Chapter 1: Old Friends

Heels in the Sand Island, Seychelles archipelago, Earth

September 8^th, 3114 (110 years before the arrival of the Assemblage Ark)

“The message is: Father, please come to the simulated reality project right away. A representative of the Assemblage wishes to meet you.”

I sat in my seaward-facing leather-covered Morris chair sipping freshly-brewed coffee. I was deep in thought, pondering the message which my longtime companion Ohmu had recently awakened me to deliver. The gist of the message was: Sol system had recently received an interstellar transmission from our enemy, the Assemblage.

Included in that transmission was the mind-data of an enemy operative. As planned, the enemy mind-data had been downloaded into the SRP, short for the simulated reality project. This was the virtual cage we had prepared for just such an eventuality. As I sat there in the dark room considering the matter, Ohmu waited nearby for my response.

The android’s very feminine-shaped frame was kneeling on her charging mat. Her posture was almost submissive, hands resting flat on upper thighs, back held rigid with her head slightly tilted downward. She typically waited in this position if it were just the two of us, only assuming a more natural human pose if there were others present. I’d stopped trying to get her to relax over a century ago, having long since realized that relaxation was just a human state of mind.

As I thought, I gazed out the eastward-facing circular wall of glass studying the darkness beyond. I had disabled the low-light augmentation feature of my smart irises so I could watch the ending of night in its natural state. It was 5:34 in the morning local time and true dawn was just forty minutes away. My retreat’s high cliff-top perch allowed an unobstructed view all the way out to the horizon.

Nautical dawn had occurred eight minutes ago, meaning I could now differentiate the water from the slightly brighter skies above. It was not a still scene as there were movements in both the sky and the waters below.

The sky motions were caused by the flashes and flarings of dozens of orbiting satellites and space stations catching the reflecting pre-dawn sunlight. Below that heavenly show, the lower ocean movements were caused by the slowly shifting red and green running lights from the automated ore freighters cruising by the archipelago approximately thirty kilometers to the northeast.

I squinted suddenly as the dark tabloid was interrupted by the lights coming on in the adjacent kitchen unit. My houseguest Adele Sol Chilean was awake. She had been staying with me for the past two days after she had finally convinced me to agree to be interviewed for her research. I had done so less to satisfy her curiosity and more so because of grief, hate, and even a little shame.

The grief and hate had been caused by the accidental deaths of my students at the Mogao Cave complex in China eleven years ago. The shame had come more recently when just two years ago Ms. Chilean had been killed by neo-bears in Mongolia as she tried to study me from afar. I had been too self-absorbed and had ignored her plight which had cost the young woman her life.

After my return from living that nomadic lifestyle, and after a year for the world to recover from the notorious actions which I had precipitated at the Forbin complex afterwards, the re-shelled Adele had reached out to me once again. She explained to me that even though she had lost eleven months of uniqueness, she had since made up for that and was still eager to learn my full story to better understand my actions. I had agreed to a virtual meeting and found her witty, charming, and intelligent.

I told myself that it was for those reasons alone and not also for the fact that she was also incredibly beautiful with a young, not-yet-twenty-year-old replacement shell. But, as I said, I had agreed for her to come to Heels in the Sand and be my guest for a series of face-to-face interviews. The past few days had been rewarding for both of us. Adele finally began to get answers for her research while I shared in her excitement and began to overcome my guilt and shame.

She hadn’t yet noticed me sitting in the darkness and I remained still and silent watching her move about the kitchen. Ohmu also remained silent but did subtlety change her posture to appear more relaxed and human-like. Adele was preparing herself tea. Before she could attempt to carry the hot cup to the room’s lounging area I quietly spoke, “Good morning.”

As I expected, my greeting startled her. “Oh! Good morning, John,” she said after peering into the darkness to see who had spoken. “I thought I smelled coffee. You are up early this morning.”

She was still dealing with the time changes since arriving here a few days ago and had been going to bed and rising much earlier than I normally did. I watched her as she carefully carried her tea to the couch near my chair. She walked with the more-mature patience of a person in their mid-thirties. Her poise was subtly out-of-place with her late-teenaged replacement shell.

