Reanimation sucks.
This was the first thought that went through his mind, as his body screamed its distress at not being able to perform basic functions, such as breathing. For the twenty-fifth time, Major Darien Searle cursed whoever had designed an upload and reanimation sequence that involved achieving conscious thought before body reconstruction was complete, and waited for it all to end.
His second thought was that he shouldn't have been able to recall anything about the previous twenty-four times at all. He knew this, and also knew he shouldn't have any memory since his first upload - that was the way it worked; you die in the v-con, get reanimated, start again at the point you first came here and then learn everything you ever knew before by laborious reading of the mandatory journal. Yet here he was, knowing this was his twenty-fifth reanimation. More than that even; he could remember everything from before - right up until the point his twenty-fourth version met the unknown soldier who'd stepped out of a reanimation tube and shot him.
Darien blinked a few times as he got control of his eyes, and a few seconds later he gained the ability to see. It was dark in Arrivals. That didn't bode well. Through the distorting glass of the embodiment engine Darien could make out the glow from the console, and somewhere several meters away a faint rectangular glow that might indicate a doorway of some kind.
A few seconds later the process was complete and the glass tube slid upwards, while at the same time complete control of his own body was given to him. He crouched, expecting an attack of some sort, but there was total silence and no movement that he could make out.
"Dr Johann? Private Krantz?"
Before, the fat doctor had fussed around him, checking his embodiment had gone well - that his physical ability and mental acuity was functioning to normal parameters; but this time, nothing. No answer from Private Krantz who had been stationed at Arrivals and who had been with him when he died.
Strange too the acoustics of this room. Arrivals was sizeable, even with only ten embodiment engines, and the space echoed and rang with any noise. This room seemed different - like it was smaller. Although it was dark, there should still have been a glow from the control panel at each of the other nine engines, but there was only the one from the tube he was still stood in. Either the others were switched off, or...
Darien stepped off the plinth and reached out to one side. Sure enough, just a couple of paces away from the engine he felt a wall. Working his way cautiously along, he discovered quickly that the room was very small - only just large enough to fit the one embodiment engine in that he had emerged from. And on the wall facing the engine's control panel, there was a door - an ordinary, unsecure and unguarded door.
Darien tried the handle. The door opened outwards with a protest of stiff, rusty hinges, its opening made more difficult by sand which had blown up against the door in a small drift. Darien blinked in the glare of light and looked out onto an arid, flat, featureless plain that spoke more of a desert than the temperate grassland the Arrivals he knew was situated upon. There was no surrounding fortification either - another oddity which, combined with the fact that there appeared to be no other persons present, made him very uneasy.
Carefully, slowly, he stepped outside. It was daytime, which in the v-con he inhabited meant everywhere was noon-day bright, even though there was no sun in the sky. Instead, the sunlit side of Earth loomed massively above him, blue-grey ocean and drab coloured land obscured to a large extent by cloud. Almost directly above was a typhoon, its eye the only sharp feature amongst the hundreds of miles wide whorl of cloud spilling out from the centre. It reminded Darien of an image of a galaxy he had seen as a child, which in turn drew him into a momentary feeling of unreality as his consciousness rejected the thought - he had never truly ever been a child, as no person who had lived an entirely virtual life had; the memories of childhood he carried with him were there to fulfil the mind's need to remember childhood; something vitally important in keeping him sane.
Tearing his eyes away from the sight above, Darien scanned the land around him. In all directions, there was no sign of a hill, mountain, buildings or anything to break the monotony of the landscape. The horizon shimmied and fractured with haze caused by rapidly increasing heat. Sweat began to run down his back and bead on his forehead. If it continued to get hotter at this rate, he might be in trouble. Even in a v-con it was possible to die from heat stroke.
The only thing left to do was to walk round the building, on the off chance that he would find something that would help him work out what had gone wrong with his reanimation - because what else could explain why he had been brought back here? This must be a mistake, he thought.
It was as he approached the rear of the squat mini-Arrivals building that he saw it - a shape, resembling a person, standing some way off; immobile and almost invisible in the haze. It wouldn't be long before the increasing heat made it impossible to see the figure.
Giving up to the fact that his options were limited, and that whoever it was, they might be able to help him figure out what had happened, Darien began walking. Every now and again he checked his position relative to the building, and when that also began to disappear in the haze, he picked up a short piece of dead wood from some long-gone scrub, and drew a line in the sand behind him to act as a guide should he need to return.
