The Soul Continuum

by Simon West-Bulford

  An authoritative male voice echoes through the cavernous nursery: “Crewman Viander Breem, please report to section four security immediately.”

  “So this is it,” he says, nodding. “I blew everything. It’ll take centuries for me to get back to where I was. My reputation’s ruined, all because of that bastard.”

  “And your irrational behavior.”

  He looks at me with a flash of hostility in his eyes, then softens with defeat. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, that too.”

  “May I follow you to security? I would like to study more of your anger.”

  “Whatever,” he says, then looks up suddenly. “My daughter. What will happen to her if I’m exiled?”

  “She has no mother?”

  “Olulu? That bitch? We’ve been together on and off for the last three hundred years or so, but she got exiled ten years ago for gross misconduct.” He looks guilty and his lip twitches with a nervous smile. “Well, it was our misconduct actually. She got a new role working in the—”

  “I am not interested.”

  I turn my back on Breem and his resultant cursing, and move toward the console at the edge of the viewing platform. I am well aware of the probability that the engineer could adopt the same cowardly strategy on me as he did the other male and send me plummeting over the edge to my temporary death, but I am more than capable of sidestepping in time.

  The mystery of his daughter fascinates me, and the human part of me, which is now no longer hindered by the bombarding numbers generated by the Unitas Communion, has a hunch. Accessing the zygote archives, I run a search for recent depolarizations and find the one I am looking for. The father is Viander Breem and the mother is Olulu Cantama. The time stamp of depolarization, the moment when the stasis was broken and growth stimulated, was 554:219:007. Startled, I check my own time stamp to confirm when I boosted my catharsis gland to disconnect from the Unitas Communion. That too was 554:219:007.

  The probability of this coincidence is so small I cannot deny that the growth of the engineer’s daughter must have been triggered by me. Surely this is not possible. How could there be a connection? Why just one zygote and not all? What is the significance of this human?

  “Look,” Breem says, “I know we only just met, but would you speak for me? Would you tell them . . . you know . . . that I didn’t mean to kill him? I just lost it for a few seconds; that’s all. It won’t ever happen again. You can trust me. I’ll do anything you want. I’ll—”

  I turn to face him, contemptuous. “No. You murdered him.”

  “I didn’t. He’s already back by now. Resurrected in a genoplant.”

  “But you did murder him.”

  He presses his hands together. “Please!”

  “No.”

  “You cold bitch!”

  That is the second time someone has given me that obsolete and inaccurate label today, but I must bury my resentment for now.

  “There is one thing I can do for you,” I tell him.

  The engineer narrows his eyes. “Really? You’ll help me?”

  “I will help your daughter. I will raise her.”

  “You’ll what?”

  The voice echoes through the nursery again. “Crewman Viander Breem, you have not complied with our request. Please report to section four security within five minutes or you will be apprehended. The apprehension will be marked against you at the hearing.”

  He gazes around him, eyes flicking, beads of perspiration forming on his forehead. “Do you mean it? You’ll look after my daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do I know you’ll do that?”

  “What choice do you have? Even if you are not exiled—and you will be—your daughter’s growth will be terminated and the egg will be disposed of. I have contacts and will be able to nurture the growing zygote without further questions being asked.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “My reasons are my reasons.”

  He begins to sob again. “No . . . I can’t just—”

  “I am not giving you a choice, Viander Breem. After your exile I will take her, regardless of your wishes.”

  “And if I don’t get exiled?”

  “You will.”

  Breem looks at the corpse one last time as if it is somehow now filling him with strength rather than remorse. “You’d better hope you’re right. Because if you’re not, I’ll make sure you end up just like him.”

  THREE

  Day 19.

  Days two to eighteen were drudgery and not worthy of log entry. I would be remiss, however, if I did not record today’s events. It promises to be . . . interesting.

  As expected, Viander Breem was exiled. I arranged for the system to be hacked so that it recorded a false termination of the zygote, and on day three, I processed the egg through genomic acceleration therapy to bypass the nine months Homo sapiens would usually wait for natural birth. I do not know what to expect from an infant human; I have never felt the need to access that kind of information from the Unitas Communion, and now I am not able to communicate with them since severing the link. Though I’ve spent the time since its maturation by its side, feeding it with protein drops and disposing of its waste, the human child has me baffled, and I suspect its biology may be malfunctioning. It seems unable to communicate its distress through any other means than screaming. And it does this perpetually. I am not prepared for this.

  Homo unitas silicants are assembled, not born. Through random selection of five other Homo unitas, the chromosomes are spliced randomly to create a unique individual. The brain is grown, as are all the reproductive organics, to produce a coherent DNA chain, and the translucent silicant housing is assembled around it. Knowledge implantation follows. There is no distress other than the raging inner philosophical debate of human versus machine. There is no crying. Not like this.

