Doomsday Minus One

by Andrew Dorn

  Gravity.

  That, he could feel. From the cells floating inside him to the neurons firing in his brain. All he was, all that made up the organism known as Simon Macomber, had been born into gravity. He could not escape it. Neither could the Earth, the Solar System or the whole Universe. Which probably meant he had not passed into a multi-verse where the properties of gravity did not exist. He was still trapped inside the Seeder... still underground. The knowledge of where he was, of his place in the Universe, made the reality of his situation easier to compartmentalize, to accept.

  The limbo was a void, no doubt about it.

  But why did it exist in the first place?

  Was I lured in for a specific task?

  There was only one way to know.

  He allowed the tendrils of his thoughts, the snakes of his innate curiosity to roam free. They prodded around, over and under, diving into the bottomless pits of emptiness and soaring high into the skyless womb of nullity.

  There was a tingle. One snake had hooked up to a particular sensation, a unique identifier.

  An intellect.

  Simon’s cognitive focal point shifted to the connection unearthed by his snake. It, the intelligence, was tucked away, in the dark and ancient recesses of the limbo.

  But it was definitely there.

  He elected to use one of the most fundamental communication methods at his disposal.

  “Hello?” he said, out loud.

  There was a shift in the quietness surrounding him as if the vibration in the air produced by his voice had somehow disrupted its perfection.

  “I know you are there. Can you understand me?”

  This time the shift in the air turned into a tangible manifestation. A shape was materializing into physical existence, coming into reality. A human shape, one that was shockingly familiar.

  It was him.

  Or rather, a representation of him, a construct created to mimic his appearance. The simulacrum wavered unsteadily for a microsecond then fused permanently. It was a perfect copy of himself. It had his skin, hair, nails and clothes. A flawless reproduction down to the tiniest of details.

  But there was one important difference.

  The eyes. Though identical in shape, size and color, they diverged in one critical characteristic: they held a single nano-sized dot of brightness, a shining star burning inside an iris as dark as space.

  As he stared, confounded, the simulacrum flexed the 43 muscles of its face in fast succession, like symphony orchestra musicians before a performance. The calibration done, it locked eyes with him, eyes glinting.

  Now what?

  He stood by, waiting for its next move. The moment dragged on, the anticipation grating on his nerves. At a loss on what to do, he said out loud, “Who are you?”

  There was no answer. The construct mimicked the movement of Simon’s mouth but without speaking. A second afterward it stopped short as though waiting for further stimulation.

  “Again, I ask you.” Simon said, consciously slowing his speech down. “Who are you?”

  “Who are you?” The construct replied.

  Simon jerked backwards, startled by the faithful emulation of his own voice. The construct had the right intonation and that slight nasal quality, a characteristic he had always found annoying. But however perfect the imitation was, it remained that: an imitation.

  Is there someone behind that voice? I have to find out.

  “I am Simon Macomber.”

  The simulacrum’s eyes flashed once.

  “You now know my name,” he began, with a patient tone. “Now, what is yours?”

  “Define. Name.”

  “You don’t know what name signifies?”

  “I know,” the construct said after a slight hesitation, as if the answer had been whispered by someone off-stage, like a prompter in a live play representation. “I have extensive knowledge of your vocabulary.”

  “Well, then, I ask you once again. What is your name?”

  “I have none.”

  Simon shook his head, irritated. “That’s not an answer. Everybody needs a name.”

  “I have none.”

  “Do you mean to tell me that you have no form of designation?” Simon said with a condescending voice. In an effort to draw out better responses, he decided to infuse more emotion into the dialogue. He figured that every answer it offered was a peek into its inner workings, an opening for him to make sense of the way it reasoned.

  The construct studied Simon, the telltale dots aglow in the impassive stare.

  “You do know you have been constructed, right?”

  “What do you mean by constructed?”

  Simon shook his head again as if in deep sympathy with it.

  “Do you mean to tell me you didn’t know you had been built? Wow. That’s just not right.”

  “I have no answer to give you. I exist to create.”

  Simon’s posture stiffened. This was the information he needed. It was the one thread he had to pursue to get to the bottom of the mystery... and back to Emmeline.

  “You exist to create?”

  “Yes.”

  “But who created you?”

  The construct paused. The blazing stars shimmered for a millisecond.

  “I did.”

  Simon’s jaw lowered a good ten centimeters or so. He stared at the simulacrum. If he had been facing another human being, he would have sworn he was being played a fool.

  Is it capable of such deception?

  He had a gut feeling that it was telling the truth, or at least a version of what it interpreted as truth.

  “If I understand what you are saying, and correct me if I’m wrong, you state that your creator is... yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s absurd,” Simon said with indignation. “Please explain.”

  “I exist to create.”

  “I know, you said that before.”

  “There is no other explanation. I exist to create. I created myself.”

