Consequences - Edited 11-9-2018

The body was built, the Neural weave was plugged in, and so we started to pull the data across. Everything looked like it was working fine. One small snag was that the muscle mass would be different. We discovered that when trying to clone a leg for me. The first three legs didn’t work correctly, and when we finally got one that worked, it took a lot of virtual PT and targeted hormonal therapy for me to be able to walk again. We knew the body would be functional, but what would the learning curve be for having to rediscover everything?

The way that a full body was built was interesting. You would think that it would grow like an embryo then “age it.” It started by building out a framework of blood vessels first. Then it began with the organs and nervous system, followed by the skeletal system. Muscle and fat were added after that, followed by adding the layers of skin.

The thing about adding the muscle and fat is that you could, in theory, tell the body how much of each to add. This was great, though the system wasn’t calibrated for humans. We had copied the alien design so it could build, it just couldn’t perfect. There is a fundamental difference in the skeletal muscles compared to the cardiac and smooth muscle cells that the equipment didn’t understand. So, we could build the muscle tissues; it just wouldn’t have the fast or slow twitch responses that a human who grew up in standard gravity would.

After another cloning, we had perfected spare limbs and base muscle construction. Private Yun had volunteered for that. It seems he couldn’t fully integrate a cybernetic arm. Some of us just had a mental block. Once his arm was complete (first try this time), we monitored the re-learning and validated that against the data collected on my leg. My leg and his arm were still weak, but we had a solution.

The room that we had built out for the cloning room was set to just above standard earth gravity. 10 meters per second squared instead of the standard 9.8. That is roughly 1.02 Gs for those keeping track at home. The additional gravity would help with developing the fast and slow twitch responses necessary for doing anything.

What I was most worried about is the years of learning hand/eye coordination. That is what the Medical Rehab Sim was for, however, and thanks to Yun and me we already had a PT simulation set up for him.

Two months after we had been returned to Theta we decided to “pull the trigger” and transfer the consciousness of Janssens. Utu oversaw growing the Neural to the exact specifications that were in his existing body. We then used an electrical stimulation technique to help create all the neural pathways we could. Utu copied over all the sensors data that he had on Janssens from their time together. It was now or never.

Never seemed to be the answer. The body twitched in the vat, and when drained, was breathing on its own. Basic functions were there. A couple of my Monkeys helped to pull Janssens out of the tank and plugged him into the therapy sim. He was connected to enough wires and cables that you could have turned him into an electromagnet at this point, and we were still getting nothing.

“Utu, can you link over to the new body?”

“It is non-responsive. The Neural is active, and we can see some brain activity, but it is not allowing a connection.”

“Any idea why?”

“I am keyed to his other Neural. I do not know if there is anything additional behind that, but it may be a case of being ‘too well designed.’ Our systems are recognizing the cryptographic data as already existing as connected to another thumbprint. The hacking controls are just not allowing the duplicate key to link up.”

Well, shit.

“Okay.” I thought for a few minutes on how to proceed next. “No way you could unlink yourself, right?”

“In theory, I could, but then comes the issue of the copied Neural still not linking. It thinks it is already linked. At this time, I cannot think of a way to bypass that.”

It will not help.

:We have seen this before.:

YOU ARE CREATING FOOD, NOT A BEING

Observers guests decided to chime in.

I have to try. Don’t you understand that? He’s been a friend longer than I’ve known most people. Help me fix my friend.

There was silence coming from the new hangers-on. Observer finally said something.

Perhaps there is a way. Let us be clear; we do not recommend this. We are trying to make up for the loss of trust which was entirely because I hid data from you.

Tell me?

I hated how pathetic I sounded, and that was in my own head.

Rethink your request. There is almost no chance it will work.

How small is the chance?

:Less than one in fifty million.:

I sat heavily into a chair in the vat room.

What is the worst-case scenario if it fails.

Unknown. Currently, the Janssens you have in the therapy simulation is much like one of your infants with many memories forced into it. It has no muscle memory. It does not know how to speak, though it technically may understand what the words are.

He knows how to walk but can’t walk, knows how to speak but can’t, and knows about shooting but can’t shoot? Is that a fair summary?

Partially. Also, IT, not HE, knows there is something that happened to IT, and IT is trapped in ITs head.

“Commander Jax, please report to medical.” The voice came over the outposts 1MC system.

I grabbed my cane and walked down the corridor to Medical, grateful for the distraction. Corporal Lebowski was waiting outside of Medical.

“Corporal,” I greeted him. He didn’t move from in front of the door.

***

Two days later we were at the assembly I called for. I saluted the Sol Flag, then the Terran Flag, and stepped onto the podium.

