Shadow Of The Past Trilogy ∞ THE DISPLACED

99 ∞ dreamscape

"O...kay." He didn't quite like the sound of that but, on second thought, he realized he already had some of those things inside his own body.

"Daniel," she turned in her seat to face him, "you had one pressing question earlier, but we were uncertain of the answer... I now know how I possess two – separate but – simultaneous memories—how I come to have the memories of the Black Jaguar."

A sudden realization dawned on Danny. "Oh, but I do too. It's like when I fell asleep but was with you when they did all those tests on you. Like I was literally outside of my body."

"Nay." She smiled but then became serious. "It is nothing like that. Would you like to know the real cause?" She searched his gaze.

He nodded with a twinge of trepidation. But how could anything be worse than what he'd already learned or been through with her?

"You know my extra chromosomes... They carry the instructions for repopulating my planet with Jaguars, just as many members of our populace are assigned as protective containers of DNA to save individual species of the Animal Kingdom."

"Kind of like Noah's Ark."

"Aye. It is called the Ark Project and is intended to be utilized in a controlled environment... However, due to a series of very – unlikely – events, all the Nanos comprising my personal dotation, including my sinnesband, activated the Ark Protocol, tapped into the instructions held within my Ark DNA... and self-replicated – exponentially – into an innumerable amount... into something beyond what their original programming intended. They – devoured – my escape pod, and created an AI-organic hybrid—"

"The panther! And you nearly drowned because of it." He met Selina's gaze. "And you couldn't have known."

Selina bowed her head without releasing his gaze. "I am ever regretful, I protected not my Charge sufficiently."

"No, no, you got her safely out and got me to find her. You did everything you could possibly do and I know Mickmi feels the same way too."

She dipped her head in acknowledgment.

Danny turned back to Mickmi and found her regarding him with a fond smile. He had to smile back, but there was something curious about the way she looked at him. "What?"

"And it seems the Protocol was incomplete in its activation... That is why it—they—returned to me... the Nanites that remained, and their experiences incorporated into mine."

It made perfect sense. Danny could see that now. "That's how you remembered what the panther did exactly as if you were it. And you kind of were."

"Correct. But they remained unstable, easily triggered into relaunching the Protocol."

"Like when you saw that cougar that you—it killed. Oh, and that's what happened to you in the scanner, wasn't it?"

Mickmi nodded. "Such incidents shall not happen again. The corrupted code causing this has since been deleted and the Protocol is fully under my control. However... that is not all." She glanced at Artemae. "The nanobots' exposure to the PET scanner resulted in so much more... Innumerable tiny brains, Nanites coordinating among themselves... becoming virtual Nanentities... combining to create a new mind... of vast capabilities. The Supra-Mind."

Bewildered, Danny stared at her. "You're not talking about the panther now? You mean, the Nanentities are a—like alive now?"

"Sentient—aye, that is exactly what I mean." Mickmi paused a few moments to let that sink in. Then she pointed at Artemae. "She is the Supramind. She decided to take on human form because she wanted to experience the world similar to how we do and interact as we do."