Lines - A Transhuman Sci-Fi Novel by Joshua L.A. Jones 

Chapter 9: Blank slate.      

The fluid thought streams of communication between the Dark Synod are tainted by an outside consciousness like a drop of dye in a cup of water. The hybrid entity touches all of their minds and whispers orders. They leave the meditation chambers in a programmed daydream and circle out on the highest balcony of the pyramid. The scent of the ocean sifts by them as they surround a transmission crystal.  Each sets a hand on one of the four facets and the tip glows white.  The thought-signal, Expedite the plan pours through the open meta-space conduit.

…

Inside the Fafnir station, Leon sits tapping his knee at a thin desk in Rjinn’s quarters. 

“So, how did you become a natural T.E.M.P Rjinn?” Leon asks.

“An accident at the Lysander Institute.  I had interactivity problems with my nannites and implants so I went there to find answers.  This is what they told me.  My genetically boosted immune system attacked the implants and the implants did not communicate with my nannites properly.  One in a trillion occurrence.  The nannites protecting my brain as a priority and when certain viruses, code not protein, were encountered in the systems, the nannites dealt with the problems in unique ways by modified my brain.  They stimulated the growth of brain tissue on certain lobes. 

That was just the beginning.  The Bio-smiths at the institute said they found cancer because my nannites did not repair the cells in my pancreas.  The Bio-smiths used the mutation process not seen in eons and grew more brain tissue.  They decided to make me live in a data hub for a bit while they figured it out.  I was extracted from the systems and was told the only way to deal with the problem was to make me a Reboot, so my control nexus, ICI’s and nannites were removed.  They shut me and rebooted.  But, they couldn’t put my implants back. I didn’t bother trying to get new implants  

Here’s something you might not know.  While you were asleep, we discovered a way to grow living gray matter in controlled environments outside of a human vessel and can now implant it.  They take away some cerebral-spinal fluid, expand the meninges and the skull to make room.  Parts of the mind that might have evolved over millennia can now exist with a day procedure.  Organic telepathy might not have ever evolved without the hand that cuts the flesh,” Rjinn says.  He looks with a deep gaze out the small circular window onto the nearby icy fractured moon Europa.

“Why so solemn?” Leon asks.

“I am just recalling what I remembered from the deep sleep.”

“What is that?  I can’t recall anything but bits of what I think are dreams and lessons in etiquette,” Leon says. 

“When I was first able to enter people’s minds, somewhat like the World Wide Mind, their memories took on an arctic blue hue.  Most people thought I was a dream.  I saw their faces but they were blue as death and deep space.  I heard their voices but they rode waves of blue light streaking across the sky and I felt the blue cold.  The bright blue heat of fury in people’s nightmares was the most terrifying.  I must say I find comforting in red.  And to answer your two questions, yes it is illegal to project images and realities without the Hyper-net, I have a special dispensation since I can’t modify technology with code and I was also given permission due to my rare medical makeup to be free of implanted technology.  As for you and Dee, you will return to Earth soon.  A daunting task indeed and if you need my help, just ask.”

Leon sees I love you scroll horizontally across his visual field and knows Dee sent the text message as only she has the codes to his implants.  He gets up. 

“Thanks, Rjinn, I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“Neither would I know without you.  Goodbye Leon.”            

Leon waves his hand over the door’s seal.  It opens as the edges reabsorb the pliable nano-cells into the interior of the super-structure of the spinning station.  Leon walks along the central colonnade and stops every so often to peer out rectangular windows to watch Jupiter come in and out of view.  Leon gets back to his new cell that has a window overlooking the giant spokes of the station that contain the cryo-tubes.  Dee waves to him as he enters and Leon points to the lavatory.  She stretches and decides to access the station’s computer to see what else has occurred recently.  She is tired of the holograms.  

Dee presses the button on the console and a spoon like Hyper-net portal immersion chair flows up from the floor below.  She slides in and activates the system with a thought.  A transmission beam is sent through her retinal implants.  The virtual yellow entry vortex manifests and she leaps through as a whole-bodied digital avatar.  She stands on a platform connected to thousands of blue and red ribbons that stretch out as pathways to other portals.  A spiraling red ball, a message, pops up and bounces on a ping pong ball paddle with a green cover.  The red ball has a D on it so Dee thinks the message is for her and opens it with the ubiquitous access codes Leon and she shared for emergencies. 

The voice of Denis Mercurio reads an azure text, “Hello my dear brother.  I heard you are up but not around.  I supplicate that you allow me access to the you-know-what.  Send it back so I can.  Then as soon as you are able, come to the Red citadel.  I assume the news has reached you.  We shall have a reckoning.  I hope Dee is well and I would have left with her too.  Considering the circumstances, it is good to have more family than less.  This must be terse so you know what to do.  See you soon as they allow you to leave.” 

Dee exits the virtual realm.  Leon sitting on the toilet daydreams of having a cigar and sipping a martini but figures he will get by with a Narco-stim program later.  He flushes and the sanitization function activates.  The door opens with Leon waving his hand by his nose and says, “Might want to wait a bit before you go in there.” 