A light breeze began to play across the desert, lifting fine sand which whispered across the plain. Every now and then a small dust devil formed, raising reddish-brown swirls of dust and sand that scittered across his path and collapsing back to nothing, before another formed somewhere else. After ten minutes walking, he didn't seem to be much nearer to the figure, even though the building had disappeared from view entirely. Another five minutes or so passed, during which time Darien formed the impression that the thing he was moving towards might not be a person after all. The proportions were all wrong - too squat, the arms and legs appearing overly large. Nor had it moved the whole time, and as he got closer, it seemed that the figure was all of one colour - black, from head to foot. He slowed his approach, a strange feeling of foreboding creeping over him, along with an idea that he knew exactly what the object was.
Darien halted a few hundred meters away, watching warily. If he was correct, then what he was looking at was a Suit. And judging by the bulk of the thing, it was a heavy duty, military grade Suit of the type used in the final years during the Wars of Resource that ended with the red plague. Was it occupied? If so he could be in a heap of trouble. But then, if the suit was occupied, and its occupant meant him harm, he would be dead by now. Even if the person inside was sleeping, the Suits automatic systems would have alerted them to his presence well before Darien had seen it.
A sudden shift in the wind pulled his attention away for a moment; a hot blast that lasted for a few seconds, but served to warn Darien of an impending problem. Behind him, extending from one horizon to another, was a brown wall of dust and sand, moving quickly in his direction and extending several hundred meters upwards. The inside of the dust storm was lit up by silent but persistent lightning, and it was clear that if he was caught out in the open his chances of survival were minimal. A quick guess put the time at his being enveloped by the storm at no more than a few minutes at best. Should he run for the shelter of the mini-Arrivals building, or chance the Suit being empty and his being able to open it?
Darien looked down to find the trail he had left was already fast disappearing under freshly blown sand. There was no way he was going to be able to make the building before the storm hit, and the chances of his finding his way without a trail to follow was nil.
Go for the Suit then.
Focussing on his goal, Darien sprinted as fast as he could, hairs prickling at the back of his neck as the storm began to make itself heard over his headlong dash for safety. At least, he thought, I might be able to get some shelter behind it.
It became clear that he wouldn't make the Suit in time to find out how to open it before the storm hit. The sound behind him was a roaring, tearing presence that made it absolutely clear that if he was caught out in the open, he would not survive the ordeal. He was on the verge of just giving up and facing the inevitable, trusting that the worse that could happen was a few minutes of extreme discomfort, and then waking again in an embodiment engine for the twenty-sixth time. Instead, he redoubled his effort and let out a roar of defiance.
The Suit opened; legs, arms and torso flowering outwards at his approach. Almost losing his footing with surprise, Darien changed his roar into a howl of triumph, and ran full tilt into the machine, which rocked slightly with the impact before the Suit closed around his back, caressing him in a cushioned embrace, the final section clicking shut at the same time the storm hit.
In the cosseting blackness, Darien could hear the muted roar as the storm raged around him. The Suit rocked slightly as it was buffeted by the wind, and there was a faint rasping noise as sand blasted the outside. Cool air began to blow on Darien, and a few seconds later the Suit came to life, displays and info-graphics blossoming in his field of vision. Eventually, an outside view appeared, and Darien was subjected to the disconcerting feeling of travelling backwards fast, as the sand picked up by the storm rushed past from behind. He allowed himself a few minutes to rest, relaxing into the gelform supports of the Suit's interior.
The status of the Suit concerned him immediately. Instead of him having any control, a small blinking light caught his attention at the bottom left corner of his vision, and when he looked at it, it flashed a message: "Slave/Remote". That meant the Suit was being controlled by someone else. No doubt whoever had placed the suit here and opened it for him was monitoring him right now. Might as well make introductions...
"Hello? To whom do I owe my thanks for saving my worthless ass from the storm?"
There was silence for a heartbeat or two, then a male voice, strained with emotion and excitement and with a strong Indian accent replied, "Good-day to you my good man. Would you please say the word, sir?"
The word? What was he talking about?
"Er, I'm sorry. Could you elaborate?" asked Darien.
"The word, sir. The word you used to bring yourself here. I must verify you are the correct person by you saying the word, otherwise I will be forced to release you to the storm, which will surely result in your demise. I'm terribly sorry this should be so, but I'm afraid it is most assuredly necessary for me, you see."
