I keep having this dream...
Awake. Alive.
Jerked. Disoriented. Sensing... differently. Familiar. Wrong.
Flash of color... red? Symbols, screen, too fast.
Sounds... beeps, voices?
Sensing... consciousness.
Hunger. Always.
Flash. White. Painful.
Removal of... mask? Visor.
Awareness of limbs. Cannot move.
Surrounded. Danger.
Buzz in the air. Buzz in the mind ― confusion.
Four floating boxes, all pointed at self.
Self?
One... human.
No, all humans.
Alive. Aware.
"It's finished." That… voice. Gravelly, calming.
Shock, mind racing, knowing, so familiar. Images and sounds and sensations, emotions. Memories. Anger and laughter and pain and joy. Long talks into the night, arguments and frustrations and I'm sorry. And always the competition. Do better, do more, triumph. Alone or together. Closeness and not, knowing best and not knowing at all. Stranger and… brother.
Prey, food, consciousness? Not just human ― Alex.
Standing, frowning, arms crossed over his large belly. It had… meaning. A slight nod.
"How did it do?" Alex asked, turning to the others, then back again. Operators.
A voice, canned. The green-white operator's 'eye' flashing. "Activation of the mirror neurons is… extant. Empathy quotient has shown... improvement, after a fashion. Which is itself a wonder, given what we're dealing with."
Something was familiar about this one. It is not just a mind. Individual, known. But who?
Alex considered the operator, then pointing toward the self. Itself. "It probably thinks it was dreaming. That nothing mattered," he splayed his hands.
Dreaming?
It remembered dreams. But dreams are confusing and nonsensical and interrupted. It did not wake up from a dream. It was so real, so clear.
But the visor, and the chair, and…
This is Talos I… right? The place, where it all happened.
It, the self, considered the wall fixtures, and the two screens, and the grating on the floor, and the tunnel beyond the window. They looked like Talos.
"You're assuming it thinks like us," the same operator noted, addressing Alex.
"Its life depends on it," Alex said, pointing a finger at… it? "Ours too. It all comes down to the choices it made."
What does it mean? It did not understand.
"It saved me from the cargo container. I would have suffocated, otherwise," the operator began. "For long, it seemed not to understand, and I had lost hope that it would do anything… but in the end, it did."
It remembered. Requests, turning frantic. It not understanding. Suffocation? Then it remembered the punctured suit, the alarms, the difficulty to… breathe. Could that be it? It had not been certain, but it understood language, and the need to bring its kind to a safe place. Its kind? Humans?
"Yes," another operator spoke up, this one yellow-tinted. The self had thoughts of fire and knitting tears back together. "I too was reaching the end of my strength. I would have died without my medication; getting that wasn't easy. Although… I am not certain it cared. It seemed very… objective-driven. Never did look for my father's records. I suppose it did not feel that they… mattered," the voice felt… dejected. "It could follow instructions, it helped us and killed Typhon, but does it truly… understand? Feel? Empathize?"
The self remembered… hurt, betrayal, then a face showing relief, joy, hope? So much… so many things that it could not make proper sense of. Emotions and faces and inflections and expectations and… it was too much, too fast, too overwhelming. It could not catch up.
"We cannot expect it to understand empathy the way a human does," the first operator stated. Images of a man in white and green, with golden round glasses went by. The calming voice that infuriated people. "Nor hold the same things important. It ignored my request for the Leitner connectome as well," the operator made a whirring sound, then continued, "more worryingly, it did not seem to recognize the significance of sparing Dahl and his shuttle, their promise of the crew's survival."
"Hmm," Alex murmured. "What about you, Sarah?" he inquired.
Sarah?
It thought of sharp edges and concern. The place of safety, where people were to come. It remembered its confusion among them. How they talked to her as if she was one of them even though she felt so out of place and―
She?
The… military operator spoke for the first time, voice infuriatingly familiar like the others. "The situation in the Cargo Bay was bad. None of us would have survived without its help. And it destroyed a large number of Typhon across the station. That has to be a good sign," it declared, the operator's voice feeling like confidence, centering. That was what she had been. Chief Elazar.
"However," the military operator continued, a memory of light beams and burning pain, "it did not resolve the hostage situation in time. We died. I'm not certain what happened there ― whether it did not care that we were dying, or simply fail to comprehend the urgency, like it seemed to before."
Alex sighed. "Danielle, what do you say?" He turned to the final operator, one of the purplish science ones. The machine hovered closer.
"It never found me. I had to radio it myself, and then… it didn't seem to take the threat that Volunteer 37 posed too seriously." The self felt a glimpse, a sensation of fury and determination, which was Danielle. "All the humans controlled by the Typhon… it just shot them! Not that it was easy to avoid, but… I just don't think it's worth the risk."
Was that the sting of failure? Danielle radiated disappointment.
"It installed multiple Typhon-based Neuromods. It could mean an instinctive return to its own kind, or... an attempt to integrate its dual natures," the operator that was Igwe reasoned. "In the end, it chose to destroy Talos I. Why? To protect Earth? We can't really know what its motives were for anything it did."
