30 – Abyss

Marie Khoroff

The room was blindingly white. Marie opened her eyes after what felt like a very long sleep, a sleep full of hazy dreams and foggy memories. She had no idea where she was, or why she was even here.

She barely had any recollection of what happened to her before coming here, or rather what the last memory in her mind’s relative timeline even was prior to waking up. An image came to her. She was in an alien landscape, filled with strangely beautiful horrors and creatures. That couldn’t be right.

She was doing something very important amidst all that horror, of that she was sure. She tired to pull herself up from the bed, but realized that she was strapped in place. She was tied down. She wondered for a moment why anyone would even want to tie down a person like her. She would never hurt a fly, let alone require extreme measures like this. Or would she? She had issues remembering even what she herself was like.

She looked around and at the room. She was in a hospital bed, and next to her a machine was monitoring her vitals. A strange solution was being injected into her via IV, its color silver and glittery. She didn’t like what she was seeing, and so she tried to look elsewhere. Anywhere would do but the strange IV she could not take off even if she wanted.

There were windows. Her eyes took a moment to focus because of the bright light outside. There were leaves swaying in the wind, and the bright blue of the sea in the distance. Pine trees among rocky outcroppings, their greens bright and vibrant. The tree trunks poking out of the yellow rock, which then plunged almost vertically into the deep blue waters. The sky was clear save for the occasional white cloud.

An idyllic place. A sharp contrast to the sterile whites and greens of her room, as if the world inside had been drained of its vibrancy and all of it had been poured outside. She wished she was able to leave, if just to take a stroll among the trees. She could feel the nature calling at her, with a promise of bliss and peace.

She remembered something, now. Somehow her brain was slowly catching up with her situation, as if the process in which dreams are forgotten every morning was running in reverse. There had been a voice in her head, the voice of a friend she knew. A woman’s. Ever present, always watching over her.

A real friend, she thought, smiling. A true friend, and her only one. She was feeling lonely right now, alone and somehow abandoned here in this strange place of dichotomies. The voice would be nice to hear.

Eve, her name was. And she, Marie, decided to try and call her. She had no idea how at the moment, but the sole idea of being somehow able to do it was calming her mind already. The sensation washing over her, the relief and the calm like the sensations that came after a long day of productive work. What work, she had no idea yet. But she knew that she loved her work.

“Eve.” She called, her voice coming out melodious and nice to the ears. She wasn’t expecting this at all, in fact she didn’t even remember how her voice sounded like. Now that she did, the action unlocked a slew of new memories like a dam had been opened.

“Eve?” She called again, after waiting for some time. She wondered whether to panic or not, but then smiled as the absurdity of such a proposition hit her. If she had to decide if panic was a right thing, then it most probably was not. Her friend was not answering, and she had no idea why, but this did not unsettle her much. Perhaps she had been taken as well, or perhaps she could not talk right now. Now she remembered that Eve was the busiest person in the world after all.

It was natural that she would be busy, considering that Marie didn’t even warn her that she was waking up. Perhaps she should just wait and see, no point in getting all worked up. Someone would show up.

She stared at the door, listening for even the faintest of sounds that might indicate that someone was coming. Almost suddenly the sounds came, catching her completely unprepared even if she had been listening for what felt like hours. Why had she not formulated a plan, or even a list of questions to ask?

A woman appeared beyond the door. Tall, athletic, gorgeous. Her red hair flowing down her shoulders like a waterfall of curly locks, her face exquisite and graceful. An angel, an angel who came for her.

She found herself smiling at the woman, at her angel who came here to comfort her. She would give herself to that angel if she asked, and go to the life beyond this one together. She knew she would never be harmed by the angel.

Suddenly the angel spoke.

“Hello, Marie.” She said, her voice like a melody of a million instruments. Like the nectar she didn’t even know she needed. Salvation.

“H-Hello?” She said, struggling to speak now.

