IO Vapoura - Part IV: The Rebirth of Halcyon

  He woke in darkness. The only glow came from the numbers of the clock displayed on the wall. Seeing that he'd woken early, Nariaki closed his eyes again. His eyes sprung back open as he remembered what day it was. Anticipation and eagerness flooded him, energizing his body. He couldn't have slept again had he wanted to. Not today.
  Today was the day he was going to meet himself for the first time.
  His attempt to leap out of bed failed, turning into a drunken stumble. Throwing on his labcoat and fumbling for his slippers, Nariaki waved his hand in front of the wall. The full vidscreen came to life and cast a glow out onto the room. He ran his hand thru his hair, then laughed at the attempt to make himself presentable. Was he trying to impress his own self?
  The blinking light on the vid indicated a missed message. "Did I sleep too late?" Checking the vid's clock confirmed he was still early. Confused, Nariaki opened the message. His own face appeared, smiled, then began to talk:
  "Good morning. I... I can't wait to meet you. I can't even imagine what it's like to be there. No one can. You're the first of a new species... or we are... or something. You may need time adjusting to the new environment, but call me as soon as you're ready. I wish I could be there with you."
  Nariaki found himself staring dumbly at the vid, his arm crossed over his chest and tapping his shoulder. He looked down at the sleeve of his labcoat--taking in the details of its texture--then around at the room. He remembered recording the message that he'd just received. Without tampering, receiving it could mean only one thing.
  "I'm the imprint."
  Nariaki walked to the desk, pressing his hand down on the chair to feel the pressure. It felt real. Everything did. This room was his sanctum. A part of their coding set aside a sanctum for each individual imprint. In this space, what the mind expected was what the mind got.
  "I'm inside my own mind."
  Motioning the reply on the vid, Nariaki began pacing while going over the basic rules they'd built for this world. He looked at the door. "Yes", he said aloud. "Outside the sanctum is the buffer. Still malleable, still me, but others can enter it. The zone should be just beyond that."
  He began to walk towards the door to verify it when he heard his own voice saying "hello" over the vid. Hesitating a moment, Nariaki called back towards the vid, "Just... just one second. I have to confirm this."
  The door opened automatically as he neared it. The arc-shaped landing he stepped out onto was the last of the space with any solid form. Stars floated amid a sparse fog in the space just beyond the landing, with a slightly larger star signifying the sun at its center. Thru the fog, Nariaki could just make out the simulated metal of the world's outer walls, as well as large square vidpanels off in the distance. It was no small space.
  "Hello?"
  Nariaki tore himself from the lustrous panorama, returning inside to the vid.
  "You're not going to believe this", he said to himself. "The algorithm for the sanctum is perfect!" He held his sleeve up near the vid's main camera. "Look at the texture. I thought I was you. In fact, the point of imprint will need to be worked on. I woke up waiting on a call from me but got your message instead... or... something like that."
  He could tell by the expression of himself on the vid that his other self--his former self--was thinking. Did he always wear his thoughts out loud like that? An idea spurred him to interrupt himself. "I think you should call me 'Sado'. Everyone down there already knows you as Nariaki. I don't even know if I'll recognize anyone who comes up here. I've always liked the family name anyway."
  His old self smiled and said, "You know you're early. You replied a lot earlier than expected... and I get the feeling you're thinking faster as well. How long have you been up?"
  Sado looked around, finding the clock. "I... I don't know. It was a little disorienting at first. All of it."
  Nariaki sounded concerned. "But there was no recoil?"
  "No, no", said Sado. "Waking in darkness worked as projected. I just expected things to be here and they were. I don't even know where I found my labcoat... but I did. There was some stumbling, however. Of course, that's the projection of the body and not the sanctum."
  Nariaki was thinking. Pointing at the vid, he said, "The moment of imprint. Currently, we have to put the mind to sleep and calm the brain waves to an almost cryo-like state. Before they go under, we could tell them to mentally repeat the phrase 'I am the imprint'. That should make it less disorienting."
  Sado was shaking his head. "No, then you have to convince the human that they're not an imprint. It risks neurosis as well. Maybe an object, like something they love but no longer have. We could make a basic sim out of it and place it in the sanctum. When they wake up, their mind should project the details of the object."
