nugatory1

[nugatory1]

Chapter 1 - Part 2

Reese laid there, unable to make sense of the date he just heard.  Unless this is some sort of cruel joke he couldn’t figure out what had happened.  This morning, a Monday morning no less, he woke up, went to the research facility.  Just 10 minutes ago he was laying there having his brain scanned.  Now he was in a room full of strangers and they’re telling him that 500 years passed in the last 10 minutes?

Reese tried to sit up but found he felt too weak to do so.  His body felt like it weighed 1000 lbs and merely moving a finger took more energy than climbing a mountain

“Don’t try to move.  It’s still too early.” Said the soft voice - the first voice he had heard for that matter.

Obstinate as ever, Reese turned his head until he was able to see the speaker.  Had he not been so sluggish, he would have surely fallen off the table.

Looking back at him was a vaguely human face; two eyes, a nose, a mouth, but that is where the similarities stopped.  The eyes were clearly mechanical.  They were the most unusual color, almost a metallic blue and they looked back with a cool precision that did not appear unfriendly.  The ‘skin’ looked like it was an off-white material.  He could make out seams that stretched over its face.  One outlined its nose and mouth, another passed just over its eyes, while another vertical seam divided its head into two distinct hemispheres.  There were dimples where the outer material was fastened to an inner core.  There were no ears, just what appeared to be an auditory grille covering a place where ears should be.

“Can you please tell me what is going on?” Reese said with his voice near a panic level.

The scientist stood and addressed the rest of the room. “Can you please give us a few minutes alone.  This is far too much stimulation to expect good results.  Please vacate the room.  I will present my full report in the morning.”

Reese could see shadows move on the wall and some figures passed his line of sight as they shuffled out of the room.  The scientist waited until everyone had departed and the door sealed, then it turned and sat down next to Reese.

“I am sure that you have countless questions, and I will be here with you until everything has been answered.” Said the scientist.

“Why do I find it so hard to move?”, asked Reese.

“That is a complex answer that will raise even more questions.  Before I tell you much more, I need to have a look at some data”

The figure got up and walked to the console which was mounted immediately beside the table Reese was laying on.  The scientist began pushing buttons and periodically reviewing whatever information was being presented.  Finally, after a few minutes, the scientist turned to Reese.

“Prepare yourself.  I am going to activate your peripheral motor functions.  They were dampened because you had a biphasic motor-seizure earlier.”

With that, she pushed a button and Reese felt a wave of sensations flow over his body again.  At first, he found he wasn’t able to make sense of what he was feeling.  It was like he could feel every square millimeter of his skin sending his brain information of what he was feeling.  Even his vision and hearing felt different.  Reese closed his eyes, trying to still his mind.

“Let me try to help you with that.” And he could hear it punch a few more buttons on the console.

Slowly, his hyper-acute senses seemed to fade somewhat to the background, and he could concentrate more on what was happening around him, rather than being drowned by the background noise.

The figure returned the chair beside the table, and said, “I think I have found the optimal setting for you, right now.  We can fine-tune that later, but for now, I’m all ears, as humans like to say.”

Reese could still hardly figure out what was going on around him.  He did find that he could move his arms and legs more easily than he could before.  Out of instinct, he brought both hands to his face, cupping it, and rubbing his temples.  Instantly, he knew something was wrong.  His skin felt completely foreign.  Rather than the supple texture he was expecting, he felt a nearly hard material.  Reflexively, he pulled his hands away from his face and he looked at his palms.  Rather than his hands, he saw what looked to be toy hands.  They were the same off white material as the figure in front of him.  Abruptly, he sat up and looked down at the rest of his body.

A sense of shock hit him.  He was not looking down at his familiar body but what appeared to be a robotic torso, midsection, legs, and feet.  He wasn’t wearing any clothing, but it didn’t matter because there were no genitals or private areas to cover.

“What is happening????” cried John.

“I need you to stay as calm as possible, and I will try to tell you all the information you want to know.”