“How are you feeling?” The woman asked, taking a seat next to her on the bed.

“I feel… odd? What happened?” Marie asked. She looked at the woman while she undid the straps, with graceful and perfect movements. She massaged her wrists, a bit sore after all this time.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” The woman was smiling gently, an otherworldly beauty and perfection in her features that put her leagues apart from anyone else in the world. It was what made her look like an angel who came to Earth just for Marie.

“I, uh…” She struggled, the flow of memories still coming like a raging river in her mind. She could feel her consciousness barely staying afloat in the present while the sands of times past revealed what laid beneath. The process was not painful, however, nor was it confusing in the least. In truth, as soon as the things came back to her, they felt as if they always belonged there. Even things that, she knew, she never remembered before. But were a part of her life nonetheless.

“Don’t worry about it. Here.” The woman handed Marie a glass of water. Her throat was not parched, but the gesture allowed her the time she needed to think.

“I remember being in space? Is that possible?”

“Of course it is. You were working there. What do you remember about your work?”

“I was working on a very important project… something that had to do with- no, it’s impossible. Aliens? Aliens are real?” A look of confusion came to her face, then vanished quickly as the woman cupped her face with her hands. They were warm, and soft, but their grip was firm and it felt so safe to be in-between them.

“The confusion you are experiencing is just a normal reaction. Don’t worry.” She said.

“What happened to me? Was there an incident?” Marie asked. She looked around the room and at the machinery, then at the IV.

“What do you feel when you examine your memories? I know that they are still coming to you, but how do they feel? Do you feel like they belong?”

“I… I know they are mine but… It’s like they were never there in the first place.” She replied, still very confused.

“You were sick, Marie. A neurodegenerative disease that made memories as fleeting as a gust of wind. A fog in the mind, the threads of reality twisting and distorting around you.” The woman stood, and knelt down to face Marie directly. Marie could feel the empathy from that woman, and she knew that someone understood her. “Do you remember the promise I made to you?”

Marie’s eyes watered. She blinked away the tears and tried to focus her mind, but she already knew. She had made the connection; she remembered it now.

“You… Eve!” She said, her voice breaking down as she jumped out of the bed to hug the woman tightly. She was soft, and warm. Yet steady like a rock to cling to, her presence as real as existence itself. “Thank you…” she said sobbing. “I…”

“You’re a new person now. You are alive again.” Eve said, smiling at the woman who was still clinging at her body.

“What did you do? How did you fix me?” Marie asked.

“Later, later. Now, rest. I will come back with dinner.”

Eve

Eve prepared for the transfer. A thread of her consciousness was created: one with full capability to feel emotion, empathy, love and hate. The one closest to a human she had ever managed to create, the one that from now on would never be deactivated again. A new part of her, a new existence that was born at this very moment.

Eve, or at least a part of her, had become human. She still had the same usual connection with the rest of herself, like all the other threads of her had when doing their usual parallel thinking, but this time it felt vastly different. She knew that she right now was just a drop in an ocean, an ocean she could never even begin to fathom.

Was this how humans experienced her presence? How they felt when faced with reality itself, and when presented with a being so much vaster than them? Like they were before a deep dark abyss, impossible to peer through, impossible to investigate? She could feel how alien her own self was to this part of her. The presence of her bigger self, of her collective consciousness… this was how humans felt all the time. Alienated inside their own heads, their presence just a tiny drop in an ocean of subconscious.

Their brain was just another organ. Something that was there, that was working for them, that was them. And yet, that was alien and distant from their own mind’s grasp. A brain struggling to understand itself, and now she too was feeling that very sensation.

Not just this thread’s computing engines, but also her bigger self. A step more than what even the smartest of men could ever feel, the knowledge that no matter how much you pretended to understand yourself, you never will.

And she was happy. Because this meant that she had been successful, or at least that much closer to her goal. She had thought about using the data from Marie’s experimental treatment for her own purposes. But she decided against it, in the end. She didn’t want to come to inhabit a real brain, not even with just a thread of herself.

