Chapter 2.5: Meeting of the minds
A warm afternoon, a pleasant breeze and a birthday party, could there be a nice way to spend the evening?
For the last five years Cachandras has given my birthday parties and they have always been a blast.
The best thing is though, that he has invited me this time so i can experience it first handed.
Well actually he has invited 3 of me, 2 of them girls, even posing as sisters.
Its pretty obvious that he has invited them to entertain the majority of the
party guests: old goons from the engineering corps.
I don´t think i have ever met so many of the guys in one place since my activation.
Cachandras himself was a century ago the leading cybernetics technician, revolutionizing his field of work, especially the design of is avatars, adding a whole lot of new abilities.
Since 5 years now he works as an artist (he was a gardener before that) and is truly getting better with each year of his work.
Specializing in real art techniques, mostly oil on canvas, the process of creating a piece is much more tedious for him, than using the virtual direct brain interface, most people use when they want to project their thoughts and impressions into the real world.
He says that he can´t bring up the concentration required to work it out with the expert systems, but i know this is a lie: he simply loves to do intricate things with his hands.
Being a withdrawn man he has lots of time on the former mentioned appendages.
Sometimes i watch him late at night with a sense of wonder, as he sits in his small atelier, applying stroke after stroke of the sticky, smelly paint to rough plant fiber.
Over the years he has done a lot of different styles: Realism, impressionism, surrealism. He drops them as soon as he masters them, much to the disfavor of his
nowadays quite large group of fans, who deal his original works at prices as if he was already dead.
I am curious if he will hold another speech tonight.
He has done this for the last two years and although they were always highly
entertaining, the were also each time quite embarrassing for me.
We arrived at his place, it was more like a villa, placed on the elevated parts of the city, near the central towers, when around half the other guests had arrived.
His current mate, a young girl with innocently looking brown eyes, welcomed us with a wave and a smile on her face at the front gate.
>Ah, nice that you could come< she said, as she handed us some welcoming drinks >Cache was waiting for you, he wants to say a few words, before the party starts<
Oh great i thought, another of his compassionate monologues.
She then led us over to the back yard, through a wonderfully arranged front garden,
overflowing with flowers and bonsai trees.
He had probably planned the party half for his garden half for us on this date, since almost all his flowers were in bloom and that way every guest had to enjoy them when he arrived.
>So are these beautiful flowers your work< i asked the girl, trying to engage in a little smalltalk >Its truly a piece of art.<
>No, dear no, i don´t think i could bring up the patience to nurse all these creatures to this beauty< She told me with a giggle >I water them and stuff when Cache doesn´t find the time. Did you know that most of these plants are special hybrids he has just bred for our garden to stand out a little.<
I kept on smiling and nodding, although the situation was exactly as i expected it to be, the man just couldn´t stop bragging about how good he is.
Its not like that he isn´t, he is, i openly admit that he is one of the talented people of our time, but he doesn´t have to rub it into everyones faces all the time.
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Below me the deep, blue sea, a flock of geese, or at least what this planet had to offer in that matter.
I was quickly closing up on them, running in the same direction as them.
Only a few hundred feet above them roar my engines, driving me towards the near shore.
Behind me the black front of a tropical storm, flashes of Lighting outlining the clouds, the walls of rain, the gusts of wind that could tear my plane apart
as if it it were paper. The Radio had told me that they expected wind speeds up to 400 miles per hour, but i had to fly anyways.
Always on duty, always the best. My superiors would´ve understood if i had appeared one day late on my post under these circumstances, but i couldn´t.
Always the best, thats my way of life. The best in school, the best in the academy and now the best pilot in the force, i never ceased to fail self set marks. And so i was now flying here, outrunning natures power itself.
Above me, behind a thick layer of clouds the foreign skies of ultima one, the first colony of the empire, long ago planned as an agrarian cornucopia, filling the stomachs of billions of people, but not anymore.
The lining of the coast came in sight, just in time, i wouldn´t be able to outrun the storm for much longer in this flight.