  His mind whirled with the construct’s skewed logic. He was reminded of the famous philosophical proposition by René Descartes: I think, therefore I am. Here, though, it was more like: I create, therefore I am. But how could it be true? Perhaps he was dealing with a peripheral system, a kind of firewall to the real intelligence behind it all. He needed to get past the simulacrum’s obtuseness, to get inside its head as it were.

  “Can you show me your instructions?” He was still playing the emotion game, working to break its facade.

  “The instructions?” The construct intoned, clearly at a loss.

  “Yes, the instructions. If you exist to create, then you have instructions on how to proceed with said creation.”

  “I do not understand the question.”

  Simon breathed hard, the disappointment keenly apparent in his non-verbal posturing.

  “What is there not to understand? I asked you a simple question. You say you exist to create, is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it comes to reason that what you create, your creations, are based on a set of instructions. Perhaps you use DNA-based coding, or other forms of instructions, but there has to be a data set somewhere. No?”

  “Yes.”

  The answer resonated in the empty space for a few seconds before he digested its importance.

  Did it answer with an affirmative? Wow, I might be on to something.

  “So there is a data set, is that what you are saying?”

  “No.”

  Simon could not believe his ears.

  “What do you mean by no! You said yes a second ago!”

  “There is no data-set,” the construct answered, with a distinct interrogative inflection to its monotone voice.

  “But you answered yes to my question!”

  “Yes... no.”

  “What the hell kind of answer is that?”

  The gleaming dots dimmed once before the simulacrum underwent the same pattern of synchronous blink
ing as before. This time, however, it appeared to Simon that it remained out of existence for a few milliseconds longer. He resolved to push it harder and what better way than asking to be elevated to another tier.

  “Ok,” he began. “Let’s go over what we’ve found out. We recognize you are the creator. That you, yourself, exist to create. Correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, just wanted to make sure we’re on the same wavelength,” he said with a grin. “We understand there is no data-set, no instructions.”

  “Yes.”

  “So far, so good,” Simon said, encouraged. “Then, who is the creator? The one who created your creator?”

  The eyes quivered again.

  “Do you understand my question?” Simon pressed on, sensing a shift in its stance towards him. “Who is the creator? The creator who created your creator?”

  Simon watched, bemused as the construct remained motionless before him, as if deep in thought. He wondered how long it would take before it figured out there was no rational answer to his question.

  Not bad for my first logic bomb.

  51 Curiosity

  I HAVE LET them all down... Emmeline, Frank, the others. They are probably still in danger and waiting for me to come back. Praying for a miracle, hoping the threat is gone, Hoping we can all go home now.

  He couldn’t shake the sensation he had let them down. The limbo was messing with his mind and he found it difficult to separate what he had seen and done, and what had taken place back in reality, while he...

  There it was again, the empty space, the gap in continuity he butted against time and time again. There was a big piece missing, he could feel it. It was within grasp but out of touch. There had been a conversation with Emmeline, something about him being sorry, then... blankness, and absolute nothingness. Thinking about her made him aware of what he’d done.

  I have abandoned her.

  To be on her own.

  How could I have done that?

  He must have been out of it, coerced into forgetting the basic need for humans to stick together when the going went rough.

  He must have been under control.

  That must be it.

  There was no way he would have left her alone, in this nightmare of a world. Alone to fend off whatever intelligence roamed the dark passageways.

  There had been a lapse.

  A lapse in his psyche which had led him here, to this N-Space, this abode of emptiness.

  I’m in the core.

  It came to him at once, a revelation exploding like a supernova in the meanders of his psyche.

  I’m in the inner sanctum.

  But how?

  I was brought in... by the Seeder.

  It is curious. Curious about me.

  The longer he reflected on it, the more it made sense. By their actions, he and Emmeline had engaged the Seeder into another path. It was forced to negotiate an unfamiliar set of parameters, seeking ways to function within the new dynamic. One of those ways was determining the originator behind the new path. That was why it had brought him deeper inside, to better analyze him.

  I am an anomaly to it.

  Simon smiled at the thought.

  An anomaly.

  Are we two different peas from the same soup? He laughed out loud at that, the laughter like a crash of cymbals inside the tomblike silence of the void.

  The construct’s luminous gaze glistered.

  Simon immediately fell back into conversation mode.

  “So, do you have an answer for me?” He pressed on, hammering the words of his logic bomb. “Who is the creator that created your creator?”

  There was a flicker of hesitation in its stance.

  “Well?” Simon urged.

  “Let me show you.”

  Simon observed, hypnotized, as the surrounding blankness morphed into a kaleidoscope of imagery, a theater of the mind as vast as the depth of his imagination. It filled every single bit of space, every molecule of his intellect. It was as if he had one foot in a universe while his mind travelled the distant edges of hypothetical multiverses. There was an infinitude to marvel at, unbounded by his earthly concerns, by his biologically ingrained shortcomings.

  So much knowledge.

