Andrei led the team towards an opening that looked like the entrance to a green cave in an otherwise impenetrable wall of trees, bushes, and tropical climbers. The air was unusually humid and the temperature was closing in on thirty degrees centigrade—a very strange thing indeed when compared to the normal day temperature of around two degrees centigrade at that time of year.
Once the team entered the Egg, day seemed to turn into dusk. Only a small amount of sunlight was able to make its way through the dense canopy of trees to the ground, which was surprisingly spongy and soft, covered by a thick layer of beautiful, fluorescent green moss.
“Ivan, take a few samples of the moss and the plants. Maybe you can even catch one of the weird-looking bugs that are all over these flowers.”
Ivan took off the pistol-shaped end of the extractor hose that was attached to his belt making him look like a member of the Ghostbusters team. The centrifugal extractor he carried on his back was made up of two dozen separate, highly insulated, biohazard-proof chambers that would automatically seal when a specimen had been extracted from its natural environment.
“I have them. Funny-looking creatures. Never seen anything like it,” Ivan replied.
“Let’s go. We still have some 3 km to go before we reach the center. We don’t want to be in here any longer than necessary,” announced Andrei.
“Hey, Pavel, what are you doing? Don’t touch that!” Andrei tried to push his way through to Pavel who was in charge of bringing up the rear. Pavel seemed to be unable to hear Andrei, hypnotized, staring at a flower that grew directly out of the thick stem of a massive tree next to him. He had deactivated his biosphere shield and taken off his protective gloves, stroking the flower’s furry petals as he repeated a single word. “Love.”
His face was contorted in a state of blissful ecstasy while his eyes had turned milky white. When Andrei reached him and pushed him away from the plant, Pavel managed to take a firm grip of the flower and tore it off the tree, tumbling over onto the mossy ground. His fall, cushioned by the spongy moss, didn’t generate the slightest sound, but a high-pitched shriek radiated from the now empty hole in the tree where the flower once grew.
The fall brought Pavel back to himself. The milky glaze vanished from his eyes and he now stared in utter horror at the flower as it attached itself to his hand. Roots sprouted around and even through his lower limb and little flowers started appearing on tiny stems that grew directly out of his arm, piercing his skin as well as the protective Kevlar mesh of his camo-suit. They were now all the way up to his shoulder.
“Help me!” Pavel screamed in agony.
“Don’t touch him,” yelled Eva as a few of the men moved in, trying to help their comrade.
“If you touch him you will be infected as well,” she added. “He’s beyond our help now.”
Pavel looked up at her, eyes wide open. The flowering plant had by now taken over most of his body and firmly anchored him to the forest floor. A beautiful flower sprouted out of Pavel’s mouth as he breathed his last breath just before his eyes turned white as snow again.
“I told you not to touch anything,” muttered Eva. “Now you know why.”
Six
Jon
Jon started preparing the sequences that he believed would finally result in successful absorption into the host’s memory structures, while Amy was busy unlocking the breeding tube: a cylindrical, metal container designed to resist even the harshest mistreatment known to mankind. She removed the protective coating and transferred Delta to the programming room.
Amy stared at Delta, captivated by the fluorescent glow that his body gave off in the dim light of the lab. He looked like an athletic young man whose physical form had been covered with milky resin.
“Jon, before we get started, can you please explain your theory again?”
“Haven’t you been listening?” Jon was disappointed. He had explained his theory on the phone less than an hour ago and thought that Amy had understood. Had she only been trying to console him? Jon gazed at Amy. She looked tired. “I know, it’s not the first time I’ve woken you up in the middle of the night with a crazy theory only to spend the rest of the night in a cold, dark lab with not much more to show for it in the morning than dark rings under our eyes. I promise, this time it’s different. It will work.”
Jon sat down at his holo desk and cleared his throat. “Imagine you were born just a few seconds ago. You don’t know anything. You don’t know that this is your body, that the shape over there is your mum, not even that it is your voice that seems to be crying. You know nothing. The newborn is like a dry sponge. It sucks up all the information possible and after a few years it even starts to develop something we call self-consciousness. The child suddenly knows that it is seeing an image of itself when looking in the mirror. It knows that it is hungry. There’s not simply a sensation of hunger, but there’s now a self that’s hungry. Do you see my point?”
Amy stared at Jon as if he were talking gibberish. “Ahh… no… What’s your point?”
“Well, the point is that we’re implanting all this objective knowledge into our hosts without first implementing the concept of a subject. By leaving out the subject there is no I, no self, that stands apart from the objective universe. No actor, no controller of the objects and things that are referred to in our programming. So far we’ve always programmed our hosts as if they were a computer. Initially this wasn’t a problem, the host knows how to identify objects and operate in the world, but it turns into one once we try to implant human values and behavioral structures. They simply don’t make any sense without first conjuring up a separate self that could act in an ethical, or let’s say human, way. There has to be a certain belief in some things being good and others being bad for us, for this very idea of a self. This is where my theory plugs in. What we’re trying to do tonight is not only give Delta consciousness, but consciousness of a self, of his own separate self. Now… what do you think about that?”
