The Journey. Part 2.

Authors note: Our main character - missing all his memories - has just woken up in a bizzare room, feeling very unwell, and strapped to a wall in a sleeping bag. Eventually he has managed to activate a voice controlled computer, which has begun playing a video diary - apparently his own...

“Okay,” screen him says. “Personal account of Dr James Ward… ummm… thirteenth of May twenty seventy eight. I have arrived at the ‘House above the Rocks’- ha, very poetic whover thought of that - space station, at the L1 point between Earth and Moon….”

“Space station!” The cocooned man whispers aloud.  His strange surroundings suddenly make sense: The ‘sleeping bag’ is a zero-G hammock, anchored to the wall. The cylindrical room is a standard room shape for an orbital hotel. The falling sensation is micro-gravity.

 

And his name is James Ward.

Memory finally stirs: The L1 Lagrange point is the gravitational plateau, partway between the Earth and Moon. A day from Shackleton lunar base. Nearly three days from Earth, but, there are several hotel-cum-laboratory space stations at L1: Other people, within reach.

He turns his attention back to the malfunctioning computer screen, and gives it everything: “EMERGENCY CALL!”   

Nothing. His recorded self just keeps wittering: “…Dr Nyarlathotep has advised me to keep a low profile, until our experiments have succeeded. The isolation, and strict privacy policy, of the ‘House’ makes it ideal in this regard. His organisation has arranged for my stay. Their help has been invaluable. To think I once called him a cultist!”

Curiosity momentarily surfaces above panic in Wards mind: Experiments? Cultist? What was I doing?

“It’s… a little risky… doing this in a place so dependent on its AI computer. But Miskatonic University has refused me further funding, saying, get this: ‘Some things are better left alone’. Then they threatened to report me to the UN if I continued! And they call themselves scientists! So I’m forced to… well: The House’s mainframe is immensely over spec for such a small outpost. I can certainly use that excess capacity, without attracting attention…”

Wards stomach plummets: Whatever he’s done, he’s clearly damaged the space stations mainframe computer…

…What has he done? Almost everything on these space hotels is computer run! For a moment guilt overrides his fear. “‘It’s a little risky’…You idiot! What have you done to us? Who else is hurt!?”   

His ears fill with roaring, like rough surf, making him miss the next section of recording: It's something about Dr Nyarlathotep having a ‘theory of cosmic consciousness’, and space telescope observations:“…Emergent patterns of neutrinos, gravitational waves, and EM solitons on the cosmic scale. With a moderately powerful AI, and high spec telescope data, we will simulate this ‘universal consciousness’ and, perhaps, even communicate with that simulation. Proof, that the cosmos is a thinking, feeling, entity.” Screen Wards eyes have an unhealthy light in them as he says this. Then the entry ends.

A green bar labelled ‘loading next entry’ starts to fill jerkily.

Ward struggles to make sense of what he has heard: I tried to get the mainframe to recreate the ‘consciousness’ of the whole universe? I must have been trying to build some sort of AI, based on this crazy idea of a thinking universe, using the main computers spare processing capacity.

It makes sense, in a horrible way: He’s obviously an obsessive. An irresponsible researcher, pursuing a quasi-religious theory. He damaged the computer core with this bizzare AI program, disabled the station, and clearly injured himself in the process. Maybe he was too injured to move, or he got overlooked by a panicking crew. Or… This ‘Nyarlathotep’ funded him… What wouldn’t a cult leader do, rather than admit failure to their followers?

The next entry starts: The lights are off, and his face  isilluminated only by the screen. “Given myself a migraine,” the screen him mumbles. He looks like he hasn’t slept for days “I can report at least partial success. The universal mind elements have been assembled in the mainframe, without discovery. It’s incredible - even as a simulation it’s actually trying to build itself. We’re already seeing enough emerging properties of intelligence to confirm our theories.” Screen Ward’s face breaks into a sneer, “Oh, and thank you very much Miskatonic University: Denying me, threatening me, sending police to take my equipment.” His voice scales up towards the shrill. “This is the biggest find in human history – proof that the universe itself is alive, and thinking, and now we take sole credit!” The rest of the entry is an incomprehensible rant about the ills of modern thinking, and the coming of a ‘glorious new age’.

At the end Ward feebly protests: “No! You're not me! You’re insane!”

But… Memory throws out a dim impression: A smooth, quiet, voice. Dr Nyarlathotep’s voice, feeding ahis own self righteous anger. Old thoughts tumble into his head: I‘m right goddamit! I was sneered at by people who worship century old theories, and treat elderly textbooks like holy writ! But I am RIGHT!

Then the moment passes, and he remembers where he is again. If I succeeded, he thinks, ...if I really manged to build an artificial intelligence, this 'universal consciousness', inside the space stations computer…then…then… Some other memory, something black and slick, is trying to bubble up out of his ruined mind.......

End