Morgaine looked up from the tight hug she held with Robert. He had passed out. Likely from the shot in the hip, or the blood loss, either way, she had no idea. Her hair was standing on end, as if she were about to be struck by lightning.
Keung was still inside the pod, his body was breathing, so the autonomic nervous system was still intact. This wouldn’t be the case had he been removed from the vessel and fire from the machine as he had planned.
She found some duct tape within the warehouse, returned to the pod, and attempted to open the door to haul Keung out and secure him. She found the doors locked down. Satisfied that the boy would not exit the pod without her aide, she turned her attention to Robert.
He was going pale, never a good sign.
A light hum buzzed just over her shoulder and a holographic HAL appeared beside her.
“I’ll take care of him. The bullet didn’t hit anything vital. I am sure he will be fine,” HAL said as his ship moved in close to the man. A cloud of nanogenes dispatched from the ports and condensed over Robert’s wound.
Morgaine watched as the cloud slowly collected and repurposed the blood that pooled on the floor beside Robert. The bullet was pushed from the wound, and rolled off his stomach and onto the floor with an unceremonious, “tink.”
“What about her?” Morgaine asked, nodding to the core ship resting on the floor.
“I don’t know,” HAL said, the inflection in his tone revealing the slim hope he actually holds for Myna’s recovery.
HAL moved to the pods and checked the reports. One successful transmission. A transmission of artificial intelligence only. Keung’s consciousness was held in the buffer for forty two seconds, long enough for the system to give HAL a reasonable report of the IFA identity, scars, memories, etcetera.
He read through the file, while doing so he found a second report marked “Urgent: Myna.”
He sat in the ship’s ready room, the personal office of the captain, as the bots he assigned to heal Robert did their work. He leaned back in the chair and sighed. He prepared himself for what maybe in the letter, then opened the file.
To any that find this message,
I have reversed the transmission of Keung’s IFA intended for transmittion to F’inlitary nan Geritari. The copy of HAL had already slipped away beyond recalling the data before I could reach it. I allowed it to transmit as the boy had planned in order to focus on Keung himself. While reading through the report of Keung’s IFA previously and following up with my scan today, I came to a conclusion that may be of interest to Robert.
Robert is distressed at being the pieces of Jyi’ntol that Keung had cast off without regard for their value. He believes this devalues his own existence, though this is without a doubt an inappropriate view of his abilities and experiences.
My findings were that, though Keung had stolen and grafted large portions of the scientific and alien experiences from others onto his own soul, when he discarded the emotional and creative pieces that would later be found primarily in Robert, he left himself in a state of incomplete understanding.
These grafted pieces of Keung have left him at the absolute limits of his human vessel, which is likely why he discarded the emotional and creative elements in the first place. I have forced his spirit back into the vessel and put the boy into stasis until HAL or one of my children can help revive him.
I want to make this suggestion to whoever finds this file. Before reviving the unconscious Keung, if Robert has survived the ordeal, I would like you to make this suggestion to him to…
HAL read on and found himself weighing out the argument that Myna makes to edit Keung and Robert both in order to shuffle the two souls in the buffer and replant a more complete version of the two into the men. She instructs how to perform the process as she sees it.
Isolate the memories of Keung and Robert in one area, then any memories and experiences that are tied to those memories should be isolated in two different complete patterns, in order to keep full cohesion in their lives so far. This process will not only keep the knowledge that is locked within Keung here on Earth, but it should relieve the cold, psychopathic nature of the overly analytical Keung. Additionally, Robert will find a greater value in his life, once the alien knowledge that he had been deprived of, is once more part of his being.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“Once the core of both men is edited into a proper distribution of knowledge, experience, and emotion, return the essence back to their organic vessels and each should be a more complete subject,” HAL read.
He searched the pod for any other files, some that might relate to Myna herself, the recovery of her matrix, a hidden backup that would allow her to be recovered, but there was nothing there. Simply nothing that he could use to bring the woman back.
HAL felt the tears running down his cheek.