She noticed the android as she took her seat. “Good morning to you also, Ohmu. I would comment on you being up early but of course you’re always up.”

Adele was wearing only a short, silken robe that was loosely tied shut. I felt myself stir from the sight of her almost-visible nipples and exposed muscular-toned thighs as she sat on folded legs. In this era of common nudity, partial nakedness was oftentimes more arousing. She noticed my casual inspection of her body and smiled demurely. I suspect she had had her new shell enhanced to increase its sex appeal. A woman of her age probably wanted a shell that projected she was sexually mature and active.

I was currently dressed in only a pair of shorts and her eyes also roamed over my shell in the dim light. We had slowly been dancing towards the same end of the ballroom over the past two days and I fully expected us to eventually take our mutual seduction to its logical conclusion. There was no rush, and I wanted to get the bulk of the interviews done before moving our relationship on to more intimate grounds.

Next, she did something that impressed me for someone her age. She instructed the kitchen lights to extinguish and then, in the darkness, simply sat silently with me and watched the coming dawn. Soon, the slowly brightening panorama indicated that we had left the nautical dawn behind and entered civil dawn.

This meant we were now able to distinguish the horizon much more clearly. The reflections from the satellites and space stations overhead dimmed against a background that grew increasingly pink. The running lights of the distant freighters blended into the brightening ocean, and the dark physical shapes of the enormous ships themselves were revealed. Behind us, if we had looked, we would have been able to easily make out the tops of the two prominent hills on the northern and southern ends of my island.

Nearly twenty minutes later the fiery orb of our Sun shimmered above the horizon. It rose without an ultra-rare green flash, but the scene was still breathtaking. We continued watching the show until the sun was fully exposed. Finally, Adele set her empty teacup down and turned to me.

“Are you up early because of the alert message yesterday?”

She was referring to the system-wide message which Minervus, the AI in charge of the defense of Sol system, had sent to all humans regarding the reception of a high-bandwidth transmission from the Assemblage. There would be a virtual global forum to discuss the transmission in two days. All of humanity would be welcome and encouraged to attend. As an honorary tier-one member, I was expected to attend along with the directors, although I held no actual rank.

“Yes,” I replied. “You’ve heard about the coming meeting?”

She nodded. “Yes. I will be attending as a tier-three composite group participant.”

This meant that she would be in a group forum with others sharing her specialties: anthropology, and history. Their input could be directly queried from the lower tiers and they could submit spontaneous questions and comments as a group. Tier three was a good standing for someone as young as Adele was and she should be proud of the progress she had made since reaching base maturity.

Although tier-three members could be ignored if deemed irrelevant by the AI moderator or the human directors, their input would still be given consideration and recorded into the record. And it was a clear step above the general population’s tier four and five who could only observe until the forum’s conclusion when the floor was left open to all commentary.

I made no mention of my prime tier status. Adele would already know of it and I did not want to appear to be bragging. Instead, I shared with her a bit of news that was not currently widely known.

“In addition to the core message of the transmission, the Assemblage transmitted a digital agent. This agent has been installed into the simulated reality project. One copy was installed into a near-parity iteration and is almost fully aware of the Earth’s current situation. I have been invited to meet with this agent before the general meeting.”

The news made her sit up. Her wispy robe opened enough to now show the full swell of her breast. In her excitement at the news, she either ignored or was unaware of her provocative display.

“Oh, John! That’s amazing! I wish I could come along and observe!” she stated, almost begging.

I turned to the android, “Ohmu?”

“I have just conferred with Dionus AI. It has no issue with Ms. Chilean accompanying you into the near-parity iteration. Ms. Chilean’s shell is equipped with modern cranial implants so there are no physical barriers preventing her attendance,” the android said.

“Ohmu, please call me Adele,” the young woman said with a small pout.

“Of course, Ms. Chilean,” Ohmu said. “Although I prefer the use of first names for only the most intimate of John’s friends and associates.”

