Mind of a Child_ Sentient Serpents

by Dean C. Moore

  “Why did I give you this gift? I’m not sure you can say I did. That would be the one who willed us the alien DNA. The question is why did he or she give it to us? If I had to guess, it would be that to be truly safe from alien civilizations more advanced than we are and determined to do us harm, something was needed to level the playing field. That supreme leveler is your ability to pull what you need out of the Akashic field, the mind of God, if you will. The library containing the creations of all lifeforms on all worlds in all times.”

  Natty’s mind flashed on the revelation recently out of quantum physics that information is never destroyed. Thoughts never die. Everything ever thought, done or accomplished is forever out there. The studies confirming as much had run into long-standing Buddhist beliefs, and warnings to be careful to guard your thoughts. For they affect everything and everyone, and are forever.

  “Your job, then,” his father’s voice continued, “is to keep that lens to the Akashic Records clear. Your mind free of self-doubt, your concentration sharp and focused, your intentions good, and your will unwavering. For should static creep back on the channel, all will be lost.

  “As it is, the Akashic library is vast, and how it is exactly you will know what to pull out when, to meet whatever threats await us out there, that’s a supreme mystery I imagine you will spend the rest of your life trying to figure out. Will meditative practices help? Will surrounding yourself with the right people be key? I imagine the answer to both is as obvious as it is incomplete.

  “For to follow on this path you must follow the clues as they’re given you, along a trail of breadcrumbs that have yet to reveal themselves. But I’ll do what I can to help, if you’ll let me. I’m waiting for you in your true home among the stars, in the ship I made for you. It’s very possible I already hold in my possession the first clue.”

  The wheels on the codex stopped spinning.

  As soon as Natty could get his body to respond again, he padded over, picked up the codex, shoved it back in the safe, closed the door, using his back and his body weight to make sure he heard that satisfying click.

  Absently, his head tilted up at the sweeping expanse of wall-filling window that faced the city. And still his head tilted up. At the sky.

  NINETY-TWO

  Leon barged into Truman’s office where he’d tracked Natty down. He entered like a storm front blowing in. “I need to speak to you.”

  Having only recently set down his father’s codex, Natty barely had the energy to swivel the chair his way. “Now’s not the time, Leon. I’ve been dealing with recent revelations. I’m a bit shell-shocked right now.”

  “You aren’t the only one.”

  “What is it?” Natty said, his mind focusing from its dull haze on a dime. It was a trick he’d learned from OMEGA FORCE, and most particularly from Leon during their jaunt in the Amazon rainforest. When soldiers pushed past all human endurance had no choice but to find another gear. Or die. And he wasn’t ready to die.

  “As your head of security and wargames I have access to certain classified files. Truman’s are the most eye-opening.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  “You’re aware that Truman is an ecosystem AI gone rogue?”

  Finding himself squirming in the chair, Natty got a hold of himself, clamping his hands into the armrests and letting the locked-in muscle reaction spread to the rest of him so he simply couldn’t move. He knew he shouldn’t feel guilty; he’d meant to tell Leon; there just hadn’t been the right opportunity, not with everything going on. “Yes,” was all he said.

  “You’re aware of what prompted him to go AWOL?”

  “Vaguely. The proof of advanced sentient life found on the moon. Some kind of artifact I would imagine.”

  Leon collapsed in the easy chair facing Natty’s desk. He looked nearly as hollowed out as Natty. “The artifact was built to move worlds.”

  Natty, who was having trouble meeting his eyes, had no choice now.

  “It’s how…”

  “Theia ended up colliding with us,” Natty said, finishing the thought. “Was it meant to destroy us?”

  “Truman wasn’t sure. He thought it was possible they were trying to save us. Without a moon human life wouldn’t even be possible. And with the artifact, we can move the moon and our world to any place in the cosmos we desire, should the need arise. Someone with your imagination I’m sure would have no trouble divining all sorts of reasons we might want to do that. Well, he did too. Which raised the specter of how to activate the device.”