“Thank you for coming out today. It is with a heavy heart that I must report the loss of one of our own. Staff Sergeant Janssens passed the wounds incurred while liberating Ark-11 from the threat of alien attack.”

“When we were asked to join the Colonial Expedition, I had just made First Lieutenant. Janssens had kept my ass alive after OCS through the Oxygen riots in the Martian gullies when we responded as part of the peacekeeping force, and again during the Vancouver Incident.”

“I had first met him a year before that when I was first placed in his fire team so I could learn what it was like to be a real Marine, just after boot camp, and we had a patrol through the Luna. Boot may have shown me how to keep my weapons in prime order, but he taught me ‘why.’ He taught me a lot of the ‘why’ that we deal with every day as soldiers.”

“When the fire team was selected for the colonies, I asked him for his advice changing to Navy. His response was simple. ‘Always looking for the easy ride.’ He had that damned grin he got whenever something was going to improve his quality of life, just a little. Like when a new restaurant would open next to camp, and they made the mistake of having passable food.”

“He was the first real friend I had once I was a Marine. He was the papa bear, always making sure those of us with less experience made it through the day, to be able to rack out again.”

I turned and faced the coffin we would be launching into the sun.

“On behalf of the Sol Colonial Fleet, the Terran Marine Corps, and grateful Ship, I stand by to relieve you of your watch. Staff Sergeant Martin Janssens anchors aweigh.” I saluted as the bugler played Taps. The three remaining members of the fire team had been selected to render honors.

I saluted the standards and left the podium, not sure what to do next, as the sealed casket launched. The small engine spun up, launching his body on a direct course into the sun.

After his death was reported to me, outside Medical by Corporal Lebowski, I was glad that only a few of us had known what I had been planning. That day, I went back into the cloning room and ordered the last stages of the Neural switch over. Less than five minutes later I had to place a bullet into the head of my friend, killing him a second time. It was successful, but the trauma of what had been done had destroyed the man I knew.

When Utu made the transfer, he had even transferred over all the sensory data from when Janssens had died, all the pain from having had his organs sucked into the vacuum, asphyxiating, bleeding out, all of it. He even remembered dying.

I was going to keep the shame of having resurrected him as a secret until the day I died. His words to me when I popped into the Therapy Sim will haunt me forever.

“What did you do? I know I died. I saw myself die.” I then explained the attempted resurrection, having forgotten that he was very religious. My friend was understandably angry with me.

Consequences - Original

The body was built, the Neural weave was plugged in, and so we started to pull the data across. Everything looked like it was working fine. One small snag was that the muscle mass would be different. We discovered that when trying to clone a leg for me. The first three legs didn’t work properly, and when we finally got one that worked, it took a lot of virtual PT and targeted hormone therapy for me to be able to walk again. We knew the body would be functional, but what would the learning curve be for having to rediscover everything?

The way that a full body was built was interesting. You would think that it would grow like an embryo then “age it”. It started by building out a framework of blood vessels first. Then it started with the organs and nervous system, followed by the skeletal system. Muscle and fat were added after that, followed by adding the layers of skin.

The thing about adding the muscle and fat is that you could, in theory, tell the body how much of each to add. This was great, though the system wasn’t calibrated for humans. We had copied the alien design, so it could build, it just couldn’t perfect. There is a fundamental difference on the skeletal muscles compared to the cardiac and smooth muscle cells that the equipment didn’t understand. So, we could build the muscle, it just wouldn’t have the fast or slow twitch responses that a human who grew up in standard gravity would.

After another cloning, we had perfected spare limbs and base muscle construction. Private Yun had volunteered for that. It seems he couldn’t fully integrate a cybernetic arm. Some of us just had a mental block. Once his arm was complete (first try this time), we monitored the re-learning and validated that against the data collected on my leg. My leg and his arm were still weak, but we had a solution.

The room that we had built out for the cloning room was set to just above standard earth gravity. 10 meters per second squared instead of the standard 9.8. That is roughly 1.02 Gs for those keeping track at home. The additional gravity would help with developing the fast and slow twitch responses necessary for doing anything.

What I was most worried about is the years of learning hand/eye coordination. That is what the Medical Rehab Sim was for, however, and thanks to Yun and me we already had a PT simulation set up for him.

Two months after we had been returned to Theta we decided to “pull the trigger” and transfer the consciousness of Janssens. Utu oversaw growing the Neural to the exact specifications that were in his existing body. We then used an electrical stimulation technique to help create all the neural pathways we could. Utu copied over all the sensors data that he had on Janssens from their time together. It was now or never.

