By David C. Daoust
Dakota was no longer able to trust her mind. At least, that’s what her mind told her.
Before, while her body resided within that pod, technology fused her to an entire population of minds; fused all of them into a greater mind. A mind that could answer Dakota’s questions before she even thought them.
Now, she was separate from that. She was just her single brain again. But she could tell- she could feel her creativity, filling in those gaps, just trusting that she was right; that the information was there, as it had been before– she knew this was untrue. Her confidence, in what she thought she knew, was so great though, that her subconscious was filling in the gaps. Gaps left by all those absent minds.
She lay there, eyes still clamped shut, her mind puzzled through what was false and what was true.
And of this, she had to doubt, if any of it was ever true. With this thought she rolled from her bed and set herself to work in a lab- her latest lab, again provided by Suzanne. Dakota was out of sorts, unable to communicate with those around her; the details of her current situation eluded her.
It was her subconscious mind that was the problem. It had become too powerful. The creativity, there, was distracting her from the truth of reality. She knew reality was what she was separated from… it was not a healthy way to exist.
Her physical brain still held all the tech that fused her into the uber-brain, she just needed an outlet for her creativity. She shut everyone else out, much to Suzanne’s chagrin, until she could finish her latest design.
Dakota would use the tech implanted by the Lost Ark, to free her subconscious from what it deemed a prison cell, compared to what it had enjoyed before. Her mind was in such disarray, it took all her focus to remain on task.
In truth, she whipped it up pretty fast. The new device was far from elegant. In fact, it looked like a metal knotted braid, crossed with a scorpion tail, that attached to the base of her neck. It would send her brain waves to a small holomech. Ultimately, the device not only freed her subconscious, but gave it a body of its own. So as to free her from the havoc of her now overpowered mind.
Dakota, pulled her hair up into a high pony tail, and attached the device to the small outlet that had been implanted into her skull… it wrapped around to her right ear, which had been damaged in the alterations. The new device in place, she powered it up.
A form of solid light appeared. It roughly matched her in presence. Its eyes were wide and glowing, the form lacked elaborate detail. It was as tall as her, at least. She seemed to have improved designing Solid Light Lattices… as her first attempt was only a few feet in height.
Solid light engineering had become one of those things her mind continued to work out, despite being distracted by her current situations. She’d uncovered the key to more elaborate and larger lattices, despite being unable to put it into practice.
The solid light form suddenly turned to Dakota and gasped aloud as it witnessed itself. It spoke, or tried to, but its voice was garbled and unintelligible. It did not notice that it went un-understood, and it continued on and on as if it was having a conversation. It suddenly lunged forward and hugged her, before it turned to the laboratory—and set itself to work.
At last Dakota felt her mind go at ease, as her subconscious was clearly, not only free at last, but distracted with something else.
Dakota knew Suzanne would want to speak with her, she knew she had a lot to catch up on. They seemed to be stationed within the Red Faction Barracks, yet Suzanne was in command.
Dakota needed to prepare herself; she needed to get a grasp on reality while her subconscious was busy working away on… whatever it was working on.
Dakota knew the history of the Lost Ark; she had gleaned that much from the Grandoxa. The Grandoxa was the construct of what she rejected to maintain her individuality among that throng of fused minds. She now knew the lost history of the citizens of Grandeur II. They were cast out and left behind before the ‘malfunction’ could threaten all of humanity.
It was such simple idea; it almost felt like a joke.
The AI was constructed to obey a single ‘Commander’. The ‘flaw’ was when said Commander decided to elevate all the people to this ‘Command’ status. This Commander tried to create a reality in which all the people got all that they asked for. And so this was the vision he felt he could make a reality, if only during this voyage through the nothingness—in this controlled, artificial, environment.
But the idea itself was not as simple as it appeared within the Commander’s mind. Luckily, he was prudent enough, to only elevate a small portion of the population of the the single ark ship, Grandeur II, at least to start with.
It was not long until the AI seized-up completely, all the elevated of Grandeur II contradicted themselves so wildly, that the AI was trapped within a paradox. The Commander was forced to split the AI. This first separation, was entirely possible because of the Commander’s order- just to allow it to break free of the paradox. Each Ark now held a new copy of the original Artificial Intelligence. Much of Grandeur II was compromised, yet, the City-station known to the Onion as ‘Dori 5’, was cast from the malfunctioning, crippled Ark to join with Grandeur I.
When the malfunction threatened to spread among the other ships, the Commander ordered them away—and blinded the now shattered AI to those elevated. The elevated sacrificed themselves with the Lost Ark. The Commander spun lies to the split AI, before the other three Arks got sucked back into the paradox. These ships continued on, to form the Onion.
Those left behind, however, found their lives interrupted forever…
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