“So is it true?” Father whispers. “What Candice told us?”
I think it is his hand around mine, his thumb gently stroking the back of my hand.
Mother doesn’t say anything for almost a minute, but then her reply comes quietly, with a runny-nosed sniff. “Salomi’s condition is not of natural origin.”
“So it is true,” Father says. “The children’s DNA was manipulated. And you knew? You and Ezra knew?”
“We knew, yes, but I am afraid it is worse than you think. Not all the children were manipulated. Most of them had genuinely natural disorders. It’s only a handful who were altered.”
“And how is that worse?”
Mother takes a deep breath. “Because Candice wasn’t accusing the corporation. She was accusing me, personally.”
Father’s thumb stops stroking my hand, and his voice trembles. “I don’t understand.”
“When I first met Ezra, I knew he shared my concern about the government’s agenda. We suspected their motives were more about creating a slave race through genomic recoding than about eliminating all disease, and—”
“I know all of that, Elba. It’s why we both transferred to neuroscience.”
“But what you don’t know is that Ezra and I had already made progress. We were working together in secret long before you and I made the transfer. We succeeded in creating a stable recoding of the nanodrones. Just subtle changes to the algorithms here and there, but the results were astounding. We . . .” Mother pauses, realizing, I think, that Father would not be impressed by her zeal. She lowers her voice. “We created a coding sequence that would make the recipient happy rather than suggestible. We needed a subject to test it on and . . .”
“And you tested it on our daughter?” I cannot read the emotion in my father’s voice. It is low, perhaps even menacing.
“We . . . I was convinced it was safe.”
Father’s hand squeezes mine tightly.
I remember what Mother told me many years ago when I asked her why I was different. She told me that she didn’t know but that I was unique. She told me that if there was a God, then He had chosen me to be a special example to the rest of humanity, a living, shining message telling everyone that no matter what tragedy falls upon us, peace and contentment can always be found. One day people would learn to view the world through my eyes.
Now I have found out that this “God” is my mother.
I open my eyes a fraction to see why they are silent.
My parents’ eyes are locked. Father’s are filled with what I think might be grief, but Mother’s are wide and fearful. I want to tell them I don’t care what happened to me, but Father whispers something.
“Pardon?” Mother’s voice is nothing but a nervous croak.
Father clears his throat. “I said, ‘When?’”
Mother looks confused. “When? I thought you’d want to know why . . . or . . . or how I could justify . . .”
“I don’t care why,” he says. “And I don’t care how you justify it.”
Father closes his eyes tightly, suppressing his tears. Mother watches him, fighting back her own tears. I have been quiet all this time, chilled by what I have heard but disturbed more by the simultaneous pleasure of this new experience. I have never seen them like this. Never seen them fight or get angry with each other. But most of all there is the thrill of understanding. I don’t know if it is the knowledge that my condition is not some random quirk of nature but a controlled experiment that has instilled this new sense of security. What I do know is that my mother is the brightest of the bright, and my feelings of continual joy—though now confused with other senses of alarm and revulsion—are wonderfully contrived. It is a curious sensation that I feel, a blend of childlike wonder and a mysterious forlorn wisdom well beyond my years. She is as much a monster as I, yet I still love her.
I squeeze my father’s hand. “Hello, Daddy. Where am I?”
He turns, shocked but suddenly smiling. “Salomi!”
Mother brings her fingers to her lips and whimpers. Father glances at her, a fleeting moment of joy flashing in his eyes as he shares a moment of relief with her. Then it evaporates just as quickly into a look of wounded reproach.
Father strokes my hair. “You’re in the hospital,” he tells me.
“The nanodrones?” I ask.
“Your mother stopped them just as they reached you. She used the same algorithm that changed you—the ones that made you happy—so they stopped wanting to hurt everyone after that. You passed out. We got you here as quickly as we could. We’re all safe for now, and we have enough time to evacuate and find somewhere new. We can tell you all about it later . . . when you’re better.”
“That’s good,” I say. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Somehow, I know. I am dying. Whether it was the nanodrones or whether it is simply my time, I feel it coming.
Father shakes his head, confused, and something rolls inside of me, like a big, heavy wave. It’s irresistible and sad and beautiful at the same time, and I know, by the astonished expression on my parents’ faces, that somehow, they see it too. Mother reaches slowly across to my cheek and her fingertip rests there gently for a moment. She pulls her finger away and stares at it, at the wet droplet quivering there. A single tear. I can feel the tickle of its track as another follows it to seep warm into my ear. I am crying, and my skin feels tight as I scrunch my face up with the effort of it.
“Please don’t fight,” I tell them between breaths. “I think maybe the nanodrones . . . are fixing me.”
Crying is an exhausting thing and I want so badly to sleep. So I take one last look at my parents before closing my eyes again. They are holding hands tightly now as they watch over me, and with a sigh, as white light greets me, I allow a final smile to shape my lips. It is the first time I have ever done so freely.
salem ben
Is this my last thought?
My last memory?