The engines were already worn out by hours of zero tolerance flying.
In front of me the Port that is now a fortress called Area 23, clutching unto this worlds secrets like the high commissioner to the throne.
>This is Alpha-niner-niner with an order zero-gulf-five-charlie, requesting immediate landing clearance, over< My own voice sounded a little brittle in my ears after so many hours of flying. Seconds were passing, while the flight attendant checked back my flight number and orders.
>This is tower control to flight Alpha-niner-niner, you are cleared to land on runway two, over<
>Roger that, tower control, clear on runway two, over<
Thick drops of rain were now hammering against my windshield, heavily obscuring my vision, even some instruments seemed to be malfunctioning due to the EM
interference from the storm.
I decided to do a direct approach, relying on my sight and instincts as much as possible. They had never failed me, yet.
The red civilian plane came down at a very steep angle, thrown from side to side by the winds, rain plastering the runway, aquaplaning was a given.
Somehow the pilot managed to get the steering under control in just the right moment and pulled the nose up in just the right moment to get the landing gear on the ground.
Still to fast, but yet somehow graciously the plane slithered over the runway. Even though the asphalt must be slick as oil the plane ran like on rails, coming to a close halt in front of the only open hangar.
Bob scratched his nose, never before he had seen somebody put a plane that flat on ground and that under these circumstances on top of that.
I climbed out of the tight space that was the cockpit, cold water splashing in my face, drenching my flightsuit in seconds.
The outreaches of the storm were now directly above us, almost blowing me off my feet.
I managed to make my way to the hangar, two technicians drove by in a towing cart to get my plane inside.
In the relative cover of the hangar stood a young officer, rain spattered across his military trousers with accurately ironed creases.
He seemed awfully young for someone in the rank of a flight lieutenant and he seemed to be quite a bit uneasy in his situation.
>Welcome to Area 23, Commander Stark, sir< He almost shouted at me, something i had to admit was necessary due to the wind howling around
and thunder crashing every second down on us.
I saluted to him and then fumbled the plastic card with my orders out of my sodded front pocket.
The small holographic card shimmered in the cold light of the hangar as i handed it over to him.
He pulled it through the card reader on his forearm, reading the holographic message displayed between us for a bit.
While he was busy checking back my MO i turned around to see the two technicians reeling in my plan and then shutting the hangar doors, keeping the apocalypse of an electromagnet storm that was going on, outside.
The hanger,as well as the whole base was heavily shielded and not only from EM Pulses.
>Everything seems to be in Order with these commander stark, would you please follow me to your quarters.< He told me while already walking away
>You have an inductrionary briefing at ten-o-hundred after which you will receive your preliminary testing and security clearance.
Until then you will be confined to your quarters.<
I lifted an eyebrow >Thats OK for me flight lieutenant, i have some sleep to catch up on, but can you tell me maybe, why the airforce has requested my presence here?<
>Sorry, sir, but you will have to wait until the briefing, i can´t tell you anything right now< The man rigidly replied.
It was something he was told to say, probably didn´t know a thing himself.
The endless layers of misinformation surrounding the base were protecting its secrets even now 50 years after it had been created.
For whatever reason the empire had transformed this fertile river delta into a military hideout, they did their job very thorough.
We arrived at a residential complex after walking through underground tunnels for about 10 minutes, following a green line.
The room itself was rather luxurious, compared to the quarters i had in the base i was previously stationed in.
It even had an own bathroom and a small kitchen area with refrigerator, completely unnecessary but still nice.
I quickly undressed and threw myself in the bed, trying get some sleep, my mind still racing with thought about this new twist of situations.
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All the people had gathered, mostly the same as the last year, only a few new faces. Younger people that haven´t experienced my construction
are usually not as a attached as the older ones, they were born in the status quo.
In the back garden Cachandras had deployed small gazebos covering desks for 5 people each.
Of course i had to greet all, some people wanted to take pictures, it was all very silly, but its how people are.