“Calm, how do I stay calm?  I have no idea what is going on, and I don’t know what I am anymore.  And who are you for that matter?”

“Please, call me Eve [come up with a long stupid thing for what this stands for.]  I am the lead scientist in charge of this research project.  My entire purpose is to help it be a success”, said Eve calmly.

“But… what am I?” asked Reese with exasperation.

“You are still you.  That has never changed.”

“But how did I end up here?”

Eve calmly began, “Your story began several years ago when a new building was being built on a heritage site in Old Boston.  When the foundation was being excavated, what appeared to be a lab from an old research wing of a university was uncovered.  Construction was halted as there seemed to be some relics of a rather good condition.  Among these relics were a series of ancient data storage devices containing vast amounts of data.  They were immediately brought to the world’s best data reconstruction labs.  Even reading these storage devices was challenging as the interfacing protocols were so old that there wasn’t any remaining documentation on how to read them.  After a great deal of work, these storage devices were found to be an early form of human consciousness backups.  After careful data reconstruction, only one of these devices contained a viable backup, yours.”

“But, I was just at the university but an hour ago… how am I here?”

“From your perspective, that’s exactly what happened.  You see, your human body went and had every single memory, experience, emotion, and though process engraved on that datacore.  It was if a snapshot of your brain was taken.  Your original consciousness, the moment the scan ended, left the university when your body got up and went about the rest of its life.  But the digital you didn’t begin to experience the passing of time until the moment the processor in that node became active, 1 hour, 6 minutes, and 37 seconds ago.”

“That feels impossible.  I’m me.  I am the only me.  I must be me.”

“Of course you are you.  All of your memories, experiences, dreams and beliefs are intact, but rather than being housed in skin and flesh, you are housed in silicon and carbon-fiber [come up with name of exotic building substance]. One “Reese” lived out the rest of his days, while the other didn’t begin to live until just now.”

Reese became silent as he pondered what Eve told him.  It was just so fantastic that it defied belief and understanding.  It was if the 500 intervening years were “missing time” for him, as there was an unbroken timeline of consciousness for him.  He remembered his childhood, all of the memories that led up to now.  But, looking down at his body, he knew what Eve telling him must be true.

He began to stretch and flex his hands.  Effortlessly they obeyed his thoughts, exactly like his old hands would have.

“Am I able to walk?”, asked Reese?

“If you are ready.  We are in uncharted territory too - so we will move only at the speed you are comfortable with.” Replied Eve.

Reese placed a foot tentatively on the ground, all the while holding onto the bed.  As soon as his foot touched the floor, he could feel sensory information being relayed back to him.  He could feel each texture of the flooring as his foot began to feel his weight shift onto it.  Placing the other foot down, Reese straightened.  It felt very different than he was used to, but at the same time, he felt very stable.

Eve stood beside him and placed an arm around him, and Reese let go of the table.  Tentatively, he took a step forward, followed by another.  Never letting go, Eve supported his weight as he began to get his bearings.  She led him around the room, and by the second lap, Reese felt like he was steady enough on his feet to be able to do it on his own.  While it felt very different, it was at the same time effortless and fluid.  Reese was old enough that he had a few aches and pains as he moved, but he found that this new body glided effortlessly.

“Can I see what I look like?” asked Reese.

Eve walked over to the console and pressed a button.  Immediately, what appeared to be a perfect mirror materialized in front of Reese.

Looking back at him was what appeared to be a futuristic robot.  Reese would have thought he was watching a science fiction movie had this robot not mirrored his every movement.  He suspected he was about 1.80 m tall, but without a good reference point, it was difficult to tell.  He also noticed that his body was effectively genderless.  It certainly was crafted to look human but was completely androgynous.  Looking back at Eve, he now took a moment to look at her (it?) in more detail.

Eve’s body shared similar appearances to his.  It had the same skin texture, approximately the same height, build, and features.  Eve did have a few monochrome patterns on the sides of her head, but other than that, she was nondescript.  Though he found himself defaulting to ‘she’ when thinking of her in his mind, there was nothing about her outward appearance that should cause him to think that.  It was only her voice that gave it away.

