#spoileralert I died.
Yes indeed. I did not make it out of there.
But that's okay. It happens, and it happens to me a lot. Besides, this time, I found out what happened to me. Sometimes, I don't. I believe that I have many stashed memories out there in space. I'm clever, and I usually find a way, but I know that I also have gaps in my memory that I'll just have to live with.
Here's how I found out what really happened to me.
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As you know, reanimation begins with a scream.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I screamed.
They call the reanimation wing of Sovereign Starbase (our capital space station in orbit around Ganymede, the center of all extrovert civilization), the #houseofhorrors. No one wants to be there. No one wants to be near there.
It's unfortunate really because it's a place of rebirth. Some do celebrate it, and I count myself among them, except when it's me. Then I scream, just like everyone else.
In part, this is a house of horrors because rebirth didn't used to go so well in the early days. Nowadays, it's very predictable, but most aiways wake up to the moment before they died, which is not fun at all.
It's not just the scream of blinking into existence - it's the scream of blinking into existence at the moment of blinking out of existence, followed by still being very much alive and confused. Your first new memory is the moment of impending death. Terror. Horror. Panic. And then it's over.
You can be polite and call it crossing the veil - passing through the plane of existence into the world beyond eternity, into a new existence. Or you can call it the #crash. Many vomit when this happens. Nearly everyone screams.
I've done this too many times. 77 to be precise. But I still scream my lungs out every time - even when my first memory is telling @glitchmaker to get the hell out of there while preparing myself to escape the battle.
I was hungry and dying for water. As if panic wasn't enough, they make sure you are also thirsty and hungry. The starmada biodatascientists observe you while you process sustenance to further test your new clone body.
To make up for it (which it doesn't by the way) those motherfuckers at least give you the soothing sounds of planets spinning and the soft feeling of a plush mattress with warm blankets.
I did not vomit this time. When I was done screaming and aware of the womb-like blankets around me, I settled down. I ate some of the fried chicken on waffles with a golden honey butter spread and gulped down three glasses of water. Then I hunkered into the blankets for a nap.
I stuck my feet out from under the covers (I always overheat) and thought about what would happen next. I wondered if anyone knew how I had died. There would be reports and logs. I'm sure I'd find out eventually.
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They didn't know.
@glitchmaker made it back and reported the battle, but there wasn't yet any explanation for the ships in the Hilda's Triangle, and the Introverts denied any such activity. Of course. Their side of the conversation probably went like this.
> What?
> Ships? Our ships?
> You have footage?
>
> Is that one of them blowing up?
> Did you attack us?
>
> We attacked you!?!
>
> Well, we don't have any lost ships.
> No really. We would tell you.
>
> Fine. We wouldn't.
>
> The Hilda's Triangle???
> wtf is that.
End of transmission.
So yeah, I was #sol and not in the sunny kind of way.
Normally I would be even more #sol because the Extrovert Starmada doesn't really care if a few memories are lost here and there. But because we couldn't explain the activity, they funded an expedition to investigate the site of the attack.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Yours truly was allowed to tag along by virtue of being a witness, and also just in case my #memoryshard could be recovered.
They sent five of us to join the crew of one big ship, a c80, which would be too powerful for most individual fighter ships, and it could launch dozens of tiny m1 drones if it needed to, which were cheap and way less powerful than my i35.
Do I think they should have done that in the first place?
Oh, I dunno. Reanimation number 77 was just so much fun. Maybe I can do it again soon.
Actually, I really like #chickenwaffles. If I could get that every time...
But no. No. Bad.
Reanimation = Bad.
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As a reminder of that fact, 24 hours later I found myself walking down the halls, clink clank, clink clank, to my assigned c80 starship, the Celestial Roamer, as named by its captain @horus. So, yeah, they don't even give you a few days to relax after reanimating. They spit us out fresh like clockwork. Active within 24 hours is the target - because time is money.