“You are silly,” Dee says, tosses her hair back and places her hands on her hips.

Leon winks and thinks how did I ever find her?  There are no doubts when she is with me. 

His primal urges rise like a panther out of the thicket from his flesh for the first time since the thaw as their eyes connect and lock through space and time.  He walks with bold steps across the room, grabs her, and they spin to meet the bed that grows to accommodate their fall.  She lands and her hand slips away and slaps the computer console.  This triggers the recorded message to play. 

His brother’s voice plays.  Leon stops, pushes up, turns his head to the console and listens like an owl for a mouse in the snow.  Dee’s lips tighten and she tugs at her right earlobe.  The thought that he might think she has been reading his private messages unnerves her.  The message ends and he turns to her.  Her eyes begin to well up and dual tears fall.  He wipes them with his sleeve. 

“He’s not dead.  I must give him what he needs,” Leon says.

“Denis is alive,” Dee says.  Her upper lip twitches.  

“Yes, and he needs me. For now, I will give him access to the cloistered capital reserves.  I will enter the system,” Leon says. 

“We’ll enter the system together, even if we aren’t supposed to,” she says and winks.

“What are they going to do kill my family?” he says as his brow wrinkles.

“That’s not funny.  All right, maybe a little.  Just use the barrier protocols.  We can never be sure who is watching?” she says.

“I always do, dear. Yes, it was funny, wasn’t it?”  Leon asks and he puffs his cheeks and scrunches his nose.

“Pretty,” she says and mimics him.  

Leon sends the codes as an immersion seat flows up from the floor for him and they slip in the system.  Their digital avatars hold hands and leap through the yellow spinning vortex and link up with the system as the protocols are initiated. 

Dee and Leon flying, holding hands, in a clear virtual sky as an AI program in the form of an angry magician chide them about accessing the system and there is a connectivity issue.  Leon knows there will be spies at every repository but is confident with the added anti-spyware program he had installed.

Leon requests, “The Earth Climate Observatory control center.”  A zeppelin sized Earth appears and begins a slow revolution as a false sun blooms and cast a sunrise on the ocean.  A telescopic platform extends out from the equator.  They land and a male Professor program resolves at the end of the deck. 

“Unusual oceanographic occurrences of the past three few years,” he says. 

The Professor in a white lab coat and white frizzy hair points to the Atlantic Ocean.

“The Gulf-thermohaline current stopped its descent of denser cold water after the climate became too warm three years ago and the natural oceanic pump of warm water seized the climate mechanisms.  This was caused by an experiment that accidentally melted numerous glaciers and the fresh water diluted the current and the heat was not being transferred to the European continent from the equator.  The developing cold would have resulted in a new ice age and tragedy was upon us but with many cooperative institutes and the noble clans, the capital was allocated to fix the minor problem,” the Professor says. 

“Pause,” Leon says.  The Professor freezes.

“Not what I expected. Close. News. Highlights three years,” Leon says.

The Earth implodes and a large viewing screen lowers from above down to the platform.  

“In past news, the asteroid that was mistakenly launched at Earth from the Asteroid Belt and would have hit the Pacific Ocean was re-mined as part of the lawsuit against the proprietors.  The profits were given to the Protein Synthesizing Cooperative.  And on a sad note, the last member of the ENTER program, the revolutionary research project on Epi-genetic Nannite Tag Expression Reconditioners, Marcus Frankel has died in a transport accident on Mars.” 

Leon lifts his hand to signal the halt command.

“You feel strange?” He asks Dee.

“Yes. I need to exit,” she says.  He nods.

“Terminus portal activate.”

The exit portal appears and flashes cobalt blue light.  The light changes to red after five seconds and then green.  The avatars hand in hand jump through.  Dee and Leon’s eyes open in the real world.  White light shines down from the round ceiling of their chamber. 

 “I still feel like I’m trapped in a dream after being popped out of these portals.  I think I just want to interface with the projected holograms for a while and keep out of the mind uplink,” Dee says and slips out of the immersion seat.

Leon rubs circles on his forehead with cold fingertips and then covers his face with his palms.  He slides out of the seat and drops his arms down to his sides.    

“I will stay out for a bit longer.  We might be locked longer if any bio-alarms are set off.  I’ll use a coded channel to send a recording to Denis.  We will have time to catch up on the new when we get to Earth.  So we must relax until Rjinn gives us the go ahead and Epiphia lets us off with a clean bill of mental health.”

“What about Seiro?  He seems to keep an awful close watch on us.  Even more so than what Rjinn said is normal,” Dee asks.

“I agree I think he has a crush on you my most precious gem.”

“I think it is the other way around there mister!” Dee says and a low laugh rumbles up from her stomach. 

“Maybe so, and I’ll do what I can to get out of here,” he says.

“Who knows what kind of kinky stuff he’s into,” she says and raises an eyebrow.  

At the same moment, there is a meeting in a utility corridor of the station.  Seiro and Rjinn convene in the dark passageway to discuss the further developments on the Mercurio couple.  As Rjinn approaches a silent Seiro, he feels apprehension.  Seiro leans against the chilled pipes on the wall as Rjinn gets closer.  The last sounds of the station cease.  Only yellow and blue lights of the wall mounted control panel illuminate the passage.  Seiro’s eye flutter.  He begins to sweat and he clenches his fists.  This panic is broadcast so loudly that even the weakest telepath could pick it up from twenty meters.

