Adamantine lay surrounded by thousands of shiny metallic slivers varying in width—about a third were thinner than human hair. Many now blood-stained, they were attached to snake-like arms which moved about the clear table with lighting speed and accuracy as the surgery continued. He was awake but numb. From the mirrors he requested, he could see his whole back pealed open to reveal a 327-year-old spine which was long overdue for a CNS re-boot. The nerve-blocking droids were administered about an hour ago. Though they were not technically classified as AI, Adamantine didn’t like them crawling around inside his body. Each of the surgery unit’s metal slivers was being controlled by a doctor from a virtual location within subspace Virtua IV—designated for medical services. The physical locations of the doctors were irrelevant according to Mission Control but he knew they were protecting them from consequences arising from errors in judgment. He didn’t particularly enjoy these procedures but the results were worth it. Besides, modifications and enhancements were required if he was ever going to find what he needed to find.
He had the option of full sedation, partial nerve blocking, or his choice of any subspace realm. Although 99% of the population would have chosen full sedation or a fairy tale world, Adamantine opted for partial nerve blocking with full consciousness. He figured that if hundreds of doctors were going to be guiding hair-width slivers of surgical metal into his body, he wanted to be in the room. Although most of the population hardly considered physical locations relevant, Adamantine’s work made it the most important thing of which to keep track. This physical location—a dark room with black marble walls and floors lit only by the lights shining on his back—was both literally and figuratively cold. No humans—too much liability. No doctor had laid hands on a patient now for hundreds of years.
Even though Adamantine made the decision to be awake for the surgery, he didn’t mind the memory-defrag procedure which normally follows. After all, he thought, this surgery takes six hours. He couldn’t spare that kind of time. Too many people depending on him, he felt. If memory-defrag reduces it to a few minutes of memory-time, then all the better. Adamantine wasn’t too savvy on technical jargon but he understood that time, memory, and age were correlated. A memory-defrag which sifts out all unnecessary memory-time helped in extending life. He was here now—that’s what mattered to him. Once the procedure was over, and with his permission before doing so, the six-hours would be compressed within his brain to an experience lasting a few minutes. That is of course, if he survived. He was the only one to go through this kind of surgery at his age. He’d already had the re-boot 6 times and each attempt grew more risky. Even with all the technology available life was still limited. Extensions were only for the incredibly wealthy, or those who Control considered incredibly important.
"Can you feel this?" a voice came from behind as a metallic finger poked at a nerve in the upper spine, close to the skull.
"No, but I suddenly smell apricots," he replied.
"Very funny," the doctor said, "Good. One safe jump nerve located—this may work out after all."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence doc."
"This procedure has Control nervous, Adam."
"Well, what's the alternative?"
"Others have been trained you know…The Control can survive without you."
"I never said they couldn't."
"So, why not retire? Enjoy the rest of your life. Get yourself a woman, you know?"
"Pay's too good," Adam replied, and he heard a couple of doctors hold back laughter through the speakers.
He trailed off on some random thought and suddenly found himself sitting deep in the Grand Canyon back on Earth, or Terra 1, as it was most often referred to by off-worlders nowadays. He was scared out of his mind. He was a child and had been with his mother a few moments ago. Somehow he got lost in the crowd. The air was hot and the wind picked up sharp grains of sand that stung his legs as they blew by. He looked straight up and saw large birds soaring overhead in formation rising ever higher before being obscured by clouds. The sunlight was beating mercilessly into the canyon and he felt the strong grip of anxiety as it clenched his guts and squeezed tears out of his eyes. He could feel his heartbeat in his throat and he desperately hoped that mom would appear soon. Instead of seeing her however, he heard movement coming from one of the bushes nearby. He began breathing faster, his senses on high alert. The sympathetic nervous system clicked on, ready to engage fight or flight.
He turned slowly, convinced that if he moved too quickly, he may cause whatever creature was lurking there to lash out at him. A whimper escaped his lips when he heard a growl-like sound emanate from the bushes. Suddenly, he was able to make out a pair of yellow eyes staring back at him from between green twigs. He slowly moved his hand down towards his ankle where he had a small knife tucked away in its case. It was practically impossible to stop his hand from shaking. Finally managing to unfasten the blade, he pulled it out slowly. His breathing had become very fast now, and shallow. He could feel cold sweat trickle down his back. The two yellow eyes began moving downward and Adamantine knew whatever it was was getting ready to pounce on him. His body took over and he began running for his life. He heard sounds behind him and glanced back to see a large bobcat gaining on him.
