by P A Vasey
A familiar voice. Strangely asexual, like a neutered Siri.
I immediately felt calmer, as if I’d been given an IV shot of anesthetic and was about to drift off into oblivion.
I tried to speak, but no words came.
Unease blossomed within me and the silence was unnerving. There were no traffic noises, no birds singing, nothing.
The atmosphere felt brittle, like it could snap.
I decided this must be a dream. A dream suffused with sensations so real that they came with physical attributes. Everything would be fine. I willed myself to wake up. True reality beckoned.
Visual sensors are coming online. Diagnostics are running.
The voice in my head was directionless and everywhere, but the darkness remained absolute, an ocean of stygian doubts and apprehension in which my consciousness seemed to be floating.
Your memory will soon return. The patch is offline but the connections are fully formed. Your mind is adjusting to its new environment and settling into its new template.
The darkness abruptly peeled away and I blinked involuntarily. I couldn’t move my head, but my eyes roved left and right, hungrily taking in what they could.
A small white oval-shaped room. The walls were pristine, clinical, silvery. On the ceiling were a number of slit-like openings ranging from a few inches to a few feet long and a few inches wide. Hanging out of these slits were about half a dozen cables, moving organically, up and down. One was approaching me, its end blinking red and green, and as it got closer a small metallic instrument emerged from the tip. I could feel myself withdrawing as it got closer to my eye, but I still couldn’t move my head; nor could I blink. I waited for the pain as it penetrated my eyeball, but none came.
After a few seconds, with a whispering noise like leaves in an autumnal park lane, the instrument withdrew and vanished into one of the slits like a snake retreating into its den.
“How do you feel?”
The voice was now audible and not in my head, coming from my side.
I took a deep breath. “I’m not sure.”
My voice sounded strange. There was an abnormal resonance to it, like I was recovering from laryngitis or a hangover.
A face came into view. Pale, shaved skull, angular features. A woman’s face. Ageless and yet aged. She smiled awkwardly, and my mind exploded as memory returned.
Eddie Wong.
The gun.
The Vu-Hak.
“Where am I?” I got out, panic rising.
She smiled, a better attempt this time. “You are inside the ship.”
I tried to move my head and get up but again nothing seemed to work. I grimaced and closed my eyes, concentrating hard, willing my limbs to obey me.
“Are my friends all right?”
She paused for a few seconds before replying. “I told you it was a bad idea opening the barrier.”
“What do you mean?”
“I could not sense the Vu-Hak in him until Wong approached you. Then it was too late.”
“What about my friends?” I repeated, trepidation rising.
“Do not worry, the Vu-Hak has been killed.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She ignored me and moved out of my line of sight. There was some prodding and little twitches in my arms as if someone were jabbing me with a cattle prod.
“You still have no motor functioning. This has been … a difficult procedure. We were not ready to attempt this. Or even expecting to attempt it at this time.”
She moved back into my line of sight and her expressionless face now seemed to show concern. “We had to leave quickly. The Vu-Hak had already communicated with others on the submarine. They were coming. They could have … gotten to me. I am sorry … about your friends.”
I closed my eyes as the pain hit me out of nowhere. I hadn’t seen it coming. I’d failed them. Colleen, Hubert, all of them. An awful hollowness gnawed at my insides as waves of wretchedness threatened to engulf me, body and soul.
“It wasn’t your fault,” the woman said gently.
There was an emerald tinge to her eyes, but the whites were visible, making her look human enough. I made to get up, but nothing happened. I moved my eyes, but that was all I could do. I started to panic. “Why can’t I move? Am I … paralyzed?”
I bit out the last word, my heart hammering again, not wanting to hear the reply but desperate to know. The woman was no longer smiling. She looked away for a second and then leaned closer. I felt her hand on my arm.
“You died.”
Death.
A shadow that lurked in the dark, watching and waiting, the icy chill of his breath only a heartbeat away.
All my working life I’d taken care of the dead and the dying.
Patients. Family. My daughter, Kelly.
But I’d never been afraid of dying myself. I’d never really dealt with the notion that someday this would happen to me.
Was this the afterlife I’d never believed in?
My eyes opened and the woman was still there, silently watching me, motionless, like a statue.
“Am I still dead?” I asked, aware of the irony.
“Clearly not.”
“Thank you,” I said.
She nodded. “You are welcome.”
“I can’t move. There’s no feeling.”
She blinked slowly as if deciding what to tell me. “Your consciousness, the essence of you, survived. Your body was … not salvageable.”
It was as if she were talking another language, it made so little sense. I took a deep breath and focussed on the movements of my chest, the feeling of air moving in and out of my lungs. Everything felt normal.
“No, that’s not possible. If my body died, that includes my brain. You can’t be conscious without a brain. The body keeps the brain alive. The heart pumps blood so the brain can survive …”
I was babbling. The saying ‘there is nothing to fear but fear itself’ is bullshit. There are many things worse than fear.
The woman shook her head dismissively, like a schoolmistress about to correct a student making an elementary mistake.