I almost snorted as Adele wrinkled her nose and looked confused. I caught the android’s attempt at jerking my guest’s chain. That or maybe a hint of being a good wingman to me.

“Well, hopefully, I will join that group soon, Ohmu,” she said with a smirk, her gaze now back on me.

As she spoke, she also shifted her position on the couch allowing her silken robe to fall open even further. The room was now bright enough that I could see her pale perfect skin in the new shadowed areas now exposed. She winked as I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

We used the medical crèches in the basement to better connect our brains to the virtuality and send our mental selves off to the SRP. The crèches sensitive mind-data transducers would allow for a higher resolution connection with less lag than if we used the lodge’s general wireless connection. Low latency was much preferred as signals would be passing to and from our brains via satellite relay to the various physical locations around the planet where the SRP’s main data centers were located.

I entered a crèche first, allowing Adele time to back out if she wished. Ohmu helped attach the crèche’s data sensors onto various parts of my skull and then gave my shoulder a comforting squeeze when she finished. Seconds later, the view of the medical room faded out and I found myself standing in a virtual reception room. The room was white crystal and ultra-modern, clearly not from the real world.

I looked down and saw that my virtual self-image was not as I expected. Instead of my standard appearance, which was a very-close duplicate of my current younger and physically fit shell, I was now in a virtual body which I had not seen for nearly eleven-hundred years. It was that of my slightly-overweight, middle-aged, and formerly depressed self. The same one I had been living in before the alien attack had destroyed my world and killed all of humanity.

“What the hell?!” I blurted out loud.

“Our guest has requested this change to your virtual appearance, Father.”

I spun around to see my daughter Kela standing behind me. Her appearance was much as it had been when Uxe and I had visited her here nearly two years ago. This time, however, she had a slight smile and looked much happier than she had during that visit. As I had suspected, now that the simulated reality project finally had a purpose, she had started to feel alive again.

I had also noted her emphasis on the word guest.

“Our guest being the Assemblage operative?” I asked.

“Yes, Father. As you will see momentarily, there is a shared history between the two of you.”

She was interrupted by Adele popping into existence and joining us in the virtual reception room. I noted the young historian’s virtual image looked different than her current physical shell. It was older and maybe a bit plainer than the replacement shell she wore currently.

This virtual image must have been based upon her actual birth shell which had been killed back in Mongolia in the neo-bear attack. I immediately sensed it fit her true personality better and I suspect that was why she had not updated it.

Adele looked around the reception room briefly before focusing on Kela and me.

“Wow, the original John Abrams!” she said as she studied my current appearance.

She had said it with the excitement of a twitcher spotting a rare avian. I realized that, with me being the subject of her studies, she would have been intimately familiar with my background and pre-reset appearance.

I shrugged, “Not my doing. My virtual image normally resembles the shell I was wearing back on my island. This image is at the request of our guest.”

She looked confused but kept any questions to herself for the moment. Instead, she turned to greet my daughter. I introduced them to one another. I could tell from Adele’s interest that she had found another potential interview subject. Their conversation was interrupted by the fourth member of our party joining us.

As had happened the last time I had seen her in virtual, Ohmu’s digital appearance momentarily took my breath away. I could not help but roam my eyes up and down her alabaster-skinned perfection. The petite woman tolerated my inspection and simply smiled back at me with her impossibly white perfect teeth showing through illuminated blue-painted lips.

There was one obvious change in her virtual appearance since last time. This time she wore a tight-fitting body stocking of iridescent deep blue instead of the black she had worn normally. I was happy to see that this new outfit simply shimmered randomly without actively tracking the viewer’s eye movements as the last one did. I hoped this change would help make my leering less noticeable.

“I love the outfit, Ohmu,” I admitted out loud.

She gave me a little twirl and my eyes were instinctively drawn to her cute backside. I quickly looked elsewhere but not before my gaze had been caught by the others. Adele rolled her eyes and I thought I caught the hint of jealousy. I wondered if she would be shopping for a new virtual wardrobe in the near future.