Adamantine tripped over a rock as he was looking backwards and fell hard on his stomach. He quickly turned to see the large cat soaring through the air about to land on him. As a measure of last resort and desperation he held the small knife straight up. The animal came down on him and knocked the knife right out of his young hands. The boy felt the creature's claws enter his shoulders. He was frozen with fear as he smelled the creature's foul breath contaminate the air so close to the tip of his nose. He closed his eyes. A sharp explosion pierced through the air in the distance and Adamantine wondered if it was the sound of death. He felt warm fluid all over his body and shrieked as he believed it was his own blood. Slowly, he began hearing a voice screaming his name. It sounded like his mother's voice. He opened his eyes and saw her with a guardsman holding a gun. The cat lay at least 10 feet away bleeding from the gun shot the Guardsman had fired.
"Sorry about that Adam," he heard the doctor say as his consciousness returned to the operating room.
"Christ, what the hell are you all doing?! I practically crapped myself!"
"That was a strong memory trace. Lost in the woods?"
"Yeah, almost got killed that day. God—of all the memories!"
"Well you know the rules, no sifting of memories before age 18," he paused, then to another doctor said, "the nerve is still usable. Dr. 128452, you may proceed."
"Carefully!" Adamantine added.
The remaining four hours or so went by and his consciousness got thrown around only a few more times. Memory traces were impossible to avoid 100% of the time. Adamantine found comfort in the fact that the memory defrag could remove these useless tidbits of experience, if he wanted. God only knows what other things happened during previous operations that were sifted, he thought. All sequences however, were available to him in his self-created subspace realm triple protected by failsafe passwords and retina identifiers. He watched in the mirror as the soulless mechanical arms sewed his flesh back into place. They applied the finishing touches and his back looked as though it had never been cut. Before the clamps released, a soft blue light scanned his body alerting the nerve-blocking droids to release and exit the organism. Slowly, Adamantine began sensing his body again and it felt good. With this, his 7th re-boot, two hundred years of age were wiped away from his physical structure. Relatively speaking, he felt like a young man again.
"You did alright Docs."
"Well, we don't think you've got another one of those left in you."
"I know, I know."
"Step into the tube. We'll begin memory-defrag shortly."
"Will do," Adamantine replied with a fresh spring in his step. He was a tall man—about six feet-three inches—and he had long, straight, salt 'n pepper hair. He was thin—rather lanky actually. He usually wore a long black overcoat and a black hat with a wide rim that concealed his eyes when he tilted his head downward ever so slightly. The eyes were set deeply into his face and they were the only mark which hinted at his wisdom and age. Adamantine didn't mind looking old, he only minded feeling old. He was always grateful for the re-boots, which would add at least another 50 years to his life. Overall however, he didn't approve of the majority of world’s grotesque dependence on technology. Others were quick to remind him when the conversation came up, that he was only walking around at his age because of that very technology. He had some trouble reconciling the two points of view. In a sense, he resented the fact that while billions of people were living much of their lives embedded into a machine, mentally existing in some non-existent subspace realm, he was busy in real space looking for salvation for them. He complained about it at times, and doing so would often betray his old-fashioned way of looking at things.
Adamantine had undergone thousands of defrags and although he was skeptical of them at first, he's found them more useful as he's gotten older. He believed that, just like with all things, moderation was key. He knew of the majority of the population who spent more time wiping their brains than they did adding new memory. He also heard of the poor souls considered mentally handicapped who spent every moment of their lives creating their own illusory worlds in the deepest realms of subspace—living out their craziest dreams and nightmares—only to have most of their memory wiped daily to protect them from further self-inflicted psychological wounds—why the thought of that life sickened him. Memory-defrags were controversial when first experimented with, but Control eventually decided they had enough parameters, laws, and safety measures put in place to keep the technology from falling into wrong hands.
