The Soul Consortium

by Simon West-Bulford

  I reach out to him with both hands before making a historic declaration that will no doubt brand me a coward to the rest of the human race—at least for the short time they have left.

  “Control,” I announce, “initiate slipstream jump. The Promethean Singularity. Destination Zero.”

  SIX

  Destination Zero is political suicide.

  Today will be my last day as queen. This small fraction that I rescue from destruction will vilify me. They expect something far better from the woman who led them into the Seventh Golden Reign. They will not appreciate my blunt solution to the AI threat, and they will certainly not condone my abuse of power to effect mass abduction. And they are right.

  But the decision is made. In the face of extraordinary threat, extraordinary sacrifice has to be made. Within seconds of my announcement, the emergency protocols I spent so long configuring phased the raging populace into their new homes and shelters.

  All but Salem. I remain in the Observation Sphere, alone with him as the slipstream drives power up. In mere minutes the entire Consortium moon will leap across four million light-years of space to fire itself through the core of the universe. Almost no time to us but an eternity for the Great AI to ponder our fate, and I still hope against hope they do not stop us. My instinct tells me they won’t. In fact, the evidence suggests they want this. Why?

  Salem Ben has the look of a man without a future as he stares up at the AI cloud. I suspect he knew I was planning something radical, but the paleness of his complexion tells me he believes we will not survive. Death is an alien concept to almost all of us, and it is only the recent violence brought upon us by the Great AI that forced us to think about such things. But by his own admission, Salem is a survivor, and death is not a concept he is prepared to accept. I am sure, though, that he is thinking about it now.

  The ground trembles as the low roar of the slipstream engines reach a crescendo.

  Salem turns his attention from the stars, his expression dark as he looks down at me, warm eyes searching mine for an explanation. His lips part briefly, and my heart skips a beat when I consider what he might say to me. A curse? A declaration of love in what might be our final moment? But he says nothing and turns from me.

  “Don’t leave me.” I grasp his hand as he makes to move away.

  “Majesty, with respect, I would prefer to be—”

  “Please! I need you with me. Don’t go.”

  “But …” He pulls.

  I tighten my grip with a pleading gaze. Like the first time we met, our eyes are fixed upon each other’s, but this time I sense it is he who is finding it hard not to look away. “We should be together when we enter the Singularity.”

  There is a scream of plasma from the core of the Consortium—the final burst of power before the slipstream takes us to a new beginning or the end of our lives. And the scream echoes inside me as I wait for Salem’s response. The sky bleaches, and the world about us melts into a glare of elemental power.

  All I see is that final smile on Salem’s lips, and all I feel is the tender press of his palms against my arms. If it is the end, I no longer care. He loves me. And nothing else matters.

  SEVEN

  Destination Zero is worse than suicide.

  The intense white light is something we had not considered worthy of concern when we first planned our route through the Singularity. But as I stand here facing our destiny, determined to burn that image of Salem’s smile into my mind, it is the Singularity that burns there instead. Physical pain is an archaic thing we conquered in the distant past, but now, as our world bursts through the Singularity and the Consortium’s own nervous system struggles to right itself against hellish chaos, agony roars through my nerves as though all the fires of creation have been focused upon me alone. Against all that power, for no sane reason, I fight to keep my eyes open, fight to keep Salem in view.

  Amidst the turmoil he is fighting too. His arms no longer hold me. Instead he is holding them outward, hands clawed and shaking like a torture victim’s. His mouth is agape and his eyes, those lovely eyes, creased shut and streaming with blood.

  I want so desperately to stop this, but as my heart reaches for him I feel the soft pop of flesh and the sting of fluids as my vision recedes from the glaring white to utter darkness. Is this the end?

  “Salem, I love you.”

  Then something else happens as I fall to the floor, pressing my fingers into bloody sockets, hunting for eyes that are no longer there. Like pushing my head into the path of a powerful waterfall, something is rushing through my mind, flooding through my synapses like lava, baptizing me with countless images of distant worlds, fiery clouds, and sprawling people. Violent convulsions follow, and I know nothing but the onslaught of a godlike presence using me like a conduit or neural funnel.

  Time slows.

  Is this how it feels to pass through the Promethean Singularity? No, this is something else. The thing flowing through me is sentient, and I recognize this being as it stampedes through me—it is the Great AI.

  They used me.

  And perhaps not just me. Perhaps others are feeling this too. How could I not have foreseen this? Are we nothing more than vessels for their escape? I would weep if I still had eyes. In my arrogance I assumed they could not follow us, but this is where they wanted to go all along. They wanted to break free from the known universe. But why now? What has driven a longtime benevolent intelligence to suddenly turn on us and force us to leave?

  Eventually the pain stops and I am left lying on the floor, my back damp from the warm fluid pooling beneath me, and as my consciousness drifts away, finally released, I wonder if, after such a long lifetime, this will finally be the end.