  Natty relaxed his leg muscles and the chair sprang him up to vertical. It had been an involuntary move. “Did he come up with an answer?”

  “No, but he surmised that it might activate itself.” Natty’s eyebrows tented at the news. “Once the consciousness on this world was advanced enough. Otherwise why risk saving us, only to spread a cancer upon the cosmos by giving us access to all of it?”

  Natty pulled back the silver ball, let it drop, creating a domino reaction with the rest of the balls hanging on chains. Newton’s Cradle, as the contraption was called, was meant to demonstrate conservation of momentum. Though it had likely been coopted here for other purposes. Namely as a meditation device. Perched as it was on Truman’s desk, Natty was employing it now as it was meant to be used, as far as he was concerned, to clear the refuse from his mind so he had room to think. He stared at the chain reaction creating a pendulum motion for a time before saying, “makes sense.”

  He looked up from the chain reaction taking place on his desktop. “And that’s why you’re here. You’re not sure, in this light, about the merits of my SPACE COWBOYS project.”

  “On the contrary. But I believe his mission, to accelerate the race to higher consciousness here on Earth, deserves to be carried out. Even if his methods were lacking, the underlying motive was good.”

  “But how can I do both?”

  Leon remained suspiciously silent. Natty could tell he was letting him draw his own conclusions. “You want me to clone the team? So we can be in two places at once. Clearly you’re expecting forces here on earth, resistant to the idea of democratically dispersed higher consciousness, to put up a fight.”

  “More than two places at once. There are other files suggesting at least three teams will be needed. Of course, that number might swell by the time I get to the bottom of those stacks of files.”

  “You want to know if this is within my capability?”

  “Yes.”

  Natty’s chest heaved in another uncontrolled reflex. “Up until today I’d have said you were mad. The technology is at least another ten years out. Not to mention the matter of uplifting our consciousnesses into these other vessels. The mind-uploading technology might well be twenty-years out.”

  “But then you had your mind blown, before I had the chance to do the same.”

  Natty took a deep breath, held it, and refused to let it out until he’d decided on a course of action. As the burning air blasted out of his nostrils, he went to the safe, opened it.

  He played the codex for him.

  There was an understandable period of silence in its wake.

  Finally, Leon smiled. “Maybe I will start referring to you as Aladdin’s Lamp. Because every time I polish the tarnish off you, a wish is granted.”

  “All this proves is what you’re asking may be possible in the here and now. Not that the answers are just popping into my head.”

  Leon rose from his seat. “Let’s wait for the shell shock to wear off and see where we stand.”

  He was halfway to the door when he stopped and turned back towards Natty. His eyes blankly sweeping the floor as his mind raced to put the final pieces together. Finally, he looked up at Natty, though the million mile stare hadn’t exactly left him. “First the radio broadcast you get from galaxies far far away spelling trouble for us. Then the revelation of yet another alien threat from an entirely different source, one which Truman unearths. And now your father hints at a third
alien menace. Are they really so unrelated as all that? Maybe this unholy trinity of otherworldly forces has to be considered in concert with one another?”

  Natty’s smile was strained, but it was nonetheless there. “You have a beautiful mind when it comes to military strategy and tactics. But as you say, let’s wait until the shellshock has waned a bit before we jump any further into this.”

  Knowing good counsel when he heard it, Leon exited the room, closing the door behind him, and sealing off this alternate reality for now. That was the thing about a mind-blowing universe. Pacing your growth and recovery sessions to further shockproof your mind against what was out there was all too important.

  ***

  Natty took from his pants pocket the fragment of rib the white Indian had given him back in the rainforest. His mind drawn to it all of a sudden for whatever reason. Wondering about the Indian’s connection to the mysteries of the universe, at least in so much as it involved Natty and the Space Cowboys. Unable to make any more of the clue, he set it down on the desk.