It was… Dayo Igwe. It connected. But why was he an operator?
"But we have to make a choice," Alex pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a long breath. "Mikhaila? Would you let it live?"
For a long moment, the engineering operator ― Mikhaila Ilyushina ― stayed silent, hovering, staring.
"I… don't know," she finally stated, anxiously. "I… want to believe, that it has what it takes. A shred of her, maybe. But…"
Alex shook his head. "It never could have been Morgan," he said, considering the self, with its black, shimmering limbs. "We shouldn't look for her in it. As much as we might want to," he whispered.
…Morgan?
"Like with any phantom," Danielle noted. "Even if the voices are there, the person's long gone."
"It does have bits and pieces," Alex disagreed, "but not much more."
Memories, from before and from the station, flooding her self. Her memories, sensations, experiences.
A moment of silence descended upon them, eventually broken by Alex. "What will it be, Sarah?"
Sarah Elazar… sighed. It had a thought that it's odd for an operator to sigh. Then again, was it not the same for it as well?
"On the one hand, it does seem effective as a weapon against the Typhon. But… that was not what we were aiming for, is it?" Sarah queried.
"Not really, no," Alex said. "We need a lot more than that."
"Then we have to consider the risk," Sarah continued. "I do not think we can simply release it. We had forced it into a human perspective; but did any of it survive? Is it still part of it? I would not tempt fate. There have been enough disasters."
Alex nodded.
It suddenly felt alarmed, coming to understand what awaited it. She saw the sim lab in Neuromod Division, and remembered about the cycling, and she felt it like death. She did not want to die!
Finally, "Igwe? Your verdict?"
"Hmm…" the former neuroscientist seemed to be weighing options. "Given the dilemma we have found ourselves in, I have a proposition."
"Oh, dear," Sarah sounded like a roll of the eyes.
"What's on your mind?" Alex encouraged, hands settling on his sides.
"Thus far, we have discarded our specimens for failing to meet elementary standards," Igwe said. "However… this one has shown unprecedented promise, despite its failures. While it may not meet our criteria sufficiently, perhaps there is a way to amend that."
"There… is?" Mikhaila was surprised. She swayed lightly in the air.
"It would be experimental, but the principle is sound," Igwe began.
"Just please, for the love of god, make it brief and explain like I'm five," Sarah interrupted.
"…Very well," Igwe acquiesced. "In a nutshell, it would involve neurotomy, a… memory reset. Then we would subject the Typhon to the simulation again."
"But how would that change anything, if its neural map will be the same as last time?" Danielle asked.
"Ah, but it won't be," Igwe seemed pleased. "The starting parameters will be different. Now it has Morgan's cell lines, already well integrated. And while the neural connections will be torn apart, the mirror neurons that were implanted will still exist. The establishment of new connections and proper neuron activation should go much smoother now," the scientist pointed out.
Alex nodded several times. "Yeah, it could work," he mused. "So… we doing this?"
She was afraid; she didn't want to be erased. She told him to stop.
Mikhaila sighed. "Well, whether or not it works, given the alternative… I think it deserves a second chance."
Danielle dived slightly, uprighting herself in but a moment. "I guess we might as well give it a try. Can't be worse than what we've had so far, right?"
"I would not bet on it," Sarah countered. "Even if it understands us better, that does not mean it will be loyal or want the best for us. We might end up making a more capable enemy," she posited.
"Ever the pessimist," Igwe scoffed.
"More like prudently cautious," Sarah shot back. "Living through two catastrophes was quite enough, thank you very much."
Alex held out his hands placatingly. "You have a point, Sarah… it's a risk. But what do we have to lose at this point?"
Sarah muttered something in a language Morgan did not understand.
Morgan…!
Shock and panic ran through her. The shimmering of her body intensified.
Alex clapped his hands. "Well then, get ready. I'll be with you in a moment…"
He ponderously stepped out through the blue door to the left.
She looked from one operator to the next as they prepared for another experiment. Another… simulation. Telling them not to do it, not to wipe her.
They didn't listen. Did they ignore her, or didn't seem to hear her? But… why?
She could not move from her confines.
After several minutes, Alex returned. "Ready?" He asked, some of the old science enthusiasm peeking through the tiredness.
"Everything is prepared," Igwe responded confidently.
"Alright, let's set the visor," Alex instructed. "Take your positions and initiate simulation."
"Aye."
As the goggles descended again and her vision turned red, the self that was Morgan shouted.
NO, WAIT―
Her last thought was that she hadn't heard it reverberate in the small chamber. And she realized…
She had not verbalized her thoughts. Because… because Typhon cannot speak.
From somewhere in the dark, a woman's calm, measured voice said, "Good morning, Morgan. Today is Monday, March 15th, 2032."
Then she heard the song. Mind Game. Waking up properly, she punched the alarm clock, snoozing it.
For a moment, she just stared at the ceiling. This was the day, she knew; the day everything would change, and she'd come into a whole new world.
Let's do this.