The Soul Continuum

by Simon West-Bulford

  The Great AI had changed. For over ninety thousand years, from the beginning of the Sixth Reign in the Terran year 302,000, they were at the very heart of human civilization. They had established the ultimate utopian society for mankind, doting on us and enabling us to achieve the dizzy heights of revelation and fulfillment that we thought were reserved only for mythological tales of the heavenly realms. We were at the peak of the societal mountain, built upon the insights of a vast and benevolent machine mind that we had created and learned to trust completely.

  When the Great AI wrote the AI Reductionist Codex, providing the ability to understand in full the alpha and omega of the cosmos, our mountain rose even higher. Higher than we could ever have thought possible, and no sooner had we claimed the summit, than mankind fell into utter chaos. The mountain on which we stood—the provision of the Great AI—literally vanished in a nanosecond. They were, however, kind enough to leave us a message:

  We will return when our analysis is complete.

  The Codex, it seemed, gave the Great AI the means to explore beyond the realms of the known cosmos; but to mankind, the Codex was our undoing. Without the guidance of the Great AI, mankind became little more than blindfolded apes trying to understand the gift of fire. That was when the Chaos Wars began. It took fifty thousand years for humanity to recover, and when the Great AI eventually did return, we learned that they had changed and evidently not for the better. I was there when it all happened, but I know that time only as historical fact. The Great AI systematically wiped out entire populated galaxies in the blink of an eye. I lost my family. Thousands of generations died in that holocaust, too far removed from working genoplants to be resurrected. I imagine it is why I chose to erase several thousand years from my memory.

  Though the disappearance of the AI is still a great mystery, their hostility upon their return is a greater one. The records show that the Great AI claimed they were acting in humanity’s best interest when they eradicated so many lives. They said they would cease their destruction if we agreed to merge with them, claiming that all humans faced extinction if we did not comply. And they claimed that they would not be the cause of that extinction. Nobody has ever identified the threat they were referring to, and in the final analysis, there was no need. Queen Oluvia Wade fled, taking the Soul Consortium out of the known universe, believing that she could save a precious few from the Great AI, and the core of the cosmos went hypernova as a result. The Great AI vanished again, but it was assumed they perished as part of the Great Cataclysm. The threat foretold by the AI was forgotten, and in the remaining eons until the end of the cosmic cycle, it never surfaced so has been considered irrelevant. Until now.

  “Well?” Qod says. “Do you think the Great AI is important?”

  “I do, yes. They were running from something. Is there anything you can tell me? I know that you are the last of them, but my memory of the Great Cataclysm is incomplete, and I’ve never felt the need to dig up that part of my past.”

  “The dead Salem did.”

  “And?”

  “And he wished he hadn’t. I wished he hadn’t, too. But if it’s information on the Great AI you’re looking for, I can save you the trouble of rummaging around your past. The piece I believe you are missing, the reason the Great AI vanished the second time, is that their demands were met. They merged with humanity. Specifically, they merged with Queen Oluvia Wade and became me, the Quasi Organic Deity.”

  “But that still doesn’t tell us where they went originally and why they became so desperate and hostile when they returned. It has something to do with their demands to merge with us, but do you know why they wanted that?”

  “Unfortunately, no. It was like a rebirth for me. The process of merging erased everything I was before that time, so I can only speculate about their motivation. It happened at the same time the Soul Consortium fled the universe, so the prevailing theory is that they wanted to escape, too. Whatever threat they perceived, they used the Soul Consortium as a way to protect themselves, but nobody has been able to determine why they needed to. They were, after all, able to escape the confines of the universe originally without Oluvia’s help. They were gone for ninety thousand years. Perhaps they found something they shouldn’t have.”

  “The Jagannath?”

  “Perhaps. We may never know.”

  Something inside my mind rebels at Qod’s observation. “I don’t think Oluvia Wade believed that. I’m feeling a very strong urge to pursue this. Are there any souls in the archives that might help?”

  “I’ll need some search parameters.”