“You no longer have an organic brain. Your consciousness is housed in a machine.”
“Impossible.” I laughed. “Nothing happens in the mind that doesn’t happen in the brain. It’s the software running on the hardware.”
Even as I said this, I had a feeling that I was in denial. I remembered the CT scans of Adam. The alien structures inside his body, none of which resembled organic tissue or even less a human brain.
“Really?” she said. “So you understand consciousness?”
“No, but –”
“Then do not question what is. You died. Your mind lives on.”
“Then … how?”
“Your consciousness – your very self – can be removed from the anatomical structures of the brain and transferred to a suitable repository, providing the transfer template is sufficiently complex and compatible.”
“That technology doesn’t exist.”
The woman closed her eyes, and gave a very human-like sigh. “The Vu-Hak perfected this technique thousands of years ago. They transferred their consciousnesses to machines. It set them free. Improved them. Upgraded their capabilities. As you know, they have already demonstrated that this procedure is transferrable between species.”
“You mean when they ‘made’ Adam, don’t you?”
She nodded, but I detected a hesitation. Something she was not happy about.
“What’s wrong?” I said. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
She looked away. “Your injuries were severe. Fatal. We had only minutes to act.”
“Wait … who’s ‘we’?” I said sharply.
“I misspoke. I had only minutes to act.”
I didn’t think she’d misspoken at all. “And the others?” I said, feeling a lump in my throat. “What happened to my friends?”
“I do not know.”
“How c
an you not know?” I blurted out, angry.
“We were under attack. The Vu-Hak had found us. We had to leave.”
“There’s that ‘we’ again. Is Adam here?” I said.
Her eyebrows furrowed. “Now is not the time.”
Right. Anger was now pulling level with fear, threatening to overtake it.
“I’m not stupid. ‘Cain’ be damned – he’s Adam, isn’t he? Adam’s behind all this. Let me fucking see him.”
Her lip twitched now in another approximation of a smile. Then she walked out of my line of vision. I tried to twist to follow her, but my eyes only went so far.
“Come back here,” I snapped. “You owe it to me to tell me the truth.”
The truth?
This time the voice was only heard in my head.
Here’s the beginning of the truth.
A spinning disc appeared directly above me, like an upturned water font. It transformed into a mirror pointing down at my body and the table where I was lying. The body had my face, but from there it got frighteningly surreal. It was a smooth silvery-blue chrome structure, muscles and joints glistening and twinkling as if lit from within. Tubes blinking and pulsing with energy connected me to the table, almost as if I were plugged in to the mains and getting charged up.
I choked back a scream. “What’ve you done to me?”
I told you. I saved your life.
A cold shiver ran down my spine again: for the first time I questioned whether the sensation was real. Were these feelings just psychosomatic manifestations of my mind’s need to feel authentic, genuine, legitimate and … human? Was this some form of insanity breaking into my mind, like a thief stealing everything important and replacing it with a new personality, a different, distorted reality? Or was this just a delusion, a true one, a fixed false belief that would gain traction like a tire on asphalt and drive me in a different direction, erratically but ultimately toward the void?
“Your power train’s operating performance is now at sixty-seven percent. You should be able to sit up.”
I looked to where her voice was coming from and realized I had turned my head. She was standing by a circular panel recessed into the wall, swirling lights and dervish-like patterns flashing and pulsing. I sat up, easily and painlessly, my body folding in two as if my stomach muscles were made of springs. There was no feeling of muscular contraction, however, so effortless was the movement. I swung my legs over the side of the table and looked down at the chrome limbs glistening under the lights. I stretched out my hands and they too were metallic, overlaid with black web-like lines.
I pictured a tear escaping from my eye: a small silvery crystal bead sliding down my cheek and rolling off my chin onto my chest. Then another, and another, as my eyes flooded over.
But when I reached up to wipe them, the surface was as dry as dead bones.
“I feel … real. How?”
“Psychotomimetic software. You’ll get used to it.”
She turned back to the panel and made hand gestures in front of it. The pattern of lights changed and green and red beams danced in the air.
“The final touches coming up,” she said without turning.
I held my hands up to my face and watched an integument spread over them, pale like the skin I’d worn in my human life, covering the glistening metal. Fingernails appeared, creases and veins and tendons. Waxy, but authentic enough. I turned my hands over and there were no fingerprints, only blank, smooth pads on the ends of my fingers. I poked my fingers in my ears and rubbed my eyes, closing them reflexively.
Then I went to pieces.
Uncontrollable anxiety.
A full-blown panic attack.
My head was filled with a cacophony, a thousand different shouting voices and screams.
“No,” I said, and my chest heaved uncontrollably. “No, no, no …”
Sleep.
I heard the woman’s voice, calming and soporific.
Darkness came over me again. My eyes felt heavy, my consciousness ebbed, and my mind went into free fall.
TWENTY-THREE
I dream again.
