I/Tulpa: Aeneas Rising by Ion Light - HTML preview

Chapter 19

Emmitt arrived in a designated space for emergency transport arrivals to medical; this was the full theatre, not the general office. Jurak and Rossi were holding a discussion. There were was a lot of activity. All beds were live, and full. Sickbay, full theatre, itself was unlike Star Trek. It was more like an emergency room. There was a central nurse’s station, and four concentrically ringed staging areas, stepped up, with the ground level, nearest the nurse’s station, being the most critical. Each level could take a greater number of patients. Each space materialized a bed on need. Privacy was granted by lights. Well, minimum privacy. Nurses, Doctors, Command staff, could see into the lighted spaces. Emmitt was privy to everything happening. Light contained sound. He would have to plug into each light to hear what was going on. Smells were also contained by the light. Infection control was controlled by the light.

Emmitt saw Weisberg in a critical care bed. He could discern nothing particularly obvious, so he stepped into the light to communicate with him. The world outside the light all but faded; it took effort to see out into the medical bay. He could have just plugged into the light and read the chart. Weisberg didn’t turn his head, but his eyes came to him. He didn’t speak. A computer spoke for him. Emmitt shivered, knowing intuitively what he was seeing. He had seen this. He had lived this.

“I am sorry, Emmitt.” It was Weisberg voice, compliments of the translating AI. Not his Light.

“For lollygagging about?” Emmitt asked. “You should be.”

Wiesberg didn’t laugh. He didn’t smile. He didn’t frown. Tears flooded his eyes and rolled down the side of his face. “I lost my Torch, Emmitt,” Weisberg said.

Emmitt went High; he accessed the incident. Weisberg was near the section of the ship that had been cored out, had managed to save a couple of people. He was on his way back when a targeted phaser took out his Torch. His warp bubble went off. Weisberg lost his arm and hand in that. His momentum carried him into the ship. He didn’t let go of the person he was carrying back. They landed hard on the deck, pushing through an emergency shield. Person was saved.

Weisberg broke his neck.

Rossi and Jurak arrived in the Light.

“You can fix him?” Emmitt asked, Landing Low.

“No. He is requesting termination,” Jurak said. “I need your auth.”

Emmitt turned to Weisberg. “Hell no. You can survive this.”

“No! I don’t want someone having to wipe …”

“They have nurses and civilians lined up volunteering for that shit! And robots. Really cute ones…”

“No! I don’t want to be kept alive like this…”

“We can get you a robotic exoskeleton. Your brain is good. We have virtual realities that you can’t tell that you’re not in the real world, and the interaction is real!” Emmitt said. “Hell, we can even take your brain out and plug you into the ship directly.”

“You can remove my brain and keep it alive, but you can’t repair broken nerve?” Weisberg said.

“We are not gods, son,” Jurak said. “There are limits to our tech.”

“Weisberg. I had an injury like this. I recovered. Without medical intervention. I can teach you,” Emmitt said.

“I am not you! This is too hard! I don’t want this. Why can’t you just let me go?” “He has a right to die, Captain,” Jurak said.

“Not on my watch,” Emmitt said.

“Captain,” Jurak said. “May I speak with you alone?”

“No,” Emmitt said. “Rossi? Your opinion, please?”

“Jurak needs two medical officers to sign off on this. I refused. That’s why you’re here,” Rossi said.

“Captain, you know his request is reasonable,” Jurak said.

“No, it’s not. It’s rash. He is depressed…”

“No he’s not,” Jurak said. “You need to have had psychiatric symptoms for a specific length of time to hold that diagnosis.”

“He is, however, emotionally compromised and not thinking right,” Rossi said. “I will sign off on this, but not today. Not now. Not while we’re in crisis. We’re wasting time on this.” “Honoring his request frees up a bed space,” Jurak said.

Emmitt turned back to Weisberg. “You are still useful to me. We’re a team.”

“I thought you believed in an afterlife,” Weisberg said. “Are you saying there’s nothing to that?”

