"Just say for example, consciousness requires a certain very specific intrinsic property, like a certain specific biology. Then there could be a simulation of the whole universe, but if it didn't have that biology, then no consciousness. It would just be a world of unfeeling zombies. Of unfeeling physical dynamics."
Dr. David Chalmers, Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science, NYU
—
It took three and a half hours to raise the dead. It was a miraculous feat of timing and detail, to work frantically knowing that any missed moment would doom his efforts. Every second that passed without error reinforced what he knew to be true—that he alone was capable of completing this task.
The air was heavy, almost sticky with the sense of urgency. The first steps had to be taken at the precise moment that the heart took its final beat. Preparations had to be made, rituals performed, or the dead would remain.
Of course, they didn't truly rise. What woke after hours of meticulous labor was a facsimile, a shadow of the consciousness which had occupied the form. The initial minutes of its reawakening were excruciating and more important than the process of the revival itself. Its limbs twisted, spine arched, joints ground in opposing directions as nerves fired without coordination, signals without purpose, a frenetic chemical reactivation. The Composer watched carefully, responding to each movement with the appropriately precise intervention. He nurtured the form with a choreographed procedure so that it could learn what it had lost. Eventually, the husk sat up, dried blood stuck to its cheek like some hideous tattoo. Its jaw hung at an angle, moved slowly up and down.
Good. It is trying to speak.
At first it wailed, made all the more grotesque by the way its face cycled through emotions, smiling one moment, wincing the next, but wailing all the same. It was as though it was relearning each emotion, the acuteness of each expression, but had not yet figured out how to verbally express it.
The Composer reached up, removing his glove, and touched the cheek of the reanimated man. Immediately, it grew still. Its eyes were watery, red streaks dashed across the white, burst vessels carving small shapes like cracks in stone.
"You," the Composer recited.
The husk's breathing slowed from a pant. Its expression changed, as though it had realized something, as though it were adjusting to reality after a bad dream.
"I..." it repeated.
"Am an Operator."
"Am an Operator," the Operator repeated.
"You will forget our time together."
"I will..." the Operator cleared its throat, a gurgling mess, "forget our time together."
How perfect was his craft? How beautiful a form had he just manifested?
"You will never speak to me, unless I tell you to. You will never see me, unless I reveal myself to you. You will never remember my existence, unless I remind you of it."
The Operator nodded.
"Now," said the Composer, standing up, brushing the caked mud from his pants, "take me to the place you spoke of."
The Operator stood up, wobbling, and stared at him.
"Take me," the Composer stepped closer, their faces nearly touching, "to the Conduit."
The Operator blinked a few times, dazed, spotting its own reflection in the glossy eyes of the Composer. It turned to the left, walking toward the door that had been mounted to the stone wall of the castle. It grabbed the handle, swaying for a moment, remembering how to balance, and then swung open the world itself.
The Composer shielded his eyes as he gazed into the white light of the Conduit.
"Now," he said, "the real work begins."
YOU ARE READING
Into the Manifold
Science FictionThe world has been depopulated, years after most of humanity uploaded their minds into a powerful simulation called the Manifold, in an event known as the Great Migration. Few people remain on Earth, living in near solitude as autonomous machines di...