He had no idea what he would tell Alissa. No idea what he would tell any of her children about what happened.
He picked up the monitor on his desk and threw it across the room yelling in a primal rage that he had never before experienced. He stepped into the office restroom and ran the water. He splashed it over his face. He shook as he screamed again. The anger was boiling over as he repeatedly punched the mirror, shattering the glass that fell into the sink and across the counter.
He knew who was to blame for all of this. A boy that had called him friend. A boy that had overloaded his own soul to selfishly create a single being that could hold the fate of the universe in his hands. HAL didn’t need to worry about permission.
He ran a diagnostic on the pod and sent the ship’s nanobots to work repairing the overloaded systems and circuitry.
Morgaine watched as the ship’s nanogenes repaired the wound in Robert’s abdomen, leaving a patch of skin that was a pale white in contrast with the light brown the man had everywhere else. Within moments the skin tone shifted to match the rest of his hue.
She heard the light hum of other ships closing in around her. She spun around and saw several holographic versions of the Myna AI standing all around her. Each of them was different, even though they were generally recognizable as a similar being. She soon saw dozens of them around her. Each of them had one thing in common above all else. They looked as though they had been emotionally devastated.
Several of the beings were comforting one or another in the group, some were sobbing uncontrollably, others looked firm and statuesque. Morgaine could feel tears welling in her eyes.
Smaller ships gathered around the core ship and began probing the remains, some locking into place as if they might be able to revive what was left. The fiery red core that was the notable difference between the core and the small scale ships, was completely dead. The smaller ships attempted to revive the energy within and could only build a slight glow that could not be maintained by the core ship’s own decimated systems.
When the smaller ships disconnected from the core, the room’s energy shifted to one of hopeless sorrow that brought the tears pouring from Morgaine’s eyes. There was nothing the children of this magnificent being could do to bring her back to them. The loss was immeasurable, and not only for them.
HAL appeared in the air before the two pods.
“Morgaine. Please help us put Robert in the second pod,” he said without hesitation.
“What?” Moragine asked.
“We need to put Robert in the second pod. Myna figured out what the last piece of this puzzle is. In order to save this universe; to have the greatest chance of bringing meaning to her death, we need Robert in that second pod,” he said coldly.
“Why?” Morgaine asked.
“Because what Keung stole from so many others, with my unwilling help, is useless without the ability to empathize with the creatures on this planet. His cold logical nature, the thing that he had turned himself into, has brought this universe to the brink of destruction and without the knowledge within his mind, knowledge burned into his soul, that destruction is certain.”
“You are planning to…” Morgaine looked to HAL in shock.
“Yes. Myna came to the conclusion before the end. She left a file that I have sent to each of her progeny. It says that the only way we can save the knowledge within Keung is to pass part of it to Robert, but that the knowledge within Robert would exceed what his body could handle, so we need some of the emotions and experiences from Robert, things that Keung lacks greatly, for the boy.”
“What will happen to Robert?”
“We are going to do our best to move all memories and experience, along with all connections of past lives to those memories, back to each of the men when we return the IFA to each of their vessels. We are just going to add an equal division of the scientific understanding between the two as well.”
“Will that work?”
“It will. After reading Myna’s letter, I have discovered that Keung has been accessing my program over the years and forcing me to perform these modifications from time to time. Once I had that knowledge, I was able to find those experiences and unlock them for our needs. Between my skill, and the skill of Myna’s children, I am confident we will be able to give both men a much better quality of life as well as save our reality,” HAL said matter of factly.
Morgaine looked at the crowd of photonic life all around her. She knew they were in pain. She also knew that if she said no right now, the reaction they might have would be completely unpredictable. So much has gone wrong already. She didn’t even know the extent of the damage that Keung’s device just wrought across the state.
It’s not like no one saw the intense build up of power in this direction that resulted in a blinding flash of light. They likely would have company any time now.
She closed her eyes knowing that she had already lost any argument she would make and she slowly nodded her approval before bending down and helping to lift the unconscious Robert into the pod beside Keung.