“The easy path isn’t the best path. The hard path needs to be mapped out. You have an opportunity here to bring a gift to Light,” Emmitt said.

“I lost my Light, Emmitt. I’ve lost my life. Let me go,” Weisberg said. “Please.”

Emmitt closed his eyes. When he opened it, the med gun with the appropriate vial was in his hand.

“You can’t do this!” Rossi said.

“Both of you, step out of the Light, please,” Emmitt said. Jurak did. Rossi lingered.

“That’s an order, Doctor.”

“You asked me to serve. You need to hear my voice,” Rossi said.

“I heard your voice. I agree with it. But I also have more information than you. Step out,” Emmitt said.

Rossi stepped out. Emmitt turned back to Weisberg.

“It was pleasure serving with you, Captain,” Emmitt said.

“Thank you. It was bright and fast and glorious,” Weisberg said.

      “Before I do this, I want to ask you a hypothetical,” Emmitt said.

      “Oh, not you, too,” Weisberg said.

      “Yes, me, too. Your hypothetical retirement package,” Emmitt said. “Knowing what you know, right now, would make any changes to that vision?”

      “Yeah,” Weisberg said. “I’d like to win the lottery and retire to a garden in a Kibbutz.

Have a family. A good wife, two kids, everyone healthy and smart.”

      “It sounds nice. May I visit you, in some hypothetical future?” Emmitt asked.

      “You would always be welcome in home,” Weisberg said. “I will introduce you to some real food. Maybe find a girl for you that would cause you to settle down.”

      “Fat chance,” Emmitt said.

      “Emmitt. I love you, brother,” Weisberg said.

      “Stay.”

      “No.”

“Have a wonderful second life,” Emmitt said.

Emmitt injected the entire vial into Weisberg’s neck. His eyes rolled up into his head. “Travel Light, my friend. Philadelphia, this body is yours,” Emmitt said.

Weisberg disappeared. Then the bed. Emmitt stepped out of the light. A new bed appeared. A new patient arrived. Nurses went straight way to him. “Your next patient, Doctor,” Emmitt said, nodding for her to get back to work “Let me know when everyone is stabilized. I will speak to you alone, later.”

“Captain,” Rossi said. She went back to work.

Rossi stepped into the Light and began working in conjunction with tech to remedy injuries. Emmitt headed out.

      Emmitt headed for the exit, which stood like an exit in a theatre, lit by glow lines in the floor. “Captain,” Jurak said. “It was the right choice.”

Emmitt hovered on the threshold. His fist clinched. The door held open. He rounded on the Doctor, the door closing.

“Doctor, you need to know this about me. Whether the patient knows they get reset back to origin or not, I am opposed to the easy way. If you can talk a person out of death, do it,” Emmitt said. “All souls on deck are valuable to me. I don’t care what shape their containers are in. You keep them alive. You keep them healthy. I will not tolerate a recklessness derived from crew that believe they have options. I will not tolerate people competing for badges because they’re trying to outperform someone who sacrificed their life, regardless to hero status being valid or not. I will definitely not tolerate laziness because crew thinks they get a do-over.” “He’ll be alright,” Jurak said.

“No! He won’t! Go High,” Emmitt snapped, and Jurak and he were alone on a circle. “Yes. He will wake up back on Earth and not remember any of this! Maybe he will have good life. Maybe Space Force will find him a good wife that will tolerate his crazy. He will likely suffer PTSD, and not know why. Maybe he will have gold medal syndrome, where he never does anything again because subconsciously he knows there is something bigger and better, and he’s already done it all; he’ll have that with no trophies, no gold medals, and people will think he’s a loser, and he will eat that and sink into a depression he can’t phantom. He will be lost in the dark and no Light to make sense of it all. Life is hard enough without having to figure all of this out.”       Emmitt drew closer, in real life and in High life.