  "That's it", exclaimed Nariaki. "Wake up without it, you're not the imprint. I'll take this one to the team with my report. Have you explored already?"
  "No, not explored, but the zone is beautiful. The sims we ran can't compare to the brilliance of the network here."
  Nariaki looked worried. "Do you remember the rules? Traveling, building, the basics?"
  "Uh... no... actually. I don't even remember how to turn on the lights. I was just going over the basics when you connected." Then, remembering, Sado pulled the vid out of his pocket and held it up. "But I've got them right here."
  He spun and pointed towards the bed. "I can reboot and I'll wake up there. Also, if I figure out some way to die, I wake up there as well. The vid controls basic... wait... do I wake up there any other time? Like... do I need to sleep?"
  Nariaki looked dazed. "No. No, why would you? I mean, you might project the need for sleep... but you should be able to narrow down the process on your vid and just end the function."
  Sado looked at the bed as if it was some new creature, wondering if he would ever choose to sleep. "Hmmm... interesting. Anyway, the vid is a secondary control for my own projection. I can move myself with it and make other changes to my body. And, of course, no one else can even see it other than me... not that anyone's here.
  "Let's see... the buffer's empty right now, but I can build in that space. If I ever need access to the hardware, I can just speak to the computer directly. 'IO', right? Call the computer 'IO'?"
  Nariaki nodded once. "That's right. IO." He paused. "Is he there? I mean, do you feel or see him somehow?"
  They both knew who he was talking about. Sado shook his head while scanning the walls, wondering at how they didn't look less real. "No, nothing. I mean, it's all ODN, so he's here, but this place is empty. I'm the only one."
  Sado didn't feel the same relief that showed on Nariaki's face. It was an interesting but understandable emotional discrepancy between them. Nariaki said, "This feels like a win... like victory. How do you feel?"
  "I feel... different... but this is a win. I would've never dreamed myself in this place. Not in a million years."
  Nariaki gave a brief, sharp nod. "I'll inform the team. Expect them on your comm soon enough. They'll want to run tests of course, and I'm sure Miles will want to hear about it."
  Miles. Sado remembered now. Miles wasn't coming. Possibly not ever. Their last conversation hadn't gone well at all and Sado missed him immediately. In missing Miles, he felt the loss of Halcyon as well... and of Earth... and of cities that no longer existed.
  Nariaki broke Sado from his thoughts, saying, "You look hurt."
  Sado nodded to himself, then met his own eyes in the vid. "Treasure that friendship... and tell Miles I said 'hello'. I'll send you a report once I've explored the place."
  "You know I'll read every word. Wish I could be the one writing them. Goodbye... Sado."
  "Take care, Nariaki."
  Sado closed the comm with a wave. He walked slowly towards and out the door, feeling the weight of all that had been sacrificed along the way. There was no replacing Miles and he had refused the idea of imprinting. He didn't even consider Sado, the imprint, to be 'real'. Sado hoped that time would change that.
  Out on the landing, Sado spoke into the stars: "IO".
  A small sphere appeared in the space just in front of him and a tiny blue light blinked on in its core. A cursor appeared next to the sphere and began to blink. Sado found the representation altogether comical, especially the almost archaic use of a cursor. Phrasing the question carefully, Sado asked, "Given the currently active satellite's sensors, combined with heat sensors from the maintenance systems and pressure sensors from the security systems, is it possible to combine that data into a single feed representing the space surrounding this satellite and project that data in place of the default world simulation for the next sixty-seconds?"
  The word "Yes" and the question "Execute?" appeared next to IO, then the cursor began blinking again.
  "Execute."
  The fog, stars and walls blinked out and Sado found himself staring into the Red Eye of Jupiter. The planet seemed to swallow everything by its immensity alone. He could do nothing but stand and take in the amazing details as storms stirred the clouds and gasses churned across the face of the world before him. With a wave, Sado dismissed IO, then kicked himself off of the ledge and into zero-g. With a bit of longing, Sado said aloud, "You see, Miles, I'm not lost anymore. I know exactly where I am."
  Slowly turning as he drifted, he imagined he could almost see Earth somewhere off in the direction of the small dot that must be the sun. He smiled as a thought struck him.
  "I'm going to have to build myself a proper lab."

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