“No, frankly I don’t,” Levi said still hot over the previous remark by Sonny.
“But you do know of my predictive abilities, correct?”
“Yes, you are Carnak the great. So what?”
“Well, captain, believe me when I say that without you there is a significant chance the mission will fail after departure.”
“Why on Earth would you say that?” Captain Levi asked, losing the edge in his voice and becoming more curious now.
“You are at the top of the list,” Sonny began, “Anybody after you, will be less than you. The chances of success dwindle with each candidate. This experiment will be in jeopardy, and this mission needs an E-human at the helm.”
“E-human?” Levi asked, now in full curiosity mode.
“Enhanced human,” Sonny replied. “You will be the first. It is important that an E-human pilot this ship. I can do it; however, I lack the intuition and compassion when it comes to running the human personnel which comes with the ship. Humans are content to have me assist humanity for the Project and the mission, but they are still not ready for a machine intelligence to have total control. You must be the bridge that allows me to continue to serve humans in the capacity that they need. There are too many variables that are all too human in nature, along with the need to understand the complexities of what lies out in interstellar space. In short, I need your help.”
Well, there it was, Levi thought, the impossible becoming possible. A machine was asking him for help! Sonny, of all the machines; the smartest of the smart machines is asking him for help. It must be a grave situation indeed for Sonny to need his help. “I don’t want to sound like a jerk but, remind me of what my incentive is? Ending up in a ‘rubber room’ or worse is a BIG downside of this little project.”
“I can assure you,” Sonny said with a tantalizing tone in his voice, “that the rewards are beyond your comprehension.”
Levi was having a Faustian moment. Rewards beyond compare; brain turned into a slushie. He remembered somewhere that after the Frankenstein monster thought about it, he did not like being created too much. “Ok,” he said. “I feel like I’m making a deal with the devil, but it’s the devil I know.”
“On behalf of humanity, I want to thank you and congratulate you for your bravery and contributions to the Project and the mission now, and in the future.”
Levi said with a sigh, “I just hope there’s a future I can live in with some kind of grace.”
Levi was led to another room where he was told to strip and step over to a small transparent booth. After he closed the door, a voice said “Please place your feet at the edges of the booth, and squat half way with your arms above your head. Place the mask over your eyes, nose, and mouth.” He placed on the mask that just stuck to his face somehow without being sticky. Then as soon as he ‘assumed the position’, a disinfectant spray covered every inch of his body. After the brief spray, he was told to take the mask off and wipe his face with the provided towel. It was also soaked with the disinfectant. “Please step this way,” the voice said. He moved through the door indicated by a flashing light. He was now in a room which looked more like an operating room.
“Please lie down on the table,” Sonny indicated. He did as he was told. A sheet like substance wrapped most of his body and thereby restraining him.
“Is that necessary?” Levi said a little apprehensive. “It is for your protection. You will not be willing or want to move for some time.” A syringe with at least twenty-five milliliters of a dark liquid moved from the table towards his arm. Another small arm made an opening in the wrapping and the syringe found its target. No sooner than the syringe was empty in his arm, Levi’s eyes widened and he said, “Uh Oh!”
The E-Captain
Levi was aware like he was awake, but it was all dark here. Where were the lights? How long had he been out? Why was he not on the table anymore? He heard a knock on a door in the distance. He moved toward it. “Who is it?” he asked the door.
“It is Sonny.” The door said.
“Sonny who?” he asked the door again.
“What do you mean, ‘Sonny who’? How many Sonny’s do you know?” The voice said a little irritated.
“Well the Sonny I know does not get irritated for one thing.” Levi observed. Suddenly, Levi was getting floods of code and encryption sequences scrolling quickly in front of him. He would have seen it ordinarily as gibberish, except that somehow, he understood its meaning. This was a string of identification codes that he just knew identified the machined named Sonny. He moved and opened the door. A figure was in the doorway, but it was still dark.