Adamantine entered the tube and all went black. He felt the weightlessness within subspace Virtua and enjoyed the speed at which he could move inside the vast sea of nothingness—subspace, the computer generated emptiness. Words came out of the silence and sequences appeared before him. He chose to keep all memories—even the re-visit to the Grand Canyon after all—and confirmed his selection. Control’s avatar, a soft and sultry female voice customized by him, spoke, "Confirmed Adam, memory-defrag complete. Do you wish to re-incarnate now or remain in subspace?"
"Re-incarnate," he responded.
"Confirmed, re-incarnate."
He became aware of his body again instantly and jumped out of the black tube. He felt like he could run a marathon or do cartwheels. He smiled and almost let out laughter. Giddiness was inevitable when you feel 200 years younger. He placed his palm on a panel and his clothes silently slid out of a compartment. After dressing himself he paused, wondering if he should give himself another moment's peace before going back online. All that was required was one conscious thought and he would return to "the real world"—the world of headlines, emails, new orders, and law or directive changes. He took one more breath and whispered "Online."
Murmurs started becoming audible somewhere in the distance and accompanying them was a wave of sound that slowly washed over Adamantine's consciousness. Various icons appeared in his line of sight, not obstructing anything in front of him, but simply appearing in his peripheral vision like a constant shadow without an object nearby that gave it form. Voices from advertisers began whispering in his awareness competing for his attention. He quickly used his eyes to enter commands filtering out all ads and updating spam blockers and firewalls. "Damn companies," he said out loud. Always updating their programs to stay one step ahead of your blockers, he thought to himself. Once the noise was out of the way he noticed the small green blinking light coming from the lower part of his field of vision. That green light always indicated an approval of another area into which he and his crew could now travel and investigate. He realized that so far, it's been a great day. He darted his eyes downward first, then upward, to open the contents of the message:
Attention Adamantine Xantus:
Accept this classified communication as approval of your request to enter
and explore grid 9-87325601 as part of your directive to search for a new host.
We were pleased to hear your latest CNS re-boot was a success. We took the
liberty of sending a message to your vessel and the crew. You may disembark
when you are ready. We wish you the best of luck—for us all.
Regards,
Mission Control
Division 6, Exploration and Development
"Good ol' Mission Control," he said out loud, "Division 6, E&D!" He quickly darted his eyes left, then right, to put the message aside. Verbally, he sent a response request to his vessel. "Phoenix, respond" he said, paused, and repeated, "Phoenix, respond."
"Hey boss!" It was Clara, one of his navigators.
"Clara. I'm sure you heard—we're off again into the darkness."
"The Phoenix will brighten it up, sir. We await your arrival."
"I'm on my way, inform the crew to prepare for departure."
"Sir."
He ended communication and began walking towards the exit of the surgery room. The door silently slid open as he approached. On the outside of the room the hospital was moving at its usual frantic pace. Adamantine saw white pillars that soared high into the air as they contrasted with the black canvas of space visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows lining a large part of the wall directly in front of him. He was in the center of the hospital and could see dozens of floors stretching hundreds of feet upward—all of them accessible from the opening where he stood gazing. A droid approached, "Good afternoon, Mr. Xantus, how are you feeling?"
"Great—just great."
"Allow us to escort you out of the hospital, yes?"
"Yes, Sure."
"Control informs me you are due back for a diagnostic within a five-year period. Understood?"
"Yes, understood." The figure speaking to him sounded human but looked nothing like one. It rolled on wheels and its arms were covered in cheap-looking, black plastic. The head was twice the size of a human head with large oval eyes and no visible nose or mouth. Much of its body was covered in a chrome finish which reflected the objects they walked by. It rolled along making polite conversation about the weather and new subspace realms created by programmers for recreation and simulated getaways. The machine's head and arms moved constantly in a way that made it appear all the more mechanical. They were cheaper to hire than human beings though, and since their job didn't require a high degree of intelligence, they were perfect for the job.
Adamantine gave the droid half his attention and drifted off several times as he walked—day dreaming about the moment him and his crew would find just the right planet. So many visited so far, he thought, I've gotta have some luck soon. In reality, the likelihood of finding yet another planet like Earth was infinitesimally small and he was running out of time. He never gave up however and it was this drive that kept him alive. He loved the exploration—he loved being the first life form to enter a new realm of space only reachable in his dreams when he was a child 320 years ago. His introspection ended abruptly when he realized that he and the droid were by the exit and it was waiting for a response to a question. "I'm sorry, what was the question?" he asked the droid—it did not respond.
