'Twas merely an extension of thine own self...
Violet's Tales of Whoa!
- Thread starter mossfoot
- Start date
I'm at the hairdresser with the Simguru (again... he just can't stay away). I let him read that in my brain. He didn't comment. He only smiled.
His is such an enigmatic smile too. Quite a lot of us smiling like that just now... more than you might care to imagine...
Solward Bound
Sparks had us hang out near Hutton Orbital in Alpha Centauri, pretty much the last place anyone would be looking for a Clipper since it can't dock there, but also because a member of the Order had been stationed there. I don't know if it was punishment, or just to get away from it all monastic-style, but she was thrilled to hear from Sparks regardless.
I waited in my cabin while he took care of business. I needed some time alone anyway. It was going to take a while for everything Brother Sparks had told me to sink in.
We were going to go to Earth, heart of the Federation, break into a high security facility in order to erase any records of Project Transporter, its ties to me and this body.
Honestly I could have thought of simpler solutions. Just because they couldn't kill me didn't mean they couldn't, say, put me on ice long term. Ditch me on a distant undiscovered Earth-like world with no comms relay. Hell, maybe just take me out of Moss's skull and stick me in a jar somewhere. Maybe that would...
I should point out I was recording these ideas when Brother Sparks walked in on me and interrupted my train of thought.
"You're not still broadcasting those, are you?"
I stopped what I was doing for the time being. "Naw, that was Mossfoot's thing. Deep down for all his whining he was a bit of a glory hound. Once he knew he had an audience he couldn't stop."
"It's just that you're doing it in the same format, I thought..."
"I told you I'm not broadcasting. That's not my thing. It's not for the galaxy at large."
"Then who are you--"
I stared at him evenly.
"Oh."
"So a bit of privacy, maybe?" I hinted.
"Certainly." He stopped at the door and turned back. "You know, I found the archives of Mr. Mossfoot's early recordings, as well as the ones this year, before... I just wanted to say he sounded like a decent person."
"He was a blowhard, a coward, a drunk, and a scheming womanizer," I countered.
"And?"
"He was a friend. I just don't like it when people talk of the dead like they were angels waiting to go to heaven, is all. Makes me sick. I don't want anyone doing that for me when I'm gone."
Sparks raised an eyebrow. "When?"
"Don't go all Freud on me, monk boy. I'm not planning on it, but the fact is we all die. And when I do, the last thing I want is whatever friends I might have still around to act as if I did no wrong."
"You don't feel you've lead a worthy life?"
"Swing and a miss, strike two. I'm just saying I know who I am. Good and bad. I'm defined by everything I do, not just what people like about me."
Brother Sparks smiled. "Fascinating."
"Message, Mr. Spock?" Sparks frowned and again I had to explain myself. "Star Trek reference."
"Ah."
"That's the problem with having access to over a thousand years of popular culture, preserved for all eternity on a variety of media. Ninety five percent of people will only be interested in what happened the last fifty years, and the other five percent will be stretched so thin that you'll need an online matchmaking service just to find someone who knows what the hell you're talking about. And they're probably on an outpost three hundred light years away."
"Apologies."
"Anyway, what's so dang fascinating?"
"You are, of course. I mean, I understand you believe you're you, but from my perspective I think I've always assumed an advanced simulation--but still a simulation."
"Oh, trust me, I've had days I've wondered about that too. I call them Wednesday. And Thursday. Friday. Pretty much any day ending in Y."
"Artificial intelligence isn't my forte," Sparks admitted, "I suppose existential angst could be simulated just like anything else, but let's just say I'm convinced yours is genuine."
"Does not compute."
Brother Sparks snorted again. "And humor is incredibly difficult to simulate. That much I do know."
"Okay, I can get back to Dear Diary later. What were you here for?"
"I simply wanted to inform you that arrangements have been made. We can head to Sol whenever you're ready. Do you need more time?"
I looked back at the recorder. "Five minutes. Let's get on with it."
Ah, Crap.
"This will never work."
Brother Sparks shushed me. "Of course it will, have you looked at yourself in a mirror lately? You'll be lucky they don't throw you straight into ICU when we walk in the door."