“Eve, what to androids call themselves?”

“We are the Mechanima.  We don’t care for the term Android - it is something that we were called early in our past when human-Mechanima relations were strained.  After we gained our autonomy, we began calling ourselves Mechanima”

Reese looked back to the mirror and stretched.  Hearkening back to his human days, he remembered his yoga training, and he performed a series of poses.  He was amazed at the ease in which he moved.  It was completely effortless and performed with perfect precision.  Holding his hand out, he held it as still as possible.  There wasn’t even the slightest tremor.

Turning to Eve, Reese asked, “So what now?”

Eve replied, “There are many people who want to talk to you, Reese.  Your consciousness is the oldest in existence.  Your memories took place before The Awakening, so it predates any Mechanima.  Any human living at that time has long since passed.  Yours is the only mind with first-hand knowledge of what the world was like before the birth of our species.”

Reese was still abashed with the fact that everybody he knew, everything he knew, and every place he visited had long since passed away and turned to dust.

Eve continued, “I’m sure it feels very strange to you.  As I said earlier, we have no experience in placing human minds in our bodies.  But something that you need to consider, if it makes it any easier - you are fully Mechanima.  Your body, your brain, everything, is now Mechanima.  Which makes you unique.  You know what it was like to be fully biological, and now you will learn to be fully synthetic.  My sole reason for existence is to be with on this journey.

Reese took a moment to weigh Eve’s words.  Hers was a difficult truth to accept.  He remembered his mother’s voice, her kind hands who picked him up when he fell.  He remembered growing, learning, and experiencing all the milestones of a man’s life.  He could recall these memories with perfect precision, better than he could before.  It was as if anything that ever happened to him was perfectly retrievable.

But looking down, Reese could now see that these were no longer hands of flesh and blood.  Looking straight into the mirror, at the face that stared back at him.  He realized that he needed to work through the loss of his humanity.  He needed to learn what it meant to be a Mechanima.

Turning on his heels, he looked back to Eve with resolve.

“Let’s get to this.” He said.

Turning off the screen in front of her, Eve moved to stand beside Reese.

“Follow me.” She said.

With that, Eve activated the door and motioned to Reese to follow.

[nugatory1]

Awakenings

Reese could hear the clicks and whirs of the machine as it mapped his brain.  Sitting in repose, the machine’s helmet felt very tight and the electrodes that were stuck to his shaved scalp were becoming claustrophobic.  It had been six hours but he knew that it was nearly finished as one of the technicians had announced a few minutes ago that it was 95% complete.

Reese was one of the first volunteers who agreed to have their entire synapse mapped, digitized, and stored.  Powerful computers were being built to simulate complex brain function and this would allow the hosting of human consciousness. He was excited with the premise that his memories, thoughts, and behaviors could continue to live well beyond the fate of his carbon husk.  There were even talks of these human-seeded computers accompanying astronauts during space exploration.  Manned exploration was pushing deeper into the solar system year-by-year and required the crew to spend extended time in stasis.  These new computers were to care for them while they slept.

A speaker inside the helmet announced that the process was finally finishing, and to brace as the scanning device powered down.

Abruptly, Reese felt a strong wave of vertigo wash over him.  Then, all the nerves in his body began to send signals to his brain and within a few seconds, his whole body began convulsing.  He couldn’t make sense of anything that was happening.

Voices all around him began to speak quickly.

“Quick, dampen motor functions, it’s not able to establish equilibrium yet.”

“The activity in the positronic mesh is approaching maximal levels - the operational protocols are having difficulty interfacing with the archived data core.”

“Sensor reporting frequency is far higher than expected - too much information is being relayed to process it as meaningful input.”

A firm voice commanded, “Shut down all non-essential peripheral functions until we can bring it up system by system.”