  Help is required if I am able to study it and understand the inexplicable link between its escape from stasis and my entry into the sapiens’ realm. Outcast that I am, I have formed no friendships on this voyage and would be revolted to do so. That may come later if I am to find a way for our species to survive extinction, but for the moment, I cannot bear this, and I believe the feeling is mutual. The only human who speaks to me is Lennon Cartinian III, and that is only a business arrangement. I am able to manufacture clinical-grade amphidextrine for him in exchange for his occasional and resourceful, if erratic, services. On this occasion I have prepared a new batch of intoxicants for him, and I will go to his home, and he must help me. He is Homo sapiens; therefore, he must understand Homo sapiens children.

  The homes of the Socrates are clustered into groups of fifty thousand, called provinces, and each province (there are four hundred in total) is contained inside the curved walls of a tulip-shaped vessel that is attached to the bow of the ship by a thirty-kilometer umbilical. From a distance the liner looks like a titanic synthetic dandelion flower, and the analogy is not far removed from reality, for one day, when the liner reaches its targeted settlement planet, each of the provinces will be ejected from its umbilical to disperse the human race across the surface of the new world.

  Lennon lives in UnderParis, a particularly undesirable province that bears no resemblance to its ancient namesake other than a feeble attempt to match old Parisian architecture. Maintenance nanodrones no longer attend to its general needs because too many of them are hacked and used for illicit purposes by the rebellious residents, and most of its population offers no support to the running of the ship. As a result, UnderParis is little more than an oily ghetto of crumbling masonry and moss-covered windows, rife with criminality and decadence. Cartinian has taken residence in the worst part of UnderParis. In the tip of the tulip, farthest from anything civilized, where the emerald light of deviant whorehouses and abandoned art galleries are muddied by the humid smog of malfunctioning defecation filters, his home rots like a wet corpse in an open grave. This is where I have spent much of my time. If I am to understand the human cond
ition and overcome my hatred of it, what better place to be? If I can learn to appreciate humanity here, I could appreciate it anywhere.

  I have not seen Cartinian for over a week, but I doubt he would approach me for more amphidextrine for at least another three. Unfortunately, I need his help now. He is not expecting me, but he will not turn down an opportunity for more drugs. His home is a five-story, once cream-colored building that juts out awkwardly from the province’s darkened hull. Rows of tall balconied windows boarded on the inside and infested with drone lichen on the outside insinuate it has been abandoned, but it has not. The entrance is a four-meter semicircular hole with a stone ball for a door. Cartinian has not locked it in place, and freshly secreted grease at the edges suggests recent use. I spin it around so that the cylindrical shaft running through its center lines up to create an entrance, and I stride through. I am hopeful the rumbling of its movement will alert him to my presence; there is no other means of announcing visitors, but I doubt he has many.

  It is dark inside, but I know he is home. The screeching tones of simulated orchestral movements combined with jarring bass echo from one of the upper levels, and I can hear the moaning of sexual activity acting as an operatic accompaniment. I will not be welcome, but no matter, he will still want his drugs.

  Augmenting my vision to infrared so that I can see the elevation disc, I continue forward, kicking aside empty drink canisters en route. I ascend through levels one and two, paying little attention to the squalid conditions he lives in, then reach the top floor, where I step off the disc into a lobby with flickering neon lights and a checkered marble floor. There are three semicircular doors—to the left, right, and ahead—and I know which one Cartinian will be behind. I move straight on to what he calls his pleasure center and roll the door sphere until I have entry.

  A high-pitched scream provokes an irritated grimace from me a few seconds after I enter, and a stream of cursing from Cartinian follows as I advance. I have interrupted human mating, it seems. Two females were crawling over him like Gorian sea slugs on fecal matter before they noticed me. The noise of his music is so loud I am surprised it did not take longer, but Lennon snaps his fingers to silence it as soon as he sees me. One of the two females—the one who screamed—peels herself off him quickly to grab clothing from an overturned stool and stands fearfully behind it, grasping one of its legs in case she needs to use it as a weapon. An unwise choice.

  The other female moves slowly, reaching for her own gown, into which she places a hand to find what I imagine might be a better weapon.

  “I need your services, Lennon,” I tell him. “I have brought more . . . shit, as you call it.”

  With my left hand I pull a small black bag from the flesh pouch in my leg and offer it.

  Lennon Cartinian says nothing and gawps at me like a man who has forgotten what it is like to think. He straightens himself on his mattress. Like the females, he is naked, and he makes an attempt to cover his genitals with an undergarment discarded near his head. As always, he looks disheveled, unshaven, grubby, and his manner is hypererratic, eyes continuously blinking away moisture as he stares at me in disbelief. But he is not looking directly at me; instead, he is staring at my right hand while waving at the two females to hold still.

  “What. The fuck. Is that?” Lennon Cartinian points. “Are you crazy?”

  “This?” I had almost forgotten why I came. “It is a human child.”

  As if to convince him of the fact, I lift my right fist a little higher to show him Viander Breem’s baby dangling upside down by its ankle. Its screaming is painfully obvious now that the music has stopped.

  Cartinian grabs his straggly black hair with both hands. “I can fucking see that! Why did you bring it here? How did you even come by it?”

  “That is not your concern.”

  “Not my concern?” He laughs hard. “Ladies?” He gesticulates to them. “This robot just walks into my home with a baby, while we’re having sex, and she thinks it’s not my concern. Get that.” He laughs again. “And listen to it screaming. Did you ever hear anything like it before?”

