Humans Don't Hibernate [Part 40/?] (Patreon)

A numbness flooded over me as I pushed down on that button with an excessive degree of force. A disturbing realization that sent waves of sickening unease that would’ve at one point in time would’ve shaken me to my core, but at this point, I’d become worryingly accustomed to.

It was a realization that should’ve hit me earlier, especially after that encounter with the false Vanaran. However, it was only as I was met with the perpetrator’s of my species’ collective indoctrination and millennia of untold suffering that it finally clicked.

It just occurred to me, that for every decision made in the entirety of our species’ living memory, that this was perhaps the first action in recorded history to be made without interference by an unseen malevolent force. That the collective and untold suffering, unknown to even those within its tendrils, had all led up to this.

Moreover, whilst it might not have technically been the first act born out of independent thought after the removal of the Vuark, it still constituted the first act of genuine defiance where we weren’t on the backfoot. Where it was us who was making the push forward, dictating the terms, and setting the boundaries for what we could or could not do.

This was the first act of attempting to find justice for all the injustices committed thus far, but it wasn’t lost to me that the manner in which we approached this justice would come to define who and what we were in comparison to the monsters we were trying to put on trial.

In fact, it wasn’t lost on me that we knew next to nothing about this individual Interloper. Which, as much as I hated to admit, might have not been responsible for the sins of their entire race.

Still, it would have to at least answer… if not in punishment, then at least in words. I wasn’t planning to be judge, jury, and executioner. Not today, not ever. I wasn’t that haughty, that cold, that cruel, and especially not vindictive. As much as my now-free emotions wished for me to see my vindictive rage through, I knew that there was a time and a place for that. The first acts of freedom would not be reduced to a lashing out for the injustices of the past, but would instead, be defined by a careful and restrained march towards long-lasting restitutions. It would be a series of actions that whilst not perfect, would befit a desire for a better, brighter tomorrow.

“So, five minutes, before we start to see the Interloper’s rate of neuroactivity reaching comparatively similar rates to ours?” I asked, turning to face Vir, as I reiterated what he’d briefed me on earlier.

“Accounting for our failsafes and countermeasures, our stopgaps and the safety protocols, and of course my concern for frying its brain by doing it too quickly, I’d say we have a good 5 minute delay whilst it revs back up to speed. However, this isn’t a binary, yes no sort of thing. You should expect limited lucidity by 2 minutes, comparable to waking someone up from general anesthesia. Then expect reduced baseline lucidity by 3 minutes, comparable to someone just waking up from bed after a particularly bad night out binge drinking. Then expect reduced active baseline capacity by 4 minutes, comparable to an office clerk waking up from a particularly exhausting morning in the middle of the office in the late afternoon. Finally, by 4 and a half minutes, you’d just have a ‘I’m awake but I need a coffee stat’ state of mind.” The AI deftly described in that borderline colloquial manner that was… honestly, quite refreshing given my frame of mind and general disposition that just naturally gravitated towards the dour and severe.

“Right, so for the first two minutes, it’d be more or less radio silence.” I surmised.

“Correct, though, I will say this. Intel on interlopers, especially with the handling of live and undamaged subjects, is a rarity. So we do have to be vigilant.”

I nodded in understanding at that, as a final line of questioning came to mind, one that Vir had already addressed quite a few times prior during our trip over from the weeklong repairs. “And just to recap, the interloper will be talking to us via a direct connection between the brain’s language center to our stopgapped digital interfaces, correct?”

“Yes, however, it might take a bit for that to warm up as well. The records from the satellite are vague on this for one reason or another, but from what I was able to gather, it isn’t exactly clear if the Interlopers ever really communicated with humanity directly. Moreover, they always used an intermediary or an emissary of either an artificial or biological construct. So all of the mechanisms we have to interpret Interloper thoughts and languages are more or less working hypotheses. Though we have a lot of them, and just by virtue of just how extensively many of these have been modeled based on what few limited scans of interloper brains the humans were capable of scraping off of blown up interloper motherships, it should at least give us something to work with.”

With those final few exchanges just to make sure we were fully on the same page, I took a deep breath, steeling myself once more as I held my finger steady. “Let’s see what you have to say for yourself.” I muttered out as I watched on with a heavy sigh.

The creature within the tunnels didn’t immediately react to the initialization processes. No, it took a minute before I started to notice anything at all had changed.

The first changes were subtle. Whereas the undulations and shifts in its fleshy mass up to this point had been rhythmic and controlled, almost resembling the act of breathing, the first signs that our interference had any effect at all was seen in a series of short and abrupt spasms of what were formerly slow and methodical movements. This continued in frequency and intensity, just until we hit the two minute mark.

At which point, the drones present in the chamber started to register a series of changes more pronounced.

Audible creaking was now being detected throughout the barely-pressurized space. Whatever air that had remained stagnant within the chamber up to this point was now carrying with it a shrill, sharp creaking belonging to the central plinth’s support struts that had been all but been left without care and maintenance for centuries. Thankfully, without any real corrosive elements or an environment that promoted rust and corrosion, the struts weren’t in any real risk of failure or collapse. Indeed, the entire grand construct the Interloper was encased within was more than capable of supporting its massive weight, even if it began shifting that weight around haphazardly.