  Whereupon it began to spin. Of its own accord.

  And then it levitated, maintaining its steady rate of rotation.

  Natty gasped. “That’s right. I forgot I sighted the FORESCO compound on a power spot. Truman must have thought highly of the idea and moved his base of operations to a similar vortex. Well, that bodes well at least for getting us back on our feet and back into action soon enough.

  “Now, what does this clue have to do with our white Indian friend, I wonder? A shaman who resents FORESCO occupying sacred ground? A shaman who spends most of his time on the power spot? Could this be a fragment of his floating rib bone I’m looking at?”

  He groaned in frustration. Let the matter go for now, Natty. For now, you couldn’t fry an egg without instructions, and you probably couldn’t understand the instructions.

  NINETY-THREE

  Leon turned the virtual page of the comic on the 12.9 inch iPad screen. DeWitt’s ten year old, sprawled on his lap, hugging his right thigh between his legs like one of those horses on a carousel. “The lion of Sparta…”

  “That’s my dad,” the ten year old said, pointing to his father in the comic.

  Leon stifled a growl. “Why, yes it is.”

  “They call him that because he’s always pouncing on the bad guy and ripping him apart with his bare hands.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “When, of course, he isn’t just biting their heads off.”

  “You don’t say.”

  The ten year old showed him by opening his mouth wide and roaring, “Ahhh!” and making lion’s claws with his hands and scratching Leon’s face. “Just like that.”

  “You don’t say. I can’t believe either technique would be particularly effective for taking someone’s head off and freeing him of his limbs.”

  “My dad’s been reading me these things since I was five, and I’ve only recently come to question the efficacy of such methods myself. Clearly he’s using some kind of exoskeleton to assist him with ripping them limb from limb, and as for the head biting off thing, I’m thinking he just bites down on their jugulars and rips them out.”

  Leon nodded. “That does make a lot more sense. Still…”

  “Just keep reading. You’ll see.”

  DeWitt tried to ignore the frog parked in his throat, refusing to choke on the words. “The lion of Sparta leaped on the Ubuku warrior painted up like a bird, the wings tattooed along the arms, and ripped his arms off with his bare hands.”

  “See, I told you.”

  “And he said, ‘Try and fly away now, little birdie’. And then, seeing that the Ubuku warrior had tattooed the head of the bird to his own head, he bit his head off at the neck. And he said, ‘Now you can run around like a headless chicken, you worm!’ And so the Ubuku warrior darted off, blood squirting out of his neck like a fountain.”

  “Hmm, you’re right. That last part does strain credulity. Maybe the exoskeleton extends up around his jaw and head, adding to his bite strength.”

  “Hmm, possible.” Leon feigned deep consideration of the matter.

  “What, no close up of the blood squirting!” the ten-year-old said flipping the page then flipping back. “He always cuts out the best parts. Has this comic been edited for ten year olds?” he said, smelling a rat, and giving Leon the evil eye.

  “I swear if it is I had nothing to do with it.”

  The kid grabbed the iPad out of his hand, played with the screen until he found the parental discretion function, undid the edit, and voila, squirting blood shooting out of the neck. The missing panel inserted itself into the comic right where it should be. “Much better. I swear my mother is the worst. Never let her get her hands on these things or the lion of Sparta will turn into my fairy godmother in a tutu. Absolutely horrifying.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think I could survive another makeover. I mean, I don’t think your father could.”

  “Tell me about it. The thing that guy has to put up with from his dufus OMEGA FORCE captain.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “You don’t believe me?” He sighed dramatically. “Read on. You can’t believe how painful it is to read.”

  “Oh trust me, I can.”

  “Ten more minutes, young man!” his mother yelled from the kitchen. “Then Leon is mine.”

  The ten year old sighed dramatically. “See what I have to put up with? The woman has no appreciation for classic literature. You can count on her to come in every time in the middle of a good beheading with, ‘Did you remember to make your bed?!’ Shouted down from upstairs in a thunderclap of a roar to make Thor reach for his hammer, mind you.”