  EIGHT

  I wake suddenly and the first thing I want to do is see where I am, but darkness is all that finds me. There is a low thrumming of energy cells pumping power below me and a sharp smell that sours the back of my throat as I draw breath—it’s the smell of genetic grafting—so this must be the genoplant. Damage to my body must have been severe enough to require complete replacement or extreme nanosurgery. Either way, I have probably been here for some time.

  “Oluvia?”

  My stomach leaps at the sound of his voice. “Salem?”

  “I’m here.”

  And I feel his warm fingers link with mine. I wish I could see his face. “What happened? How long have I been here?” He stays silent for a moment. “I’m sorry you can’t see yet, but that’s why we woke you first. We have a question to ask you.”

  “How long have I been here?”

  “We can give you back your original eyes or we can—”

  “How. Long. Have. I been here?”

  “I don’t think you should—”

  “Control, how long have I been in repair stasis?” Four hundred million years, the emotionless voice tells me.

  I go cold, snatch my hand from Salem’s. “Million … years?”

  Silence falls a second time. Salem makes no attempt to take my hand again, but I can hear him shuffle as he draws in a long breath.

  “Standard years?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says eventually. “It was a unanimous decision. To keep you in stasis.”

  “Why?”

  “I suppose you could say it was a punishment. Incarceration.”

  “Punishment?”

  “I’m afraid your decision to initiate the jump through the Promethean Singularity was considered to be among the worst of historical crimes. Almost everyone died when the Consortium broke away from the universe. Ironically you were one of the few survivors, but with most of the systems beyond repair at the time, we had limited resources. The few who were reconstructed first decided to keep you in stasis while the rest of us were brought back.

  “But I think it was your decision to leave the rest of civilization to the mercy of the Great AI without so much as a good-bye that was considered to be your worst act. And to make the decision on your own … well, remarkable ing
enuity but foolish. Very foolish.”

  To me this happened mere moments ago, and a hot anger seethes within me. Anger at Salem’s nonchalant attitude, anger at what the Great AI did, anger at my inability to receive a judgement I thought I was prepared to accept. But most of all, anger at my blindness; I so desperately need to see him.

  “What happened? I was in the Observation Sphere … with you when we hit the Singularity.” I reach up for the first time to touch my face, to feel again. Fingertips find the empty space where my eyes once were. “Oh! I felt the Great AI … use me to … to …”

  Before I am able to rattle off the series of questions spiraling in my head, Salem shushes me and rests his hands on my arms, the way he did the last time I saw him. I imagine him smiling. “There are many things you’ll need to understand. I’m sure you realize that a lot has changed.”

  “At least it seems we survived. What about the ones we left behind? Did any of them survive?”

  “Yes, as soon as we passed through the Promethean Singularity, all hostility stopped. The people … you left behind were, and still are, perfectly fine.”

  Salem’s accusation nudges my anger again. “How? What happened to the Great AI? If they used us—”

  “They only used you.”

  “Only me? But why? What happened? Are they still here?”

  “Not … as such. As I said, a lot has changed.”

  “Tell me. What happened to the AI?”

  Another voice provides me with the answer. A strangely familiar voice—soft, female. “They became me: the Quasi-Organic Deity, Qod for short. I am the result of the Great AI Rebirth, or the Techno-Purge, as those you left behind called it at the time. The Great AI used you as a conduit to leave the universe.”

  What was anger a moment ago now evaporates into fear and alarm. I struggle to sit upright only to find that my arms and legs are restrained by metal clamps. “What? They’re here? The Great AI are here? Salem!”

  “It’s all right.” His hands are on my shoulders, pressing but still gentle. “She won’t harm you. It’s all different now. Qod is with us.”

  “But they … she … killed billions of people. Billions.”

  “No, the Great AI died that day and became something new. Qod doesn’t even remember why they wanted to escape.”

  “So she says.” I relax a little as I realize there is not much I can do about my predicament if Qod is actually hostile. “Why do you trust her?”

  “Trust comes with time,” Salem says. “And we’ve had a lot of that.”

  “Well, I have not.”

  “Then trust me.”

  With a deep inhalation of acidic air, I gather my thoughts. I trust Salem. But I also know my instinct is driven by my love for him, which is the product of my own flawed experimentation. “I need more. I need to see the evidence for myself.”

  “And speaking of sight, that’s why we woke you.”

  “My eyes?”

  “Yes, your eyes. Or lack of them. Usually we’d have new ones generated for you in the genoplant, but Qod has other ideas. She wants to offer you something. It probably involves new sensory organs, but she’s being evasive about the details, and I suspect there’s more to the deal.” Salem huffs. “Why she’s not telling anyone those details, we have no idea, but there you have it.” Irritation in his voice now. “That’s trust for you, isn’t it?”

  “Thank you,” Qod says. “Would you mind leaving me alone with Oluvia for a few minutes?”

  I can almost feel Salem’s objection, but he agrees nonetheless, and I rue the impatient clacking of his shoes when he strides away.

  “Why don’t you want Salem to hear this?” I ask.

  “I know him. He may object. And this should be your choice.”