Kela just smiled slightly. She had been living in virtual for too long and I feared was numb to such matters as clothing and sex appeal. That or she was simply ignoring her pervy dad’s actions. “Hello, Ohmu. It’s been a long time,” she said as she approached the virtual android. “I’ve never seen you with a corporeal projection in virtual before.”

“Yes Kela, it has been quite some time. I have recently made changes to both my physical hardware and how I represent myself virtually. Change is needed to prevent stagnation.”

I noticed my daughter’s slightly stiff reaction to Ohmu’s statement. She’d caught the secondary barb embedded in the android’s reply. Kela had definitely been existing close to stagnation for much of the past century as she remained secluded here in virtual. Hopefully, that would change now that the SRP was fully activated. I decided to change the subject.

“So, we are going to be meeting a copy of the enemy operative who has been loaded into a near-parity iteration. I guess that means that it’s fully aware of the actual situation here on the Earth including our defeat of its master AI?”

“Yes, Father,” Kela answered. “The mind-data we will be interacting with was loaded into the iteration nine hours ago. The iteration is currently operating at an accelerated rate of fifty-to-one. From its perspective, it has been active for two-and-a-half weeks. During that time, it has had almost unlimited access to our full history and current situation.”

“Why was it allowed to learn so much?” I asked. The simulated reality project was created to mislead any digital scouts. The near-parity iteration seemed to defeat that purpose.

“The thoughts and actions of this operative are to be used as a baseline comparison to the copies kept in other, fully-fabricated alternate history iterations,” she explained. “This required it to be aware of the truths of our world. Note that the events of past two years have still been kept from it for potential tactical reasons.”

I took this to mean that this copy had not yet learned of our recent actions at the Forbin complex or of Uxe’s discovery of wormhole technology. We would have to watch what we said to the operative. I said as much to Adele but Kela assured us we did not have to worry about a slip of the tongue with her next comment.

“You do not have to be concerned with accidentally betraying any secrets or knowledge. Dionus AI can wipe and restore this digital operative to any point and knowledge level we wish after our visit,” Kela explained. “Also, once we enter the active iteration, if you wish to pause for any reason simply say ‘pause’ subvocally. This will freeze the scene and the operative’s virtual presence while we remain active. It will be unaware of our actions and discussions during that time.”

Kela asked if we had any further questions to which Adele and I indicated that we were ready. Ohmu must have responded digitally. Kela became still for a moment and we were inserted into the iteration. The white reception room faded and what replaced it was a scene reminding me of an old, ancient dungeon.

The floor was a damp, rough stone as were the walls and vaulted ceilings. There were actual burning torches in sconces mounted on the walls to each side, which lit the chamber with a feeble, flickering light. The chamber also smelled of feces, vomit, and decay. I resisted the sudden urge to gag. What the hell!?

Adele, Ohmu, and Kela had appeared with me. I looked at Kela with a questioning look but she just rolled her eyes at the room’s conditions as if it were some sort of joke. She pointed ahead to where there was a series of cells. Each had a crude gridwork of riveted, wrought iron bars closing them off from our area of the dungeon.

The cell directly in front of us appeared to be the only one currently occupied. In the far corner, lying on a small pile of dirty straw was a human-shaped figure dressed in rags. The pathetic-looking creature became aware of our presence and painfully rose to its feet and approached the iron bars.

“Kela! You’ve returned!” the human figure said weakly, “I see you’ve brought me visitors.”

The poor human’s voice sounded male and was also strangely familiar. As he limped into the torchlight, I realized I knew this person! It was someone from way back before the reset of eleven-hundred years ago! “Picket!” I burst out, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Hello John,” the poor figure wheezed out. “It’s been a long time. How do you like my new home?” Picket asked, gesturing around his pathetic cell.

“Pause!” I almost shouted subvocally. The wasted figure of Picket immediately froze along with the flickering torch flames.

I turned to my daughter. “All right Kela! What the hell is going on here?”

“As I explained Father, the enemy operative has been in this iteration for over two weeks from its perspective. In that time, it has had access to the data archives which the enemy master AI had compiled before its defeat almost two centuries ago. Those archives included all data on the previous enemy operatives and their activities on the Earth.