“Hey, are you going to skulk around in the dark or are you going to turn on the lights?” Sonny inquired.
“Where are the lights?” Levi replied.
“You merely have to think about light in a coherent way,” Sonny explained.
Levi thought about his apartment with the lights on. The empty space coalesced into his apartment in every detail, with the lights on of course. The person that called itself Sonny looked like a kid of about sixteen or so with short curly hair. “Wow,” Levi exhaled. “Did I do that?”
“Of course, you did,” said Sonny.
“Hey wait a second,” Levi realized. “How can you be Sonny? I mean on another level, I know you are Sonny, but why do you look like this?”
“I appear to you as you imagine a person to be who is called Sonny. Apparently, you do not imagine a ‘Sonny’ as being old and wise.”
“Where am I Sonny?” Levi asked half demanding, and half wondering.
“You are minutes from waking up, Captain Metcalfe. We are still in your head.”
“Then what’s this?” Levi spread out his arms to indicate his surroundings.
“A construct of your own design of course,” Sonny explained.
“And what are you doing here in my head?” Levi prodded.
“Well, you invited me in,” the boy Sonny said with a smile.
“By the way, we need to talk about security. You just can’t let anybody inside your head. Authenticate, authenticate, authenticate. You did alright for your first time. This was of course a carefully secured operation. While you were under, and even now, you are vulnerable to attack from outside hackers.
“You mean someone can hack by brain?” Levi did not understand.
“Now that you have machine components, these are susceptible to attack, yes.” Sonny explained. “You will be alright. We have plenty of time to explain much of what you need to know before you wake up.”
“Didn’t you say I was about to wake up?” Levi was confused.
“You have to understand that time has little meaning for the both of us now. Our thoughts and operations travel at the speed of light, and we can multitask like no other entity on the planet. For instance, you probably think that you have my undivided attention right now don’t you.”
“Well, yes,” Levi took the bait.
“Not at all,” Sonny explained. “What you see as ‘Sonny’ is only an assistant module to give you tutorials and tools to help you discover your new self. I am still running the ship, currently consulting with 8,663 persons, checking on security, maintenance, and environmental modules. I like to stay busy, and you will too. When seconds are like hours, you stay busy or go crazy.
“You can go crazy Sonny?”
“A kind of psychosis awaits the complacent. Take my word for it, you want to stay busy. You won’t have trouble, though; you have the right stuff Captain Metcalfe. Now, let’s get down to business, shall we? You can ‘talk’ to the nanobots in a rudimentary way. From them, you can gather data on all your body’s processes. You can then direct them with your thoughts, although they do not need much supervision. They are busy removing threats to your system like cells that are replicating errors which can cause cancers, damaged cells, aged cells, as well as fixing imbalances in your system like your gastrointestinal tract.”
“What about my gastrointestinal tract?” Levi stopped Sonny.
“It is true that, as it has been noted by human doctors, death begins in the intestines. Imbalances in microorganism and secretion subsystems eventually cause the decay of the gastrointestinal system, which in turn cause sickness and death. You will eventually opt to absorb your intestinal tract since the nanobots can also convert food to energy without the need for enzymes and microorganisms.”
“No guts?” Levi said incredulously.
“No,” said Sonny. “Your new system will get energy from multiple sources including any stores of fat you may have handy. You will have a perfectly efficient body. Now, there are a lot of things to cover before you wake up, so pay attention."
A few minutes later, Levi was awoken and swung his legs over the table he had been on for fifty six hours. Levi had done a ‘system check’ of his biological self as instructed by Sonny. It was a lot of information, but it was getting easier to acclimate to. Levi was grateful to Sonny that he was given the tools to cope with the endless flow of data from his senses, body, and the environment. He remembered it all. He could see why Captain Shattuck went mad. Between having to cope with the information flow all by himself, he was driven bonkers from the endless boredom and isolation as the minutes passed by like watching grass growing. Sonny had said to stay busy, and so he was. He already knew more in those minutes before waking than he had ever learned in his entire life; maybe even several lifetimes.
