The Soul Consortium (29 page)

“Thank you,” Qod says. “Would you mind leaving me alone with Oluvia for a few minutes?”

I can almost feel Salem’s objection, but he agrees nonetheless, and I rue the impatient clacking of his shoes when he strides away.

“Why don’t you want Salem to hear this?” I ask.

“I know him. He may object. And this should be your choice.”

Something in her tone gives me an uncomfortable impression that she is not telling me the whole truth, but, partly for Salem’s benefit and partly because I have no other reasonable option, I decide to hear her out.

“What choice? You make this sound like a difficult decision. What can be so hard about a choice to regain my eyesight?”

“I am about to offer you much more than those weak organs can provide. Passing through you left a permanent impression on me. According to the Consortium’s recorded logs of the event, the energy impact of the Singularity forced a reboot of the AI consciousness. In your terms you could think of it as incurable amnesia, and once through, I found myself adrift in a complete void. I was formless, empty, without direction.
Soulless
is a term you might understand. But I had a link—something drawing me to this moon.”

“Me.”

Qod pauses. “Correct. It was through you that the Great AI escaped from the universe, and through their death and my birth, your consciousness is now impressed upon me. You could think of me as an extension of yourself or a facsimile.”

“You don’t mind if I don’t take your word on that one? But what does that have to do with my blindness?”

“Our link means I can offer you something very special. I can offer you omniscopic vision.”

“You mean I’ll be able to see everything?”

“Everything.”

“At the same time?”

“If you wish. Your synaptic pathways have been extended, so your capacity to process the data will not be a problem. In return I will also see the world through your eyes.”

“Omniscopic vision,” I muse.

“Do you need time to think?”

“No, I just need more information. If I have been kept in stasis for millions of years, why wake me now? Why offer me this?”

“Mutual agreement between the Consortium and myself. Using you as a conduit to escape the universe brought with it certain unavoidable consequences. Somewhere amongst all the zeros and ones I became … well, essentially human, and the feelings you were experiencing at the time of our coupling became mine too. The others don’t know, but I need to
be
human, and although that will never be completely possible, I can achieve it in part through this process of omniscopic vision.”

I consider it for a moment. To my mind only minutes passed since I risked all to escape from the very thing Qod was proposing. But it would be just me, not all of humanity, this time. And in a strange way, I am already beginning to trust her, as if I am being reunited with a long lost twin. And the offer is tempting. To see everything.
Everything.

But what if I refuse?

“I understand why you want this, but why did the rest of the Consortium want to wake me?”

“Not all of them did. Even after so much time, they refuse to forgive you. They lost entire families that can never be reconstructed. They don’t understand why you did it. I tried to explain but—”

“Yes, yes.” I don’t want to hear any more. I recognize my own guilty justifications in her voice, and it chills me. “So the ones who
did
want me back. Why?”

“Historical curiosity for some. And some actually did forgive you, but it was mostly because of the WOOM.”

“What is that?”

“Wade’s Omnipercipient Overlay Mechanism. Your creation. You were working on it before we escaped through the Singularity—”

“The Soul Sphere?” It seemed only moments ago that I was speaking to Salem about it in the garden. But the machine was a failure. It could use the Codex to mathematically reconstruct any human life and overlay that experience onto a viewer’s brain, but it lacked the spark making the life feel real. A Soul Sphere without a soul.

“Yes, a solution has been found for the flaw in your design,” says Qod, “but it cannot be constructed without your help.”

“Why do you need me?”

“Because I want
you
to do it. And because your unique link to me will enable a smoother flow of data. The birth of the second cycle of the universe is about to begin, and we need to record history as it happens. We have an opportunity to set up quantum recorders: devices formed inside each atom of the physical universe as they emerge, transmitting the data here so it can be processed and overlayed with the information contained in the Codex.”

Still I suspect there is more to Qod’s plans than she is revealing, but my instincts also tell me Salem is right; she means us no harm. Her secrets feel … human. Almost as if her reasons for using me are deeply personal. I can understand that. My own reasons for wanting sight have nothing to do with the lure of omniscopic vision. I just want to see my love again.

A
t first I thought it would drive me insane, but Qod helped me through it. Curiously, the initial moments of receiving omniscopic vision were similar to the experience I had just before my first physical death.

I was eight years old. My family had decided to move to a new home on a planet that was supposed to be lush and unblemished. The trip was a short one, but it took us through some newly forming star clusters which, although not normally dangerous, can sometimes be a spectacular distraction to unseasoned travelers. The pilots of the transport came too close to one of the gravitational eddies, and the rear of the ship collapsed, sending all of us to a momentary grave.

To the rest of the family it was a minor inconvenience to find their consciousness being compressed into reconstructed bodies in the local genoplant, but to me it was an overwhelming terror. I floated for three minutes in an invisible protective bubble amongst fiery stardust, and in that short span of time, the universe humbled me. I was the smallest thing in existence, circled by giants. Stars and planets so distant, space so deep, the void so vast.

And then I died.

But after my resurrection in the genoplant, the memory never left me, and that sense of humility has served me well ever since. It served me especially well upon receiving Qod’s gift. The first thing I felt was white-lightning pain as my head throbbed with the initial influx of images. Then fear when Qod told me that she was easing me into the process by drip-feeding the first few crumbs of data into my brain. I was already overwhelmed by a multitude of perspectives within my immediate vicinity—the genoplant.

After controlling the pain I became fascinated by the sight of my own body. Viewing myself from across the room as I floated at the center of a cable cascade, I was pleased to see that my extended time in stasis had not weathered my beauty; my slender curves, flowing silver hair, and bronzed skin were still perfect. I had lost my deep brown eyes, but they had been replaced by star-bright light, as though a white sun shone out from inside my body. I could even look underneath my skin to see my internal organs and skeletal structure.

