Project HYDRA Log #000001 a 0143
Type: Excerpt
Status: Classified
* This is an excerpt from paragraph 143 of the Mission Statement of the HYDRA Project.
… and for the sake of all life, human or otherwise, we humans have a responsibility to control our works. Due to the threat, no matter how minimal, of the mission exceeding its expected objectives, an Overseer must be appointed to supervise and ensure that the project occurs in a moral and conscientious manner.
For the complete Mission Statement, see file HYDRA 000001
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I was seventeen when I fainted. I was getting my blood drawn for a few basic government tests, just making sure I was actually immune to the most accessible bioweapons, and I made the mistake of looking down. Watching the blood gush out of my arm in tune with the beating of my heart was a... strange experience. I can’t say I was particularly scared, or disgusted really, I just took a quick glance downwards and kept on talking to the nurse like nothing had happened. However, as time dragged on, and the nurse kept attaching vials, I began to experience… side-effects. My right ear was the first to go, and soon after my left as well. I wasn’t deaf per say, but the nurse sounded like she was at the other end of a tunnel, even though, logically, I knew she wasn’t even a foot away. My vision started to fade before my second ear gave way, though fade isn’t really the right term, at least not at first. It started with static, like the kind on my great-grandparents’ old, boxy T.V., around the edges of my field of view, but quickly spread. Random points faded in and out of my perception, as the edges of my sight started to steadily close in. I’d say I could only see about half of what I normally do before it actually started to get dark. I didn’t mention any of this to my nurse of course. All I said was that I wasn’t feeling so well, but she’d apparently realized something was off. She kept mentioning my lips, and how I had to keep talking to her while she got another nurse. They meant to move me to a bed, but through some rather moronic design, the nearest one was about five rooms away.
I remember taking the first step away from my chair. Then, I remember waking up on the floor some twenty feet away with my forehead and left knee feeling like they had been hit by the wrath of a petty god armed only with sandpaper. I always thought it was rather weird that only my left knee and forehead hurt. I never understood how I could’ve fallen in such a way that I only hit those two specific points, but that’s beside the point. The important part of this whole story is that I remember nothing at all of what happened between my first step away from the chair and my lovely date with the linoleum flooring twenty feet away. Twenty feet. That may not sound like much, but it must have taken at least ten, maybe fifteen seconds to move me in my addled state. Ten to fifteen missing seconds. It may as well have been a whole lifetime. I would never know what happened in that time, and when I woke up, I had no answers as to where I was and why I was there. For a few seconds, I felt like I was floating somewhere, seperate from time and space. I know and knew that I was awake, that’s the only way I could possibly remember it, but for a moment there it felt almost like a dream. Almost. There was a certain unease, a sense that everything wasn’t adding up. I didn’t remember going to sleep, and I certainly didn’t feel well rested. The best I can do to describe it is to say that it was much like the uncanny valley, but for my sense of self rather than sight. Fortunately, my senses caught up to my thoughts. My back and legs reported resting against a hard surface, while my sense of balance kindly informed me that my back was to the ground. My eyes, even though parts of my vision were blurry after what was probably a rather heavy collison with the floor, recognized a ceiling above me, and my brain, the great puzzle solver, pieced together that I was lying on the floor, with a rather irritating headache and a bit of pain in my knee.
Unfortunately, at the moment, it seems that my senses have quit without even giving me two weeks notice, the ungrateful bastards.
I’ve floated here for what feels like an eternity, though logically I know I couldn’t distinguish it from a few hours. I don’t really feel like I have brain damage. I’m pretty sure I can do all of the math I could before and remember all of the important people in my life. Then again, how exactly would I know I’d forgotten someone if I had in fact… forgotten them.
I set that, rather disturbing, notion aside. After all, I had to start from somewhere, and the belief that I could actually think was as good as any. Hopefully, someone will correct me if I have in fact turned into a vegetable.
Assuming I can in fact think doesn’t leave me with many good possibilities. First, and probably most optimistically, was that this was all a dream. Unfortunately, I felt a bit too… awake for that. I don’t exactly remember many of my dreams, but I know I wasn’t just lying there dissecting whether they were in fact dreams or not. Aside from that however, there aren’t exactly too many explanations. I’m no neurologist, but I’m pretty sure that any brain damage severe enough to keep me from feeling anything would also either kill me, or keep me from having any reasonable conversation, even with myself. Besides, I’d already agreed to rule that one out. So if this was not a dream, and I was not crippled, what was actually going on?
The answer, or at least the first semblance of one, came mercifully quickly after that, though mercy seemed to have nothing to do with it.
My mind exploded. Thousands of thoughts, came into being seemingly unprompted by anything, and crashed together into my skull. A rainbow like planet with… a rocket landing in a fi… rovers… robots… ball bearings, 3 tons of titanium, 5 tons of steel… genomic information … CRISPR-B reconstitutor mark 10 status: offline… colony status… low pressure warning…
The thoughts continued to flood through my mind in an agonizing cascade. Helpless, and unable to control the unending flow of information, all I could do was scream and hope for it to end.