For the birthplace of humanity, Earth was all right, I guess. Somehow you expected it to feel more grand, but I'd been to a dozen Earth-like planets, some terraformed, some natural, that felt just as big and majestic. Hell, some of the tourist worlds felt more like what I imagined Earth should be like.
But it's not as if this place was trying to put on a show. Billions of people live here, some of whom have never left the cradle. Hard to imagine.
Geneva, however, did have a look of splendor to it, like it knew it was one of the big important places in the Federation (though far from the only one) and wanted to make sure anyone travelling down by shuttle knew it too.
Sparks and I were on a planetary shuttle from Galileo station near the moon, which is where we had docked the Troubadour. It seemed Sparks's Order were everywhere we needed them. A subtle nod from one of the dock rats on Galileo let us know that our arrival would not be noted on any official logs.
By this point I felt like I was part of this quasi-religious Order, because everything I did now was a leap of faith, including going down to Geneva looking exactly as I normally do, without even a hint of a disguise. The same wasn't true for Sparks, who had his face completely redone on Galileo station to resemble a well known doctor from Everate. Even after we got off the shuttle and onto a tram, I kept expecting something to scan me and call the cops.
Sparks assured me this wasn't the case. "Fortunately we've nipped this in the bud. The only complication so far has been Simmentor Doozer finding you first. And he's unlikely to advertise his failure to anyone." Sparks shook his head. "I mistook him for a fool, even enjoyed pulling the wool over his eyes. It seemed he enjoyed playing the part even more until he found something that suited his goals."
"But you said before the Feds would be looking for me soon."
"And they will, but they will find that exceedingly difficult when their facial recognition algorithms keep pointing them to the wrong people. The only true risk is encountering someone intimately familiar with your case, assuming there is anyone. It's entirely possible your case is being handled entirely by virtual assistants, pending review by a live researcher. Until Doozer found you, you were more of a hypothetical interest than an actual one, after all."
The Federation's Medical Research Laboratory was a large sprawling construct, impressive in size with a decent sculpture out front, but not exactly a work of art. The cover story provided was that I was a burn victim whose body's immune system had rejected current progenitor cell technology, which was more or less the truth, and ostensibly here to test out a new therapy. Sparks was the lead physician familiar with my case, there to assist if there were complications. Everything checked out at the front desk and we were moved on to the experimental testing wing where human trials were handled.
Believe it or not, this actually wasn't my first time in such a place. Back before I was a stuntwoman, when it was hard to make ends meet, I had volunteered for lab testing of new drugs a few times. They paid very well and I only did it because I was assured of its safety... all the weird ass mutations got sorted out in the earlier stages. This was more for monitoring minor side effects like power diarrhea or an overwhelming desire to argue on message boards--but I repeat myself.
Overall it just meant you spent a weekend wearing hospital chic, got decent food, maybe had to run to the bathroom once or twice (well one trial it was more like every hour) and then your next three months rent was taken care of. Sweet.
The wing we were taken to reminded me of those days. In fact I saw through one observation window a clinical trial going on, and the ass-revealing gowns they wore hadn't changed in a hundred and fifty years--or light years.
I'd been given a private room and for one terrifying moment, seeing the hospital bed there ready and waiting for me, I thought this had all been a trap and Sparks had just gotten me to come here without putting up a fight. I'd have given him props on a cunning and elaborate scheme if that had been the case, then broken his nose before they strapped me down.
Instead, Sparks checked out the computer terminal in the room, at first showing my fake patient records and charts. He quickly bypassed those to get to the hospital's mainframe. Something about how easily he did it made me think he wasn't hacking the system at all, but rather accessing a back door of some sort. He soon found the information he wanted, secured the room of any potential listening devices, and updated me on the plan.
"Accessing what's shared on the various distributed networks is easy enough. We already have things in place to track down your records and corrupt them beyond usefulness, but once such a process is detected, backups go into lockdown and become inaccessible. Once the threat has passed, everything damaged is going to be flagged for backup retrieval. So we need to start the attack from inside the central backup, which then directly contacts the secondary-backups wherever they are, even before the distributed network is hit."
"I'll pretend I understand how all that works and get to the 'where do I come in' question."
"Well, I had hoped your role would be limited to simply providing a cover to get us inside and assisting in our escape should we be discovered. But as it turns out I'm afraid I'll need you to make a slightly bigger sacrifice than that."
I looked at him until he dropped the dramatics.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to kill you. Just for a little while."
"Oh, well, if it's just for a little while..." I said with more sarcasm than a legion of fandom forum trolls.
"The only way I can access the central backup is in their crash room, because it's right above it. You'll die, they'll transfer you to the crash room, and I'll handle the rest."
"So all I need to do is let my heart stop beating. Swell."
"Well, and cease all brain function."
"Fantastic! Do I get to crap myself as well?"
"I believe that is a normal bodily function when one dies, yes."
"You do realize we have to get away from here afterwards, right? I don't want them following the brown trail all the way back to the shuttleport."
"I'll take care of it. I have a couple of options in mind. I'll see to it you're clean with proper clothes ready before we go."
I sighed. What option did I have at this point. "You better. So what do we do?"
"We'll need to go ahead with the first stage of the new progenitor treatment, at which point I'll make sure you have a severe allergic reaction and flatline. That's pretty much it on your end."
"Nice to know that my most important contribution to this mission is to drop dead."
Sparks smiled. "The technical stuff would have bored you anyway."
The door to my room opened and a doctor walked in, looking at a datapad. "So... Mr. Mendez? Ready to try and get that handsome face of yours back?"
That was my cue. "Yep."
He then looked at the Brother Sparks. "And Dr. Hallywell, a pleasure. I've read your papers regarding progenitor application in advanced telomere decay. I'm thrilled that you've taken an interest in my research."
Sparks turned out to be a consummate actor. "I'm thrilled you were able to take us on with such short notice, Dr. Nagoya. I've heard promising things about your new approach, and Tom here is an unusual case. It should provide us both with a lot of useful information."
Dr. Nagoya nodded and gestured out to the hall. "Well, if you're ready, Mr. Mendez, we'll get you to the change room and we can get started right away."
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"Fandom forum trolls"... There is no word that can describe how awesome you are!
"Fandom forum trolls"... There is no word that can describe how awesome you are!
Was that sarcasm?
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The Mind Palace
Well, dying sucked. At least the first time it was peacefully in my ship. Never felt a thing then.
When Sparks said I'd have an allergic reaction, he did not warn me just how long that reaction would take to finish me off. First the burning all around my skin where the new progenitor cells were being tested, then my lungs were on fire, fillig with fluid, until I couldn't breathe and everything started to go black.
Aaaand, I think I actually remember crapping myself before it all went black. Lovely. The next thing I knew I was some place I hadn't been in a long time.
I was in a library. It was octagonal in shape. Six of the walls held countless books, one was a giant window providing light, and the last was the door I'd just came through.
My mind palace.
Okay, I know that term refers to something else entirely. It's a mnemonic tool allowing people to remember large amounts of information with instant recall. But, in a way that's what this was, too.
This was where I went in my down time to give Mossfoot some privacy. Given that I'm a cinephile rather a bookworm, I had at first not exactly seen this as an ideal arrangement. But storing tons of movies takes up a hell of a lot more memory than text files that can be applied to whatever I pick up off the shelf here, so that was that.
A single large padded blue chair sat in the center. Comfortable. It was exactly like the one my dad sat in when I was a kid. He'd always kick me off whenever he came into the room, so that made it even more special to sit in whenever possible.
And right now, I saw a familiar face using it. I couldn't believe it, but I'd always hoped.
"Hey there, flyboy. That's my spot."
Mossfoot didn't react. He looked like the way he used to, before the accident that made his face look like melted cheese. He was absorbed in a book, of course.
"I said, hey there, flyboy."
He still didn't react. That was odd. I tried waving my hand in front of him. Nothing. When I tried taking his book away from him my hand passed right through. He turned a page.
"Swell. Just swell." While I knew nothing about the tech that made all this possible, I could think of any number of SF shows that had similar situations and their psudo-science explanations for it. It's like I was slightly out of phase with MF's reality, in my own little pocket. I could see him, but he couldn't see me, and we couldn't interact.