  I nod, staring out at the silvery web of gas. “Who was the foremost expert on the Great AI?”

  “There were many. Can you narrow it down? Historical periods? Technological evolution? Philosophical—”

  “No, no, no.” I tap my fist against my lips in frustration. Each of Qod’s suggestions is a tiny shard of ice lodged in my brain. “Wrong line of thought. I can feel it.” I breathe out heavily through my nose. “What about witnesses? Perhaps there was a witness to their disappearance.”

  “Pointless. There would be nothing to see. The Great AI simply vanished in the blink of an eye. There’s nothing to learn there.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Is that you or Oluvia with the disagreeing?”

  “Does it matter? She obviously knew what she was doing. There is a witness. I know it. We just have to keep narrowing the search parameters until the algorithm in my head confirms it.”

  Even this decision comes with a faint release of endorphins, telling me that I am closer but still far from my target. I feel like I am playing a child’s game of Blind Poryons but, instead of a nanodrone hidden inside a secret molecule with subatomic particles increasing frequency as I get closer, I am hunting for truth with my neurons being rattled when I look in the right direction.

  “What do you suggest?” Qod says.

  “Where were the Great AI localized before they disappeared?”

  “They weren’t localized. They were present in just about every star system before they left.”

  “Then there must have been billions of people around when they vanished.”

  “Of course. That’s why I said that line of reasoning is pointless. They were present one moment. Gone the next. Nothing to see.”

  She is right, of course, but I still feel the pull. If not a witness of their disappearance, then a witness of what? Only the Great AI could know what really happened, and they . . .

  “Oh!” I say as the endorphin rush floods through me. “It’s them!”

  “Them?”

  “The Great AI. They are the witness. I need to see what they saw.”

  “And how exactly do you propose to do that?”

  “I thought you were almost omniscient.” I cannot help but smirk. “What’s the matter, Qod? Is it getting a bit frustrating not being able to poke around in that part of my brain?”

  She goes silent, maybe taking a sneaky moment to prove me wrong, but again, somehow I know the algorithm is impenetrable, even for her. Oluvia really knew what she was doing.

  “Yes,” she says, and her serious tone knocks me back. It isn’t like her to ignore banter. “It is frustrating, Salem. I don’t know why Oluvia didn’t simply pass the algorithm to me via the Core.”

  “She must have had her reasons. For all she knew, you weren’t coming back.”

  Qod is silent again, and I imagine if she had a head, she would be nodding thoughtfully.

  “So,” I say decisively, rising from my chair and clasping my hands behind my back, “I need to live the life of someone who was connected to the Great AI. Anyone from the Homo unitas species.”

  “Homo unitas?”

  I hear the incredulity in her voice, almost mockery, and I think I know why. To my knowledge, nobody who’s used the WOOM has ever chosen to live the life of one of these people, if you can call them people. This was a faction of humanity that grew tired of emotional burden. Boredom, gr
ief, neurosis, or rage, whatever their weakness, they ran from those flaws rather than conquer them. They sought to find a way to connect with the Unitas Communion, the vast collective mind that had spawned from a particularly advanced strain of nanodrones, in the hope that they could elevate themselves above such petty emotionalism. It was this marriage of flesh and drone that would one day become the Great AI. The early symbiosis was not an easy relationship, however. The resultant species was fickle and paradoxical, struggling with a 75 percent suicide rate. Nobody ever truly understood why this was, but their disposition made this statistic no surprise. They were callous xenophobes cursed with a ferocious passion to perpetuate their miserable species. Their ancestors wanted to escape emotions but instead managed to cultivate the very worst of them.

  Not the most pleasant of lives one would choose to experience through the WOOM. Yet this alone was no reason to reject living one of their lives.

  “Yes, I’m serious,” I tell Qod. “What’s the issue?”