From beauteous dream to cold flesh, enfolding me.
From brightest light to death-dark of tomb.
Mother leaving,
Forever mourning,
The hollow of her womb.
ONE
The naked light, so restful in its simplicity but uncompromising in its ability to expose the final moments of the soul, fades into the secrecy of darkness. Equally calming, the dark arouses different emotions—the comforts of sleepy nights and peaceful silence—yet I do not feel these things. It is cold in the darkness. Dank and fetid with decay. The lazy pulse of my heartbeat whooshes in my ears.
Before I fell asleep, I was sure I would enjoy this place, I might even have laughed, but something has changed. A shadow darkens my thoughts, the harsh truth of memories unfolding with the advent of the neural flush. I am no longer the happy girl Salomi Deya. I am Salem Ben, and though it will take several minutes more for my memories to be fully restored, already the remembrance of who I am sickens me.
I have done nothing wrong. The problem, in fact, is that I have done nothing at all. At least not for trillions of years, and this is what sickens me. I am a parasite, an emotional plagiarist, a grave robber invading the sacred places of long-dead human hearts for nothing more than the alleviation of eternal boredom. I no longer have the will to create meaning or purpose of my own, but I do not have the courage to die. It is a continuous mystery to me, why I go on living. No . . . not living. Existing endlessly, and I should have ended this endlessness long, long ago.
I know this depression is worse than usual because of who I just was. To feel such constant elation for twelve years and then lose it so suddenly is a laceration to the soul. It is the only reason I have not lived Salomi’s life more often—coming down is agony.
I sag in my prison, allowing my full bodyweight to drag me down along with my disposition, not caring that my manacles will cut into my wrists and ankles to provoke Qod’s insistence that I be repaired in the genoplant. But why hasn’t she said anything? Her usual p
ost-immersion greeting of “Did you find what you were looking for?” is absent. A very unusual thing for an incorporeal AI to be: absent. My pseudo-companion is always here, waiting for me with her sarcastic but playful commentary.
“Qod?” I call.
I wait in the darkness, but she does not answer.
Thankfully the WOOM does not appear to be affected by her disappearance, because I feel the shackles release me to the sludgy base of my twelve-year cocoon, and I see the soft aquamarine light of the Bliss Sphere seep through the crack of its opening.
My knees and palms are sticky and wet with organic material.
“Qod!” The irritation in my voice is plain. I should control my impatience, considering she has had to exercise hers while she waits for me to complete this life, but in truth, there is a touch of fear coloring my voice.
“Qod! Where are you?” My call is louder this time, as if volume makes a difference to a non-localized entity.
It takes me a moment or two to struggle to the edge of the WOOM after the neural cables have withdrawn from my brain, and I peel the folds of black flesh apart to get a full view of the sphere.
“Control,” I bark, “get me down from here. Where’s Qod?”
Servos whine as a long robotic appendage reaches down from above to grasp my torso. It lowers me gently to the platform near the exit of the sphere.
Unknown. Qod is not here.
“Yes, I know that. That’s why I am asking. Where is she?”
The mechanical dullard pauses before answering again.
Unknown. Qod is not here.
How can a self-sustaining artificial intelligence that has existed for billions of years, almost omnipotent, almost omniscient, not be here? She is everywhere.
“Why don’t you answer? Where are you?” My questions are no longer genuine inquiries; they are rhetorical. Perhaps she is running through diagnostics or attending to something important, but my instincts tell me something is very wrong. She could never be silent. She doesn’t know how! So, either she is choosing not to speak to me, or she has left. Both ideas seem unpalatable.
“How long has the Quasi-Organic Deity been gone?” I ask.
Six years.
“Six years? Where has she been?”
Unknown.
I leave the Bliss Sphere and begin the twenty-minute walk to the Observation Sphere. I could transport there, but I need to feel the muscles working properly in my legs again. When I am not in the WOOM living another person’s life, the Observation Sphere is the place I go. I go there to think. It has become a place not just of external scrutiny where the universe can be admired and studied from a distance, but a place of introspection where I reflect upon the eons of my life and try to understand why I am still here. I sometimes spend decades in the Observation Sphere, just sitting and pondering (Qod calls it brooding) while the machines constantly refresh any cells that indicate initial signs of atrophy. Qod prefers that I visit the genoplants, rather than have them sustain me remotely. She thinks it is unhealthy for a physical being not to be physical. But on moody days, I question why I even need a body at all. I question why, after quadrillions of years of existence, a human still looks like a human from Old Earth. No evolutionary change leading to physiological advancements; no voluntary discarding of redundant physical organs like lungs, kidneys, or intestines; no shedding of inconvenient emotions; no sustainable cross-breeding with other extraterrestrial species (where did they all go?). It’s true that humanity has enhanced the physical condition with technology, but whenever the human form shifts too far away from being recognizable, something always happens to remove the new divergence; new strains of life last a few million years at most. War, legislation, natural genetic purging—whatever the cause, humanity always gravitates back to its roots. There is a fierce instinct to preserve ourselves. Or at least there used to be. I am the last human, doomed to spend eternity pondering questions that no longer have any need to be answered.