I’m sitting on a rock, my silvery blue legs stretched out in front of me. A brook bubbles past, bloated dead fish floating slowly downstream on its waters. The smoke-filled sky is Halloween blood red; birds are fleeing, raucous cries scraping the atmosphere like nails down a blackboard. There is a smell of wood smoke and burning animal corpses, the pungent odor of the recently deceased. The street behind me is a skeleton stripped of its flesh by atomic fire. Crumbling stone lies ash-like on the ground, a grey dust smothering fields and forests. Nothing recognizable is left of the city, no glass or wood or concrete, just twisted metal spires.
Standing on the bank next to me is a small child. A girl with blonde curly hair and big bright green eyes. She smiles at me and holds out her hand, which I take in one of mine. I pull her gently until she sits next to me. She picks up a little stone from the side of the stream and throws it underarm into the flowing water, producing a little plop and then a few concentric circles that are soon absorbed as it skims along the surface and drops to the riverbed.
We sit there for minutes, or perhaps hours, before I turn to her and say, “Do you think we should have cared more for this world?”
She gives a little giggle, and says, “Yes,” like she is surprised I should even have asked such a silly question.
I then say, “Do you think we should have cared more for each other?”
Her eyes fill with tears, and her response is the same.
On the other side of the brook, more children appear, laughing and playing on swings and roundabouts. Proud parents stand around, talking and pointing at their offspring and making encouraging noises. I hear laughter and excited squeals from the children and I wonder how they can be so happy, why they can’t feel the same despondency and hopelessness I am experiencing.
I turn to the girl and say, “Why do we kill each other?”
She pulls away and stares at me like she is seeing a monster. She tries to run but I have hold of her hand and I pull her to me, covering her little body with my arms. She is crying and I hold her until she stops shaking.
I caress her hair, smoothing out the curls, calming her down, coo-ing like a dove. She has hold of me around my neck, her face buried in my chest. I feel her mouth moving and so I lean in and listen. She turns her face up to mine, tears soaking my chest, glistening and sparkling like diamonds studding my metal skin.
“Can you stop it?” she whispers.
I look up to the sky, where black smoke trails and darkening clouds hide a watery sun, anemic and pale. Streets once thronging with life are now empty and desolate. Gone are the children who play in the crowds with their games and laughter. Gone are the stores with their windows of fine clothing or delicacies or the latest electronic goods. In their place are cracked sidewalks, empty gun shells, and broken storefronts laid waste by desperate looters.
“I don’t know,” I reply.
The girl looks off into the distance. Her voice becomes less childlike; it’s deeper and raspier.
“What if there was an angel, and he told you to choose between being a master of hell, or …” She pauses.
“Or what?” I say.
She looks up at me; her eyes red rimmed but clear. “Or join all humanity in hell.”
Was that really the choice facing me?
She starts singing softly and I have to lean in to hear her voice.
Her words cut through me.
“Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
This world will burn to ashes,
And so will you.”
Then her eyes flash phosphorescent green and I pull back, startled. She smiles and lifts her tiny hand to my face, caressing my cheek.
Her voice echoes inside my head.
But hell is empty, and all the devils are here.
TWENTY-FOUR
I woke with a start, my virtual heart hammering away, a non-exis
tent cold sweat covering my brow. I’d been moved and was sitting in a chair of sorts in a large dark room. There were no windows, but lights flickered everywhere, thousands of white dots, like the stars in a night sky. There was no sense of motion, and the rumbling noise I’d felt previously was absent.
In an identical chair next to me, which looked like it had been grown out of the floor, the woman was waving her hands over a light display, which had no surface, like a hologram. Her fingers were dancing, conducting an orchestra of electronica and plasma.
“Where am I?” I asked, looking around the room.
She closed her eyes and slowly lowered her hands onto her lap. “We are in the ship.”
“Yes, I get that, but … what ship? And why is there a ship?”
The corner of her lip twitched and she opened her eyes. “I created this ship using long-forgotten programming. As a self-replicating entity, it then built itself.”
“Wait,” I interrupted. “You said entity, like it was alive?”
She gave a little laugh.
“Yes. This ship is almost entirely organic, bio-constructed out of materials found on Earth. The engineering was performed at a genetic level, at the very core of the DNA and RNA of the substances utilized to create it.”
“But,” I tried to get my head around this. “It can’t be alive. Unless … it’s a true artificial intelligence.”
She turned to me and frowned. “What is artificial about it?”
“Artificial, in terms of ‘created’ by a non-artificial entity.”
She seemed to ponder this for a second, and then said. “Let me ask you a question. What do you think of the idea that eventually, artificial intelligence will advance to the point where computers are more intelligent than humans?”
“Is that what you are? Some kind of AI?”
“Why don’t you think about my question?”
I shook my head and gave a little exasperated laugh. “Alright, then I think that is probably inevitable. What I think of that idea would depend on how we consider such intelligences. Are they sentient, and if they are, how should we treat them?”
She nodded. “Very good answer. Follow-up question then – do you think humans could co-exist with another species – perhaps one it has designed – one that is more intelligent than itself?”