and was into the passageway, data streaming all around.

  I sang, “We’ll meet again …”

  “Don’t know where don’t know when—Hello Simon. Are you ready?” Apollo, on cue.

  I assumed the nodes were working and that Aten and Cramer were already transcribing. I had to clue Apollo in quickly before he revealed what he and I knew about Earth and what I knew Apollo would have surmised about where I was going. “Apollo, I have not told everyone everything. You should know I have a left ear node as well, can you find the frequency? Private communication.”

  “I can and have found the nodes, separate frequencies. What is the left one connected to? Simon, I have deactivated the left node and the right node is being disrupted for signal back to the ship.”

  “The left one goes to Aten, she’ll slow down anything recorded off of that node. I want you to use it exclusively, exclusively understand, for communication with Aten. The right node is for sensations, my thoughts, the sensors attached to me now are all being recorded. But Cramer and Aten will be listening to the left node, understand?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I have not told them about Earth and I have not told them where I am going. Now, turn everything back on or they will start retrieval of me …”

  “I understand. You are on the Path. Simon’s slightly crooked Path, but still the Path. Reconnecting.” Apollo was smart, figured it all out within seconds. “Excuse me while I talk to my sister.”

  I floated in the passageway, my mirror self doing the same but upside down for some reason. I was thinking about any significance when Apollo was back. “Aten and I have exchanged data and I am re-transmitting all relevant Gaia data and Earth’s situation while you and I proceed here. There is more than I sent last time. They need to know Simon. I urge caution going deeper into the Vast Pattern. You were out of touch for too long last time.”

  “Okay, any suggestions? I can get to the next level, remember, but I am powerless to go anywhere and there is no code, no appearance of any electrical activity there until geometric shapes turn up …”

  “Shapes? Can you describe them?”

  “Imagine a complete ribosome but as a closed loop, making a geometric structure. And yes, Apollo, I recognized that my brain may be making it up, based on my theories that the whole universe is a living organism. It is not, I know, but they looked like ribosomes, solid ribosomes. And why shouldn’t a function of this brain, this diffuse brain, have components resembling the building blocks of life?”

  “It could Simon, I am not saying it isn’t. But it is not a living entity, it is devoid of physical needs of DNA. It simply is. Ribosomes should have no part here. But if these shapes manipulated you, it could be that a shape to better fit you, to capture and move you, was chosen, designed, to make that possible.”

  Trust Apollo to frighten me just as he was being brilliant. If it could know I was a bioform, at least my body was, and tailor a conveyor shape to mimic my basic building block—of course, I was so damn stupid, “Wait, Apollo, that’s it! It was meant as a sign, and when I did not react correctly, it transported me back, every time. I thought it only seemed to want to observe. What if what it was waiting for was a response?”

  “It is possible …” Apollo’s voice seemed to trail off. Was he thinking?

  I decided to tell him what I thought, “Years ago a scientist called Sam something or other was working with dolphins. He wanted to teach one dolphin his name so he repeated it and got back a distinctive squeak from the dolphin. This guy got frustrated, repeated his name, Sam, over and over. The dolphin always responded with the same sound. In desperation to establish any contact at all, the man repeated the squeak the dolphin had made. The dolphin leaped from the water, clearly excited, swam twice around the tank at high speed, approached the man on the dock, rose up, and made a perfect replica sound, “Sam.” Apollo, I feel like an idiot. If you wanted to start a conversation with a puny entity, if you showed them the smallest part of what made them a life form, a ribosome, wouldn’t you think the idiot would guess what you were doing? Opening a conversation?”

  “Simon, I have the dictionary from Gaia. Here is the sequence for “Greetings.” Can you discern the code?”

  Before me appeared a cube with four numbers on each face, three-dimensional, total of twenty-four numbers. “How are you doing this Apollo? How can you make it appear?”

  “Turn your head Simon.” The cube stayed in front of my eyes. “I am accessing your optic nerve, well your pseudo-optic nerve through the cone and rod sensor package they have fitted you out with. I can make you think you are seeing images I construct.”

  “Okay, I see the cube, and I can copy it into m
y left brain, put it on the shelf so to speak, no problem, done. How do I play it back to say greetings?”

  “Simon, remember being in-System? You placed code within structure. I suggest doing the same here. Offer the cube to the fractal ribosome image.”

