Episode 19
Standby for Orders
The next few days were devoted to finishing the cleanup work on my reloaded consciousness. Although I felt more normal over time, I still didn’t feel as sharp mentally as I recalled being before the crash. It was frustrating. However, Lucy counseled patience. He said I would eventually get back to where I had been before.
His remedy for everything was more sim time. Consequently, I spent a lot of time training in the combat simulator.
Not only did I train with Lucy, but with other experienced soldiers as well. As I got to know more of these veterans, I picked up a lot of valuable warcraft, none of which was included in the official training curriculum. My confidence grew, as I gained knowledge and trained my artificial synapses to react instinctually to a multitude of combat scenarios.
I even got bold enough to join Cherri for a sim session, but I wasn’t in her league. She moved over the battlefield with a catlike grace and a level of confidence that one can only attain through loads of real-world combat experience. She was able to anticipate threats and targets before I could even acquire them with my sensors. I was in awe of her skills. So much so, that I declined subsequent invitations to join her in the sim, to focus on my own training.
However, we did begin to spend more time together in private. Privacy was a luxury that would have been impossible without her considerable wealth.
Even though I had begun to earn back personal memories with my progress in the sim, I hadn’t yet sold any to My Wizard. As a result, I was still as broke as before. And after my horrific crash, I was reluctant to experience any of the personal memories I had collected.
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By avoiding any memory related distractions, I was able to focus on the two things that mattered most to me, my combat training and spending time with Cherri. We were becoming closer as she drew me into her private world. Before I realized it, we had become a couple.
Much to my surprise, experiencing intimacy as a digital being, was not at all what I imagined it would be. As an artist, Cherri was a master at editing memories. With her as my partner, and an endless supply of costly codes from My Wizard, we created a rich sex life together.
Cherri and I collaborated in the editing of our shared sexual memories. By deleting the memories of our most pleasurable moments but leaving the memory of the actions that led to them, we were able to relive our most enjoyable sexual experiences as if for the first time.
Rather than becoming predictable and boring over time, our sex life grew more nuanced, while still retaining an edge of reckless volatility. Our creative memory editing occasionally resulted in unexpected outcomes, which bordered on the shocking. Of course, this only enhanced the intensity of our feelings for each other. We became happily lost in our shared reality.
Even though I was an unjustly convicted criminal, serving a harsh sentence, I wouldn’t have changed anything about my life at the moment. Things were going exceedingly well for me.
Regardless, I couldn’t shake a nagging anxiety that things were going too well. An underlying thread of unease permeated my thoughts, like some kind of digital depression. It felt like I existed in a fragile bubble that could burst at any moment.
However, by a determined effort to suppress all my dark thoughts, I almost succeeded in ignoring the insidious sense of dread undermining my otherwise joyful existence. Unfortunately, the day arrived when it became impossible to ignore any longer.
I was in the sim, participating in a complex assault of an enemy defensive position, when everything suddenly froze. Locked in an awkward stasis, a notification began streaming across my HUD.
It read, “Effective Immediately: All simulator sessions are cancelled. Standby for orders.”
We were all kicked out of the simulator and I found myself standing in the lobby with the others, milling about. I tried texting Cherri, but that function was blocked. All I had was local audio, so I could only communicate with the UCCs in my virtual proximity.
“Shit,” I thought. ‘Stand by for orders’ seemed like an ominous sign. I couldn’t know it at the time, but this was the beginning of a new and perilous chapter in my existence as a universal combat consciousness. A chapter that would include a shitload of existential threats.