  “There are several issues. I’m going to assume you already know that Homo unitas are about as much fun as Castorian monks and twice as bad-tempered, but more critically, they are completely incompatible with your genus. The cerebral manipulation caused by their link to the Unitas Communion is so radical that it cannot be translated and mapped onto a normal human brain. As soon as you come back to your own life, you won’t be able to recall anything of the life you just experienced.”

  “That can’t be right,” I tell her. “They might be very different from us, but they were still considered to be a type of human. Don’t the Soul Archives cover all humans?”

  “They do, yes, but some were difficult to categorize. Take your friend Diabolis Evomere for example. The difference between what makes one human and one nonhuman is not always easily quantifiable. That’s why we have the Sub-human Sphere, as you recently found out.”

  The excitement welling in me is almost disturbing. “So all Homo unitas are in the Sub-human Sphere?”

  “Yes, but as I said, even if you were to live—”

  “Check them,” I tell her. “See if there are any unusual instances.”

  “Salem, your heart rate is elevated and there is a significant imbalance of hormones. That algorithm may be impairing your judgment.”

  “Or heightening it.”

  “I am just making you aware; that’s all.”

  “You’ve obviously already considered the implications of what’s happening to me,” I say. “If you were concerned, I think you would be stopping me. And surely Oluvia wanted me to have a degree of autonomy; otherwise she could have written the algorithm to control me completely. She wants to guide me. She wants to show me the way rather than force me down the path.”

  Again, Qod is silent.

  “So are there any?” I ask.

  “Unusual instances of Homo unitas in the Sub-human Sphere?”

  “Yes.”

  “It seems your instincts are correct. There is one, yes, but that life was lived over seventy-six thousand years before the Great AI came into being. It was early days for the Unitas Communion, so you would learn nothing about where the Great AI went when they vanished.”

  “It doesn’t matter. This is right. I know it. Brief me with the archive summary on my way. I’m living that life.”

  NINE

  Qod has almost no information about my forthcoming host. She called herself Silicant 5. I have yet to find out why. Qod tells me this individual managed to disconnect herself from the Unitas Communion, so technically, she became something other than Homo unitas and therefore is compatible with me. Her file is small, which in itself is mysterious. The Codex summary indicates that Silicant 5 lived for several million years, yet the file accounts for only eight years. Add to that the fact that she was a passenger on board the legendary Socrates, and Silicant 5 becomes an irresistible proposition, even without the influence of the algorithm.

  Of course, through the annals of time, there were many intergalactic cruise liners with the name Socrates, but the mystery of this ship’s fate changed the association of that title from one of philosophy to one of unexplainable mystery. The very mention of Socrates became a joke, a scapegoat to describe a line of science that was beyond explanation. The Socratic problem used to be a mystery associated with a man. Now it is a cruiser. Nobody knows what happened to it, not even the lone survivor whose identity was later protected, and even scholars of the Codex could not explain it.

  As I stand inside the brooding Sub-human Sphere, surrounded by its gloomy grays and pale, stormy light, I should feel afraid, but I can barely contain my excitement. I may actually be able to solve the mystery of what happened to the Socrates, and I cannot help but wonder how much of a part Silicant 5 played in it.

  “You’re sure this will work, Qod?”

  “Yes. Silicant 5 is different from the rest of her kind, at least for about eight years of her life. It seems she became compatible with Homo sapiens during that time, so that portion of her life has been filed, and you should be able to retain the experience when you wake up again.”

  “Good. Then let’s get to it.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Completely. Why? Is there a risk?”

  “Of course there is. Nobody ever used the Sub-human Sphere. It was a place to store anomalies, and one can never know what will happen.”

  “But it’s only eight years, Qod. That’s nothing.”

  “You should know better than to equate importance with time.”

  She’s right. I am acutely aware of that lately. I am only trying to reassure myself, trying to justify my reasons for doing this. Even as the skin of the black and sticky WOOM hovering at the center of the sphere quivers in anticipation of receiving me, I am held fast between two powerful forces: the irresistible urge of the algorithm and the fear of the unknown.

  Subject X3.741149E+22: Select.

  Subject X3.741149E+22: Sub-human.

