Ragnarok

Chapter 0 - Rei

October 3rd, 2088

Micah watched as everything he had ever known dropped away from him.

Through a haze of tears, he tried to keep an eye on Juanita, the nurse who had been taking care of him since most of his home city had fallen to the Dome Sickness. Sometimes he heard whispers among the other kids that the sickness had been put there on purpose, either an experiment gone horribly wrong or an attack by terrorists from the south. Juanita didn't talk about it one way or the other, just spoke to them all in her soothing voice that everything was going to be alright. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Micah tried to believe her. They were alive, after all, and that was a blessing not to be forgotten.

The nurse was just a small brown dot, waving goodbye as Micah rode the space elevator into orbit. There were other orphans like him, sitting sullen and dead-eyed in their own little pockets of misery, but most of the inhabitants of the small, cramped transport were families that huddled together, trying not to notice the young eyes that glared jealously at them. In these forlorn families was the warmth that had been denied the orphans of the Dome Sickness.

They hated the lucky ones, and envied them.

Micah wasn't sure how to feel.  He had been numb ever since his big sister, Serena, had fallen to the mysterious illness that was sweeping through the dome and, some said, across the entire northeast. Though the state of York had the best medical care in the former United States, their labs were being tested to the limit by this highly resistant superbug.  Those few who had proved immune had been carefully quarantined and studied up till this point.

Once they had finished poking and prodding the survivors for clues, they faced the problem of what to do with the lot of them.  Micah wasn't sure what the other options that had been discussed were, but as he watched Earth fall further and further beneath him, and rose into a black sky full of stars, he wished they had picked another one.

Micah had been chosen to live on the Moon.

*    *    *

Micah had numbly allowed the guards to move him through the airlock, drifting in zero-g through processing.  He had followed all their orders in a similar daze up until this point, not caring much either way.  Nothing seemed to matter, not now that Serena and his parents were gone.

He forlornly held his only souvenir of the Earth, a fairly cheap plastic toy that turned from a dinosaur into a robot with big, scaly plates on his limbs.  His parents had gotten it for him, the last time he had seen them.  He'd switched it from robot to dinosaur a thousand times, playing out little fantasies where the robot was a mighty hero who defended the weak and helpless, and would eat up with a single gulp any bad people who went around spreading plagues.  Though the doctors sometimes took it out of his hands, he never let them take it very far.

Micah had watched the other orphans warily, wondering if he had that same dead-eyed look to his face.  He imagined he probably did; he was too scared to look in a mirror.

He was even afraid to look out the window, in case he spotted his reflection.  He was afraid he might see the ghosts of everyone he had survived.  Hovering just behind his shoulders, watching him. Wondering why he was still alive, and they weren't.

The guards had escorted the families into one section, the orphans into another.  First everyone was given a series of shots, to kill whatever Earthborn bugs they might have unwittingly brought into space.  Some of the more recent orphans cried, but most accepted it with stoic defeat.  Micah barely felt it.  It was nothing compared to the hole in his heart where his family had been, even as distant as they had been once Serena had died.  Let alone when they started to show symptoms themselves.

Next was a series of psychological tests, as well as a full physical exam, and they drew some more blood.  At some point the doctor wanted Micah to take a pill.  He didn't mind, and washed it down with a cool glass of water.  It was an odd feeling, being in space.  Like everything was as light as a feather. Then they gave him another shot, and he drifted blissfully off into sleep.

*    *    *

Micah awoke next with a throbbing pain in his head.  He peeked through heavy eyelids, and the light burned his eyes.  He tried to reach up and touch the spike of pain in his head, but found that his arms were restrained.  He tried to move his neck, and though he could move it a little from side to side, that was held still as well.

"Please don't struggle against the restraints," a calm, cool voice spoke to him.   He looked around for the source, but everything was still so blurry. "You're recovering quite well from your surgery."

"Surgery? What surgery?" Micah asked slowly.  Part of him wanted to demand answers, but the rest of him simply couldn't be bothered to care.  He was still so tired.

"Your neural implants," said the voice.   It sounded androgynous, but somewhat female. "So that I could speak with you.   I am to be your companion and teacher."

His vision was starting to clear a bit.  Floating to one side of his bed was a soft blue light, hovering with no apparent source behind it.   The voice seemed to be coming from this strange ball of light.

"What ... what are you?"

"I am a Virtual Intelligence personal assistant," the voice replied. "I have not yet been assigned an visual form.  That is up to the individual user to configure."

Micah tried to follow, but the light kept using big words, and it was so hard to think. "Can I decide after a nap?"

"Of course," said the light, drifting nearby.   He felt the warm light on his cheek, and for some reason it seemed comforting. "Sleep now, little Micah.  But before you do, tell me ... what is it you want most of all?  A pet?  A friend?"

Micah was slipping back into sleep again, and he whispered something that he didn't expect her to hear.  But Rei did hear, and remembered, as she would remember everything he said from then on.

"Someone to love me again ..."

Micah was deep asleep again.  His new V.I. monitored him carefully, watching his vital signs to make sure the implants were not being rejected.  Other than him awakening earlier than expected, all was normal with the surgery.

Then Micah whispered another word.

"Rei ..."

So that is my new name, the light thought to itself.  Rei.  A word meaning "Soul." I like that.