  The faster of the two females, now clad in a red satin gown that clashes with her short-cropped ginger curls, has overcome her initial fear and edges closer to squint curiously at the infant. She grimaces, which wrinkles a scar running from her earlobe to the corner of her mouth. “Is that a real one? I mean, I haven’t seen one in centuries.”

  The calmer female, blonde with a wide neo-Asian face and strong curves, also clad in a red gown, lowers herself slowly onto the edge of the mattress in front of Cartinian to caress his foot. In complete contrast to Cartinian, she has lazy eyes; the lids are draped like heavy curtains so that only half of her irises show, and I have the impression she never does anything quickly. “It can’t be real.” Her accent is neo-Asian too and soft. “There are no babies on the Socrates. Nobody dares have one. They would be exiled, for sure.”

  “You are correct,” I say. “The parents were exiled. I am taking care of the child.”

  “Like that?” Lennon raises his eyebrows, eyeing the dangling babe. “Has it been crying like that since you . . . took it?”

  “Yes. That is why I came to you. You are a human. This is a human baby. Make it stop.”

  He exchanges glances with the two females, shaking his head, a smile hovering on his lips. I know he is ready to refuse, but then his eyes dart to the black bag in my left hand. “So how much shit you got in there?”

  “Enough to ensure your stimulation for another six months.”

  “Six months? Seriously?”

  I raise the child by its ankle a little higher. “Make it stop crying.”

  “Oh, I can make it stop,” he says.

  “Without killing it.”

  Cartinian presses his lips together hard, then puffs out a breath and waggles his fingers at me. “Okay, give that screamer to me. What’s”—he squints at the baby as he takes it from me—“her name?”

  “It has no name.”

  “Well, don’t you think she should have one? Ladies? What should we call her?”

  The ginger one provides a lopsided grin. “What were her parents called? D’you even know who they were, robot?”

  “Her mother’s name is Olulu Cantama. Her father’s name is Viander Breem,” I tell them.

  “Well, then,” says the blonde one with a slow shrug, “if you don’t have the imagination to think of one yourself . . . fusion. Use the parents’ names.”

  “Olulu and Viander,” I say. “Olu. Via? Oluvia.”

  Lennon holds it at arms’ length and tilts his head. “That’s as good as any.”

  “She needs an additional name,” I say, looking at the ginger female. “What is your name?”

  “Me?” she says, tugging at the blonde female’s robe to pull her away from the mattress with a giggle. “We’re the Wade sisters. This is Sooli, and I’m Yeeka.”

  “Then I shall call her Oluvia Wade,” I tell them. “And you will help me raise her.”

  FOUR

  Day 60.

  My home is not what it once was. Though I spend much of my time frequenting the low places of UnderParis, I live in the province of Novinium Prime, the opposite end of the class spectrum. This is a society of scholarly thinkers, charismatic philanthropists, and lateral geniuses. Only the elite are permitted to live here, and when this province is eventually released onto the new world in the new galaxy, it will be the central hub of the new civilization.

  Rich and beautiful, the shining buildings of Novinium Prime rise high to celebrate all manner of designs, from multithreaded chrome pillars intertwined to resemble giant vines, to smooth sun-like orbs floating in antigravity fields, dewy with pearls of golden light. This is mankind’s paradise, a self-contained technological garden ebbing with life and zeal, and—realistic or not—the people who live here are eternally optimistic, ever seeking to make the Socrates the perfect environment for all its inhabitants. This is where the Council resides and ru
les.

  The Unitas Communion saw this as the appropriate setting for me, their ambassador for all silicants, and they saw to it that I would not be denied a place among them. They believe this province is the best chance I will have to learn why they treasure humanity, but it has not had that effect. I hate them all the more for their honey-dripped perspective. They do not deserve to be happy.

  This is another reason I choose to frequent UnderParis. Perhaps there I will learn a measure of pity for humans and overcome my hatred of them that way. But nothing has surfaced yet.

  For Oluvia, however, Cartinian, Sooli, and Yeeka have convinced me that Novinium Prime is the appropriate home, although I suspect they have suggested this more for their own benefit than hers; they spend most of their time here now. I have not yet submitted to their requests for me to accept their permanent residency, but I know they will continue to try my patience, and it is enough that I have already compromised my own home to facilitate Oluvia’s journey to full maturity.

  When I moved into my new home on the Socrates, I did not have the courage to mimic Homo sapiens’ preferences on design. I withdrew into the familiarity of a Unitas Community Cluster: a cube comprised of three layers, floors zero and two configured as three-by-three arrays, floor one the same, except for the cubed space in the center that allows each room the freedom to slide against a neighboring room like a piece in a huge puzzle box. Twenty-six black-walled rooms in total, each serving a different function. I have no need for lighting; my skin is translucent and my internal components and circulatory system radiate a sufficient three-meter heat-and-light radius to illuminate my surroundings. When I was attached to the Unitas Communion, my day was split routinely into forty-five periods: six dedicated to tasks outside of my home and thirty-nine split among the various rooms: