When Lord Solomon had hidden this “spaceship” (and I still had no semblance of an idea of what that was), he must have been very paranoid that someone other than a clone would find it. The path that glowed with both thick and thin veins of gold, silver, and blue seemed to go on endlessly. And it twisted this way and that, making sharp turns that made my head spin. At least an endless, winding path made it less likely that the Rockcrawlers would be able to burrow directly to me–the twisty, endless path made it harder to find me.
The Lord Solomon AI hadn’t followed me, and I couldn’t see him anywhere now. Who knew when I’d see him again? The hologram wasn’t keen on telling me things straight in that way.
“Codex, are you back yet?”
“Yes, Master. Lord Solomon deactivated me for a short period. But I am back to assist.”
“Codex,” I thought to it, “why do you call me ‘Master?’ It’s not like I am Lord Solomon.”
I took another sharp left and sighed to see another long stretch of path.
“You are Lord Solomon, Master. And your purpose is to retake his glory in godhood and replace Lady Euridice as God of Knowledge.”
“That’s the thing. All of the clones are trying to do that, right? Meaning we can’t all become Lord Solomon. For now, why don’t you just call me ‘Rayden.’”
“I am not programmed to call you that.”
I paused in the hall that was beginning to narrow. “Is there a way that I can reprogram you? At least to program you to call me Rayden?”
Codex didn’t respond for a moment.
“Yes, Master. There is. You can use command code 1,950.”
“Command code 1,950?! How many command codes are there?”
“Calculating…” Codex responded. “There are 1,098,002 command codes, Master.”
I whistled, the sound traveling down the path, bouncing off the walls, then ringing loudly in my ears.
“Alright, you don’t have to teach me all of the command codes today. How do I use command code 1,950?”
“You say out loud, ‘Activate command code 1,950.’ Then you follow the prompts that I will tell you.”
“Activate command code 1,950,” I said aloud.
It took a moment, but soon, I felt a soft buzzing at the base of my neck, making me wonder for the 1,000th time where and how Codex had been embedded into my mind.
“Command code 1,950 activated,” Codex said, even more flat-toned and slower than usual. “After the tone, please say the name you would like me to call you.”
A high-pitched hum that made my head hurt sounded. It was so loud that I couldn’t tell whether or not the tone existed only in my mind, like when Codex spoke to me, or if it could be heard on the outside, as well.
“Rayden,” I said in my thoughts. Then, after a few seconds of nothing happening, I repeated my name out loud.
The same high-pitched tone reverberated through my skull.
“Name received.”
Another pause.
“Codex?”
“You have officially changed the command code, Rayden,” Codex responded.
I grinned. Though it was a small accomplishment, having Codex call me by my given name–the name Drayek had given me–felt like a relief. I felt like a person again–not some clone among a mass of other clones all striving to become the same person. I still felt very much like me, and I wanted Codex, the forever-stuck-in-my-head-and-always-talking-to-me AI, to treat me as such.
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I continued my trek, trying to ignore the growling coming from my stomach. “Is there something you would like me to call you other than Codex?”
“No, I am Codex. I am artificial and have no feelings. I do not need any other name.”
I shrugged, unsure that Codex could see the gesture. It felt like a real person to me. Sometimes, it even had inflections and sped up its speech when nervous…. Codex even sounded masculine. Maybe I’d at least think of the AI as a “he” in my head. Doing so might personify Codex more and maybe aid in my loneliness to think I had a true companion.
“I’m going to give you a nickname anyway,” I decided, feeling like calling him something personal to me would not only aid in humanizing my forever-brain-buddy but also further help me feel like an individual. I mean, how many of the other clones, or Solomon for that matter, called their AIs by a different name?
“I’m gonna call you Dex.”
“If that’s what you wish to call me, then that is fine, Rayden.”
I grinned. I felt like a rebel. I felt like… me. Not some clone designed to become someone I wasn't.
After another 10 minutes, at least, of walking, the hall finally ended at a wide mouth leading into another brightly lit room.
This must be it.
I stepped into the warm yellow light, but it seemed I had not prepared myself for what met me inside. My jaw fell open, and my arms dropped limply to my sides. I don’t know what I had tried to imagine a spaceship to look like. For one thing, I didn’t understand any part of the word “spaceship.” But even if I had understood it or had a better imagination, the vessel that stood before me would surpass anything I could've ever imagined.
A monster of a machine filled up an equally massive room. Its dark metal with subtle streaks of blue lights touched every wall and even brushed the ceiling that towered above me by at least 100 feet. The spaceship had straight legs protruding from its underside and darkly tinted windows dotting the front and sides.
“Dex, I’m gonna ask you again, what is a spaceship?”
“Well, Rayden, it is like a ship, only–”
“No, no, no.” I waved my hands in front of me. “Go back. I guess you need to first explain to me what a ‘ship’ is.”
“Ah, yes. You have lived in a rocky desert your entire life. You would not know. A ship is a vessel–an instrument–used to travel large bodies of water to reach another destination.”
I furrowed my brows. My head hurt trying to picture a large enough body of water that would need a vessel to carry people across, but I let Dex continue:
“This ship is similar, but it allows people to journey through space and travel to other planets–sometimes even to other universes.”
I moved myself to sit on the floor, then I just sat and stared at the spaceship. That’s all I could do. I felt overwhelmed by the new information Dex had just given me. As I stared at the massive machine, I noticed the ceiling was made of a similar metal. It had a straight line down the middle as if waiting to open. Is that how the spaceship left the facility? I guessed… if we had to travel to other planets, that hunk of metal had to fly. Like a bird!
I narrowed my eyes and studied the shimmering blue lights dancing along the sides of the spaceship. I couldn’t find any wings, much less any wheels like we had on wagons or carts in Edrona. How did this thing even move?
“We should get going, Rayden. My scans tell me the Rockcrawlers have sensed your location and are burrowing this way. They’ll be here in approximately seven minutes.”
That shook me out of my stupor.
I got up and ran to the spaceship, then realized…
“How do I get on this thing?”
“I will open the door for you, Rayden.”
I didn’t know what Dex had to do to open an unseen door on the spaceship, but he did it fast. A panel, about three times my height in width and length, dropped down with a strange sound. It sounded like a release of a hiss of air. I leaped back to allow the panel to fall to the ground, which offered me an incline to climb into the spaceship.
“You may board now, Rayden.”
“You know, you don’t have to use my name all the time. Do I say ‘Codex’ or ‘Dex’ every time I talk to you?”
“No, Rayden. You do not.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Never mind.”
I climbed the shiny black panel until I reached the inside of the ship.
Can I call it a “ship,” or is it just a “spaceship?” I thought to myself, though I knew Dex could hear all of my thoughts if he wanted to.
I didn’t know what I should or shouldn’t call the thing, but “ship” is faster to say, so that made my decision for me.
As I entered the vessel, I had to blink rapidly to adjust to the intense white light flooding the interior. Once I could see clearly, I learned that it wasn’t just the light that was white–almost everything in the first room of the ship was white. White and short cushioned seats lined the oval-shaped room. The entire floor was also white and was so smooth and shiny that I could see the reflection of myself and everything else within its surface.
My eyes went back to the seats–I counted 20 of them. Had this spaceship carried groups of people at once before? Was it intended for that?
A narrow staircase of equally white steps led away from the entrance, and I walked over to them. As soon as I left the inclined panel, Dex must have commanded it to close. It slowly made its way back up and into the ship, disappearing without a trace–blending into the floor as if it had never been there.