Jon looked at Amy, as if awaiting unbridled support, but Amy simply nodded and said, “I think you’re mad. But let’s try it anyway.”
Jon smiled and continued, “The first thing we have to do is design an anchor. A core belief in a sense of self that Delta can identify with on a very basic level. I thought about linking it to Delta’s physical sensations, something like the pressure behind the eyes combined with feelings coming from the chest and abdomen. It requires something that is always present and physical sensations are the only thing I can think of that would qualify for that… I’ve prepared the links in the first programming sequence. Once these links have taken hold, we’ll have to go one step further and cross-reference the connections with a range of thought processes. It’s a bit like making Delta believe that he’s this inner self that not only has certain physical feelings, but also a belief system that defines personal preferences. What I’m trying to do is not only implant a generic value system, but a personal one. You know how serious you take certain things when they seem to be personal, don’t you, Amy?”
Amy snorted in disgust. Just because she occasionally became quite emotional when other people criticized her work didn’t mean she wasn’t a rational human being as well as a brilliant scientist. “What do you mean by that? Are you saying I’m too emotional about all of this?”
“No, of course not,” smirked Jon. “I just wanted to highlight the power of emotions once taken personally. If there’s no one there to be emotional then the whole concept doesn’t work, does it? Emotions like desire or aversion all require a personal self to have such emotions, a self to be in such a state. Otherwise there’s simply no energy behind them in the first place. They lose the ground they require to grow on.”
Amy nodded. “OK… Still, I’m not too emotional!”
Jon smiled and started designing sequence two, which was based on a recursive, fractal algorithm that modified itself in clever ways, mimicking the natural learning processes of a young child. It was similar to creating a
picture. A picture of a self, by playing connect the dots and filling in the blank surfaces with colorful memories all pointing in different ways to Delta’s virtual self.
“The final step will be to create an overlay to basic experience, an objective and relativistic view of the world on Delta’s now egocentric and emotionally active responsive structures. In the beginning I’ll keep it as simple as possible and only implement a basic knowledge of language and a single object. I thought about a bird, its visual form as well as the chirping. If Delta is able to recognize the sound, connect it to the bird as well as identify it as something different and separate from himself, then we’re on the right track.”
“You make that sound so easy,” replied Amy in an ironic tone. “Why didn’t you think about this three months ago?”
Jon looked up from his holographic workstation in surprise, gazing at Amy who was grinning as she secured the halo-shaped memory implantation device on Delta’s head.
“You look good today!” Amy smiled at Delta, carefully touching his cheek. “We would love to finally get to know you.” Amy liked how Delta’s strong jaw was perfect and smooth as a baby’s skin.
It’s a shame that you might end up in the sun room, thought Amy. But maybe, just maybe, Jon’s right this time. I really hope he is.
Amy looked up from Delta and plugged the fiber-optic cable into the Halo that was now fastened to Delta’s head with two dozen tiny needle-like rods that connected to his skull, rendering any movement of the programming device impossible.
Jon initiated sequence one, slowly and carefully increasing the flow of data, giving Delta time to adjust to the flood of information entering his system.
“His biological readings are stable. He seems to be handling this just fine,” reported Amy.
Jon nodded and increased the bandwidth to one hundred terabits per second. “Let’s slowly back off and initiate sequence two.” Jon turned back to his workstation to commence with the next stage. “How is he holding up?”
Amy frowned, inspecting the biosensor readings on her tablet. “Heart rate rising, now at one hundred twenty beats per minute. His breathing is fast and shallow. His eyes are moving… it looks like he’s dreaming.”
Delta’s leg and arm muscles started contracting, first nearly invisibly but after a few seconds his arms and legs started twitching violently.
“Secure him. Tighten the straps. We don’t want him to get hurt.” Jon struggled to keep Delta’s arms down while Amy secured the padded steel bands. “That’s better. It won’t be long before the programming is complete. Just a few more seconds.”
Amy felt exhausted. It was nearly 4 a.m. and she hadn’t had any sleep for more than twenty-four hours. “I hope this is all worth it,” she muttered.
“Amy, can you please set up the holo-projector, pointing at a location directly above his head? Load a video showing a bird singing and flying around in front of him. I’d like to play that to Delta as soon as the last sequence is finished.”
Amy started preparing the projector while Jon initiated the final sequence. Jon wiped sweat off his forehead and set the process in motion, gazing at Amy who nodded, indicating that all was set up and in place for the important test.
“He’s awake! Now, quick, turn on the projector!”
Amy nearly dropped her control tablet when Jon yelled out in excitement at Delta suddenly opening his eyes.
The bird materialized out of thin air. A colorful canary now fluttered in front of Delta’s head and started to intone its beautiful song. Delta looked at it hypnotized, his eyes moving, while his body looked like it was carved out of stone. Slowly his mouth opened. He seemed to be trying to vocalize something. A sound came from his lips, but it was too silent to hear. Suddenly his eyes moved past the bird to the writing above his head. His face contorted, and he seemed to be in severe pain.
“Delta… My name is Delta!”