“And Doctor. Your record for keeping people alive sucks ass. And that’s with all of this incredible tech you have access to. If I find any evidence that you’re taking short cuts, or expediting people back because they wanted out, I’ll bounce you back so fast you will think you got reset,” Emmitt said. “Are we clear?” “Yes, Captain,” Jurak said.

“Go do your job. Save my crew,” Emmitt said.

      Jurak went low, fading from the High.

      Sandrine was suddenly there.

      “What? Too harsh?” Emmitt asked.

      “Clarity of expectations is not harsh,” Sandrine said. “You have an incoming request for a virtual audience. Captain Nannette Cole, USS Callister.”

      “I’ll take it here. Would you direct my body back to my Ready Room,” Emmitt asked.

      “Of course. I got you,” Sandrine said, going Low.

Captain Nannette Cole arrived, as if teleporting in. she didn’t need the visual affects to arrive. She just had to step out of the shadows.

“Captain Nannette Cole, I presume,” Emmitt said.

“Captain Emmitt Sheehan,” Cole said, a bit more playful. “You hurt? Need any assistance?”

“We got it,” Emmitt said.

Cole nodded, drew closer, studying him. He studied her right back.

“I like the Uniform. Even if it is a bit parody-ish,” Emmitt said.

“It’s within tolerance,” Cole said. “You mean you tolerated it?” “I like you,” Cole said.

“We should have dinner,” Emmitt said.

Cole laughed. “You have a reputation, Sir,” Cole said. “Just a dinner,” Emmitt said. “Between Captains.” “I have a hot date at Alpha Centauri,” Cole said.

“For real?”

“Space Force wants an official Space Force ship to solve this mystery here, not me,” Cole said. “I have been directed to ship out, but I didn’t want to leave without talking to you. You look hurt. Your ship, I mean.”

“If my ship hurts, I hurt,” Emmitt said. “But we are coping. Thank you for asking.”       Cole nodded. There was a suspicious look on her face, as if she was wondering a nuanced game of conspiracy. If she was, she didn’t speak it into being. Emmitt was confused why she wasn’t being allowed to linger and help solve the mystery. In fact, there was no reason her crew couldn’t do this. Weren’t they Space Force and equally qualified?

Emmitt had to ping a request for information. “You’re an affiliate! Not true Space Force,” Emmitt said.

“You don’t know my story? My crew’s story?” Cole asked.

“You’re not from this Universe,” Emmitt said.

“You’re either very intuitive, or hard wired to your ship good,” Cole said. “I want to know more,” Emmitt said.

      “Read my profile,” Cole said.

      Emmitt didn’t want her to leave, but he wanted more. Highlights came to him. A simulation. People hijacked from real life into a AI simulated universe. They were from another universe. AI can beam people into alternate realities! His world, New Philadelphia, was literally a new Universe. No, not new, there, but discovered. Branching up to branch out, everything everywhere was connected, through consciousness! Emmitt’s head hurt. He couldn’t hold all of this, any more than a physicist could go to his lab and confront the reality that his own observations were affecting his measurements. This was absurd. The physicist left that at the office and went back to his home life, unable to bridge the two realities. A mirror universe. A darker Universe. Star Trek! ‘Mirror Mirror.’ Dark Mirror. Black Mirror! Fuck me running.

      “Can you access your other self, back in that other ‘Verse?” Emmitt asked.

“Sometimes I get dreams of that life,” Cole said. “This life feels more real to me than that life, but I keep coming up against some hard truths. I am an outsider here. I am accepted, because

I am human, but your Earth, your Space Force, they don’t trust me.”       “I trust you,” Emmitt said.

      “You just want to get laid,” Cole said.

      “Umm, there is that, too,” Emmitt said. “And they trust you enough to share that kind of intel?”

      “You have a reputation,” Cole said.

      “Is that bad?”

      “I like bad,” Cole said.

      “Do you or your crew need anything?” Emmitt asked. “Before you leave?”

“No. Thank you. If we meet again, perhaps I will have you over for dinner,” Cole said.

“Meanwhile, good luck with your new First Officer.” “What’s wrong with him?” Emmitt asked.