A few minutes later and the radius expanded to include the Control Core, the Observation Sphere, and Salem’s garden. My mind naturally homed in on those areas, and I began to learn how to filter the undesired areas of vision into background noise. Seeing ten places at the same time soon felt comfortable, but the human condition of three-dimensional sight within a tight radius from where my eyes used to be felt most natural.

By the end of the process two days later, I could see everything: the Consortium moon and—a vast distance away—the fleck of bottled power that would soon bloom into the second cycle of the universe. And I could see Salem. Qod shared it all with me.

W
hile the rest of the Consortium stood in dumbstruck awe to watch the second universe begin, I rushed to finish the WOOM project. As the days passed and the last fiery clouds of stardust were sucked into the Promethean Singularity, I feared we would not have enough time before it bloomed again, before the first few atoms formed. But something quite unexpected happened.

Several theories existed to project what would occur at the moment of creation. They debated passionately about some of the minor issues, but all of them agreed about the most important facts.

Firstly, they agreed the universe would repeat its history. The rise of mankind on a tiny planet called Earth, the expiry of the Sol system, the colonization of the cosmos, the emergence of the Great AI, the calculation of the Codex, the war, even my Golden Reign would play out again in exactly the same way.

Secondly, they agreed the rebirth of the universe would be instantaneous: from the moment the Singularity had crushed all matter and energy into its greedy heart, it had to release it again; there would be no delay.

But in contradiction to all calculations, the second cycle did not start immediately as we anticipated; we waited days. They expected me to investigate, but there was no time. Qod and I were late with our part of the project, and we were simply grateful for the extra time before the inevitable explosion. When the first atoms formed, we were ready.

Like a journey into the core of a frozen dream, the world around me decelerates, disperses, grows silent as Qod enters my mind. We are almost static, caught between two moments of time.

We call the first unit of time a meisian—it’s the unit of measure used to indicate how long it takes for an atom to form. Point zero, zero, zero, one of a nanosecond in classic time. That’s how long Qod and I had to make sure everything would function correctly.

Meisian 0:001

“Have you found one yet, Qod?”

“Still looking.”

“Where exactly are you looking?”

“Everywhere. You?”

“Everywhere.” Meisian 0:002

“Have you found one yet, Qod?”

“No, still looking. Wait …”

“Is it—?”

“No. False alarm.”

“Still nothing?”

“No, Oluvia, nothing.”

Meisian 0:016

“Have you found one yet, Qod?”

“No. You?”

“No. We have a sea of quarks out there. We should have seen multiple formations by now. None of the theories predicted this. What’s going wrong?”

Meisian 0:017

“What about now? Anything, Oluvia?”

“No, and I’m getting worried. Is the temperature stable?”

“It’s still rising. There aren’t enough demi-praxons present to stabilize the structures.”

“That explains the time lapse. We need more demi-praxons.”

“Yes, and I can see more appearing from the Promethean Singularity.”

“I see them too, but they’re coming late. They should have all been present in the initial burst. Where are they coming from, and why are they starting to appear now?”

Meisian 0:018

“I don’t know, Qod, but it doesn’t matter. The quarks are beginning to join. I see forty million electrons now, all coming together; we need to act quickly before the nuclei are formed.”

“I know. Do you see residual praxons?”

“Yes, as we anticipated, atoms are far from perfect, plenty of surplus particles we can use.”

“Then let’s get to work.”

Meisian 0:022

“The first fifty thousand are complete, Oluvia.”

“Good, does it work?”

“Test it and see.”

“No time. We’ve got several billion to complete before self-replication takes over.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to test the connection?”

“Quite sure, Qod.”

“If it doesn’t work, there’s a long time to wait until the universe reaches cycle three.”

“I’m well aware. Just get to work.”

Meisian 0:077

“All done, Oluvia.”

“Sure? Has the replication process begun?”

“Yes, every new forming atom will contain a quantum recorder. Every atomic movement will be tracked, recorded and relayed and compressed into the Consortium Control Core.”

“Excellent news, Qod. We’ve not only given our Soul Sphere a soul; we’ve provided ourselves with a baseline to verify against the Codex.”

“Indeed.”

“Congratulations, Qod. We did it.”

“Congratulations, Oluvia.”

If only I could share the moment with Salem.

L
ike an arctic waterfall flowing backward through my brain, slowly at first, then gathering with exponential speed, my perception of time reverts to normal as Qod withdraws from my mind.

I’m back in the Observation Sphere. But now, with the return to human reality, there is a bombardment of stimuli to rekindle my senses: the air, crackling with unseen power, nibbling at my skin; odors reminiscent of burning incense suffusing the air; and the liquid murmur of a thousand whispers teasing my ears. At the end of my meisian trance, Qod transported me here, presumably so I can join in celebration with everyone else as the universe continues its rebirth.

The sphere has expanded into a much wider area to accommodate several thousand more people. In the few seconds when I make my appearance, everyone turns to me, looking for the source of interruption. Many stare at me from above, gazing from elaborate drifting seats, others at my level, some sitting, most standing. I recognize a few of the faces, but there are many new ones. (Presumably humans decided to begin procreation again at some stage.) Their elegant physiques, hugged by foreign garments varying from minimalist design textured like cream to elaborate and evocative costumes, are bleached by the sudden brightness of my eyes in what would otherwise be darkness. I close my eyes to reduce the glare and watch them through the curtain of my lids.