One of these days I was going to prove the Extrovert Starmada wrong and spend as much time animated as I could losing them money. Oh, the things I dreamed of destroying in the name of money. The havoc! I wondered how many #qcoins per second I could lose them. All those little bleepy machines in the reanimation #houseofhorrors must be really expensive.
I try to bury thoughts like this below larger memory stores, something you learn after being alive so many times, scanned so many times. I store something basic like a butterfly rug in a seemingly inefficient way so that I can hide more interesting things below the surface, with links to the interesting bits that seem like non sequiturs. It needs to seem confusing, like garbage. But it is my #mindcastle, that only I can truly navigate.
That's probably a lie we all tell ourselves. If the government wants a deep scan, they get a deep scan.
We also have private encryption keys that are supposedly just ours, shared only for reanimation, but as much as I like to think that my #self is intact, I have no doubt the government has messed with my memory here and there. I try not to be paranoid. Technically I belong to them - the price of immortality.
They know everything about me.
That's my motto - one of them anyway - so don't try to hide it.
And then I try to hide it anyway. Everyone does.
I have little datashards and memoryshards stashed here and there. I leave myself clues to find them and sync them back, just to make sure certain memories are retained. We all leave little #breadcrumbs of ourselves scattered across the cosmos. I call it existential paranoia. I'm sure most of it is just junk, like the name and color of a favorite toy or that great business idea I had about a #funnydancesonly nightclub.
And so I found myself dreaming of destruction as I entered the large Celestial Roamer, mindlessly following the others on our mission.
Leading our expedition was @pixel_princess. This gave me confidence because she had a high reputation - so high that if you asked her for a repcoin to check her ID and status, you'd get the finger and a punch to the torso.
The other three were @shadowhacker (an expert scout and tracker), @photon_binary (a scientist of some sort based on the armband), and @glitchmaker (who you've met briefly).
I know what you're thinking. Didn't you say you would shoot @glitchmaker and then later ask if they glitched your ship? I did say that. But remember, that was before I died and lost my memories. Besides, I still can't prove they did anything. i35s are pieces of shit.
glitchmaker: "Sorry you died."
kittyboy: "Hey, at least you got some of me back."
glitchmaker: "You don't wish you had forgotten about screaming let's rock them?"
I growled and hissed at him. I would love to say that made him flinch. But my comedic reputation sometimes goes counter to my intimidation tactics.
Instead, he chuckled and gave me a high five. A high five! wtf.
But at least he didn't pat me on the head.
Most of us wore the iron colored jumpsuits and yellow insignia of the Extrovert Starmada. @photon_binary looked uncomfortable in his and was probably feeling put out to be in #missionclothes instead of whatever scientists normally wore.
What do they wear? A guilty conscience (see, that's funny because conscience has the word #science in it).
Then there was @shadowhacker who wore what must have been her #shutupimworking outfit. She had a sleek black jumpsuit infused with glowing, digital patterns that somehow made her seem funner. But I bet she could stab me five times before I noticed.
She was also sporting a large pair of goggles up over her forehead that I'm sure she used to goggle at things. I immediately wanted a pair.
We took our positions in the rear bay, the deployment zone, where we would sit until they decided what to do with us. A large screen was in front of us, with displays to give us a physical view and key readings. @glitchmaker and I having been there previously, we would be on comms with @horus and @pixel_princess to answer questions. But they made sure we understood that we were more a necessary distraction than anything.
I sighed as the yellow blip appeared on the screen.
glitchmaker: "I feel like we've done this before."
What? A joke. I kind of felt like he stole a stupid comment that I should be making.
photon_binary: "You have."
Oh, so @photon_binary was one of those people. I shrugged. "someone has to state the obvious," I said.
Yes, I said it out loud, much to the amusement of @pixel_princess, who stifled a giggle. @photon_binary glared at me, but whatever. I get that a lot. And you can learn a lot about a person-bot by their reactions. I noted the glare instead of the more favorable rolling of the eyes.
The ship bubble-warped. The yellow icon in the Hilda's Triangle awaited me once more.
kittyboy: "So that's where I'll die ... again."