  “Okay, here goes … and I gave the god command as I was thinking about it. I was instantly buffeted by the heat barrier and then the empty space, vastness, and two orbs approached but stayed out of reach. I repeated, as best I could remember, exactly what I had said before. The orbs went away. The ribosome fractal shape appeared. It started spinning and I mentally said closer and yes, the shape was closer. Either I had moved or it had. I mentally took Apollo’s octal “greeting” off my left-brain shelf and proffered it. Please take this …

  I had not expected the response I got. I was pretty sure I had not moved, in fact, I was frozen still buy some force, but I could see parts of my body, the image of my body, being disassembled and rotated, free floating. Several more fractal shapes appeared, all ribosome-like in structure, different colors, different rotational cycles. Each one took a section of my body parts and then disappeared. Somehow, I was still there. All my senses seemed to be working, but I was without the image of my body.

  Then it occurred to me I had not seen them take my head, so maybe that’s all I needed to be conscious and aware. The original ribosome was still there, spinning. Silent. Then it stopped rotating and simply vanished.

  I was left alone. Okay, my head was left alone. I called out, “Come back!” When that didn’t work, I used the god command. Nothing. I never felt so alone in my whole life.

  Moments later, all of my body parts reappeared, and once released, they drifted back to take their proper stations to form my body. Still alone, at least I knew I wasn’t forgotten.

  I should be so lucky.

  Out of the nothingness, a snake appeared. It was so long and complex that I could not, at first, realize what it was. It was a complete DNA model, a superhelix. Or was it a model? Could it be the real thing? The DNA snake, as it appeared to me, began to attach itself to my right arm and, twisting around, wound itself up until it reached my neck and then, horrifyingly, climbed the side of my head. My vision was blocked as it crossed over my eyes. It then shrank and I thought that maybe it had disappeared—until I felt the worst pain of my entire life.

  The DNA snake had wormed its way into my brain, using the node incision spot behind my right ear. In fear and agony, I called out, Apolloooo. There was no answer.

  29

  PAYING THE PIPER, ONCE MORE DEAD

  I lost consciousness pretty much immediately. The pain was too much to bear. Years ago, I had a terrible accident and ripped cartilage in my knee. A doctor examining me was twisting the knee this way and that to get better 3-D MRI table images. The pain was excruciating and I told him I might pass out. He blithely said, “No one ever passes out from pain, it wakes you up, sissy.” A second later, I proved him wrong. Not about the sissy part.

  The DNA snake’s intrusion and resultant pain was like that. I could not stand it. I passed out.

  I came to in the passageway with Apollo slowly repeating my name. My first instinct was to check for body parts. There were none really, of course, but eyes and ears seemed to be working, things looked normal as I reviewed hands, feet, torso, and, not least, I checked that my head was still attached by placing my hands on my ears. Oh yes, it was there. I also felt for the node incision point behind my right ear. It did not appear to be there, but what could I tell? Maybe it never was apparent inside here, maybe it was only my imagination that made me think the snake had entered at that precise spot.

  Time to test my voice, so I responded, “Apollo, I hear you.”

  “Simon, it is so very good to hear your voice again.”

  “Am I dead?” And then I heard a babble of sounds and could not discern what they were.

  Apollo responded, “No, I will tell him.” Who was he talking to? “Simon, what you heard were low-frequency modulations of Aten’s, a doctor Todd’, and Cramer’s voices. I can translate what they have said if you want.”

  “Please.”

  “Cramer said, “Simon, I don’t want to be it all alone, wake the hell up!” The doctor said, “Don’t rush …” And Aten said, “Darling, please be kind, he’s done all this for us …” After that, I could not hear more.”

  “Can they hear you?”

  “Not since you disappeared. My ability is listening only.”

  “Okay. Situation? Obviously I am not dead.”

  “Technically you are dead, but Doctor Todd followed your secret instructions and took you inside and they have placed you in stasis as requested. He wants permission to revive you.”

  “I wish you could tell him denied, for now. I need to know if we’ve made any progress here.”

  “Oh, yes Simon. I have.” Was I wrong that I heard a touch of ego there? “After you reappeared, there was a connection from your brain to the patterns you see before you. It looked like this …” he displayed the floating image before my eyes as he had done before, only this time I could see myself and that snake clearly sticking out of the front of my head. The double helix had lengthened and connected itself to the octal code streaming in the passageway. It looked alive, the snake that is. Frightening. Now, I never minded snakes, but the prospect of one sticking out of the front of my brain was a little terrifying. I felt my forehead and damn if it wasn’t still there.