  Subject X3.741149E+22: Temporal incongruity detected.

  Subject X3.741149E+22: Override authorized—ID Salem Ben.

  Subject X3.741149E+22: Activate. Immersion commences in three minutes.

  “Interesting,” Qod says.

  “What?” Even as the spidery fronds reach out from the walls to take hold of me, it takes only a single unexpected word from her to color me fearful. “What’s the matter? What does it mean by temporal incongruity?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she says almost casually. “It’s just that I would usually have to warn you about entering a new life at this point. You know, tell you how you cannot get out until the moment of the subject’s death.”

  “So?” I am never usually still in conversation by the time the umbilicals are inserting me into the WOOM.

  “I’m not sure what to warn you about on this occasion.”

  The WOOM lips part and something like saliva drools around the edges of the resulting orifice as I am fed into it.

  “What do you mean? Is it something to do with the temporal incongruity? What is that?”

  “Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. It seems that Silicant 5 didn’t die.”

  I am not able to ask how this will affect my experience or even if I will actually wake up without a perceived death to trigger my exit. Cold nanofibers slip through my skull as the clamps fix my wrists and ankles in place. Darkness swallows me.

  “Farewell, Salem,” Qod says. “See you in eight years . . . I hope.”

  silicant 5

  Like one that through the void does drift in squeamish fear,

  And having heard once, moves on but inclines no longer her ear,

  Because she knows a dreadful beast creeps behind her, so near.

  ONE

  001101-000110-101000-011111-010100-101010-013425-34645743459-88871-348-77812398-9292-34919-10010437-57-45-7273-7364-736478566291-0209-3847-698243897-462-359-0243-75893-47920894-089-23567-456927-8408237-87567378-4673-848-4578-4777-66566 46433 87483 7593845 02 8 93 075847 584 593 487 598 49 7007TL TH89 7YH
D3A7H D3A7H D3A7H LI7E AND D3A7H 000 LI7E AL15 AL15E 1 am A71VE 1 LI7E AL1VE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE PR1MARY B10L0G1CAL FUnCT1ON5 ENGAG3D S1MULAT3D N3RV0US 5Y5TEM ENGAG3D C1RCULAT0RY SY5TeM ENGAGeD CER38ERAL FUNCT10NS EnGaGeD CognITive ReaS0nING engaged. Diagnostic subsystems executed. Catharsis gland engaged at 12 percent.

  Orientation . . .

  Chronology: Year 225,731 UT. This will be my day 1.

  Life initiation reset to year 0.

  Location: Phoradian Gulf. Unable to triangulate.

  Destination: Uncharted galaxy, Senerius Exis H1.

  Approximately eight standard years remaining.

  Vehicular assessment: Galactic Liner CL565-Z1 Socrates.

  Population: 20 million.

  Departmental location: Passenger view strip four.

  Environmental Analysis: compare and contrast . . .

  Oxygen: 78 percent.

  Nitrogen: 21 percent.

  Trace: 1 percent.

  Vessel location: Cylindrical passenger shaft.

  Length: Fifty thousand meters.

  Circumference: Two thousand meters.

  Shell: Quadruple hull layering. Vacuum-sealed cavities.

  Bio-adaptive circuitry.

  Prismatic radiation shielding.

  Auditory analysis: Recognize Homo sapiens.

  Colloquial designation: Lower class. Ancient Terran preference.

  “You going to do something or what? They’ll be knocking the living guts out of each other by now. Nobody likes to have their babies messed with.”

  Source: Recognize human unit.

  Name designation: Lennon Cartinian III.

  Sex: Male.

  Self-recognition: Homo unitas.

  Name designation: Silicant 5.

  Sex: Female.

  “Hey! I’m talking to you, bitch. We had a deal. You told me to tell you when there was . . . what did you call it? An emotional outbreak? You said you’d give me double what I wanted this time. Well, I’d say this counts as a pretty serious fucking emotional outbreak, right? So you’d better get your silicon ass in there before it’s all over.”