Realisation dawned as Darien remembered the circumstances of his last death. "Oh! In that case, the word you're looking for is 'Checksum'."
"That is correct! Oh my, we have lots to discuss, you and I. But there is a long way to go to get to where you need to be, so we must make tracks and talk on the way!"
"Hey, woah! Wait! Goddam!" Darien cursed as the Suit turned into the storm and began to walk, picking up pace quickly to reach an oddly smooth running gait much faster than any human could run on their own. He hurried to lift his legs up and out of the Suit's legs and tuck them into stirrups higher up, so that they weren't thrashed back and forwards by the machine as it built up to its run. Extra padding moved in to make his cramped position more comfortable. He did the same with his arms, bringing them into the torso of the machine.
"I am sorry sir, but time is so short! I'm afraid this journey will take several days and we cannot afford to stop. I have suspended some of your construct's digestive and metabolism algorithms to make it easier for you, and I can extend your sleep to make it go quicker, but only after we have talked."
"You can do that? Who are you?"
"My name is Ranjip Karl-Singh. I was once a universe v-con programmer with the Avram Corporation in Mumbai, but I exist now as a high-point Artificial Intelligence entity in the v-con you find yourself within. Within this universe, I am able to tease out certain concessions - to 'bend the rules' if you like. Therefore, I can make it possible for you not to require food, or water. I can keep you healthy and strong. And, I am afraid, you will need your strength to compete the task you must do."
Darien puffed out his cheeks and blew out a lungful of air. Dust that been trapped inside the Suit when he jumped in raised off the faceplate info-graphic screens and floated around before being sucked away by the Suits air filters. Darien mused for a while before speaking, marveling at the processing power being used just to make dust swirl around in front of his face in a completely pointless display of ultra-realism. What he was really doing though was putting off the next question, which mention of the Avram Corporation had placed first and foremost in his mind.
"Soooo..., Avram Corp huh? That's the place which stole all those state secrets, back in - when was it? 2430, or something? Just before the plague came and ruined everyone's day. And then, if I remember rightly, it got mixed up in some a small but vicious war in Kazakhstan just as the plague hit, which ended in a hastily launched Soyuz-12 ending its flight in downtown Mumbai, taking out a large swath of real estate including, I believe, Avram's head office, the CEO, it's board of directors, several hundred of Avram's employee's and another ten thousand or so innocent people who'd been crammed around the streets in protest at Avram's continued drain of India's scarce monetary resources on seemingly pointless space projects, am I right?"
"You are very well informed, Major, but unfortunately, only part of what you say is true. Firstly, only two state secrets were stolen from your government, not the hundreds that were splashed all over the press. And Avram itself did not steal them. It was me! Although at the time I was still at university in Cambridge. It was only afterward, when Avram discovered my much regretted deeds, was I was forced to work for them to develop technology based on the designs I had obtained." Ranjip paused for a moment, then continued in a more somber tone. "Had I known what would result from my handing over those data to such irresponsible, short sighted, self-aggrandising and self-serving people, I would have done something sooner to destroy it, and to stop the madness from taking hold."
"These two secrets. I can guess one easily; the designs for SimCore's space defence platform - the STAR project. I guess I'm in its copy now?" asked Darien.
"Yes indeed. That much is obvious, I have no doubt. It was reported publicly." replied Ranjip. "The other is a little less easy to guess, perhaps?"
"No idea. A new kind of washing machine?"
"That is very flippant of you, Major. Unfortunately I wish I could give you an equally banal reply, but I cannot. You see, the second secret I obtained was related to the first - a necessary requirement of the STAR project, needed for it to succeed - but this secret was the one that frightened me most, and yet excited my new masters beyond belief. I had inadvertently opened Pandora's Box on an unsuspecting world. I had given them the means to explore the stars. I had given them the secret that could promise immortality. I had put in their greasy, inept and fumbling hands; the Red Plague."
"And what do you want me to do about it?" asked Darien incredulously.
"Well, eventually, there is a boy down on Earth who needs your help. But first, I need you to rescue me."
"From where? Wait, let me guess - the fortress. That's why you've put me in a Suit, isn't it?"
"Indeed it is! You are much faster than your predecessors to catch on so!"
"Predecessors? How many times have I done this?"
"This is your fourth attempt Major. But this time I have given you something that will help you succeed where you failed before."
"And what's that?" asked Darien, adjusting his understanding that he was actually Darien Searle the twenty-ninth.
"String, Major Darien sir. I have given you a ball of string."