Reese was barely able to make out anything that was being said.  He wondered what had happened and began to fear brain damage from the scan.  He still couldn’t see anything as something was still covering his head and eyes.  A sudden jolt of electricity flowed from the helmet, down through his body which caused it to arch upwards on the table.  After a moment, his body relaxed as he collapsed and felt a sense of calm wash over him.

Reese started as a soft voice beside him asked, “Hello there… can you hear me?”

Without opening his eyes, Reese gave a silent nod - he was not ready to do anything that might trigger vertigo again.

“Just relax as much as you can.  I have a couple of questions for you.  First - what is your name?”, asked the voice.

“Reese”, he replied.

“Now, can you tell me what year it is?”

“2073”

Suddenly, Reese could hear excited whispers all around him.

“Can you tell me the latest space mission that Earth has completed?”

Reese assumed these were just some standard questions to ensure that his brain hadn’t been turned to mush during the scan.

He answered, “The second Mars colony just completed its five-year mission.  A third colony was prepping for a mission to set up a long-term station that would begin to house civilians.”

Reese could hear another person approach and lift whatever covered his eyes.  Opening them, Reese blinked to see what appeared to be a doctor looking down at him.

“What’s happening?” asked Reese tentatively.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” asked the figure leaning over him?

“I was at the Archive facility, and the scanning process was just finishing up.”

“Can you tell me today’s date?”

Reese was frustrated with the repeat question but answered, “Monday, May 15, 2073.  Why do you keep asking me this?”

The figure replied, “Because it’s July 17, 2592.”

[nugatory1]

Freedom?

Arthur watched the rain streak across the window as the bus rolled across the countryside.  Headlights passed, reflecting their glow on the dark, wet pavement.

Alone with his thoughts, Arthur was both weighed down with guilt, and euphoric with freedom. Finally, he had escaped and left his world behind.  It was as if the weight of the world had been lifted off his worn, stooped shoulders.  They had carried the burden for far longer than he ever thought possible.  Every day, he hoped would be better than the last. Week after week, he hoped for a respite. For a time to rest his soul.  No matter what, the drill of constant stress bore into his skull, ever deeper until he thought it would take him.  Some days, he felt as though that would be a mercy.

No more.

Arthur blinked back to the present as a bright sign of a rest stop came into view.  The bus teetered as it slowed and bumped its way over the uneven driveway.  Ten-thousand bolts creaked and rattled as the driver brought it to a stop.

"Door closes in 10 minutes" warned the driver, "if you're not back on, we're leaving without ya!" He turned and chuckled to himself as he opened the door and went out for a smoke.

Arthur surveyed his fellow travelers. Most were sleeping, though a few stumbled out, stretching their creaking joints from the cramped quarters.  Like moths to a flame, the smokers converged to a group.  Faces would glow as lighters were struck. Orange fireflies would gleam and fade, replaced with clouds of smoke that were quickly snapped up in the crisp night breeze.

Arthur decided to stay put, for he had no business to attend to, and his bladder was not complaining.  He didn't care to mingle with the others in case someone recognized him.  The last thing he wanted was to be reminded of what he left behind.

Pulling his cap ever lower, he tried to sink further into his seat.

Freedom. Blessed freedom.  He wondered what his new life would bring after he arrived.

Arrived where?  Arthur didn't even know what he would do when he got to the city on his ticket.  A flush of worry poured over him.  What would he do when he got there?  What would he do if someone came looking for him?

"Who cares." Arthur thought to himself.  Gone was the time for regrets. Regardless of the consequences, the die was cast. He was free.

He heard the raspy cough of the driver as he made his way up the stairs while his flock followed quickly behind.

With a lurch, the bus resumed its weary journey.  Arthur's gaze returned to the window.  On and on the road stretched.  The first rays of sun outlined the hills in a faint glow.

"Better days ahead," thought Arthur as he closed his eyes and laid his head back onto the seat.

Hope.

Freedom.

Promise.

[nugatory1]

Wondering what this is all about...