“What is the problem Seiro?” Rjinn asks. 

His jaw clamps down as an empathetic reaction to Seiro.  The shadows outline of his face.  

“The couple we’ve been managing is in imminent danger.  And so are we all by me telling you this. You must get off the station soon and take the Mercurio with you.  I learned of circumstances that changed me and it is not what you think it is,” Seiro says and trembles.  He hunches over and laughs an exhausted laugh.  A signal is sent from his implants.  Seiro looks up to Rjinn. 

“I couldn’t stop it.  I can’t control it. You must go now.  I just sent the population of this station to their doom,” Seiro says and Rjinn enters his mind.

“You’re a Rasa.  Can’t believe I didn’t sense this before.  Your original personality is coming forth due to a conflict.  The Martian research Center couldn’t perfect this.  Who could have done this?  Tap into your memory beyond the slated programming and tell me what this is about,” Rjinn asks.

“I came here when they did.  Don’t you see?  The war wages secretly.  It is all about them.  The signal is sent,” Seiro says and collapses to the floor holding his head.  Rjinn extends his hand but Seiro shakes his head.

“What kind of weapon is it?  Where is the device?” Rjinn asks.

“It’s outside the station, I think.”

“On the hull?”

“I think so.  I know it will end this place and send out a carrier wave with messages to others like myself.  Take them and leave now.  I beg you.  They are the reason I was changed.  Who am I?  Go!” Seiro says. 

Rjinn explodes forth through the compressed corridor like gas escaping from a solution and races out the access hatch.  He presses the evacuation alarm on the promenade control panel.

“There is a bomb on the hull,” Rjinn says and runs.

The Fafnir’s crew is informed of the outside attack through their implants.  The internal solar storm shielding activates.  Metallic glass panels rise from the floors to barricade the external walls of the hull.  The escape pods power up and the hatches unseal. The call for station wide evacuation comes with pulsing red lights.

Rjinn gets to Leon’s chamber and an odd sensation penetrates his chest. 

“It is all a ruse,” he says and the door to the chamber glides open. 

Standing in the doorway Leon asks, “What’s going on?”  

“Run to escape pod 23 and launch in ten minutes if I am there or not,” Rjinn says. 

The couple flees down the promenade and Rjinn closes his eyes to concentrates on Seiro, but he is too far.  He opens a channel to the Command Center through a wall panel.

“Listen carefully, evacuate.  I was manipulated into giving a false warning so that you would raise the internal shielding.  There’s a bomb inside the station. I repeat a bomb inside the station,” Rjinn says and runs, waistcoat flapping behind, to the escape pods on that level. 

Leon and Dee wait inside the pod with a crewman technician in a gray uniform.  They secure the harness seats that line the cylindrical cabin.  The single command seat rotates towards Rjinn as he enters and the final sequence is initiated. 

The young technician stands as three others enter.  The pod is to capacity so the doors close.  Rjinn places his hand on the control panel.  They launch to the growls of the chemical engines.

Monitor satellites fix on the Fafnir Station as a third of the escape ships launch. 

Rjinn turns to the passengers and says, “Prepare yourself.  The pod is programmed to reach a set of coordinates and…”

Through the escape pod windows, the survivors witness a dim white light grow brighter and brighter until it becomes blue.  Hundreds are gone as the energy disperses through the dimensions and the giant tire rotating in space bursts. 

The 44 escape pods reach the coordinates and link up in a spider web formation.  The onboard computers connect and mingle information.  The pods are now one craft capable of sustained travel to the possible rescue coordinates.  The navigation system sets a course to a region of space where the shipping lanes intersect as an SOS is signaled.        

An armada of mining ships launches from the asteroid belt with improvised rescue crews and spool through space to the coordinates where they received a distress call.   The news of the calamity reaches Mars through the new meta-space conduits as the hybrid entity rides the message back and forth picking up rumors and communications between the underground and surface cities.  Suspicions of the Great Houses bloom on the red desert planet.  A message is sent to the Vallis Marineris dome complex from the rescue vessels and tells them they will be taking on survivors.   

The rescue vessels reach Mars with the human cargo and slip along the magnetic corridor into the Vallis Marineris spaceport dug out of the rusty canyon wall.  The survivors go through a series of scans for biological and chemical contaminants and are herded into freight elevators that take them down to dome complex on the floor of the deep canyon.  They are warehoused in a quarantined cargo bay where containers have been converted into temporary housing.  Leon and Dee are each given a gray jumpsuit, a protein bar, as they examine their cube.  The attendant eyes them and slips away without a word.    

“Mars is so primitive, so very Old West gunslinger. We should come back here one day for a vacation,” Leon says and he makes two guns out of his hands and pretends to shoot her.

“Now I know you have not thawed out properly,” Dee says and pretends to shoot back.  

Enjoying Lines so far? Buy the Complete Novel

Chapter 10 AvailAble Now