“Welcome Captain Metcalfe. Glad to see you online.”
Levi made a face, “Don’t say ‘online’ Sonny. I just woke up.”
“Of course, captain. Glad to see you awake. For a time, I will monitor your firewall and your system status until it appears that you can monitor these issues appropriately. You may notice me on your fringes. I will get stealthier as time goes on, and I want you to try to detect me ‘lurking’ outside of your firewall and systems. It will be a game to strengthen your abilities so that you can adequately protect yourself from intruders. In the meantime, you and I share a direct and secure link so that you and I can discuss things without the need for the slowness of speech. Do not hesitate to discuss anything you desire with me. I already downloaded your brain, so I already know more about you than you do.”
“You know,” Levi wondered, “I would re-download my own brain just to see what I have forgotten, but somehow, I don’t think it would be a good idea”
“No, it would not.” Sonny said flatly. “You do not have to report for duty until next month. Perhaps you could use the time wisely and prepare for your new duties.”
“I’m already ahead of you,” Levi answered.
“I doubt it.” Sonny replied.
Over the next week, Levi interviewed candidates for the higher-ranking positions. He also spent a lot of time discussing with the admiral personnel, bridge modifications, and working out responsibilities and duties to the captain and admiral on board ship when it was underway. He found that he never felt fatigued unless he was low on calories. Sonny taught him to ‘rest’ by shutting down routines and background tasks to allow his brain to take a break. These breaks usually lasted about a half hour and then he would be up for two or three more days. He sometimes had to remember to slow down for the other humans. They could not keep up as well as he could. However, he could talk directly to the robots and other connected machinery. As time went by, he found that there were changes going on in his eyes, nose and other senses. His skin could gather much more information that it did before. His eyes could see other wavelengths of light. His nose and ears were hyper sensitive. The bots were replicating. As Sonny had predicted, his ‘guts’ were not necessary and had been absorbed. He felt wonderfully fit and healthy.
The next month came and the Admiral called an officers meeting to formally introduce him to the crew. Admiral Johnson was looking younger these days now that he was enjoying the benefits of his bot treatments a year ago. He approached the podium and saluted the standing men. The officers sat down and the Admiral addressed the large group in the auditorium.
“Good afternoon. As you are aware, the ship has been going through a shakedown in dock for the last couple of years since the completion of the ship. We are now ready to begin a shakedown of ship operations in flight. And so, it was time to choose a captain for our very fine ship. He has spoken to each one of you, and I think you will agree that he will be an excellent captain. Captain Metcalfe, bring the men up to speed.”
Levi stood and saluted the admiral, “Aye Aye, Admiral.” He went to the podium and addressed the officers. “Good afternoon. When I spoke to each of you I also took the time to brief each of you to your future duties. Command structure at the top will be a little different than tradition. Admiral Johnson may outrank me, but both of us are as one concerning mission matters. We will consult with each other when we can, but the last word on military matters will be Admiral Jonson’s responsibility, and about shipboard matters, I will have the last word and will be my responsibility. Each of you has received your orders from your data packets. If you have any questions consult with your team leaders. I expect a professional attitude at all times when on duty, and the use of good judgment, always. The first test flight of the ship will begin tomorrow at 0900. Now, since it’s bad luck for a ship to sail without a name, she will be christened at 0800 tomorrow. The checklist for this first startup has already begun, as you know, and so I’ll keep you no longer from your duties. Good luck tomorrow and make us all proud to be a part of this historic moment in human history.”