  Leon laughed. “You can’t be talking like this at ten. Your mother will think you’re an adult possessing her ten year old.”

  “I should be so lucky. Okay, since time is of the essence, skip to the Goliath-Bot wars. I already know the Nano Wars by heart.”

  Leon flipped the virtual pages.

  “There,” the ten year old said coaching with a finger point.

  “This is where the dufus captain walks them into a trap, thinking he’s just fighting one Goliath-Bot when he’s fighting an entire army. I tell you, what a dweeb.”

  Leon took a deep breath. “Okay, that’s enough young man,” mom said, charging into the living room, lifting the ten year old off Leon’s lap, and shuttling him out of the room. “But you said we had another ten minutes!” he squawked.

  The mother wiped the tears out of her eyes. “I lied. Go, take this silly thing with you,” she said, stuffing the iPad into his hands.

  The ten year old just shook his head at Leon. “She gets like this every time dad’s late getting back. I told you they have to debrief him. They can’t let him walk around knowing what he knows without some safeguards. Tell her, Leon. She’s so naïve about these things.”

  Leon smiled. “I’ll tell her.”

  The ten year old ran up the stairs to his bedroom.

  Leon pulled Corin against his chest and hugged her tight as she sobbed her heart out.

  When she pulled her head back to wipe her eyes and compose herself, he took her by the shoulder and walked her out to the patio. The eighty-acre farm, sporting mostly corn at the moment, but sunflowers as well, and in another area also growing peanuts and sweet potatoes, was being tended by robots of various configurations, each specialized for attending the crop in question. The foodstuffs would be transgenic, to justify the cost of the robotics, and would put superfoods of the prior era to shame for nutrition density. Even the watering and weeding and turning of the soil in the fallow areas being rotated out each had a specialty bot to see to it.

  Leon doubted she had to lift a finger to tend her farm or even keep an eye on the outside. The barns on the property were indoor farms that had their own robot crews to tend to the leafy greens. The house and property AI overseeing the army of bots, big and small, down to the nanites in the soil relaying latest intel on soil conditions, would over
see coordination of all aspects of keeping the property productive and profitable. It would even negotiate sales of the products and ordering of more supplies, witnessed by the robot trucks being loaded with corn, peanuts, sweet potatoes and sunflower seeds. A separate truck was gobbling up all the leafy greens. The farm’s own label was on the trucks, suggesting they too were under Property AI supervision.

  The sun was setting over the hills in the distance.

  It was a pastoral scene out of Field and Stream.

  He hoped the vista would work its magic on Corin the same way it was working its magic on him. Likely she spent so much time inside minding house and kid that she forgot she had some equity to cash in from the serene life she’d inherited.

  “We have him in cryogenic freeze,” Leon said, keeping his eye on the vista, figuring he could use some more nerve settling to bring her up to speed. “Figured it was better that way. We won’t be deploying for a while yet. You know how he can be.”

  She huffed. “Please tell me you’ll cure him of that.”

  “Working on it. Some people just have to be taught to enjoy the finer things in life.”

  “How long will you give me with him?”

  “Think he can stand more than a couple days?”

  “Ought to be just enough before I start threatening him with divorce.”

  He squeezed her tightly from the side and together they looked out at the sunset. “Who in their right mind would leave all this to go off to war?”

  Leon glanced back at the kid engrossed in the comic. He’d snuck back downstairs to eavesdrop on their conversation. The kid possessed some serious reconnaissance skills. Even Leon’s jacked up nervous system hadn’t detected the snake slithering back down the stairs to his favorite roost. He returned his attention to the vista outside to prevent calling his mom’s attention to her child’s presence. “Maybe you and the kid should come along for the long haul aboard ship. It’s clear his son is headed in his footsteps. It might be a way for the two of you to find more common ground in your relationship.”