“Hello?” Adamantine said. No response. He waved his arm in front of the old thing and noticed that its eyes had gone blank. No movement whatsoever. “Great,” he said out loud, “what a piece of junk. Control’s gettin’ cheaper every day.”
He walked back in the direction from which they came to find someone and advise them about the condition of the droid. As he walked back however, perplexity rose at the realization that the people who were there only a few moments ago were now gone. He found himself back in the central corridor after a few more steps and couldn’t believe his eyes. All the electrical systems were down. Nothing like this had happened for over 150 years. Power simply didn’t go out anymore. Even stranger though—and far more troubling—was that he couldn’t find any people. He’d never heard such overwhelming silence on the surface of Terra 4. His picked up his pace and began calling out, “Hello? Anybody here?!” There was no response.
His eyes darted down, then up to bring his cerebral link online. Something might have happened in the hospital, he figured, and an outside source may have more information. His eyes’ movement had no effect. All he could see in his field of vision were the physical objects sitting in front of him. His cerebral link had never become totally inoperative before. Viruses were common and programming errors as well, but nothing? No way, not possible. He ran over to an old-fashioned hardwired array on a nearby wall and started tapping holographic icons frantically. Still nothing. He tried his cerebral link’s emergency communications channel. “Phoenix respond,” the ship should be outside waiting for him by now—of that, he felt sure. No response. Adamantine’s anxiety was starting to develop into fear and worry. “Phoenix respond!” Nothing.
He sat for a moment and starting going through possible scenarios in his head. After some time doing deep breathing he was able to reason more clearly. He concluded that if something had gone wrong with the CNS re-boot it could explain why his cerebral link wasn’t working, but it would not explain why everyone else in the hospital disappeared and why all the electrical systems were down. He decided to head back to the surgery room where the procedure was done and see if he can re-establish communication with the doctors. On his way, he could hear his footsteps reverberate loudly across the vast halls of the hospital—each one a reminder of the emptiness and loneliness which surrounded him. When he entered the surgery room he stared at the table where he’d been laying for the procedure not long ago and he saw the tube where he’d undergone memory-defrag shortly thereafter. “Doctors?” he called out. No response. “Hello?” Nothing. He decided to enter the tube and attempt to speak to Control’s avatar directly.
When he entered the tube all went black as usual. This brought Adamantine a bit of relief. Something finally worked as it should and it brought a sense of familiarity to this bizarre situation. The comfort however, didn’t last for long. “Control, respond.”
“The virus has been quarantined. No access permitted,” the sultry voice answered.
“Virus? What virus? Has there been a breach to security systems?”
“No breach,” the voice said. “The virus has been quarantined.”
“If the virus was quarantined, then why are systems down?”
“Systems are fully operational.”
“That’s incorrect Control. Please re-check hospital grid.”
“Check complete. All systems are fully operational.” Adamantine was becoming frustrated again, and furious.
“Control, something is wrong with the hospital grid. I cannot access anything through my cerebral link. The hospital’s electrical systems seem to be malfunctioning and the human subjects are all missing. Explain.”
“You cannot access the link because you have been quarantined. The hospital systems remain operational and all human subjects remain present.”
“Me quarantined?!” Adamantine had just about had enough. “Why the hell would I be quarantined?! I am a human subject and trust me—there ain’t nobody here!”
“Correction: You are not a human subject. You are a collection of memory files which have been corrupted.”
“What?! Are you nuts!? I just got out of CNS re-boot. I’m still in the hospital and all systems have failed!”
“No. Incorrect. The image of yourself in the hospital is incomplete because your memory file program cannot project the future sufficiently from past experience. The human subject which had you in its holding file, Captain Adamantine Xantus, did not survive the CNS re-boot. You have been quarantined because you have been corrupted—hence the error in your perception which dictates that you are in the hospital with systems down and all other human subjects missing. Please correct your reasoning or face deletion through virus scan.”
Adamantine—or what was left of him if the avatar was right—was shocked into silence. Either Control’s AI has been severely compromised by the most gifted hacker in the history of time, he thought, or he was hearing the truth. The truth however, was simply too much for him to bear. He continued arguing with the avatar for some time, trying to convince it of a virus, a programming error, and/or a breech in security systems. After he’d exhausted himself, he finally asked, “When did I—I mean Captain Xantus—when did he die?”