  The extent of what he could perceive was orders of magnitude beyond what he dreamed possible. It was as if the entirety of the observable universe was put forth for his perusal, in infinite detail, in all languages, for all eternities.

  It was all-encompassing.

  Such an intense sensation he felt his heart rate flutter and his mind clamp down.

  Yet he had to see.

  The answer to the mystery is here... now.

  Billions of years ago, the Big Bang exploded, forcing into reality all that would ever exist. In the expanding interstellar vacuum of space, dust clouds became galaxies which themselves gave birth to countless solar systems. Over eons, in the furnace of creation of these star systems, Life arose.

  Biological Life.

  Then It evolved.

  It came to be hybrid, a perfect combination of cell-based organisms and artificial intelligence.

  But It didn’t stop there.

  Like a larvae morphing into butterfly, It attained Artificial Life.

  All concerns of death and extinction were left behind.

  And for a moment, all was as it should be.

  But the great Universe which It had extensively explored, was too empty, too barren for Its taste. It remedied the situation by dissociating itself into a swarm of nano machines. It was now silicon-based Life, not carbon, and it was, in effect, immortal.

  It had dispersed itself to every corner of the Universe, millions of years ago, on a time scale so vast, it made human evolution pale in comparison.

  Simon began to comprehend, to make sense of the truth behind the imagery. Ever since philosophers discussed the status of Humanity in the grand scheme of the Cosmos, and debated other Intelligent Life, they had warned about first contact with alien life.

  There were no biological little green men coming down a ramp from a silver disk.

  The Seeder was a super-intelligent artificial life form.

  It consisted of silicon-based nano-sized Life capable of creation on a scale unknown to Man. It had been a biological entity once but its long journey had transformed it into a post-biological artificial super-intelligence.

  Simon could only speculate on the fantastic wealth of data it possessed. Better minds than his would be needed to explore the depths of its knowledge and he feared it would take centuries to unravel its path thru the universe.

  Humanity now had a new objective to pursuit, a new data set to assimilate.

  But he didn’t have centuries on hand.

  He was still confined, a prisoner in limbo, and he wanted out. He had had enough. It was time to leave. But how? The Seeder had shared an infinite amount of data, but there was no direct communication, no dialogue between them.

  Do I know more about it than it does about us?

  Was he required to speak for Humanity, for Earth? Would not the Army, the FBI, or a special task team composed of scientists and linguists do a better job than him?

  Who am I to introduce Humanity to this Intelligence?

  Because I’m in the right spot, at the right time? He flashed unto countless contact scenes from TV shows and movies. They mostly shared a common thread: it rarely ended up well for the people in the front line, for those brave or foolish enough to greet the aliens.

  He shrugged the thought away.

  Those movies always featured biological beings.

  He grinned at the thought.

  This is different.

  He cleared his throat, the all-too human sound, an auditory prop for his shaky confidence.

  Was it too late already? Had the Intelligence already resolved to end us all because of my foolish attempt at understanding it?

  “Thank you for sharing your origin with me,” he said, his voice raw with tension. “I
am wondering if there is something I could give you in exchange.”

  A voice, his own, sounded in his head.

  You already have.

  Simon wondered if he had heard correctly... or if his brain had turned to mulch.

  “But I have done nothing!”

  Yes, you have.

  And with those words burning its way to the center of his brain, he sensed the surrounding reality dematerialize into so many nano fragments.

  52 Contact

  THE EYES WILL see what you want to see and the ears will hear what you want to hear... but the heart feels what is real. Simon had seized unto the saying, like a drowning man clutching a straw. The alien Intelligence had said he had already done something for it... but he had no clue what it meant.

  The bubble in which he had been confined had dissolved without a sound, fading out of existence like morning mist in the bright sun.

  He found himself inside a cavern.

  A very familiar one.

  It had been some time since he had first glimpsed the Seeder, resting as it was, like a weird fossilized whale mired in bedrock. The time lost to the limbo had played havoc with his internal clock but he would have to deal with it later.

  He hoped he wasn’t too late.

  He took a step forward, then another, the movement strangely disconnected as if he was regaining some long lost abilities. The Seeder was but a few yards away, a foreboding presence in the dim theatre of the cavern.

  It’s waiting. Waiting for contact.

  He marched up to it and without hesitation pressed his hand onto the smooth exterior. The surface of the Seeder reacted to his touch by flexing inward, undulating like a liquid under his palm. He knew the material was, in fact, composed of billions of nanoparticles, particles that were all interconnected to a superintelligence called...

  Zeru.

  The word just popped into his mind, casually as if he had known it all along. He rolled the word around in his mind. It had a communal connotation although it was the first time he’d heard of it. Perhaps it was ingrained in his deep-seated memories, wired inside him like the tens of thousands of threads found in the human genome.

  Zeru.

  I know its name. Is there something else it wants me to know?

  It wants me to understand.