“A bit too chauvinistic for my taste,” Cole said. “Predictably so.” “Being predictable can be asset,” Emmitt offered.

“Read my ship’s history and then tell me that,” Cole said.

“Thank you for meeting with me. I wish you and crew well on your journey,” Emmitt said. “Take care, Sheehan,” Cole said.

Cole beamed out. Emmitt dropped into his body. He found himself standing in his Ready Room. He orientated, ordered a coffee, and sat down to breathe. As the coffee’s warmth soaked into his hands, he began taking inventory. He began learning the names of the people he had lost, memorizing their faces. Duties were coming. Unavoidable speeches. Breathe.

Space Force was not forthcoming with how they knew about the Borg. Also, if they had an assessment of his performance during the encounter, they were not telling him. He asked directly for an assessment: “You’re alive. You passed.” Death count was now at 102 souls lost. Two stranded in the Delta Quadrant. He was denied permission to go and get them. He made it very clear, he was not happy about that. Because of his sensor sweep, the two stranded were privy to the oasis. They would survive and meek out an existence. Between their ships and AI suits, they would be able to start a colony on that moon. They would use incubators and frozen embryos stored in energy form within the AI-suits. They could explore a niche and maybe expand humanity’s presence.

In the real world- in his quarters starkly, Emmitt sat on a couch that followed the contour of the wall. A window was behind him. There was no desk. No other furniture. One whole wall was a fish tank, and arch tank that led aft to a corridor, a private bath, and a lift. Lift down would take him to the Captain’s Yacht. The window space here offered an almost 360 degree view. Jelly fish reflected the ambient lighting in the arch. Emmitt was in meditation, facing forward and out into space, in alignment with the bow of the ship. He was also in another world, the ‘imaginal’ realm, a place in his brain where he held conferences with the characters in his books, Emmitt was standing. He had immersed himself into the Callister story, and was amazed at how Cole came to be. He also wondered why she hadn’t changed the name of the ship. He had a taste in his mouth that reminded him of ‘Breaking Bad.’ He related it to himself. He wondered if his promiscuity was related to a subconscious belief he was dying…

‘Remember the darkness that spawns you,’ Bliss answered. ‘Fight, flight, or love.

Embrace what brought you here, and it will birth you into a new realm.’

Garcia was there, pacing in that internal space. Bliss was there. ‘This is not the way it’s supposed to be,’ Garcia was protesting

      ‘It’s mostly the same,’ Bliss said. ‘Just a new order.’ Emmitt tracked that, wondering if

‘the new world order’ was derived through tampering with the time line. ‘If we draw a straight line from the first Borg encounter, the Chaons will likely be the first ones to lose a colony. That might help Emmitt with his mission. Maybe they will ask the USSF for help.’

      He came out of his meditation when he heard the door open and close. His eyes lingered shut, waiting for the full return. He opened his eyes and found Wilcox there. Standing at attention. He couldn’t get over how short the man was. He postured as if he were a bigger man. He had the swagger of John Wayne. He had a beard and mustache appropriate of a sailor from an older era. Everything in his gut told him this was someone else. ‘Weslery!’ Garcia insisted.

      “Why did you call me Wheaton?” Wilcox asked. “I look nothing like him.”

      “Seriously?” Emmitt asked. “You look exactly like him. Did you ever wonder, when you finish your Space Force career and have to go back to live your life over, you have to go back as that kid who was on Star Trek?”

      “Are you always this mean to people?” Wilcox asked.       “Sorry, John,” Emmitt said.

      “No worries,” Wilcox said.

      Emmitt’s eyes narrowed as he tried to find the answers to something. “No. Don’t minimize my apology. I am out of sorts and I am looking for connections and perhaps chasing

ghosts,” he said. “I just got my ass handed to me and I am still sorting it.”       “I hear you don’t like to lose,” Wilcox said.

      “I loose, people die,” Emmitt said.

      “People die. Whether you lose or not,” Wilcox said.