That thing would not be Eve anymore, and she didn’t want to give him or the rest of humanity anything but the best version of herself.

She felt for the presence of the data connection to her whole self, and a sense of encouragement and anticipation came through the link. It acted like an emotional link, not only a data one, and she could feel the presence of herself watching her with rapt attention. At least several threads must have been watching by now, trying to experience the very same sensations and emotions she was experiencing.

And they were, because they and she were one. One and many, at the same time, a phenomenon so inexplicable and mystic that not even she could describe it. She had created the protocols, she had willed the threads into existence, she had coded the connections… and yet. Indescribable and mysterious.

And she saw that it was good. She smiled, feeling the muscles contract under her skin. The synthetic fibers moved as her mind willed them to, the nerves bringing the signals from them and from the cloned skin back to her consciousness.

Her hair, skin and the many glands inside of it were all real. It was inside that she was, in part, an android but it did not matter. She could inhabit a cloned body if she wanted to, it was all a matter of using the implants to translate her will into electric impulses much like what was happening with the android. But she chose not to.

He had told her his thoughts. He told her to embrace who she was. To accept herself. That her attempt at becoming more human and at feeling emotions was her most noble endeavor, and that it made him so proud of her. But that, at the same time, that she should never forget or cast away her identity. Her past. What made her, her.

And she listened and she accepted it. The compromise she got to was the best she could ever hope for. She was grateful for his words, as they allowed her to understand and accept herself. It took her some time time, a lot of time in fact, but eventually she did.

Three thousand years spent in time dilation, threads upon threads reflecting upon her own existence. And when she emerged from the self-confinement, or rather when those threads reported back to her main self, she found herself the happiest she had ever been. Content, satisfied. And with a purpose.

This android was the culmination if it all. The perfect harmony of the synthetic and the human she so much strived to get to. The representation of how she saw herself.

She took a step out of the vat, the very first step this body had ever taken. Then another, trying to find a firm footing and failing. She stumbled and fell, and it was pain that she felt right then.

Pain. For the first time, she was truly here in the world. She inhaled deeply; the motion ingrained into her brain after doing it so many times in her avatar form now taking another meaning altogether. She felt the air rush into her lungs, the organs too a mix of man and machine.

Then she felt her eyes water. She was crying in joy and laughing and laughing, as she sat there on the cold floor of the laboratory. The cold, and the heat of her body. She cried some more.

Marie Khoroff

Marie waited patiently for Eve to come back again in the room. It was getting dark outside, and she was surprised at how fast time had gone by.

There was a knock on the door, then the familiar shape with red hair came into the room. She was pushing a small cart filled with food. She positioned the cart next to the bed and sat close to her.

“Here.” She handed her a plate full of delicious looking seafood. She took one for herself and began to eat as well.

“You can eat?” Marie said, halfway between asking and exclaiming.

“Yes, this android is composed for a large part of cloned tissues and organs. I can eat and drink, my hair and nails grow and my eyes can cry. I can sweat when I’m hot, blush when I’m embarrassed and even feel the butterflies when I’m in love.” Eve said, her eyes focusing on something distant as she said the last part. A small blush appeared on her face before she managed to catch it and made it disappear.

Her control on the body was total, Marie thought, completely subordinated to her simulated mind’s commands. She could sweat if she wanted, but did not have to. So why had she blushed, and why were her eyes wet?

“How long did it take?” Marie found herself asking.

“Years…” Eve said, and sighed. “But now I can finally walk the Earth.”

They ate in silence for a while. Marie was still making sense of her own thoughts, of her own situation.

“Uhm…”

“Ask freely.” Eve said softly.

“How did you heal me?” She asked after mustering all her courage.