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I woke up, curled in a fetal position on the floor. Echoes of the blazing pain still flitted across my mind, mere shadows of what it had been, but still agonizing by association. I laid there for a moment, slowly breathing. After a few moments, I realized I was still curled up, and relaxed, lying flat against the ground. I couldn’t panic. I had to stay calm. Actually being able to feel my body, let alone move, was a welcome relief, but that pain… I shuddered briefly just thinking about it. I couldn’t even imagine what might have happened to me, what would have forced those images, those thoughts into my head. However, what I did know was that there was only one way to find out.
Tentatively, I opened my eyes…
… and saw nothing.
Nothing at all.
Well I suppose that’s not exactly true, I could still see my nose and a couple of messy, blonde curls.
Blinking, I looked down at myself. Surprisingly, everything looked normal. I was wearing my favorite light blue T-shirt, grey jeans with black socks and running shoes. Of course, all of these were presented against a black void, but somehow, it didn’t seem to be dark. Lifting my hand up to my face, I turned it and moved my fingers, staring at the complete absence of shadows or bright spots.
Hopelessly confused, I pushed myself up and looked around, searching for some semblance of, well anything in the abyss surrounding me. There was nothing... until suddenly, there was something.
A white blur flashed in front of my eyes, blindingly fast. Then again. And again. And again. By about the seventh time, I was able to distinguish that the blur was in fact composed of letters, but it was still moving far too fast for me to read. Only after about 10 passes, could I actually distinguish the sentence itself.
I require your assistance Overseer.
A simple message that did nothing but bring up more questions. Who is I? I assume I’m the “Overseer”, but what does that mean and what does this “I” need me to do? Of course, I also had to take into account the somewhat important, where am I, how am I here, why am I here, when did I get here, oh God what in the world is going on, while an increasingly large portion of my mind was having a bit of a panic attack.
Unfortunately, with my mind going in twenty directions at once, all I managed to squeak out was a measly “Huh?”
Local conditions are incomprehensible. I can not decide upon a course of action. I require your assistance.
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
“I… uh… why me?” I reply, still hopelessly confused.
You are the Overseer.
Like that explained anything.
“Who are you?” I managed after a few moments of blankness made it clear that mysterious text was not going to offer up anything else.
I am Machine.
“You’re a machine?” I asked, puzzled by the simple response.
No.
No? But it had just said that… wait. “Is your name Machine?”
Yes.
A man of few words with a weird name. Lovely. At least it seems to be answering my questions, though.
“Where am I? What is this place?” I asked, gesturing to the empty, endless void
A series of numbers appeared before me, detailing what appeared to be latitude and longitude coordinates. Yet another incredibly accurate yet incredibly useless response, I was starting to sense a bit of a pattern when talking with this “Machine”.
“Could I see that on a map?” I asked, hopefully.
Yes.
I paused for a moment, staring expectantly at the small text box in front of me. When a map failed to appear in its place, I looked around for a moment, and then sighed deeply.
“Please show me where I am on a globe” I requested after a few moments’ thought, trying to avoid any confusion based on the scale of the map Machine might show me. A holographic globe appeared in front of me instantly, confirming that Machine really is a literal prick, but also allowing me to finally find where exactly I was, thanks to the convenient red glowing dot. Except, of course it didn’t, because like every one of Machine’s responses throughout this conversation, it was completely useless.
Unlike a normal globe with its six or seven continents, of course depending on whether you count Europe and Asia as separate. Though, if you consider all contiguous land masses to be the same continent, wouldn’t there be only 4 continents? That also fails to take into consideration…
Ah, right. Tangents. Back to the topic at hand.
This globe showed a world with only five continents, though there was a massive island chain that could have as much land as the smallest of the continents. Unlike the normal, green and blue tones associated with Earth, this world looked more like a kaleidoscopic wonderland better suited to an LSD trip than the real world. Patches of countless colors dotted the landscape, interrupted only by brown or blackened portions which I had to assume were deserts, and oceans or other smaller bodies of water, which were thankfully still blue. The globe itself was not particularly detailed, and wouldn’t allow me to zoom in on any area aside from the glowing red dot. Closing in on the point, I zoomed in until I could see what appeared to be a rocket, standing upright in a field of green grass. A large eight-wheeled machine was building up a set of primitive walls by simply piling up large amounts of dirt with a bulldozer-like plow. Nearby, a team of two smaller machines and what seemed to be humanoid robots were chopping down trees and dragging them back toward the opening in the walls that would probably serve as a gate. At the very edge of my field of view, another large rover was carrying what appeared to be some sort of absolutely massive white fish back towards the landing site. Finally, moving out into the hazy terrain around me, about a dozen or so drones seemed to be mapping out the surroundings.
Seeing all of this, everything clicked. I was testing a new immersion game! I couldn’t quite remember much about today, but I did remember signing on to test something a few weeks ago. It didn’t sound like a video game, but if they managed to create enough realism to confuse me without using surgical implants, they must have been quite diligent with their secrecy. The memory block was probably just a little side effect, or an intentional action to get me to give a solid impression of their game. It couldn’t be permanent, I know I’d never have agreed to any sort of experimental surgery, not even if they’d offered me a million dollars.
