Chapter 4A: False Utopia

Utopia, a place of ideal perfection. But it can also be an imaginary and an indefinite, remote area. Over the years, countless people have called the mothership Gaia a Utopia. But to most, it is an unreachable destination.

Tethered to the mothership were the seven seed ships. They orbit around Gaia like satellites. On one of the tethers was a small vessel traveling along at a decent pace. It carried with it four unsuspecting youths and some supplies.

After talking for a few hour or so, the youths felt a little burnt out and dry mouthed. Alex already slept so she was feeling awake and ready. Ruri fell asleep from the excitement and Nell went back to working on her project. Kurt was doing pushups in the cargo hold in the back. He said he might as well take this opportunity to exercise.

Everyone was doing their own thing. Alex stared out the reinforced window and saw the vast darkness of space teeming with glistering jewels of the sky. The ship suddenly veered right a little revealing a giant egg. On the side were the words ‘GAIA’ embedded into it. Even the mighty bleaching powers of space couldn’t make the logo fade after all these years. Several tethers linked the giant egg to the seed ships. Slowly, the egg morphed into a cube as its parts shifted. Perhaps this is why people call it an icebox.

“Hey, guys! Take a look!” Alex called out to her colleagues.

Nell jumped out of her chair to stare out the window.

“Wow, it’s bigger than I thought!”

Kurt walked over while wiping his sweat.

“It has to be big in order to hold the number of people the seed ships send over,” He said.

Their talking woke Ruri up. He rubbed his eyes as he looked out the window as well.

“We should still have quite a while right?” He said sluggishly.

The ship slowly veered back left, and the egg slid out of view.

“I can’t wait!” Nell screamed with glee.

“There will be many people to compete with there,” Kurt said with a motivated glint in his eye.

“Maybe we will find many new friends,” Ruri said shyly. At least he was now comfortable enough with the others. His stuttering stopped.

“Old man…,” Alex whispered under her breath as she gripped her pendant, “Soon, I will see personally that our dreams will be fulfilled.”

All of them were excited and hopeful. The goal of all humanity for the past few decades was right in front of their eyes. Soon, they will reach the utopia everyone has been striving for.

______

Meanwhile, back at the seed ship. The android who performed Alex’s coming of age ceremony stepped back into her office. She took a deep sigh and stretched. With a snap of her fingers, a monitor descended from the ceiling.

“Record today’s memo,” She said while looking at her fake nails.

“RECORDING…DATE…BEGIN,” A mechanized voice replied.

“Met with master’s third generation protégé recently. Other than a few anomalies created by my master’s idiot pupil, the subject seemed normal. Continue monitoring her as she enters the system,” The android said with a grin as she took out a set of nail trimmers. Even her fake nails get chipped here and there.

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She snapped her finger, and the recording stopped. The screen ascended back into the ceiling.

“I wonder how our little bunny is fairing with the others,” The android chuckled, “Hopefully they get along, it’s oh so difficult to create a decent squad nowadays.”

It seemed like she was talking to herself in the office. But if one was to look closer, inside of the fish tank behind her, a single fish stared at her with a piercing gaze.

“Oh come on, don’t look at me that way. I saved you, although your body is completely destroyed, at least your mind survived,” The android laughed, “I gotta say, the technology behind your magnum opus sure is useful!”

The fish swam around in a fit.

“Ok, ok, don’t worry, I won’t mess with the poor bunny THAT much.”

The fish calmed down.

“Maybe after you cooled down a bit in that tank, I can get you a new body, an immortal one like mine!” The android turned around and faced the fish.

“Just wait a little while longer, Gadget,” The android said with longing.

______

Alex passed the long hours in the vessel browsing through the avalanche of information in the USB. Even though she had it for months, there were just too many files to look through. But it didn’t stultify her, each and every file was an exotic experiment with new things to learn. There were countless failures, but the few that worked were amazing. Alex always wondered why the old man never went to Gaia even with his immense intellect. He would never talk about it, so Alex never asked.

All she knows right now was that the old man helped her find a second chance in life. She had to pay back her debts regardless if he was dead or alive. Perhaps his ghost is watching over her right now.

She laughed a little at the thought. There was no scientific theory proving ghosts, yet humans always maintained a superstitious mindset. After all, being cautious was a desirable trait that passed on over the eras. Humans perhaps will always remain superstitious.

Nell got tired of working, so she leaned over to watch what Alex was doing.

“What’s that?” She asked.

“It’s the blueprints for a more effective gene gun.”

“What’s a gene gun?”

“It’s something that you use to shoot viruses and force them to produce the protein you want.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Most of the time it’s used for medical purposes.”

“So why is this one more effective?”

“It’s non-intrusive.”

“Meaning?”

“It doesn’t penetrate the skin, thus resulting in no chance of infection.”

“So it’s like, a minor improvement?”

“…” Alex gave up trying to answer that. She wasn’t too knowledgeable on the subject herself and was just reading the notes written in the files.

Nell smiled mischievously at her and leaned back in her chair.

Suddenly, the lights in the cabin dimmed.

“Night mode activated. Rest well, passengers,” The auto-pilot said.

If there were live passengers on the shuttle, they would have a day and night mode for the long journey to ensure the people onboard maintain a healthy sleep cycle. The only light on was a black light that shined on the ground leading to the bathroom.

“Looks like it’s night time,” Kurt said. He fumbled around in the dark as he got back to his seat. After his exercise finished, he took a shower in the bathroom onboard. Perhaps due to fatigue, he immediately fell asleep in the comfortable reclined chair.

Ruri went back to sleep after the whole viewing moment, so he was still out cold.

Nell frowned at how dark the shuttle has gotten but still rolled around in her chair with her blanket. Slowly, she wrapped herself in a cocoon.

Alex unplugged the USB and closed the monitor. She leaned over to the window to look outside again. The large Egg was getting closer. If nothing erroneous occurs, they will arrive after a good rest. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but her nap earlier really screwed with her sleep cycle.

With a sigh, she sat back up. Kurt was already snoring quite loudly even though he just lied down around five minutes ago. Ruri was covering his head with his pillow, trying hard to subconsciously drown out the snore. Nell wiggled around in her blanket cocoon.

Realizing there was nothing to do, Alex stood up and did some stretches in the dark. She took out a visor from a pocket in front of her chair. Plugging into the shuttles server socket, she accessed the Seed ship’s network.

Humans can’t live without networking now. No matter if they were one earth or floating in the vastness of space, the Internet survived the test of time. It thrives as long as humans remain as social animals.

Placing the visor over her head, the augmented reality screen appeared in front of her vision. She took a long look at the Déjà vu site. Realizing she might as well make an account to appease Nell, she quickly did so. Just as she got to the gender option, she paused. She nearly clicked ‘male’ due to habit. That’s right; she should start getting used to filling in her gender and new name now.

With a sad smile, she clicked female and filled in her code C5731A and her name Alex. Secretly, she wanted to curse the old man, but she can’t be picky when he saved her life after all. It isn’t polite to spit at the dead. She continued to browse Déjà vu, adding the three other who was on the ship with her to her friend list.

“Friends…,” She whispered.