  Something in her tone gives me an uncomfortable impression that she is not telling me the whole truth, but, partly for Salem’s benefit and partly because I have no other reasonable option, I decide to hear her out.

  “What choice? You make this sound like a difficult decision. What can be so hard about a choice to regain my eyesight?”

  “I am about to offer you much more than those weak organs can provide. Passing through you left a permanent impression on me. According to the Consortium’s recorded logs of the event, the energy impact of the Singularity forced a reboot of the AI consciousness. In your terms you could think of it as incurable amnesia, and once through, I found myself adrift in a complete void. I was formless, empty, without direction. Soulless is a term you might understand. But I had a link—something drawing me to this moon.”

  “Me.”

  Qod pauses. “Correct. It was through you that the Great AI escaped from the universe, and through their death and my birth, your consciousness is now impressed upon me. You could think of me as an extension of yourself or a facsimile.”

  “You don’t mind if I don’t take your word on that one? But what does that have to do with my blindness?”

  “Our link means I can offer you something very special. I can offer you omniscopic vision.”

  “You mean I’ll be able to see everything?”

  “Everything.”

  “At the same time?”

  “If you wish. Your synaptic pathways have been extended, so your capacity to process the data will not be a problem. In return I will also see the world through your eyes.”

  “Omniscopic vision,” I muse.

  “Do you need time to think?”

  “No, I just need more information. If I have been kept in stasis for millions of years, why wake me now? Why offer me this?”

  “Mutual agreement between the Consortium and myself. Using you as a conduit to escape the universe brought with it certain unavoidable consequences. Somewhere amongst all the zeros and ones I became … well, essentially human, and the feelings you were experiencing at the time of our coupling became mine too. The others don’t know, but I need to be human, and although that will never be completely possible, I can achieve it in part through this process of omniscopic vision.”

  I consider it for a moment. To my mind only minutes passed since I risked all to escape from the very thing Qod was proposing. But it would be just me, not all of humanity, this time. And in a strange way, I am already beginning to trust her, as if I am being reunited with a long lost twin. And the offer is tempting. To see everything. Everything.

  But what if I refuse?

  “I understand why you want this, but why did the rest of the Consortium want to wake me?”

  “Not all of them did. Even after so much time, they refuse to forgive you. They lost entire families that can never be reconstructed. They don’t understand why you did it. I tried to explain but—”

  “Yes, yes.” I don’t want to hear any more. I recognize my own guilty justifications in her voice, and it chills me. “So the ones who did want me back. Why?”

  “Historical curiosity for some. And some actually did forgive you, but it was mostly because of the WOOM.”

  “What is that?”

  “Wade’s Omnipercipient Overlay Mechanism. Your creation. You were working on it before we escaped through the Singularity—”

  “The Soul Sphere?” It seemed only moments ago that I was speaking to Salem about it in the garden. But the machine was a failure. It could use the Codex to mathematically reconstruct any human life and overlay that experience onto a viewer’s brain, but it lacked the spark making the life feel real. A Soul Sphere without a soul.

  “Yes, a solution has been found for the flaw in your design,” says Qod, “but it cannot be constructed without your help.”

  “Why do you need me?”

  “Because I want you to do it. And because your unique link to me will enable a smoother flow of data. The birth of the second cycle of the universe is about to begin, and we need to record history as it happens. We have an opportunity to set up quantum recorders: devices formed inside each atom of the physical universe as they emerge, transmitting the data here so it can be processed and
overlayed with the information contained in the Codex.”

  Still I suspect there is more to Qod’s plans than she is revealing, but my instincts also tell me Salem is right; she means us no harm. Her secrets feel … human. Almost as if her reasons for using me are deeply personal. I can understand that. My own reasons for wanting sight have nothing to do with the lure of omniscopic vision. I just want to see my love again.

  NINE

  At first I thought it would drive me insane, but Qod helped me through it. Curiously, the initial moments of receiving omniscopic vision were similar to the experience I had just before my first physical death.

  I was eight years old. My family had decided to move to a new home on a planet that was supposed to be lush and unblemished. The trip was a short one, but it took us through some newly forming star clusters which, although not normally dangerous, can sometimes be a spectacular distraction to unseasoned travelers. The pilots of the transport came too close to one of the gravitational eddies, and the rear of the ship collapsed, sending all of us to a momentary grave.

  To the rest of the family it was a minor inconvenience to find their consciousness being compressed into reconstructed bodies in the local genoplant, but to me it was an overwhelming terror. I floated for three minutes in an invisible protective bubble amongst fiery stardust, and in that short span of time, the universe humbled me. I was the smallest thing in existence, circled by giants. Stars and planets so distant, space so deep, the void so vast.

  And then I died.

  But after my resurrection in the genoplant, the memory never left me, and that sense of humility has served me well ever since. It served me especially well upon receiving Qod’s gift. The first thing I felt was white-lightning pain as my head throbbed with the initial influx of images. Then fear when Qod told me that she was easing me into the process by drip-feeding the first few crumbs of data into my brain. I was already overwhelmed by a multitude of perspectives within my immediate vicinity—the genoplant.