Relief now coursing through me, I viewed the empty void around me with a new eye. Knowing it was just a virtual reality, even though it did seem a lot more advanced than any system I’d ever managed to toy with, relaxed me. With a quick thought, a comfortable chair and desk formed, followed by a warm cup of my favorite tea. A quick sip confirmed that, although it was certainly excellent, the simulation wasn’t quite perfect. The taste was right, but all of the sensations were muted, dull. It was almost as if I was reliving the memory of drinking tea, but not actually experiencing it. Still, I suppose I couldn’t expect perfection. Even being able to taste and feel this much was already incredible. After all, any tea was better than no tea at all.
Setting aside my mug, which refilled itself at a thought, I pushed my chair back, facing only the slightest resistance from the thick, luxurious carpet that formed to cover the hardwood flooring. My bare feet padded across it, my shoes and socks having dissolved into nothingness at my command. For a moment, I reveled in its softness as I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, the crisp scent of burning pine rising to meet me from the crackling fireplace to my side.
“Ah…” I sighed, opening my eyes to the cozy cabin that now surrounded me. A door stood quietly ajar, an invitation to explore the world around me, but I turned away, moving back to the desk and the large monitor and touchpad that awaited my arrival. I sat down heavily on the leather chair, and scooted back up to the desk, ready to test my heart out.
“Alrighty, Machine what are we doing?” I asked into my headset.
Unclear.
Right. I guess they still hadn’t taught the Virtual Intelligence how to communicate properly. No problem, if they could have testers playing the game without some sort of tutorial it had to be possible to get some information out of the guy.
“Let’s see…” I paused for a moment, thinking about the best way to phrase my question. What did I need to know? I needed to know our goals, resources, challenges, and a time frame. Easy Peasy.
“Machine, what are our objectives here?”
Build a self-sufficient colony. Awaken the other five Shapers.
The first part seemed simple enough. A thought brought up a massive database of billions of different blueprints, another filtered those blueprints down to a more manageable size, limited by what I could build with the materials on hand. Extractors, Rovers, Workerbots, and more caused my eyes to widen with excitement, but that was still basic stuff. The second part of Machine’s response seemed far more interesting.
“What are the other five Shapers?”
Artificial Intelligences formed from amalgamations of human minds and programming.
Well… that’s a weird choice for a game’s lore, but I could get behind it. Hopefully they would have more personality than Machine at least.
“What can they each do?” I asked, trying to clarify why exactly I need to wake up five other A.I.
Armory is capable of tactical and strategic control of military forces. Researcher is able to develop new technology. Navigator is trained to control fleets of starships. Mother is skilled at manipulation of organic materials and raising human children. Governor works to create an interface between the eventual human society and the machines working to support them, while also governing the adult humans.
That… was not at all what I expected. Scanning through the database once more, I quickly realized that I couldn’t actually build any of the things Machine had mentioned, at least not yet.
“ Do the other A.I.s...” I paused for a moment, wondering if it would understand the abbreviation, then decided I simply wouldn’t even try” Sorry, do the other Artificial Intelligences have the blueprints for things in their area of expertise?”
Yes.
Well then. That made this game positively huge! Military, some sort of Technological progression, Spaceships… and managing humans? Machine did say our goal was to create a colony…
“And what can you do?” I asked.
I manage the development and maintenance of the colony as well as the acquisition of resources and industrial processes.
He was my economic advisor? Looking at the rovers and workers already collecting resources and building, I realized that he automated at least part of the process of running an economy. I would probably have to make final decisions, but at least I wouldn’t have to micromanage every single unit.
Instead, I’d have time to plan.
Pulling up a list of available resources, I quickly noticed that I was just shy of completely broke. While my stores did include about three tons of titanium, I had no concrete, and very little of the rarer metals I needed for more rovers. I’d have to mine everything.
What did I have? A general purpose furnace, an Electrolyzer to feed the reactor, 2 large rovers, 2 small rovers, 36 workerbots, and a dream.
However, there was one thing not on that list, Humans, which raised a lot of questions. Questions like, why exactly are those rovers dragging what appears to be a six foot long albino catfish with arms towards my colony?
“Machine? Why did you get that fish?” I asked, curiously, as we didn’t seem to need any food.
Dissection.
“And why is that a priority?” I continued, confused about why he’d think dissecting a fish was important enough to divert two rovers that could otherwise be mining.
Dissection may lead to an understanding of U.F. This was deemed critical to the success of a colony.
“Sorry, what’s U.F.?” I asked, setting aside the list of resources I’d still been absentmindedly looking over.
Instead of replying through text, Machine formed a screen in front of me. On it, a video began to play, showing me the perspective of a rover approaching a lake, most likely the nearby one I had seen on the globe. Everything was fairly straightforward. It got to the water, it started to collect some water, the giant white catfish swam up to him, a giant icicle formed in mid-air…
A giant icicle formed in mid-air?
I gaped, open-mouthed as the icicle flew into the rover, and the camera feed switched to the other rover. Slowly, as the fish died on the lakeside, my expression shifted to a massive grin.
“Now that’s exciting!!”