But he was alive. That was the important thing. He looked content enough. But then, the man loves his books. I checked out what he was reading now. Some kind of mystery novel with two detectives back to back on the cover.
"Getting Rid of Gary?" I'd never heard of it, or the author, one Noah Chinn. But then, the library was filled with just about every book there was.
Not knowing what to do, I sat down in front of him, hoping maybe he'd see a flicker of me at some point. Maybe he couldn't hear me directly, but maybe he could subconsciously, like a coma patient.
"Hey. It's me. I, uh, just want to let your know your body is in decent shape. Well, better shape, really. You never did do enough exercise in my opinion." I sighed. "So look, now that I know you're alive I'm going to do whatever it takes to get you back, okay? I found one Brother Mathias's techno-monks. If anyone can help, it's him. Granted, he just killed me, but it was on purpose, and just for a little while. Right now he's hacking the database of one of the most secure medical testing facilities in the Federation, while I'm lying dead on a table with a full load in my pants. Er, your pants. Yeah, sorry about that. Point is, if he can do that, I figure he can detangle our wires, or will know someone who can."
I looked around, thinking about what else there was to say that was important.
But I never got a chance to say it, because the doors opened, bright light filled the room, and everything vanished into white.
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I need a yearly pass saying that this is even better than the last one! Which is getting pretty good by now! I see Mossfoot has great taste in literature.
I see Mossfoot has great taste in literature. The Great Escape
My eyes flickered open, squinting at the bright light. But it wasn't of the "come into the light" kind where I end up reunited with my pet dog on the rainbow bridge, it was that crappy hospital light that hasn't changed in a thousand years.
I was on a stretcher, and Brother Sparks was looking down at me. "Ready to go?"
I struggled up. I hadn't been dead long, but my body was very much out of whack from everything that had happened to it--including whatever they did after my heart stopped ticking.
Looking around, I realized I wasn't standing still, but rolling down the hall. I wasn't the only one, the place was in a panic. "What's going on?"
"Bomb threat. Evacuation procedures are in place." Sparks smiled. "Wonder how that happened?"
I got it. This would make it that much easier for us to slip away in the chaos. Patients were being walked, rolled and carted out from every room we passed, until we were like a school of johnny gowned salmon swimming upstream.
"Everything work out?" I asked.
"We did our part, but the rest of the Order have to make sure there are no loose ends out there."
"And then what?"
Brother Sparks didn't answer, instead saying "Bump coming up" as he rolled the cart over a low curb in order to skirt around the mass of exodusing people. We flowed around the outer edge, but kept close to be part of the mass, and soon got near the front.
"So how do we get out?" I asked. "It's gonna look suspicious if I'm running around in a hospital gown."
"Check between your legs," Sparks said.
I felt down and first off realized I was already wearing pants under the blanket. Then I felt a shirt down between my knees.
"Grab it and put it on once we're clear. Ready?"
I nodded, looking around the open lot full of people and noting several potential avenues of escape. "Piece of cake."
* * * * *
It didn't take long for us to make our way back to the shuttle station. Security was heightened because of the bomb scare, but Sparks had already accounted for that. We both had new identities again as high level off duty Federation officers, which helped wave us through the security checks. After that we were on our way to Galileo station, where the Troubadour awaited us.
I held off asking too many questions until we were safely on board the Clipper. You never knew who might be recording things. I got comfortable in my chair and put on my Elite baseball cap, ready to go when the word was given. As if sharing my sentiment that it was now okay to speak, Sparks informed me of what had happened in the hospital. How after my heart was beating again he had knocked out the crash room staff with the same sonic device he'd rescued me with. How he'd hacked the computer system in the room directly underneath via a hard line the crash room had access to, while somehow managing to clean me up and put on my pants for me, and topping it off with a warning of a bomb threat sent "directly" from the Federation's Anti-Terrorism Unit. The rest I knew.
"So, now what?" I really didn't need to elaborate, it was a rather all-encompassing question, and Sparks knew it.
"For the Order? We disappear for a time. Erase our records again. Antal's men will salvage what they can, and no doubt Simmentor Doozer has private files we won't be able to access, but all the information that matters will be lost."
"What about all the good work you were doing there?" I asked.