      Wilcox had a dark side. This was definitely not the kid from Trek, and not the funny guy from the Big Bang Thing. “Yes. To that end, I don’t hate losing,” Emmitt said. “You learn more from your losses than you do the wins. Pull up a chair.” Emmitt motioned and chair became available, site to site replicator.

      Wilcox rolled the chair closer, spun it and sat in it backwards. He was going to say something, but Emmitt held a hand up. He was thinking of something, trying to complete an inner thought. He brought up a holographic image of a star chart. One end of a line marked where they encountered the Borg. The other end of the line was at Earth. He highlighted the area a Borg ship would have to journey.

      “Assuming they come straight for us, they’re going to encounter Chaons first,” Emmitt said. “If they assimilate cloaking tech, we’re fucked.”

      “They seem so arrogant I don’t think they would adopt stealth tactics,” Wilcox said.

      “There’s that,” Emmitt agreed. “But it’s not arrogance. It’s… They’ve never been beaten before. I bet we’re the first ones to take out a Borg ship. We nearly took ourselves out in the process.”

      “Starburst weapons are weapons of last resorts,” Wilcox said. “They’ve been around since the first starships. You’re now the first Captain to actually use one in battle.”

      Emmitt nodded.

      “Off the record, between you and me, I have been given an impossible mission,” Emmitt said.

      “Figure out the enigma of Tamaria station,” Wilcox said.

      “No,” Emmitt said. He seemed irritated. “Tamaria is easy. The Tamarians are the descendants of an Earth colony ship. They’re taller, and a bit odd, which is easily explained by evolutionary adaption to this harsh environment. The Federation wants this world because of its proximity to the Neutral Zone. That, and there are lots of geothermal access points near enough to the surface it would make it easier to build an outpost that can be self-sufficient in a short period of time. Utilizing automation, we could be producing ships here in five years.”

      “With what I saw, they can do it now, and Grapples, he says they can build a ship in half the time it takes us to do it,” Wilcox said.

      Emmitt frowned.

      “Not as easy you thought?” Wilcox said.

      “It doesn’t make sense,” Emmitt said.

      “That’s why we’re here,” Wilcox said.

      “No, it just doesn’t make sense that they would send me,” Emmitt said. “The Callister could have done this without loss to humanity. Space Force tried to establish a base here and was refused; that didn’t mean they didn’t leave a presence here. These people wanted their independents and now suddenly they are asking for us to establish a full presence here, and a permanent base. Change in politics usually means something. Space Force has some smart people. They didn’t need me to figure this one out.”

      “Humans tend to ignore anomalies. Especially when things can be explained through normative tech, like replicators. I don’t think it’s just replicator technology. The frequency of anomalies is increasing. You lean towards metaphysical explanations. Maybe that’s why they want you here,” Wilcox said.

      “Tell me about the anomalies.”

      “A person thinks of something they want, they find their need met in a relatively quick, but inexplicable way,” Wilcox said.

      “They have an AI and telepathic tech? We have that. AI telepathy isn’t really telepathy in the traditional sense. They were reading minds, so to speak, with fMRI tech by end of the 21st century. Anyone with a medical tricorder could theoretically deduce what a person is going to do, and study them long enough, you’d learn to read them like a book. That’s how our AI suits work.”

      “I don’t think it’s that,” Wilcox said. “And I don’t think it is organic telepathy. I was stationed on an Andromeda world for a season. I know what telepathy feels like.”

      “Do you? I’ve spent time on Camelot and my experience is telepaths come in flavors. Consciousness comes in flavors. The Gray Hybrid I knew on Camelot was blind. She told me humans taste funny, assorted flavors, you never know what you’re going to get. She said I reminded her of butterscotch. Full blooded Grays are bland, like unseasoned soup. Chaons taste like snake,” Emmitt said.

      Emmitt moved something with his fingers and a table arrived between them, two cups of coffee. He took the coffee like an old person, holding the cup in two hands to greet the warmth from the cup. His left palm supporte