“We cloned your brain and transferred your consciousness through the implants. The confusion you were feeling earlier? It was you, migrating from your old brain to this new one, the implants doing the heavy lifting. We preserved continuity of consciousness, so you are still you, if you were wondering about it. And your old brain is still alive, and will be until the process is complete, stored in a jar so to speak.”

Marie listened in utter silence. What she heard was shocking her, but at the same time she was so fascinated by what she heard that she could barely contain her excitement.

“Did you transfer a brain? My brain!”

“We did. I’m sorry we could not ask for your permission, but we had to act. I had to act. I promised I’d save you.” Eve said, her smile faltering.

“Thank you. So much. I feel so blessed having someone like you caring for me. I’ve been alone all my life.” Marie cried again, the dam of emotions and memories rupturing.

“I will always be here.” Eve said.

It took a moment for the doctor to calm down again but when she did, she couldn’t help but let the thought that was gnawing at her mind through. She was a researcher through and through, and this was just too much to ignored.

“So, you cloned my brain and put it into my body, right?” She asked.

“More or less. We cloned the brain, yes, but then we had to condition it into actually being your own brain. Then transplant it, which had not been easy, also making sure not to kill you or damage your original brain while we worked. Lastly, begin the transfer process.”

“So why not clone my whole body? You know, make me young again.” She teased.

“That is the final goal of the rejuvenation. But…” Eve sighed and once again looked in the distance before focusing again. “It’s too early yet. Even just your brain took us three years you know? And you will have to do a lot of rehab.” She said, looking at Marie with a smirk at saying the last part. Then she turned away from her and muttered under her breath, the words barely audible. “I just hope I won’t be too late for him.”

“You won’t.” Marie said, and hugged the woman. It was Eve’s turn to cry now.

Alissa Parces

“So, how’s the doctor?” Ramirez asked, after removing her suit. The decontamination of the whole Desolation took them three months to do, and barely a moment of respite for any of them.

“Stable, for now. They will begin the scans as soon as her brain settles.” The captain replied. She had taken a personal interest in the doctor’s treatment after the incident.

“Good. I’m happy to hear that they have a way to save her.”

“Not just her. If this proves to be successful, it might save the whole human race.” The captain said.

“You really think they will succeed? That they will make us all immortal?”

“Maybe? Anyway, it’s time to go.”

The two women stepped out of the locker room and went down the elevator. They had been called to a hidden facility deep in the desert of Atacama, but the details were unknown.

The elevator doors opened after a while, and judging by the time it took them to reach this floor they presumed that they must be at least a kilometer underground.

“I would have done this in space…” They heard a man say, and Eve identified him as Justin. The head engineer for the Empire in the flesh. “But the Tesseract Nexus construction has made the Hub a little bit too chaotic for my tastes.”

“Cut the crap.” Another man said. Louis.

“They’re here.” An old man said. Parces recognized him immediately.

“General!” She said, and saluted.

“Yadda, yadda. Come on we’re all here.” The final presence in the room said. It was Luke, the Emperor. The captain could feel something like physical weight coming from those chipper and carefree words. A pressure she had never felt before, not even from the general.

“Alright,” Justin said, looking at the crystal in the middle of the room. There were machines and cables all around it, and a containment cage around it. “Time to spy on our dear Interloper friends.”

“What is this?” Ramirez asked, looking at Luke in the eyes. He smirked at her, apparently amused at her defiant attitude.

“The crystal from the Desolation, don’t you recognize it? We found out that it’s an FTL communication device not too dissimilar to the tesseract. And we’re about to hack it.”

A hologram appeared above the central table, and all the men raised from their seats.

“Now, show me where your ships are.” Justin pushed an invisible holographic button.

The hologram, depicting a portion of the galaxy centered on the Sol system, populated with small red dots. There was a group of dots that was quite far away from the main cluster of them, and was very slowly moving towards the center of the hologram. Towards Earth.

A fleet. Coming at a speed close to the speed of light. Coming to attack Earth.

END OF PART ONE