"Oh, anything that benefits the preservation of life will remain untouched. We're simply removing our fingerprints, so to speak. It's not as if we were ever motivated by fame or glory."
"And where will you go?"
"We have a small system on the edge of the bubble that has been prepared for such an emergency. Its government has secretly been members of the Order for three hundred years. Even I wasn't briefed on it until the evacuation order was given."
I frowned. "I guess I should say sorry for all that."
"Oh?"
"Well, I mean, I'm the reason all this happened, right? If I hadn't popped up on the scene you'd still be doing your work."
"True, but I may not have learned that Simmentor Doozer was aware of our covert activities and planning to use us for his own schemes. As a parting gift, we made sure that Pranav Antal knew what he was intending to do, and why we couldn't allow it. What the Simguru does with that information will determine what future dealings we have with him further down the line."
That puzzled me. "Wait, you're bailing out of there like someone pressed the big red self destruct button, but you're willing to go back to him?"
"I didn't say that. I said dealings. Antal's Utopia has laudable goals and commendable ideals. But we in the Order have a saying: Always listen to someone who is searching for the truth--always beware of someone who claims to have found it. It's people like Doozer we fear, especially if they were to become the guiding vision behind the Utopian movement. If Antel shares that fear, then we have much in common. And that is the basis for cooperation. In time."
It felt like that was all I was going to get out of him on that front so now it was time to address the elephant in the cargo hold. "And what about me?"
Sparks shrugged. "You are free to do as you wish. I can change your identity for you easily enough. You can start again wherever you like. Or you can stay who you are. The fragments of your existence that remain scattered about won't in any way point to the secrets you hold within you. As far as the galaxy knows you are simply a man who was thought dead for an extraordinarily long time, miraculously revived, and for a period of time was known as Ranger M." He snickered a bit at that. "I did enjoy that brief chapter of your life, I must say."
"Not my life," I said, which was as good a point as any to bring this up. "Mossfoot's not dead."
Brother Sparks cocked his head. "Pardon?"
"When you killed me, I was in the mind palace--what I call that virtual library I could stay in while leaving Mossfoot alone. He was there, reading a book."
"Are you certain?"
I nodded. "He looked the way he used to, before the accident that scarred him. But he couldn't see me, and I couldn't touch him."
"It may have been a memory of sorts," Sparks suggested, but quickly dismissed the idea. "No, I think you are right. I studied Brother Mathias's work as best I could, and that was always a likely possibility."
"So, can you get him back?" I asked.
Mathias sighed. "Honestly, it would have been better if he was dead."
That made no sense. "Why?"
"Because it puts me in an unenviable position, and possibly breaking my vows."
I had an uncomfortable feeling I knew where this was going, but I waited for him to say it.
"There is a way to bring Mossfoot back...but I'm afraid you're not going to like it."
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Typical, ending like that As a supporter of Utopia myself, I will point out that's it's spelled Pranav Antal and not Panav Antel.
As a supporter of Utopia myself, I will point out that's it's spelled Pranav Antal and not Panav Antel.Typical, ending like that
Should be fixed - got the spelling from an incorrect google search.
I understand. Sadly, I see all of them, and some of them are just really annoying. Sorry if me posting the really annoying ones annoys you.What I hate about writing like this - it's always more or less a first draft. I re-read it later and find a half dozen typos I really should fix... whether I do or not depends on how much of a pain in the ass it feels like at the time
Oh and get back to work on real books so I can throw money at you!
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I feel your pain. I more or less post a third draft of my RP and still end up with typos. And oddly only notice them later after I've been drinking. :/What I hate about writing like this - it's always more or less a first draft. I re-read it later and find a half dozen typos I really should fix... whether I do or not depends on how much of a pain in the ass it feels like at the time
Yes. Money must be thrown. If only there were books written by an author I like.I understand. Sadly, I see all of them, and some of them are just really annoying. Sorry if me posting the really annoying ones annoys you.
I feel your pain. I more or less post a third draft of my RP and still end up with typos. And oddly only notice them later after I've been drinking. :/
Yes. Money must be thrown. If only there were books written by an author I like.
Points at signature, waves arms frantically.
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Good point, my friends must throw money at you as well!Points at signature, waves arms frantically.
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