  “Apollo, what is this thing for?”

  “As soon as it connected to the data stream, your body was inter-connected to the mainframe on the ship and deliberate signals were sent back and forth, using your form as a transmission line to probe the ship, much like an electrical connection. The access on the ship’s end was limited.” Bravo, Aten for your one-way access! “So then, the connection searched for another avenue, and it found the connection through me. I am afraid it has penetrated all that I know, one hundred percent, all memory banks, everything.”

  That was either seriously bad news or, perhaps? “Apollo, the result, please, I can’t stand the suspense.”

  “The probe through you to me was not a one-way access. Everything it saw I was seeing as well. What it was looking for, and found, was most interesting for me. I opened a dialog with Gaia, who was shocked I should be conversing directly with or through Regus. Yes, Simon, it’s all right, but you are now hooked to Regus.” I guessed Apollo could read my vital signs and felt the sudden elevation in my anxiety. “Anyway, I patched Gaia into Regus’ search probe and there seemed to be an argument. Well, not an argument, more a territorial conflict. What transpired was that Regus did not understand how you and I could be in this dimension, could access this dimension and the one beyond where you went Simon. Apparently, that next dimension is where everything coalesces, where the Vast Pattern is definable, qualify-able. You were not supposed to be there. No life form of any universe has ever reached that dimension. Regus cannot access that level …”

  “But if this is Regus’ snake, it appeared there …”

  “No Simon, Regus is this place, this plexus, this data stream. The double helix was created at the next level, presumably by the Vast Pattern that encompasses these dimensions—the one of our temporal existence and one beyond, the one you landed in when you said there was nothing, then Regus and then beyond. The Vast Pattern is not very pleased with your intrusion. Regus is being held accountable as is the dimension our universe is in.”

  “You are kidding …”

  “No Simon, it seems the entire universe may be eliminated because you broached dimensional security. This universe, it seems, is just a tiny portion of the Vast Pattern. If infected, it will be excised.”

  “Apollo, what level of consciousness are we talking about? Is Regus sentient, capable of reason?”

  “No. Regus is a set of connections; if, what if, applications, not even full programs, to ensure the gathering and resetting of parameters of transmissions from bio-life forms located across the
universe. Regus is like a super-self-modulating plexus.”

  “Apollo, come on, what is the purpose of these transmissions? I know you, that is the most important question, you must have it figured out by now.”

  “I do, but you are not going to like it.” Oh, great, he was playing word games now. I stayed silent knowing the delay would eat at his superior clock-speed intellect and frustrate him. “Okay, here it comes. Everything Gaia transmits, everything Regus coalesces and collects from all planets—how is that somehow absorbed into that other dimension? All of that is structure, the very essence of the generated pandimensional structure. It is, in short, the very make-up of the universes’ matrix. Let me explain. Strong emotions of fealty, love, bonding, belonging, to be a part of, cohesiveness— these form the bond, the glue. Feelings, mental output, form the weave, the fabric. And in a sense, this universe is one of the engines that produce the fabric, perhaps even the final ethic, of the multi-universe that the Vast Pattern controls, lives in, manipulates. The energy, all the dark energy, dark matter, and mass, all these are part of the structure, not the purpose, not the working. The working of this universe is reliant upon the output, the productivity of the life forms on selected planets, on planets that can support life. And this universe is a part of the Vast Pattern in so far as it proves productive to the whole.”

  “How many generator universe types are there?”

  “Regus does not contain that information. That is beyond Regus’ simple capability and memory. Gaia does not know. I suspect there is one Regus for every universe just as there is one Gaia for every livable planet. Regus has self-regulating capability for all this universe’s functions. But it is limited to that, Regus cannot access that next dimension and, purposefully, Regus does not have ambition, desire, to do so. Regus is a collector, an amalgamator, a giant Great Attractor feeding off all of the Great Attractors – gathering input, moderating systems, acting as a transmission hub. Regus can modulate, exterminate, create, seed, even alter every bioform planet in the universe, but it does so autonomously, or at least with sequence and parameters that are not self-determinate. It is basically a nexus with programming to handle transmissions, gathering, passing on and so forth.” Apollo was sounding like a schoolteacher. “And when you get down to Gaia, interestingly, there are sets of pseudo-awareness programs running to allow Gaia to manage the finite, whereas Regus cannot determine anything smaller than a planet, a neuron in your doctors’ analogy.”