Never seemed to be the answer. The body twitched in the vat, and when drained, was breathing on its own. Basic functions were there. A couple of my Monkeys helped to pull Janssens out of the vat and plugged him into the therapy sim. He was connected to enough wires and cables that you could have turned him into an electromagnet at this point, and we were still getting nothing.

“Utu, can you link over to the new body?”

“It is non-responsive. The Neural is active and we can see some brain activity, but it is not allowing a connection.”

“Any idea why?”

“I am keyed to his other Neural. I do not know if there is anything additional behind that, but it may be a case of being ‘too well designed’. Our systems are recognizing the cryptographic data as already existing as connected to another thumbprint. The hacking controls are simply not allowing the duplicate key to link up.”

Well… shit.

“Okay.” I thought for a few minutes on how to proceed next. “No way you could unlink yourself, right?”

“In theory, I could, but then comes the issue of the copied neural still not linking. It thinks it is already linked. At this time, I cannot think of a way to bypass that.”

It will not help.

We have seen this before.

You are creating food, not a person.

Observers guests decided to chime in.

I have to try. Don’t you understand that? He’s been a friend longer than I’ve known most people. Help me fix my friend.

There was silence coming from the new hangers-on. Observer finally said something.

Perhaps there is a way. Let us be clear, we do not recommend this. We are trying to make up for the loss of trust which was entirely because I hid data from you.

Tell me?

I hated how pathetic I sounded, and that was in my own head.

Rethink your request. There is almost no chance it will work.

How small is the chance?

Less than one in fifty-million.

I sat heavily into a chair in the vat room.

What is the worst-case scenario if it fails.

Unknown. Currently the Janssens you have in the therapy simulation is much like one of your infants with many memories forced into it. It has no muscle memory. It does not know how to speak, though it technically may know what the words are.

He knows how to walk but can’t walk, knows how to speak but can’t, and knows about shooting but can’t? is that a fair summary?

Partially. Also, IT, not he, knows there is something that happened to IT and IT is trapped in ITs head.

“Commander Jax, please report to medical.” The voice came over the outposts 1MC system.

I grabbed my cane and walked down the corridor to Medical, grateful for the distraction. Corporal Lebowski was waiting for me outside of Medical.

“Corporal,” I greeted him. He didn’t move from in front of the door.

I saluted the Sol Flag, then the Terran Flag, and stepped onto the podium.

“Thank you for coming out today. It is with a heavy heart that I must report the loss of one of our own. Staff Sergeant Janssens passed the wounds incurred while liberating Ark-11 from the threat of alien attack.”

“When we were asked to join the Colonial Expedition, I had just made First Lieutenant. Janssens had kept my ass alive after OCS through the Oxygen riots in the Martian gullies when we responded as part of the peace keeping force, and again during the Vancouver Incident.”

“I had first met him a year before that, when I was first placed in his fire team, so I could learn what it was like to be a real Marine, just after boot camp, and we had a patrol through the Luna. Boot may have shown me how to keep my weapons in prime order, but he taught me ‘why’. He taught me a lot of the ‘why’ that we deal with every day as soldiers.”

“When the fire team was selected for the colonies, I asked him for his advice changing to Navy. His response was simple. ‘Always looking for the easy ride’. He had that damned grin he got whenever something was going to improve his quality of life, just a little. Like when a new restaurant would open next to camp, and they made the mistake of having passable food.”

“He was the first real friend I had once I was a Marine. He was the papa bear, always making sure those of us with less experience made it through the day, to be able to rack out again.”

I turned and faced the coffin we would be launching into the sun.

“On behalf of the Sol Colonial Fleet, the Terran Marine Corps, and grateful Ship, I stand by to relieve you of your watch. Staff Sergeant Martin Janssens, anchors aweigh.” I saluted as the bugler played Taps. The three remaining members of the fire team had been selected to render honors.

I saluted the standards and left the podium, not sure what to do next, as the sealed casket launched. The small engine spun up, launching him on a direct course into the sun.

After his death was reported to me, outside Medical by Corporal Lebowski, I was glad that only a few of us had known what I had been planning. That day, I went back into the cloning room and ordered the last stages of the Neural switch over. Less than five minutes later I had to place a bullet into the head of my friend, killing him a second time. It was successful, but the trauma of what had been done had destroyed the man I knew.

When Utu made the transfer, he had even transferred over all the sensory data from when Janssens had died, all the pain from having had his organs sucked into vacuum, asphyxiating, bleeding out… all of it. He even remembered dying.

I was going to keep the shame of having resurrected him as a secret until the day I died. His words to me when I popped into the Therapy Sim will haunt me forever.

“What did you do? I know I died. I saw myself die.” I then explained the attempted resurrection, having forgotten that he was very religious. My friend was understandably angry with me.