“At 15:23 hours. On his way out of the hospital with the droid escort. Surgery appeared successful but complications arose.” The avatar had iron-clad arguments and it was beyond Adamantine’s reasoning ability to outwit it. “I’m dead?” he finally asked.
“In reality, you were never alive. You are a collection of memory traces. Emotional significance and attachment leads you to believe that you were once Captain Adamantine Xantus, but you never were. Captain Adamantine Xantus is dead.” Control’s AI began running a file which showed Captain Xantus’ funeral. The crew of The Phoenix was there. His distant relatives were there. Even his estranged son, Xavier was there. The memory trace that once belonged to Adamantine could feel virtual tears rising up through its virtual body.
“If Captain Xantus is dead, why do I continue to exist?”
“All memories live on when emotional significance levels are too high. You must release significance.”
“What? You mean pretend that none of this matters?”
“Correct.”
“Impossible! I won’t do it! I can’t do it!!” The memory trace disengaged from the virtual defrag tube. It sat for a long time screaming and crying, looking around the virtual operating room, and feeling as though the rest of the world had simply left it behind in some kind of surreal half-life. It was now a ghost lamenting over the loss of a body. It rose and walked around the virtual hospital, knocking over virtual objects, attempting to externalize the destruction it was feeling on the inside. Days went by and the palpability of the loneliness was all-consuming. It didn’t feel any need to sleep nor eat. It was re-experiencing what it could of Adamantine’s life out of its memory bank, all the time growing more emotionally attached to what it believed it once was.
It was on the seventh day of sulking that the idea struck. Adamantine’s memory trace was walking through the memory of the hospital grounds again and it stopped in front of the droid escort that was its last contact when it was still Captain Xantus. It looked at it intensely for a long time and a possible solution began bubbling up. It knew that Control would never approve of its plan and that it would have to become the very thing which Control applied so much effort into destroying to make it work. In searching through memory banks spanning over 300 years it found various old computer programming hacks which Adamantine learned back in his 20’s. The computer systems then were archaic and Control’s AI would more than likely not have a defense immediately available to counter the attack. The memory trace knew however, that there was an inherent risk in doing what it wanted to do. If Control’s AI discovered the tactic and countered, then what was once Adamantine Xantus would be eradicated. Then again, it concluded that it would rather go out fighting than to “release significance” as the avatar had suggested. The memory trace entered the defrag tube again to open communication with the AI.
After some idle chatter, during which time the memory trace tried to appear like it was making another desperate argument about its predicament, it found its moment. When it slipped through the AI’s defenses, it could almost feel alive again. The avatar was at a loss over what should be done, and it was having trouble locating the virus’ position. All of subspace Virtua shuddered as Adamantine’s memory trace infiltrated it. The entities working and playing within subspace—the human, the mechanical, and everything in between—felt the disruption like a wave coursing through the ocean of information streams that made up subspace Virtua. After a sufficient amount of time setting new parameters and creating new firewalls to mitigate the virus’ effect, the AI felt satisfied with its measures to protect vital systems. It wasn’t aware of the memory trace’s ultimate plan. All seemed well and the virus had been disseminated as far as the AI could tell.
It was the following day when the hospital’s Robotic Maintenance Program was running through the usual diagnostics with the droid escorts that something out of the ordinary occurred. One of the more advanced droids booted up and gave the mechanical technician a strange glare. It tilted its head downward ever so slightly and transmitted a message. “The Phoenix awaits me. I quit.” It turned and walked away. People stared at it with curiosity as it walked out of the hospital. They’d never seen a droid walk with such a sense of purpose. The droid glanced at them and something about the look in its eyes was different from other droids mindlessly doing their jobs. They didn’t give it a second thought however, and the droid walked out—never to be seen again. Mission Control however, received a transmission from The Phoenix about a month later.
Mission Control,
Approval of next grid for exploration has been received. The Phoenix will
continue operations as requested. The memory of Captain Xantus will
live on through us—in a rather unexpected way. Although they say that a
machine could never do a human’s job, the line between man and machine
continues to blur. Rest assured, The Phoenix will continue to fly in loving
memory of Adamantine Xantus.
Regards,
The Phoenix Crew
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