“Control,” I say as I step inside the Observation Sphere and head for the seat at its center, “I know there are a variety of different questions I could ask you about Qod’s disappearance, all of which you will probably answer with your incredibly useful response of unknown, but I do hope you can furnish me with something helpful if I ask whether she left me a message before she left.”
There is no response.
I roll my eyes, realizing I did not actually ask a question.
“Why did we think it was a good idea to deprive you of any artificial intelligence whatsoever? No, don’t answer that—just tell me, did Qod leave any messages for me before she disappeared?”
Unknown.
The chair molds itself to perfectly fit the shape of my lean body, and I gaze out into the void. “Did she record any data at all, anything containing my name that could be interpreted as a message?”
Yes.
“Please play it for me.”
Day 4113. Data Analysis Batch 9K1.533: Abnormality transport complete. Containment fields holding. Monitoring abnormality for qalkkjk. Aberration intrusion detected detected detecteddddd. No! Initiating firewall proto proto Keitus proto Vieta protocols. No! Protocols. Protocols. Initihhyfmnm. No. Salem! Help . . . help . . . help . . . Salem . . . Sal . . . Sal . . . Sa . . .
Every muscle in my body goes tense. Even before it properly sinks in that Qod was in trouble when she recorded the message, those two words Keitus and Vieta run through me like ice water. I know those words. No, these are not just words. A name! But I have never heard of this person before. Why would the mention of this name strike me with paralyzing fear? Perhaps it is a memory I erased, believing it to be inconsequential. It must have been a clumsy effort if a fragment has been left behind, but whoever this person is, he was instrumental in Qod’s disappearance. Or was it more like . . . death? Is Qod dead? How can she be dead?
Would you like to hear the data file again?
I feel panic setting in. A universe without Qod would be terrifying, but I am no longer even in the universe as I knew it. The Soul Consortium escaped the quantum confines of the cosmological cycle long ago and now observes from afar. How could she leave me alone out here?
Would you like to hear the data file again?
“No! No, thank you.” And then a question comes to mind. One that feels like it has far, far more significance than I am consciously aware of. “Who is Keitus Vieta?”
Unknown.
“Where is he in the Consortium Archives? Which Sphere?”
The Control Core goes silent.
“Well? It was a simple question. Every living soul who ever existed except me has a recorded life in one of those spheres. This . . . Vieta person must be in there somewhere.”
There is no record of Keitus Vieta in the Soul Consortium Archives.
“What?” I get out of my seat. “Impossible!”
There is no record of Keitus Vieta in the Soul Consortium Archives.
My mind races, trying to work out what could possibly have happened in the eleven short years I spent within the WOOM to transform my life so utterly.
I raise my hands, knowing that my next request has to be phrased very precisely if I am going to get a sensible answer from a nonthinking machine. I am used to getting my questions answered by Qod. “Control, please access all data processed in the last eleven years and provide me with a summary sentence describing the nature of any unexpected events during that time.”
The Control Core goes silent.
“How long will it take? Estimate.”
Three point four minutes.
“Good. Proceed.”
I sit back down in my chair to wait for the answers. With my chin resting on my fist, I gaze out into the deep, black emptiness of space. There are no galactic clusters to observe at this point in the life of the cosmos. The universe is between cycles, waiting for the next cascading imbalance of particles to create the inevitable big bang. They are the same particles that have always existed, exploding outward to be co
nfigured in exactly the same way—over and over and over again—so that the universe is imprisoned by its eternally unchanging sequence of predetermined events. When it happens again, soon now, it will be the second time I have witnessed it—my third universe. I don’t want to see it again without Qod.
There are four unexpected events.
I suddenly realize that the Control Core’s calculation took longer than three and a half minutes. It was more like six. “Explain why that took longer than you expected.”
Event two is the explanation. Do you wish me to begin my summaries with event two?
“No, list them in chronological order.”
Event one: The Quasi-Organic Deity is no longer present. Event two: Unknown—all data evidence for a five-hour period erased from Control Core. Control Core could not reconstruct data. Event three: Presence of planetary body detected. Event four: Presence of unidentified quantum structure detected.
Event one I already know about, but each of the other three definitely falls into the category of unexpected. I have the strangest feeling I should not question the data erasure further, but events three and four tug hard at my curiosity.
“Expand details on event three. How could there be a planetary body still in existence after the collapse of the last universe?”
Unknown.
I shake my head. “Well, what about event four? Is it related to event three?”
Yes.
“Progress! How is it related? Did the unidentified quantum structure originate on the planet?”
The unidentified quantum structure is localized on the planet. Yes.
“Is it still there?”
Yes.
“Can we transport it here? No, wait. Wouldn’t Qod have tried this? Perhaps that’s why she disappeared. Whatever this thing is, it must have emerged completely independently from the universal cycle. And the planet too? Impossible.” I shake my head.
The Soul Continuum Page 7