So we ignored it, and any other superficially striking developments, as none of it really mattered compared to the hard data we were being fed at a constant, almost overwhelming rate. A veritable army of sensors and monitoring equipment dotted the interloper’s form, all courtesy of the kit Vir had concocted alongside what I off-handedly referred to as the neural accelerators. Or, more specifically, all of this was courtesy of the humans that had painstakingly designed these novel machines from the ground up based solely on rare, intermittent spikes of data painstakingly accrued over the course of their millennia long war.

Their sacrifices weren’t lost on me, and neither would their memories be lost to the turmoil of history, I would make sure of it. Just as I vowed to make sure the memories of Elijah and his descendants remained alive and well for as long as I still drew breath.

The very fact that we were able to put this Interloper through the wringer was a testament enough to their legacy, one which I was now a part of, and hopefully one which I will bring to a satisfactory conclusion.

The litany of readings had progressed at the predicted rate for the first few minutes. With a few upticks noted, but that fit well within the standard deviation Vir had neatly projected onto the sets of live graphs my eyes were currently glued to. Each second that passed us by seemed faster than the next, as the general trendline became increasingly erratic. The relatively spaced out upticks and downticks were inexplicably replaced by a sawtooth-like line which increased in variability until suddenly, at around the two and a half minute mark, a noticeable spike bucked what little consistency there was left to the readings. A line which shot past well above the standard deviation, and any predicted neuroactivity, which when extrapolated to a human or Vanaran dataset meant only one thing… we’d entered seizure territory.

“Vir!”

“On it!” The AI announced urgently, as I saw the various systems and interfaces’ shift drastically in response to this unexpected development.

Whilst Vir had briefed me on the finer details regarding the systems designed to bring the Interloper up to speed, systems which I collectively referred to as the neural accelerator, the complexity of actually dealing with complications arising from directly interfacing with a brain this complex was lost on me. Though, admittedly, I was confident the Interloper was in good hands. If there was a mind capable of understanding the organic brain better than any organic, it would be an AI.

I didn’t know if the old adage was a result of Interloper instigated propaganda leading to a deadend in our technological development, but the old adage of if the brain was easy enough to be studied and understood, then we wouldn’t be able to study and understand it in the first place, started to hit me particularly hard at this point in time. There was, however, an easy workaround to that adage. The creation of AI which was, of course, entirely removed from that equation.

My eyes shifted to that of the live feeds of the Interloper, which was, perplexingly, completely motionless. Whilst this was a stark contrast to what I expected of a being going through a seizure, I realized that this might just be a result of alien physiologies being put on full  display here. Indeed despite the popular public consensus on what constituted a seizure, the stereotypical picture of an uncontrolled series of erratic movements wasn’t the only means by which the condition could manifest. So-called absent seizures were also a relatively well-known phenomenon, at least when it came to Vanarans. So I couldn’t discount anything just by virtue of what I was seeing alone.

Though it was still an important observation to make nevertheless.

My eyes shifted next to the logs, of which practically a thousand different commands were being plugged into the different components of the neural accelerator per second. There would’ve been more course corrections made as well, if the organic brain was capable of dealing with the speed at which Vir was operating at. Though it was clear to me that this was actually Vir holding back. This wasn’t a ship that could be course corrected in a fraction of a second, this was a living piece of tissue, that brought with it the limitations of the flesh.

It was only after we’d reached the five minute mark did Vir finally stop, as his physical platform actually took a few steps away from the console, as if to emphasize the sheer shock that he was currently experiencing.

“We miscalculated.” The AI spoke simply. “This wasn’t a seizure, this wasn’t some sort of a temporary hyperactive state. This… this is the Interloper’s true baseline, when brought up to our level of neural activity.”

Another holoprojector was brought to life, as the AI began splicing over the various baseline ‘processing capabilities’ of each major known and logged species. Delineating between human and Vanaran, before plotting in the Interloper.

The graph’s vertical axes had to shift to accommodate for this, and it made the former two lines pale in comparison.

“It makes sense.” I managed out, part of me was indeed shocked by this revelation, but another part of me felt as if this was more or less par for the course now given what I’d experienced thus far. “These things have the ability to project control over entire populations. It stands to reason that, well, it would need the processing power to back that up.”

“It’s an organic supercomputer. Underclocked, but a supercomputer nonetheless.” The AI paused, as if to emphasize its next point. “I’m thankful we put as many stopgaps as we could between it, and us.”

I nodded once, my eyes glued to both the neural activity monitor, and the live feed from deep within the moon.

There was only one thing to do at this point, and strangely, I felt uncharacteristically calm at what was to happen next.

“Let’s see what it has to say, open a direct channel.” I stated simply, realizing how ironic the situation was now in the grander picture.

This whole adventure started out with Elijah projecting himself into my mind.

And now?

It was my turn to do the same to the beast collectively hunted down through untold generations.