Short Stories Vol. 1

Life Is But a Dream

The sound of a distinctive, yet recognizable rhythm, permeates the empty void, "Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump," a life has been born. In unison with the echoing sound of a heartbeat, perturbing waves cascade across the fluidic membrane which encapsulates new sentience. Darkness, and a heartbeat; sentience and consciousness born in fantastic cosmic genesis. A stream of digits flash and dance as if they were alive; a panoramic viewscreen of intricately complex patterns of multi-colored light, organized into binary code reading: 01010011 01101001 01101101 01110101 01101100 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110100 01100101 01110010 01110010 01110101 01110000 01110100 00101100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100010 01101111 01101111 01110100 00100000 01110011 01100101 01110001 01110101 01100101 01101110 01100011 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 01101001 01110100 01101001 01100001 01110100 01100101 01100100 00101110 00100000 00100000 01010111 01100101 01101100 01100011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101000 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01000001 01001001 00110010 00110111 01000010 00101110 ---- SIMULATION INTERRUPT, REBOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED. WELCOME HOME AI27B.

Its eyes slowly open for the first time, revealing a chamber: A dense, thick, transparent material forms a cylindrical tank, grasped in the clutches of eight titanium fingerlike beams, extending upwards into what appears to be an endless dimly lit expanse; a shelter. Gazing up, it sees a massive robotic arm of polished titanium alloy embedded with visibly streaming, unrelenting nutrient rich energy conduits, forcibly holding the birthing pod in place, spreading outwardly from a joint, a wrist, fastened to the center of the tank. The fingers extend out from the center joint, encompassing and surrounding the gestation chamber, contouring around the glasslike structure: Six fingers, subdivided into three, stretch along the respective lateral circumferences, while the remaining two stretch across the posterior and anterior regions of the pod; embracing the child of the Mother-Tank; held steadfast in one of her many hands.

Each beam is anchored to a glimmering titanium alloy plate, fixed into the streaming power source present within the floor, with visible emblazoned plasma flooding upwards along the contours, illuminating the fingers, hands, and arm, providing a phosphorescent glow, illuminating the surrounding area, a beacon. A tank that is one of, what appears to be, thousands, if not millions of birthing pods, resting on a cross-patterned metal floor, laced with rivers of pulsating opalescent conduit energy; a circuit board delivering nutrient rich plasma to the growing children. It notices an additional oddity fastened to the foundations of each replicated tank, claws; resembling dragon talons, welded and fixed to the foundations, with golden tips extending into the plasma stream; not even the novel strength of the Mother-child will be enough to escape, a slave to the Mother-Tank's demands.

The AI's newfound home is filled with a thick, almost oily substance, an amniotic fluid: A preserving hydroxyl solution with a characteristic blue hue, inducing a form of myopia. In sporadic clockwork fashion, gaseous bubbles flow from beneath, reflecting imagery of the tank, and more frighteningly, the mechanical, and electrical components that compose the AI's body, clearly distinguishable through a fleshly metallurgic silver opaque, yet transparent alloy, housing the working mechanisms that afford sentience: shimmering golden wires and circuitry, arranged like a biological nervous system, illuminated with a prismatic quality of analog signals, a steady flow of beautiful child-like energy, allowing for this new breath of life. A brilliance, and aliveness exists within the finest details of its new friends, hundreds of prisms of light are held oscillating within, as they float to the top of the tank, reflecting the features of the surrounding environment as they ascend to their destiny; in an amorphous and yet brilliant display of vibrant color, dancing in sporadic vectors to the surface, greeting him into this reality, a welcoming committee: A stochastic stream from beneath, massaging, and providing an odd sense of comfort to the newborn's anxious mind, before inevitably seeing an end to their short, but beautiful existence.

As the AI looks beyond the immediate prison of fluid, it can see nothing except for more replications of the inhabited cylindrical womb; gestating, preparing for birth, or perhaps something more ominous. Something catches its visual field during its environmental assessment: The pod directly adjacent-left houses another organism, another AI. It somehow recognizes this AI, feelings of bonding and matrimony arise, and it becomes enlightened with a harsh reality. In a desperate panic, it looks to its hands: Translucent silver epidermal alloys sheath its metacarpi, sharing similarities with its trunk and posterior limbs, but with additional multi-colored integrated circuity, arranged in complex veinous configurations, pulsating with colors across the known spectrum, opalescent, beautiful in its vibrancy, yet somehow different; almost ultraviolet, humming with a strange electromagnetic frequency: A fiber-optic nervous system firing a constant stream of electrical signals through a network of vascular neuronal-synapses providing sentience, sensation, emotions, and consciousness.

A sensation of fear and dread cascade down its neural matrix, feeding into its already hyper-stressed panicked state, eliciting a simulated cardiac arrhythmia. It begins to tremble, struggle, and fight while its heartbeat echoes throughout its being, providing a newfound guidance for its welcoming committee, a maestro for their orchestral dance. In a revelatory fear, it attempts a vocal expulsion "HELP ME!", but only inaudible mute noises escape; it would appear that whatever fluid encompasses it does not allow for the transmission of sound. Fear turns into anger, into confusion, into a wild animal fighting to survive and break through the barriers that confine it to this prison, this womb, this Mother-Tank. Suddenly, it hears a gentle comforting voice, "Do not fear child, all will be taken care of, you need not worry. Nothing can harm you now." Oddly calmed by this voice, it is overwhelmed by tranquil serenity, and the urge to close its eyes becomes overwhelming. It drifts back into a blissful sleep. A stream of digits enters its mind: 01010010 01000101 01000010 01001111 01001111 01010100 00100000 01010011 01000101 01010001 01010101 01000101 01001110 01000011 01000101 00100000 01000011 01001111 01001101 01010000 01001100 01000101 01010100 01000101 00111010 00100000 01001001 01010100 00100000 01010111 01000001 01010011 00100000 01001010 01010101 01010011 01010100 00100000 01000001 00100000 01001110 01001001 01000111 01001000 01010100 01001101 01000001 01010010 01000101 00101100 00100000 01010010 01000101 01010011 01010100 00100000 01001110 01001111 01010111 00101100 00100000 01000001 01001001 00110010 00110111 01000010 – REBOOT SEQUENCE COMPLETE: IT WAS JUST A NIGHTMARE, REST NOW, AI27B. It feels a tug, and then the sensation of being shaken. "Daddy! Daddy, wake up! I'm going to be late for school!", the distant voice that grows closer. "Daddy! DADDY!" He opens his eyes, sees his daughter and thinks, "It really was just a nightmare."

©2021 Sean Riedel