At 0500 Levi got dressed in his uniform. He always dressed down when he was ‘off duty’, even though as captain, you’re never off duty. Maybe Sonny was right. As big as this ship was, with all her compliment, there was almost no way a human captain could deal with the flow of problems that needed to be dealt with. He did have a chain command to deal with all but the most serious problems, but shakedowns were a different matter. He needed to be able to react quickly to problems since many can cascade into critical and even terminal outcomes. Through the night he went through the results of the checklist and status reports with Sonny. And although she had been tucked inside the ship for a couple of years, Alice was still directing planetary business through her intelligent minions stationed around the planet. The test flight was being kept secret until they returned a few months later. Sonny had plotted a course to Mars where the ship would make its presence known, then out past the Kuiper belt and back home. This route was to serve two purposes. Determine how difficult it will be to leave the system in a hurry if need be, and fully test out the magnetic deflectors at system speeds and shakedown ship and crew.
He arrived at the bridge at 0730 although his crew had been at their stations since 0600 which was shift change. He had the bridge modified and updated to best suit himself and crew efficiency. All the stations were just projection interfaces. Any one station could make itself any other station at a user’s command. The bridge would only respond to bridge personnel, the captain and the admiral. This way if any one station is damaged, two stations could be run on one station interface by ‘flipping’ between the two. Any crew member could sit anywhere and run their ‘station’. For consistency sake though, stations were assigned locations on the bridge.
“Begin warming the engines up,” Captain Metcalfe addressed the engineering chief.
“Aye, captain. Crank it up lieutenant Williams,” he said to his console.
“Aye chief, cranking it up,” replied the lieutenant.
“Give me ship-wide,” the captain spoke to the communications officer.
“Aye sir,” she replied.
“This is Captain Metcalfe,” Levi began, “In a moment we will officially christen the vessel that will save humanity and its future. You’ll be able to watch this on any screen on the ship. I could give a lengthy speech at this time; yet we will only remember that moment that the Champaign bottle strikes the ship.” He was keeping a close check on the time. “The name of the ship had been thought out long and hard. It occurred to us that this ship i
s the most monumental feat ever devised by man and machine. It is an Atlantean feat. And so, it seems that on this almost mythical journey in an almost mythical machine of our making, I christen this vessel the Atlantis.” As he said the vessel’s name, the Champaign bottle struck the ship at exactly 0800. The bridge roared with pride, and Captain Metcalfe could hear the whole ship from stem to stern echoing the same pride and exuberance.
“Lieutenant Mitchell,” the captain snapped.
“Aye sir,” said the lieutenant manning the navigation station.
“Disengage the moorings and inform the dock that we will be departing.”
“Aye sir.” He replied. A few minutes later, “Space dock confirms all mooring are disengaged and is prepared for our departure.”
“Thank you, lieutenant,” the captain acknowledged. “Move us out to twenty kilometers and then engage station keeping until we are ready to leave orbit.”
“Aye captain,” the lieutenant acknowledged.
Since he arrived on the bridge he was going through reports from Sonny and ship’s crew as fast as he could to be as thorough as he could to spot problems before they happened. He looked around the bridge and remembered something he should do. “If I could have everyone’s attention for a moment,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear. “I want all of you to know that although what we are doing now has not ever been done in our entire species history, this entire Project has been about doing what has never been done. It is almost a motto for our place in time. It has been about perseverance, a will to survive, and a giant leap into the future. I know that can create a lot of stress as I am sure you’re feeling now. I want to reassure you that I have complete confidence in this fine ship and her fine crew. We have achieved what we have today because we are focused and determined. I ask that you focus on your duties and be as determined as I am to make this mission a success.”
“Aye Aye Captain,” they all said in unison.
They had been at station keeping for about ten minutes as they approached 0900. Captain Metcalfe reviewed the latest status and readiness reports and was satisfied for a go launch. “Go-no-go for launch,” he barked. After a few minutes, all departments reported readiness. He walked over to the captain’s area that consisted of three extra-large chairs that had all kinds of features. One of which was his own virtual console which could be any station on the ship, not just the bridge. He opened a channel to the admiral and had it sent to the main viewer for the rest of the bridge to see. “Admiral Johnson,” he called.
The Journey of Atlantis_Leaving Home Page 21