Jon and Amy watched in utter amazement as Delta pronounced these words while the color of his skin slowly changed from the milky white unearthly appearance to a rosy pink hue that eventually darkened and settled into a rich, golden-brown complexion. His body now looked as if it had been shaped out of bronze alloy and gently polished to award it the special shine that ancient statues depicting Greek gods must have possessed.
The muscles in his arms and legs contracted, wires of flesh pulsating under golden skin. The spasms increased until it looked like he was having an epileptic fit.
“Jon, he’s fading. His heartbeat is dropping fast.”
“Stabilize him!” yelled Jon. “We can’t lose him, not now!”
Amy acted fast, injecting Delta with a genetically modified barbiturate compound inducing a medical coma and at the same time stabilizing him in a mentally receptive but otherwise unconscious state similar to deep sleep.
“That was close,” sighed Amy. “He’s fine now. Sleeping like a baby.”
Jon dropped into his seat, looking back at Delta. “Can you please replay the recording of when he first opened his mouth? You know, when the bird hovered over his head. I think he was trying to say something. Filter out all the noise around him and amplify the area around his face.”
Amy got to work on her tablet and slowly walked over to where Jon was sitting. She zoomed in on Delta’s head and placed a virtual cone of silence around his mouth. “Now we amplify this section… and… voila!”
Amy bent down to Jon and activated the playback: “Bird!”
“He recognized it!” Jon jumped up and nearly knocked Amy off her feet. “We did it!” Jon hugged her and tears started streaming down his face. “We finally did it!”
Seven
Eva
All the men’s eyes were on Eva as she bent down to inspect Pavel’s body with her bio-scanner. She looked at Andrei, her eyes displaying worried disbelief. “That’s impossible! The scanner doesn’t show any readings that would even remotely indicate that this is a human being. All I can get from it is that… he seems to have turned into a plant…” She waved her hand at Ivan. “Please, scan him again.”
Ivan slowly approached the body that was by now almost perfectly integrated into the mossy ground. A few more minutes and nobody would ever be able to even guess that there had been a human body lying there just a few moments ago.
“Hmm… All I can find are traces of certain chemical compounds that point to the fact that a living organism has died at this location… but normally readings like that would require a decomposition time of more than… five thousand years.”
Eva noticed Ivan’s amazement. He seemed to be unsure if he should be excited or afraid.
“Try to collect a few samples of the flowers that grow on his… where his arm used to be. But be careful.”
Ivan tentatively grasped the handle of his extractor device and approached the site of Pavel’s death. His hands shook when the robotic claw grabbed the plant, securing it firmly while a laser cut the flower’s tiny stem.
“Mikhail, you replace Pavel, and remember what just happened. Don’t let yourself be caught unaware. These plants seem to have the capacity to mess with your brain. Guard yourself.”
The men nodded, unsure of how to guard themselves, but the faith in their commander was greater than the fear that was starting to take hold of them.
“Bloody insects! I hate all bugs, especially the flying ones!” Eva shouted as another huge, colorful bee-like thing hit her biosphere shield and exploded in a crackling rainbow of colors just two palm widths in front of her face.
“At least they don’t bite and turn me into a butterfly or worse,” she whispered quietly to herself.
Andrei must have overheard her murmur. “I think you’d look quite pretty with a set of colorful wings.”
Eva blushed. How could he have heard? He really seemed to be twice as alert as anybody else in this damn forest. She felt a certain comfort at Andrei’s watchfulness. It was good to have at least one person close by who was not intimidated by the unusual environment.
Andrei must have had the same intuition. He started moving ahead of the team. “Over here, there’s a waterhole.”
Eva stopped some five meters short of the steaming, bubbling pond. It was not very big, less than ten meters wide and perfectly round. “Ivan, prepare the Amphibian. See what you can find.”
Ivan smiled. The Amphibian was his most beloved toy. It reminded him of his early childhood when he played with all sorts of remote-controlled vehicles. He considered the Amphibian the ultimate manifestation of his childhood dreams. The Amphibian of course was no toy. It was a multi-million-dollar exploration device capable of exploring and analyzing all sorts of environments, from water to air and even space. A virtual reality headset that looked a bit like a baseball cap with built-in goggles controlled it. The cap itself consisted of a fabric of highly sensitive electronic sensors and emitters that connected directly to the perceptive centers in the human brain, providing the controller of the Amphibian with an experience very similar to a real physical journey in a mixture between a submarine and a jet fighter.
Ivan loved the trips in the Amphibian. He could enter a different reality, feeling like he was in command of the most powerful vessel in the universe, while at the same time remaining in perfect safety.
Ivan was now fully immersed in the virtual reality simulation of the Amphibian’s cockpit. He always found it amazing looking back at his own physical appearance from a perspective similar to that of a flying ant. The Amphibian itself was not very big, only about fifteen centimeters long, and not much thicker than a cigar.
But it definitely looks much more spacious when you’re inside, thought Ivan as he slowly started hovering over the bubbling surface. He unconsciously held his breath when maneuvering the Amphibian into the steaming liquid.
Humans and other Aliens: Book 1 Page 3