People were telling stories about the last few parties, making jokes.
The voices began to calm down as Cachandras entered the garden, walked to the small stage at the far end of the garden, greeting people left and right.
When he took his place to hold his speech even the last voices calmed down and all faces turned. Only a few private conversations remained
via the net uplink, as private as conversations can be if they all run through me.
>Welcome< he began, his voice still strong and primary >to this small party to celebrate a special someone. I don´t want to bore you, so will make this introduction short< oh great, i thought >The person we are all here for today: Our savior, Alan< Applause branded up from all sides >Come on, stand up, come here!< he cheered us on. Me and the twins stood up smiling, walking over to the stage, taking his right side.
One of the twins was waving to a few close friends, but i couldn´t help to smile and shake my head a little, i found the situation highly hilarious.
After a short time Cachandras calmed the crowd down with a swipe of his hands.
>Alan is all our child, but as with most childs its not always easy. So i want to tell you a little anecdote about before he was born.
Adam has given me the permission to tell you this and i tell you its a real treat!<
It went suddenly silent like a grave, even the chatter over the net stopped. This was a story out of one of the developers diaries, something the public
normally wouldn´t get to hear or read. Not that its secret information, its just private information of the construction crew and as thus sealed if they
want it to.
>Its was during the final stages of construction, Alan's body had already been finished and his preliminary training was complete.
The day had come, when he had to be integrated into the core, prior to his transfer into orbit and man I have never seen someone
so unnerved. I tried my best, of course, to calm him down and i think i did a pretty good job at it.
We had meditated during the morning and he finally seemed to calm down for his last step on the big journey, a step into yet unfamiliar waters.
When the call came, i led him into the infirmary.
Adam was there with two of his avatars to supervise the operation as always.
We put Alan in suspended animation, the nervous grimace he had been wearing all day finally calming down.
When he was put under we put him on a stretcher and carried him to the cybernetic center to wire the AI connection points into his brain.
You know this can only be done while the person is unconscious, because even with nanites doing all the work it puts even an augmented brain under a lot of stress which could cause permanent damage or even prove fatal.
So there he way lieing in the sterile chamber, his cooled down with a special energy absorbing field, which i had invented just a few years earlier by the way. By doing this we are able to minimize the stress put up on the subject.
When the preparations were complete robotic arms came down to perform the actual procedure. Everything was out of our hands from this point on,
Adam had taken control and we could just watch and survey.
As i said the contact points are assembled by nanites directly injected into the brain and just in the middle of the procedure something disastrous, something we thought impossible happened.
His neurokinetics went completely overboard, increasing to the tenfold of what was expected in his state.
At first we thought it was some weird allergic reaction to the procedure and we all feared that we´d loose him.
There was nothing i could do at the moment.
From the monitors he was actually in the process of waking up, despite the heavy neurodepressants he was given.
But as suddenly as this seizure had begun it suddenly calmed down, we were all really surprised.
Of course feared the worst, that we might have lost him or that his brain could be damaged, but there was nothing we could do at that moment.
When he came to be a few hours afterwards he seemed to be fine and all his tests were also very positive.
What i want to tell you with this story is that we shouldn´t take the things we have for granted and that we should be very thankful that we have them.<
After a second of silence he turned to us.
>And after all you have just come out fine, haven´t you? So it hink i have to congratulate you.< he added
>Thanks< we three answered in unisono and then after a second of glancing surprised at each other, we broke into laughing, one of the girls began to giggle uncontrollable and i couldn´t help it to fold my hands behind my head, smirking wildly, chuckling to myself.
Suddenly applause broke onto us and i saw that all the people were standing, cheering for us and Cachandras.
He led us back to out tables, joking about the incident and now the party really began.
But i had to think. That was something even i hadn´t known, it was probably somewhere in the construction notes, but i had never bothered to read it.
And again cachandras story was kinda embarrassing, but interesting none the less, maybe he wasn´t so bad after all.
